Jakob Dylan Quotes

I do like a song that can look good on a page without even being sung. I edit and edit and edit.

There's only one thing that's certainAnd that's everybody, everybody's hurting

To us, there was Bob Dylan, and there was dad. As for what he meant to other people, that was never glorified in our house. There were no accolades there, no gold records.

Its a little gross to put yourself in every song. I mean, how interesting do people really think you are?

But there's got to be an opening somewhere here in front of me. Through this maze of ugliness and greed.

I'm allowing myself every opportunity, every tool that every other artist should allow themselves to use. If anybody expects me to not use certain language or certain words, like I have some kind of penalty restriction, it's completely unrealistic.

I'm waiting for my kids to grow up and get into the Offspring and look at me like I'm a total candy-ass.

Music is something I really have a need to do - I don't seem to be able to stop

I see myself as a traditionalist. I like traditional things. I like things of substance and value that have been proven. Conceptually, as the songs started to come together, I followed that lead, which is the language I work in.

I relate more to the descendants of Galileo Galilei and the Wright brothers than I do to anyone else you might mention. If you could name someone working today who I could relate to, I'd be both surprised and thrilled.

Tolerance can lead to learning something.

My songs have always had hope and perseverance in them - I never write songs that have no escape hatch, no positivity.

The trouble, dollIs not moving mountains, butDigging the ground that you're on

I'm realistic. Getting to everybody is not the goal here. The people you can affect in any way - that's who you want to get to.

You have to have a work ethic and you have to be educated in what you're doing. You have to take it seriously. It doesn't mean that everything you do has to be serious. But you've got to have the tools.

Artists are not going to put somebody new in the president's chair. It's all worth the effort; it all needs to be done. But I don't look at songwriting as having the ability to necessarily do that today.

The songs I write should only be gauged by what other writers or peers are doing today. If the barometer for all songwriters was to match his body of work, then anyone you might mention alive or dead is a failure. But I've learned to not be too hung up on what's fair or not fair.

Of course, I came up around music and fame, but this is still my first time experiencing it all. I'm still going through it like anybody else goes through it. But I'm still doing something I've never done before.

I always saw songwriting as the top of the heap. No matter what else you were going to do creatively... writing songs was king.

I'm talking about the '60s really. People go interview these guys and ask them, "Do you still think music can change the world?" I mean, go talk to Graham Nash about that. What's he going to tell you? Ask David Crosby. These guys are still out there. They're playing their hits at Staples Center and those are really valuable songs. I'm talking about a couple of the guys who got knee-deep into really believing music had a great service beyond radio. I believe it did. And I think a lot of those songs are great.

I don't want to sing songs and write songs that need to have images behind them that are of a specific time. The times we live in today - I mean, there's a lot to work with. But I think that if I was my age in 1975 or 1985, I would have felt the same way because that's what I gravitate toward.

A guilty conscience means at least you have one.

I liked getting the Grammy more than not getting it.

I think that these are different times, and different things are available to artists, and certain things have become passé. You've already seen the outcome of a lot of things that seemed to have a lot of potential. We've already heard that, and I can't tell you if it made a difference or not. But we already know that artists can do that, and they shouldn't feel threatened by doing it. They're probably not going to change the world. They're going to change a few people's perspectives and maybe make somebody's day at times, if they can.

It doesn't always have a shape,Almost never does it have a name,It maybe has a pitchfork, maybe has a tail,But evil is alive and well.

My father said it himself in an interview many years ago: 'Husband and wife failed, but mother and father didn't.' I've got a life that really matters to me, and that's because of the way I was raised. My ethics are high because my parents did a great job.

Those things interest me a lot in songwriting - the human nature of how people think, and the muck that we wind up in.

There are certainly a lot of people - and I won't name names - who are getting by simply on expression. And I guess that's valuable in some sense. But songs are not better just because they're emotionally honest. To write a song well, you have to put some work into it and grind it out.

Folk music is not for a select group of people who feel that maybe he taught them about this music and that it belongs to them. It doesn't belong only to them. It belongs to everyone who's interested in the blueprints of good songwriting.

I always saw songwriting as the top of the heap. No matter what else you were going to do creatively-and there were a lot of choices-writing songs was king.

I do look at songwriting as a lot of work. I don't overintellectualize music as a special medium that only some people deserve to do. I think it's something you do if you put the work in.

Bob Dylan led me to this kind of music - and it's his and ours. And it's nobody else's.