Suze Rotolo, Bob Dylan's Girlfriend and the Muse Behind Many of His
Greatest Songs, Dead at 67
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/suze-rotolo-bob-dylans-girlfriend-and-the-muse-behind-many-of-his-greatest-songs-dead-at-67-20110227?
Rotolo inspired 'Boots of Spanish Leather,' 'Don't Think Twice, It's
All Right,' 'Tomorrow Is a Long Time' and many more
By Andy Greene
February 27, 2011
Suze Rotolo, Bob Dylan's girlfriend in the early-Sixties, who walked
arm-in-arm with the songwriter on the iconic cover of The
Freehweelin' Bob Dylan, died February 24th after a long illness. She
was 67. Rotolo was the muse behind many of Dylan's early love songs,
including "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," "Boots of Spanish
Leather" and "Tomorrow Is a Long Time." She was just 17 when they
began dating in 1961, shortly after Dylan arrived in New York City.
"I once loved a woman, a child I'm told," he wrote in "Don't Think
Twice, It's All Right." "I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul."
Early Bob Dylan Photos
In Bob Dylan's 2004 memoir Chronicles Volume One, he describes
meeting Rotolo backstage at a concert. "Right from the start I
couldn't take my eyes off her," Dylan wrote. "She was the most erotic
thing I'd ever seen. She was fair skinned and golden haired,
full-blooded Italian. The air was suddenly filled with banana leaves.
We started talking and my head started to spin. Cupid's arrow had
whistled past my ears before, but this time it hit me in the heart
and the weight of it dragged me overboard."
Bob Dylan: The Rolling Stone Covers
By early 1962, Dylan and Rotolo were living together in a tiny
apartment on West 4th Street. Suze came from a staunchly left-wing
New York family, and played a huge role in Dylan's political
awakening. When they began dating Dylan was largely apolitical and
his set consisted mostly of decades-old folk songs. Rotolo took him
to CORE (The Congress of Racial Equality) meetings and taught him
much about the civil rights movement. "A lot of what I gave him was a
look at how the other half lived -- left wing things that he
didn't know," Rotolo told writer David Hajdu in his book Positively
4th Street. "He knew about Woody [Guthrie] and Pete Seeger, but I was
working for CORE and went on youth marches for civil rights, and all
that was new to him."
Rotolo told Dylan about the brutal 1955 murder of Emmett Till,
inspiring Dylan to write his early protest classic "The Death of
Emmett Till." "I think it's the best thing I've ever written," Dylan
said at the time. "How many nights I stayed up and wrote songs and
showed them to [Suze] and asked, 'Is this right? Because I knew her
mother was associated with unions, and she was into this
equality-freedom thing long before I was. I checked the songs out
with her. She would like all the songs."
In the summer of 1962 Rotolo took a long trip to Italy, leaving Dylan
alone and heartbroken in New York. During this period he penned
"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," "Boots of Spanish Leather" and
"Tomorrow Is A Long Time" -- all bittersweet love songs about Rotolo.
She returned in January of 1963, and weeks later Columbia records
send photographer Don Hunstein to shoot the cover of The Freehweelin'
Bob Dylan. The young couple walked up and down Jones Street for a few
minutes while Hunstein snapped shots. "Bob stuck his hands in the
pockets of his jeans and leaned into me," Rotolo wrote in her 2009
book A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the
Sixties. "We walked the length of Jones Street facing West Fourth
with Bleecker Street at our backs. In some outtakes it's obvious that
we were freezing; certainly Bob was, in that thin jacket. But image
was all. As for me, I was never asked to sign a release or paid
anything. It never dawned on me to ask."
Photos of Dylan, Johnny Cash and Miles Davis by Don Hunstein
Dylan's growing fame put enormous strain on their relationship, and
she moved into her sister Carla's apartment in August of 1963. "I
could no longer cope with all the pressure, gossip, truth and lies
that living with Bob entailed," she wrote in her memoir. "I was
unable to find solo ground -- I was on quicksand and very
vulnerable." A particularly nasty fight with Suze and her sister
Carla was chronicled in Dylan's 1964 song "Ballad in Plain D." "For
her parasite sister, I had no respect," Dylan wrote in one of the
angriest songs he ever wrote. "Bound by her boredom, her pride had to
protect." In a 1985 interview Dylan said releasing the song was
wrong. "It wasn't very good," he said. "It was a mistake to record it
and I regret it."
By late 1963, Rotolo could no longer ignore the rumors that Joan Baez
and Bob Dylan's relationship had become more than professional. They
split up for good, though remained friends for a short period
afterwards. During Rotolo's trip to Italy in 1962, Rotolo met film
editor Enzo Bartoccioli. They married in 1970 and had a son named
Luca. She lived in downtown New York her entire life, and worked as a
teacher, a painter and a book illustrator.
For years Rotolo refused to discuss Dylan in interviews, but she
agreed to be interviewed in Martin Scorsese's 2005 documentary No
Direction Home. In 2009 she wrote a memoir entitled A Freewheelin'
Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties.
.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Sixties-L" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected].
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en.
