Bob Dylan, "Chronicles" 에서 2

Bob Dylan, "chronicles: Volume one" (2004) 뒷표지

2. "Chronicles"의 마지막 장, 시기적으로는 가장 먼저에 해당하는 스무 살 안팍 적의 이야기인, "5  River of Ice" 에서

I had no other cares or interests besides folk music. I scheduled my life around it. I had little in common with anyone not like-minded. (p238)

Woody [Guthrie] made each word count. He painted with words. [...] I tried to emulate it anyway I could. a lot of folks might have thought of Woody's songs as backdated, but not me. (p247)

Whatever I heard people say was irrelevant -- both good or bad -- didn't get caught up in it. [...] What I had to do was keep straight ahead and I did that. (p253)

A new world of art was opening up my mind. [...] Suze's favorite current modernist artist was Red Grooms, and he became mine, too. (p269)

About this tie I began to make some of my own  drawings. I actually picked up the habit from Suze, who drew a lot. [...] In a strange way I noticed that it purified the experience of my eye and I would make drawings of my own for years to come. (p270)

[Robert] Johnson's words made my nerves quiver like piano wires. They were so elemental in meaning and feeling and gave you so much of the inside picture. (p284)

I copied Johnson's words down on scraps of paper so I could more closely examine the lyrics and patterns, the construction of his old-style lines and the free association that he used, the sparkling allegories, big-ass truths wrapped in the hard shell of nonsensical abstraction -- themes that flew through the air with the greatest ease. (p285)

Robert Johnson's code of language was like nothing I'd heard before or since. To go with all of that, someplace along the line Suze had also introduced me to the poetry of French Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud. That was a big deal, too. (p288)