Daily Dose Of Dylan

The Rolling Stone Interview: Bob Dylan - November 29, 1969

• WENNER: Why have you chosen to do this interview?
• DYLAN: ‘Cause this is a music paper. Why would I want to give an interview to Look magazine? Tell me, why?
• WENNER: I don’t know... to sell records.
• DYLAN: To sell records, I could do it. Right. But I have a gold record without doing it, do you understand me? Well, if I had to sell records, I’d be out there giving interviews to everybody. Don’t you see? Mr. Clive Davis, he was president of Columbia Records, and he said he wouldn’t be surprised if this last album sold a million units. Without giving one interview. Now you tell me, Jann, why am I going to go out and give an interview?
• WENNER: To get hassled...
• DYLAN: Why would I want to go out and get hassled? If they’re gonna pay me, I mean... who wants to do that. I don’t.
• WENNER: Do you have any idea how much money your publishing has brought in over the last five years?
• DYLAN: Well, now, that’s difficult to answer because my songs are divided up into three, no, four companies. So there you have it. There you have it right there.
• WENNER: Which companies?
• DYLAN: Well, I’ve got songs with Leeds Music. I’ve got songs with Whitmark Music. I’ve got a bunch of songs with Dwarf Music. I’ve got songs in Big Sky Music. So you see, my songs are divided up, so...
• WENNER: Do you own Big Sky Music wholly yourself?
• DYLAN: It’s my company. I chose to start this company.
• WENNER: You put all the estimated income from those four companies together, or estimated gross income from publishing from those, it must be a considerable...
• DYLAN: Not as much as the Beatles.
• WENNER: Yeah, but other than the Beatles?
• DYLAN: Not as much as those writers from Motown.
• WENNER: Other than the writers from Motown...
• DYLAN: You know there are many more musical organizations than me. They’ve got staffs of writers bringing in more money than you can dream of.