Expecting Rain

This is quite an amazing revelation. Dylan was always very vague about drugs and the press has been shy to bring it up in recent interviews. For example, it's never brought up in the 60 minutes interview. Also, drugs are not mentioned in No Direction Home. So, this is major news and the first time I've heard Dylan open up on the topic in a real way.

The suicidal remarks are also interesting and reveal a little more of the personal Dylan we rarely get - a dark depressive soul around 1964 - 1966.

The BBC have posted the tape excerpt here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/ne ... 492886.stm

It sounds very much to me like Dylan is telling tall stories. Sounds more like myth-making than a heartfelt confessional.

I know what yr getting at and I don't disagree about allusion, but I don't find those words to be drug-related at all - the 'criminals' are simply those that suppress truth; flowers of indulgence.... i think that's just too easy, and the recent pic of him and toots hibbert pretty much show the weeds are not just of yesteryear . and the methodist bells meaning methadone? absolutely no way... perhaps some vague religious metaphor, a literal memory or even, at a stretch, how irritating loud noise can be when you are withdrawing but I don't actually think there is any drug reference there at all, sorry. The AJ thing was a joke too - please don't be insulted, I mean you no harm my friend!

ahem... got any coke?

No insult taken at all Slim. And I think we can agree that the weeds are not just of yesteryear...

The suicidal remarks are obviously BS; and in that context, the heroin use is probable BS.

It's hard to imagine Bob as a junkie back in the days when he barely had two pennies to rub together. It's possible, however, that he was using at the time he made the remarks and was simply tossing Shelton a red herring...or a flounder.

You can't say it's "obviously" BS. Nobody can know that.

i seem to recall Nico mentioning Bob being on H in 1964 when she met him.

Bob's life at that time seemed destined for a gigantic intense tragedy.
there's a lot of dark thoughts expressed in the NDH film clips.
i think he thought he was going to crash and burn soon.

damn, i want to hear the whole tapes.

as with all things 1965-1966

I can say it. I just did, in fact.

I don't understand why anyone would not take the remarks even slightly seriously. He doesn't sound like he's putting Shelton on, he sounds like he is either on something and/or he means what he's saying.

Yes, it's in bad taste, but it's the news. They don't care. The tapes were released in the past week or so, so it's really of no surprise.

I guess I just don't understand the shock, anger and disbelief... Why is it so farfetched?

Why am I not surprised?

The quote isn't verbatim but I clearly remember reading an interview with Dylan where in effect he said just that. Once I would have been able to pinpoint this down to the actual year. Not so now although I'm thinking about the early nineties where he also said that 'Little Richard didn't need 'em (the drugs)'....

Somewhere there's a Clapton quote where he's talking about how Dylan would do drugs when he wanted to, and then shift to something else or stop altogether - he wouldn't get hooked like Eric. I wish I had the exact quote, I just remember reading it decades ago. It lead me to think of Bob as a responsible drug user. He did what he wanted without getting in trouble or destroying himself. You don't hear about those people but they're everywhere.

Snap, oh. To be fair, Dylan is a notoriously open, public person, so you probably do have all the information needed to make such a judgment.



Save for a little vehicular incident in '66. Didn't someone even claim a while back that the "accident" was really an excuse to enter rehab?

I read once that Keith Richards claimed he saw Dylan inject heroin backstage at the Albert Hall in 66. Anyone else heard this?

Referring to 3LM's Clapton quote - I know that one but my recollection is that he said 'Dylan would do three months dope, then three months tea and then three months alcohol' and so forth. I think he might have said it sometime in the second half of the eighties.

I havent heard them, but i fear its not bob being amusing with answers. That clip at the end of NDH has always spooked me, he looked like death itself, asking for help to stop touring. I always hoped it was, like johnny cash, prescripsion drugs, the uppers and downers a performer on the road might need, the odd acid or 3 and funny ciggarette .

The film of ray charles was an eye opener to me, that he had used heroin,but then again soo many of the 60s and 70s stars did. Its always brushed under the carpet, unless your pete doherty or amy winehouse.

This is all news, but why now? why these interview snips appear now on his birthday, someone has it in for him.

I think it's clear that Dylan was taking a copious mixture of drugs in 65/66, including speed, heroin, cocaine, weed and alcohol. However, I have always thought that he'd burnt himself out by the motorcycle accident in July 66 before the addiction could catch up with him. I don't think he was ever addicted solely to one drug, but dabbled with various combinations to keep him through constant touring and writing. He had certainly smoked opium since the early sixties - as is evident in Chronicles and in the shift to his surrealist writings. I don't think he would have considered himself a heroin addict, although he certainly used it - I always thought he used it in combination with speed (which surely he used more than junk). I think he's just throwing a curveball at the interviewer. Do we have any idea how much $25 of heroin actually was in '66? Obviously this is all hypothetical, I have no experience with hard drugs or Dylan.

As I suggested above:

I disagree... Listen to Live 1966... It sucks so bad it makes me want to kill myself and I don't even do the drugs...

I'm grateful he didn't... we'd have never had the gospel music, the '80s, or the NET.

The 80s were worse than the 60s, which lasted well into the 70s - if you can remember them you weren't there. Dylan and Keef have both been missing for several decades in fact. From 64 til the mid 90s is all a mass hallucination, as proved by the likes of duran duran. Being straight is kinda weird but at least we don't have to see THEM on the tv anymore! We all owe a large debt of gratitude to the CIA for their mind control experiments, I mean just suppose Phil Collins really existed! aaaagggghhhhh.....

I always thought that Bob was into drugs of some sort and am truly glad he survived that time and gave us so many more years and songs which he is still doing today. A lot of his contemporaries didn't make it and I'm glad Bob survived to tell the tale.

The 'heroin' story is going to be on bbc news at 10 shortly.

I hate this heroin stuff on the eve of his birthday. I'm really f*cking pissed about it. The media outlets blow.

Really? Didn't see it at 6

I think they're 45 years to late...