Bob Dylan: writings 1968-2010

513 Pages·2010·1.95 MB·English

by  Dylan, Bob;Marcus, Greil

4/c process
scratch free matte lamination + spot gloss + deboss
pRaISe FoR B $29.95/$34.95 CAN
BoB dYLaN BY GREIL MaRCUS
O T
hIS book beGINS with a rumor in
Berkeley in the mid-1960s and ends
“ This book is thrilling. It is a Dylan-obsessed scrapbook B
on Election Night in Minneapolis in
chronicle of the American spirit during the last half
2008. In one moment a small crowd holds
century, and it captures an intense and peculiar
Arditti, Paris etox cniote omtehnetr tthimate baenldo npglasc teo.” our tim —e paanudL p blaecReM aanNd W DY iDtsy lbarne aptehr faosr ma ps efrrosomn ipnrseidteen ad iwngo otod ebne bBooxb;
© Thierry “ The Dylan-Marcus coupling is the sort of all-American R L iant hainso etrhsetrw, hDiylela anlm aap pmeaatresr ,f tohre t Uhen ivfiersrst ittyim oef
GREIL MARCUS
Minnesota, and on a night when the country
old marriage Bonnie and Clyde might have had if they
I A
voted for change, invests songs he has car-
is the author of When That Rough God Goes hadn’t been gunned down—decades of flirting, squab- T
ried with him for nearly half a century with
Riding, Like a Rolling Stone, The Old, Weird bling, driving, cracking wise, and the occasional tense N
I new meaning.
America, The Shape of Things to Come, Christmas.” —SaRah VoWeLL N
Between these two events, Greil Marcus,

Mystery Train, Dead Elvis, In the Fascist
B known throughout the world for his books
Bathroom, and other books. A twentieth “ I’ve known a couple of Bob Dylans in my time and G
Mystery Train, Lipstick Traces, and The Old,
anniversary edition of his Lipstick Traces was loved both of them. Greil Marcus has examined in Y
S Weird America, has followed Bob Dylan’s
published in 2009. With Werner Sollors, he great depth Dylan’s intersection with society and rock
work with a fan’s intensity and a detective’s
is the editor of A New Literary History of ’n’ roll in general.” —JohN MeLLeNCaMp
1 G BOB persistence. Here, that ranges from a Rolling
America, published in 2009 by Harvard Uni-
9 Stone piece on Dylan’s 1970 Self Portrait,
versity Press. Since 2000, he has taught at “ What do you get when a literary legend, Greil Marcus, R
6 often called the most notorious record
Princeton, Berkeley, Minnesota, and the New meets an Icon, Bobby Dylan? This book!”
review ever written (“To quote another critic,
School in New York; his column “Real Life —IShMaeL ReeD 8 E
DYLAN writing in another time and another place,
Rock Top 10” appears regularly in The Believer. – I but about a similar artistic disaster,” says a
He lives in Berkeley. L
GReIL MaRCuS 2 character in Nick Hornby’s 2009 novel Juliet,
pRaISe FoR
0 Naked, “‘What is this shit?’”) to a recognition
M
“ Few if any American cultural historians take the great BY of the depths of Time Out of Mind nearly
1
thirty years later (“As bleak and blasted as
deep American Breath like Greil Marcus.” 0
A
any work a major artist in any field—an artist
—RobeRT LoSS, PopMatters, 2010

with something, an audience, a reputation,
R
“ Probably the most astute critic of American popular GREIL to lose—has offered in ages”). There are
culture since Edmund Wilson.”—D. D. GuTTeNpLaN, C long investigations into the tangled stories
JACkET DESIGN BY PETE GARCEAU London Review of Books, 2007 told by old American music, and pithy
PHOTOGRAPH OF BOB DYLAN © ANA MARIA VELEz
U twenty-five or fifty-word comments on
“ Greil Marcus has developed an ability to discern an art MARCUS records, books, concerts, radio commer-
MUSIC/BIOGRAPHY S
AvAILABLE AS AN E-BOOk movement, or an entire country, lurking inside a song.” cials, and nearly anything else under the
—New Yorker, 2004 $29.95/$34.95 CAN sun. The result is a sparkling and enduring
chronicle of a more than forty-year engage-
ISBN 978-1-58648-831-4
52995
ment between an unparalleled singer and a
WRITINGS 1968–2010
uniquely acute listener.
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BOB
DYL AN
BY
GREIL
MARCUS
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ALSO BY GREIL MARCUS
Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock ’n’ Roll Music
(1975, 2008)
Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century(1989, 2009)
Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession(1991)
In the Fascist Bathroom: Punk in Pop Music, 1977–92
(1993, originally published as Ranters & Crowd Pleasers)
The Dustbin of History(1995)
The Old, Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes
(2000, 2011, originally published as Invisible Republic, 1997)
Double Trouble: Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley
in a Land of No Alternatives(2000)
“The Manchurian Candidate”(2002)
Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads(2005)
The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice
(2006)
When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison
(2010)
As Editor
Stranded(1979, 2007)
Psychotic Reactions & Carburetor Dung,by Lester Bangs (1987)
The Rose & the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the
American Ballad(2004, with Sean Wilentz)
A New Literary History of America(2009, with Werner Sollors)
9781586488314_marcus 8/9/10 4:53 PM Page iii
BOB
DYL AN
BY
GREIL
MARCUS
WRITINGS 1968–2010
PUBLICAFFAIRS
NEW YORK
9781586488314_marcus 8/9/10 4:53 PM Page iv
Copyright © 2010by Greil Marcus.
Published in the United States by PublicAffairs™,
a member of the Perseus Books Group.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
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Set in 12-point Apollo
Library of Congress Control Number:2010934404
isbn 978-1-58648-831-4
first edition
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FOR JENNY
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CONTENTS
Where I Came In xiii
PROLOGUE
The Legend of Blind Steamer Trunk 1
PART ONE
Breath Control, 1970–1974
Self Portrait No. 25 7
New Morning 28
Watching the River Flow 31
Bangla Desh 36
Doug Sahm and Band 41
Heavy Breathing 42
Highway 61 Revisited Revisited 53
A Moment of Panic 54
PART TWO
Seven Years of This, 1975–1981
An Album of Wounds 63
from Liner Notes, The Basement Tapes 66
Dylan Gets Nasty 70
That Train Don’t Stop Here Anymore 71
Save the Last Waltz for Me 78
Street Legal 88