An inability to distinguish a "poem" by 16-year-old Bob Dylan from lyrics by Canadian country music star Hank "The Yodeling Ranger" Snow, apparently, according to Reuters, which "discovered the lyrics matched the Snow song when alerted by a reader" and which then told Christie's about this discovery.
Here's what Christie's is saying about the screw-up: "Additional information has come to our attention about the handwritten poem submitted by Bob Dylan to his camp newspaper, written when he was 16, entitled 'Little Buddy.' The words are in fact a revised version of lyrics of a Hank Snow song [...] This still remains among the earliest known handwritten lyrics of Bob Dylan and Christie's is pleased to offer them in our Pop Culture auction on June 23."
What the article seems to suggest--but which no one seems to want to say--is that Dylan, back in his Bobby Zimmerman days, passed of this slightly tweaked Hank Snow song as his own original composition, much the same way that kid in that movie The Squid and the Whale succeeded for a time in convincing everybody that he had written the Pink Floyd song, "Hey You." Not to try to use this as evidence that Dylan is somehow a fraud/that the emperor has no clothes; he's clearly one of the most important creative figures of the 20th century--but what does this early piece of, um, borrowing without citation suggest about being a major creative figure in the 20th century? Also, if you're one of the people planning to bid on the item on the 23rd of June, does this plot twist alter the amount you're willing to shell out?
May 24, 2009
What do Christie's and the Herzl Jewish Camp newspaper have in common?
Labels:
flattery,
genius steals,
imitation
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)





0 comments:
Post a Comment