Rock: A Folk Hero Speaks

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Biggest Contract. In his inimitable language, Dylan also told how he almost wrote a philosophical memoir of sorts called Tarantula: "It begins with when I suddenly began to sell quite a few records . . . and I was doing interviews before and after concerts, and reporters would say things like 'What else do you write?' And I would say, 'Well, I don't write much of anything else.' And they would say, 'Oh, come on. You must write other things. Tell us something else. Do you write books?' And I'd say, 'Sure, I write books.' After the publishers saw that I wrote books, they began to send me contracts . . . Doubleday, Macmillan . . . we took the biggest one and then owed them a book. You follow me?"

Twice Dylan turned in manuscripts and twice was so dissatisfied after reading proofs that he refused to allow the work to be printed. Finally, he took his research and a typewriter along on a European tour. "I was going to rewrite it all," he explains. "But still, it wasn't any book; it was just to satisfy the publishers who wanted to print something that we had a contract for. Follow me? So eventually I had my motorcycle accident and that just got me out of the whole thing, 'cause I didn't care anymore. As it stands now, I could write a book. But I'm gonna write it first, and then give it to them. You know what I mean?" Dig.