A late-career renaissance, including allegations of plagiarism.

1. ORPHEUS
LOOKS BACK

2. FINAL ESSAYS
★ 4 pages minimum, open-ended topic
★ Definitely required
★ Potential topics: album/movie review,
autobiography, epic poem

3. 1983-2011
★ Skipping seven albums, perhaps unfairly,
to get to 1997. Go get ‘em yourself.
★ With Time Out Of Mind, Dylan is
indisputably relevant again. It kicks off a
creative renaissance. Here are the 5
albums since then, not counting
Christmas in the Heart.

5. COLD IRONS BOUND

7. HIGH WATER (FOR CHARLIE PATTON)

9. [MUSIC VIDEO:
“THUNDER ON THE
MOUNTAIN”]

11. MISSISSIPPI

13. BEYOND HERE LIES NOTHIN’

14. CHRONICLES
VOL. 1
★ Myth-making alongside
revelations
★ Great writing about
music and characters

15. ...SAID THE JOKER TO THE THIEF

16. “GONNA RAISE ME
AN ARMY”
★ Time Magazine
★ The Civil War again
★ Mark Twain, Henry Rollins, Thomas Wolfe,
and more
★ A Japanese crime novel
★ Ovid

17. “You have played the part of a damned
scoundrel, and are a coward, and if you
were any part of a man I would slap your
jaws and force you to resent it. You may as
well not issue any orders to me, for I will
not obey them…
I say to you that if you ever again try to
interfere with me or cross my path it will
be at the peril of your life.”
—Nathan Bedford Forrest to Gen. Braxton
Bragg (letter), 1863
“If you ever try to interfere with me or cross
my path again
You do so at the peril of your own life
I’m not quite as cool or forgiving as I sound
I’ve seen enough heartaches and strife”
—Bob Dylan, “Floater (Too Much To Ask),”
“Love & Theft”

18. HENRY TIMROD
“A round of precious hours. Oh! here, where
“More frailer than the flowers, these
in that summer noon I basked, And strove,
precious hours.”
with logic frailer than the flowers...”
— “When the Deal Goes Down”
— “A Rhapsody of a Southern Winter Night”
“How then, O weary one! explain the “I can’t explain
sources of that hidden pain?” The sources of this hidden pain”
— “Two Portraits” — “Spirit on the Water”
“There is a wisdom that grows up in
“Where wisdom grows up in strife”
strife...”
— “When the Deal Goes Down”
— “Retirement”
“I can hear a lover’s breath
“Which, ere they feel a lover’s breath,
I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall
Lie in a temporary death,”
Sleep is like a temporary death”
— “Two Portraits”
— “Workingman’s Blues #2”

19. MARK TWAIN
“The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled
in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an
owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody “Last night the wind was whisperin’
that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog somethin’
crying about somebody that was going to die;
and the wind was trying to whisper
something to me, and I couldn't make out I was trying to make out what it was
what it was, and so it made the cold shivers
run over me.”
— Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn I tell myself something’s comin’
But it never does.”
“I tell myself that something’s coming. I
don't know what, but it’s coming... but it never
does and I knew that it wouldn’t in the first — “Lonesome Day Blues” (Love &
place.” Theft)
— Henry Rollins, Art to Choke Hearts & Pissing
in the Gene Pool

20. HENRY ROLLINS
“I know my truth in that I know I'll never be
“Big Joe Turner lookin’ east and west
able to say anything back to them that isn't
From the dark room of his mind”
coming from the dark room that is my
— “High Water (for Charlie Patton)” (Love &
mind.”
Theft)
—Rollins, Now Watch Him Die
“You're weak and in need. You want something
“‘Don’t reach out to me,’ she said,
to hold so you can have something to blame.
‘Can’t you see I’m drowning too?’”
Don't reach out to me. I'm drowning too.”
— “High Water (for Charlie Patton)” (Love &
—Rollins, Art to Choke Hearts & Pissing in the
Theft)
Gene Pool
“I would like to think that I could control
“I’d like to think I could control myself, but it
myself at all times, but it just isn’t true / I
isn’t true”
catch mself slipping all the time
— “Can’t Wait” (Time Out of Mind)
—Rollins, Now Watch Him Die
“I don’t want to know you
“You went years without me, might as well
You went years without me
keep goin’ now”
You might as well keep on going”
— “Sugar Baby” (Love & Theft)
—Rollins, See a Grown Man Cry

21. THOMAS WOLFE
I try to use my material in the
(343) You mention the fact that I have worked most effective way. The songs
hard in an effort to learn how to use my
material in the most effective way.
were written to the glory of man
and not to his defeat, but all of
(341) ...that the story has been written to the these songs added together doesn't
glory of man and not to his defeat.
even come close to my whole vision
(368) the poems that I have liked the best of life. Sometimes the things that
and that have meant the most to me are you liked the best and that have
those that meant nothing at all to me when meant the most to you are the
I first read them.
things that meant nothing at all
(389) All these things I suppose are simple to you when you first heard or
and matter-of-fact enough, but all the saw them. Some of these songs fit
strangeness and mystery of time and chance
and of the human destiny is in them for me and into that category. I suppose all
they seem wonderful. these things are simple, matter
of fact enough.

22. JUNICHI SAGA
“My old man would sit there like a feudal “My old man, he’s like some feudal lord /
lord...” Got more lives than a cat”
— Confessions of a Yakuza — “Floater (Too Much to Ask)”
“Some things are too terrible to be true/I won’t
“I won’t come anymore if it bothers you.”
come here no more if it bothers you”
— Confessions of a Yakuza
— “Honest With Me”
“I’m not quite as cool or forgiving as I
“Actually, though, I'm not as cool or forgiving
sound /I’ve seen enough heartaches and
as I might have sounded.”
strife”
— Confessions of a Yakuza
— “Floater (Too Much to Ask)”
“My captain, he’s decorated—he’s well
“There was nothing sentimental about him–it
schooled and he’s skilled / He’s not
didn’t bother him at all that some of his
sentimental—don’t bother him at all / How
pals had been killed.”
many of his pals have been killed”
— Confessions of a Yakuza
— “Lonesome Day Blues”

23. OVID AND “BLACK SEA
(FROM “THE ART OF LOVE,” “TRISTIA,” DYLAN
LETTERS”)
“every nook and corner had its tears” “Every nook and cranny has its tears”
“loyal and much loved companions, bonded in
“All my loyal and my much-loved companions”
brotherhood”
“let me make the most of one last extra hour “I’ll make the most of one last extra hour”
“I practice terms long abandoned “I practice a faith that’s been long abandoned”
“tear my mind from the contemplation of my “They will tear your mind away from
woes” contemplation”
“who approve, and share, your code” “They approve of me and share my code”
“Who says I can’t get heavenly aid when a
“Who says I can’t get heavenly aid?”
god’s angry with me?”
“Night attacks are a great thing. Catch your
“If I catch my opponents ever sleepin’ / I’ll just
opponents sleeping and unarmed. Just
slaughter them where they lie.”
slaughter them where they lie.”

24. HOW DOES IT FEEL?
★ Joni Mitchell: “Bob is not authentic at all.
He's a plagiarist, and his name and voice
are fake.”
★ Suzanne Vega: “He’s never pretended to
be an academic, or even a nice guy. He is
more likely to present himself as, well, a
thief. Renegade, outlaw, artist. That’s why
we are passionate about him.”

25. NEXT
WEEK
★ Last thoughts on
Bob Dylan
★ Final papers
★ I’m Not There