Date: Mon, 14 Aug 1995 15:55:10 +0000
From: Patricia Jungwirth (tricia.j@AARDVARK.APANA.ORG.AU)
Subject: EDLIS - Australian Affairs - 1986 Radio Interview
Broadcast Feb. 21 (?) 1986 on EON-FM, Melbourne, Australia
Taped Feb. 20/21(?) 1986, Rockman's Regency Hotel, Melbourne (poolside)
Interviewer Unknown (DJ)
Intro: "Okay, this is Bob Dylan... they're gonna play a record of mine
next and your listening to EON."
DJ: You've done 30 albums or 30-some albums by now and that's a lot of
material... a lot of songs. How do you go about actually selecting songs
you're going to do in a performance of 3 hours or 2 1/2 hours or whatever?
BD: Well, I usually... I usually try to put in songs which are different
in their own context, either structurally or melodically or uh lyrically,
that uh, don't... so it's not all the same type of material, I try to
fill in a larger picture. I don't know what the total effect of it is.
Umm... How do I go about selecting the material? Well, there's material
that I WANT to play, there's material that I feel I HAVE to play, and,
uh, I try to get the material that I feel I have to play into the frame
of mind where I want to play the material that I have to play. The rest
of it is just stuff I want to play.
DJ: Who do you figure... is there somebody that you're aware of in the
world that may be a logical successor to the contribution that you've
made to music and thought over the years?
BD: Well, strangely enough you know I've thought about that. People ask
you all the time when you think you're gonna quit, when you've had
enough, you know, when you're gonna get out, and uh, we were just talking
this morning, I was telling somebody that your health will knock you out,
first of all. If you're physically not able to do it, that's it, it's
over you know. You can't just be some... like an ageing, uhh, rock and
roll performer, or sort of like.. an ageing baseball player, actually,
you know. I mean, you get your high points and that's it. Well, if
you're physically together you can stay together. I'm also not an oldies
type performer, oldies circuit thing. So that's one of the reasons you'd
probably drop out and then another reason would be if you saw somebody
coming along who you could help, and... Pete Townsend was talking about
that one time, but, umm... and he got some criticism for saying it. But I
understood exactly what he was talking about and it was, like, time to
hand, uh, you know, the torch or something to somebody else. Well, you
know, like it doesn't happen that way in rock and roll, you don't just
hand it to somebody. The idea is right, but...
DJ: Somebody comes and takes it?
BD: Yeah.
DJ: You've been through the 50's, the 60's, the 70's, th 80's and we're
heading into the year 2000. What do you feel generally about the next 20
years in the world?
BD: Well, I don't know, I've stopped counting, you know, I stopped
counting. The 50's were rough. Everybody romanticises the 50's but that
was a very rough time. Uh, it's not as, it was not as spectacular... The
only thing I remember that kept everybody going that I know in the 50's
was maybe a few films that Marlon Brando made, or James Dean or... and
the rockabilly music, you know, and rhythm and blues and that was it. But
that music, you had to really... that's like... it called out to you, and
very few people were onto it. And it was like a... almost like a
life-raft thrown to people who were different back then. I don't know,
there are people, the same type of people today, I don't know what's
calling to them, what life-raft they have, because everything is kinda
closing in... It's all like, this town here, this looks like the same as
San Antonio, Texas, you know? It wasn't so in the 50's, or the 60's. Umm,
everything, you know it's the same food, it's the same clothes, it's the
same look, it's the same cars, it's the same materials, it's, you know,
the same language, just about. Uhh, that of course is on this side of the
world. In the other parts of the world, it's, you know they have a
real... Umm.. There's two sides to the world, there's the good side and
the bad side, you know, and it's relatively civilised, I play in
relatively civilised places, but I have been in places that are not
civilised.