Comments on: Old, New, Borrowed, Blue

By: Lloyd

Lloyd — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:04:57 +0000

In the words of John Lennon, “you need other people for ideas”.

I wonder if he read that line somewhere?

By: Tom Watson

Tom Watson — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 15:21:04 +0000

I can’t wait to hear the new song; of course Dylan borrows words, he’s borrowed buckets of music - his whole career is a brilliant testimony to sythesizing the American past, our musical tradition. And you know, I quite agree about Modern Times - it’s a true classic.

By: Peter Hyatt

Peter Hyatt — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:04:27 +0000

I spoke to a publisher of Henry Timrod’s works and he said that the books are flying off the shelf since Dylan released that album. I bought a copy and have fallen in love with the poetry of Timrod (and his father’s poem too!), which only increases my respect for Dylan’s vast ocean of knowledge. He takes from life, from the Scriptures (remember “fat man looking a a blade of steel” from Proverbs 23?), poetry, song, literature and so much else.

Other than that, you cannot write a 3 bar blues without taking it from EVERYONE. It is impossible.

Modern Times may be the crowning masterpiece of a brilliant career; equal or surpassing anything Dylan has done; including Blood on the Tapes: The New York Sessions.

By: Jason Chervokas

Jason Chervokas — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 15:52:24 +0000

OOC, interesting stuff, no doubt. I think we all have an intuitive sense that there’s a line between creative borrowing and plagarism, but drawning that line intellectually can be mighty challenging.

John, well, criticism is just a different thing from writing other stuff (including music which I do). A better analogy might be me borrowing lines or settings from, say, Lester Bangs or Joan Didion (which I’ve done).

In any event I’m certainly anxious to hear the new Dylan song.

By: OutOfContext

OutOfContext — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 15:03:01 +0000

Jason,
This is a big, big topic and brings to mind a couple of things immediately: First, Harold Bloom’s The Anxiety of Influence which I read as an undergrad lit brat when the subject kind of obsessed me.
Second, the disappointment of finding that one of my favorite poets, Hart Crane, lifted large sections of one of my favorite poems, Emblems of Conduct, from Samuel Greenberg, a tubercular, undisciplined poet who died at the age of 23, not long before Crane published Emblems. Forgive me for blogwhoring, but in the interest of brevity, here’s what I wrote about that a while back.

By: John

John — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 14:56:14 +0000

This type of creativity is valid. Anyone who knows Dylan’s work, knows he borrows other lines just as a painter borrows other images to create his own. In fact, you criticize other peoples work. Is your work less valid because you do not create something completely original?

By: Meinhard

Meinhard — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 08:46:47 +0000

Thank you. Very well written and knowledgeable. A good read before going to work.