"It sickened me no end to see George tortured to death like that. It was beyond ugly. Let's hope that justice comes swift for the Floyd family and for the nation."
~ Bob Dylan
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Five days ago the New York Times published an interview with Bob Dylan. Headline: "Bob Dylan Has a Lot on His Mind."
The interviewer was Douglas Brinkley, an author and professor of History at Rice University.
Brinkley:
"I Contain Multitudes" is surprisingly autobiographical in parts. The last two verses exude a take-no-prisoners stoicism while the rest of the song is a humorous confessional.
Did you have fun grappling with contradictory impulses of yourself and human nature in general?
Dylan: I didn't really have to grapple much. It's the kind of thing where you pile up stream-of-consciousness verses and then leave it alone and come pull things out. In that particular song, the last few verses came first.
So that's where the song was going all along.
Obviously, the catalyst for the song is the title line. It's one of those where you write it on instinct.
Kind of in a trance state.
Most of my recent songs are like that. The lyrics are the real thing, tangible, they're not metaphors.
The songs seem to know themselves and they know that I can sing them, vocally and rhythmically.
They kind of write themselves and count on me to sing them.
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a painting by Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan during the Rolling Thunder Revue in the '70s. Left, background: poet Allen Ginsberg.
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