WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.259 This Apple Podcast title, The Deep Dive, Bob 00:00:03.259 --> 00:00:05.780 Dylan's Love and Theft Masterclass in Americana 00:00:05.780 --> 00:00:08.779 and the Yakuza Connection, Apple Podcast Description. 00:00:09.759 --> 00:00:12.619 In this Deep Dive, we explore Bob Dylan's 2001 00:00:12.619 --> 00:00:15.859 iconic album, Love and Theft. Discover how Dylan 00:00:15.859 --> 00:00:17.859 took his never -ending tour band to the school 00:00:17.859 --> 00:00:21.199 of Bob, recording a spontaneous Roots rock masterpiece 00:00:21.199 --> 00:00:24.140 in just 12 days. From bizarre poker commercials 00:00:24.140 --> 00:00:27.100 with magicians to surprising Yakuza plagiarism 00:00:27.100 --> 00:00:29.780 controversies, find out why music critics and 00:00:29.780 --> 00:00:31.920 legends like Johnny Cash called this Americana 00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:35.000 album Dylan's Greatest Work. Imagine this for 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:38.520 a second. You are your legendary musician. OK, 00:00:38.579 --> 00:00:40.439 I'm with you. And you've just pulled off this 00:00:40.439 --> 00:00:42.079 massive career -defining comeback. I mean, the 00:00:42.079 --> 00:00:43.759 whole world is watching your every move to see 00:00:43.759 --> 00:00:45.399 what you do next. The pressure is definitely 00:00:45.399 --> 00:00:49.039 on. Exactly. So what is your play? Do you lock 00:00:49.039 --> 00:00:51.439 yourself in a high -tech studio for months, just 00:00:51.439 --> 00:00:53.140 agonizing over every single note? That's what 00:00:53.140 --> 00:00:55.500 most people would do. Right. But no. Instead, 00:00:55.640 --> 00:00:57.539 you drag your touring band into a room in New 00:00:57.539 --> 00:01:00.719 York City and casually record an absolute masterpiece 00:01:00.719 --> 00:01:04.510 in just 12 days. It's wild. Oh, and along the 00:01:04.510 --> 00:01:07.530 way, you film a bizarre television commercial 00:01:07.530 --> 00:01:10.129 featuring a high stakes poker game with a magician. 00:01:10.629 --> 00:01:13.709 You hire an engineer who is actually famous for 00:01:13.709 --> 00:01:15.849 his work with the hip hop group Public Enemy. 00:01:16.030 --> 00:01:18.650 Yeah, that part always gets people. And you borrow 00:01:18.650 --> 00:01:21.170 lyrics straight from a Japanese Yakuza boss. 00:01:22.349 --> 00:01:24.829 So welcome to this deep dive into Bob Dylan's 00:01:24.829 --> 00:01:27.489 31st studio album, Love and Theft, which was 00:01:27.489 --> 00:01:30.769 released on September 11th, 2001. A really heavy 00:01:30.769 --> 00:01:33.609 day in history. Very heavy day. But if you are 00:01:33.609 --> 00:01:36.209 looking to understand how a master synthesizes 00:01:36.209 --> 00:01:38.750 roots rock and Americana into something entirely 00:01:38.750 --> 00:01:42.349 his own, you are in the right place today. Our 00:01:42.349 --> 00:01:44.870 mission is to unpack exactly how this album serves 00:01:44.870 --> 00:01:47.250 as a master class in American musical history 00:01:47.250 --> 00:01:50.430 and why critics and legends alike point to it 00:01:50.430 --> 00:01:53.049 as the project that truly cemented Dylan's immortality. 00:01:53.370 --> 00:01:55.609 It really is an incredible story and framing 00:01:55.609 --> 00:01:57.549 it as a master class as well. It's the perfect 00:01:57.549 --> 00:01:59.069 way to look at it because Love and Theft isn't 00:01:59.069 --> 00:02:00.950 just a regular collection of songs. What is it 00:02:00.950 --> 00:02:04.030 then? It's a historical tapestry. It is an album 00:02:04.030 --> 00:02:06.730 where the ghosts of music past are practically 00:02:06.730 --> 00:02:09.289 sitting right there in the studio with the band. 00:02:09.710 --> 00:02:12.650 It's this deeply textured exploration of American 00:02:12.650 --> 00:02:14.590 sound. And we are going to get into all of that. 00:02:14.949 --> 00:02:17.150 Right. To really appreciate what Dylan accomplished 00:02:17.150 --> 00:02:19.610 here, we have to look at how he pulled all these 00:02:19.610 --> 00:02:22.289 seemingly disconnected threads together from 00:02:22.289 --> 00:02:25.050 obscure literature to traditional folk styles 00:02:25.050 --> 00:02:28.650 and somehow wove them into a cohesive, critically 00:02:28.650 --> 00:02:31.310 acclaimed triumph. To get how wild this whole 00:02:31.310 --> 00:02:34.500 thing is, we have to just at the stage bit. This 00:02:34.500 --> 00:02:37.580 album comes hot on the heels of his 1997 artistic 00:02:37.580 --> 00:02:40.560 comeback, Time Out of Mind. A huge album for 00:02:40.560 --> 00:02:44.500 him. Massive, but for love and theft. Dylan decides 00:02:44.500 --> 00:02:46.939 to produce it himself under the pseudonym Jack 00:02:46.939 --> 00:02:49.219 Frost. Which is such a Dylan move. It totally 00:02:49.219 --> 00:02:51.840 is. And the band he uses. This is the very first 00:02:51.840 --> 00:02:54.240 time he records a studio album with his Neverending 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:56.139 Tour Road Band. Yeah, these are the guys he's 00:02:56.139 --> 00:02:57.900 been playing with night after night on the road. 00:02:58.080 --> 00:03:00.060 Right, so they book Clinton Recording Studio 00:03:00.060 --> 00:03:03.139 in Midtown Manhattan. This is in May 2001. And 00:03:03.139 --> 00:03:06.080 they record exactly 12 songs in exactly 12 days. 00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:10.199 One song a day. One song a day. For an artist 00:03:10.199 --> 00:03:12.319 of his stature, at that point in his career, 00:03:12.800 --> 00:03:15.460 is that kind of speed normal? No, it's almost 00:03:15.460 --> 00:03:17.379 unheard of. I mean, what's fascinating here is 00:03:17.379 --> 00:03:21.300 the absolute spontaneity of those 12 days. Dylan 00:03:21.300 --> 00:03:23.659 didn't walk in with rigid sheet music and strict 00:03:23.659 --> 00:03:26.120 demands for the band. He didn't. Not at all. 00:03:26.360 --> 00:03:28.800 He wanted an environment where the music could 00:03:28.800 --> 00:03:31.500 mutate on the spot until it felt exactly right. 00:03:31.900 --> 00:03:33.460 OK, let's unpack this because I was looking through 00:03:33.460 --> 00:03:35.520 the liner notes and I noticed something that 00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:39.340 completely threw me off. The engineer for this 00:03:39.340 --> 00:03:42.740 album is Chris Shaw. Yep. Now why does that name 00:03:42.740 --> 00:03:45.419 ring a bell? Because Chris Shaw got his start 00:03:45.419 --> 00:03:48.120 working on early Public Enemy records. That is 00:03:48.120 --> 00:03:50.379 just what, so you have Bob Dylan recording what 00:03:50.379 --> 00:03:53.740 is essentially an encyclopedia of ancient American 00:03:53.740 --> 00:03:56.120 roots music, and he hires a hip hop engineer. 00:03:56.460 --> 00:03:58.919 That feels like a massive contradiction. It sounds 00:03:58.919 --> 00:04:00.639 like one, until you realize what Dylan is actually 00:04:00.639 --> 00:04:03.419 doing here. Which is? Well, hip hop is fundamentally 00:04:03.419 --> 00:04:05.759 built on sampling, right? Yeah. Taking pieces 00:04:05.759 --> 00:04:08.400 of old records, recontextualizing them, and layering 00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:10.620 them to build something entirely new. Right. 00:04:10.780 --> 00:04:13.259 Yeah. It is no coincidence he hired an engineer 00:04:13.259 --> 00:04:16.600 who understood that exact process. Dylan was 00:04:16.600 --> 00:04:18.720 doing the same thing, just organically, with 00:04:18.720 --> 00:04:20.839 a live band and old literature. That makes so 00:04:20.839 --> 00:04:23.699 much sense. Shaw actually shared this amazing 00:04:23.699 --> 00:04:25.939 anecdote about how shocking the sessions were. 00:04:25.930 --> 00:04:28.509 He said they'd be working on a song, and in a 00:04:28.509 --> 00:04:31.189 split second, Dylan would just abandon the arrangement. 00:04:31.310 --> 00:04:33.470 Just throw it out. Completely. He'd stop the 00:04:33.470 --> 00:04:35.310 room and say, what's the tempo? Let's do it in 00:04:35.310 --> 00:04:38.209 F and drop the tempo down and do it like a western 00:04:38.209 --> 00:04:40.910 swing tune. And I want the drummer to play brushes, 00:04:41.370 --> 00:04:43.769 not drums. Just like that. Just like that. The 00:04:43.769 --> 00:04:46.129 entire song would completely mutate in real time. 00:04:46.730 --> 00:04:49.490 Nothing was set in stone until Dylan found the 00:04:49.490 --> 00:04:52.779 exact key. tempo and style that fit the lyric 00:04:52.779 --> 00:04:55.240 and his vocal delivery. But how does a band actually 00:04:55.240 --> 00:04:57.199 do that? I mean, if they don't have sheets of 00:04:57.199 --> 00:04:59.639 music ready to go, how do five guys just pivot 00:04:59.639 --> 00:05:02.000 on a dime and seamlessly switch to a western 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:04.600 swing tune? That kind of telepathy doesn't happen 00:05:04.600 --> 00:05:07.000 by accident. It happened because of what the 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:09.779 band's drummer, David Kemper, called the School 00:05:09.779 --> 00:05:12.439 of Bob. The School of Bob? Yeah, and the brilliant 00:05:12.439 --> 00:05:14.920 part is Kemper admitted the band didn't even 00:05:14.920 --> 00:05:17.120 realize they were enrolled in the school at first. 00:05:17.379 --> 00:05:19.839 How do you not know you're in school? Well, while 00:05:19.839 --> 00:05:21.660 they were traveling on the Neverending Tour, 00:05:21.939 --> 00:05:25.160 Dylan was constantly playing incredibly obscure 00:05:25.160 --> 00:05:28.660 early Americana tracks for them on the bus. Stuff 00:05:28.660 --> 00:05:31.019 from the turn of the century in the 1920s. Oh, 00:05:31.040 --> 00:05:33.500 so he's just playing DJ on the tour bus. Exactly. 00:05:33.720 --> 00:05:37.600 He has this unparalleled encyclopedic knowledge 00:05:37.600 --> 00:05:40.040 of American music. It's like a parent hiding 00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:42.839 vegetables in the mac and cheese. They thought 00:05:42.839 --> 00:05:45.040 they were just hanging out listening to old records 00:05:45.040 --> 00:05:47.660 on the highway. But Dylan was actually formatting 00:05:47.660 --> 00:05:49.980 their hard drives. for the recording session. 00:05:50.220 --> 00:05:52.519 That is the perfect analogy. He wasn't teaching 00:05:52.519 --> 00:05:54.680 them to play those literal songs note for note. 00:05:54.920 --> 00:05:57.399 He was teaching them the styles. He was getting 00:05:57.399 --> 00:06:00.480 the specific vocabulary of early American music 00:06:00.480 --> 00:06:02.620 into their bones. So it was basically a crash 00:06:02.620 --> 00:06:05.740 course. It was. So when they finally walked into 00:06:05.740 --> 00:06:07.879 Clinton recording for Love and Theft, the band 00:06:07.879 --> 00:06:10.620 realized they were already fluent in the exact 00:06:10.620 --> 00:06:12.819 musical language Dylan wanted to use. They knew 00:06:12.819 --> 00:06:14.949 the history. They knew the historical styles 00:06:14.949 --> 00:06:18.129 inside and out. That shared vocabulary is the 00:06:18.129 --> 00:06:20.410 only reason they were able to effortlessly cut 00:06:20.410 --> 00:06:23.310 a master quality song every single day. Which 00:06:23.310 --> 00:06:27.089 brings us to the title itself, Love and Theft. 00:06:27.750 --> 00:06:29.930 It's such a striking phrase, and it actually 00:06:29.930 --> 00:06:32.970 comes from a 1993 book by historian Eric Lott 00:06:32.970 --> 00:06:35.449 called Love and Theft, Blackface Minstrelsy, 00:06:35.750 --> 00:06:38.129 and the American Working Class. If we connect 00:06:38.129 --> 00:06:40.310 this to the bigger picture, the title is basically 00:06:40.310 --> 00:06:42.930 a thesis statement for the entire album, and 00:06:42.930 --> 00:06:45.310 really for Dylan's creative process as a whole. 00:06:45.420 --> 00:06:48.259 How so? Well, Dylan is taking us on a sprawling 00:06:48.259 --> 00:06:50.699 tour of American music and acknowledging that 00:06:50.699 --> 00:06:53.279 American music itself is built on a complex history 00:06:53.279 --> 00:06:55.720 of borrowing, stealing, and loving the traditions 00:06:55.720 --> 00:06:58.779 of the past. The album is this landscape populated 00:06:58.779 --> 00:07:02.040 by rogues, outcasts, gamblers, and desperadoes. 00:07:02.319 --> 00:07:04.279 Before we dive into the specific tracks, the 00:07:04.279 --> 00:07:05.959 sources mention that the album covers styles 00:07:05.959 --> 00:07:08.319 like jump blues, rockabilly, and tin pan alley. 00:07:08.819 --> 00:07:10.819 For someone who maybe mostly listens to modern 00:07:10.819 --> 00:07:12.920 radio, what are we actually hearing when those 00:07:12.920 --> 00:07:15.410 terms get thrown around? Good question. So Tin 00:07:15.410 --> 00:07:18.189 Pan Alley refers to the highly polished theatrical 00:07:18.189 --> 00:07:20.430 pop songwriting style that came out of New York 00:07:20.430 --> 00:07:24.769 in the early 1900s. Think of classic, sophisticated 00:07:24.769 --> 00:07:28.069 parlor ballads. OK, got it. Then Jump Blues is 00:07:28.069 --> 00:07:30.730 that up tempo, horn driven, heavily rhythmic 00:07:30.730 --> 00:07:33.649 blues that was hugely popular just before rock 00:07:33.649 --> 00:07:35.730 and roll took over. Like really danceable stuff. 00:07:36.029 --> 00:07:38.689 Exactly. Add in some rockabilly, which is early, 00:07:39.050 --> 00:07:41.189 raw rock mixed with country. And you get a sense 00:07:41.189 --> 00:07:44.009 of the sonic gumbo Dylan is cooking here. The 00:07:44.009 --> 00:07:46.970 album heavily evokes the subversive dark humor 00:07:46.970 --> 00:07:49.769 of Harry Everett Smith's anthology of American 00:07:49.769 --> 00:07:52.449 folk music. I've heard of that. What is the Harry 00:07:52.449 --> 00:07:54.670 Smith anthology exactly? Why is that significant 00:07:54.670 --> 00:07:56.949 here? The Anthology of American Folk Music was 00:07:56.949 --> 00:08:00.389 a compilation released in 1952. It was made entirely 00:08:00.389 --> 00:08:03.209 of obscure, weird and often deeply dark folk, 00:08:03.449 --> 00:08:05.769 blues and country records from the 1920s and 00:08:05.769 --> 00:08:08.750 30s. It basically became the sacred text for 00:08:08.750 --> 00:08:11.810 the entire 1960s folk revival. It was Dylan's 00:08:11.810 --> 00:08:13.750 primary textbook when he first came to New York. 00:08:14.050 --> 00:08:15.990 So with Love and Theft, he's channeling that 00:08:15.990 --> 00:08:19.029 same fatalistic, strange old world energy. That 00:08:19.029 --> 00:08:21.290 perfectly aligns with how Dylan himself described 00:08:21.290 --> 00:08:24.410 the album. He did an interview with Rolling Stone. 00:08:24.600 --> 00:08:26.699 where he's summed up the themes as dealing with, 00:08:26.699 --> 00:08:29.839 quote, business, politics, and war, and maybe 00:08:29.839 --> 00:08:32.679 love interest on the side. That is such a Dylan 00:08:32.679 --> 00:08:34.580 quill. It really is. Let's walk through how that 00:08:34.580 --> 00:08:37.299 actually sounds track by track. The opening crack 00:08:37.299 --> 00:08:39.879 is Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Right. And critics 00:08:39.879 --> 00:08:43.039 describe that track as rolling in like a storm. 00:08:43.289 --> 00:08:46.789 It paints this incredibly vivid picture of a 00:08:46.789 --> 00:08:49.490 Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, complete with 00:08:49.490 --> 00:08:53.429 masked, intoxicated vagabonds. It's very cinematic. 00:08:53.649 --> 00:08:56.549 Highly cinematic. It's driven by this relentless, 00:08:56.909 --> 00:08:59.610 galloping drum beat, and in classic dark foup 00:08:59.610 --> 00:09:02.370 tradition, it ends in death. Of course it does. 00:09:02.529 --> 00:09:04.610 It serves as a warning label for the album, basically 00:09:04.610 --> 00:09:06.450 saying, here are the characters we're about to 00:09:06.450 --> 00:09:08.830 meet. Proceed at your own risk. Then you have 00:09:08.830 --> 00:09:11.320 a track like Mississippi. I read this song had 00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:13.320 a really strange journey before it ended up on 00:09:13.320 --> 00:09:15.919 this record. It did. It's a gorgeous, sprawling 00:09:15.919 --> 00:09:18.299 song. But Dylan originally felt he couldn't get 00:09:18.299 --> 00:09:20.200 it right during the time out of mind sessions 00:09:20.200 --> 00:09:23.220 back in 1997. So he just scrapped it. Well, he 00:09:23.220 --> 00:09:25.539 actually offered it to Sheryl Crowe. Really? 00:09:25.700 --> 00:09:28.000 Yeah, she recorded an up -tempo version of it 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:31.059 for her 1998 album, The Globe Sessions. I had 00:09:31.059 --> 00:09:34.379 no idea. But Dylan clearly felt a lingering attachment 00:09:34.379 --> 00:09:37.220 to the song, so he reclaimed it, reworked it 00:09:37.220 --> 00:09:39.519 with his touring band for Love and Theft, and 00:09:39.519 --> 00:09:42.039 turned it into an absolute classic. And they 00:09:42.039 --> 00:09:43.759 had a pretty long life after that too, right? 00:09:43.840 --> 00:09:47.059 It became so universally beloved that the Dixie 00:09:47.059 --> 00:09:49.500 Chicks later made it a massive staple of their 00:09:49.500 --> 00:09:52.039 live tours. The track that really stands out 00:09:51.980 --> 00:09:55.279 its sheer weight, though, is high water. for 00:09:55.279 --> 00:09:57.840 Charlie Patton. That track is phenomenal. It's 00:09:57.840 --> 00:10:00.720 a sweeping, apocalyptic portrait of the racial 00:10:00.720 --> 00:10:03.399 history and the deep -seated dread of the American 00:10:03.399 --> 00:10:05.860 South. It feels heavy just listening to it. It 00:10:05.860 --> 00:10:08.440 is. Dylan dedicates it to Charlie Patton, who 00:10:08.440 --> 00:10:10.440 was one of the foundational pioneers of Delta 00:10:10.440 --> 00:10:13.100 Blues. Patton becomes a symbol in the song for 00:10:13.100 --> 00:10:15.700 the region's incredible cultural richness, but 00:10:15.700 --> 00:10:19.179 also its ingrained social cruelties. The imagery 00:10:19.179 --> 00:10:22.659 is so intense. You have these rumbling drums, 00:10:22.820 --> 00:10:26.460 moaning backing vocals. and Dylan just rasping 00:10:26.460 --> 00:10:29.159 that haunting line, high water everywhere, which 00:10:29.159 --> 00:10:31.700 traces back to the devastating Mississippi floods 00:10:31.700 --> 00:10:34.860 of 1927. Right. It feels like you are listening 00:10:34.860 --> 00:10:38.179 to things go from bad to worse in real time. 00:10:38.240 --> 00:10:40.399 But he doesn't leave you completely in the dark. 00:10:40.519 --> 00:10:43.379 The album is tempered with incredible musicality 00:10:43.379 --> 00:10:46.360 and surprising tenderness. Like where? Take a 00:10:46.360 --> 00:10:49.240 track like Pobor. This one completely shifts 00:10:49.240 --> 00:10:52.000 gears. It features these lounge jazz chord patterns 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:53.779 that sound like they were plucked straight out 00:10:53.779 --> 00:10:56.259 of a speakeasy in 1920. It has a very different 00:10:56.259 --> 00:10:58.480 rhythm to it, right? It feels almost hesitant. 00:10:58.669 --> 00:11:00.830 Yes, the critic Tume Riley pointed out something 00:11:00.830 --> 00:11:03.769 brilliant about it. He noted how Dylan masterfully 00:11:03.769 --> 00:11:05.889 leaves you dangling at the end of each bridge. 00:11:06.210 --> 00:11:08.269 What do you mean? Well, he sings this dense trail 00:11:08.269 --> 00:11:10.330 of words, squeezing them into the melody and 00:11:10.330 --> 00:11:13.090 then just stops. He lets the band punctuate the 00:11:13.090 --> 00:11:15.889 silence. Oh, I see. It gives the song this reluctant, 00:11:16.190 --> 00:11:18.470 soft -shoe charm that completely contrasts with 00:11:18.470 --> 00:11:20.730 the dread of high water. And then we reach the 00:11:20.730 --> 00:11:24.399 finale, Sugar Baby. It's a lengthy, dirge -like 00:11:24.399 --> 00:11:27.580 ballad. It's absolutely drenched in studio echo 00:11:27.580 --> 00:11:30.789 and built on this deceptively simple riff. that 00:11:30.789 --> 00:11:33.309 eventually turns completely foreboding. It really 00:11:33.309 --> 00:11:35.769 closes the door on the album. It's packed with 00:11:35.769 --> 00:11:38.269 apocalyptic imagery and leaves you with this 00:11:38.269 --> 00:11:40.690 heavy, resonant feeling as the record finally 00:11:40.690 --> 00:11:43.509 stops. It's a monumental piece of work, but what 00:11:43.509 --> 00:11:46.309 I find almost as fascinating as the music is 00:11:46.309 --> 00:11:49.210 how Dylan chose to present it to the world. Here's 00:11:49.210 --> 00:11:51.509 where it gets really interesting. You'd think 00:11:51.509 --> 00:11:54.789 an album this heavily steeped in obscure Americana, 00:11:54.970 --> 00:11:57.309 social commentary, and apocalyptic blues would 00:11:57.309 --> 00:11:59.330 have a super serious marketing campaign. You 00:11:59.330 --> 00:12:03.129 would assume so. But on August 28, 2001, a 30 00:12:03.129 --> 00:12:04.990 -second commercial hits the internet and then 00:12:04.990 --> 00:12:07.690 network TV, featuring the song Tweedledee and 00:12:07.690 --> 00:12:10.409 Tweedledum. And the visual is amazing. It is 00:12:10.409 --> 00:12:13.029 Bob Dylan sitting at a tense high -stakes poker 00:12:13.029 --> 00:12:16.110 game with the renowned magician Ricky Jay, the 00:12:16.110 --> 00:12:18.850 actress Francine York, and the TV writer Eddie 00:12:18.850 --> 00:12:21.100 Gordesky. It is completely out of left field. 00:12:21.480 --> 00:12:23.980 And that aesthetic was entirely Dylan's idea. 00:12:24.460 --> 00:12:27.019 He specifically told the director, Kinka Usher, 00:12:27.320 --> 00:12:29.480 that he didn't want it to look like a standard 00:12:29.480 --> 00:12:32.600 corporate music ad. He wanted a film. Exactly. 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:35.679 He requested that it be shot like a little film. 00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:38.100 And if you think about it, it perfectly matches 00:12:38.100 --> 00:12:41.440 the rogue gambler energy of the album's lyrics. 00:12:41.740 --> 00:12:45.259 He's leaning fully into that 1920s outlaw persona. 00:12:45.679 --> 00:12:49.320 The whole visual era was so cohesive. The album 00:12:49.320 --> 00:12:51.399 cover itself is this striking black and white 00:12:51.399 --> 00:12:53.799 photograph taken by Kevin Mazur right there in 00:12:53.799 --> 00:12:56.200 the recording studio. With the mustache. Yes. 00:12:56.659 --> 00:12:59.200 Dylan is sporting this brand new pencil -thin 00:12:59.200 --> 00:13:02.240 mustache looking exactly like one of those riverboat 00:13:02.240 --> 00:13:04.460 gamblers he's singing about. There's also great 00:13:04.460 --> 00:13:08.059 back cover portrait by David Gar and inside photos 00:13:08.059 --> 00:13:10.320 of the whole never -ending tour band, including 00:13:10.320 --> 00:13:12.440 organist Aki Myers who joined them for the sessions. 00:13:12.919 --> 00:13:15.039 Beyond the visual flair, Dylan's behavior during 00:13:15.039 --> 00:13:17.779 the rollout was highly unusual. Historically, 00:13:17.940 --> 00:13:20.299 he hasn't exactly been the most eager participant 00:13:20.299 --> 00:13:22.860 in press junkets. That's putting it mildly. True. 00:13:23.279 --> 00:13:25.580 He usually treats the media with a healthy dose 00:13:25.580 --> 00:13:28.059 of suspicion or sometimes outright hostility. 00:13:28.639 --> 00:13:31.620 But for love and theft, he was surprisingly open. 00:13:31.840 --> 00:13:34.480 He actually did press. He did a lot of it. He 00:13:34.480 --> 00:13:36.820 participated in a massive press conference at 00:13:36.820 --> 00:13:39.460 the Hotel de la Ville in Rome, taking questions 00:13:39.460 --> 00:13:42.399 from reporters all over Europe. He also granted 00:13:42.399 --> 00:13:44.919 in -depth interviews to major publications like 00:13:44.919 --> 00:13:48.059 USA Today, the Los Angeles Times and sat down 00:13:48.059 --> 00:13:51.279 with McCall Gilmore for Rolling Stone. Wow. He 00:13:51.279 --> 00:13:53.259 clearly knew he had created something special 00:13:53.259 --> 00:13:55.600 and was willing to talk about it. And the critical 00:13:55.600 --> 00:13:58.500 reception backed him up entirely. Love and Theft 00:13:58.500 --> 00:14:00.259 peaked at number five on the U .S. Billboard 00:14:00.259 --> 00:14:03.080 200. and it hit number one in Norway and Sweden. 00:14:03.580 --> 00:14:05.940 Incredible numbers for a Roots album. It went 00:14:05.940 --> 00:14:08.240 on to win the Grammy Award for best contemporary 00:14:08.240 --> 00:14:10.500 folk album. Yeah. Think about the gravity of 00:14:10.500 --> 00:14:13.740 that. A loud, sprawling Roots rock album winning 00:14:13.740 --> 00:14:16.320 contemporary folk. Even Johnny Cash, the man 00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:18.360 in black himself, did an interview with the New 00:14:18.360 --> 00:14:20.700 York Times where he flat out named Love and Theft 00:14:20.700 --> 00:14:23.570 as Bob Dylan's best album. When Johnny Cash says 00:14:23.570 --> 00:14:25.769 it's your best work, you've achieved something 00:14:25.769 --> 00:14:29.149 monumental. The critical consensus was perhaps 00:14:29.149 --> 00:14:31.830 best summarized by the legendary music critic 00:14:31.830 --> 00:14:35.299 Robert Chrisgow. What did he say? In his review, 00:14:35.500 --> 00:14:38.039 he wrote a line that has really stuck to the 00:14:38.039 --> 00:14:40.720 legacy of this record. He said, if Time Out of 00:14:40.720 --> 00:14:44.039 Mind was his death album, this is his immortality 00:14:44.039 --> 00:14:46.639 album. His immortality album. That gives me chills. 00:14:46.820 --> 00:14:49.980 It topped the Paz and Jot Poll, too, which, for 00:14:49.980 --> 00:14:52.480 music nerds, is essentially the holy grail of 00:14:52.480 --> 00:14:54.639 critical consensus in a given year. Okay, but 00:14:54.639 --> 00:14:56.440 we have to talk about the elephant in the room. 00:14:56.759 --> 00:14:59.059 Ah, yes. You can't have a masterpiece without 00:14:59.059 --> 00:15:02.179 some controversy. The title is Love and Theft. 00:15:02.959 --> 00:15:05.100 And shortly after the album came out, people 00:15:05.100 --> 00:15:07.899 realized the theft part might have been a bit 00:15:07.899 --> 00:15:10.320 more literal than they thought. This raises an 00:15:10.320 --> 00:15:12.620 important question about how we define originality 00:15:12.620 --> 00:15:15.120 because very astute listeners notice striking 00:15:15.120 --> 00:15:17.700 similarities between the lyrics in Dylan's song 00:15:17.700 --> 00:15:20.740 Floater and a book by the Japanese writer Junichi 00:15:20.740 --> 00:15:23.460 Saga. The book is called Confessions of a Yakuza. 00:15:23.539 --> 00:15:25.360 Right, which had been translated into English 00:15:25.360 --> 00:15:28.259 by John Bester. The comparisons are not just 00:15:28.259 --> 00:15:31.059 vague inspirations. They are completely wild 00:15:31.059 --> 00:15:34.409 when you put them side by side. In Floater, Dylan 00:15:34.409 --> 00:15:38.009 sings, I'm not quite as cool or forgiving as 00:15:38.009 --> 00:15:40.289 I sound. And in the book, the line is, I'm not 00:15:40.289 --> 00:15:42.190 as cool or forgiving as I might have sounded. 00:15:42.389 --> 00:15:45.710 Later in the song, Dylan sings, my old man, he's 00:15:45.710 --> 00:15:48.450 like some feudal lord. In the very first chapter 00:15:48.450 --> 00:15:50.629 of the book, it says, my old man would sit there 00:15:50.629 --> 00:15:53.190 like a feudal lord. Wait, hold on. He listed 00:15:53.190 --> 00:15:56.570 an author's exact words. In any other context 00:15:56.570 --> 00:15:59.230 or in any other era, that is a massive copyright 00:15:59.230 --> 00:16:01.690 lawsuit. How did you get away with that? In the 00:16:01.690 --> 00:16:03.429 modern music industry, you're right, that usually 00:16:03.429 --> 00:16:06.009 ends in massive lawsuits, public apologies, and 00:16:06.009 --> 00:16:09.210 a huge scandal. But the twist here is amazing. 00:16:09.309 --> 00:16:11.789 What happened? When reporters reached out to 00:16:11.789 --> 00:16:14.570 author Junichi Saga to inform him that the great 00:16:14.570 --> 00:16:16.929 Bob Dylan had apparently plagiarized his work, 00:16:17.690 --> 00:16:20.389 Saga wasn't angry at all. Really? He wasn't preparing 00:16:20.389 --> 00:16:22.509 a legal team. Not even close. In fact, he was 00:16:22.509 --> 00:16:25.120 deeply honored. You're kidding. No, he didn't 00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:27.940 feel abused by it. He felt it was a massive privilege 00:16:27.940 --> 00:16:29.980 that his words had made their way into a Bob 00:16:29.980 --> 00:16:33.100 Dylan song. He saw it as a compliment. But even 00:16:33.100 --> 00:16:35.519 with the author's blessing, how did the critics 00:16:35.519 --> 00:16:37.580 handle it? You think the media would tear him 00:16:37.580 --> 00:16:40.080 apart for copying someone else's homework. This 00:16:40.080 --> 00:16:42.879 is where that connection to the hip hop engineer 00:16:42.879 --> 00:16:46.159 Chris Shaw really crystallizes. Remember Robert 00:16:46.159 --> 00:16:48.539 Crisco, who called it his Immortality album? 00:16:48.820 --> 00:16:51.799 His defense of the Yakuza controversy perfectly 00:16:51.799 --> 00:16:54.059 captures the thesis of the album. He essentially 00:16:54.059 --> 00:16:57.200 said, all pop music is love and theft. And in 00:16:57.200 --> 00:16:59.659 40 years of records whose sources have inspired 00:16:59.659 --> 00:17:03.259 volumes of stylastic exegesis, Dylan has never 00:17:03.259 --> 00:17:06.589 embraced that truth so warmly. So he's saying 00:17:06.589 --> 00:17:08.910 the title is the defense. He's basically saying 00:17:08.910 --> 00:17:10.890 the album is literally called Love and Theft. 00:17:11.029 --> 00:17:13.009 He's telling you right on the cover exactly what 00:17:13.009 --> 00:17:15.069 he's doing. So it's not plagiarism, it's sampling. 00:17:15.390 --> 00:17:18.650 Exactly. The entire album is an exercise in taking 00:17:18.650 --> 00:17:20.930 existing cultural artifacts, whether it's an 00:17:20.930 --> 00:17:24.349 obscure 1920s jazz progression, a Charlie Patton 00:17:24.349 --> 00:17:27.490 blues motif, or a translated line from a biography 00:17:27.490 --> 00:17:30.970 of a Japanese Yakuza boss and recontextualizing 00:17:30.970 --> 00:17:33.609 them. He makes them his own. Right. By weaving 00:17:33.609 --> 00:17:36.589 them into his own distinct narrative voice, he 00:17:36.589 --> 00:17:39.730 breathes new life into them. This is the deepest, 00:17:39.930 --> 00:17:42.630 oldest folk tradition. Folk music has always 00:17:42.630 --> 00:17:45.069 been about passing songs down, changing a lyric 00:17:45.069 --> 00:17:47.910 here, adapting a melody there to fit the times. 00:17:48.109 --> 00:17:49.990 Dylan just expanded the scope of what he was 00:17:49.990 --> 00:17:52.309 willing to steal from. He treated world literature 00:17:52.309 --> 00:17:55.869 and American history as his personal sample library. 00:17:56.109 --> 00:17:58.670 So what does this all mean when we look at this 00:17:58.670 --> 00:18:01.559 12 -day recording sprint? The stealth education 00:18:01.559 --> 00:18:04.400 of the School of Bob, the poker commercial, the 00:18:04.400 --> 00:18:07.400 flawless Americana, and the Acusa lyrics. We 00:18:07.400 --> 00:18:10.259 see an artist who is totally unapologetic about 00:18:10.259 --> 00:18:12.900 his creative process. Absolutely unapologetic. 00:18:13.140 --> 00:18:15.539 Love and Theft is the literal embodiment of its 00:18:15.539 --> 00:18:18.279 title. Dylan took pieces of early Americana, 00:18:18.579 --> 00:18:20.759 obscure literature, and traditional styles, and 00:18:20.759 --> 00:18:22.519 he filtered every single one of them through 00:18:22.519 --> 00:18:25.259 his own undeniable genius. And the result is 00:18:25.259 --> 00:18:27.880 a modern masterpiece that feels incredibly old 00:18:27.880 --> 00:18:30.900 and entirely new at the exact same time. It really 00:18:30.900 --> 00:18:33.119 emphasizes a profound lesson about what mastery 00:18:33.119 --> 00:18:36.160 actually looks like. True mastery in any field 00:18:36.160 --> 00:18:38.599 often isn't about creating something from absolute 00:18:38.599 --> 00:18:41.700 zero in a vacuum. No, it's about being a phenomenal 00:18:41.700 --> 00:18:44.640 student of history. Just like the touring band 00:18:44.640 --> 00:18:46.700 had to absorb the lessons of the School of Bob, 00:18:47.240 --> 00:18:49.720 Dylan himself is a lifelong student of the American 00:18:49.720 --> 00:18:52.880 musical tradition. Mastery is the ability to 00:18:52.880 --> 00:18:56.380 synthesize diverse pre -existing pieces into 00:18:56.380 --> 00:18:58.960 something that is distinctly and unmistakably 00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:01.000 your own. You don't have to invent the wheel, 00:19:01.019 --> 00:19:03.480 but you can definitely build a faster, cooler 00:19:03.480 --> 00:19:05.759 car with it. Well said. Which leaves us with 00:19:05.759 --> 00:19:07.559 a fascinating thought for you to take away today. 00:19:08.519 --> 00:19:11.099 If a cultural icon like Bob Dylan, one of the 00:19:11.099 --> 00:19:13.759 greatest songwriters in human history, can openly 00:19:13.759 --> 00:19:16.779 treat history, obscure literature, and the musical 00:19:16.779 --> 00:19:21.160 past as one giant sandbox to borrow from, literally 00:19:21.160 --> 00:19:23.740 engaging in love and theft. It makes you wonder. 00:19:23.940 --> 00:19:26.059 It does. How might you look at your own sources 00:19:26.059 --> 00:19:28.819 of inspiration differently? Is true originality 00:19:28.819 --> 00:19:31.119 really about inventing from scratch? Or is it 00:19:31.119 --> 00:19:33.339 just knowing exactly what to steal and loving 00:19:33.339 --> 00:19:35.559 it enough to make it new? Keep that in mind next 00:19:35.559 --> 00:19:38.059 time you sit down to create. Thanks for joining 00:19:38.059 --> 00:19:39.880 us on this deep dive into the sources behind 00:19:39.880 --> 00:19:41.480 love and theft. We'll catch you next time.