In the Jill Sobule song “Heroes” she laments, “Why are all our heroes so imperfect?”
She then proceeds to list several examples of the many failings of those we hold up as our heroes.
One such example is
What movie is she talking about, and what are the circumstances in which Dylan is mean to Donovan?
This might be a reference to Bob Dylan’s movie Don’t Look Back, which included an appearance by Donovan (a singer who was popular in the sixties and seventies).
From the Wiki article on Donovan:
Probably the 1967 documentary of his 1965 English tour, Don’t Look Back.
The IMDB poster is correct in that Dylan comes across mostly as an ass throughout the tour. In his favor, and in hindsight, Dylan was among the first to get the full-face media treatment that stars have now had decades to become accustomed to. He hated every minute of it, for very good reasons - the media was even more of an ass than he was. I think you have to read his autobiography, Chronicles, to fully understand the weight of scrutiny he felt he needed to crawl out from in order to have a human existence again. But he handled himself badly and was cruel to virtually everyone. Even Joan Baez couldn’t ever really forgive him, if you believe her devastating song, “Diamonds and Rust.”
Dylan has spent the last four decades of his life determined to tell all who wish to worship him that he is no hero. He was correct to do so as a human being, although I think the world lost some porducts of his genius at that price.
New York rock DJ Vin Scelsa has said he was with Bob Dylan when Bruce Sprinsteen appeared on the cover of "Time " and “Newsweek” the same week in 1975. It was a rare thing for a “rock and roller” to appear on even one of these magazines, let alone both at the same time, and especially for a relative unknown with two mediocre selling albums at the time. Dylan was constantly asking people “just how good is this Springsteen fellow”, in Scelsa’s opinion like an aging Old West gunfighter asking about the newest hot gun. Scelsa’s take on the “Don’t Look Back” movie is Dylan showed this same mix of fear and eagarness about Donova. When he meets him and Donovan plays his leightweight folk song, Dylan smiles “This kid is nothing”.
Scelsa has said he has met Dylan only a coupleof times and laughingly specualtes he is a space alien visiting earth from time to time.
Cite?
(I’d love to read the article.)
I don’t know if Scelsa’s ever written anything. He still has a Saturday night radio show “Idiot’s Delight” on WFUV 90.7 in NYC and on the station’s website. He has told
these anecdotes several times over the years.
Dylan was extremely ambitious, a quality many of his admirers seem to overlook, so there probably was some competitiveness in his feelings toward Donovan. However, I think Vin Scelsa had it right: Donovan was a lightweight next to Dylan, and Dylan knew it. In Don’t Look Back, after Donovan plays whatever twee little thing he plays, Dylan takes the guitar and proceeds to sing a version of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” that ruthlessly puts Donovan back in his place.
Interestingly, in a recent Dylan-centric issue of Mojo (yeah, I read it sometimes, leave me alone), Donovan disputed that interpretation, saying that if you pay careful attention to the scene in Don’t Look Back you’ll see that Dylan is actually being respectful and treating him like an artistic equal. That’s not my memory of it, to put it mildly, but assuming Donovan is being honest he felt no slight in Dylan’s treatment of him.
I have not seen Don’t Look Back so can’t speak to the scene, but have heard Donovan interviewed a few times recently - the one I remember most is Fresh Air on NPR. He is definitely interested in massaging his image - putting his innovations on a par with the Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, etc. So him framing his encounter with Dylan that way is not surprising at all.
Donovan is an articulate guy who had some poppy folk psychedelic tunes and happened to be in an interesting place at an interesting time. I haven’t heard any of his music that would change that view - I am open to hearing about it, but haven’t heard it myself…
That doesn’t mean Dylan should’ve dismissed him, if Zimmy in fact did so - but that is more a question of manners…
Yeah, I read an interview with him about a year ago in Goldmine where he seemed to feel that the major figures in 20th century music were the Beatles, Dylan, and Donovan, not necessarily in that order.
We all saw the same thing, we just saw it from a different point of view. Tangled up in blue.
Dylan could be extremely ruthless and competitive. He threw Phil Ochs out of a car when Ochs said he liked but did not love “can you please crawl out your window”. I don’t think there has ever been any real collaboration between the two of them on stage or anything.
My brother saw Donovan open for Yes in the early 1970s when his popularity had faded and theirs exploded (Fragile, Close to the Edge). He strummed his songs for 30 minutes to massive indifference and left saying “I’ll leave you to your heroes now”.