by Jeff Burger
Good songwriter? I think Paul Anka is the worst songwriter. Saw some of his songs in the hit-parade book. I think Johnny Cash is the best songwriter.
Len Chandler—Ian and Sylvia have picked up some songs.
Strange Rain? I don’t understand it. Umbrella? Why can’t he say—don’t shoot off those bombs. You ought to go to Nevada where all the stuff is going on. Go out there—you’ll find some strange rain. I think dentists and scientists are together on this. How can you like a song you can’t understand? In a foreign language. But this is our language. I should be able to understand it. Said he wouldn’t understand it if I didn’t explain.
March 14, 1962
Life and Death of Don White. Actually I wrote it a long time ago. I just finished it up. What’s the story of the song? I’ll sing it for you. Not a bunch of people suffering. One person. So it’s justified. He was a common guy. No martyr or anything like that. But he had a right to be in an institution when he asked.
PM East (a New York weekly) in two weeks. No contract with Leeds exclusively. If I wrote to sell, I could do 20 a day. I’m just not. Can’t see anything in it. Some of the songs passed off as songs! These are contemporary songs.
DYLAN ON
Getting Rich
“I just want to keep on singing and writing songs . . . I don’t think about making a million dollars. If I had a lot of money what would I do? I would buy a couple of motorcycles, a few air-conditioners and four or five couches.”
—from liner notes to Bob Dylan, released March 19, 1962
RADIO INTERVIEW
Cynthia Gooding | Early 1962 | Folksinger’s Choice, WBAI-FM (New York)
This conversation, on listener-sponsored WBAI-FM, was one of Dylan’s first extensive radio interviews, if not the first. (He had spoken with folksinger Oscar Brand on New York’s WNYC the previous fall, but only briefly.)
Interviewer Cynthia Gooding, a folksinger herself, establishes excellent rapport with the young Dylan, who seems eager for her approval and asks, after nearly every song he performs for her, whether she likes it. She appears to grasp the extent of his talent and responds enthusiastically.
I have been unable to confirm the date of this conversation, whether it aired live, and if not, exactly when it did air. At least two sources cite March 11 as the interview or broadcast date, and WBAI’s parent, Pacifica Radio, indicates that the station aired the show in March. However, WBAI’s Amy Goodman has said only that the interview took place in “early 1962” and one of Dylan’s comments suggests that it might have occurred in February. In any case, it’s safe to say that the conversation happened only days or weeks before the March 19 release of Dylan’s eponymous debut album. —Ed.
[Dylan performs “Lonesome Whistle Blues.”]
Cynthia Gooding: That was Bob Dylan. Just one man doing all that. Playing the mouth harp and the guitar because, well, when you do this, you have to wear what another person might call a necklace.
Bob Dylan: Yeah.
Gooding: And then it’s got joints so that you can bring the mouth harp up to where you can reach it to play it. Bob Dylan is . . . well, you must be twenty years old now, aren’t you?
Dylan: Yeah, I must be twenty. [Laughs.]
Gooding: [Laughs.] Are you?
Dylan: Yeah. I’m twenty.
Gooding: When I first heard Bob Dylan it was about three years ago in Minneapolis, and at that time you were thinking of being a rock ’n’ roll singer, weren’t you?
Dylan: At that time, I was just sort of doin’ nothin’. I was there.
Gooding: Well, you were studying.
Dylan: I was working, I guess. l was making pretend I was going to school out there. I’d just come in from South Dakota. That was about three years ago.
Gooding: Yeah?
Dylan: Yeah. I’d come there from Sioux Falls. That was about the only place you didn’t have to go too far to find the Mississippi River. It runs right through the town.
[Both laugh.]
Gooding: You’ve sung now at Gerde’s [Folk City] here in town, and have you sung at any of the coffeehouses?
Dylan: Yeah, I’ve sung at the Gaslight. That was a long time ago, though. I used to play down in the [Café] Wha, too. You know where that place is?
Gooding: Yeah, I didn’t know you sang there.
Dylan: Yeah, during the afternoons. I played my harmonica for this guy there who was singing. He used to give me a dollar to play every day with him, from two o’clock in the afternoon until eight thirty at night. He gave me a dollar plus a cheeseburger.
Gooding: [Laughs.] A thin one or a thick one?
Dylan: I couldn’t much tell in those days.
Gooding: Well, whatever got you off rock ’n’ roll and on to folk music?
Dylan: I dunno. I wasn’t calling it anything then; I wasn’t really singing rock ’n’ roll. I was singing Muddy Waters songs and I was writing songs, and I was singing Woody Guthrie songs. And I also sung Hank Williams songs and Johnny Cash, I think.
Gooding: Yeah, I think the ones that I heard were a couple of Johnny Cash songs.
Dylan: Yeah, this one I just sung for you is Hank Williams.
Gooding: It’s a nice song, too.
Dylan: “Lonesome Whistle.”
Gooding: Heartbreaking.
Dylan: Yeah.
Gooding: And you’ve been writing songs as long as you’ve been singing, huh?
Dylan: I guess you could say that. [Apparently looks at Gooding’s cigarettes.] These are French ones, yeah?
Gooding: No, they are healthy cigarettes, because they’ve got a long filter and no tobacco.
Dylan: That’s the kind I need.
Gooding: And now you’re doing a record for Columbia?
Dylan: Yeah, I made it already. It’s coming out next month. Or not next . . . yeah, it’s coming out in March.
Gooding: And what’s it going to be called?
Dylan: Bob Dylan, I think.
Gooding: That’s a novel title for a record.
Dylan: Yeah, it’s really strange.
Gooding: And this is one of the quickest rises in folk music, wouldn’t you say?
Dylan: Yeah, but I really don’t think of myself as a folksinger, because I don’t really much play across the country, in any of these places. I’m not on a circuit like those other folksingers. I play once in a while. But I like more than just folk music, too. And I sing more than just folk music. A lot of people, they’re just folk music, folk music, folk music. I like folk music like Hobart Smith stuff and all that but I don’t sing much of that, and when I do it’s probably a modified version of something. Not a modified version; I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just there’s more to it, I think. Old-time jazz things. Jelly Roll Morton and stuff like that.
Gooding: Well, what I would like is for you to sing some songs from different parts of your short history. Short because you’re only twenty now.
Dylan: Yeah, OK. Let’s see. I’m looking for one.
Gooding: He has, I gather, a small part of his repertoire pasted to his guitar.
Dylan: Yeah. Well, actually, I don’t even know some of these songs. I copied the best songs I could find down here from all these guitar players’ lists. So I don’t know a lot of these. It gives me something to do, though, on stage.
Gooding: Yeah, something to look at. [Laughs.]
Dylan: Yeah. Oh, you wanna hear a blues song?
Gooding: Sure.
Dylan: This one’s called “Fixin’ to Die.”
[Dylan performs “Fixin’ to Die.”]
Gooding: That’s a great song. How much of it is yours?
Dylan: I can’t remember. My hands are cold. It’s a pretty cold studio.
Gooding: The coldest studio! . . . You’re a very good friend of John Lee Hooker’s, aren’t you?
Dylan: Yeah, I’m a friend of his.
Gooding: Do you sing any of his songs at all?
Dylan: Well, no. I sing one of Howlin’ Wolf’s. You wanna hear
that one again?
Gooding: Well, first I wanna ask you, why don’t you sing any of his [Hooker’s]? Because I know you like him.
Dylan: I play harmonica with him, and I sing with him. But I don’t sing any of his songs because—I might sing a version of one of them, but I don’t sing any like he does because I don’t think anybody sings any of his songs, to tell you the truth. He’s a funny guy to sing like.
Gooding: Hard guy to sing like, too.
Dylan: I’ll see if I can find a key here and do this one. I heard this one a long time ago. I never do it.
Gooding: This is the Howlin’ Wolf song.
Dylan: Yeah.
[Dylan performs “Smokestack Lightning.”]
Dylan: You like that?
Gooding: Yeah, I sure do. You’re very brave to try and sing that kind of a Howlin’ song.
Dylan: Yeah, it’s Howlin’ Wolf.
Gooding: Another of the singers that you’re a very good friend of is Woody Guthrie.
Dylan: Yeah.
Gooding: His songs were some of the first ones that you sang.
Dylan: Yeah.
Gooding: Which ones do you sing of his? Or which do you like the best, perhaps I should say.
Dylan: Well, which ones you want to hear? Here, I’ll sing you one.
Gooding: In order for Bob to put on his necklace, which is what he holds up the mouth harp with, he’s gotta take his hat off. Then he puts on the necklace. Then he puts the hat back on. Then he screws up the necklace so that he can put the mouth harp in it. It’s a complicated business. [Laughs.]
Dylan: The necklace gotta go around the collar.
Gooding: [Laughs.] Also, first, he decides what key he’s gonna sing in and then he’s gotta find the mouth harp that’s in that key. And then he’s gotta put the mouth harp in the necklace.
Dylan: Yeah. I’ll sing you “Hard Travelin’.” How’s that one? Everybody sings it, but he [Guthrie] likes that one.
[Dylan performs “Hard Travelin’.”]
Gooding: Nice! You started off slow but, boy, you ended up. [Laughs.]
Dylan: Yeah, that’s a thing of mine there.
Gooding: Tell me about the songs that you’ve written yourself that you sing.
Dylan: I don’t claim to call them folk songs or anything. I just call them contemporary songs. There’s a lot of people who paint if they’ve got something that they wanna say. Or other people write. Well, I just write songs—same thing. You wanna hear one?
Gooding: Why, yes! That’s just what I had in mind, Bob Dylan. Whatever made you think of that? [Laughs.]
Dylan: Well, let me see. What kind do you wanna hear? I got a new one I wrote.
Gooding: Yeah. You said you were gonna play some of your new ones for me.
Dylan: Yeah, I got a new one. This one’s called “Emmett Till.” Oh, by the way, I stole the melody from Len Chandler. And he’s a funny guy. He’s a folksinger guy. He uses a lot of funny chords when he plays and he always wants me to use some of these chords, trying to teach the new chords all the time. Well, he played me this one. He said, “Don’t those chords sound nice?” And I said, “They sure do,” so I stole the whole thing.
Gooding: That was his first mistake. [Laughs.]
Dylan: Yeah . . . Melody’s his.
[Dylan performs “The Death of Emmett Till.”]
Dylan: You like that one?
Gooding: It’s one of the greatest contemporary ballads I’ve ever heard. It’s tremendous.
Dylan: You think so?
Gooding: Oh, yes!
Dylan: Thanks!
Gooding: It’s got some lines in it that just make you stop breathing. It’s great. Have you sung that for Woody Guthrie?
Dylan: No. I’m gonna sing that for him next time. I just wrote that one last week, I think.
Gooding: Fine song. It makes me very proud. What’s so magnificent about it to me is that it doesn’t have any sense of being written. It doesn’t have any of those little poetic contortions that mess up so many contemporary ballads. And you sing it so straight. That’s fine.
Dylan: Wait till Len Chandler hears the melody, though.
[Both laugh.]
Gooding: He’ll probably be very pleased with what you did to it. What song does he sing to it?
Dylan: He sings another one he wrote. He wrote about some bus driver out in Colorado that crashed a school bus with twenty-seven kids. That’s a good one, too. It’s a good song.
Gooding: What other songs are you gonna sing?
Dylan: You wanna hear another one?
Gooding: I want to hear tons more.
Dylan: OK, I never get a chance to sing. Let me just sing you a plain, ordinary one.
Gooding: Fine.
Dylan: I’ll tune this one. It’s open E. Oh, I got one! I got two of ’em. I broke my fingernail so it might slip a few times.
[Dylan performs “Standing on the Highway.”]
Dylan: Like that?
Gooding: Yes, I do. You know, the eight of diamonds is delay, and the ace of spades is death so that sort of goes in with the two roads, doesn’t it?
Dylan: I learned that from carnival.
Gooding: From who?
Dylan: Carnival. I used to travel with the carnival. I used to speak of those things all the time.
Gooding: Oh. You can read cards, too?
Dylan: I can’t read cards. I really believe in palm reading, but for a bunch of personal experiences I don’t believe too much in the cards. I like to think I don’t believe too much in the cards, anyhow.
Gooding: [Laughs.] So you go out of your way not to get ’em read, so you won’t believe them. How long were you with the carnival?
Dylan: I was with the carnival off and on six years.
Gooding: What were you doing?
Dylan: Oh, just about everything. I was a clean-up boy, I used to be on the main line, on the Ferris wheel, just run rides. I used to do all kinds of stuff like that.
Gooding: Didn’t that interfere with your schooling?
Dylan: Well, I skipped a bunch of things, and I didn’t go to school a bunch of years and I skipped this and skipped that.
Gooding: That’s what I figured.
Dylan: All came out even, though.
Gooding: [Laughs.] You were gonna sing another blues, you said.
Dylan: Oh, yeah, I’ll sing you this one. This is a nice slow one. I learned this . . . you know [folksinger] Ralph Rensler?
Gooding: Sure.
Dylan: Yeah, I learned this sort of thing from him. I got the idea from him. This isn’t the blues, but . . . how much time we got?
Gooding: Oh, we’ve got half an hour.
Dylan: Oh, good.
[Dylan performs “Roll On, John.”]
Gooding: That’s a lonesome accompaniment, too. Oh, my!
Dylan: You like that one?
Gooding: It makes you feel even lonelier. How much of that last one was yours, by the way?
Dylan: Well, I dunno, maybe one or two verses.
Gooding: Where’d the rest of it come from?
Dylan: Well, like I say, I got the idea for “Roll On, John” from Ralph Rensler.
Gooding: Oh, I see.
Dylan: And then the rest just sort of fell together. Here’s one I bet you’ll remember. Yeah, I bet you’ll know this one.
Gooding: Take the hat off, put on the necklace, put the hat back on. Nobody’s ever seen Bob Dylan without his hat excepting when he’s putting on his necklace. Is there a more dignified name for that thing?
Dylan: What—this?
Gooding: For the brace.
Dylan: Yeah. Harmonica holder. [Laughs.]
Gooding: Oh, I think necklace is better than that.
Dylan: Yeah. [Laughs.] This one here’s an old jug-band song.
[Dylan performs “Stealin’.”]
Dylan: Like that? That’s called “Stealin’.”
Gooding: I figured. [Laughs.] You haven’t been playing the harmonica too long, have you?<
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Dylan: Oh, yeah. I been playing the harmonica for a long time. I just couldn’t play ’em at the same time [as guitar]. I used to play the smaller Hohners. I never knew harmonica holders existed, the real kind like this. I used to play with a coat hanger. That never really held out so good so I used to put tape around it, and then it would hold out pretty good. They were smaller harmonicas than these. . . .
Gooding: At the carnival did you learn songs?
Dylan: No, I learned how to sing, though. That’s more important.
Gooding: Yeah. You made up the songs even then?
Dylan: Actually, I wrote a song once I’m trying to find, a real good song I wrote about this lady I knew in the carnival. And they had a sideshow. This was Roy B. Thomas shows, and they had a freak show in it, and all the midgets and all that kind of stuff. Well, there was one lady in there in really bad shape. Like her skin had been all burned when she was a little baby, and it didn’t grow right, and so she was like a freak. And all these people would pay money to come and to see and that really sort of got me. I mean, she didn’t really look normal. She had this funny kind of skin and they passed her off as the elephant lady. And she was just burned completely since she was a baby.
And it’s a funny thing about them. I know how those people think. Like when they wanna sell you stuff. You know, the spectators. And I don’t see why people don’t buy something, because they sell little cards of themselves, for like ten cents. They got a picture on it and it’s got some story. A lot of them are very smart. A lot of them are great people.
But they got a funny thing in their minds. Here they are on the stage, they wanna make you have two thoughts. They wanna make you think that they don’t feel bad about themselves. They want you to think that they just go on living every day and they don’t ever think about what’s bothering them, they don’t ever think about their condition. And also they wanna make you feel sorry for them, and they gotta do that two ways. And I wrote a song for her a long time ago. And lost it some place. It’s just about speaking from first person, like here I am, and sort of like, talking to you, and it was called, “Won’t You Buy a Postcard?” That was the name of the song. Can’t remember that one, though.
Gooding: There’s a lot of circus literature about how freaks don’t mind being freaks, but it’s very hard to believe.