When it comes to Love and theftMitchell’s words apparently hold some weight, as on the surface it would appear that he declared his working method in the title: he loved a book and borrowed from it. Although there are thousands and thousands of albums that are somehow inspired by literature, some in a very nebulous way, others in a much more direct sense, Dylan rather inexplicably decided to transpose pieces of prose directly into his own to operate.

The problem on this occasion, however, was that these conservatively edited chunks of text went uncredited and were oddly from such a niche book that it wasn’t like people could clearly connect the dots anyway. If you say “to be or not to be” then there’s no need to credit the source, also if you bend a riff out of recognition then that’s just how art works and no one can claim mastery over the ideas themselves, but engravings printed word with word are another problem.

As it happens, with Love and theftthe book in question was Confessions of a Yakuzaan obscure 1989 gangster biography by Japanese writer Junichi Saga. At the time of Dylan’s release, Saga was a doctor in his 60s. He fictionalized a patient’s account for a novel that Saga describes as exploring love and crime, or, as he notes, “In other words, love and theft.”

The novel received minor success in its first two years of print in Japan, but in 1991, it was translated into English and brought a little more esteem overseas. Saga believes he sold about 25,000 copies in English, earning him a modest $8,475. It seems that one of those 25,000 copies may have been headed for the most eminent artist on Earth and was about to revive his stardom.

Of course, being one of the most famous artists in the world, sooner or later the connections would be made. A comparison of Dylan’s line: “I’m not as cool or forgiving as I sound,” with a line from the book, which reads: “I’m not as cool or forgiving as I might sound,” was close. done instantly. Similarly, the “Floater” verse: “My old man, he’s like a feudal lord”, has been compared to Saga’s line: “My old man would sit there like a feudal lord.” Once you start looking deeper, there is many other examples on occasions where Dylan seems to lift his lyrics from Confessions of a Yakuza. Take for example Love And Theft the song “Honest With Me”, which contains the lines: “Some things are too terrible to be true, / I won’t come here again if it bothers you”, the latter can be found in exactly the same form in the Book of Saga.

When the question of whether Dylan had plagiarized the book was brought to Saga’s attention, in a hilarious twist of fate, the obscure Japanese writer had never heard of the cherished American troubadour. However, he said he would be greatly honored if it inspired his work in some way, and his only request was to be credited in the liner notes in the future, if possible.

Saga stated, “Why would I sue? To take something that has made people all over the world happy and try to exploit it for money – that’s poverty,” he very wisely told Associated Press in a quote that restores faith in art and humanity. And in its own way, the universe rewarded him with a rise of his novel in the English-language book charts. Saga publisher Kodansha hoped that in future editions they would be able to print Dylan’s picture, or at least provide some information, for the next edition’s dust jacket.

So does plagiarizing Bob Dylan work?

The whole debate is a very interesting one, and this case in particular is complicated. There’s the approach that says Dylan picked it up and should be convicted, but then another point of view has to be considered.

That director Jim Jarmusch once said MovieMaker Magazine: “Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Select only things to steal that speak directly to your soul,” says his famous quote, before continuing, “If you do this, your work (and your theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is priceless; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother hiding your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it.”

It is a notion that Jean-Luc Godard, the French hero of the new wave he also celebrated when he said, “It’s not where you get things from, but where you take them.”

Pablo Picasso got in on the act and commented, “Good artists copy, great artists steal,” a line that was actually ironically stolen from TS Eliot.

In short, the evidence on display is not necessarily a condemnation, and a very liberal view might actually celebrate it as a recycling of art into something new that serves as a bright addition to our dreary everyday lives. Basically, no matter how you look at it, it’s definitely not quit.

The ethics of such liberal invocation of source material is complicated and difficult. However, Nick Cave is always a reliable voice to turn to in such cases. He wrote his own Red hand fileHis Forum: “The great beauty of contemporary music, and what gives it its edge and vitality, is its devil-may-care attitude toward appropriation—everybody takes things from everybody else, all the time. It’s a feeding frenzy of borrowed ideas headed for the advancement of rock music—the great artistic experiment of our era.”

Vitally, however, he goes on to add, “Plagiarism is a nasty word for what in rock and roll is a natural and necessary—even admirable—tendency to steal. Theft is the engine of progress and should be encouraged, even celebrated, provided the stolen idea has been advanced in some way. To promote an idea is to steal something from someone and make it so cool and coveted that someone then steals it from you. In this way, modern music progresses, gathering ideas and shifting and transforming as it goes.”

Cave’s words even shared a kinship with one of his heroes, the poet Stevie Smith, who weighed in not only on this subject, but on the origins of great art as a whole, when he remarked, “A great artist … takes what he did. don’t do and make of it something that only he can do.”

And Dylan would proudly proclaim that folk music, in essence, is built brick by brick on the foundation of the forefathers. As Pete Townshend proclaimed when assessing his hero: “A folk singer is someone with a good memory, basically. (Dylan) had a lot of American folk songs and Irish and Scottish folk songs. If you’re an expert folkologist, it’s infuriating to be a Dylan fan. You know, someone like Roy Harper is always banging his head against the wall saying that ‘Masters Of War’ was written in Scotland in 1706.”

But Dylan made it relevant to the times at hand. He did much the same with the powerful Love and theft. However, as Cave adds in his final words: “But a word of caution, if you steal an idea and demean or diminish it, you are committing a terrible crime for which you will pay a terrible price – no matter what talents you have, in time, abandon yourself.”

Joni Mitchell, however, clearly believes the latter was on Dylan when she explained: “We’re like night and day, (Dylan) and I,” she said. “Bob is not genuine at all. He is a plagiarist and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a sham.” Unfortunately, with countless masterpieces to his name, this seems more than a little harsh. In short, if Love and theft is stolen, then we should pass the law.

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