Well, maybe. (Thanks to Rich for the tip.) Van Morrison generally gives interesting interviews, when he can bring himself to do it at all. At the moment, he is uncharacteristically ubiquitous, at least in the U.S., showing up everywhere from the Don Imus show to “Live with Regis and Kelly.” He is promoting his new (live) version of Astral Weeks
In any case, in a recent interview in the U.K. Telegraph, Van alluded to Bob Dylan — someone with whom he’s collaborated and of whom he’s spoken admiringly in the past — in an odd manner. To give better context to it I include here also an earlier part of the interview where the journalist first brings up the name of Bob Dylan. They had just been discussing the robust chart success that Van’s albums have had in recent years.
SF: I’m just wondering if there’s anything we can read into it to say that maybe people are craving this kind of music. Bob Dylan had his first #1 in 30-something years with his last album. Somehow it seems that maybe there’s a renewed interest in this not rock music.
VM: I don’t really know. They’re just promoting, especially with the download thing, like it’s always been: let’s just get the next load of kids in and milk that and then get the next lot in and milk those. It’s the same as it was in the old days, only much more. Like I say, the people running these companies don’t know anything about music and they don’t are about music; they’re not interested. It’s a con, it’s a front, you know?
[…]SF: Well, the title of the last album seems very apropos to me: Keep It Simple. If I think about the times that I’ve seen you live, it’s really about the music, and it’s not about all of these other things that seem to get grafted on to some people’s concerts, where it’s more about the lighting design or the costumes…
VM: Yeah, well, you see I don’t know anybody who does what I do, because I do it all. Like, some of the people you mentioned there, they don’t do it all. I do it all. You name it, I do it: jazz, blues, whatever. I can do everything. Because that’s the background that I came out of. So I don’t really fit into this mythology. I don’t fit into the rock mythology, or the Zimmerman mythology or any of that shit. I don’t fit into any of that. I’m not creating any image. I’m anti-mythology. I’m not really in the music business as such.
Earlier in the interview he’d also mentioned the “Beatles myth” and the “Elvis Presley myth.”
Is he putting down Bob Dylan as a musician, as being more about the “mythology,” and also, implicitly, as not being able to “do it all” like he (Van) can? Well, it would seem unlikely, considering their history as mutual admirers. Still, it’s a strange choice of words. (And this is the thanks Bob gets for playing Van several times on “Theme Time Radio Hour”!) It seems more likely that he’s putting down those writers (maybe even like yours-truly) and publicity-people who, he believes, promote a mythology of Dylan. It’s a little hard to say. I do think that Van does tend to protest too much about not being this and not being that, but he’s entitled. He’s also a moody and capricious chap, and maybe he’s got some bee in his bonnet about Dylan right now.
It’s also odd that he chooses to call Dylan “Zimmerman” in this context. We all know that there is a Bob Dylan myth (or many of them, actually) but what exactly is the “Zimmerman myth”? It can’t help but bring to mind, for me at least, that litany from John Lennon’s song God:
I don’t believe in magic,
I don’t believe in mantra,
I don’t believe in Jesus,
I don’t believe in Kennedy,
I don’t believe in Elvis,
I don’t believe in Zimmerman,
I don’t believe in Beatles,
I just believe in me,
Yoko and me,
And that’s reality.
I’ve always thought that was such a weak ending, by the way (“I just believe in me, Yoko and me, And that’s reality”). In John Lennon’s case, perhaps he just thought “Zimmerman” was more musical, or more clever, than “Dylan.” And maybe it is, indeed, in the context of the song. Also, this way, it wouldn’t be confused with the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (maybe John did believe in him).
I guess it’s impossible to judge why Van Morrison chose to cite Dylan’s original surname in this way during the interview. It probably means nothing in particular. Now, in any case, the incident will just become another small part of the great “Van Morrison mythology.”
