Dylan's Art Teacher Said Interesting Stuff

I was just reading the new issue of Mojo devoted to all things Bob Dylan, and came across the story of how much Bob Dylan was influenced by the painter Norman Raeben in the mid-70s, around the time of Blood on the Tracks. Not just in terms of painting, which is something Dylan is serious about, but in terms of how to think about art and life in general. And there was one very specific influence, one that ended up in what I think is among the handful of the very best Dylan best songs, Idiot Wind. It's always been a conspicuously blunt refrain that runs through what is actually a complex and subtle song, "You're an idiot, babe, it's a wonder that you still know how to breathe." Of course, at the end, the finger points the other way and the accusation gets spread around: "We're idiots, babe, it's a wonder we can even feed ourselves."

Well, as writer Michael Simmons tells it in the Mojo story, quoting Claudia Levy, this was a pure Raebenism: "Norman would call you an idiot. He would tell you all the time, 'You're an idiot!' You could take it as an insult, but he'd say, 'But don't worry--I'm an idiot too. We're all idiots'."

Here are some other choice Raebenisms from the article, related by Levy and other students.

"He used to say that nothing exists without the dark and the light. You can't have form if you don't have dark."

"Feeling is superior. Emotion is a reaction, but feeling is an exploration. It came from your depths, you had to understand that feeling."

"If you were trying to do something and make it look good, you weren't being real. It was dishonest--it had to come from your soul."

"Painting is not art--only life is art. Painting is a by-product of art. Art is the moment you're alive in that process of creation."