Why Some Believe Bob Dylan Lied in His Memoir and Interviews: ‘A Pack of Lies’
In 2004, Bob Dylan released his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One. The book tracks the musician’s life as he worked on three separate albums. It was a well-received book, but some Dylan biographers have wondered if it’s more a work of fiction than fact. Similarly, Dylan has told contradictory stories about life events in interviews. This has led some to question whether Dylan has been honest in the stories he tells about himself.
Bob Dylan published an autobiography in 2004
Dylan published his long-awaited memoir in 2004. The book follows the songwriter in his early years in New York City but also tracks him as he worked on the 1970 album New Morning and 1989’s Oh Mercy.
“By turns revealing, poetical, passionate, and witty, Chronicles: Volume One is a mesmerizing window on Bob Dylan’s thoughts and influences,” publisher Simon & Schuster wrote. “Dylan’s voice is distinctively American: generous of spirit, engaged, fanciful, and rhythmic. Utilizing his unparalleled gifts of storytelling and the exquisite expressiveness that are the hallmarks of his music, Bob Dylan turns Chronicles: Volume One into a poignant reflection on life, and the people and places that helped shape the man and the art.”
Some believe that Bob Dylan was lying in his autobiography and interviews
After the publication of Chronicles: Volume One, some of Dylan’s biographers cast doubt on the book’s truthfulness.
“Jesus Christ, as far as I can tell almost everything in the Oh Mercy section of Chronicles is a work of fiction,” Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin said, per Rolling Stone. “I enjoy Chronicles as a work of literature, but it has a much basis in reality as [Dylan’s 2003 film] Masked And Anonymous, and why shouldn’t it? He’s not the first guy to write a biography that’s a pack of lies.”
One of the more disputed claims Dylan has made is that he used heroin while living in New York. While this isn’t unbelievable — many musicians at the time used drugs — Dylan himself has told conflicting stories about it.
“I kicked a heroin habit in New York City,” he said in 1966, per BBC News. “I got very, very strung out for a while, I mean really, very strung out. And I kicked the habit. I had about a $25-a-day habit and I kicked it.”
Years later, he made a different claim.
“I never got hooked on any drug,” he said in 1984. “Not like you’d say, uh, ‘Eric Clapton: his drug period.'”
One of Dylan’s other questionable claims was that he worked in a traveling carnival after dropping out of school.
People have also cast doubt on his motorcycle accident
In the 1960s, Dylan retreated from public life after a motorcycle accident. Some have expressed disbelief that this ever happened.
“I had been in a motorcycle accident and I’d been hurt, but I recovered,” he wrote in Chronicles. “Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race.”
Because Dylan never went to a hospital, some have wondered if the crash was simply an invented excuse to retreat from public life. Dylan has said that he used it as a reason to step back, but he maintains that the crash was real.
“Then, I had that motorcycle accident, which put me outta commission,” he told Rolling Stone in 1992. “Then, when I woke up and caught my senses, I realized I was just working for all these leeches. And I didn’t want to do that. Plus, I had a family, and I just wanted to see my kids.”
