1:19:04
And reflect from the mountain
so all souls can see it
1:19:10
Then I'll stand on the ocean
until I start sinkin'
1:19:16
But I'll know my song well
before I start singin'
1:19:21
And it's a hard, and it's a hard
1:19:24
And it's a hard, and it's a hard
1:19:27
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall
1:19:35
A very famous saying
among the Tibetan Buddhists:
1:19:39
"If the student is not better than
the teacher, then the teacher is a failure".
1:19:44
And I was really knocked out
by the eloquence.
1:19:49
Particularly, "I'll know my song well
before I start singing".
1:19:54
And, "Where all souls shall reflect it".
1:19:56
Or you know, "Stand on the mountain
where everybody can hear".
1:19:58
It's sort of this biblical prophecy.
1:20:01
Poetry is words that are empowered
that make your hair stand on end...
1:20:05
that you recognize instantly
as being some form of subjective truth...
1:20:10
that has an objective reality to it,
because somebody's realized it.
1:20:14
Then you call it poetry later.
1:20:15
Take this one you sang,
this Hard Rain's Gonna Fall.
1:20:20
Even though it may have come out
of your feelings about atomic rain.
1:20:23
No, it wasn't atomic rain, no.
Somebody else thought that, too.
1:20:27
- It's not atomic rain.
- Go ahead.
1:20:29
- It's just a hard rain. It's not atomic rain.
- Hard rain.
1:20:32
All your songs are about more
than the actual event...
1:20:36
that may have caused it.
1:20:37
- You know what I mean?
- I'm not a topical songwriter.
1:20:40
- So you're not a topical songwriter.
- No, I don't really even like that word.
1:20:44
I mean, it's not a song
about a certain event.
1:20:47
- Yeah, it's not, no.
- It's beyond that.
1:20:49
The folk idiom is so widespread...
1:20:51
that you could take any part of it
and rework a song.
1:20:54
I never thought
I was breaking through anything.
1:20:56
I was just working with an existing form
that was there.
1:20:59
I was definitely not inventing anything
that hadn't been tried before...