Byrne on Dylan, and then some

At the end of his March 8 tour journal entry, former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne dishes out a mini-review of Dylan's recent autobiography:

I finished reading Bob Dylan's book. It's beautifully written, though I think it should probably be filed under fiction. I always thought his persona, which early on was that of a young Woody Guthrie, was just that, a persona. It worked as a way of delivering those songs, so who cares?...and he partly, but only partly, abandoned it later. But this book is, in my opinion, pretty much written from the point of view of that imaginary guy. What a conceit! It's a brilliant literary idea, but I hope people take it with a grain of salt...and humor. It's as if Mr Rogers wrote his autobiography and continued to talk the way he does in the TV show. Some of the writing, the language and the metaphors that this character comes up with are brilliant. Moving and unexpected I mean, for example he describes rappers and "serious, throwing horses off cliffs" (Call me skeptical, but a Jewish guy from Minnesota talking and writing like a backwoods hick/poet, huh? What's that about?)

The main thrust of the post, though, focuses on Byrne's presentation of his latest book, which puts the magnifying glass on PowerPoint. Yes, that PowerPoint.


I find it interesting, though, that Byrne brings up Dylan writing from a make-believe/imagined persona, which was pretty much the gist of author David Bowman's mediocre-but-informative Heads bio This Must Be The Place. In it, Bowman paints Byrne as a socially awkward art school dropout who slowly evolved from someone who was trying to be eccentric, arty and different into someone who was genuinely that way, with a stronger sense of self (that, some would argue, made it easy for him to shrug off the other Heads when they became too cumbersome). It's worth reading just because it's probably the only functional Talking Heads/Byrne bio you're gonna find. Anyone else wanna help me write one?

But don't bother buying the PP book. Instead, whip out your credit card and welcome these albums into your home, before the rapture comes:

Remain in Light

David Byrne

The Name of this Band is Talking Heads