Bob Dylan feels more like Elvis than a prophet
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-03 13:35

In his first TV interview for nearly 20 years, Bob Dylan said he never saw himself as a singer-songwriter and felt more comfortable with the idea of becoming Elvis Presley than the prophet of a generation.

In his first TV interview for nearly 20 years, Bob Dylan, seen here in March 2004, said he never saw himself as a singer-songwriter and felt more comfortable with the idea of becoming Elvis Presley than the prophet of a generation. [AFP]

In the interview, to be broadcast Sunday on the CBS network, the 63-year-old folk-rock legend said the hero worship of the 60s generation often left him feeling like an "imposter."

"It was like being in an Edgar Allen Poe story and you're just not that person everybody thinks you are, though they call you that all the time," he said according to advance extracts released by CBS.

"'You're the prophet. You're the savior.' I never wanted to be a prophet or a savior," he said. "Elvis maybe. I could see myself becoming him. But prophet? No."

Much of Dylan's discomfort comes from the quasi-religious mystique fans attack both to his personality and his body of work.

"My stuff ... (they) were songs ... they weren't sermons," he said. "If you examine the songs I don't believe you're going find anything in there that says that I'm a spokesman for anybody or anything really."

Those who feel that way "must not have heard the songs," he added.

The interview came two months after the release of Dylan's much anticipated autobiography, "Chronicles: Volume One," in which he also detailed his struggle with celebrity, and the intrusively obsessive attentions of some hardcore fans.

It also came just weeks after the 1965 Dylan classic "Like a Rolling Stone" was voted the greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine -- an honour the singer believes carries little meaning.

"Oh, maybe this week (it's number one). But you know, the list, they change names ... quite frequently, really. I don't pay much attention to that," he said.

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