“Whatever Dylan’s status, we’re troubled by him committing the kind of thievery that would land a lesser artist in boiling hot water. There can be no question where several passages on ‘Modern Times’ came from (Dylan: ‘More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours’/ Timrod: ‘A round of precious hours . . . with logic frailer than the flowers’). Not only does Dylan not identify his source, the CD boasts the credit ‘All songs written by Bob Dylan.'” – Chicago Sun Times.
The TeleRead take: This is one more sign that no artist is an island. It isn’t the borrowing so much as the lack of credit that will vex many. Coincidentally, Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti, TeleRead’s e-book editor, offers a Dylan-oriented section on her Web site. I’ll be interested in hearing from her on this controversy when she returns from Paris.
Related: Wikipedia entry and Suzanne Vega in the New York Time (paid net.subscribers only). She writes: “Did he do this on purpose? I doubt it. Maybe he has a photographic memory, and bits of text stick to it. Maybe it shows how deeply he had immersed himself in the texts and times of the Civil War, and he was completely unconscious of it…
“…is he really ‘a thieving little swine’ as one ‘fan’ puts it? Well, I guess he is. But I am trying to imagine a Bob Dylan album with footnotes, asterisks, ibid.’s and nifty little anecdotes about the origins of each song. It’s not going to happen. 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.”
(Photo credit: This 1963 shot of Dyan is from Wikipedia and is regarded as unencumbered.)
