A Complete Unknown

You can call it country or blues or rock'n'roll - we all keep rewriting the same song.

A Complete Unknown, CC BY-SA 4.0

Sylvie Russo: What do you want to be? Bob Dylan: A musician. Who eats. Sylvie Russo: Well, I like your songs. Bob Dylan: My record comes out in a couple weeks. Sylvie Russo: Some of the songs you played today on your record? Bob Dylan: It's mostly covers. It's traditional stuff. Y'know, folk songs are supposed to stand the test of time, like Shakespeare or something. They say no one wants to hear what a kid wrote last month. Sylvie Russo: Who's 'they'? Bob Dylan: The record company. Manager. Sylvie Russo: I'm sorry, but, "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" is not Shakespeare. There was a time when the old songs were new, right? Someone at some point had to give the songs a chance. [they get up and begin to leave the restaurant] I mean, there's a civil war going on down south. The biggest military buildup in history. Nuclear bombs hanging over us. It's not all about the Dust Bowl and Johnny Appleseed anymore.

A Complete Unknown, CC BY-SA 4.0

Bob Dylan: [in voiceover reading the letter he's writing to Johnny Cash on an airplane] Dear Johnny, Thanks for that letter. I am now famous -- famous by the rules of public famiosity. It snuck up on me and pulverized me. To quote Mr. Freud, I get quite paranoid. Johnny Cash: [in voiceover reading the letter he's writing to Dylan on an airplane.] Bob -- Got your letter. Tonight I sit in the wake of one more hard rain. I was in New York last week. Saw a bunch of folk singers that couldn't hold a chigger on your ass. Well, I'll see you in Newport come spring. Until then, track mud on somebody's carpet.

A Complete Unknown, CC BY-SA 4.0

Bob Dylan: I don't think they want to hear what I want to play. Johnny Cash: Who's they? Bob Dylan: You know, the people who decide what folk music is or isn't. Johnny Cash: Fuck them, I wanna hear you. Go track some mud on somebody's carpet. Make some noise, B.D.

A Complete Unknown, CC BY-SA 4.0

Joan Baez: Who taught you to play? Bob Dylan: I taught myself, really. Picked up a few licks at the carnival. Joan Baez: [in disbelief] At the carnival? Bob Dylan: Oh yeah, there was singing cowboys that come through teach me all sorts of funny chords. They'd pass through doin' shows in Kansas or Dakotas. These chords I learned from a cowboy named Wigglefoot. Joan Baez: You were in a carnival? [pause] You are so completely full of shit.

A Complete Unknown, CC BY-SA 4.0

Bob Dylan: [in elevator after leaving fancy Harold Leventhal party] Two hundred people in that room and each one wants me to be somebody else. They should just fuck off and let me be. Bobby Neuwirth: Be what? Bob Dylan: Excuse me? Bobby Neuwirth: They should fuck off and let you be what? Bob Dylan: I don't know. Whatever it is they don't want me to be. Bobby Neuwirth: Y'know, I'm not a horse, so... I don't like carrying other people's weight. Bob Dylan: Yeah, well, I got a hundred pounds on me that don't show on the scale. Bobby Neuwirth: How do you sing then? Bob Dylan: I put myself in another place. But I'm a stranger there.

A Complete Unknown, CC BY-SA 4.0