Monday, February 28, 2011

Suze Rotolo, 1943-2011


Suze Rotolo passed away on Friday. J. Hoberman's remembrances on the Village Voice website are worth reading (and not just because he notes that she "listened to jazz on WKCR").

Without knowing that Rotolo had died, I was listening to Another Side of Bob Dylan last night and having my usual semi-aghast reaction to "Ballad in Plain D," the whiny and vitriolic story of her and Dylan's breakup.

As Clinton Heylin recounts in Behind the Shades, Dylan did at least own up to the song's inappropriateness somewhat. In a 1985 interview, he said,
That one I look back at and say, 'I must have been a real schmuck to write that.' I look back at that particular one and say ... maybe I could have left that alone.
Indeed, Bob, indeed.

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