by Paul Rees
I was a longtime fan of John Cougar followed by John Mellencamp. (Alas, Xopher HATES John Mellencamp, so it’s been kind of difficult for me to enjoy him in recent years; I’m always hearing negative opinions…)
I started reading this book and quickly developed a dislike to what I was learning about John Mellencamp as a person. Volatile, violent, reckless, mean, not nice, and maybe not even all that talented, just lucky…
I finished the book still thinking him volatile, violent, all those negative words. And not liking him. And yet… liking him at the same time.
But as you know, the one I REALLY like is Dylan…
John Mellencamp: “’I asked him, “Bob, how did you feel when people gave you shit about doing a Cadillac commercial?” He looked at me and said, “Didn’t bother me. Even when I was doing my greatest stuff they didn’t write nice things about me. If I’m such a living legend, why in 1986 did Columbia want to drop me from the fucking label?” Hearing Bob say that, you realize it’s a slugfest, because here’s the greatest songwriter of all time. There’s no argument about that by the way, there’s nobody even comes close. I was getting a lot of shit about that Chevy commercial, too. And it was like Bob told me, “What the fuck do you care?”’”.
Miriam Sturm: “I can’t tell you how many emails we got before the first of those ballpark shows telling us, ‘You may not speak to Bob Dylan. You may not look Bob Dylan in the eye. Don’t approach Bob Dylan, or ask Bob Dylan at any opportunity to have a photo taken.’ I was like, ‘Jeez, what do you think I am, seven years old?’… I happened to walk smack into Dylan. I actually looked into his eyes. Oh, no, I was going to turn into a pillar of salt! No, it wasn’t so awful, but he sure is grave, man. There was no person behind the eyes I looked into. It was very strange. I guess he’s so used to having to cloister himself.”
Dylan giving a speech at the MusiCares event honoring him in 2015: “And like my friend John Mellencamp would sing – because John sang some truth today – one day you get sick and you don’t get better.” Noting he was referencing the lyrics from “Longest Days,” Dylan concluded, “It’s one of the better songs of the last few years, actually.”
“The only modern artist Dylan acknowledged as a songwriter in his speech was John,” says Rob Light… “I think more than any moment in John’s entire career that was the one for him. It hit him in a way that to this day I’m not even sure he’s comprehended.”
John Sykes: “That’s not Rolling Stone magazine. That’s not a reviewer in a local paper. That’s Bob Dylan. There is no greater validation for an artist born of the baby boom generation. That is the ultimate seal of approval and it came when John had started making records for himself and not for everyone else.”
Tytania 