To my fans and followers

Allow me to clarify a couple of things about this so-called China controversy which has been going on for over a year. First of all, we were never denied permission to play in China. This was all drummed up by a Chinese promoter who was trying to get me to come there after playing Japan and Korea. My guess is that the guy printed up tickets and made promises to certain groups without any agreements being made. We had no intention of playing China at that time, and when it didn't happen most likely the promoter had to save face by issuing statements that the Chinese Ministry had refused permission for me to play there to get himself off the hook. If anybody had bothered to check with the Chinese authorities, it would have been clear that the Chinese authorities were unaware of the whole thing.

We did go there this year under a different promoter. According to Mojo magazine the concerts were attended mostly by ex-pats and there were a lot of empty seats. Not true. If anybody wants to check with any of the concert-goers they will see that it was mostly Chinese young people that came. Very few ex-pats if any. The ex-pats were mostly in Hong Kong not Beijing. Out of 13,000 seats we sold about 12,000 of them, and the rest of the tickets were given away to orphanages. The Chinese press did tout me as a sixties icon, however, and posted my picture all over the place with Joan Baez, Che Guevara, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. The concert attendees probably wouldn't have known about any of those people. Regardless, they responded enthusiastically to the songs on my last 4 or 5 records. Ask anyone who was there. They were young and my feeling was that they wouldn't have known my early songs anyway.

As far as censorship goes, the Chinese government had asked for the names of the songs that I would be playing. There's no logical answer to that, so we sent them the set lists from the previous 3 months. If there were any songs, verses or lines censored, nobody ever told me about it and we played all the songs that we intended to play.

Everybody knows by now that there's a gazillion books on me either out or coming out in the near future. So I'm encouraging anybody who's ever met me, heard me or even seen me, to get in on the action and scribble their own book. You never know, somebody might have a great book in them.


http://www.bobdylan.com/

Strange. Very un Bob-like.

Wonder why he feels the need to justify himself, he never normally bothers. How rude that last para is, what a sarcastic bastard.

Strawberry Jam wrote:That last paragraph makes me think it could really be Bob.

Oh, yeah, come to think of it, you could be right !!

When I first read this the other day, my initial reaction was that there is no way this is Bob talking. Bob doesn't explain himself or try to clarify things.....but....maybe things have changed. One thing for sure, the identity of the author certainly is being debated elsewhere.

He's not going to sign off on something he never wrote, for release on his official website. Of course, AJ Weberman may hold different views. I trust we're all furiously writing unauthorised biographies?

BobDylan wrote: According to Mojo magazine the concerts were attended mostly by ex-pats and there were a lot of empty seats. Not true. If anybody wants to check with any of the concert-goers they will see that it was mostly Chinese young people that came. Very few ex-pats if any. The ex-pats were mostly in Hong Kong not Beijing. Out of 13,000 seats we sold about 12,000 of them, and the rest of the tickets were given away to orphanages.

This is the only bit that I find slightly out of character. But then, he's always out of character isn't he? It's one of his characteristics.

Erm, Bob always says what he wants to say, right?

It ain't Bobby , but I would say a release approved by him , and written by his publicity department.

Strawberry Jam wrote:Just finishing Chapter 10, in which I use my special journalistic technique of medium-channelled interviewing to talk to all the kids who went to summer camp with young Bobby. It's gonna be so revealing it'll blow your mind.

I'm in negotiation with Doc Watson for a lucrative publishing contract.

There's a thread on the other site titled "Have you started your Bobography yet?"

Doc Watson wrote:It ain't Bobby , but I would say a release approved by him , and written by his publicity department.

That last para is pure, mocking, 'Bobby'.

I agree. I don't understand why Sony or whoever they think wrote it would include a nasty paragraph like that if Bob didn't indeed write it.

Strawberry Jam wrote:Just finishing Chapter 10, in which I use my special journalistic technique of medium-channelled interviewing to talk to all the kids who went to summer camp with young Bobby. It's gonna be so revealing it'll blow your mind.

I'm in negotiation with Doc Watson for a lucrative publishing contract.

Well now that I am no longer in the book trade all my contacts have gone. However if it is as good as your pre publication publicity suggests you will have publishers lining up at your door.

When I saw the thread, I was hoping Lane Coutell had written it.

precinct14 wrote:When I saw the thread, I was hoping Lane Coutell had written it.

Lane Coutell wrote:

precinct14 wrote:When I saw the thread, I was hoping Lane Coutell had written it.

likewise

I don't know, this is the first news I've heard about Dylan for quite some time.

After "Together through life" I just lost all interest in him as an active singer or songwriter because in a way that album was
much more terrible than all of his albums from the 80s, I think. Likewise, the christmas album is good if you're looking for something to
scare the kids or the dog (or whoever may be listening) with and it's my impression that his last great phase of writing/stealing
is simply over. He seems to be getting a bit senile which is okay, I guess, I'd have expected it to happen much earlier with all
the drugs he's been taken since his late puberty.

Or maybe he just spent one afternoon reading some of the threads on one of the message boards dedicated to him - and became
paranoid.

I know I would.

I just hope that all of this doesn't affect "Chronicles vol.2" which is probably the only thing that could ever make me interested in Dylan
again.