Contents Number Two Writers & Critics 4 by Alan Davis Singing The Lexicon 9 by Andrew Muir Nobody Breathes Like Me 13 by Paul Williams The Heylin Interview 31 Clinton Heylin talks to Ellen Bernstein Pretty Good Stuff 44 by Manuel Vardavas Letters 51 to The Editor Equality In School 59 by Andrew Davies I Happen Not To Be a Swede, Myself 65 Michael Gray in conversation with Andrew Muir Judas! Writers Critics by Alan Davis ‘How do pictures& become words? Or how do words become pictures? And how do they cause you to feel something? That's a miracle.’ Sam Shepard, Rolling Thunder Logbook I was in one of my non-Bob phases when my copy of the first issue of Judas! arrived. (Contrary to expectations perhaps, the sensitive and liberal Editor of Judas! tells me that non-Bob phases are entirely healthy and necessary – though he was anxious to point out that in his case he was speaking purely theoretically.) Anyway - picture me standing here, stuck in a non-Bob phase, new magazine in hand. I leaf through it listlessly; I flick through the titles; I smile at Mark Carter's cartoon; I wonder momentarily about reading the Clinton Heylin interview; and then, thinking better of it, I lay it aside to wait for a better mood. For a non-non-Bob phase, in fact. 4 Judas! A couple of weeks later, starting to get Some of the most detailed and thorough just a little excited about Dylan’s Spring UK critical analysis can have an entirely nega- tour, but feeling a bit under the weather and tive effect. looking for something distracting to read, I found John Gibbens’s article to be the my gaze fell on the discarded Judas!, lying best type of criticism. He’s done some neglected in the middle of a little heap of research; he knows about the Tarot; he books and papers on the table. Picking it up knows about Dylan’s interest in it. But the and turning to John Gibbens’s article Bow persuasive power of his article doesn’t really Down to Her on Sunday (for no particular lie there. It lies in the sense of enlightened reason except that it had a few interesting companionship enjoyed by his reader. He’s pictures), I began to read – idly at first, and an engaging authorial presence. I found it then with increasing interest. When I very pleasant to be with him as he pointed at reached the end, I immediately started back this, and pointed at that; as he asked me to at the beginning again and read it a second consider such-and-such a possibility. I was time with still greater fascination. It wasn’t sceptical, but enjoyed having my scepticism that I was particularly convinced by the stretched, because John Gibbens has seen argument that ‘To Ramona’ owed its title to something, and was trying to help me to see Dylan's acquaintance with the Tarot; in it too. It isn’t, ultimately, the facts he pres- truth, I found that on a purely rational level ents that are likely to transform my percep- I couldn't decide one way or the other. But tion of Dylan’s art. It’s his vision. John something significant had happened to me Ruskin, perhaps the greatest of all critics during my reading of the article. I knew that and a powerful transformer of perception I’d probably never see ‘To Ramona’ in quite in his own right, wrote about this very thing the same way again. back in 1856. His words are no less valuable, Sam Shepard, in the quotation at the no less penetrating, today: head of this article, refers to the magical way ‘The greatest thing a human soul can do in in which words can generate pictures (and this world is to see something, and tell what it vice versa) and draws attention to the saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can mystery of how that transforming ability talk for one who can think, but thousands can makes us feel something. Similar observa- think for one who can see.’ tions can be made, not just about art (I use I've always found this to be at the heart the word in its broadest sense), but about art of the most effective critical writing. ‘I've criticism. What mysterious quality is it seen this,’ says the helpful critic. ‘Here's how about the best critical writing which can you can see it too.’ help us to see art in a new light, and make us Let’s return to John Gibbens’s article. feel differently? For mystery it is. It isn’t a I’d never previously given any serious rational thing. It’s not just a matter of the thought to Dylan’s use – actual or hypothet- critic’s being informed, or being in ical – of the Tarot, but Gibbens offers some command of the methods of scholarship. interesting new ideas. It’s not impossible for 5 Judas! Sara to be squeezed into the role of intertwining of rational and instinctual ‘Ramona’, and she just might have been the thought that finds ultimate expression in catalyst for Dylan’s supposed early interest the work of art. Bob Dylan’s creative in the Tarot – but it seems to be a close run impulse is particularly intriguing, and thing as far as dates are concerned. As particularly obscure. His descriptions of Gibbens points out, it would be necessary the origins of his songs are not usually very for Dylan to have met Sara before the enlightening – I’m reminded of his recording of ‘To Ramona’ in June ‘64. This comment in the Hearts of Fire Omnibus isn’t impossible as far as I’m aware, but we documentary made in the late eighties: ‘I really don’t know. just write ’em.’ If we turn from his song Still, Sara’s involvement isn’t essential writing to his performance art we’re no to Gibbens’s case – her presence just makes better off. He seems to be guided mainly by it more likely that Dylan was tinkering with his own instinctive ability to discover or the Tarot in ‘64. If he was (again, I know of recreate meaning in a song at the moment no direct evidence for it), then he may well of performance. I suppose most visionary have responded in some significant way to artists are bound to be more concerned the TORA/TARO configurations on the with the expression of their vision than with High Priestess and Wheel of Fortune cards. pondering the nature of the creative I think the real problem arises when we start process, but happily there are exceptions. talking about Dylan’s intentions; when we Ted Hughes was one such. In his delightful ask whether Dylan deliberately chose the little book Poetry in the Makinghe has left us title of ‘To Ramona’ to make a link with the a particularly lucid account of the way a TORA of the Tarot cards. John Gibbens poem (that is, a real poem, in Hughes’s gives the impression that he thinks this sense – not a merely clever bit of versifying) ‘TORA’/‘To Ramona’ link was a deliberate can be created: choice on Dylan’s part. I’m not persuaded ‘Imagine what you are writing about. See about this. (That doesn’t mean he's wrong; it and live it. Do not think it up laboriously, as just that I’m not persuaded.) Partly this is if you were working out mental arithmetic. because, seen as deliberate, it strikes me as a Just look at it, touch it, smell it, listen to it, turn particularly contrived, calculated, and yourself into it. When you do this, the words obscurely unnecessary bit of word play; I’d look after themselves, like magic. If you do this actually think less of Dylan’s artistry if I you do not have to bother about commas or thought he’d done it deliberately. But also full-stops or that sort of thing. You do not look it’s because I think another kind of origin is at the words either. You keep your eyes, your far more likely, and this calls for a digres- ears, your nose, your taste, your touch, your sion. whole being on the thing you are turning into I’m fascinated by the process of artistic words. The minute you flinch, and take your creation – by the mysterious mingling of mind off this thing, and begin to look at the conscious and unconscious choice, the words and worry about them ... then your 6 Judas! worry goes into them and they set about even likely. There’s no contrivance here, no killing each other. So you keep going as long as contorted artifice. Just an unconscious you can, then look back and see what you have resonance: TO RAmona. And Dylan, ever written. After a bit of practice, and after alert to possibilities, probably not even telling yourself a few times that you do not aware of any connection on a conscious care how other people have written about this level, catches it as it flies, pins it down; thing, this is the way you find it; and after makes art from it. telling yourself you are going to use any old So Dylan himself may be unable to word that comes into your head so long as it resolve the question of whether there is any seems right at the moment of writing it down, link between his title and the Tarot.