Bob Dylan is the Marshawn Lynch of the music business; he very rarely takes interviews, but when he does, his responses are memorable. The 73-year-old songwriting legend is putting out a batch of songs he didn't pen titled Shadows in the Night, and he offered up a Q&A opportunity (his first in three years!) to AARP Magazine. Oh, and get this: He's giving away the album to 50,000 subscribers for free.
Tell 'em what they've won, Bob!
"I love these songs, and I'm not going to bring any disrespect to them," he said of a tracklist that includes great American standards such as "Autumn Leaves" and "That Lucky Old Sun." "To trash those songs would be sacrilegious. And we've all heard those songs being trashed, and we're used to it. In some kind of ways you want to right the wrong."
The Wondering Sound confirmed that, yes, 50,000 AARP Magazine subscribers will be getting Dylan's new CD in the mail. Big D told the mag that this is the perfect time for him to publish these classic tunes.
"I've been thinking about it ever since I heard Willie [Nelson]'s Stardust record in the late 1970s," Dylan said. "All through the years, I've heard these songs being recorded by other people and I've always wanted to do that. And I wondered if anybody else saw it the way I did."
The interviewer noted that all of the songs on the record had been previously recorded by Frank Sinatra. Should Dylan be worried about risking his reputation against Frank's?
"There's nothing risky about making records," Dylan fired back. "Comparing me with Frank Sinatra? You must be joking. To be mentioned in the same breath as him must be some sort of high compliment. As far as touching him goes, nobody touches him. Not me or anyone else."
