Bob Dylan: “I Wasn’t Dissing Merle, Not the Merle I Know.”
Bob Dylan is pretty notorious for not speaking publicly very often, either in speeches or to the press. But after being honored at a Grammy Awards’ MusiCares event a week ago where he was named Person of the Year, and the impending melee that resulted from the 30-minute speech in which he specifically criticized Merle Haggard and Tom T. Hall among others, Dylan was forced into another public disposition with Rolling Stone on Friday where he clarified his Grammy statements about Merle, though he had no apologies for Tom T. Hall.
Part of the problem with Dylan’s Merle quotes was that as they drifted out of the MusiCares gala on the tongues of the assembled media, they were incidentally pared down in the rush to make them public. Since no audio or video of the event was ever broadcast or published, important qualifying points about Dylan’s words were left out, and only revealed when the text of the speech was made public.
The quotes that came out last Friday from Dylan were,
“Merle Haggard didn’t even think much of my songs. I know he didn’t. He didn’t say that to me, but I know way back when he didn’t. Buck Owens did, and he recorded some of my early songs. ‘Together Again,’ that’s Buck Owens. And that trumps anything else out of Bakersfield. Buck Owens or Merle Haggard? If you had to have somebody’s blessing, you can figure it out.”
But the expanded quotes were actually,
Merle Haggard didn’t think much of my songs, but Buck Owens did, and Buck even recorded some of my early songs. Now I admire Merle “Mama Tried,” “Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down,” “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive.” I understand all that but I can’t imagine Waylon Jennings singing “The Bottle Let Me Down.” I love Merle but he’s not Buck. Buck Owens wrote “Together Again” and that song trumps anything that ever came out of Bakersfield. Buck Owens and Merle Haggard? If you have to have somebody’s blessing you figure it out. What I’m saying here is that my songs seem to divide people. Even people in the music community.
Dylan elaborated further with Rolling Stone‘s Daniel Kreps on Friday (2-13),
“I wasn’t dissing Merle, not the Merle I know. What I was talking about happened a long time ago, maybe in the late Sixties. Merle had that song out called ‘Fighting Side of Me’ and I’d seen an interview with him where he was going on about hippies and Dylan and the counterculture, and it kind of stuck in my mind and hurt, lumping me in with everything he didn’t like.
“But of course times have changed and he’s changed too. If hippies were around today, he’d be on their side and he himself is part of the counterculture”¦ so yeah, things change. I’ve toured with him and have the highest regard for him, his songs, his talent – I even wanted him to play fiddle on one of my records and his Jimmie Rodgers tribute album is one of my favorites that I never get tired of listening to. He’s also a bit of a philosopher. He’s serious and he’s funny. He’s a complete man and we’re friends these days. We have a lot in common.”
However Dylan offered no clarification for his critical remarks about other songwriters, including Tom T. Hall. Merle responded to Dylan’s original comments with a succinct, ““Bob Dylan I’ve admired your songs since 1964. ‘Don’t Think Twice’ Bob, Willie and I just recorded it on our new album.” But Tom T. Hall has yet to say anything publicly. According to a spokesman, it’s because the 78-year-old songwriter is still dealing with the grief of losing his wife Dixie in January.
Dylan said of Tom T. Hall,
Now some might say Tom was a great songwriter, and I’m not going to doubt that. At the time, during his interview, I was actually listening to a song of his on the radio in the recording studio. It was called “I Love.” And it was talking about all the things he loves. An everyman song. Trying to connect with people. Trying to make you think he’s just like you and you’re just like him. We all love the same things. We’re all in this together.
Tom loves little baby ducks. Slow-moving trains and rain. He loves big pickup trucks and little country streams. Sleep without dreams. Bourbon in a glass. Coffee in a cup. Tomatoes on a vine and onions.
Now listen, I’m not every going to disparage another songwriter. I’m not gonna do that. I’m not saying that’s a bad song, I’m just saying it might be a little over-cooked.
The one thing Dylan clarifying his statements about Haggard tells us is that his dislike of Tom T. Hall, or at least the song “I Love,” is probably real. There was some question as the quotes were emerging if Dylan was engaging in his regular trolling of the public by tearing into other songwriters. This still might be the case to some extent, but when it comes to Merle vs. Dylan, it appears to be a dead issue.
Kevin H.
February 13, 2015 @ 5:57 pm
I’m glad the full context is finally out. It seems whoever quoted the speed first purposely left parts out to make more of a scandal than there actually was. It’s to be expected seeing as how the media loves their scandals.
As far as Tom T. Hall, I don’t know all of his songs but the few I do know are good, but they’re not anywhere close to Bob Dylan’s. But then again, not many people are. They don’t really even need to be compared seeing as how they’re different styles. The people that are talkin crap about Bob Dylan don’t realize just how prolific he is and how much he’s influenced other songwriters.
Kevin H.
February 13, 2015 @ 6:07 pm
Speech*** not speed.
BruisedOrange
February 13, 2015 @ 8:22 pm
I’ll take Tom T. Hall’s “Homecoming” over any Dylan song, and that’s coming from a big Dylan fan.
Ron
February 13, 2015 @ 6:39 pm
What does he mean by: Down,” .” I understand all that but I can”™t imagine Waylon Jennings singing “The Bottle Let Me Down.” Waylon did a great cover of that song
Kent
February 15, 2015 @ 7:10 am
Maybe because Waylon never was much for alcohol, and singing about bottles seemed not genuine, unless he was singing about pill bottles I guess…
judd
February 13, 2015 @ 6:45 pm
Glad Dylan likes “together again”.. Its a great song. I personally think some of merles is better but I am entitled to like what I want to like and Bob is too. More power to him and more power to me.
Ricky Bobby
February 13, 2015 @ 6:52 pm
Dylan is still overrated. And can’t sing.
Able
February 13, 2015 @ 7:20 pm
I think Dylan is well aware of that fact. https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6050/6370858685_8fee3a5e02_z.jpg
Canuck
February 13, 2015 @ 7:22 pm
…and Bob’s still jealous that people aren’t fawning over him more nowadays, and instead are finally giving Merle the kudos he so rightfully deserves.
Look, Dylan can try to backpedal his way out of this any way he likes, but he’s still made the comments, and regardless of the spin he wants to out on them, they were still unnecessary….and wrong, as in mistaken.
Also, he needs to take a really long, hard look at his comments about Buck Owens. I said it before and I’ll say it again – Buck was great, he’s no Haggard. The best part of this, and the irony? Haggard didn’t have to try….he just had to “act naturally”.
Liza
February 13, 2015 @ 9:21 pm
Much ado…
Crabby Pattie
February 13, 2015 @ 10:22 pm
Backpedal? He’s just trying to tell everyone what he actually said before the media decided to select parts of the quote for a juicy story. There is nothing Dylan said today that’s any different from what he originally said.
Canuck
February 14, 2015 @ 10:41 am
Sounds like he’s try not to reel back in comments that he realized could be construed as being inflammatory.
Whatever. This getting to be old news anyway.
Canuck
February 14, 2015 @ 10:43 am
correction: TRYING.
This site badly needs a feature to edit grammatical/spelling errors when you make them. Damn autocorrect!
Eric
February 13, 2015 @ 7:12 pm
So, as I suspected, this dust-up was political after all.
By the way, this should put to rest any far-flung notion that “Okie from Muskogee” was somehow intended as parody. As Bob Dylan has confirmed, Merle Haggard started out as genuinely anti-hippie, but became more of a hippie later in life.
the deserter
February 13, 2015 @ 9:42 pm
I enjoy tom t quite a bit but I will be the first to say that ‘i love’ is certainly not at the top of his song roster. So dylan didn’t like it big duck in deal. Neither do i. He probably shouldn’t have brought it up in an acceptance speech, but everyone is entitled to an opinion just so long as he doesn’t knock ‘who’s gonna feed them hogs’
J
February 14, 2015 @ 8:30 am
Speaking of any man blowing his brains out a month or so after his life long wife has passed away and is still grieving gains no respect, whether he was aware of her passing or not (which you know he was, even if he plays dumb like Dylan normally does.) In my opinion there is no use for a man like this in the world. He was essentially calling Tom T Hall stupid and simple. Has everyone also forgot his acting like a baby about cohen and the others?
jimmy row
February 20, 2015 @ 10:30 am
“My wife can’t feed’em and the neighbors they don’t care” I love that song.
GR
February 13, 2015 @ 10:43 pm
Why in the fuck would anyone take time out of a half hour speech to bad mouth Tom T. Hall??? Fuck Bob Dylan!!!
Albert
February 14, 2015 @ 2:00 am
Hahahahaha…exactly ! Too funny …….Bob couldn’t think of a few more people he could level before taking out Tom T. ??
Charlie
February 16, 2015 @ 9:54 am
People I would take to task before I would Tom T. Hall . .
Captain Kangaroo
Mister Rogers
Bob Ross
George Gobel
Pat Boone
Any Osmond family member
Andy Williams
Jim Reeves
Arthur Godfrey
Betty White
Wayne Brady
Mike Brady
Danny Thomas
Dikembe Motumbo
Dick Van Dyke
Brian Piccolo
Lawrence Welk
and the list goes on . . .
Jack Williams
February 18, 2015 @ 6:54 am
Definiitely George Gobel. He never made me laugh on Hollywood Squares.
luckyoldsun
February 13, 2015 @ 11:30 pm
I love Tom T. Hall–“Clayton Delaney,” “Forty Dollars,” “Country Jail,” “Watermelon Wine”–but I hate “I Love.” Not that I think Dylan should be bringing it up.
But the last thing I’m going to do is try to make sense of things that Dylan–or Haggard, for that matter, say.
Applejack
February 14, 2015 @ 12:19 am
The new Bob Dylan quote that appeared in Rolling Stone is actually an excerpt from a longer interview with author Bill Flanagan on BobDylan.com. Here’s a link to it:
http://www.bobdylan.com/us/news/post-musicares-conversation-bill-flanagan
Flanagan specifically asked Dylan whether he had intended to “diss” Haggard, which is what prompted the above response. In fact, Rolling Stone cut off part of Dylan’s answer, which continues on as follows:
“Back then, though, Buck and Merle were closely associated; two of a kind. They defined the Bakersfield sound. Buck reached out to me in those days, and lifted up my spirits when I was down, I mean really down – oppressed on all sides and down and that meant a lot, that Buck did that. I wasn”™t dissing Merle at all, we were different people back then. Those were difficult times. It was more intense back then and things hit harder and hurt more.”
Dylan also agreed with Flanagan that some of his “tongue in cheek” comments, which apparently drew laughs at the event, had been taken out of context, with Dylan saying “You had to be there.” Unfortunately, he didn’t ask Dylan to specifically clarify his remarks about Tom T. Hall. If he had, maybe Bob would have had more to say about it – I don’t know. It’s possible that neither Dylan nor Flanagan were aware that those comments had also caused a stir, as there wasn’t nearly as much press about it as there was about the alleged “feud” with Haggard.
Dyl
February 14, 2015 @ 1:22 am
Bob Dylan made people fall in love with America. Bob Dylan IS American culture. He’s done more as an artists to challenge, preserve, & celebrate what America is more than most artists put together…
J
February 14, 2015 @ 10:22 am
Really. So what did Dylan do that other artists with a huge fan base didn’t? What did he actually change? Saying dylan actually changed something is like saying the woodstock counter culture was a “revolution.” Its all been romanticized bud, and they’re still making money off of it.
“by and large there was nothing that even resembled a revolution, theres a lot of people talking about it, and they like to get together in large number and hold signs and march around and talk about it and then after the demonstration they would either be beaten up and have to get the blood off their head or they would get a bj from a girl in smelly blanket.” – Frank Zappa.
RD
February 15, 2015 @ 6:23 pm
“There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom.”
– Garet Garrett (1945)
Whatever little Bobby Zimmerman and his counterculture counterparts are supposed to have accomplished was well underway 30 years before anybody had heard his nasally drone, or witnesses his dour visage. All that those bums accomplished to was leading a generation of poor saps into an unfulfilled life of hedonism.
When a hero of the Marxists dies, I generally throw a party. When little Bobby Zimmerman finally kicks the bucket, I’m going to throw a rager and start my bonfire with a copy of The Times They Are a Changin’
Dyl
February 16, 2015 @ 6:50 am
I don’t see much point in responding to your posts here, they’ve nothing to do with what I said. Enjoy what ye enjoy. Disregarding Dylan is the usual I’m afraid. Dylan changed song writing forever, rewrote the book on Americana & had an unbiased unapologetic love for America. He embraced a shameful past with guts. As soon a he had a with a ‘huge fan base’, he had already moved on from that & turned his back on it. Maybe it’s more apparent to musicians & writers from other continents than it is for those actually in the USA. Countries & continents that American culture is rooted in.
RD
February 16, 2015 @ 7:30 am
Bob Dylan didn’t make people fall in love with America. He hitched his horse to the crusade that was busy tearing down the old America and building a multicultural welfare state. Who really knows if he now believes or then believed anything he said? He spins so much bullshit and lies that its hard to separate the truth from his faux persona. Either way, fuck ’em.
What is so shameful about America’s past?
Jack Williams
February 16, 2015 @ 7:32 am
Maybe it”™s more apparent to musicians & writers from other continents than it is for those actually in the USA.
No, I don’t think that’s it. This is just a typical culture warrior post from this particular commenter.
Eric
February 16, 2015 @ 6:03 pm
Bob Dylan contributed nothing to building a welfare state. Virtually the entire welfare state we have today is a legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society, the former occurring before Dylan was born and the latter being spearheaded by the World War II GI Generation rather than Dylan’s generation.
If anything, by dividing the working class along cultural lines, the counterculture movement helped lead to the downfall of the center-left consensus that had existed from the Depression all the way through the 1960’s.
Dyl
February 16, 2015 @ 7:04 pm
Yez don’t need me explaining the birth of America to ye. Ye also don’t need to be a warrior in order to have a interest in the journey of song & the journey of people. This thread just highlights the relevance of Bob. I do have to admit that I’m pretty surprised as to how man country fans diss Dylan, but so be it, his impact far outreaches any genre. Enjoy the predictability of this one… https://soundcloud.com/lynched_music/deanta-in-eireann
RD
February 17, 2015 @ 8:01 am
Smashing the old social order, tearing apart families, forcibly dismantling safe, homogeneous neighborhoods and schools, and attacking churches and private organizations, necessitates a welfare state to deal with the fallout. Of course it was done cynically, secretly, and deviously by many of the planners. Most of stupid kids in the street were just there for free sex and drugs. They were too dumb, and their parents too tired, and comfortable to confront it. As Tocqueville and Solzhenitsyn noted, in the American character is an overwhelming desire for conformity and to be viewed as “respectable.” When the march through the institutions began to bear fruit, and prominent members of the media, government, higher education, and academe began to spout the mantras of the revolution, 1950’s and 60’s Americans, outside of the South generally, were powerless to resist. They didn’t want to be seen as outside of the developing mainstream, though this “mainstream” hated them, hated their religion, hated their values, hated their ethnicity, hated their history, hated their politics, and wanted to destroy them.
We are living in the fallout.
Eric
February 17, 2015 @ 12:41 pm
The real American character is a desire for freedom and an open society, and the belief that people should be treated as individuals and not as members of groups.
Americans, more than the vast majority of other societies, believe that people’s choices of sexual behavior and consumed substances are nobody else’s business.
“Smashing the old social order, tearing apart families, forcibly dismantling safe, homogeneous neighborhoods and schools, and attacking churches and private organizations”
Nobody “smashed” families or churches. As women gained economic power, they naturally felt less of a need to stay trapped in oppressive marriages. Also, increasing knowledge of science naturally reduced the power of religion.
Also, I see absolutely nothing wrong with smashing neighborhoods and schools that were kept “homogeneous” through state and local laws. You might believe that people should be automatically judged based on what demographic group they belong to, but my views on individual merit are far closer to the American ideal enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, that “all men are created equal”.
Dyl
February 17, 2015 @ 12:42 pm
Look, this thread’s gone a bit nuts. Ye needn’t look any further than these comments & threads as to understand why Dylan might have said all the things he said. Seems like these comments are cut from the same cloth.
Have heard enough quotes too.
I love America, I love the countries it’s rooted in, I love Dylan, I love Merle, I love Country etc etc etc
Dylan is an invention, Bob Dylan is a performance. An ever changing one. Just because the mask is a performance, it doesn’t mean the soul of it isn’t deep rooted in American culture.
Is cinema, Hollywood, faux not a part of American culture? Of course it is. Dylan spent his youth in his uncles cinema. Even his lyrics are cinematic, let alone his mask & voice. I suppose Tom Waits is full of nonsense too?
I say this all the time, but I see Dylan as fire. Everything is his fuel, your love, your hate, your culture, your wars, your history, your posing etc etc etc. He just gathers it all up and spits it.
Dylan is a spunge. He has an enormous capacity to absorb & remember songs & all else.
I wish you guys celebrated him, even as a kid he sounded different to me. But if he’s not for your world, then he’s not for your world.
Head high & heart good.
Jack Williams
February 17, 2015 @ 12:56 pm
Dylan is an invention, Bob Dylan is a performance. An ever changing one. Just because the mask is a performance, it doesn”™t mean the soul of it isn”™t deep rooted in American culture.
I completely agree.
Beau Peep
February 14, 2015 @ 9:40 am
I’m a big Dylan fan. I was glad to see the whole cloth speech he made. I guess all the press has moved on now, but I’d still like some clarification on his Hall remarks. He seemed to be equating Hall with the whole Nashville Music Scene at the time. I don’t see how that squares. He gave Lieber and Stoller a dressing down as well. His logic was that on one side stood Lieber and Stoller and on the other side stood Doc Pomus. I guess he was saying that in country on one side stood Tom T. Hall and Merle Haggard and on the other stood Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash. Pomus and Johnny aren’t here anymore, but I;d sure like to have Kristofferson and Nelson’s take on that.
Alabama Arizona
February 14, 2015 @ 11:44 am
Hey trig can u find and post the full transcript of Dylan’s speech? Thanks bro
Applejack
February 15, 2015 @ 5:25 am
I still don’t buy that Dylan’s alleged beef with Haggard was political.
What he actually said was that he didn’t like being “lumped in” with all the things Haggard didn’t like at the time (such as the hippie counterculture) and felt hurt by that. What he didn’t elaborate on here is that he doesn’t consider himself to be a hippie, and doesn’t care about “the 60’s.” He’s actually been pretty consistent about that.
Though his accurate observations about how Haggard has changed over the years make it sound as if he considers himself to be on the hippies’ side, his comments have to be taken in the broader context of many other things he has said. For example, there was a big stink in 2004 when the first excerpts from his autobiography were released to the press, and they included statements about how he felt had “very little in common with” the “generation he supposedly represented.” Speaking about the late ’60s years, during which he was trying to enjoy a peaceful, domestic lifestyle with his family in upstate New York, Dylan referred to his annoyingly persistent hippie fans as “dropouts and druggies,” and even said he wanted to “set fire to them,” so he could enjoy his quiet, rural life in peace.
And all of that was happening about the time “Okie from Muskogee” was released.
D
February 15, 2015 @ 8:02 am
Trigger, thanks for the link to the full text on the Willie post. And of course, the add on here. The clarification is clearer for me, though Bob may need an extended road trip on the Honeysuckle Rose to chill out a bit. Truth is, I don’t like “I love” and it may be overcooked just like many songs by great artists. Another truth is that I listened to Tom T Hall and Merle as a kid but I did not know who Dylan was at that time, he did not speak for or move my people, my Americuh. I am surprised the successful Dylan can’t ignore the critics and chillax. Moving on….
markf
February 15, 2015 @ 12:24 pm
I don’t have a problem with people not liking Dylan’s tunes, but I can’t understand it at all.
Maybe you had to be around in those early days.
Scott
February 16, 2015 @ 11:57 am
Both are great artists with incredible catalogs of work. Glad they’re still with us!
Jake
February 19, 2015 @ 11:34 am
You what I like Dylan, but never got all the whorshipping of him. Now this bullshit. Yes, the Haggards stuff was essentially created by a writer, but his ripping of Tom T. Hall is crap. ‘I Love’ was off of a CHILDREN’s album for Christssake. I suspect that asshole knows it too. The same album included ‘Sneaky Snake’ and maybe the best ever song for a child feeling left out, put down, or just plain lonely in the song ‘I Care’.
Maybe Dylan forgets that he wrote ‘Man Gave Name To All the Animals’. If wants to see what simple looks like he should check that one out.
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago
He saw an animal that liked to growl
Big furry paws and he liked to howl
Great big furry back and furry hair
“Ah, think I”™ll call it a bear”
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago
He saw an animal up on a hill
Chewing up so much grass until she was filled
He saw milk comin”™ out but he didn”™t know how
“Ah, think I”™ll call it a cow”
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago
He saw an animal that liked to snort
Horns on his head and they weren”™t too short
It looked like there wasn”™t nothin”™ that he couldn”™t pull
“Ah, think I”™ll call it a bull”
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago
He saw an animal leavin”™ a muddy trail
Real dirty face and a curly tail
He wasn”™t too small and he wasn”™t too big
“Ah, think I”™ll call it a pig”
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago
Next animal that he did meet
Had wool on his back and hooves on his feet
Eating grass on a mountainside so steep
“Ah, think I”™ll call it a sheep”
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago
He saw an animal as smooth as glass
Slithering his way through the grass
Saw him disappear by a tree near a lake . . .