from Martin Scorsese’s new Netflix Bob Dylan movie
Bob Dylan (on Allen Ginsberg, poetry, and song-writing):
“Seeing Ginsberg was like going to see the Oracle of Delphi. He didn’t care about material wealth or political power. He was his own kind of King but… he wanted to play music. He’d already achieved what an international poet could hope to achieve. “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness”? Very few poets have done that – Robert Frost maybe? – “..promises to keep/..miles to go before I sleep” – Whitman said, “..I’m large, I contain multitudes.” We still remember those lines today. Today’s poets don’t reach into the public consciousness that way. So it was remarkable that Allen had actually broken through. Nowadays lines that people remember are lines from songs, lyrics from songs. “Your cheatin’ heart/ Will make you weep” – “..don’t change your hair for me/Not if you care for me” – “I’m in the mood for love” – “What a difference a day makes” – “Ain’t Misbehavin’ – Allen wanted his lines to remembered like that, but he was a poet, he wasn’t a songwriter.”
