Dylan Says ‘I’m No Prophet’ in TV Interview
NEW YORK (Reuters) – He spoke for a generation when he sang “The times they are a-changin”‘ in 1964 and it all came true. But Bob Dylan says he’s no prophet.
In his first television interview in 19 years, the man whose song “Like a Rolling Stone” was recently named the greatest rock ‘n’ roll song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine, said grandiose comparisons made him uncomfortable.
“It was like being in an Edgar Allan Poe story and you’re just not that person everybody thinks you are, though they call you that all the time,” Dylan says in an interview to be broadcast on CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday.
“I never wanted to be a prophet or a savior,” Dylan says, according to extracts of the interview released by CBS on Thursday. “Elvis maybe. I could see myself becoming him. But prophet? No.”
Dylan, now 63 and publicizing his “Chronicles, Vol. 1” memoir, said he sometimes felt like an imposter when faced with awe-struck fans.
“My stuff — (they) were songs, they weren’t sermons,” he tells 60 Minutes. “If you examine the songs I don’t believe you’re going to find anything in there that says that I’m a spokesman for anybody or anything really.”
Dylan played down the importance of “Like a Rolling Stone” being named best ever rock song: “Oh, maybe this week (it’s No. 1.) But you know, the list, they change names quite frequently, really. I don’t pay much attention to that.”
“Like a Rolling Stone,” a scornful ode to a spoiled woman’s reversal of fortune, established Dylan as a mainstream artist, marking his transformation from folk troubadour to rock sensation.
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