On fame and awards:
“I have had good and bad accolades. If you pay any attention to them at all, it makes us pathological. It makes us pathological, to read about ourselves. You try not to pay attention or you try to discard it as soon as possible.”
On the songwriting process:
“If I can’t make it happen when it comes — you know, when other things intrude — I usually don’t make it happen. I don’t go to a certain place at a certain time every day to build it. In my case, a lot of these songs, they lay around imperfectly.”
On the three ways to write a song:
“There’s three kinds of ways. You write lyrics and try to find a melody. Or, if you come up with a melody, then you have to stuff the lyrics in there some way.
And then the third kind of way is when they both come at the same time. Where it all comes in a blur: The words are the melody and the melody is the words. And that’s the ideal way for somebody like myself to get going with something.
‘All Along the Watchtower’ was that way. It leaped out in a very short time. I don’t like songs that make you feel feeble or indifferent. That lets a whole lot of things out of the picture for me.”
On Jimi Hendrix’s version of ‘All Along the Watchtower’:
“It overwhelmed me, really. He had such talent — he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn’t think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using. I took license with the song from his version, actually, and continue to do it to this day.”
On progress and time:
“I see pictures of the ‘50s, the ‘60s, and the ‘70s and I see there was a difference. But I don’t think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking there’s some kind of change. But after you’ve been around awhile, they both seem unnatural.
It seems like we’re going in a straight line, but then you start seeing signs that you’ve seen before. Haven’t you experienced that?
It seems we’re going around in circles.”
On his song ‘Slow Train Coming’:
“When I look ahead now, it’s picked up quite a bit of speed. In fact, it’s going like a freight train now.”
Source: A Midnight Chat With Dylan by John Dolen; Sun-Sentinel; September 28, 1995