In order to take a quasi-siesta from the dissertation, let me note the trope of listening in Bob Dylan’s interview with Paul Zollo, reprinted in Songwriters on Songwriting (de Capo Press 1997):
There’s enough songs for people to listen to, if they want to listen to songs. (73)
Poets don’t drive cars. [Laughs] Poets don’t go to the supermarket. Poets don’t empty the garbage. Poets aren’t on the PTA. Poets, you know, they don’t go picket the Better Housing Bureau, or whatever. Poets don’t …poets don’t even speak on the telephone. Poets don’t even talk to anybody. Poets do a lot of listening…and usually they know why they’re poets! (74)
To Woody Guthrie, see, the airwaves were sacred. And when he’d hear something false, it was on airwaves that were sacred to him. His songs weren’t false. Now we know the airwaves aren’t sacred but to him they were [...] Now nobody even knows what radio is anymore. Nobody likes it that you talk to. Nobody listens to it. (78-79)
Modern twentieth century ears are the first ears to hear these kind of Broadway songs. There wasn’t anything like this. (80)
