There is constant twittering about Bob Dylan and Plagiarism and I've often found myself on both sides of the argument, at first on the wrong side, until I come to my senses that is.
There is a link somewhere on the expectingrain.com forum for Classic Interviews Vol.3 which cover the periods 78 to 81. In one of the 1981 interviews, Dylan explicitly talks of how European and particularly UK audiences appreciate his material, specifically his older material because they are inately familiar with the Scottish/Irish/English Ballad form.
He then goes on to state openly that many of his early songs are taken from those ballads. He lists Masters of War, The Times They Are A' Changin, Girl From The North Country... Of this we all know already, and there are many more significant songs we could add to Dylan's list.
Clearly Dylan has always used the folk process as a way of creating new works of Art. I think if you're as good as Dylan is it's possible to do this legitimately and thoroughly. He has taken the process and moved into the realms of both the popular and the obscure songs in his work and of course into painting and writing non-fiction (or is it fiction?) in Chroincles Vol I. There is no question that Chronicles was a delicately researched project as Scott Warmuth knows. A book "meticulously fabricated, with one surface concealing another, from cover to cover".
I write songs myself but have never adopted Dylan's process consciously as such, however I'd imagine that if I did I would probably benefit as much as my work would because I would become inspired simply by being immersed in it. I would find something new and interesting to say from existing threads. "Sewing new dresses out of old cloth", as he said in Floater, which again was said by someone else in another context altogether.
Unconsciously of course anyone who is in the business of being creative will find they have been influenced, or because of a measured amount of experience, been transported to a new place with which to write and contemplate and will therefore in some way have borrowed inocculuously. In all cases this is growth. It only becomes plagiarism to me when the person commiting the plagiarism has no deeper knowledge of the area they're plagiarising, nor any true artistic intent. In other words sheer laziness and dishonesty. We can certainly vouch for Dylan's artistic intent, we merely need to look at his body of work.
Clearly his immersion in these materials and his exposure to many different things fed into this 'wellspring of creativity' he spoke of (60 Minuted interview in 2004) which created those unique songs that he says he wrote unconsciously, Mr Tambourine Man, Its Alright Ma, Gates of Eden, Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands and so on. Of course by 1967 or 68 he claims the lights went out and he had to learn 'consciously to do what I had done unconsciously', giving Blood on the Tracks as his first successful proclamation of this new process. (This very process Dylan embarks on is in some ways covered in my favourite Jean Luc Goddard film Le Mepris, which is a self-conscious film of layers concealing layers.)
So Dylan's education and sensitivity, which must have exploded when he arrived in NYC in 1961, and his use of other sources along the way is the main reason we have Bob Dylan. Without it, he's not there, he's gone to borrow from his lost unfinished Basement Tapes gem I'm Not There. In effect, its those little threads that make us all who we are, new dresses from old cloth, or atomically stardust. Plagiarised, if you like, from the universe.
I came relatively late to the great Richard Thompson, and was even later in discovering how great a band Fairport Convention were. I remember watching him play beautiful lyrical guitar flourishes alongside a sleepy whimsical Bob Dylan at the Guitar Legends show in Seville, Spains in 1991 or 92 on an old VHS my Dad had when I was a just bairn. I thought he looked something like a curious, subtle rather shy and retiring Viking, keeping the as-ever unpredictable Bob Dylan boat afloat as it were.
I think the first song of his I remember hearing might have been what I could only describe as a Celtic-rockabilly song, Turning of the Tide, somewhere in the depths of a moment, when and where I do not recall any longer. I remember thinking, wow that is one fucking fantastic guitar lick. Maybe I first heard it in a pub somewhere, because it always felt like a song playing at the end of the night in a pub in the Highlands, when everyone is too drunk to dance, except for the kids who are on holiday kicking up the glitter dust and party poppers. The song is much more than that though.
Later I saw him on TV doing two songs in tribute to Joni Mitchell, and his guitar playing to my unsophisticated ears seemed almost free of scale, key and modes. The guy was and is an unreal, sweet, wild, subtle and enigmatic guitar player, with a voice wrapped in wit-licked Celtic croon.
A friend of mine a few years back turned me onto 'The End of the Rainbow', one of the saddest, funniest, and darkest lullabies I've ever heard. 'I feel for you, you little horror' goes the song and from there it only gets sadder and funnier. After hearing an opening line like that you know you're dealing with a major talent who has a way with words and isn't afraid to lay it down honestly. It's probably the best opening line of anything I can think of other than Charles Bukowski's "it began as a mistake", at the beginning of Post Office. With that song I found myself listening to all of I Want To See The Bright Lights, the album recorded with his then wife Linda Thompson. This led me to 'The Calvary Cross', which I had actually heard first as covered by Tortoise and Will Oldham on 2006's The Brave and the Bold. (While I'm on the subject they also do a sublime cover of Elton John's Daniel.)
This man who seems to live and breathe a mystical England, where witches, wizards, men with bread knives "four feet wide" walk side by side with the modern world, is also an absolute killer love song writer. After 'Bright Lights..' I got hold of Rumor and Sigh, which contains among others the great '1952 Vincent Black Lightening' a love song to a motorcyle and 'I Misunderstood', also covered unbelievably and rather exquisitely by Dinosaur Jnr.
Another album Sweet Warrior, features a tune called 'Sunset Song' , which when I first heard it, live at a gig in Durham a couple of years ago, blew my mind. The guitar accompaniment is elastic, medieval and spellbinding, stretches around the lyrics bouncing back and forth and drawing you into another place altogether. Again it's not just musicianship or craft with Richard Thompson, his lyrics are some of the best you'll hear. I love the way he sings, "the band's down on the jetty, If you cup your ear", and I think one of the great lyrics about selflessness and desperation in what I can only interpret as unrequited love is encapsulated in the lines:
"You said, if I hold my breath, dive down deep enough I might grow fins. Seems to me I've held my breath, held my breath to please you ever since."Stunning.
One of the things that strikes you about Richard Thompson is his effortless musical ability. His sense of timing and phrase as a guitar player, the tricks he can roll out would leave most guitarists in the dust. His advantage is the folk and modal traces he interjects with elements of jazz, rock 'n' roll and even elements of punk. Nobody sounds like him and in many ways I've often thought Mark Knopfler's melodic stratocaster picking style and sound might be influenced in some way by RT. He is without question one of the great guitar players. Al Kooper in a 1994 interview with my good friend, songwriter Peter Stone Brown (full interview here) described Thompson as a "giant if people could get used to his voice". Thompson's voice is in fact one of his great assets. He is an amazing singer.
Kooper on Thompson:
"He's a great fucking guitar player...play a long fucking guitar solo and kill me because you're the best guitar player walking the fucking earth... I can get my fix when I go see him live. Because he's the greatest fucking guitar player, he shreds. I'm like a groupie. Since Hendrix, he's the guy for me. He does things that no one else can do. And he's got a brilliant fucking mind musically speaking. He just kills me. It's right up my alley. I love it."Thanks for the music RT!
See www.richardthompson-music.com
