What made you decide to mention Anne Frank next to Indiana Jones? Paul Whiteman was called the king of jazz. Everybody knows what they did and who they were.

So that’s where the song was going all along. But that only applies to people of a certain age like me and you, Doug. And of course the rock’n’roll world wanted to keep him singing “Good Golly, Miss Molly.” So his gospel music wasn’t accepted in either world. Good news in today’s world is like a fugitive, treated like a hoodlum and put on the run. Someplace you’d like to be beyond your experience.

A lot of those auctioned-off documents have been forged. I can’t even say why. Do you think about mortality often? It is my identity, and I’m not going to question it; I am in no position to. But young people don’t think like that. What Eagles songs do you enjoy the most?
When the curtain came down, I was stunned. I really was. He inhabits a song rather than attacking it. Q: Somebody auctioned off a sheaf of unpublished transcripts in the 1990s that you wrote about JFK’s murder. Bob Dylan’s Late-Era, Old-Style American Individualism. He’s not a showoff guitar player, although he can do that if he wants. There’s definitely a lot more anxiety and nervousness around now than there used to be. There’s no way you can change the nature of a song once you’ve invented it. Have you ever thought about recording a bluegrass album? Q: Does having the Pacific Ocean in your backyard help you process the COVID-19 pandemic in a spiritual way? I think about it in general terms, not in a personal way. And they deserve all the respect and acclaim that they received. A: Probably because gospel music is the music of good news and in these days there just isn’t any.

There are theories of truth in gospel, but to most people it’s unimportant. Jo Stafford, Joni James, Kay Starr – I think they were all jazz singers. A few years ago, sitting beneath shade trees in Saratoga Springs, New York, I had a two-hour discussion with Bob Dylan … That you’ve achieved the unthinkable. In it he pays homage to “Ginsberg, Corso and Kerouac”. Q: Somebody auctioned off a sheaf of unpublished transcripts in the 1990s that you wrote about JFK’s murder. Even citizens involved say they don’t know. I never plan to write any of them. The folk tradition has a long history of songs about people, though. They kind of write themselves and count on me to sing them. It’s the way I actually feel about things. Their lives are lived out too fast. A: I didn’t really have to grapple much.

He’s always done that with me. So it’s probably best to get into that mindset as soon as we can because that’s going to be the reality. Q: How is your health holding up? Too bad Broadway shut down because I wanted to see it again.

Want an ad-free experience?Subscribe to Independent Premium. The songs seem to know themselves, and they know that I can sing them, vocally and rhythmically. Yet in his day, his songs must have confused people. Q: Charlie Sexton began playing with you for a few years in 1999 and returned to the fold in 2009. Our journalists will try to respond by joining the threads when they can to create a true meeting of independent Premium. A: Yeah, but the John Williams score brought him to life. I acknowledge them differently. For the first time in eight years, he’s back with original music – so what’s occupying his mind these days? And I can hardly explain that – why or where or how – but those are the facts. There aren’t any of my songs that Charlie doesn’t feel part of, and he’s always played great with me.

Oh yeah, “Wild Horses.”. The play had me crying at the end. Q: Was “Murder Most Foul” written as a nostalgic eulogy for a long-lost time?

A fix of some kind. It’s a land of Walt Whitman and Chuck Berry, of border towns and murder ballads — and America’s greatest songwriter may be the last man living there.

They have no past, so all they know is what they see and hear, and they’ll believe anything. It always did, especially when I was writing the lyrics out. Q: “I Contain Multitudes” has a powerful line: “I sleep with life and death in the same bed.” I suppose we all feel that way when we hit a certain age.
Q: On the album “Tempest” you perform “Roll On John” as a tribute to John Lennon. I don’t think of “Murder Most Foul” as a glorification of the past or some kind of send-off to a lost age. But so was Robert Johnson, even more so. Not to be light on it, but everybody’s life is so transient. It’s as if you can read each other’s minds. To go too much into detail is irrelevant. The forgeries are easy to spot because somebody always signs my name on the bottom. And I can hardly explain that — why or where or how — but those are the facts. No doubt about it. Everybody’s got such a short attention span. How do you keep mind and body working together in unison? “False Prophet” is only one of three 12-bar structural things on this record.

I think this song has something to do with the classical world, something that’s out of reach. He’s very restrained in his playing but can be explosive when he wants to be.

few years ago, sitting beneath shade trees in Saratoga Springs, New York, I had a two-hour discussion with Bob Dylan that touched on Malcolm X, the French Revolution, Franklin D Roosevelt and the Second World War. A: I’m not aware of ever wanting to write a song about JFK. Well, yeah.