Dylan the thief
September 29th, 2006Two weeks ago, the New York Times published an article written by Motoko Rich (Select membership required to legally view the article. To read the article without a subscription, perform a search for the title of the article). In the article, Rich discusses how in his latest album Modern Times Bob Dylan has borrowed from 19th century poet Henry Timrod and some people, such as the Professor of Poetry at Oxford, think this is a testament to his genius while others, such as a random 8th grade teacher in Albuquerque think this is theft. I’m completely serious about the contrast of the two references used in the NYT piece to frame the debate.
In any case, a similar controversy (if we can call it that) arose in 2001 when it was discovered that some lines in Mr. Dylan’s last album Love and Theft were borrowed from a book written by Junichi Saga, Confessions of a Yakuza: A Life in Japan’s Underworld. Saga was apparently ecstatic to be referenced by such a well-known songwriter. It is also worth noting that several lines in the song Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum are also influenced by Timrod. Wikipedia is a good source for more information on this topic.
So, these events have raised questions: has Dylan lost his touch? Has his work devolved into a sampling of obscure poets and novelists? Is Dylan a thief?
If anyone believes the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes’ then I’m afraid they fundamentally misunderstand Mr. Dylan’s body of work. To understand why, I would direct them toward Christopher Ricks’ Dylan’s Visions of Sin. Ricks’ extensive knowledge of poetry allows him to extract the influences from many of Dylan’s songs. If Dylan is a thief today, then Dylan has always been a thief. If there is one theme in Dylan’s work, it is a consistent allusion to poets he respects.
I planned to conclude this post by finding my favorite Dylan songs and including some Dylan lyrics and the relevant text from the influence of that lyric. This can be easily done by paging through Visions of Sin. I quickly realized that someone had probably already created such a list. I found an article written by Matthew Zuckerman in 1997, before either Modern Times or Love and Theft were released, that traces the influences of 33 Dylan songs. From this list, it should be clear that some of Dylan’s greatest work has been the result of borrowing from other poets. It still baffles me that intelligent people can’t understand why he does this or why such allusions are a manifestation of love and not theft.