ginsberg or poets like it. allen had just flown to london from prague ejected by czech authorities as a corrupter of youth. there's many who thought that, but the czech authorities really thought so. he was 39 years old at the time, and boy, oh, boy, this is not what they had in mind. he was not a year shy of 40. a week after amassing of 100,000 students in prague with rock bands blaring had proclaimed him the king of may as part of the revival of an annual festival what the come mu nighses suppressed for 20 years. those who know his work know his poem that describes not simply the scene of his being

prosecuted in england, but his flight to prague. no one knew that at the hotel. allen was deported to london. in the mu view's next scene shot the following day, all is calm in the hotel room, and there, out of the blue is allen beginsberg seated and chatting with dylan. there's a scene of that in the book. the sequence is spooky in its timing given what's just happened on screen. dylan asked for ginsberg, and sud -- suddenly, there he is.

it was confirmed they had no idea he was coming the idea dylan brought up his name with adams. an important moment in the story of the ejection from prague merged with an iconic moment in dylan's career although explaning that in the film would have taken too long and taken the focus off of dylan. instead, the camera records the hippest of 1960 friendships and makes possible a clever piece of image making joining the singer as poet in the same documentary frame with the poet as cultural hero. so, there's much more about allen ginsberg and bob dylan right to the day that ginsberg died. the next night dylan was playing in canada and performed what he said and he announced this in

the crowd, and if you've been to a bob dylan concert, he doesn't talk to the crowd. he did talk that night and was dedicating his performance to allen ginsberg. right until the day he died, that connection was very, very tight. we move on to the section of dylan's early career, and i talk something about or repeatedly about events or concerts i attended. i used that to get my perceptions into the book, but a line from which i then land and look at other aspects of dylan's career. one of those events was a concert that he gave on halloween night in 1964 at philharmonic hall. it was tough where i grew up. my dad ran a book shop in grays village, and it was right in the

center of the folk revival. i had a father who got me free tickets to a bob dylan concert at 13 years old and i got my first copy of blond on blond. how do you rebel to that? you become a professor. [laughter] at any rate, i was at a concert, and i want to read a little bit about my description of what that was all about. dylan's management booked philharmonic hall for a big show that year on halloween night is testimony to his growing stature . i'm reading this because we're right down the block there and i couldn't resist. i couldn't resist. this is the new york portion of the evening force, and those of you in tv land, bare with us. it was testimony to his agreeing stature. opened only two years earlier as

9 first showcase as the neighborhood killer rornt moviegoers -- moses's hall. it was with its grandeur, an autotore yum in the manner. within two years of the release of his first album, the new york venues shot upward and further uptown from town hall to carnegie hall and to the sparkling new hall of the new york philharmonic. when the expected audience streamed out of the old tiled rit, how many people remember the rit? okay, good. we're of a certain age. right. the rit subway stop at 66th street and crammed into the theater, it must have looked to people as a bizarre invasion of the beat neck civil rights

banned of young. to make sure we knew our place, a man arrived on stage to warn us there's no picture taking or smoking in the house. then striding to his podium, dylan walked out of the wings, no announcement necessary, a fanfare of applause saying who he was. he started the concert as he normally did with the times they are a changing. here we all were, the self-conscientiously senseitive and discerning settling in at a dylan show whatsoever, the plush surroundings. we left the premises and head back underground to the rit entertained and ratified in our self-assured enlightenedment, but also confused we gained from the strange new songs 689 what was that weird lull by in d

minor? what is a perfumed gull? or was it a perfumed gal? had dylan wrote a song based on darkness at noon? the melodies were strong and the playing on the darkness song was am nows and overpowering. it turned into a dylan show unlike we had ever heard or heard about. in our programs, there was dylan's latest prose poem that warned if one crossed the line, people would feel something is going on up there that they don't know about, revenge will set in. the piece concluded about a string of injunctions, some serious, some comic. there were bathroom walls that had not been written on. when asked to give your real

name, never give it. way ahead of his listeners, dylan was already mulling over thoughts and lines that would one day wind up in ballet of a thin man and blues. that was bob dylan on the cusp offing? new, and it was the electric guitar. it was sensitivity. that's a nice chapter. i love it, but maybe it's too long for reading tonight. not too long in principle. [laughter] there were chapters that carry through the songs that are great masterpieces of the middle period and recorded in 1943 not released until 1991, and then i talk about a period where i

think dylan's creative horizons shrank and lost me where his music is not what it has been and talked about the early 90 and recorded two acoustic records, but i think he reached back and found his muse again and it's called interlude, and there's two songs i talk about in detail, and i give you a background to them and again try to revive or try to find rather those cultural circuits that roughen between bob dylan's music and singing of other people's songs and american culture at large. one of those -- there's two sings i wrote about, one is one of the oldest blues songs ever written called delia. he sings that song and there's a

line in the song which is about a murder and two teenage kids, a stupid murder in savannah in 1900, but he sings the line all the friends i ever had are gone and it breaks your heart. the other song is loan pill gram, the last song on the record, and it's a song that meant a lot to me so it comes back to me. it comes back to me only because my father was diagnosed and dying of cancer in 1964. this song meant a lot to me, and so i remembered it, and i still remember it for that, but also it makes dylan with forms of religious music that again people didn't always associate with. the lone pilgrim comes out of the most singers cred --

sacred of hymns ever written. some today all across the south, it's even sung in brooklyn and it's found in maine. this comes right out of that so-called fa-so-la tradition. he chose that one in part because he heard it on a dock watson record. in fact, i'm going to begin with that very fact. it is to all gone wrong, he took lone pilgrim from an old dock watson record and it's similar to what was sang in 1963. watson's version which he states is one of his father's favorite hymns is turned into a shotter rep my cation of sacred heart.

several recordings of the song appeared between watson and dylan. the watson family album produce the in 1963 by the village friend of the green briar boys is drawn from recordings in 1960 and 1963 in tennessee, virginia, and north carolina. it has the spontaneous live quality that is also a key to world gone wrong which might be described as a set of dylan's field recordings of himself. it is rich and piercing, the fiddle adds to that. there's a fiddler in the background. there was a charming, slightly chunky quality to the performance trying hard to merge the tempo and phrasing to fit those of fiddler who is watson's father-in-law, the old time

fiddler player. in the second line of each verse as the melody ascends, it's a story of a person visiting the tomb which actually exists in new jersey, visiting the tomb of one of the many preachers and visionaries of the 1930s, and he's visiting the tomb, and the spirit of the person who is buried begins talking to him and telling him not to worry that everything is fine and he should tell his family to be happy because he has gone to heaven and he's with the lord. on the second line of each verse, the melody ascends and stood by his tomb and storms may arise and so on and the temper rises and places emphasis on the 5th and 8th sill bills. dylan just sings to guitar

strumming and the voice is tender, barely arising over a whisper. his voice is the one murmuring at the pilgrim's grave. far more successful than watson, he inhaibts the song's core overing a breathing spell that he called inhumane, modern convention and offering consullation. the eye, a man visiting the tomb, who sings the first three lines becomes another eye, the man who died, the lone pilgrim, the man who died, yet lives, and now speaks. the second eye wondered too as compelled by his master, but he, and here dylan ease voice goes slightly on the tune.

he should not weep now he has gone and dylan has not sung the word gone as much as he inhales it. the rested soul achieved the lords' many mansions, and he is calm. anyway, he is not really gone, not completely, at least for the length of this song. coming at the conclusions of a song and in men can do women right because the world is going wrong and about gamblers, shooters, a boston boy cut down by johnny red and more, lone pilgrim is a retrieve, a coming to rest, a ghost note on a different order, and a benediction. he found a song inspired by a godly white robed minister of

charity and decency and a poet. in an america that was convulsed by religious awakenings. the song as he describes in the performance by even has been glossed on one of the white pilgrim's poems. let my arise above the fame of riches and renown, above an earthly monarchs name to mortal crown. hearing dylan sing that song in 1964 and the months after he died brought a thing that came from the last place that i expected it from. more than a decade later it still bringing calmness in the last two lines and the last word which is also the last word on world gone wrong. it led my through the scenes most severe has kindly assisted

me home. for that performance that few remember, i always feel a gratitude that is completely personal, but all of that aside, it is clear that with lone pilgrim and world gone long, dylan reached the own of his beginning of his own reawakening and assisted by the kind master reached a place that at least felt more like home. one last track. this is not about a song at all, but this is coming from my chronicles which if you have not read, by with this book tonight. [laughter] it is a masterpiece of american memoir and i can think of few others in the 20th century that are its match. it's the best of the 21st century i guess. [laughter]

in chronicles which is an extraordinarily generous, book full of gratitude, dylan talks about his early days which i wrote about a little bit too, and i used chronicals a lot which is not always necessarily trustworthy in all accounts, but i think a lot of its. one of the things he talks about which is very pourful is -- powerful is listening to the songs, not so much at the clubs, but the great songs and all the rest, how that really got him going. how powerful that all was, and how he listening to the clansy brothers got him connected to history and helped him see something he was seeing anyway which is the ability to see the past and the present almost in a ghostly way, and if you hang

around the village long enough, it's not the drugs or the drink, you can see edgar allen pow walking down the street because the village still has those dimensions. you can hear herman melville. all that right up to allen ginsberg and bob dylan is still alive at the same time. there's no difference between the past and present. that's how bob dylan begins describing himself. there's a remarkable section going to the new york public library and wanted to find ways to take the songs he was hearing of the white horse that were being sung and give it an american substance, find an american template to fit that spirit of rebellion and history. why do you go? you go to the library, and where

do you go? you don't read other people's books which he had done, but you go to the sources themselves, and that's the newspapers of the time. where did bob dylan go? the microfilm room of the new york public library, 15 years ago before i was in the same room doing something much different and less interesting. he went to the new york public libraries to read the newspapers and get in touch with those sources to see what the sources had to say and reading all articles and newspapers that the library made available. i'll close with this little riff from the book about, well, meditations on all of that. for a professional historian, it was thrilling to learn bob dylan discovered his art in a microfilm room. he realized as anyone does, it was the 1840s, 50s, and 60s,

there was many stories other than slavery, reform movements, rising crimes, debate over who can perform in new york theaters. americans worshiped the same god, shared the constitution and the major political parties, and thought of them as the best hope, yet, some were enemies. after awhile, bob dylan writes, after awhile you become aware of nothing but a culture of feeling, the black days, of schism, eve for evil, the common destiny of human beings getting thrown off course. it felt creepy reading of an america nothing like that outside the walls, and it resembled it a lot.

in time, the stories and the feelings and the language and the rhetoric of the newspapers cohered. back there network was put on -- america was put on a cross, died, and was resurrected. the god awful truth of that will be the all encompassing template behind everything that i would write. bob dylan doesn't call this a breakthrough, but that is what it is. he had already landed in a parallel universe, one where actions and virtues were old style and judgmental things came falling out on their heads, a culture without women, demon lovers, pretty leaves, and john henry's, an invisible world that towered overhead with gleaming

corridors. that's chronicals, man, an amazing book. the only problem is there was too late of it and is preserved by the folkists. it was out of date, had no proper connection to the actualities, the trends of the time, it was a huge story, but hard to come across. once he read the history, the gap closed. what once felt real but antiqued, was now the story of the day, songs ready to write, a mere imitator no more. it was all around him, on 7th avenue passing a building where women lived and worked singing the true song of his soul as bob dylan puts it. on third street starring at

edgar allen poe's house. it was reality itself. "if someone were to ask what's going on, mr. gofield was shot down, nothing you can do. that's what's going on." looking for the american version of the irish boy, he found what he needed and more in the public library, a story of biblical proportions, a story that was not over, not by a long shot, the story of a death and trance figuration of a nation. that's where i'll end. [applause] let's get some feedback folks. thank you very much. [applause] thank you. really, thank you.

[applause] thank you very much. anyway, i'm here to answer questions, and we'll be doing signing later on. there's a gentleman with the microphone, if you go to the microphone and ask your questions, we'll help you out. >> you mentioned a connection between bob dylan and -- did he ever -- they set witman's song to music a few months ago. did he ever write a song based on that poetry do you know? >> yes. >> he did? >> yes. >> do you know what song it is in >> the one i think is the one he wrote for a very, very bad movie called gods and generals.

don't see the movie, but get the album. he wrote a song called across the green mountain, and there's a verse to my ear which i can't confirm it, but sounds very much like a witman poem, a story in a poem called coming from the field's father, and there's a lot in that song from many different poets of the civil war era. you know, when bob dylan set about writing songs for a movie about the civil war, he's reading about the civil war i imagine and a lot of that poetry. he made it his own though. he did bob dylan's songs, and that's what that is. more questions? sure. >> yes, can you hear me? >> yes. >> the welsh poet -- >> so they say. >> well, i just -- i have a hard time seeing any

connection between the two unless he was just inspired by his poetry between bob dylan's lyrics and dylan thomas. what attracted him to a dylan thomas? >> can't speak for him, but thomas was a very powerful influence on that generation early on. this is a solid try biewlt to two other titles, and the other being a book by a -- thomas did tours of america where he read his poems #-rbg and although lyrically they are different, they spoke of poetry that could be understood and was appreciated by many, many ordinary americans, you know, he was not --

he was the ballroom poet, and in fact he died having too many drinks and ended up at the hospital, but you know, you don't look at a child's christmas in wales and say, there's a bob dylan song. no. it was important of people who came of age in the 1940s and 19450s. bob dylan denies he took his name from dylan thomas. i have to respect that denial. if i get a chan to write the book again, i'll include dylan thomas too. >> thank you, i enjoyed it. >> thank you very much. yes, sir, ma'am, someone. >> yes, hi. >> hi. >> dylan was hanging out with the beetles in the 64 tour. at that time they were into bob

dylan, and could you comment on cross forgetlyization as you see it. >> i think they got a lot from bob dylan. i'll leave it at that. >> okay. >> the day before he met the beatles was at a hotel in manhattan. listen to rubber soul in particular, i think dylan's influence is there. however, look, did bob dylan pick up something from the beatles? you bet. as the famous story in 1964, he gets the beatles on the radio and misunderstanding i want to hold your hand to mean i get high, i get high. . i don't know whether that's true or not, but sure, you know, the english were bringing back to americans another one of these circuits, and they were giving

back -- his version was a mixture of both english music hall and american. we get back other versions itself, and bob dylan couldn't help but respond to that, so in a sense in particular there's a line of verse or anything like that, but i think he saw impossibilities open up from the beatles that helped expand him not as much as but the others he was opening up to in 1964 other 1963. any other questions? yes, ma'am. >> you had a opportunity to meet bob dylan, what was that like? >> i'm not going to answer that i'm afraid. you know, there's such a cult

about bob dylan around bob dylan that people -- people ask me this all the time. it's like, you know, there's some sort of magical properties coming off of him, and i suppose those magical properties would adhere to me, and i have no magical properties, but i just like to stay away from that, and also he's a private person, and i respect his privacy. sorry about that. i'm sure he's a wonderful fellow. >> [inaudible] what about his trip in the united states -- >> the question is how important was the 1964 trip and writes mr. tam rein man. hethere was a cross country trip he took by car. >> how important is that you think to his overall ideal as a poet throughout the next seven

or eight years or three or four years, sorry, and do you think that he kind of uses some of that technique? [inaudible] >> well, i think that trip was very much a part of an entire series of things happening to him at that time. that trip may not that impacted him if he didn't open up to it, but the trip was important. any car trip that produces a song, i wish i was on that car trip. [laughter] he ends up in california. i can't remember, does he -- >> [inaudible] >> right. >> [inaudible] >> so, you know, there's a trio. >> yeah, a little bit. >> i have a whole section in the

book about that. that's a song that's very deeply influenced by the beatles, but, you know, look, it's raining outside; right? that's the most extraordinary description of the poetics of a thunderstorm i've ever heard, to hear the crashing into a doorway and see the whole world open up for redemption for everyone, i mean, wow, he got that out of a rainstorm? no wonder he's wet. [laughter] >> bob dylan is on the road. where is he know? i don't know, somebody can go on bob dylan and tell me what city he's singing in tonight. >> he's not singing until october. >> i'm sorry, he will be on the road. [laughter] yes, he's usually on the road

that's why i said it with so much confidence. [laughter] yes, sir, can we get the microphone up here? >> when bob dylan released the album in 1976, what came out -- there was a television show -- >> yes. >> that has a concept from that. the most amazing piece of television that i think i've ever seen, i mean, it was a limited commercial, i just want a response and for me any, it exposeed his music. do you have any information as to how it happened, who did that in that way? >> sure. i like that too.

i like the record more than most people do. it's not up there, but the record of that concert is just to die. it's really good. that was filmed in i believe fort colin, colorado, and everybody in the audience is shaking their head. they know. the thing is dylan fans is they know everything about him. if i said boulder, everybody would have been -- [laughter] it was in fort collins colorado. dylan kept it going another year and some the people who had been on the original were there, and others weren't. it was a rainy afternoon in the open air in colorado and that's that concert. it's very different from the rolling thunder review i write

about in the book which was a white face performance with the desire and in the riviera and all that. this is a rolled up turbine as protection against the rain or attack a country, i don't know. actually, they are singing together a butcher boy and a couple other numbers in particular, but the forum on that is just, you know, it's just great, and it shows dylan again reinventing his songs. i don't think he's ever done it. i never heard him do it that way before or sense. it was great. i agree with you. go get hard rain. one more question, ladies and gentlemen. there's a question there, and i'll answer your question later. >> you spoke earlier about the visit to jack's grave. sam shepherd was with him, young

at the time, and you also talked about copeland's movie's music. sam shepherd and dylan wrote a song together that is my favorite, and it's also a movie in that, and gregory peck is in that movie, and i've never been able to tie it all together. it seems to be a lot about america, but do you have any enlightenment you can share on that in >> i'm not really strong on brown's little girl. there's another movie now i guess being made out of it, but it's one of the highlights of that period that i talked about as kind of a barren period. he and sam shepherd had magic happened and he described it as epic in how many verses, but i don't know about the background of that one like i do others.

>> [inaudible] >> yes. >> [inaudible] [inaudible] [laughter] >> i vice president seen bob dylan -- i haven't seen bob dylan in anything. [laughter] >> that's why i love talking about bob dylan. there's an early tape from minnesota where his friend's wife's mother says i look like -- i don't know how much he did, but, you know, he's attached with movie stars goes back because members of his family

ran the movie theater. there's connections with movies, not just the movie he makes and made, and this book includes arousing defense of that. [applause] i can see i'm among the enlightened and among friends. [laughter] that year the critics seemed to prefer my big fat greek wedding to master anonymous. that tells me a lot about movie critics. well, it's a wonderful sell. apart from that, his connection to, you know, to movies, films, it shows in the lyrics and they are highly symbolic and movies after are very strong, and so i'm not suprised and gregory peck was a great actor, so why not. >> do we have time for half a question? >> half a question. >> okay. >> you talked about scoring and can you comment on your take of

his relationship with his audience and the tours he does at minor league baseball fields and the college he played at community colleges in florida. he talked about his ongoing tour, can you talk about his relationship with touring and his relationship with his audience? that seems to go back and forth for me. >> well, the relationship with his audience is a tough one. he's there to perform his song and not chitchat. that can be great, and to be charming and wonderful, if bob dylan did it, we'd fall flat. it's just not working that way. from a 69-year-old man who is not on the road tonight, sorry for the mistake. [laughter] he will be on the road in october, what that tells me is

he loves to be on the road a lot, but b, it tells me he's the real thing. you know, chuck barry still performs, these are the guys who are out there, you know, who do it again and again and again, a enyou know, bob dylan could have packed it up a long time ago and had a rich career, and people like me, college professors like me would be writing about him anyway. his relationship to his and yens is one that has been to be performed. he's not just a recording artist, but a performer. those songs have to be performed and they are performed in different ways, and they are performed with different bands and audiences including younger audiences. those minor league baseball parks, nothing made me happier

to see the 4-year-old skimping around growing up in this music. it's not just a cultural thing like that. i think that dylan sees his work as something that needs to be performed and just can't be listened to on your cd player no matter how sophisticated it is. he's on the road. that's a beat reference. [laughter] the man's on the road, and for that i'm eternally grateful because i love going to bob dylan's concerts. i truly do. i love the people who tell me about his concerts. any other questions? in the back, my friend larry, let him have a requested. go ahead, larry. >> you mentioned the tom clancy's and i was reminded of

boy. was he a singer? >> paul wilson is in the middle of the world i described in the popular front, so he would have listened to it, if you listen to lonesome road, look up, look up and seek your maker, that's a line he later uses in, i think it's in love and theft, paul webster's version of that is the standard. i'm sure he hasn't written about it anywhere, but you could not have come of age in that part of the world without his music. folks, thank you very much. [applause] sean wilentz is the athor of a rise of american democracy, the recipient of the prize and author of the liner notes for volume six bob dylan, live 1964,

the concert at the philharmonic hall and is the author of bob dylan's official website. for more information, visit bobdylan.com. recently in political blogs on facebook and youtube, you may have seen a panel on the future of conservative values. jonah gold berg moderated the contributes to his book proud to be right. >> i don't know how big of a conservative i am, i counted up the letters and it's 13, you know. there's -- it was an interesting project to work on. u don't want to say it was a vanity project, but it was interesting. the idea of the book came about when i was talking about adam, my editor on