A classic album by legendary songwriter Bob Dylan has been dismissed by the artist, who says he “can’t even remember” making it.
There’s no shortage of material in Dylan’s discography, be it official studio releases or fan-made bootlegs of his days on the Never Ending Tour. But one release from Columbia Records is of no interest to Dylan, who put up little struggle when his label wanted to issue it as an official release. It didn’t seem to be of interest for Dylan, and he says he doesn’t know “what they’re talkin’ about” when people say it’s one of their favourites of his. In an interview given to Rolling Stone Magazine in the mid-1980s, Dylan would write off arguably one of his most interesting albums as merely “songs we had done for the publishing company”. His lack of love for The Basement Tapes has surprised some.
He said: “Yeah, like The Basement Tapes. But it doesn’t occur to me to put it out. If I wrote a song three years ago, I seldom go back and get that. I just leave ‘em alone. I never really liked The Basement Tapes. I mean, they were just songs we had done for the publishing company, as I remember.
“They were used only for other artists to record those songs. I wouldn’t have put ’em out. But, you know, Columbia wanted to put ’em out, so what can you do? I can’t even remember it. People have told me they think it’s very Americana and all that. I don’t know what they’re talkin’ about.”
Some believe Dylan is ridiculous for suggesting The Basement Tapes is not among his best works. One person wrote: “That Basement Tapes quote is hysterical.” Elsewhere in the interview, Dylan says he began writing music as a matter of survival, and did not recommend going into the “music business”.
He told Rolling Stone Magazine: “I would never push ‘em or encourage ‘em to. I mean, I never went into it as a business. I went into it as a matter of survival. So I wouldn’t tell anybody to go into it as a business. It’s a pretty cutthroat business, from what I’ve seen.”
Another reason Dylan started writing is that nobody was releasing songs about what he wanted to say. The songwriter would share the reason behind his writings, be it protest folk or religiously inclined material, was simply a chance for him to share his voice and thoughts.
He said in 1963: “I wanted just a song to sing, and there came a point where I couldn’t sing anything. I had to write what I wanted to sing because what I wanted to sing, nobody else was writing.”
You can see part of Dylan’s frustration at having to write the words to his own feelings in a letter shared with Suze Rotolo. In it, he says life gets “very complicated” for him and that he feels like he is “livin’ in a contradiction.” We are better off for having Dylan’s songs, but the legendary performer seemed to struggle with his role.
He wrote: “but other times the back of my mind tells me / it is not honest… for I am just fulfillin / a myth t somebody who’d actually treasure my / handwritin more’n his own handwritin… / this gets very complicated for me / an proves t me that I am livin in a contradiction…”
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