I'm too lazy to do a search to confirm this, but I'm sure that back in 2003, you all musta discussed the discovery of 12 instances where song lyrics from Bob Dylan's Love and Theft album (his most recent studio album) matched passages from the English translation of an obscure book, Confessions of a Yakuza by Dr. Junichi Saga, said book being an oral history of a Japanese gangster, Ijichi Eiji. (If you didn't, I can reproduce these passages. BTW, I've read the book, & it's interesting.)

Now I gotta wonder if Bob is at it again.

As some of you know, I'm a huge Hemingway fan, having read all of his books cept for the most recently-discovered one (seems pointless to read it) & all of his short stories, too. I go back & reread some of my favorite Hemingway short stories once a year or so. Currently I'm on p. 162 of Bob Dylan's Chronicles, Volume One & a couple of lines seemed familiar to me. It was easy to find them.

From the Hemingway short story, "The Killers" (The hired hitmen have just been told by George the counter man that Henry's Diner doesn't serve alcoholic drinks):
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>"What do they do here nights?" Al asked.

"They eat the dinner," his friend said. "They all come here and eat the big dinner." <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

From Chronicles, p. 66 (Dylan is at a farewell party for Cisco Houston):


From the Hemingway short story, "The Battler" (Nick Adams gets his first good look at the former boxer Ad Francis):


From Chronicles, p. 75 (Dylan describing the murdered Dutchman, proprietor of a coffee house on Bleecker Streer):


If I find more of these, I'll post 'em as I find 'em.

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So, Joe, are you saying that Dylan is fishing downstream from Papa Hemingway, and is getting his "poetry" from him? No wonder why there's nothing ever left for the folkslinger.

Yeah Joe I've got my nose in Chronicles at the moment too. I got it last week. I was in a cool little second hand record store down in the Big Smoke (the city, takes me an hour to get there by train or car)and saw it on a shelf with a small collection of books about musical people. Here it costs $45 (OZ dollars) in the bookstores and it had $24 on it! The guy said that book reviewers give him any books of a musician nature when their done reading them and he sells em cheap! (then I went to one of my favourite surplus book stores and they had it there for $16 !!!!!!!!!! I did't think they'ed have it so soon!!) Anyway I also picked up a copy of Pete Seeger's greatest hits in good condition. It's the one where he say's on the back... "These are my 'HITS'? CBS Records picked the title of this album not me. Now read the truth." Then he goes on to tell a whole story of how the songs came about and who wrote them,and how other people had hits with them but his own records are collectors items and no one but collectors ever bought them. At the end he says "SO now you know the truth about songs which CBS sneakily calls PETE SEEGER'S GREATEST HITS." Don't ya love him!!

I'm gonna ask adg if he remember's that day when he was a kid and Dylan waded through the swamp to the Coney Is. house.

I'm enjoying reading it, it's like he's talkin' straight to you.I love bio's and reading about peoples lives I hardly ever read fiction. (Even my favourite book, "To Kill a Mockingbird" was based on Harper's dad)Keep us posted on the Hemmingway similarities ...Veeeery interesting!

"Hey Joe! Where your goin with all those Quotes in your hand? I hear your shootin your man down!" <img src="http://www.arlo.net/ubb/smilies/wink.gif" width=15 height=15>

I found the threat your one about. It's on the Arlonet forums, Legends of Folk Music; I posted on it to bump it up to the top. <img src="http://www.arlo.net/ubb/smilies/smile.gif" width=15 height=15>

Thanks, Beverley! I'll check it out.

I have that Seeger LP, too, Louise, but haven't read the liner notes in about 20 years, so I enjoyed that excerpt. I have many of his Columbia LP's & he wrote the liner notes on just about all of 'em. Somebody really should put 'em all in a book.

Hey Joe
Maybe its just that old fashioned song and dance man philosophy: Steal From the Best

Bobs been sucking up folk tunes and stories and putting his own touch on them before regurgitating them into Magical Mystical Dylanisms for years. Maybe he approaches writing books the same way? Anyway, that Japanese fellow was good natured aboutit, maybe Hemingway won't care either. Who do you think he got Tarantula from? I have seen other posts where they talk about Chronicles being hard to follow because he skips around so much then in the same breath they talk about a cool edition of Tarantula they own. Either the worlds out of kilter or they are just funnin' with me?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PSBeaty:

I have seen other posts where they talk about Chronicles being hard to follow because he skips around so much . .<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I can follow the book just fine. Sure, it jumps around, but like Bound for Glory, or, now that I think about it, Hemingway's own A Moveable Feast, it's not intended to be a complete autobiography, but a series of autobiographical vignettes. If Dylan never gets around to writing or publishing any subsequent volumes, I'd be perfectly happy with just Vol. 1. Much like Henry Miller never finishing Nexus---I was quite happy with the 1,500-some page trilogy just like it was written. Anyways....

More reading today took me into the final chapter. I bookmarked one more page.

Again from "The Battler" (Bugs has knocked Ad unconsious & is talking to Nick around the fire):
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>"I met him in jail," the negro said. "He was busting people all the time after she went away and they put him in jail. I was in for cuttin' a man."

He smiled, and went on soft-voiced . . . .
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

From Chronicles, p. 207 (Dylan is talking with the New Orleans proprietor Sun Pie):

I agree with you Joe, easy to read and the same with my booleg of Tarantula,(hey but lots of his songs are like that too aren't they?!!), but then I like movies like that too. I find your average smooth flowing novel or movie boring cause it's like you wrote the script and you know how it's gonna end instead of gettin' a surprise! .........

Oh I didn't find Chronicles difficult. but Tarantula never really worked for me so much. And I read things like Burroughs and Miller myself (they go out a bit). Did you ever see that book Daybreak by Miss Baez, I think it was her Tarantula, that was a bit out there as well? I thought Chronicles was interesting, the little vignettes as you say, so colorfull and vivid in his descriptions. Now you say he was very well read and used that as a source! Oh well, I am sure the stories are his and we all need sources. He does create an interesting NY. Feels a bit shady but nothing like the dark NY of Burroughs from just a few years before. It seems to me Mr Dylan likes a carnival atmosphere where everyone has a trick up their sleeve. Its a more interesting world. NY is now an entirely different place from when I first visited. Times Square seemed like a rat hole to me in the 70's, those big video boards sure changed that place. There is one thing, he says the Gaslight didn't have a bar.I once went to a place in the Village called The Gaslight. There were Folkies showing up playing music with hard shell cases stacked on a riser looking out ground level windows to the Village street(I remember one woman kept playing songs off Van Morrison's Moondance over and over)There was a guy in the corner dressed like the Dylan of the period (circa early Rolling Thunder/Desire with the big brim felt hat) He was talking to a guy in a suit and making all kinda commotion. But the place had a bar. Doesn't Mr Bob say it didn't have a bar in his book. There was a bar (cause I drank an awful lot there), there was a barrel of peanuts with shells all around and there was a fella that thought he was Bob Dylan sitting in the corner. Must have been some sort of misdirection. Uh Oh, smacks of sewer snoids again!

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Yes, he did say that the Gaslight had no bar, that the bar was next door. I haven't done so in a couple years, but I'm gonna listen to my Gaslight bootleg & will listen esp. hard for ice cubes clinking & other sounds of alcoholic acitivty. I'll report back if I can determine anything.

Oh God, I thought I had excorsized these demons of paranoia, now the nervy kid with the funny stares! Joe, after your comment about a Gaslight Bootleg, I found myself in the world of the musical archive lastnight. After all the flipping and straining to see I found a recording I recalled with Gaslight in the title. I played the song. A raggin' guitar version of Goin' Fishin (all the time) with different words (I assume Goin' Fishin' is Public Domain so nothin' scary yet)! Is there a writers public domain? Oh God, another sign of paranoia, my mind won't stop wandering.

So anyway he was raggin' the fishin song (with a hint of Honey Babe in the rag) and singing of polished rats and grunge on the floor (egads, oppurtunity for subliminalism), now that recalls the Gaslight I saw. Then he said, "and Dylan played Bach." Holy crap, these hidden meanings, they hurt my head. Must be that Byrd intro, was he playing Tamborine MAn. Delving Deeper and DEEper and DEEPER! "And Pogo buys this round", aha, there must be a bar!!!

There is not much light
and plenty of fights
when you are singing in a hole in the ground

Hey wait, this shanty chanty song, thats an ugly song it must be about something ugly.

THe singer sings with nothing but air, where my balls used to be
In a place called Luang Prabang where they sing protests to wimpy anti-war songs

Hey What, Hey wait Stop Th______Censored_____

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 1 times, lastly by PSBeaty on Jan 11, 2005 ---</FONT></center>

A song about the Gaslight to the tune of "Fishin' Blues"? I never heard that one before. Who sings it?

I finished Chronicles last night & report no further incidents of similarities between that & anything Hemingway. So, it's just 3 by my count. If anybody else spots any, feel free to post 'em here.

I sent for 2 Ramblin' Jack Elliott CD's from the latest Collector's Choice Music catalog, & they arrived today: The Lost Topic Tapes: Cowes Harbour 1957 & The Lost Topic Tapes: Isle of Wight 1957, which comprise 2 long-lost live performances, some previously unreleased.

Imagine my glee to read the liner notes & discover that some of these songs were released on Jack Takes the Floor! As those of you who read Chronicles know, a young Bob Dylan heard this album & became afraid that he couldn't measure up to the guy he was hearing.

Jack is definitely on top of his game on these CD's, playing in front of what must be an audience of dead people. For anybody interested in hearing what intimidated the young Bob Dylan, you can buy 'em here:
http://www.collectorschoicemusic.com

(Hope that's not considered spam?)

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 1 times, lastly by P. Pittsburgh Joe on Jan 21, 2005 ---</FONT></center>

Yeah Joe I have another similarity between Dylan and Hemmingway. At times, when reading them I feel marginalized i.e. by being female. Terms like "my wife" instead of her name (at least he didn't say THE wife!)......poor doll.... someone to kick out of bed to make the coffee.....describing women as people, by how they look...their cooking skills..... that kinda thing......

Louise, thank you. I've started my second reading of Chronicles v.1. Many times during the first read, I wanted to scream, "Can't you write her name just once?" And the women seemed so one-dimensional. In discussing the book with another Blunderite, I hadn't mentioned this yet, was hoping it was just me being overly sensitive. Apparently it's not. This provides another interesting comparison in which Arlo, IMHO, comes out far and away the better.

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