May 3, 1966 - Bob Dylan Press Conference, London, England

Having arrived in England just the day before, Dylan gave a press conference at his London hotel, the Mayfair. The New Musical Express version has already been provided. This version is taken from John Bauldie’s The Ghost Of Electricity and is a reconstruction of the press
conference based on a variety of press reports.
Will you be playing an amplified guitar in your concerts?
BD: I’m not sure if I will or not.
Does the term ‘folk-rock’ mean anything to you?
BD: Folk-Rot?
No, Folk-Rock. It’s sometimes applied to the kind of music you make.
BD: No. Well, they say a lot of things about me. I’m a folk-singer. A protest singer. A protest
folk-singer – no more and no less.
Are you still making up as many songs as you used to?
BD: Yes. I’m making up as many words as I used to do. I’m only interested in writing songs. I
don’t want to make singles any more.
Who do you think is the best folk-singer in the world?

BD: Oh, Peter Lorrie.
Will you be doing TV shows for the BBC again this year?
BD: Yes, I’ll do anything. But I don’t know if I’ll do them or not. I just get the word from
other people to turn up somewhere, and I’m there.
You’ve been influenced by many blues singers – Bukka White, Son House Big Joe
Williams for example – do you still listen to such people?
BD: I know Big Joe, of course, but I’ve never listened to these men on records too much.
Lately I’ve been listening to Bartok and Vivaldi and that sort of thing, so I wouldn’t
know what’s happening.
How many people are there in your backing group?
BD: Oh, fourteen, fifteen.
What? All here?
BD: Yes, they’re all here.
What about Mike Bloomfield?
BD: Who?
Mike Bloomfield. He played guitar on your last album.
BD: Michael Bloomfield… no, I used him in the studio but he’s not here with me.
Who is?
BD: Who is? Oh, George, Harry, Red, Jason.
What is the name of your group?
BD: I don’t know. I don’t believe they have a name.
What are their names?

BD: You want names?
It might be helpful.
BD: Gus, Frank, Mitch.
— Every Mind Polluting Word —
374
How much money do you make?
BD: I don’t know. I don’t know anything. People just phone me and tell me to turn up
somewhere at a certain time and I turn up. I never knew when I was poor till I was rich.
Why don’t you write protest songs any more?
BD: Ah my songs are protest songs. You name something, I’ll protest about it.
Why do some of your songs bear no relation to their titles?
BD: Give me an example.
Rainy Day Women #12&35.
BD: Have you ever been in North Mexico?
Not recently.
BD: Well, I can’t explain it to you then. If you had, you’d understand what the song’s about.
What are these film people doing here?
BD: I don’t know.
Who’s the guy with the top hat?
BD: I don’t know. I thought he was with you. I sometimes wear a top hat in the bathroom.
Will you be meeting The Beatles?
BD: I don’t know.
What are you going to do in Britain?
BD: Nothing.
What about the book you’ve just completed!
BD: It’s about spiders, called Tarantula. It’s an insect book. Took about a week to write, off
and on. There are three hundred and sixty pages. My next book is a collection of
epitaphs.

Is it true you’re now married? (Here, Dylan points to Jones Alk who is recording the
conference with a huge microphone.)
BD: That’s my wife.
(To which she replies, “I am the cameraman’s wife.”)
BD: It would be very misleading if I said, yes, I was married, and I would be a fool if I said
no. It would be very misleading if I said no, I wasn’t married, and I’d be a fool if I said
yes. I’m not going to answer that because I don’t want to lie to you. I might be married,
I might not. It’s hard to explain really.
May we assume that you are married?
BD: You can assume anything you like. I was born married – forty-five years ago.
Are you married to Joan Baez?
BD: Joan Baez was an accident.
A mistake?
BD: No, an accident. I brought my wife over last time and nobody took any notice of her.
So you are married then?
BD: I’d be a liar if I answered that.
But you just said you had a wife.
BD: That depends on what you mean by “married”.
Is she a common-law wife?
BD: I don’t know what you mean by ‘common-law’.
Do you have any children?
— Every Mind Polluting Word —
375
BD: Every man with medical problems has children.
What are your medical problems?
BD: Well, there’s glass in the back of my head. I’m a very sick person. I can’t see too well on
Tuesdays. These dark glasses are prescribed. I’m not trying to be a beatnik. I have very
mercuryesque eyes. And another thing – my toenails don’t fit.
Are you still in touch with Dana Gillespie?
BD: Yeah! Where is Dana? Come on out, Dana! I’ve got some baskets for her. Put your
clothes on!
What do you think about Paul Simon? Or Bob Lind?

BD: Never heard of them.
Bob, your hair has got me worried. How do you get it like that?
BD: How do I get it like that? I comb it like that.
I’m from the New Musical Express…
BD: What?
The New Musical Express. It’s the leading musical paper in the country.
BD: The only paper I know is the Melody Maker.
What do you think of England?
BD: England is OK, but I prefer America. America is what I know. It’s all there for me.
How do you account for your success?
BD: What I did, I did because there was nobody else around at the time to do it, that’s all.
At the time when I started there was no folk-scene in America. There was Frankie
Avalon and Fabian. Before that we were eleven and twelve and we played rock and roll.
Then when I was about sixteen or seventeen, along came Odetta. When the Beatles
came along there was nobody in the USA. They’d all become too old. And folk-music as
you know it came along to fill up a gap in American music, that’s all. Being poor when I
was young didn’t have a terrific influence on me. Where I came from, everyone was the
same, so you didn’t know you were poor, because you had nothing to compare with.