Note, this piece can also be found on http://tantmieux.squarespace.com/bob-dylan-on-tant-mieux-/................

This year rock n’ roll lost one of its forefathers, Bo Diddley, and a quote we tend to remember him by is this one: “...When is people going wake up and give credit where credit is due?” This is, of course, in reference to the famous “Bo Diddley Beat,” a rhythm that Diddley first popularized and has since been used by Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, U2, and many more. After watching his Beat bring popularity to so many other musicians Bo Diddley became a sort of symbol and advocate for artistic credibility.

So, what is this I’ve heard about Bob Dylan being accused of “not giving credit where credit is due”? Since the success of Modern Times, online forums, entertainment columns, and music blogs have been accusing Dylan of snatching up lines from poet Henry Timrod and claiming them as his own. Rolling Stone says he “poached some lines” from the 19th Century poet. I don’t believe that I am on Dylan’s side of this debate or on Rolling Stone’s side. For that matter, I’m not even sure if Bob Dylan has a side to this debate or if it’s a debate at all. I do realize, however, that he is not the first musician to be accused of stealing from the past. Led Zeppelin has been so harshly criticized for stealing their top hits from delta blues musicians that they have begun to credit blues musicians within the liner notes to their re-released CDs. It is a known fact to many Led Zeppelin fans that lead vocalist Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page loved the delta blues and greatly admired the musicians they “borrowed” from. When it comes to Bob Dylan, I feel that this is a similar matter—that Dylan borrows lines as references to literary masterminds that he admires. He has actually discussed his admiration of musician John Jacob Niles, an influence on the lyrics to “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” in the documentary No Direction Home. But, while a Bob Dylan fan will always snap to his hero’s defense (“he’s an artist! He didn’t steal!”) it is difficult to convince an advocate of “giving credit where credit is due” that Bob Dylan is not a scheming thief.

In 2003 The New York Times published an article by Jon Pareles called “Plagiarism in Dylan, or a Cultural Collage?” which labeled Dylan’s songs as “information collages.” I find this to be a reasonable label. When I hear the album “Love & Theft” I don’t see a picture of Charlie Patton in my mind (even though his name is in the title of “High Water [for Charlie Patton]”) or think about A Streetcar Named Desire. I see, as Pareles calls it, “a quilt” of allusions with squares dedicated to all these different artists and historical climates and feelings. I think they really bring the album to life—they create the scenery for the work. But I suppose to a casual listener, hearing one of their favorite lines lifted straight out of Tennessee Williams’ play would not be pleasing. For them it’s not a quilt of references. It’s just a bunch of stolen material stitched together.

We can try to see this from the point of view of each artist—we can try to recreate what Bob Dylan was feeling as he wrote “go away from my window, leave at your own chosen speed” and imagine the reaction of John Jacob Niles hearing these familiar lines. We can even picture Joan Baez in a studio recording a song she’d snatched up from her days chumming around with Dylan, “Love is Just a Four-Letter Word.” Then, we can envision Dylan’s reaction to hearing the song on the radio (By the way, Baez describes his reaction as: “Wow, that’s a good song”).

In high school text books, poems and plays that utilize allusions are given footnotes—not to credit those being referenced, but to aid students in understanding the origin and tone of the piece as a whole. Countless authors frequently and effectively employ allusions. The characters in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man sing traditional Irish tunes and casually recite lines of poetry from Byron and others. So, if James Joyce uses allusions to help readers understand his characters and Bob Dylan uses allusions to develop a tone for his song, what is the difference? My opinion is that in the music world it’s more difficult for people to hold onto things they’ve created, so they become very protective. Composers and poets release their material in an audio format on CD or record or on the radio, and listeners pick out similarities in songs through hearing them. It is often easier to recognize similarities in words on the pages of a book than in words you’re hearing but not seeing. In literature there’s a term for these purposeful similarities (“allusion”) and as long as whole works are not being mimicked, it will never be called plagiarism. In music, though, it’s still a sensitive issue and we probably haven’t seen it done responsibly or frequently enough to begin accepting it.

There was a time when stories used to be told out loud and passed down through families. This way they were easily transferable and modifiable. This takes place today in what we fondly call “the folk tradition.” People who employ the folk tradition in their songwriting are able to creatively modify a traditional story like that of Barbara Allen or Joe McKennedy and the St. James Infirmary in their own work. According to Rolling Stone, Dylan has used pieces from much more recent works, like lines from “The Maltese Falcon” and other popular films. Sometimes they’re not lines that we immediately recognize, and when someone thinks they’ve realized “what’s going on” it becomes an issue of plagiarism.

One of the reasons I find Dylan’s music so interesting is that it’s filled with foreign lines and references, and a skilled listener can pick them out. To provide a list of origins to these allusions would take away from the intrigue that they create. When I realized that Bob Dylan had written lyrics based on a delta blues lady named Memphis Minnie in “Thunder on the Mountain,” I felt inspired to go out and hear her. So, I purchased the very song that Dylan borrowed from, “Ma Rainey.” I don’t think that seeing Memphis Minnie’s name in a list of credits would have made me more eager or willing to go out and buy that song—credits are just a matter of courtesy, really. And some people are more sensitive than others about where their work ends up. But, being an artist is about realizing that your work can end up just about anywhere. For all I know this article could show up in somebody’s Myspace blog tomorrow. In a growing world of artists and artistic integrity it is important to be courteous in our artistic goals. If you respect someone’s work, borrow from them respectfully. Don’t call it your own. But, that doesn’t mean you need to put it in bold print either (that is, unless you’re writing Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor” and calling it “The Lemon Song,” Led Zeppelin...). And, let’s not forget that everything has to come from somewhere. Bo Diddley stumbled across his famous rhythm while trying to learn a Gene Autry song.