TL; DR:
- Bob Dylan is known for valuing his privacy.
- Bob Dylan said that the press did not paint an honest picture of him.
- In the 1960s, Bob Dylan completely withdrew from public life.
Bob Dylan lived under the scrutiny of the press and public for as long as he lived outside of it. However, he has kept many aspects of his life private. That doesn’t mean he stays out of the public eye completely, though. Dylan has given hundreds of lengthy interviews since gaining fame in the 1960s. However, he said the media often misrepresented him.
Music is notoriously private
Dylan’s importance in his personal life is evident to those who know him, until his concert promoter instructs his tour staff not to speak to him.
“Before we went out, I got the whole tour staff together in San Francisco and I said, ‘You know, this is Bob Dylan,'” promoter Bill Graham wrote in the book. Bill Graham presents: My Life in and Out of Rock. “I don’t think he’s the kind of guy you want to say every day, ‘Hi, Bob! How are you? What’s going on? Please understand that and have some respect for his privacy.’
Related: Bob Dylan said he ran away from home 7 times as a child
Even for Dylan, though, that might be too much privacy.
“The journey has begun,” Graham wrote. “On the third or fourth night, somebody knocked on my hotel room door. I opened the door and it was Bob. He came in. I saw he was in trouble. I said, ‘Bob, is everything okay? Something.’ Wrong? He said, ‘Bill. Why isn’t anyone talking to me?'”
Bob Dylan has said that he often disagrees with the press’s portrayal of him
In many interviews, Dylan has spoken at length about music, religion, and his contemporaries. Still, he doesn’t share much with the press, possibly because he doesn’t appreciate the way they’ve represented him over the years. He prefers to express himself through music.
“The press has always misrepresented me,” he said, according to the book The Ballad of Bob Dylan: A Portrait By Daniel Mark Epstein. “They don’t accept who I am and what I do. They’re always emotionalizing and throwing things out… It makes me feel more like writing a song than talking to a thousand journalists.”
According to Princeton history professor Sean Valentz, Dylan began to view the press as a “parasite” early in his career.
“He was an artist,” Valentz told the Columbia Journalism Review. “All the press can enjoy is that. And when they’re done with you, they’re going to throw you in the gutter. Happened to [Jack] Kerouac They can destroy you if you let them.
Bob Dylan was once out of the press and public eye
In 1966, Dylan crashed his motorcycle near his home in Woodstock, New York. While recovering from the accident, he completely withdrew from the public eye.
“I was in a motorcycle accident and I was injured, but I recovered,” he wrote in his 2004 memoir. Dates. “The truth was, I wanted out of the rat race.”
He used his escape from fame to spend time with his family.
“Then, I had a motorcycle accident that put me out of commission,” he told Rolling Stone in 1992. “Then, when I woke up and regained consciousness, I realized that I had just I work for all. leech. And I didn’t want to do it. Besides, I had a family, and I just wanted to see mine the children“
