Love Of Theft - Bob Dylan Outed Again - First On Dylanpool, Then NY Times
I-zheet Madroors
September 14, 2006
Who's This Guy Dylan Who's Borrowing Lines From Henry Timrod?
By MOTOKO RICH
Perhaps you've never heard of Henry Timrod, sometimes known as the poet
laureate of the Confederacy.
But maybe you've heard his words, if you're one of the 320,000 people so far
who have bought Bob Dylan's latest album, "Modern Times," which made its
debut last week at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart.
It seems that many of the lyrics on that album, Mr. Dylan's first No. 1
album in 30 years (down to No. 3 this week), bear some strong echoes to the
poems of Timrod, a Charleston native who wrote poems about the Civil War and
died in 1867 at the age of 39.
"More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours," the 65-year-old Mr.
Dylan sings in "When the Deal Goes Down," one of the songs on "Modern
Times." Compare that to these lines from Timrod's "Rhapsody of a Southern
Winter Night":
A round of precious hours
Oh! here, where in that summer noon I basked
And strove, with logic frailer than the flowers.
"No doubt about it, there has been some borrowing going on," said Walter
Brian Cisco, who wrote a 2004 biography of Timrod, when shown Mr. Dylan's
lyrics. Mr. Cisco said he could find at least six other phrases from Timrod's
poetry that appeared in Mr. Dylan's songs. But Mr. Cisco didn't seem
particularly bothered by that. "I'm glad Timrod is getting some
recognition," he said.
Henry Timrod was born in 1828 and was a private tutor on plantations before
the Civil War started. He tried to sign up for the Confederate Army but was
unable to serve in the field because he suffered from tuberculosis. He
worked as an editor for a daily paper in Columbia, S.C., and began writing
poems about the war and how it affected the residents of the South. He also
wrote love poems and ruminations on nature. During his lifetime he published
only one volume of poetry. Among his most famous poems were "Ode Sung on the
Occasion of Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead at Magnolia
Cemetery, Charleston, South Carolina 1866," and "Ethnogenesis." Mr. Cisco
said he could not find any phrases from these poems in Mr. Dylan's lyrics.
Mr. Dylan does not acknowledge any debt to Timrod on "Modern Times." The
liner notes simply say "All songs written by Bob Dylan" (although some fans
have noted online that the title of the album contains the letters of Timrod's
last name).
Nor does he credit the traditional blues songs from which he took the
titles, tunes and some lyrics for "Rollin' and Tumblin' " and "Nettie
Moore."
This isn't the first time fans have found striking similarities between Mr.
Dylan's lyrics and the words of other writers. On his last album, "Love and
Theft," a fan spotted about a dozen passages similar to lines from
"Confessions of a Yakuza," a gangster novel written by Junichi Saga, an
obscure Japanese writer. Other fans have pointed out the numerous references
to lines of dialogue from movies and dramas that appear throughout Mr. Dylan's
oeuvre. Example: "Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word" echoes a line from "Cat
on a Hot Tin Roof."
This time around Scott Warmuth, a disc jockey in Albuquerque and a former
music director for WUSB, a public radio station in Stony Brook, on Long
Island, discovered the concordances between Mr. Dylan's lyrics and Timrod's
poetry by doing some judicious Google searches. Mr. Warmuth said he wasn't
surprised to find that Mr. Dylan had leaned on a strong influence in writing
his lyrics.
"I think that's the way Bob Dylan has always written songs," he said. "It's
part of the folk process, even if you look from his first album until now."
Mr. Warmuth noted that Mr. Dylan may also have used a line from Timrod in
" 'Cross the Green Mountain," a song he wrote for the soundtrack to the
movie "Gods and Generals," which came out three years ago. Mr. Warmuth said
there also appeared to be passages from Timrod in "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle
Dum," a song on "Love and Theft."
Mr. Dylan has long been interested in the Civil War: in "Chronicles: Vol.
1," Mr. Dylan's autobiography, published by Simon & Schuster in 2004, he
writes about spending time in the New York Public Library combing through
microfilm copies of newspapers published from 1855 to 1865. "I crammed my
head full of as much of this stuff as I could stand and locked it away in my
mind out of sight, left it alone," Mr. Dylan wrote.
To Mr. Warmuth, who found 10 phrases echoing Timrod's poetry on "Modern
Times," Mr. Dylan's work is still original. "You could give the collected
works of Henry Timrod to a bunch of people, but none of them are going to
come up with Bob Dylan songs," he said.
Mr. Dylan could not be reached through his publicist for comment. A
spokeswoman for Columbia Records, Mr. Dylan's record label and a division of
Sony BMG Music Entertainment, did not return calls for comment.
Because Timrod is long dead and his work has fallen out of copyright - you
can find his collected poems on the Internet - there is no legal claim that
could be made against Mr. Dylan.
But some fans are bothered by the ethics of Mr. Dylan's borrowing ways. "Bob
really is a thieving little swine," wrote one poster on Dylan Pool
(pool.dylantree.com/phorum5/read.php?1,642969), a chat room where Mr.
Warmuth posted his findings. "If it was anyone else we'd be stringing them
up by their neck, but no, it's Bobby Dee, and 'the folk process.' "
Authors who have been caught copying from other writers have been accused
outright of plagiarism. Earlier this year Kaavya Viswanathan, a Harvard
sophomore who had written a first novel, "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got
Wild and Got a Life," was attacked when readers discovered that many
passages in the book nearly exactly replicated portions of "Sloppy Firsts"
and "Second Helpings," novels by Megan McCafferty. Ms. Viswanathan's
publisher, Little, Brown, pulled the book from shelves, and the author was
disgraced in the press.
In Mr. Dylan's case, critics and fans have long described the songwriter's
magpie tendencies, looking upon that as a manifestation of his genius, not
unlike other great writers and poets like T. S. Eliot or James Joyce who
have referenced past works.
Christopher Ricks, a professor of the humanities at Boston University who
wrote "Dylan's Visions of Sin," a flattering study of the musician, said, "I
may be too inclined to defend, but I do think it's characteristic of great
artists and songsters to immediately draw on their predecessors." He added
that it was atypical for popular musicians to acknowledge their influences.
Mr. Ricks said that one important distinguishing factor between plagiarism
and allusion, which is common among poets and songwriters, is that
"plagiarism wants you not to know the original, whereas allusion wants you
to know."
"When Eliot says, 'No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be' - to
have a line ending 'to be' when the most famous line uttered by Hamlet is
'to be or not to be' - then part of the fun and illumination in the Eliot
poem is that you should know it," he said. But he added: "I don't think
Dylan is alluding to Timrod. I don't think people can say that you're meant
to know that it's Timrod."
That's exactly what bothers Chris Dineen, a middle school Spanish teacher
and casual fan of Mr. Dylan's in Albuquerque. "It seems kind of
duplicitous," he said. "Even casual fans know that Dylan has a history of
doing this and it's part of what makes him great, but this is different.
This is one poet who's used over and over and over again."
Mr. Dineen said he would have been happy if Mr. Dylan had just given Timrod
credit for the lines. "Maybe it's the teacher in me. If I found out that he
had done this in a research paper, he'd be in big trouble."
But James Kibler, a professor of English at the University of Georgia who
teaches the poetry of Timrod in his Southern literature classes, was
delighted to hear of Mr. Dylan's use of the verse. "If I were Timrod, I
would love it," he said. "I would say he's doing a great honor to Timrod and
let's celebrate that." Mr. Kibler said he planned to share Mr. Dylan's
references with his classes because his students "probably know more about
Bob Dylan than Timrod."
Jackson K. Eskew
the dictatorship of relativism: unoriginality. Since truth is no longer
a factor in this regime, the comfortable values of consumerism have
filled the vacuum, chief among these being originality ("new and
improved!!").
There's in fact far less originality than people believe; every great
writer, artist, musician,
scientist etc. builds on his predecessors as they've built on theirs
and so on ad infinitum.... The primary goal for such greats is truth,
not originality. All of this is so obvious that it's banal to even say
it, yet many today have forgotten it in their blind worship of novelty
under the dictatorship of relativism - for this regime is essentially
consumerism run amok, consumerism at its most decadent stage.
"O wonder, how many goodly creatures are there here, how beautious
mankind is, O Brave New World that has such people in it."
-Shakespeare, The Tempest
Jackson K. Eskew
"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they
take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least
something different."
-From "The Sacred Wood" - http://www.bartleby.com/200/
olom...@comcast.net
> Mr. Dylan does not acknowledge any debt to Timrod on "Modern Times." The
> liner notes simply say "All songs written by Bob Dylan" (although some fans
> have noted online that the title of the album contains the letters of Timrod's
> last name).
I might add that the full anagram is "Timrod semen"
M. Rick
wrote "Dylan's Visions of Sin," a flattering study of the musician, said, "I
may be too inclined to defend, but I do think it's characteristic of great
artists and songsters to immediately draw on their predecessors."
Also characteristic of mediocre artists.
I'm more interested in how listeners are affected when they learn of certain
borrowings and thefts.
>But James Kibler, a professor of English at the University of Georgia who
teaches the poetry of Timrod in his Southern literature classes, was
delighted to hear of Mr. Dylan's use of the verse. "If I were Timrod, I
would love it," he said.
Timrod is really loving up a storm these days. Dead for 140 years.
David O'Brien
Dave O
"I-zheet Madroors" <i_zheet_...@yaSPAMLESShoo.com> wrote in message
news:DY5Og.11814$xQ1....@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
Barbara
"I-zheet Madroors" <i_zheet_...@yaSPAMLESShoo.com> wrote in message
news:DY5Og.11814$xQ1....@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
there hasn't been much posted to this thread.
I had to look up Timrod's poems for myself, and see where the lines were and
by golly, they were there.
Not sure how I feel about this. Part of me is saying, this isn't right, how
about giving credit where credit is due?
The other side is saying well, if you can take some beautiful words and put
them together with your own and make music to fit it and people to enjoy,
that's good. But I argue with myself on it, to have your name appear as
written all by you and give no credits elsewhere, if even on liner notes is
unsettling also.
Will Dockery
Barbara wrote:
>
> I find this all very interesting and find it also quite interesting that
> there hasn't been much posted to this thread.
> I had to look up Timrod's poems for myself, and see where the lines were and
> by golly, they were there.
> Not sure how I feel about this. Part of me is saying, this isn't right, how
> about giving credit where credit is due?
> The other side is saying well, if you can take some beautiful words and put
> them together with your own and make music to fit it and people to enjoy,
> that's good. But I argue with myself on it, to have your name appear as
> written all by you and give no credits elsewhere, if even on liner notes is
> unsettling also.
Yeah. I dig the record and am pleased that he hit #1 again finally, but
I'd already asked here if Modern Times was an album of covers judging
from the titles, and turns out there's a /lot/ of that on there, "Red
Sails In The Sunset", et cetera, and now this... I copied some of the
line comparisons from Dylanpool for my pal Henry Conley (who is already
performing "Someday Baby" and "Red Sails In The Sunset" here on local
stages), so I'll post them here also for the archives:
Henry Timrod, "called The Poet Laureate of the Confederacy
Henry Timrod lines on Modern Times
Posted by: scottw (---.albq.qwest.net)
Date: September 5, 2006 07:23PM
I came across another line that Bob appears to have lifted from a Herny
Timrod poem. The Timrod poem "Our Willie" has the line "Which drowned
the memories of the time/In a merely mortal bliss!" which is similar to
the line "My memories are drowning/In mortal bliss" from "Beyond The
Horizon."
Here are eight other Dylan/Timrod connections that have been previously
mentioned:
"When The Deal Goes Down" -
"More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours"
Henry Timrod's poem "A Rhapsody of a Southern Winter Night" -
"A round of precious hours/Oh! here, where in that summer noon I
basked/And strove, with logic frailer than the flowers"
-------------------------------------------------
"When The Deal Goes Down" -
"In the still of the night, in the world's ancient light/Where wisdom
grows up in strife"
Timrod's poem "Retirement" -
"There is a wisdom that grows up in strife"
-------------------------------------------------
"When The Deal Goes Down" -
"Well, the moon gives light and it shines by night/When I scarcely feel
the glow "
Timrod's "Two Portraits" -
"Still stealing on with pace so slow/Yourself will scarcely feel the
glow"
-------------------------------------------------
"When The Deal Goes Down" -
"You come to my eyes like a vision from the skies "
Timrod's "A Vision of Poesy - Part 01" -
"A strange far look would come into his eyes/As if he saw a vision in
the skies."
-------------------------------------------------
"When The Deal Goes Down" -
"Things I never meant nor wished to say"
Timrod's "Sonnet 13" -
"Things which you neither meant nor wished to say"
-------------------------------------------------
"Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" -
"Well a childish dream is a deathless need"
Timrod's "A Vision of Poesy - Part 01"
"A childish dream is now a deathless need"
-------------------------------------------------
"Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" -
"They walk among the stately trees/They know the secrets of the breeze"
Timrod's "A Vision of Poesy - Part 01" -
"And high and hushed arose the stately trees,
Yet shut within themselves, like dungeons, where
Lay fettered all the secrets of the breeze"
-------------------------------------------------"'Cross The Green
Mountain" -
"Along the dim Atlantic line/The ravaged land lies for miles behind"
which are similar to
Timrod's "Charleston" -
"But still, along yon dim Atlantic line/The only hostile smoke/Creeps
like a harmless mist above the brine/From some frail, floating oak."
Perhaps another Timrod influence on Modern Times:
>From "Workingman's Blues #2" -
"In the dark I hear the night birds call
I can feel a lover's breath
I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall
Sleep is like a temporary death"
>From Timrod's "Two Portraits" -
"You will perceive that in the breast
The germs of many virtues rest,
Which, ere they feel a lover's breath,
Lie in a temporary death"
>From "Spirit On The Water" -
"Can't explain/The sources of this hidden pain"
>From Timrod's "Two Portraits" -
"How then, O weary one! explain
The sources of that hidden pain?"
--
"Ozone Stigmata" by Will Dockery
http://www.myspace.com/willdockery
The Ride (Combat Zone) by Shadowville All-Stars
Video by Janis Petersen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lZ3VAmNTWc
Barbara
"Will Dockery" <will.d...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1158260009.6...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
Wow, Will, that's a lot of lines. I don't read Dylanpool, what are they
saying. Like I said I'm surprised there seems to be a silence here.
Barbara
rjaco...@charter.net
gabriel
Yes indeed, and being stirred frantically by the dylan-hating
nonentities at that so-called fansite. Read the moderate responses to
the use of Timrod's line by the academics and professional writers,
then read the crazed and bilious nonsense being spewed by some of the
so-called "fans". It's very instructive of the New York Times to have
linked to that site, it will no doubt give readers who follow the link
some idea of what Dylan has had to put up with all these years.
"Those who think Dylan merely plagiarizes miss the point. Dylan is a
folk musician; he uses American folk forms such as blues, rock, gospel,
and R&B as well as lyrics, licks, and/or whatever else he can to get a
song across. This tradition of borrowing and retelling goes back to the
beginning of song and story. Even the title of Modern Times is a
wink-eye reference to a film by Charlie Chaplin. It doesn't make Dylan
less; it makes him more, because he contains all of these songs within
himself. By his use of them, he adds to their secret histories and
labyrinthine legends."
--Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
Abbye
cooki...@gmail.com
throughout his career - this keeps playing in my head :
"steal a little and they throw you in jail
steal a lot and they make you king"
Seems to say it all doncha think?
- Dan
crazytimes
I think Dylan summed it up himself once, in something entitled, 'My
Life In A Stolen Moment'...
Just think of how much of your time Dylan has stolen, whether it be
listening to him, going to see him, thinking about him and writing on
newsgroups and so forth about it... He is the master theif... If it
exists, Dylan has stolen it!... Think of the mass detail-oriented
treatment he gets, he's got the audience eating out of his hand, he's
got them at each other's throats, he's made friends of some, moved
mountains with a lightning profiency... He's made women he's never met
swoon... He is the troubadour bandleader... He is the jester, and the
jester is still king...
angelgl...@yahoo.com
> Barbara wrote:
>
>>I find this all very interesting and find it also quite interesting that
>>there hasn't been much posted to this thread.
What did you expect on this newsgroup? Consider the following comment:
rjacobs3...@charter.net wrote:
> tempest in a teapot (oops, I stole that line)
>Yes indeed, and being stirred frantically by the dylan-hating
>nonentities at that so-called fansite. Read the moderate responses to
Why are people concerned about plagiarism, "nonentities"? If you can
answer that question, you would be doing all of us a favor.
Consider your laudatory quote:
>"Those who think Dylan merely plagiarizes miss the point. Dylan is a
>folk musician; he uses American folk forms such as blues, rock, gospel,
>and R&B as well as lyrics, licks, and/or whatever else he can to get a
No, Mr. Jurek misses the point. Allusion and plagiarism are two
different things. Much has been glossed of Eliot's famous line, "Big
poets borrow, small poets steal," but I'm certain Eliot did not condone
plagiarism by that quote. He meant when a major poet borrows something
he transforms it and makes it entirely his or her own, unless there's a
clear allusion or it's a public domain issue ("cultural furniture," as
we say). Obviously Eden and Eden's tree or Adam's apple or the Cross are
all part of cultural furniture. But I can't write, say, "And so exists,
faith, hope and love, but of all these the best is love" and claim
artistic originality because I slightly rephrsed many translations of
Paul's famous words from 1 Corinthians 13. I can't write
"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in these weary nights from hour to hour"
and claim, as Dylan's defenders claim, that I'm merely using the best
from the past. Clearly I'm trying to use arduously earned phraseology
and pass it off as my own. (That's a hyperbole, I admit, since nothing
seemed to have been arduous in Shakepeare; but it certainly applies in
most other literature. A poet works hard for his imagery and no other
poet has a claim to it, except, as with Eliot, where the allusion is
obvious and no-one can miss it. I can write a pop song that begins:
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's daisy?
Or, if I did, would you think me crazy?"
Now that's something which I just made up but might come from the pen of
someone like, say, Ogden Nash or Dorothy Parker. No-one would accuse me
of plagiarism of Shakespeare's famous sonnet, first, because it's
obviously a parody (the giveaway pun), second, because it's obviously
well known. But what Dylan is doing is obviously different.
>This tradition of borrowing and retelling goes back to the
>beginning of song and story. Even the title of Modern Times is a
>wink-eye reference to a film by Charlie Chaplin. It doesn't make Dylan
>less; it makes him more, because he contains all of these songs within
>himself. By his use of them, he adds to their secret histories and
>labyrinthine legends."
--Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What's going on here? What kind of rhetoric is this? Since when does a
poet become "more" by stealing more from other people? I wish Mr. Jurek
with evidence a single example of this. We're not talking about, say,
Stravinsky lifting Tchaikovksky for "The Fairy's Kiss" or Pergolesi for
another ballet in clear stylistic transformation of that material (even
though much of what Stravinsky thought was P. was not really his work!).
Nor are we talking about Picasso's transforming use of African
sculpture, where the reference is obvious. What Dylan did is what the
Beach Boys did with a Chuck Berry tune; and even John Lennon's lifting
of "You Can't Catch Me" (COME TOGETHER) at least involves a witty
musical transformation of tempo, implicitly transcending the original.
Still he was charged with plagiairms. But what Dylan is doing is hardly
"transcending" the original. It's more like when, according to several
biographies, he presumably "borrowed" records from a friend's record
collection without informing him. Apparently Mr. Dylan believe all Civil
War poems belong to him the way he believed other people's record
collections belonged to him. Some people end up in prison for doing
that; Dylan ends up on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
Another comment, below (I'm sorry, since I'm cuttng and pasting so I'm
losing track here, but I think the following is from Barbara:
>The other side is saying well, if you can take some beautiful words
and put
>them together with your own and make music to fit it and people to enjoy,
>that's good. But I argue with myself on it, to have your name appear as
>written all by you and give no credits elsewhere, if even on liner
notes is
It's good that you're struggling with yourself ("argue") because what
Dylan did is unacceptable. What you say is true ("if you can take some
beautiful words," etc.) provided it is not furtive. Obviously people
have been setting texts (say biblical texts) from time immemorial; and
that's fine. But people don't pass it off as original work nor think
they have squatter's rights to the entire history of literature (in
Dylan's case, culture, since he takes melodies too). All right: Charlie
Rich puts his name on Stephen Foster's "I Dream of Jeannie"; but
everyone knows where that song comes from. And Jagger-Richard took a
Robert Wilkins song for "Prodigal's Son" but kept this authorship. But
even Wilkins is not as obscure as a Civil War poem. What's especially
troubling about Dylan is this is not the first time.
But getting back to that quote from Eliot I paraphrased above, which
another poster quoted:
"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they
take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least
something different."
First, the quote is vague, like many biblical quotes, which is left to
the interpreter. Eliot certainly doesn't mean that writers can steal
complete imagery (as in the case of the historian, Ambrose). Writing is
hard work; damn hard. It's lonely, like Hemingway said, and like many
writing suicides affirm. With the exception of a Shakespeare or a Dante,
images come hard. I doubt if Eliot is condoning stealing those images.
When Eliot says "make it better" in effect he means, in effect, making
the reader forget the original not remember the original. When we hear
Beethoven's Ode to Joy melody in a hymn version, we want to go back to
the original and forget what we're hearing. Hence, if uncredited, that
would be plagiarism. But I doubt if anyone would be more entertained by
the original folk tunes of the Magic Flute than by Mozart's
transformation of them; or the heartbreaking way that Charles Ives
orchestrates the American national anthem (Second Symphony) clearly
transcends the original: besides, of course, the quote is minimal and is
obviously intended to be "heard" (i.e. allusive) or the point would be
lost entirely. Clearly Dylan doesn't expect his original source to be
"heard" in his lyrical lifting of that source! Lennon showed a more
transcendent sense when he lifted the line "I'd rather see you dead
little girl than to be with another man" in "Run for Your Life,"
besides, which, of course, the line would almost be in the public domain
(PD).
Now this from Mr. Eskew:
>This drivel is designed to charge Bob Dylan with a cardinal sin under
>the dictatorship of relativism: unoriginality. Since truth is no longer
>a factor in this regime, the comfortable values of consumerism have
>filled the vacuum, chief among these being originality ("new and
>improved!!").
>There's in fact far less originality than people believe; every great
>writer, artist, musician,
>scientist etc. builds on his predecessors as they've built on theirs
>and so on ad infinitum.... The primary goal for such greats is truth,
>not originality. All of this is so obvious that it's banal to even say
>it,
What are you saying here? There's no such thing as authorship? True,
originality, as Mr. Pound said, goes back to "origins." But that's not a
license to steal. This is a complicated issue, but clearly no-one should
be allowed to take complete phrases and call it his own. Otherwise, why
doesn't someone write a song titled "Like a Rolling Pebble" and include
key phrases from Dylan's song? "You know you only used to get hooked on
it," etc. This Dylan group would rise up in arms against that songwriter
as further proof that Dylan was a genius that people stole from. But
Dylan is also the genius who steals from! You can't have it both
ways.True, in the arts there's a lot of uncredited lifting. The melody
from Mark Knopfler's "Why Worry" (Brothers in Arms album) is lifted
almost note for note from a Schuert piano piece, available on Naxos'
collection of Schubert trios, a two-CD set); it's the posthumous
compositon. But that's only the tip of an iceberg. "Ghost Riders in the
Sky" is from "When Johnny Comes Marching Home"; gospel hymns borrow
tunes from the Londonderry Air, etc. I think I can name about 200
classical music borrowings, some credited, some not. In general, music
seems to be more in the PD than lyrics. Somehow lyrics seem more
proprietary (probably because of the variation tradition in music).
No-one cares much that Woody Guthrie adapted his melodies, but would
probably care more if he took the words or key phrases. Johnny Cash
lifted a lot of FOLSOM PRISON BLUES from a Gordon Jenkins concept album,
but the lyric borrowings seem more damaging than other borrowings.
As for one teacher quoted as saying that Dylan is doing Timrod an
honor, well, yes, if Timrod had been credited! There's a difference. I'm
doing a bank an honor by taking out a loan, but not if I secretly take
the funds from the bank. There's a difference of twenty years, I think.
gabriel
angelgloww2000*@yahoo.com wrote:
a lot of stuff...
hey, people have been stealing phrases from Dylan for decades... that's
part of his influence. There's a new-ish group called Wolf Mother who
have a song called 'The Joker and the Thief" - where did they get that
from I wonder? Warhol called one of his shows The Exploding Plastic
Inevitable -where did that come from? There was an album called 'Can't
Buy A Thrill' - a movie called 'The Mighty Quinn' - and it goes on and
on. Dylan should be the patron saint of sub-editors who use his lines
all the time in news headings. None of this is "acknowledged" in liner
notes or footnotes, it doesn't need to be nor should it be. It's
cultural ooze - ripples from a pool. You think Dylan didn't want people
to find out about Timrod?
rankflv
All very good points yet . . . Dylan "stealing" still doesn't bother
me. I mean come on, who really believes that James Joyce's allusions
are easily transparent and aimed at instant recognition.
Why are we not looking at these Timrod poems and seeing HOW Dylan is
using them. Do they enhance the listening experience? Do the songs
comment on the poems? Do the poems add further depth to the songs?
Is Modern times an answer to Timrod, a secrete tribute, a rebuttal?
Is Dylan using collage? Is there a relationship between "stolen" tunes
and "stolen" words that, when used in juxtaposition, creates something
new?
Dylan is not only about the turn of a phrase. I like to believe there
is much more going on, more interplay. The meanings of these songs get
across and are not lifted. They are Dylan's meanings no matter how he
comes to them.
Finding these borrowed phrases only shows me that Dylan cares less
about the wording and more about the meaning. (Something that happened
around 1969)
Many very intelligent, highly artistic individuals hold Dylan in a high
esteem as an artist, people who have heard, read, and seen the
world's greatest art. They put the discs on and they come away
feeling that they have experienced something original and profound. It
is in that moment that ART happens. Art does not happen when one is
pouring though google hits, searching for allusions or thefts.
Tif.
>
> I think Dylan summed it up himself once, in something entitled, 'My
> Life In A Stolen Moment'...
>
> Just think of how much of your time Dylan has stolen, whether it be
> listening to him, going to see him, thinking about him and writing on
> newsgroups and so forth about it... He is the master theif... If it
> exists, Dylan has stolen it!... Think of the mass detail-oriented
> treatment he gets, he's got the audience eating out of his hand, he's
> got them at each other's throats, he's made friends of some, moved
> mountains with a lightning profiency... He's made women he's never met
> swoon... He is the troubadour bandleader... He is the jester, and the
> jester is still king...
;) Oh you love Dylan, don't you ?
Is Dylan the master thief? One of them for sure. Like Rav Kook, Reb
Nachman, and many others whose purpose was/is/will be to Sing the Song
of Songs. How does one sing that song? Simply put, you allow It to sing
You.
" There were a lot of better singers and better musicians around
these places but there wasn't anybody close in nature to what I was
doing. Folk songs were the way I explored the universe, they were
pictures and the pictures were worth more than anything I could say. I
knew the inner substance of the thing. I could easily connect the
pieces. It meant nothing for me to rattle off things like " Columbus
Stockade," "Pastures of Plenty," "Brother in Korea" and "
If I lose, Let Me Lose" all back-to-back just like it was one long
song. Most of the other performers tried to put themselves across,
rather than the song, but I didn't care about doing that. With me, it
was about putting the song across."
Chronicles p.18
.
bliss
I dig the tunes. That's good enough for me. If it's plagiarism, that's
on Dylan's conscience, not mine.
Tif.
Angelgloww2000,
I enjoyed your post . I still feel a big rising smile when I see the
words "transcendent" and "lifted" applied to the line "I'd rather see
you dead little girl than to be with another man".
angelgloww2000*@yahoo.com wrote:
> Lennon showed a more
> transcendent sense when he lifted the line "I'd rather see you dead
> little girl than to be with another man" in "Run for Your Life,"
> besides, which, of course, the line would almost be in the public domain
> (PD).
Ah! those modern times can be so funny. Got to laugh, it's time.
" Il etait une fois un pays qui renfermait tous les pays du monde; et
dans ce pays il y avait une ville qui incorporait toutes les villes du
pays; et dans cette ville il y avait une rue qui reunissait en elle
toutes les rues de la ville; et dans cette rue il y avait une maison
qui abritait toutes les maisons de la rue; et dans cette maison il y
avait une chambre, et dans cette chambre il y avait un homme, et cet
homme riait, riait, et nul n'avait jamais ri comme lui. "
Rabbi Nachman de Bratzlav quoted by Elie Wiesel (in
another context )
Without withdrawing from the human drama,
a free being can rise above it
and find hints of de-light anywhere.
Humor gives a twist to the rigid road of 'normality'
and introduces a new dimension
into what seemed previously frozen reality.
It reveals more of the fullness of what is
and slips between the cracks of set routines
to redeem vibrant flashes of life.
Laughter's electrical charges open up virgin spaces
and life takes in deep, fresh breaths.
Even though her match ignites fires of change,
the humorous one remains free of the need to convince.
When swiftly she adds salt to the brew,
she asks for no rewards.
Her only desire is to sing the note
that will add a beat to an old song
and suggest a new arrangement to the tune of life.
Humor is divine laughter,
the delight of the soul
and one of life's best wines.
One who cannot laugh is one who is not healed.
She has not yet awakened to the awareness
that life is but another dream.
Humor is a living cascade smoothing the rocks of life,
a flying harlequin holding on to the joy full spirit,
a grain of salt that preserves the sanity
of dreaming in the flesh.
In the midst of hell, clear joy is the well in the desert,
in a being of prayer, laughter can turn the world around.
When laughter and joy spring forth to create dancing forms,
the New is released,
the fire is lit,
sparks crackle and heal.
.
angelgl...@yahoo.com
>>Christopher Ricks, a professor of the humanities at Boston University who
>
> wrote "Dylan's Visions of Sin," a flattering study of the musician, said, "I
> may be too inclined to defend, but I do think it's characteristic of great
> artists and songsters to immediately draw on their predecessors."
>
> Also characteristic of mediocre artists.
>
> I'm more interested in how listeners are affected when they learn of certain
> borrowings and thefts.
that article reflects puzzlement in this particular instance as to why
Dylan (or "Bob" to use the caratative form people here like to use)
didn't attribute his sources. At least that's the way I read it (you can
check it yourself).
As for the later quote, if that is not blatant condescension I don't
know what is. I can assure Mr. Kibler, without any reservations, that I
would never be honored by someone taking my hard-earned metaphors,
images, figures of speech, and descriptive prose (as that historican
paraphrased the writing of others). If anything should be copyrights,
certainly it's a "syntagmatic chain" of prose. Why should I be flattered
if I wrote "The Road Not Taken" (by Frost) and heard a Dylan album with
lyrics like,
"Two rivers diverged in a narrow brook:
Regretting I could not sail both and be one sailor," etc.
That's plagiarism. That's taking my hard-earned poetry. I worked for
that. Besides, as a professor, Mr. Kibler has honestly got to ask
himself, if he found similar borrowings in a student, would he say, "If
I were Keats, I would love it"? If the answer is no, if he would fail
the student and possibly even advise expulsion, then he's got to observe
similar standards. In NO way does "Bob" transcend his source material;
nor is that source material part of the cultural currency ("the
furniture of the mind" to use a phrase I found in several writers,
including Sir Kenneth Clark). I myself borrowed the opening line from
Dante's Comedy:
"Midway on the journey of our life, I found myself."
That's not the actual sentence, but the reader gets the point (by
curtailing the end, I at least DO SOMETHING with the original, which
makes it potentially parodistic, like (was it Philip Larkin?) "all's
well that ends." Regarding Dante, first, it's assumed that that opening
line of Dante's poem (the Comedy or "Divine Comedy)) is part of the
furniture of the mind. Now like scientific verifcation, which works in
principle, that doesn't mean that every single person will recognize (no
more than every single person will be able to prove a scientific
theorem); but it mean "in principle" it can be done. But nobody can
argue that Dylan think those Civil War poems are part of the furniture
of the mind. "Let there be light" is part of our cultural furniture; but
not those CW poems. Besides, if "Bob" gets away with it, so too should
that young novelist who was found to have taken some phrases from
romantic novels. Or does "Bob" transcend his source but that youth does
not? Or maybe age matters here. "Do as I say, not as I do."
And the reference to Timrod being dead for 140 years further confirms
the "obscurity" of the texts that "Bob" borrowed. As for some of the
other borrowings Dylan did, obviously they're different. And admittedly,
artistic borrowings are more nebulous than those in scholarship, where
even a single phrase might land you in hot water. But I can't imagine
anyone giving Dylan that latitude in this case, except with far-fetched
rationales and rhetorics.
gabriel
M. Rick wrote:
>
> Timrod is really loving up a storm these days. Dead for 140 years.
Just as an aside, both Henry Timrod and Bob Dylan are included in the
2006 edition of The Oxford Book of American Poetry.
angelgl...@yahoo.com
>
> All very good points yet . . . Dylan "stealing" still doesn't bother
> me. I mean come on, who really believes that James Joyce's allusions
> are easily transparent and aimed at instant recognition.
>
Let's not go around in circles. Allusions and lifting complete phrases
(possibly similes and metaphors) are different kinds, not merely
different species. I challenge a reader to show me a single insteance of
such borrowings in reputable literature, other of course than obvious
allusive writing, footnoted writing, paraphrastic writing, or parodistic
writing, all protected both morally and legally. The challenge is open.
I don't mean something like W. H. Auden's parodies; the obvious
allusions in Eliot's Waste Land (often with quotes around them and even
footnotes, though nullified by Mr. Pound). I CAN'T (I REPEAT FOR THE
HARD OF HEARING), I CAN'T write:
"Christmas is the cruelest season,
Confusing me with memory and desire," etc.
I simpoy CANNOT DO THAT. If so, the concept of authorship goes out the
window. And regardless of contemporary critical challenges to
authorship, nobody traffics in that currency, in the same way that
despite skeptical philosophy, the average person doesn't really doubt
the person stealing money from his cash register. Not only Dr. Johnson
knew this, by kicking a stone. Read Moliere's hilarious short comedy,
THE FORCED MARRIAGE for how to handle Aristotelian and skeptic philosophies.
I REPEAT, anyone who argues that that couplet I made up, partly based
on phrases from Eliot's Waste Land, is legitimate, well at least we know
where you stand. But that's exactly what Dylan did. His phrases clearly
overlapped similes and metaphors, as I understand them. These are (to
use legal jargon, "salient phrases." They're not phrases like "in the
end," or "scratching my head," etc. in the language currency. "Memory
and desire" is unlikely to be linked by any other writer; while the
syntagmatic chain, including "cruelest" are unlikely collocations (one
way to detect plagiarism). Of course there are common collocations:
"Merry Christmas," for one; "tight spot," etc. (few would use "dangerous
spot," for example; this is part of idiomatic currency).
As for the comments below, that's quibbling. Why don't we ask how a
freshman student uses her borrowings in the same way? "Do Keats' poems
add further depth to Nancy's poem"? Remember, Emerson said "A FOOLISH
consistency is the hoboblin of little minds," not consistency itself. We
can't simply throw overboard the entire concept of plagiarism and
originality to save "Bob's" legendary status.
MT MAY be "an answer to Timrod, a secret tribute," but that's NOT how
tributes work. Read above. It's almost absurd to imagine that Dylan
expected the average or even the informed listener to gloss his lyric
with Timrod's or even to know Timrod's work. Nor does Dylan DO antying
with his borrowing, as in the line I quoted, "All's well that ends."
Or, "In the beginning, God created the Heavens and--my little cottage,
which still stands by the quiet rivulet that leads into town."
"Is there a relationship between 'stolen' tunes and 'stolen' words that,
when used in juxtaposition, creates something new?" You mean like
fitting the national anthem on to Beethoven's Ode to Joy and claiming
credit for both the national anthem and Beethoven's Ode to Joy. To be
honest, I wish you were right. I'd love to fit Shakespeare's King Lear
to Mozart's DON GIOVANNI score and claim credit for both of them.
> Why are we not looking at these Timrod poems and seeing HOW Dylan is
> using them. Do they enhance the listening experience? Do the songs
> comment on the poems? Do the poems add further depth to the songs?
>
> Is Modern times an answer to Timrod, a secrete tribute, a rebuttal?
>
> Is Dylan using collage? Is there a relationship between "stolen" tunes
> and "stolen" words that, when used in juxtaposition, creates something
> new?
>
> Dylan is not only about the turn of a phrase. I like to believe there
> is much more going on, more interplay. The meanings of these songs get
> across and are not lifted. They are Dylan's meanings no matter how he
> comes to them.
That's like a mother saying about her son who was caught robbing a bank,
"My son is not only about carrying money belonging to the bank. I like
to believe there was much more going on, more like play than really
stealing. It's my son's money no matter how he happened to get it."
>
> Finding these borrowed phrases only shows me that Dylan cares less
> about the wording and more about the meaning. (Something that happened
> around 1969)
In art, the wording and the meaning are the same thing. What are you
saying, "around 1969"? You mean "around 1969" all honesty or artistic
standards (the rights of the author) perished in academia? People have
been dreaming about getting lost in beautiful woods for millennia, but
only Frost has the right to the following meaning cum wording:
"Whose woods these are I think I know
His house is in the village though,
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow."
What if I write a song that goes:
"Whose land this is, indeed I know,
She now lives in the city though,
It little matters if I stop by here
To sit and watch the river flow."
Note a lot has changed here, but clearly not enough. If you have doubts,
check it out.
>
> Many very intelligent, highly artistic individuals hold Dylan in a high
> esteem as an artist, people who have heard, read, and seen the
> world's greatest art.
What kind of ad hominem argument is this? Reputable people have
embezzled funds; decent bank clerks have mutilated their wives in an
adulterous fit of anger. They're still guilty.
They put the discs on and they come away
> feeling that they have experienced something original and profound. It
> is in that moment that ART happens. Art does not happen when one is
> pouring though google hits, searching for allusions or thefts.
What in heavens are you saying here? Art happens when one writes
original material. That's when art "happens," google hits or no. It
can't happen any other way, or there would be a lot of happy freshmen
students this fall in colleges all over the world. In fact, if they are
happy (as some are) it's because they plan to do what "Bob" did. The
difference is, they'll get their names on the Dean's dismissal list
while "Bob" gets his name on the Rolling Stone's Ten Best list.
>
angelgl...@yahoo.com
> justifying theft because, after all Eliot said..., we find ourselves on
> a slippery ethical slope. Initially the "some joker got lucky but it
> was accident" lift seemed to apply here since it also went uncredited
I read a reference to this before? What did Dylan borrow of that "some
joker got lucky" quote? I'm curious, since I don't follow Dylan that
closely. I know there's a wonderful line in IDIOT WIND, "And when she
died I inherited a million bucks: I can't help it if I'm lucky." Is that
the line you refer to?
> and I feel safe in assuming that it wasn't a big enough piece of
> cultural furniture when that record came out for people to be able to
> nod smiling at that allusion--or lift. Obviously when Dylan complains
> in one of his songs that "imitators rob me blind," he looks
> hypocritical when plagiarising other people's work. Even more
Yes. You know, I'm not a "holier than thou" (itself a "lift" from
Isaiah) person. But standards are standards and should be applied
uniformly. I can't believe when I read some of the responses in this
thread: taking phrases from a poet is like taking money from a house.
It's the same thing like when Dylan reputedly stole records from a
friend's collection and returned them only after a physical
confrontation. What are we going to say, "The records really belonged to
Bob, since Bob knew how to listen to them"? If a student submits a poem
for her college poetry contest that goes,
"Trailing clouds of glory, I came
Imprisoned in this nether world,
From the real world, which is my home."
judges will judge her poem on, among other criteria, memorable phrases,
etc. Obviously "trailing clouds of glory" will gather that student
points, the way a triple with insure points for an ice skaater. But when
it's discovered that that phrase comes from Wordsworth, her award will
be revoked. That's obvious. The phrase doesn't belong to her; it belongs
to Wordsworth. What are "Bob's defenders" going to say: "She did
something with that image"?
Of course, there are "commonplaces" in the above example (from Plato,
from Plotinus, from the Gnostics, even John's Gospel) that would be part
of the furniture of the mind and, properly used, would not mar an
author's claim to originality (indeed, as Pound opined, that would
constitute going back to the origins). In fact, John himself sublimely
lifted the opening words of Genesis for the famous incipit of his
Gospel, with clear referential intent and transforming the concept of
creation from the physical to the spiritual planes. I doubt if Bob is
doing something similar!
Nor does any of this invalidate Bob's other work, where reasonably
original. It's as silly to argue backwards to authentic work as it is
(and as Bob's defenders are doing) to argue forwards: "Because Bob had
great works in the past, he can't be accused of plagiaism today." Or:
"Because Bob is guilty of plagiarism today, his past work suffers too."
In fact, there's no relationship in either case. "Like a Rolling Stone"
remains an original masterpiece; LOVE AND THEFT and MODERN TIMES (both
reputably based on plagiarisms) are seriously compromised, whatever
their intrinsic worth. And certainly Dylan's integrity is very much at
stake & Columbia/Sony should take a stand on this issue. I doubt it will
happen, however: "artistic license," you know.
> hypocritical when in this case it isn't even a matter of imitation.
> And obviously Dylan fans who dig his righteous indignation at various
> and sundry wrongs of the world face an ethical dillemma when their hero
> seems to feel comfortable acting unethically. Maybe these songs end up
> with an asterisk beside them or maybe he comes down a few notches as an
> originator, I don't know. Or maybe, as Muddy Waters said, it's just
> "the stuff you got to watch."
Mr Jinx
Dylan has stolen nothing. He has created a song. The poem from where
he drew the lines is a poem. We might as well say that someone can't
use the same kind of bricks to build a station as they do to build a
museum. Why not? Two entirely different creations using the same
materials.
Every word used by every writer has been used before.
Mr Jinx
M. Rick
titles, song titles and famous lifts. Perhaps he's more
interpretative than creative, but there's a lot of creativity in good
interpretative art. I'm not sure that album credits would change how people
hear the songs.
Ricks suggests that originality is not an issue when the artist is great. A
contrary argument is that unoriginality disqualifies any work as art. My
view is that originality is one of many criteria (albeit an important one)
in evaluating art. Robert Johnson borrowed a hell of a lot, but what he
created from it is the heart of the matter.
angelgl...@yahoo.com
book, Visions of Sin. Second, the quote by Ricks in the Times article is
ambiguous but important enough to address. Here's one relevant quote:
"I
may be too inclined to defend, but I do think it's characteristic of great
artists and songsters to immediately draw on their predecessors."
Yes, but what does that mean, to "draw on their predecessors"? Obviously
it's a truism if it has any value at all. Hemingway drew on Mark Twain.
He didn't write a story about a boy trying to save an immigrant by
floating down the Ohio river, for example, in order to elude the police.
No, Huck Finn became Nick Adams; Twain's style was used as a basis for
Hemingway's style (as was biblical prose too). Nobody would accuse Papa
of plagiarism because the title of The Sun Also Rises is from
Ecclesiastes or For Whom the Bell Tolls is from Donne. Nobody would
accuse Hopkins of plagiarizing Jeremiah's famous text, "Why do the evil
prosper"? in his great sonnet that ends, "send these dry roots rain."
These artists did something with the original; besides which of course
the original was obviously intended to be known. Obviously de Palma
expected audiences to recognize Potemkin in the famous baby carriage on
the stairs sequence in one of his films (or similar references to Hitch
in Body Double or Dressed to Kill). These are technically what are known
as homages, legitimate references.
Now note the seemingly equivocal words from Ricks:
"He added
that it was atypical for popular musicians to acknowledge their influences."
Yes, influences! Not direct lifts. Besides, I doubt the truth of that
statement anyway. Chuck Berry acknowledged Charles Brown's influence;
Ray Charles' debt to Nat King Cole (on this early blues recordings) is
obvious; his gospel borrowings were controversial in this day (I Got a
Woman, This Little Girl of Mine, to name too) and clearly were not
furtive. The gospel call and response style is a legitimate stylistic
borrowing, like Hemingway's paratactic prose based on the Bible
(polysyndeton, to use the rhetorical term for many "ands"): the opening
paragraph of Farewell to Arms remains one of the most beautiful of 20th
century prose.
"Mr. Ricks said that one important distinguishing factor between plagiarism
and allusion, which is common among poets and songwriters, is that
"plagiarism wants you not to know the original, whereas allusion wants you
to know."
Honestly I don't know what this is supposed to mean. Plagiarism cannot
be judged by these subjective standards. Aesthetics can, but not
plagiarism. Besides, Dylan never revealed his sources! I suppose the
anagram was a clever defense: if people never found out, well and good;
if people did find out, he would have a way out!
"When Eliot says, 'No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be' - to
have a line ending 'to be' when the most famous line uttered by Hamlet is
'to be or not to be' - then part of the fun and illumination in the Eliot
poem is that you should know it," he said.
Yes, but where's the relation between Eliot's line and Dylan's
borrowings? The only borrowing Eliot did was the common infinitive, "to
be"! Dylan's case is entirely different, taking complete lapidary
sentences and presenting them as his own:
"There is a wisdom that grows up in strife" vs. "where wisdom grows up
in strife"! Come on! Why should Dylan gain credit for that unique
collocation of ideas? And if he can, then all freshmen students should too.
Now "suffering leads to wisdom" is a commonplace, back to the great
Greek plays. But the distinctive borrowings in this case are different.
Now consider another, seemingly condemnatory, quote from Ricks:
But he added: "I don't think
Dylan is alluding to Timrod. I don't think people can say that you're meant
to know that it's Timrod."
Here Ricks at least SEEMS to be condemning Dylan by saying "I don't
think people can say that you're meant to know that it's Timrod." In
other words, all claims to artistic and legitimate allusion are no
longer valid; this is furtive plagiarism. Luckily, it just turns out
that my last name is Timrod and I probably never have to work again,
once I receive 20% of our Bob's royalties! :)
Getting back to the original comment by our poster, namely, "I don't
think it would change how people hear the songs," misses the point. This
is a problem of ethics; this is not Bob, Bob, Bob! Dylan has no right to
pilfer the work of other artists like this. How people hear the songs is
a secondary issue.
M. Rick
"rights" -- Bob Dylan, you or I have the "right" to steal from any song or
poet we like, as long as the work is not under copyright. If I could
copyright one of Dylan's songs in my name, I'd be more than happy to collect
his royalties. But as an ethical man, I'd make sure to send him a Christmas
card every year, along with some incense and a bottle of Jack Daniels.
Temporary Like Achilles
and Dylan's use of some of his lines in "Love And Theft". I imagine
these arguments -- we seem to get from discussion to argument very
quickly -- will continue regarding "Modern Times". In fact, when the
entire canon is dissected, as other posters have noted, the issue will
become even more contentious. Take "I'm just sitting here beating on my
trumpet," for example. Everyone who hears that line understands that it
has sexual connotations. It is also an almost exact quotation from a
speech by Abraham Lincoln in which he uses the phrase "beating on his
trumpet" to describe a frustrated bugler who is waiting impatiently to
be given the signal to sound the charge. Does that invalidate the line?
Does it make it more clever? I tend to think the latter is the case and
that Dylan brilliantly appropriates the past to transmit it into modern
times and create something new in the present. (Folk music is "handed
down songs", as he noted in Chronicles; the same is true of
literature.)
At any rate, could we try to discuss instead of argue? I think that,
ultimately, discussion is more valuable, although arguing can be more
enjoyable.
:-)
Temporary
Mr Jinx
crazytimes wrote:
> I think Dylan summed it up himself once, in something entitled, 'My
> Life In A Stolen Moment'...
>
> Just think of how much of your time Dylan has stolen, whether it be
> listening to him, going to see him, thinking about him and writing on
> newsgroups and so forth about it... He is the master theif... If it
> exists, Dylan has stolen it!... Think of the mass detail-oriented
> treatment he gets, he's got the audience eating out of his hand, he's
> got them at each other's throats, he's made friends of some, moved
> mountains with a lightning profiency... He's made women he's never met
> swoon... He is the troubadour bandleader... He is the jester, and the
> jester is still king...
This is an excellent post.
To understand that Dylan's gifts have nothing to do with ownership or
originality is, in my view, the crucial step to seeing what he actually
has got.
I believe ... because I have seen it with my own eyes, that he is a
jester, agitator and disturber of the peace. What he owns or folds into
this process it by the by. He is a ghost in the machine, an imp, a
trouble-maker. He makes us crash into ourselves and shows us how we
are absurd. And then how we are not absurd. He doesn't care and he
cares.
Can't get enough of him. I prefer his thefts to anyone else's
'originality'.
Mr Jinx
gabriel
angelgloww2000*@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> >Yes indeed, and being stirred frantically by the dylan-hating
> >nonentities at that so-called fansite. Read the moderate responses to
>
> Why are people concerned about plagiarism, "nonentities"? If you can
> answer that question, you would be doing all of us a favor.
hmm, could you point to where I said "people concerned about plagiarism
are nonentities" ?
This guy seems to feel the same about this anonymous bile as I do :
And can we please declare a moratorium on journalists quoting anonymous
discussion forum posters as if their words imply anything at all? In
this piece on Dylan, here.
We get:
But some fans are bothered by the ethics of Mr. Dylan's borrowing
ways. "Bob really is a thieving little swine," wrote one poster on
Dylan Pool pool.dylantree.com/phorum5/read.php?1,642969), a chat room
where Mr. Warmuth posted his findings. "If it was anyone else we'd
be stringing them up by their neck, but no, it's Bobby Dee, and
'the folk process.'"
My question is: "Who cares what you think, punk? You don't even
have a name."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/
...oh yeah, that's from Eric Alterman, you see he has an actual name on
his writings.
By the by, the New York Times edited the more obscene ravings of that
particular comment, but if you followed their link you'd read more than
enough.
angelgl...@yahoo.com
Oh come on! Since when is plagiarism not an ethical issue? I think
you're confusing copyright infringement and plagiarism. Though both are
ethical issues, one does not compromise one's artistic integrity, the
other does. A sampling of a Ray Charles song in a hip hop record may
constitute legal infringement but not compromise one's artistic
integrity. A parody of Gone with the Wind may constitute infringment
(depending on what nine juors decide) but it would not compromise one's
artistic integrity. Obviously in Dylan's case he could not be accused of
infringement, since there's no copyright issue involved. But artistic
integrity is another matter. To be honest, as much as I love Johnny
Cash, I don't see why Gordon Jenkins should not share part author credit
for FOLSOM PRISON BLUES (a settlement was made out of court for the
money part), since money isn't everything. I suppose Chuck Berry was
satisfied with the money for 'COME TOGETHER' (and I don't blame him, if
he's getting part royalties on that song) and kissed co-credit goodbye
(though I haven't checked recent Beatles releases; he may now receive
co-credit, though I dobut it).
Let me say I honestly cannot comprehend what I'm reading on this
newsgroup and esp. in this thread. Do you really believe "you or I have
the 'right' to steal from any song or poet we like, as long as the work
is not under copyright"? I honestly can't believe I'm reading those
words. Are you a typical Dylan fan? Did you go to college? If not, and
you intend to, be VERY careful. Really, I'm just trying to enlighten
you. You CANNOT take another's work like Dylan did. You CANNOT! But it
seems that this newsgroup and other Dylan fans are trying everything
possible--however bizarre--to defend his actions, including finding
anagrammatic symbolism in the title of the CD. Where's the anagram,
except in an adventitious sense. But that wouldn't change matters anyway.
Barbara
"Mr Jinx" <vernon_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1158315580.2...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
phrasing.
Will Dockery
> "Will Dockery" wrote:
> > Barbara wrote:
>
> > > there hasn't been much posted to this thread.
> > > I had to look up Timrod's poems for myself, and see where the lines were
> and
> > > by golly, they were there.
> > > Not sure how I feel about this. Part of me is saying, this isn't right,
> how
> > > about giving credit where credit is due?
> > > The other side is saying well, if you can take some beautiful words and
> put
> > > them together with your own and make music to fit it and people to
> enjoy,
> > > that's good. But I argue with myself on it, to have your name appear as
> > > written all by you and give no credits elsewhere, if even on liner notes
> is
> > > unsettling also.
> >
> > I'd already asked here if Modern Times was an album of covers judging
> > from the titles, and turns out there's a /lot/ of that on there, "Red
> > Sails In The Sunset", et cetera, and now this... I copied some of the
> > line comparisons from Dylanpool for my pal Henry Conley (who is already
> > performing "Someday Baby" and "Red Sails In The Sunset" here on local
> > stages), so I'll post them here also for the archives:
> >
> > Henry Timrod, "called The Poet Laureate of the Confederacy
> >
> > Henry Timrod lines on Modern Times
> > Posted by: scottw (---.albq.qwest.net)
> >
> > Date: September 5, 2006 07:23PM
> >
> > I came across another line that Bob appears to have lifted from a Herny
> > Timrod poem. The Timrod poem "Our Willie" has the line "Which drowned
> > the memories of the time/In a merely mortal bliss!" which is similar to
> > the line "My memories are drowning/In mortal bliss" from "Beyond The
> > Horizon."
> >
> > Here are eight other Dylan/Timrod connections that have been previously
> > mentioned:
> >
> > "When The Deal Goes Down" -
> > "More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours"
> >
> > "A round of precious hours/Oh! here, where in that summer noon I
> > basked/And strove, with logic frailer than the flowers"
> > -------------------------------------------------
> > "When The Deal Goes Down" -
> > "In the still of the night, in the world's ancient light/Where wisdom
> > grows up in strife"
> >
> > Timrod's poem "Retirement" -
> > "There is a wisdom that grows up in strife"
> > "When The Deal Goes Down" -
> > "Well, the moon gives light and it shines by night/When I scarcely feel
> > the glow "
> >
> > Timrod's "Two Portraits" -
> > "Still stealing on with pace so slow/Yourself will scarcely feel the
> > glow"
> > -------------------------------------------------
> > "When The Deal Goes Down" -
> > "You come to my eyes like a vision from the skies "
> >
> > Timrod's "A Vision of Poesy - Part 01" -
> > "A strange far look would come into his eyes/As if he saw a vision in
> > the skies."
> > -------------------------------------------------
> > "When The Deal Goes Down" -
> > "Things I never meant nor wished to say"
> >
> > Timrod's "Sonnet 13" -
> > "Things which you neither meant nor wished to say"
> > -------------------------------------------------
> > "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" -
> > "Well a childish dream is a deathless need"
> >
> > Timrod's "A Vision of Poesy - Part 01"
> > "A childish dream is now a deathless need"
> > -------------------------------------------------
> > "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" -
> > "They walk among the stately trees/They know the secrets of the breeze"
> >
> > Timrod's "A Vision of Poesy - Part 01" -
> > "And high and hushed arose the stately trees,
> > Yet shut within themselves, like dungeons, where
> > Lay fettered all the secrets of the breeze"
> > -------------------------------------------------"'Cross The Green
> > Mountain" -
> > "Along the dim Atlantic line/The ravaged land lies for miles behind"
> > which are similar to
> >
> > Timrod's "Charleston" -
> > "But still, along yon dim Atlantic line/The only hostile smoke/Creeps
> > like a harmless mist above the brine/From some frail, floating oak."
> > Perhaps another Timrod influence on Modern Times:
> >
> > >From "Workingman's Blues #2" -
> > "In the dark I hear the night birds call
> > I can feel a lover's breath
> > I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall
> > Sleep is like a temporary death"
> >
> > >From Timrod's "Two Portraits" -
> >
> > "You will perceive that in the breast
> > The germs of many virtues rest,
> > Which, ere they feel a lover's breath,
> > Lie in a temporary death"
> > >From "Spirit On The Water" -
> > "Can't explain/The sources of this hidden pain"
> >
> > >From Timrod's "Two Portraits" -
> >
> > "How then, O weary one! explain
> > The sources of that hidden pain?"
>
> Wow, Will, that's a lot of lines. I don't read Dylanpool, what are they
> saying. Like I said I'm surprised there seems to be a silence here.
I'm always left with a let down feeling when he does this... granted,
he takes the lines and makes brilliant autobiographical flashes with
them, but how difficult could it have been to give a small nod to
Timrod in the liner notes?
As with the use of Dr. Saga's lines in L&T, I expect silence from Dylan
about it... but who knows, maybe he /will/ (or already has?) discuss
Henry Timrod's contribution the Modern Times... that would be cool.
--
"Ozone Stigmata" by Will Dockery
http://www.myspace.com/willdockery
The Ride (Combat Zone) by Shadowville All-Stars
Video by Janis Petersen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lZ3VAmNTWc
Mr Jinx
Dylan has been ripped off countless times and not creditied. Why should
he list his sources?
All property is theft.
Mr Jinx (class warrior)
moto
Angelglow is saying. The fact is he ripped the guy off. I doesn't
matter how great Dylan is, or how unknown Timrod is, or that the folk
tradition condones borrowing lines or tunes. Those lines have been
borrowed and recycled so many times noone even knows where they come
from, sort of like a cliche or common expression in language, whereas
Timrod's lines are published and dated and do not come from the
American Folk Tradition, and certainly are not everday expressions. The
way Dylan used Timrod's lines is neither allusion nor homage, neither
parody nor quote. They are STOLEN, misleadingly attributed to Dylan
himself, both in explictly in the liner notes and tacitly in the
performance. This IS an ethical issue, not an artistic or (fortunately
for Dylan) legal one, since Timrod's poems are no longer under
copyright. To me he fails the ethical litmus test that any artist is
held to. However, he probably doesn't give a crap and neither do 95% of
his fans.
John
Best wishes
John in Ireland
"moto" <moto...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1158340774.5...@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
moto
Treadleson's thoughtful post which proceeds mine. I agree with him.
Mr Jinx
Perhaps Dylan's purpose is to make us question the very nature of
ownership and property in these Modern Times. If so he appears to be
on the right tracks.
But you're right. Let's hunt him down and burn him for this crime!
Fetch the flaming torches!!!
Mr Jinx
(PS. You may remember a little story about a Yakuza a while back.
Dylan borrowed a few lines and sales of the book went through the roof.
Maybe Timrod's time is about to come. If so, and if Dylan re-kindles
interest in his work who will have stolen from whom? Where will the
crime lie? HOLD IT!!!! PUT OUT THOSE TORCHES!!!!!!!)
moto
someone else's:
Steal a little and they put you in jail, Steal a lot and they make you
a king.
It seems that this man can do no wrong. If he steals, its because he is
trying to make a point! I'm gonna become a defense lawyer and try that
with my clients.
angelgl...@yahoo.com
> I find it hard to believe this laissez-faire ethical atttitude, too.
> I'm also curious to know what Dylan and his people would say if another
> band cribbed "all those railroad men drink up your blood like wine."
> After all, it's now copyrighted Bob Dylan. But it really was
> uncredited to Bascom Lunsford, I Wish I Was a Mole In the Ground:
>
> I don't like them railroad men
> No, I don't like them railroad men
> 'Cause a railroad man he'll kill you when he can
> And drink up your blood like wine
>
> In Dylan's Memphis Blues Again, we have:
>
> Mona tried to tell me to stay away from the train line
> She said that all those railroad men drink up your blood like wine.
>
> Lifting peoples' work without credit is clearly unethical. There
> really is no debate about this. Comments about train station bricks
> being used to build a bank or the millions of words floating freely
> through this world that are free are poor analogies. This is comparing
> raw materials to finished works, the finished works representing the
> WORK, INDIVIDUALITY AND OWNERSHIP of an artist. There is nothing
> imprecise or fuzzy about Angelglow's post's--you make it, you own it;
> it is unethical and wrong to represent somebody else's work as your
> own. Early in his record making career, Dylan had no problem saying:
> "a very famous man once said, there're people who'll rob you with a
> fountain pen," or words to that effect. He was giving credit where
> credit was due even if he didn't name the person and he assumed that
> the particular people who bought his record would know automatically
> where this came from. Somewhere along line he decided that attribution
> just wasn't his bag. Does the fact that he writes great songs make him
> somehow exempt? Of course not. In fact, he's held to an even higher
> standard because of who he is and thus his cribs make it all the way to
> the Times. Obviously "spirit on the water, darkness on the face of the
> deep," IS "cultural furniture" and requires no attribution because the
> very act of quoting something so well known is itself attribution. Not
> so with Timrod and the Yakuza writer. In fact, there is something
> slightly arrogant and even thuggish about Sony and an artist as big as
> Dylan purloining the work of obscure artists and then standing silently
> above it all and refusing to return calls because, well, we're too
> big...we don't have to respond. Evidently living outside the law no
> longer requires that one be honest. Some animals, it turns out, really
> are more equal than others.
>
> Clearly there is a case to be made here and like other historical
> figures who stonewalled, the coverup becomes a bigger offense than the
> original crime. Of course, those figures also had their apologists.
> They said things like: everybody does it; this is no different. Also,
> the Chuck Berry analogy cuts even deeper because of the injustice he
> endured (still endures) of having to accept Leonard Chess's
> co-songwriting credits for his big songs. What is so sadly ironic in
> all this is that the battle was (I thought) already fought and won to
> restore the credit and royalties of the black American artists who were
> so unfairly treated by the publishers and labels over the years. So
> this is the voice of a generation. So this is the generation.
>
>
>
>
>
>>I honestly can't believe I'm reading those
>>words. Are you a typical Dylan fan? Did you go to college? If not, and
>>you intend to, be VERY careful. Really, I'm just trying to enlighten
>>you. You CANNOT take another's work like Dylan did. You CANNOT! But it
>>seems that this newsgroup and other Dylan fans are trying everything
>>possible--however bizarre--to defend his actions, including finding
>>anagrammatic symbolism in the title of the CD. Where's the anagram,
>>except in an adventitious sense. But that wouldn't change matters anyway.
>
>
Good post; esp. the comment about Sony standing above it all, etc. Why
doesn't the company take a position on the issue? The book companies in
recent publishing scandals (the young novelist, the fellow on Oprah
Winfrey's show who fabricated details in his book) all took stands,
actually terminating contracts or professional relationships. Dylan
shouldn't be allowe to claim squatter's rights on the literature of the
past with impunity like this. It's ridiculous. Or let's throw the
concept of the author out the window, practically as well as theoretically.
Regarding Berry, I didn't know Chess shared writing credits. I've never
seen Leonard Chess's name on a Berry song. I once saw Alan Freed's name
on Maybelline (one of the peaks of 20th century art: I was so pleased
when it was sent through space for 10,000 years since I've always loved
that record). But my favorite of all Berry tunes is "You Can't Catch Me"
(I was also pleased when Lennon lifted that for "Come Together," since
it showed he loved it too). Another masterpiece is "Thirty Days." But
really all of Berry from After School Session to From St. Louis to
Liverpool" is OTW, if not OTU! As for the Everly Brothers (their Cadence
period, certainly), they're one of the peaks of "choral" harmony of 20th
century music, in my opinion at least. I think only Poulenc's Stabat
Mater comes close.
Pilgrim
While I agree with some of what you've said here, the issue is mainly
artistic for me. Timrod's work is out of copyright. They can't be
'stolen', end of that story. The line for me is between artistic
license and copying without enough creative input to validate the
copying. I'm not sure where that is, myself because I haven't studied
it enough, and the ethical situation, from my limited understanding of
art history, is extremely vague to me. I've copied images from
medieval illumination and paintings, as well as early American images
from various sources, but have always altered them to the point where I
feel that they fit within my work as my own creations. I know where
the line is for me in the visual arts, but not in the literary/song
arts. The time periods I borrow from are periods where 'copying' was
considered traditional and normative. I agree that Dylan should have
made a verbal nod to Timrod that gave him some recognition which also
may allow Timrod entry into what I imagine could be a neo-folk
tradition. This is the more disturbing issue for me than the fact that
Dylan "lifted" lines. I do wish that he had altered them more but he
hasn't and as I truly am enjoying the album and the awareness of
Timrods existence and body of work, I guess I'll leave the arguing up
to others. If Timrod sues, I'll buy the popcorn.
Pilgrim
Mr Jinx wrote:
>
> Dylan has been ripped off countless times and not creditied. Why should
> he list his sources?
>
> All property is theft.
>
> Mr Jinx (class warrior)
That's a traitorous strain of thought (tm) in this ownership society
(tm).
It's a good thing you're in Britain.
moto
somewhere else. There are, come to think of it, a number of Dylan
lines that I always thought sounded like popular sayings. Here's
another one: "Don't go mistaking paradise for that home across the
road."
Treadleson wrote:
> moto wrote:
>
> ......
> > I am reminded of a Dylan line that for all i know was originally
> > someone else's:
> >
> > Steal a little and they put you in jail, Steal a lot and they make you
> > a king.
>
>
> Moto: funny you should ask. Actually it's a variation.
> Abolitionist, poet and Bishop of London Beilby Porteus (1731-1808)
> said: "One murder makes a villain; millions a hero." Chaplin used the
> line in his great film, Monsieur Verdoux. Henri Verdoux says: "One
> murder makes a villain; millions, a hero. Numbers sanctify!" I always
> took Dylan's line to be a variation on Verdoux. Chaplin didn't give
> credit--as far as I know. But Porteus was well known and widely
> quoted. (Porteous, incidentally, was a very influential force in the
> British outlawing of the slave trade, about 1809).
Martin Grossman
new. Where is the line between "stealing" and what we might call
"creative borrowing. For me, the way Dylan uses his source material
(attributed or not -- and thus has he always) rises to level of
originality. His songs that use Timrod phrases, for example, are
"better" in my estimation than their sources. The sources in this case
are not templates. I would have had no more than a passing curiosity in
Timrod's verses. Dylan's songs engage my attention. And not just because
they are Dylan's. They are a more complete and satisfying experience.
That's art in my book.
So many others have had similar criticisms made against them. A quick
look at Wikipedia lists many from Helen Keller to MArtin Luther King.
Here is the entry on King:
Martin Luther King, Jr.
According to a Boston University investigation into academic misconduct,
King plagiarized portions of his doctoral thesis that summarizes the
concepts of God expressed by Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman. "A
committee of scholars at Boston University concluded yesterday that Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr. plagiarized portions of his doctoral
dissertation, completed there in the 1950s." Despite the plagiarism, the
BU committee recommended that King's doctoral degree should not be
revoked. [11]
It has been charged that for his "I Have A Dream" speech King
plagiarized the 1952 address of Archibald Carey to the Republican
National Convention, the similarities being in the reference to the
Samuel Francis Smith patriotic hymn "America" in the peroration followed
by a listing of geographical locations from which the orator exhorts his
audience to "let freedom ring." Many, however, believe that the
comparisons are so slightly similar that they do not rise to the level
of plagiarism. King's "I Have a Dream" Speech, Carey's Speech, My
Country, 'Tis of Thee. [8]
moto
"MODERN TIMROD"
Wilbur Slice
>
>moto wrote:
>
>......
>> I am reminded of a Dylan line that for all i know was originally
>> someone else's:
>>
>> Steal a little and they put you in jail, Steal a lot and they make you
>> a king.
>
>
>Moto: funny you should ask. Actually it's a variation.
>Abolitionist, poet and Bishop of London Beilby Porteus (1731-1808)
>said: "One murder makes a villain; millions a hero." Chaplin used the
>line in his great film, Monsieur Verdoux. Henri Verdoux says: "One
>murder makes a villain; millions, a hero. Numbers sanctify!" I always
>took Dylan's line to be a variation on Verdoux. Chaplin didn't give
>credit--as far as I know. But Porteus was well known and widely
>quoted. (Porteous, incidentally, was a very influential force in the
>British outlawing of the slave trade, about 1809).
>
Reminiscent of the quote attributed to Stalin: "A single death is a
tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."
Martin Grossman
for the Dylan line you quote is more direct than the "variation" Moto
mentions. I seem to remember noting when I first herd it that it was a
close paraphrase of a quite well-known aphorism. It fit the song and
belonged there.
Treadleson wrote:
> moto wrote:
>
> ......
>
>>I am reminded of a Dylan line that for all i know was originally
>>someone else's:
>>
>>Steal a little and they put you in jail, Steal a lot and they make you
>>a king.
>
>
>
> Moto: funny you should ask. Actually it's a variation.
> Abolitionist, poet and Bishop of London Beilby Porteus (1731-1808)
> said: "One murder makes a villain; millions a hero." Chaplin used the
> line in his great film, Monsieur Verdoux. Henri Verdoux says: "One
> murder makes a villain; millions, a hero. Numbers sanctify!" I always
> took Dylan's line to be a variation on Verdoux. Chaplin didn't give
> credit--as far as I know. But Porteus was well known and widely
> quoted. (Porteous, incidentally, was a very influential force in the
> British outlawing of the slave trade, about 1809).
>
>
>
>
>
>>
Pilgrim
Martin Grossman wrote:
> This is an interesting discussion and one worth having. But it isn't
> new. Where is the line between "stealing" and what we might call
> "creative borrowing. For me, the way Dylan uses his source material
> (attributed or not -- and thus has he always) rises to level of
> originality. His songs that use Timrod phrases, for example, are
> "better" in my estimation than their sources. The sources in this case
> are not templates. I would have had no more than a passing curiosity in
> Timrod's verses. Dylan's songs engage my attention. And not just because
> they are Dylan's. They are a more complete and satisfying experience.
> That's art in my book.
Exactly, though I still crave liner notes with Dylans comments on
Timrod and Bing Crosby. I know they go together somehow.
Jackson K. Eskew
Criticism of T.S. Eliot
Eliot's poetry was first criticized as not being poetry at all. Another
criticism has been of his widespread interweaving of quotes from other
authors into his work. "Notes on the Waste Land," which follows after
the poem, gives the source of many of these, but not all. This practice
has been defended as a necessary salvaging of tradition in an age of
fragmentation, and completely integral to the work, as well adding
richness through unexpected juxtaposition. It has also been condemned
as showing a lack of originality, and for plagiarism. A prominent
critic once published an essay called 'Eliot's Poetry of
Pseudo-Learning'. Eliot himself once wrote ("The Sacred Wood"):
"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they
take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least
something different."
Canadian academic Robert Ian Scott pointed out that the title of The
Waste Land and some of the images had previously appeared in the work
of a minor Kentucky poet, Madison Cawein (1865-1914). Bevis Hillier
compared Cawein's lines "...come and go/Around its ancient portico"
with Eliot's "...come and go/talking of Michelangelo." Cawein's "Waste
Land" had appeared in the January 1913 issue of Chicago magazine Poetry
(which contained an article by Ezra Pound on London poets). But
scholars are continually finding new sources for Eliot's "Waste Land,"
often in odd places.
Many famous fellow writers and critics have paid tribute to Eliot.
According to the poet Ted Hughes, "Each year Eliot's presence reasserts
itself at a deeper level, to an audience that is surprised to find
itself more chastened, more astonished, more humble." Hugh Kenner
commented, "He has been the most gifted and influential literary critic
in English in the twentieth century."
angelgl...@yahoo.com
> moto wrote:
>
>>Truthfully, I have yet to read a single legitimate rebuttal to what
>>Angelglow is saying. The fact is he ripped the guy off. I doesn't
>>matter how great Dylan is, or how unknown Timrod is, or that the folk
>>tradition condones borrowing lines or tunes. Those lines have been
>>borrowed and recycled so many times noone even knows where they come
>>from, sort of like a cliche or common expression in language, whereas
>>Timrod's lines are published and dated and do not come from the
>>American Folk Tradition, and certainly are not everday expressions. The
>>way Dylan used Timrod's lines is neither allusion nor homage, neither
>>parody nor quote. They are STOLEN, misleadingly attributed to Dylan
>>himself, both in explictly in the liner notes and tacitly in the
>>performance. This IS an ethical issue, not an artistic or (fortunately
>>for Dylan) legal one, since Timrod's poems are no longer under
>>copyright. To me he fails the ethical litmus test that any artist is
>>held to. However, he probably doesn't give a crap and neither do 95% of
>>his fans.
>
>
> While I agree with some of what you've said here, the issue is mainly
> artistic for me. Timrod's work is out of copyright. They can't be
> 'stolen', end of that story.
of authorship, regardless of copyright. Shakespeare is out of copyright,
in fact was never in copyright. Does that mean a student can lift images
from Shakespeare's plays or phrases: "to grunt and sweat under a weary
life" belongs to Shakespare, period. A student who lifted that phrase
would potentially suffer expulsion. Does Dylan have college-age
children? What does he say, "Do as I say, not as I do?"
The line for me is between artistic
> license and copying without enough creative input to validate the
> copying.
Well, that's another issue, equally valid. Even if Dylan had credited
Timrod, it would not alter the fact that he did nothing creative with
what he lifted; which makes it nothing more than lifting. Lincoln at
least improved the famous epistrophe at the end of the Gettysburg
address, which he adapted from another writer whose name escapes me at
the moment. And, of course, Jefferson adapted Locke's trinity (life,
liberty, property) and made it his own. Besides, those terms were fairly
current anyway.
I'm not sure where that is, myself because I haven't studied
> it enough, and the ethical situation, from my limited understanding of
> art history, is extremely vague to me. I've copied images from
> medieval illumination and paintings, as well as early American images
> from various sources, but have always altered them to the point where I
> feel that they fit within my work as my own creations. I know where
> the line is for me in the visual arts, but not in the literary/song
> arts.
True, some areas are nebulous. And music is a special case, For some
reason, borrowings in music are more liberally allowed. Someone should
do a study of why this is so. One possibility is that there are fewer
notes; so even though the ordering of notes is obviously lifted, it
seems like less of a scandal. I don't know. But as a music lover, I can
literally idendify hundreds of such borrowings. Most famously Copland
adapted the Shaker dance tune, "Simple Gifts" for his Appalachian
Spring. Whether the tune is credited in the composition, obviously its
fairly famous; besides his orchestration truly is original and precious,
no less than his variations. Yet Bernard Herrmann, admittedly irascible
anyway, accused Copland of plagiarism. Benny Goodman, of course, stole
Weber's Invitation to the Dance for "Let's Dance," actually his radio
theme. Mozart's 21st piano concerto was adapted for "Song Sung Blue."
The obvious answer is that it's the nature of music to change the
original very easily, so that originality comes through in some form.
When a jazz musician plays a piece, for example, it is immediatley
transformed. When Woody Guthrie sings a spiritual to the words, "This
Land Is Your Land," it's very difficult to HEAR the original; the words
and phrasing seem to pull the song into another orbit. But this is not
the case with words themselves. There's no way to change, "I'll make you
an offer you can't refuse" the way, say, the Godfather theme by Nino
Rota can be readily changes by, say, a jazz player. So there's a more
plastic potential with musical borrowings. No matter how one knows that
Song Sung Blue uses the same melody that begins the slow movement of
Mozart's 21st piano concerto (well known as that tune is) one still
hears Diamond's song as original. But even two words, say Keats' "alien
corn" (referring to the biblical Ruth) would resist plasting reshaping
(I pray Dylan doesn't start reading Keats before recording his next album).
The time periods I borrow from are periods where 'copying' was
> considered traditional and normative. I agree that Dylan should have
> made a verbal nod to Timrod that gave him some recognition which also
> may allow Timrod entry into what I imagine could be a neo-folk
> tradition.
This is the more disturbing issue for me than the fact that
> Dylan "lifted" lines. I do wish that he had altered them more but he
> hasn't and as I truly am enjoying the album and the awareness of
> Timrods existence and body of work, I guess I'll leave the arguing up
> to others. If Timrod sues, I'll buy the popcorn.
What's disturbing is 1. He lifted lines, 2. He lifted so many of them,
3. He lifted so many from the same quarry, like he had a claim to an
author's work, 4. That quarry (those poems) are clearly relatively
obscure and not likely to be recognized, and probably would have gone
unrecognized before the age of the computer search engine, 5. Dylan did
nothing with what he lifted: neither context nor theme would allow such
borrowings and certainly not improvement. Finally, 6. The record company
and Dylan's fans seem indifferent to this.
>
angelgl...@yahoo.com
> This is an interesting discussion and one worth having. But it isn't
> new. Where is the line between "stealing" and what we might call
> "creative borrowing.
True, the issue of artistic borrowing can sometimes be nebulous and
subjective. How much is taken? how much salience in the material taken?
how much is added? etc. Does West Side Story steal from Romeo and
Juliet? Well, yes; the way Shakespeare stole his story (but not his plot
and characters in the sense of the way he developed those people). But
clearly there's so much new in WSS that it would be absurd to discredit
Bernstein and Sondheim and the book writer, Laurents. Shakespeare's
transformation of his sources was so great, even sublime, that it
amounts to genuine alchemy (changing dust into gold). Nothing simnilar
happened with Dylan. Besides, the case is clearcut in Dylan, who is
stealing complete phrases. This is NOT nebulous: it is THEFT, plain and
simple, even if Dylan did do something more with those phrases. "Alien
corn" belongs to John Keats as his special transferred epithet; no one
has a right to it anymore and the chances of adventitiously hitting upon
just that unique collocation of two words is highly unlikely (though I'd
like to do a computer test on the random possibility of that
happening!). What puzzles me about this discussion is trying to drag
down a cut-and-dried issued into nebulous areas. It's like rape, if you
don't mind the analogy. Did she wear a short dress? It's still rape. Did
you spend a lot of money on dinner? It's still rape? Did she say yes
then change her mind? It's still rape. Did she flirt with your? It's
still rape. Did she have sex yesterday but refused today? It's still
rape. And so on. Or theft: Was it your mother's money? It's still theft?
Were you hungry? It's still theft. Did the man have a lot of money to
spare? It's still theft. Did he anger you? It's still theft. Did he owe
you money? It's still theft (if you want your money back, you go through
a judicial process). All I know for certain is that if any student stole
even one phrase that Dylan stole, that would be the end for that
student, or at least result in severe disciplinary action. Why is Dylan
praised for that theft when a student would be penalized? Again, other
issues are irrelevant regarding the theft; if someone thinks Dylan did
something better than the original, that still doesn't change the fact
of plagiarism; especially since Dylan has become almost insouciant about
his thefts these days. Apparently he thinks he has squatter's rights
to the literature of the past like he once took the folksongs of the
past. There's a real difference there, at least in the folksong genre.
For me, the way Dylan uses his source material
> (attributed or not -- and thus has he always) rises to level of
> originality. His songs that use Timrod phrases, for example, are
> "better" in my estimation than their sources. The sources in this case
> are not templates. I would have had no more than a passing curiosity in
> Timrod's verses. Dylan's songs engage my attention. And not just because
> they are Dylan's. They are a more complete and satisfying experience.
> That's art in my book.
>
> So many others have had similar criticisms made against them. A quick
> look at Wikipedia lists many from Helen Keller to MArtin Luther King.
> Here is the entry on King:
>
> Martin Luther King, Jr.
Well, yes: what King did was plagiarism. There seems to be little doubt
about that. However, King's legacy is real and I can understand where
the volatile political situation would warrant ignoring this, esp. since
the man is dead. It still doesn't change King's other achievements
(oratory, political engagement, and, especially in light of recent
terrorism, his relentless commitment to nonviolence in the pursuance of
radical goals.
Pilgrim
angelgloww20...@yahoo.com wrote:
<snip> >
> > While I agree with some of what you've said here, the issue is mainly
> > artistic for me. Timrod's work is out of copyright. They can't be
> > 'stolen', end of that story.
> This sounds bizarre to me. Plagiarism is NOT an issue of copyright but
> of authorship, regardless of copyright. Shakespeare is out of copyright,
> in fact was never in copyright. Does that mean a student can lift images
> from Shakespeare's plays or phrases: "to grunt and sweat under a weary
> life" belongs to Shakespare, period. A student who lifted that phrase
> would potentially suffer expulsion. Does Dylan have college-age
> children? What does he say, "Do as I say, not as I do?"
In the visual arts an iconic image can be used within a painting
without plagiarism being an issue. It depends on how it's used. That
would include a student's use of it. Dylan's work is very obviously a
collaging of several different sources. He doesn't try to hide it,
especially in "Love & Theft" and Modern Times, the collaging is one of
the major points of the work.
>
> The line for me is between artistic
> > license and copying without enough creative input to validate the
> > copying.
> Well, that's another issue, equally valid. Even if Dylan had credited
> Timrod, it would not alter the fact that he did nothing creative with
> what he lifted; which makes it nothing more than lifting.
He is putting it into a different medium and transforming it that way.
Had he published a book of poems, I'd agree with you 100%. Now,
because of the collaging technique he's employing, I disagree with you.
He's using a rather Post Modernist approach that I think is completely
valid, though I do think that it would have been best if he'd written
liner notes naming his sources and it would have been fun if he'd
collaged those in a way, juxtaposing them so that they highlighted each
other. It's collage, it's self referential and culturally referential.
Very Post Modern.
> Lincoln at
> least improved the famous epistrophe at the end of the Gettysburg
> address, which he adapted from another writer whose name escapes me at
> the moment. And, of course, Jefferson adapted Locke's trinity (life,
> liberty, property) and made it his own. Besides, those terms were fairly
> current anyway.
This is your opinion on the state of improvements. Certainly if you
separate the parts of Dylans work, you could go back to the very
beginning and find many, many parts that are lifted from all over the
place, but, though I'm beginning to feel like a broken record, he's
created a collage. Part of what Dylan is doing is bringing to light
obscure American artists. I'd say that that that was of major
importance to him right now.
>
> I'm not sure where that is, myself because I haven't studied
> > it enough, and the ethical situation, from my limited understanding of
> > art history, is extremely vague to me. I've copied images from
> > medieval illumination and paintings, as well as early American images
> > from various sources, but have always altered them to the point where I
> > feel that they fit within my work as my own creations. I know where
> > the line is for me in the visual arts, but not in the literary/song
> > arts.
> True, some areas are nebulous. And music is a special case, For some
> reason, borrowings in music are more liberally allowed. Someone should
> do a study of why this is so.
The visual arts are also 'a special case', apparently.
I'm certain he's read Keats.
>
> The time periods I borrow from are periods where 'copying' was
> > considered traditional and normative. I agree that Dylan should have
> > made a verbal nod to Timrod that gave him some recognition which also
> > may allow Timrod entry into what I imagine could be a neo-folk
> > tradition.
> This is the more disturbing issue for me than the fact that
> > Dylan "lifted" lines. I do wish that he had altered them more but he
> > hasn't and as I truly am enjoying the album and the awareness of
> > Timrods existence and body of work, I guess I'll leave the arguing up
> > to others. If Timrod sues, I'll buy the popcorn.
> What's disturbing is 1. He lifted lines, 2. He lifted so many of them,
> 3. He lifted so many from the same quarry, like he had a claim to an
> author's work, 4. That quarry (those poems) are clearly relatively
> obscure and not likely to be recognized, and probably would have gone
> unrecognized before the age of the computer search engine, 5. Dylan did
> nothing with what he lifted: neither context nor theme would allow such
> borrowings and certainly not improvement. Finally, 6. The record company
> and Dylan's fans seem indifferent to this.
Yes, I know many collage artists who lift an image entirely, all of it,
not just the equivalent of lines, often from an obscure source, without
changing it, and use several portions of that source without changing
them in the collage and I'm entirely indifferent to the fact that they
do this. What they create out of what they lift is the end product of
the artist process. I understand that you think that Dylan is
overrated.
As for the 'couldn't be found in the computer age' argument, we live in
the computer age, all his sources can be found, and now more people
know about Timrod than would ever have known about him without Dylan or
computers. It's kind of funny, being the 'modern times' and all. To
me, it all fits together and that have been assumed on Dylan's part.
> >
crazytimes
angelgloww20...@yahoo.com wrote:
> True, the issue of artistic borrowing can sometimes be nebulous and
> subjective. How much is taken? how much salience in the material taken?
> how much is added? etc. Does West Side Story steal from Romeo and
> Juliet? Well, yes; the way Shakespeare stole his story (but not his plot
> and characters in the sense of the way he developed those people). But
> clearly there's so much new in WSS that it would be absurd to discredit
> Bernstein and Sondheim and the book writer, Laurents. Shakespeare's
> transformation of his sources was so great, even sublime, that it
> amounts to genuine alchemy (changing dust into gold). Nothing simnilar
> happened with Dylan.
Depending on how you view Modern Times...
> All I know for certain is that if any student stole
> even one phrase that Dylan stole, that would be the end for that
> student, or at least result in severe disciplinary action.
There are different rules for students and for professionals...
Students must footnote unoriginal material, professional
singer-songwriters are only held to the limits of legality...
> Why is Dylan
> praised for that theft when a student would be penalized?
Dylan is out there under his own recognizance... Students must follow
the rules of the school...
> Apparently he thinks he has squatter's rights
> to the literature of the past like he once took the folksongs of the
> past. There's a real difference there, at least in the folksong genre.
If you think Dylan should be held liable for breach of copyright, by
all means organize his prosecution...
Pilgrim
crazytimes wrote:
<snip>
> If you think Dylan should be held liable for breach of copyright, by
> all means organize his prosecution...
Oh, that would be interesting.
I think we just have a crusade over love and theft in modern times,
here, though.
crazytimes
I guess angelg must have missed out on L&T and the former
transgressions of one Mr. Dylan... It's time to double the outrage...
Organize a posse...
Anyways, if there were a way to truly revoke Bob's 'borrowing
privileges', I'm sure it would have happened a long, long time ago...
Pilgrim
Pilgrim wrote:
> As for the 'couldn't be found in the computer age' argument, we live in
> the computer age, all his sources can be found, and now more people
> know about Timrod than would ever have known about him without Dylan or
> computers. It's kind of funny, being the 'modern times' and all. To
> me, it all fits together and that have been assumed on Dylan's part.
I should write that better. Trying to do to many things at the same
time...
What seems to have been assumed on Dylan's part is that we'd all go to
find his sources. It's pretty much a given, especially after "Love &
Theft". We're even being helped by those who don't like his work and
want to prove he's a con-artist.
>
> > >
Bironthebulb
quotes) and definitely not just in "The Waste Land" or Pound
co-authored texts. Need examples? From "Waste Land" since we know Dylan
has at least read that: "I had not thought death had undone so many."
is a direct "steal" from Dante, cf. Inferno 3.55-57. There's at least
20 lifted phrases like that in that poem alone. See "Prufrock" and
"Portrait of a Lady" for stuff Eliot took straight from Henry James,
e.g., the famous "dying fall." And Joyce is just a palimpsest of texts,
and no, not only esoteric unless you consider Hamlet esoteric, cf.
"unweeded garden" et. al in Ulysses. See Faulkner having Quentin echo
unquoted "voice breathed over Eden", from little known 19th century
poet-priest John Keble.
(http://www.usask.ca/english/faulkner/main/related_texts/holy_matrimony.html)
Cf. Pynchon taking phrases upon phrases from obscure rocket manuals for
Gravity's Rainbow. Pick up Weisenburger's companion if you don't
believe me.
And not even going to touch your label of "reputable" fiction which
smacks of all kinds of elitism.
But the larger point is Dylan transfigures the "stolen" lines by
recontextualizing them.
For example:
cf. "When The Deal Goes Down" -
"More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours"
Dylan is talking about "transient joys", the hours themselves are
frailer than flowers.
Henry Timrod's poem "A Rhapsody of a Southern Winter Night" -
"A round of precious hours/Oh! here, where in that summer noon I
basked/And strove, with logic frailer than the flowers"
Timrod is talking aboutt the cavalier poetic logic that is flimsy but
beautiful. Dylan only suggests Timrod's meaning by the echo. Or,
alternatively, Dylan's echo stresses that Timrod's flimsy logic is
based in a flight from inexorable time's winged chariot. That last
phrase is taken from a poet. I'm not going to tell you which, so you
can label me a plagarizer.
Or: "When The Deal Goes Down" -
"You come to my eyes like a vision from the skies "
The emphasis is on the vision of beauty and its power over the subject
from the first person's perspective.
Timrod's "A Vision of Poesy - Part 01" -
"A strange far look would come into his eyes/As if he saw a vision in
the skies."
The emphasis is on the visionary himself seen from a third person's
perspective, "as if" suggests even that the vison is simply a figure of
speech and not real in the last analysis. Again my phrase "last
analysis" comes from a philosopher. Guess which.
This whole media hoopla even granting a shred of credence to charges of
plagiarism is frankly very embarrassing for everyone involved, except
Dylan. Intextuality is a facet of language. Beyond that, allusiveness
is a literary technique that has been used since the dawn of human
history. It's just ignorant to say that phrases in one context mean the
same thing as phrases in another context. As far as the phrase Dylan's
own title "Love and Theft", (from which I gather some of the criticism
comes from) the theft there by allusion to Eric Lott does not mean
plagiarism but exploitation or something akin to parody. Now whether or
not Dylan is burlesquing Henry Timrod, that's a valid question, a real
and not sham ambiguity.
To quote Bobby Dee, Peace Out, Byronthebulb
M. Rick
I don't blame him, if he's getting part royalties on that song) and kissed
co-credit goodbye (though I haven't checked recent Beatles releases; he may
now receive co-credit, though I dobut it).
The copyright claim against Lennon (i.e. Morris Levy/Big Seven vs. MacLen
Music, Northern Songs and Apple) was very weak. There was never any shared
credit with Chuck Berry. I'm not aware that Berry got any extra royalties.
Lennon agreed to record three songs owned by Levy, but only two (You Can't
Catch Me, Ya Ya) appeared on album.
The related dispute involves Levy's "Roots" -- early mixes of Rock and Roll
that Levy sold mail-order (supposedly with Lennon's permission). Lennon,
Capitol, EMI and Apple countersued Levy and won substantial sums.
M. Rick
Pilgrim
M. Rick wrote:
> "Honor Thy Timrod" has just been added as the 11th commandment.
"Thou shalt not burlesque thy Timrod"
J Buck
Examples?
J Buck
of bricks to build a station as they do to build a museum. Why not? Two
entirely different creations using the same materials>
That's an extremely lame analogy. Shame.
<Every word used by every writer has been used before>
Barbara wrote: <Maybe every word has been used before but we are talking
about entire phrasing>
Precisely. Some of those phrases are waaaay too close for comfort.
Anyone who can't see that is blind. Like someone (maybe Barbara?) said
in another post, a little bone tossed to Mr. Timrod in the liner notes
would've been the decent thing to do.
J Buck
back. Dylan borrowed a few lines and sales of the book went through the
roof>
Sales would have done the same if proper mention in the liner notes of
where some (many?) of the lyrics had come from.
J Buck
capable of writing songs the way he used to; he's even admitted that in
the '60 Minutes' interview with Ed Bradley a couple years ago. That's
fine, as long as the music pleases them. What irritates most rmd'ers is
the fact that he won't put a small 'Thank you' to (fill in the blank for
deceased and/or long forgotten poet or novelist) in his liner notes.
J Buck
'Over more than four decades, Dylan has produced 500 songs and more than
40 albums. Does he ever look back at the music he's written with
surprise?'
"I used to. I don't do that anymore. I don't know how I got to write
those songs. Those early songs were almost magically written," says
Dylan, who quotes from his 1964 classic, 'It's Alright, Ma.' "Try to sit
down and write something like that. There's a magic to that, and it's
not Siegfried and Roy kind of magic, you know? It's a different kind of
a penetrating magic. And you know, I did it. I did it at one time."
Does he think he can do it again today?
"No", says Dylan. "You can't do something forever," he says. "I did it
once, and I can do other things now. But, I can't do that."
jonathansamuel
the entire album after him.
mODeRn TIMes = TIMROD
In addition, the leftover letters spell "semen."
Bob is keeping TIMRODs seed (semen) alive by publicizing his work. This
is a very holy and spiritual thing. Let the heathen (non-Dylan
believers) rage!
J Buck
front of you! Dylan did credit TIMROD. He named the entire album after
him. mODeRn TIMes = TIMROD
In addition, the leftover letters spell "semen.">
This was brought up 2 or 3 days ago. But thanks.
gabriel
I guess Dylan has, because he alluded to it on 'Time Out Of Mind',
using the line "buddy, you'll roll no more". Check it out. Google it.
So how far back would you like to take this?
Intertextuality. It'll get you every time.
Treadleson wrote:
> I find it hard to believe this laissez-faire ethical atttitude, too.
> I'm also curious to know what Dylan and his people would say if another
> band cribbed "all those railroad men drink up your blood like wine."
> After all, it's now copyrighted Bob Dylan. But it really was
> uncredited to Bascom Lunsford, I Wish I Was a Mole In the Ground:
>
> I don't like them railroad men
> No, I don't like them railroad men
> 'Cause a railroad man he'll kill you when he can
> And drink up your blood like wine
>
> In Dylan's Memphis Blues Again, we have:
>
> Mona tried to tell me to stay away from the train line
> She said that all those railroad men drink up your blood like wine.
>
>
gabriel
Bironthebulb wrote:
> But the larger point is Dylan transfigures the "stolen" lines by
> recontextualizing them.
> This whole media hoopla even granting a shred of credence to charges of
> plagiarism is frankly very embarrassing for everyone involved, except
> Dylan. Intextuality is a facet of language. Beyond that, allusiveness
> is a literary technique that has been used since the dawn of human
> history. It's just ignorant to say that phrases in one context mean the
> same thing as phrases in another context. As far as the phrase Dylan's
> own title "Love and Theft", (from which I gather some of the criticism
> comes from) the theft there by allusion to Eric Lott does not mean
> plagiarism but exploitation or something akin to parody. Now whether or
> not Dylan is burlesquing Henry Timrod, that's a valid question, a real
> and not sham ambiguity.
Well, finally some sense!
thank you
angelgl...@yahoo.com
> angelgloww20...@yahoo.com wrote:
> <snip> >
>
>>>While I agree with some of what you've said here, the issue is mainly
>>>artistic for me. Timrod's work is out of copyright. They can't be
>>>'stolen', end of that story.
>>
>>This sounds bizarre to me. Plagiarism is NOT an issue of copyright but
>>of authorship, regardless of copyright. Shakespeare is out of copyright,
>>in fact was never in copyright. Does that mean a student can lift images
>>from Shakespeare's plays or phrases: "to grunt and sweat under a weary
>>life" belongs to Shakespare, period. A student who lifted that phrase
>>would potentially suffer expulsion. Does Dylan have college-age
>>children? What does he say, "Do as I say, not as I do?"
>
>
> In the visual arts an iconic image can be used within a painting
> without plagiarism being an issue. It depends on how it's used. That
> would include a student's use of it. Dylan's work is very obviously a
> collaging of several different sources. He doesn't try to hide it,
> especially in "Love & Theft" and Modern Times, the collaging is one of
> the major points of the work.
(there was a case in my US college I know of) for stealing the
composition of another artist. When the teacher found out after the
issuance of an MA, the MA was annulled or at least downgraded (I think
there was some ambiguity about the extent of the theft). Recently it was
shown that the late Mrs. Ramsey (of that notorious child murder case
that has made a celebrity of Mr. Karr) basically stole the composition
of her painting of a child by the stream or something like that. I saw
both paintings (Ramsey's and the original) and clearly (in my judgment)
one "stole" the other: the composition is the same, with slight
variation. The artist said she would not file suit because Ramsey's
painting was being sold, posthumously, for a good cause (I think it was
breast cancer). You can almost certainly find both paintings by doing a
search of some kind. Hopefully they're still online.
As for your first comment, it's extremely vague: "can be used
. . . without plagiarism being an issue" applies to almost anything. The
question, as we've gone over many times (and we shouldn't have to repeat
ourselves like this if we're being sincere) is how much is taken, the
nature of the theft, its secrecy, whether it falls under the category of
allusion, parody, homage, which media is at issue, etc. As I mentioned
regarding music, I think different standards clearly apply, because of
the almost "esemplastic" (to borrow from Coleridge) nature of the
medium, where even a single augmentation or dimunition can radically
change the spirit of the melody. But words are clearly different; an
unusal collocation of even two words ("alien corn" by Keats) can
constitute plagiarism of an obvious and shameful kind, unless the
collocation is in the public domain and would constitute therefore
allusion, homage, etc.: "amazing grace," for example. You summed it up,
ironically: "depends on how it's used." Then you completely lose focus.
Dylan's use of Timrod is NOT a collage, except that ALL plagiarism of
that egregious extent is a collage (a cento of texts is a collage, but
is intended to be seen as such, as in Mark Twain's parody of
Shakespeare's soliliquies by linkings random quotations: a parody,
actually, of bad actors who have faulty memories): source is Huckleberry
Finn by the way. Then you say, "He doesn't try to hide it." See that's
why I rapidly abandon these newsgroups, because I feel people are just
being obstinate. How can you say he doesn't try to hide it when he
doesn't acknowledge it? Or are you saying that an egregious theft is
more justified because the thief can always claim he didn't try to hide
it? Then bank robbers are not guilty of theft (robbery) either because
they didn't try to hide it: thieir guns were obviously drawn, etc. Dylan
is obviously ingenuous: heads or tails he wins. If people detect the
plagiarism, it's so egregious he can claim artistic pedigree. If people
don't detect it, he gets credit. In fact, either way he gets credit for
another's hard-earned creativity: and creativity is "earned" not only by
work but by life experience, as Dylan well knows. As Whistler told a
jury when asked how long it took him to paint his painting: one day, but
really a lifetime. Timrod deserves credit for his work; and it's
unbelievable than Dylan's fans think Timrod's ghost should be "grateful"
that a Rock singer stole his poetry, as if Timrod had no value apart
from that theft. If that's not insulting I don't know what is. And
that's why I'm more and more certain that this Dylanology has become a
dangerous cult, where Dylan's followers will be led by Dylan into almost
any unethical practice, the way that Manson's followers would.
Understand the implications here: if every young person imitated Dylan
there would be no more integrity in education; there would be no more
authorship; people might even start extending aesthetic values to the
material sphere: since I can make better use of my neighbor's money than
he can (or at least I believe so), I can take his money. And since I'm
doing it visibly, no-one can accuse me of theft. Of course, I'll not do
it visibly; but when I'm caught it will appear so, since the theft was
brazen. "I obviously wasn't stealing, since I just walked into Joe's
apartment and took the money off the table and walked out with it. He
would have known who took it. I don't know why he called the police.
Here's the money back again, if that's the way Joe feels about it. I
just thought he was ruining himself with Johnnie Walker and thought I
could make better use of his money, that's all. But please don't call me
a thief or I'll phone my lawyer, who also works for a famous record
company." Seriously, if you think "collaging" is one of the main points
of Modern Times, then please (and I say this respectfully) don't respond
again, because I'm not going to go over this again; or write an
independent post and start a new thread so others can respond.
>
>
>> The line for me is between artistic
>>
>>>license and copying without enough creative input to validate the
>>>copying.
>>
>>Well, that's another issue, equally valid. Even if Dylan had credited
>>Timrod, it would not alter the fact that he did nothing creative with
>>what he lifted; which makes it nothing more than lifting.
>
>
> He is putting it into a different medium and transforming it that way.
> Had he published a book of poems, I'd agree with you 100%. Now,
> because of the collaging technique he's employing, I disagree with you.
> He's using a rather Post Modernist approach that I think is completely
> valid, though I do think that it would have been best if he'd written
> liner notes naming his sources and it would have been fun if he'd
> collaged those in a way, juxtaposing them so that they highlighted each
> other. It's collage, it's self referential and culturally referential.
> Very Post Modern.
which, like all academic theories, will soon disappear, leaving our
mundane world much the way it was; the way that the Skeptics left it,
Spinoza, Descartes, Sartre, and all the rest. (I love Spinoza, by the
way, but I doubt if Spinoza changed the world.) Your ingenuous, "it
would have been best," is like saying, "My son didn't steal, but it
would have been best had he asked for the money."
>
>
>> Lincoln at
>>least improved the famous epistrophe at the end of the Gettysburg
>>address, which he adapted from another writer whose name escapes me at
>>the moment. And, of course, Jefferson adapted Locke's trinity (life,
>>liberty, property) and made it his own. Besides, those terms were fairly
>> current anyway.
>
>
> This is your opinion on the state of improvements. Certainly if you
> separate the parts of Dylans work, you could go back to the very
> beginning and find many, many parts that are lifted from all over the
> place, but, though I'm beginning to feel like a broken record, he's
> created a collage. Part of what Dylan is doing is bringing to light
> obscure American artists. I'd say that that that was of major
> importance to him right now.
artists." Then freshmen plagiarists are doing the same thing, no? The
man's a plagiarist: can't you understand this?
different, and you surely know this. Someone says Shakespeare stole from
Plutarch, well, that case is different: 1. Plutarch was current; 2.
Shakespeare took historically important details or phrases, 3.
Shakepeare's originality is beyond question in the degree of
transforming his material, etc. If I write about the Creation of the
World (say like Miller's comedy) then obviously I can have a character
say, "The woman you placed here told me to eat and I did eat" and othr
similar lines. If Shakespeare wrote a play about Jesus, obviously he has
the right to have his characters say Gospel material: "Greater love hath
no man than this," etc.
>
> As for the 'couldn't be found in the computer age' argument, we live in
> the computer age, all his sources can be found, and now more people
> know about Timrod than would ever have known about him without Dylan or
> computers. It's kind of funny, being the 'modern times' and all. To
> me, it all fits together and that have been assumed on Dylan's part.
know how much money Tim had. And yes, it does all fit together: it's
called theft; in literature theft is called plagiarism.
>
>
>
angelgl...@yahoo.com
> angelgloww20...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>
>>True, the issue of artistic borrowing can sometimes be nebulous and
>>subjective. How much is taken? how much salience in the material taken?
>>how much is added? etc. Does West Side Story steal from Romeo and
>>Juliet? Well, yes; the way Shakespeare stole his story (but not his plot
>>and characters in the sense of the way he developed those people). But
>>clearly there's so much new in WSS that it would be absurd to discredit
>>Bernstein and Sondheim and the book writer, Laurents. Shakespeare's
>>transformation of his sources was so great, even sublime, that it
>>amounts to genuine alchemy (changing dust into gold). Nothing simnilar
>>happened with Dylan.
>
>
> Depending on how you view Modern Times...
That's only ONE standard anyway. Regardless it's plagiarism, even if
what surrounds the theft is glorious.
>
>
>>All I know for certain is that if any student stole
>>even one phrase that Dylan stole, that would be the end for that
>>student, or at least result in severe disciplinary action.
>
>
> There are different rules for students and for professionals...
> Students must footnote unoriginal material, professional
> singer-songwriters are only held to the limits of legality...
I'm sorry; but I'm not repeating these issues.
>
>
>>Why is Dylan
>>praised for that theft when a student would be penalized?
>
>
> Dylan is out there under his own recognizance... Students must follow
> the rules of the school...
>
>
>>Apparently he thinks he has squatter's rights
>>to the literature of the past like he once took the folksongs of the
>>past. There's a real difference there, at least in the folksong genre.
>
>
> If you think Dylan should be held liable for breach of copyright, by
> all means organize his prosecution...
Columbia/Sony (or whatever his record company is) should take a stand on
this issue. Dylan isn't a cult leader where he can hypnotize an entire
cultural community like this. Either his record company believes it's
acceptable or not. They've got to take a stand. I believe they should
withdraw all the albums and 1. Have Dylan re-record the songs with
original lyrics where they were plagiarized, or 2. At least put a
disclaimer to the effect: "When Mr. Dylan recorded these songs, our
company had no knowledge that some of the lyrics used lyrics of
published poetry. We have informed Mr. Dylan that this is not allowed
and he has assured us he would not repeat his actions in the future.
Herein is a record of Mr. Dylan's borrowings from the poet Timrod." I
doubt this will happen however. More than likely a professor of English
will "prove" how Dylan now ranks with Shakespeare in the dexterity with
which he transmutes his source material.
>
gabriel
Are you on vacation? You have spent a lot of time and words on this
issue about someone whose work you say leaves you indifferent.
angelgl...@yahoo.com
> Joyce lifted complete phrase. Eliot lifted complete phrases (w/o
> quotes) and definitely not just in "The Waste Land" or Pound
> co-authored texts. Need examples? From "Waste Land" since we know Dylan
> has at least read that: "I had not thought death had undone so many."
> is a direct "steal" from Dante, cf. Inferno 3.55-57.
As I recall, Eliot placed quotations around that line.
There's at least
> 20 lifted phrases like that in that poem alone. See "Prufrock" and
> "Portrait of a Lady" for stuff Eliot took straight from Henry James,
> e.g., the famous "dying fall." And Joyce is just a palimpsest of texts,
> and no, not only esoteric unless you consider Hamlet esoteric, cf.
> "unweeded garden" et. al in Ulysses. See Faulkner having Quentin echo
> unquoted "voice breathed over Eden", from little known 19th century
> poet-priest John Keble.
>
> (http://www.usask.ca/english/faulkner/main/related_texts/holy_matrimony.html)
>
> Cf. Pynchon taking phrases upon phrases from obscure rocket manuals for
> Gravity's Rainbow. Pick up Weisenburger's companion if you don't
> believe me.
Again, I'm not going over this repeatedly. This is the end for me. I'll
just repeat now that all plagiarism, like all legal offenses, is
specific. There can be no such thing as a general accusation of a crime,
but a specific accusation as to victim, offense, time, place, etc. The
same with plagiarism. Each case is different and involves many factors
like I went into before and have no intention of doing so again (read my
previous posts). But your reference to Eliot is absurd because it's
indisputably a cento of quotations and ony Pound discouraged Eliot from
footnoting everything; but the Wagner quote is obviously from Tristan,
the quote from Antony and Cleopatra is obvious, etc. But even that is
besides the point. Eliot didn't quarry a single source lke Dylan did.
Who does Dylan think he is? What, I can read Keats and steal twenty
phrases for my next record? You're weakening your argument even as you
make it: you're admitting that these writers took from many sources
(suspending judgment on the nature of the quotes); Dylan took from a
single source, as if he didn't even have the patience to collage a
compendium of cultural references, if he wished to do that. Ironically,
Dylan took either too little or too much. He took too much from one
writer; and he took too little from any one text. Obviously if all he
took was from one text, it might have passed as a paraphrase, like
Hopkins' famous poetic paraphrase of Jermeiah ("Why do the wicked
prosper?") or numerous paraphrases or poetic metaphrases of Psalm 23.
>
> And not even going to touch your label of "reputable" fiction which
> smacks of all kinds of elitism.
>
> But the larger point is Dylan transfigures the "stolen" lines by
> recontextualizing them.
>
> For example:
>
> cf. "When The Deal Goes Down" -
> "More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours"
>
> Dylan is talking about "transient joys", the hours themselves are
> frailer than flowers.
>
> Henry Timrod's poem "A Rhapsody of a Southern Winter Night" -
>
> "A round of precious hours/Oh! here, where in that summer noon I
> basked/And strove, with logic frailer than the flowers"
>
> Timrod is talking aboutt the cavalier poetic logic that is flimsy but
> beautiful. Dylan only suggests Timrod's meaning by the echo. Or,
> alternatively, Dylan's echo stresses that Timrod's flimsy logic is
> based in a flight from inexorable time's winged chariot. That last
> phrase is taken from a poet. I'm not going to tell you which, so you
> can label me a plagarizer.
This is patently ridiculous. It's not even worth considering. Plagiarism
is plagiarism: Do you UNDERSTAND this? Even the lyric borrowings from
Eliot's Rhapsody on a Windy Night (for Tim Rice's Memory, though I'm not
certain Rice is credited with that lyric, from CATS) shows far more
"esemplastic" modulation of the source material, from a couple of
Eliot's early poems, including Rhapsody: the image of the lamplight for
one. But the borrowinsg are very nebulous and I don't think a single
phrase is taken, just scattered words in loose collocation not strict
collocation. Glancing below I can see that you're never going to change
your views, so let's drop this. Let history decide.
angelgl...@yahoo.com
Yes, you've jarred my memory. I may have confused the Harrison case.
Anyway, it shows that tune theft is very nebulous, since (as in this
case) augmentation can change a melody radically. But then standards
change. The writer of Avalon was forced to pay the Puccini estate quite
a substantial sum for stealing the first notes of Puccini's third act
tenor aria from Tosca. Again, it always comes down to what 9 people
decide on a gien day, in a given time, based on numerous other factors
(medium, market value of source material, etc. etc.).
angelgl...@yahoo.com
We asked Dylan about his newest novel, based on the Civil War
experiences of a young woman named Rose O'Mara and her lover, Redd Buckler.
--"Mr. Dylan, how can you write a thousand page novel so fast? I mean,
DONE WITH THE WIND is not a small voume by any means."
--I dunno, man. You know, it's magic, man. Try to sit down and do
research on a novel like this and you'll see what I mean. Tarantula
wasn't half the trouble."
--Some critics maliciously note a resemblance between your novel and
another novel. I forget its name, since I only follow your work."
--Well, man, you know, I obviously intended people to see the
relationships involved; that's part of my post-Modern aesthetic."
--You've got a great final line in your novel, when Rose O'Mara says,
"Tuesday is another day!" How did you come up with a line like that?
--It blows in the wind, man. You know, I borrow from everything I read,
like all artists."
--But you always make it better. Just like Shakespeare. There's a line
similar to yours in that novel I told you of. It goes, I think,
"Tomorrow is another day." But you definitely make something of that
line. You're very specific: "Tuesday," NOT "tomorrow." That's genius,
Bob. Pure genius on your part. And that concludes our interview with our
Bob.
angelgl...@yahoo.com
I wouldn't laugh. Dylan will have to face Mr. Timrod soon; and angry
ghsots are often hard to placate.
--Can I enter, Mr. Peter?
--Not yet, Bob. You see only the pure in heart enter here. And it's my
job to discriminate between the pure in heart and the common plagiarist.
Come here, Bob, I want you to meet someone who's been up here for nearly
140 years. He arrived fairly quickly. He led an honorable life, worked
hard, enlisted in the war like a good citizen, wrote poetry, Bob, and,
Bob are you hard of hearing by any chance HE DID NOT PLAGIARIZE WHAT HE
WROTE!!!!! I'm sorry, Bob, was I too loud for you?
--Please! Mr. Peter, or is it St. Peter? Please! I'm not a plagiarist.
I'm an artist. I've never stole a line in my life. Greater love hath no
man than this, that he lay down his wife, I mean life, for his friend."
--That's a great line, Bob. Did you make it up?
--On the spot. When you're desperate the creative juices begin to flow.
--Bob, let me ask you this: do tropical temperatures bother you?
--Well, I prefer cooler climes.
--Hmmm. . . . We'll send you down an air conditioner. Someone from your
record company has just made a donation in your memory. Come here. I
want you to meet someone. Do you recognize him?
--Omygod! The pointed ears, the cloven feet! It's YOU!
--Yes. We need inspired musicians down there. You'll be able to sing us
some of your masterpieces, like "White Christmas" and "Can't Help
Falling In Love." But our favorite of all is "Love Me Tender." Come,
Bob. But you won't be alone. All of your fans are down here too. You led
them down the primrose path to our place!
crazytimes
angelgloww20...@yahoo.com wrote:
> I wouldn't laugh. Dylan will have to face Mr. Timrod soon; and angry
> ghsots are often hard to placate.
It's nothing the Civil War couldn't settle...
crazytimes
crazytimes wrote:
> angelgloww2000*@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> > We asked Dylan about his newest novel, based on the Civil War
> > experiences of a young woman named Rose O'Mara and her lover, Redd Buckler.
> > --"Mr. Dylan, how can you write a thousand page novel so fast? I mean,
> > DONE WITH THE WIND is not a small voume by any means."
> > --I dunno, man. You know, it's magic, man. Try to sit down and do
> > research on a novel like this and you'll see what I mean. Tarantula
> > wasn't half the trouble."
>
> interested in Bob Dylan, a character you claim to not be terribily
> interested in... You sure know a lot about him... More than you'll
> ever know...
frinjdwelr
"rankflv" <ran...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1158293152.2...@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
>
>
> All very good points yet . . . Dylan "stealing" still doesn't bother
> me. I mean come on, who really believes that James Joyce's allusions
> are easily transparent and aimed at instant recognition.
>
> Why are we not looking at these Timrod poems and seeing HOW Dylan is
> using them. Do they enhance the listening experience? Do the songs
> comment on the poems? Do the poems add further depth to the songs?
>
> Is Modern times an answer to Timrod, a secrete tribute, a rebuttal?
>
> Is Dylan using collage? Is there a relationship between "stolen" tunes
> and "stolen" words that, when used in juxtaposition, creates something
> new?
>
> Dylan is not only about the turn of a phrase. I like to believe there
> is much more going on, more interplay. The meanings of these songs get
> across and are not lifted. They are Dylan's meanings no matter how he
> comes to them.
>
> Finding these borrowed phrases only shows me that Dylan cares less
> about the wording and more about the meaning. (Something that happened
> around 1969)
>
> Many very intelligent, highly artistic individuals hold Dylan in a high
> esteem as an artist, people who have heard, read, and seen the
> world's greatest art. They put the discs on and they come away
> feeling that they have experienced something original and profound. It
> is in that moment that ART happens. Art does not happen when one is
> pouring though google hits, searching for allusions or thefts.
>
this is the most helpful post of this whole thread. it finally takes the
first step beyond the same old tired argument that's raged since
"Freewheelin."
He is doing something new with these last few albums. But it has nothing to
do with lifting phrases, cause he's always done that.
Mr. Buck says his more recent songwriting is inferior. To me it's so
different from his early stuff that it's like comparing apples to oranges.
I can't really think of it on a sliding scale. Is this need to rate
everything on a ten point scale some kind of American thing or more
universal? Are we talkin video game scores here?
I'm intrigued by all his different periods for different reasons.
Your Pal Brian
> i didn't give a shit with Love and Theft, and I don't give a shit now.
> I dig the tunes. That's good enough for me.
Yup. I didn't give a shit about the Bogart lines on Empire Burlesque,
either.
Brian
Barbara
"Will Dockery" <will.d...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1158337382.6...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Barbara wrote:
> > "Will Dockery" wrote:
> > > Barbara wrote:
> >
> > > > I find this all very interesting and find it also quite interesting
that
> > > > there hasn't been much posted to this thread.
> > > > I had to look up Timrod's poems for myself, and see where the lines
were
> > and
> > > > by golly, they were there.
> > > > Not sure how I feel about this. Part of me is saying, this isn't
right,
> > how
> > > > about giving credit where credit is due?
> > > > The other side is saying well, if you can take some beautiful words
and
> > put
> > > > them together with your own and make music to fit it and people to
> > enjoy,
> > > > that's good. But I argue with myself on it, to have your name appear
as
> > > > written all by you and give no credits elsewhere, if even on liner
notes
> > is
> > > > unsettling also.
> > >
> > > Yeah. I dig the record and am pleased that he hit #1 again finally,
but
> > > I'd already asked here if Modern Times was an album of covers judging
> > > from the titles, and turns out there's a /lot/ of that on there, "Red
> > > Sails In The Sunset", et cetera, and now this... I copied some of the
> > > line comparisons from Dylanpool for my pal Henry Conley (who is
already
> > > performing "Someday Baby" and "Red Sails In The Sunset" here on local
> > > stages), so I'll post them here also for the archives:
> > >
> > > Henry Timrod, "called The Poet Laureate of the Confederacy
> > >
> > > Henry Timrod lines on Modern Times
> > > Posted by: scottw (---.albq.qwest.net)
> > >
> > > Date: September 5, 2006 07:23PM
> > >
> > > I came across another line that Bob appears to have lifted from a
Herny
> > > Timrod poem. The Timrod poem "Our Willie" has the line "Which drowned
> > > the memories of the time/In a merely mortal bliss!" which is similar
to
> > > the line "My memories are drowning/In mortal bliss" from "Beyond The
> > > Horizon."
> > >
> > > Here are eight other Dylan/Timrod connections that have been
previously
> > > mentioned:
> > >
> > > "When The Deal Goes Down" -
> > > "More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours"
> > >
> > > "A round of precious hours/Oh! here, where in that summer noon I
> > > basked/And strove, with logic frailer than the flowers"
> > > "When The Deal Goes Down" -
> > > grows up in strife"
> > >
> > > Timrod's poem "Retirement" -
> > > "There is a wisdom that grows up in strife"
> > > -------------------------------------------------
> > > "When The Deal Goes Down" -
feel
> > > the glow "
> > >
> > > Timrod's "Two Portraits" -
> > > "Still stealing on with pace so slow/Yourself will scarcely feel the
> > > glow"
> > > -------------------------------------------------
> > > "When The Deal Goes Down" -
> > > "You come to my eyes like a vision from the skies "
> > >
> > > "A strange far look would come into his eyes/As if he saw a vision in
> > > the skies."
> > > "When The Deal Goes Down" -
> > >
> > > Timrod's "Sonnet 13" -
> > > "Things which you neither meant nor wished to say"
> > > -------------------------------------------------
> > > "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" -
> > > "Well a childish dream is a deathless need"
> > >
> > > Timrod's "A Vision of Poesy - Part 01"
> > > -------------------------------------------------
> > > "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" -
> > > "They walk among the stately trees/They know the secrets of the
breeze"
> > >
> > > Timrod's "A Vision of Poesy - Part 01" -
> > > Yet shut within themselves, like dungeons, where
> > > Lay fettered all the secrets of the breeze"
> > > -------------------------------------------------"'Cross The Green
> > > Mountain" -
> > > "Along the dim Atlantic line/The ravaged land lies for miles behind"
> > > which are similar to
> > >
> > > Timrod's "Charleston" -
> > > "But still, along yon dim Atlantic line/The only hostile smoke/Creeps
> > > like a harmless mist above the brine/From some frail, floating oak."
> > > Perhaps another Timrod influence on Modern Times:
> > >
> > > >From "Workingman's Blues #2" -
> > > "In the dark I hear the night birds call
> > > I can feel a lover's breath
> > > I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall
> > > Sleep is like a temporary death"
> > >
> > > >From Timrod's "Two Portraits" -
> > >
> > > "You will perceive that in the breast
> > > The germs of many virtues rest,
> > > Which, ere they feel a lover's breath,
> > > Lie in a temporary death"
> > > >From "Spirit On The Water" -
> > > "Can't explain/The sources of this hidden pain"
> > >
> > > >From Timrod's "Two Portraits" -
> > >
> > > "How then, O weary one! explain
> > > The sources of that hidden pain?"
> >
> > Wow, Will, that's a lot of lines. I don't read Dylanpool, what are they
> > saying. Like I said I'm surprised there seems to be a silence here.
>
> I'm always left with a let down feeling when he does this... granted,
> he takes the lines and makes brilliant autobiographical flashes with
> them, but how difficult could it have been to give a small nod to
> Timrod in the liner notes?
>
> As with the use of Dr. Saga's lines in L&T, I expect silence from Dylan
> about it... but who knows, maybe he /will/ (or already has?) discuss
> Henry Timrod's contribution the Modern Times... that would be cool.
>
> --
> "Ozone Stigmata" by Will Dockery
> http://www.myspace.com/willdockery
>
> The Ride (Combat Zone) by Shadowville All-Stars
> Video by Janis Petersen:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lZ3VAmNTWc
>
I am finding it also interesting now that since I wrote that post, there
have been so many who have contributed to the thread with well written,
thought out comments.
I've enjoyed reading these posts, thre have been many good points
intelligently written.
I stick to what I originally said and thank those who were able to elaborate
more fully on it.
~barbara~
Jackson K. Eskew
"The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit
anyone?"
-Ecclesiastes 6:11
Will Dockery
The Bogart, Star Trek and other quotes on EB were pretty funny, and
pretty famous... but Henry Timrod and Doctor Saga are complete unknowns
in these Modern Times and Dylan using them without credit, passing
their work off as his own definitely takes away from the overall
enjoyment of this otherwise triumphant album.
--
"Fadeaway Encounter" by Dockery-Conley:
http://www.myspace.com/willdockery
Will Dockery and the Shadowville All-Stars
see http://shadowvilleallstars.muddywolf.net/
angelgl...@yahoo.com
From: Jackson K. Eskew
-Ecclesiastes 6:11
Hmm. . . . You got me reading the Bible again, which I haven't done
since I searched for Dylan's original words to his Grammy award
acceptance speech. (I'm curious if Dylan ever speaks original words, by
the way.) Speaking of "profit," try Matthew: 16:26. Dylan may wish to
consider that text before it's too late & the Man in the Long Black Coat
knocks on his door: 3 G's and an E-flat kind of knocking.
angelgl...@yahoo.com
A possible Dylan song lyric that would be acceptable:
"I invited her in
And said
'Lay your head
On mine
Sip your wine
And then let's sin.'
She howled
With laughter,
Then scowled,
'You're after
More than I thought!
You think I can be bought
With charm, for more abuse?'
'Oh, Hon" (my voice got softer)
I'll make you an offer
You can't refuse!"
Now that final line would count as genuine cultural allusion and be
permissible, as you suggested.
angelgl...@yahoo.com
> Bironthebulb wrote:
>
>>Joyce lifted complete phrase. Eliot lifted complete phrases (w/o
>>quotes) and definitely not just in "The Waste Land" or Pound
>>co-authored texts. Need examples? From "Waste Land" since we know Dylan
>>has at least read that: "I had not thought death had undone so many."
>>20 lifted phrases like that in that poem alone. See "Prufrock" and
>>"Portrait of a Lady" for stuff Eliot took straight from Henry James,
>>e.g., the famous "dying fall." And Joyce is just a palimpsest of texts,
>>and no, not only esoteric unless you consider Hamlet esoteric, cf.
>>"unweeded garden" et. al in Ulysses. See Faulkner having Quentin echo
>>unquoted "voice breathed over Eden", from little known 19th century
>>poet-priest John Keble.
>>
>>(http://www.usask.ca/english/faulkner/main/related_texts/holy_matrimony.html)
>>
>>Cf. Pynchon taking phrases upon phrases from obscure rocket manuals for
>>Gravity's Rainbow. Pick up Weisenburger's companion if you don't
>>believe me.
>>
>>smacks of all kinds of elitism.
>
>
>
>
>>But the larger point is Dylan transfigures the "stolen" lines by
>>recontextualizing them.
>>
>>For example:
>>
>>"More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours"
>>
>>frailer than flowers.
>>
>>
>>"A round of precious hours/Oh! here, where in that summer noon I
>>basked/And strove, with logic frailer than the flowers"
>>
>>beautiful. Dylan only suggests Timrod's meaning by the echo. Or,
>>alternatively, Dylan's echo stresses that Timrod's flimsy logic is
>>based in a flight from inexorable time's winged chariot. That last
>>phrase is taken from a poet. I'm not going to tell you which, so you
>>can label me a plagarizer.
>>
>>"You come to my eyes like a vision from the skies "
>>
>>from the first person's perspective.
>>
>>"A strange far look would come into his eyes/As if he saw a vision in
>>the skies."
>>perspective, "as if" suggests even that the vison is simply a figure of
>>speech and not real in the last analysis. Again my phrase "last
>>analysis" comes from a philosopher. Guess which.
>
>
> in the details. Dylan lifts entire phrases from other poets without
> attribution of any kind, passes it off as his own (the true definition
> of plagiarism) and the reaction is like a crowd at the ball game, moved
> uniformly to say: "That is not what he meant at all. That is not it,
> all." The larger point, you see, is that Dylan transfigures the
> "stolen" lines by recontextualizing them. Transfigures? Stolen in
> quotes? What a brave new world this is! In other words, a kind of
> savage servility to a self-serving ethos slides by on grease. If
> plagiarism and theft wear the coat of recontextualization, should we
> let that go by? Of course not. Nothing is more noble or sacred than
> fidelity. Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and
> gifts of the human mind. Make not the mistake of believing that every
> line of poetry belonging to me as good belongs to you. In a way, the
> plagiarist is the cop who frames innocents, the doctor who kills his
> patients. The plagiarist violates the basic rule of his trade. He
> steals the lifeblood of a fellow artist no matter how he uses the other
> artists' work. [All above lifts recontextualized, thus no need for
> attribution.]
>
>
>
>
>>This whole media hoopla even granting a shred of credence to charges of
>>plagiarism is frankly very embarrassing for everyone involved, except
>>Dylan. Intextuality is a facet of language. Beyond that, allusiveness
>>is a literary technique that has been used since the dawn of human
>>history. It's just ignorant to say that phrases in one context mean the
>>same thing as phrases in another context. As far as the phrase Dylan's
>>own title "Love and Theft", (from which I gather some of the criticism
>>comes from) the theft there by allusion to Eric Lott does not mean
>>plagiarism but exploitation or something akin to parody. Now whether or
>>not Dylan is burlesquing Henry Timrod, that's a valid question, a real
>>and not sham ambiguity.
>>
>> To quote Bobby Dee, Peace Out, Byronthebulb
>
>
online articles regarding Love and Theft, from reputable newspapers. Do
a search on "Bob Dylan" and "plagiarism." It's ridiculous the way this
man is being defended. I repeat: the litmus test is, if a student did
the same thing, would that student be graded on original work or
penalized for plagiaristic work. That's the bottom line as far as I'm
concerned. Theft is theft regardless what one does with the stolen money
(and I'm not even conceding Dylan did anything artistic with his stolen
material, but just in case his idolators claim so). One could rob a bank
to pay for my mother's cancer medication, but it's still robbery.
Obviously there would be some extenuation in sentencing, esp. if the
person had a clean record; but it would be considered robbery and go
through the correct judicial process first. Dylan is being allowed to
get away with it without even having to comment on the issue or having
his record company do so. Or maybe Dylan does plan to issue a statement,
but first he has to rummage through online etexts before he pastes
together his defense:
"Fourscore and seven years ago, the folk movement began, with malice
towards none and charity to all other singers in the movement, so that
music of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish
from the earth. I shall fight these accusations of plagiarism. I shall
fight in the hills. I shall fight in the concert halls. I shall fight in
the recording studio. I will never admit plagiarism."
M. Rick
folk songs were published on song sheets and sheet music. As to artistic
originality, once the "pilfered source" is known it doesn't matter if it's
famous, obscure or anonymous. The ethical question is whether the borrowing
on Modern Times goes beyond the standards of contemporary popular
songwriting. I'm inclined to answer no.
Bottom line is Dylan doesn't have to credit Timrod, but Jessica Simpson has
to credit Ashford and Simpson.
Mr Jinx
That is the point exactly.
This moronic dabate about Dylan's 'theft' really is getting stale. If
people really are so worried about this why do they still come here?
Love & Theft was composed of almost entirely found materials and yet it
stands as a new and unique creation.
Why should Dylan credit anybody? He has been ripped off more times
than any artist alive. I reckon he has the right to work inside the
folk and blues idioms and reference their lines without this constant
carping.
The only question we need to ask ourselves is: does his work inspire
us? If the answer is yes then that is its justification.
Mr Jinx
Will Dockery
Mr Jinx wrote:
>
> Why should Dylan credit anybody?
Because they thought up and wrote the stuff.
--
"Ozone Stigmata" by Will Dockery: