## [Rock band warming up]
[Crowd whistling]
[Cheering]
[Cheering louder]
[Chanting, stomping]
[Engine starts]
[Narrator] There he lies.
God rest his soul, and his rudeness.
A devouring public can now share the remains of his sickness,
and his phone numbers.
There he lay...
poet,
prophet,
outlaw,
fake.
Star of electricity.
Nailed by a peeping Tom
who would soon discover...
A poem is like a naked person.
Even the ghost...
was more than one person.
[Gunshots]
But a song is something that walks by itself.
## [Harmonica, guitar]
# Aw, the ragman draws circles #
# Up and down the block #
# I'd ask him what the matter was #
# But I know that he don't talk #
# And the ladies treat me kindly #
# And they furnish me with tape #
# But deep inside my heart #
# I know I can't escape #
# Oh, Mama #
# Can this really be the end #
# To be stuck inside of Mobile #
# With the Memphis blues again? #
# Well, Shakespeare, he's in the alley #
# With his pointed shoes and his bells #
# Speaking to some French girl #
# Who says she knows me well #
# And I would send a message #
# To find out if she's talked #
# But the post office has been stolen #
# And the mailbox is locked #
# Oh, Mama #
# Can this really be the end #
# To be stuck inside of Mobile #
# With the Memphis blues again? #
# Now the rain man gave me two cures #
# Then he said, "Jump right in" #
# The one was Texas medicine #
# The other was just railroad gin #
# And like a fool I mixed them #
# And it strangled up my mind #
# And now people just get uglier #
# And I have no sense of time #
# Oh, Mama #
# Can this really be the end #
# To be stuck here inside of Mobile #
- # With the Memphis blues again? # - [train whistle blows]
[Grunts]
[Groans]
Hey. How old are you, boy?
Eleven years old.
Oh.
What's your name, son?
Woody.
Woody Guthrie.
Just like the singer.
Way I see it,
singin's kept me right in this world more than any Bible's ever done.
[Chuckles]
And somethin' else I learned?
Takes just about a fountain pen to get yourself robbed.
Hey, Joe. What do you make about that?
Uh, son...
you wouldn't be stashin' no weapons in that case of yours?
No, sir. Not in any literalized way.
What'd you say his name was?
[Man] A- R-T-H.
Please sit down.
- "A-R-T-H-U-R... - [typing]
- R-I-M-B-A-U-D." - [Typing continues]
[Man] Born October 20th.
That makes you 19, nearly 20.
Is that correct?
That's correct.
So what's all this about?
[Woody] Well, Missouri, originally.
A little town called Riddle.
But all over, really.
Been to Gallup, Phillipsburg, Sioux Falls...
I got me a cousin in Sioux Falls.
Yeah! That's right.
Uh, is there really a town called Riddle?
Tell you the flat truth, that's sort of a... a whatchamacallit.
A, uh...
A composite.
[Laughs] A compost heap is more like it.
Truth is, my mind got mixed with ramblin'
when I was, oh, so young.
I reckon it was Arvella Gray,
the blind protest singer from Chicago.
She first taught me the blues
four...
about five years back.
That's also when I first started writin' songs on my own.
I've written some hillbilly songs.
You know Carl Perkins, from Nashville?
Yeah, yeah.
He sings some of my songs.
Yep. Talkin' blues kind of stuff, you know?
Union songs.
I also played piano with Bobby Vee.
I would've been a millionaire if I stayed with him.
Well, what brings you around these parts?
[Sighs]
Carelessness.
[Woody] I lost my one true love.
And I started drinking.
Next thing I know, I'm in a crap game.
I wake up in a pool hall.
One night, I meet up with a Chinaman
working at a dime store who says he loves my sound.
And next thing I know,
I'm all booked up at his boss's establishment.
The Tiny Troubadour!
# I've been a... #
# Moonshiner #
# For 17 long years #
There you go, boy.
[Woody] Of course, success ain't all
it's cracked up to be, now.
There's something sort of freakish, I suppose,
setting someone up on stage apart from all the rest,
when down in every boxcar there's men of all ranges bouncing together.
You got hobos, nobos, gentlemen loafers.
One or all-time losers.
Call us what you will.
Deep down, we're all getting ready
to tuck our heads under our wings for sleep.
We of the Pullman side-car and the sunburned thumb.
We ain't kidding ourselves.
It's lonesome roads we shall walk.
## [Strums guitar]
Till I joined the Union cause!
Don't he know it's 1959?
We done unionized 20 years ago.
[Man] Records indicate that you've been away,
that you've stopped writing.
I've been on too many streets
to be doing the same thing over and over.
Can I smoke in here?
You sound,
for someone so widely known,
a bit fatalistic.
I'm not fatalistic.
Bank tellers are fatalistic.
Clerks are fatalistic.
I'm a farmer.
Who ever heard of a fatalistic farmer?
# The sweet, pretty things are in bed now, of course #
# The city fathers, they're trying to endorse #
# The reincarnation of Paul Revere's horse #
# But the town has no need to be nervous #
# The hysterical bride in the penny arcade #
# Screaming, she moans, "I've just been made" #
# Then sends out for the doctor who pulls down the shade #
# Says, "My advice is to not let the boys in" #
# Where Ma Raney and Beethoven once unwrapped their bed roll #
# Tuba players now rehearse around the flagpole #
# And the national bank for a profit #
# Sells road maps for the soul #
# To the old folks home and the college #
# Mama's in the factory #
# She ain't got no shoes #
# Daddy's in the alley #
# He's lookin' for food #
# I'm in the kitchen #
# With the tombstone blues #
# Hey, hey, yeah #
Whoo!
[All laughing]
Oh!
Boy, look like you found... you found your freedom
before you found your technique.
Now, real American music come from the bottom up.
You take Blind Willie McTell.
He's the best blues singer east of Cannery Row.
He say, "Son, if you can sing these songs
and understand them, ain't no place you can't go.
Ah, thank you very much, ma'am.
You're welcome.
I reckon I come out the womb
singing and picking and playing and all that mess.
So where your people at?
Your kinfolk?
Oh, they back in Stockton, ma'am.
California. That's where I was raised.
I figured they got plenty of mouths to feed as it is.
Not that I care a fig about material things,
you know, except for maybe a decent car.
See, us thumb-slummers and box-jumpers,
we get a little peckish when it comes to cars, you know?
That boy sound just like Doughboy Hawkins,
a fella I met in the Dust Bowl.
Tell you what I think. I think it's 1959,
and this boy's singing songs about the boxcar?
Hmm. What a boxcar gonna mean to him?
Right here, we got race riots, folks with no food.
Why ain't he out there singing about that?
The boy a guest in our house.
I know he's a guest. I'm just trying to speak what's in my mind.
No!
Say it.
Live your own time, child.
Sing about your own time.
[Male Reporter] Greenwich Village,
once the in spot for beatnik jazz and bebop,
is today home to the popular folk music fad,
a do-it-yourself musical expression
that's attracted youngsters from all across the nation.
For them, these homespun songs of the working man
express a truth and candor
sorely lacking in today's growing consumer society.
Why do you prefer folk music to other types of music?
Because it's honest.
Commercial songs, pop music can't be honest.
It's controlled and censored by the people who run society
and make the rules.
[Male Reporter] Yet, among the many new
and talented artists to emerge,
one name stands alone as the heart and soul
of this growing musical trend.
A young individual who both writes and performs
some of his era's finest tunes,
and hailed by the New York Times
as folk music's Troubadour of Conscience.
His name is Jack Rollins.
[Female Reporter] Jack Rollins,
folk sensation of the early '60s,
was the promise of a new generation.
So what was it that made him run
at the height of his career and throw it all away,
trading in the limelight for a different kind of light altogether?
He saw what was going on in the world,
and he had the ability to distill it into a song.
He could do a funny thing.
He could do a pathos thing. He was sensational.
# For the times, they are a-changin' #
Now, this young man has taken to the hearts of young people
who seem to somehow identify with, uh...
Jack, why do you think that is?
Well, I don't know.
I... I guess...
I got a lot of thoughts inside of me,
and most people, they...
they... keep them all inside.
And I guess it's for them that I do what I do.
[Female Reporter] Today, the name Jack Rollins
might best be remembered as the tortured singer
battling his conscience in the 1965 drama,
Grain of Sand.
The role, of course, that launched the career
of Hollywood rebel Robbie Clark.
Hell, I don't pick what I sing.
It picks me.
Some of it ain't pretty.
I mean, how you ever gonna change anything
if you only wanna show what's pretty?
[Female Reporter] In his first exclusive interview in 20 years...
Tonight, we bring you face-to-face with the real Jack Rollins.
## [Guitar]
# William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll #
# With a cane that he twirled #
# 'Round his diamond ring finger #
He saw what was going on in the world,
and he had the ability to distill it into a song.
And this elevated the discussion.
I mean, certainly within the folk world,
but all through popular music, the bar had risen.
[Female Reporter] Alice Fabian
was herself a leading figure in the folk revival,
achieving international success
a few years before their first meeting in 1962.
Hey, you're in my chair.
I was at a party in the Village,
and this twerpy little kid who'd been hanging around,
kind of flirting with my baby sister and kissing up to me,
starts playing these songs that he'd written on guitar.
Now, this was '61, '62,
and all anybody sang were traditionals,
and here's this kid, applying traditional form to contemporary concerns,
but with such insight, you know?
It was devastating.
You couldn't believe this was coming out of this little toad.
Nobody was writing songs like that.
It was as if he was giving voice to ideas
that I wanted to express but didn't know how.
Um, his finger-pointing songs, he called 'em.
He was churning them out like ticker tape.
Well, folk music has always been a political music,
but he was really expressing it as an art form
in a way that was multileveled and very deep.
# Hattie Carroll was a maid of the kitchen #
# She was 51 years old #
# And gave birth to ten children #
# Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage #
# And never sat once at the head of the table #
# And didn't even talk to the people at the table #
# She just cleaned up all the food from the table #
# And emptied the ashtrays on a whole other level #
# Got killed by a blow, lay slain by a cane #
[Alice] Every night,
I would call this ragamuffin on stage
and introduce America to Jack Rollins.
I'd say, you know, that he has something to say,
you know, and that he is... he is speaking for me
and everybody who wants a better world.
# Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace #
# And criticize all fears #
# Bury the rag deep in your face #
# Now is the time for your tears #
[Man] He knows how to peel the surface
from what he sees.
His songs are like a true vision of how things really are.
Well, I just find he's the most piercing
and aware insight working today.
You'd have thought we invented it,
we were so pleased and proud.
Sure, there was a certain tendency in the folk movement
for nostalgia about the Depression
and the radicalism that came out of it.
They were coming out of a shitty time...
the McCarthy era, Eisenhower era.
So, as long as folk remained strictly a minority taste,
it would always be us against the big, bad commercial tastelessness.
But when the big, bad commercial tastelessness
finally caught on to Jack,
then, well, all of a sudden,
the race was on.
And this time, somebody was going to win.
He was a rebel.
I wanted to record protest.
Of course, that's right when we were getting
into that whole Nam business.
Jack really stopped protesting after 1963.
He said that you couldn't effect change with a song.
You could only write about what was inside you,
and folk music, he said, was, um...
was fat people.
He said it made him feel like the Establishment,
you know, and he always fought the Establishment.
# You will search, babe #
# At any cost #
# Everybody will help you #
# Some people are very kind #
# And if I... #
# Can save you any time #
# Come on, give it to me #
# I'll keep it with mine #
[Arthur] You don't have to write anything down
to be a poet.
Some work in gas stations.
Some shine shoes.
I don't really call myself one, 'cause I don't like the word.
Me, I'm a trapeze artist.
Sighting it and hearing it and breathing it in,
rubbing it all in the pores of my skin.
And the wind between my eyes
knocking honey in my comb.
[Man laughing]
You reckon he's some kind of midget?
[Man #2] Get off of there, grunt!
I ain't doing nothing!
[Screams]
Now look what you done!
You talk English?
Yes, sir.
You carrying money, boy?
Weapons?
N-No, sir.
He's lying.
What's that?
That your fiddle? Huh?
Give it back. Huh?
What's it say on that thing?
What you got stashed in here?
Nothing!
Get him, boys!
- [Roaring] - Ahh!
[All grunting]
- [Cackling] - Ah, you little...
- Give me... - [howling]
This here young'un, the Tiny Troubadour,
is going to sing a little song.
[Joe] So what bring you around these parts?
Could've sworn he was an older man.
Live your own time, child.
Get him, boys!
You reckon he's some kind of midget?
[Man] He's lying!
[Arthur] I dreamed of the Crusades.
Republics without history.
Secret religious wars.
I believed in every kind of witchcraft.
At first it was a study.
I wrote out silences and nights.
Later I determined vertigos.
[Clock ticking]
[Alarm beeping]
[Alarm stops]
[Man] Here's the boot camps, with tanks, jeeps,
bullet-shooting machine guns, and 80 soldiers.
[Changing TV stations]
I just don't want to go.
Oh, my poor, sad little thing.
Do you know what a wonderful time you're going to have...
on a boat with the water?
Sounds pretty neat what your daddy's planned.
Me, too!
Why can't you come?
Molly, you know I can't come.
Is that why...
you think you're feeling nervous about the boat?
Hmm?
When's Daddy coming?
Uh, Saturday, I think.
I only spoke to Sally because it's impossible
to get your father on the phone.
[Doorbell rings]
It's Emily.
Molly, you didn't eat a thing.
[Beep]
[Woman] Bonjour, Hotel Georges V.
How may I direct your call?
- [Ringing] - [Shower running]
## [Whistling]
Robbie... how can you whistle?
Who was that on the phone?
[Man on TV] President Nixon
has already given advanced word
of what he will say to Vice President Agnew,
to the Cabinet, and to the leaders of Congress.
Now, here is the president.
[Nixon] I have asked for this radio
and television time tonight
for the purpose of announcing
that we today have concluded an agreement to end the war
and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and in southeast Asia.
The following statement is being issued at this moment
in Washington and Hanoi.
At 12:30 Paris time today, January 23, 1973...
# Ain't it just like the night to play tricks #
# When you're trying to be so quiet? #
[Robbie] That's when she knew it was over for good.
The longest-running war in television history.
The war that hung like a shadow
over the same nine years as her marriage.
Throughout the years of negotiations,
we have insisted on peace with honor.
# Lights flicker from the opposite loft #
[Robbie] So why was it suddenly so hard to breathe?
# In this room, the heat pipes just cough #
# The country music station plays soft #
# But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off #
[ringing]
# Just Louise and her lover #
# So entwined #
- # And these visions # - Thanks.
# Of Johanna #
# That conquer my mind #
## [harmonica]
[Man] More menacing, Gladys.
And... cut!
Check the gate.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I wish to thank each and every one of you.
You made it marvelous for me.
Cheers to all of you.
Hey, Louise! Louise!
# So this is what salvation must be like #
# After a while #
[Man] In entertainment news,
actor Robbie Clark is finally heading home
after four months abroad during the filming of Gangplank,
his upcoming thriller.
Rumors linking Clark to his London co-star,
the lovely newcomer Louise Pickering,
have been brewing for some time.
# She's all right, she's just near #
# She's delicate and seems like the mirror #
# But she just makes it #
# All too concise and too clear #
# That Johanna's not here #
# Oh, the ghost of electricity #
# Howls in the bones of her face #
# Where these visions of Johanna #
# Have now taken my place #
[Robbie] Don't you see, Alice? They took it all away.
It's not about me anymore; it's all about him.
Your guaranteed,
double-your-money-back voice of the people.
You didn't answer my question.
Once, maybe, you could sing
about Mary Hamilton and lemon trees,
or you can step out like me and try and shake this flytrap.
[Sighs]
But they took away the meaning, Alice.
I was a pawn in their game.
[Director over megaphone] And cut!
[chattering]
[Indistinct chatter]
[Robbie] We first met in New York,
in January of '64 in the Village.
They'd just buried their president.
Love was in the air.
- Wait, you're French? - Yeah, so?
- Well, you gotta be kidding me. - Why?
No, nothing. It's perfect.
You kidding?
[Chuckles]
I think you're making a joke.
Oh, no. No, no, no.
No joke.
Then what else aside from being French
you like so much about me?
Your hair, your mouth, your eyes, your lips.
I see.
So, um...
You're an actor.
Yeah, yeah. So?
I like what you said in that scene.
Uh, what scene?
But they were just lines from a movie.
- They were not... - Wait, wait, wait. What scene?
- What did you see? - The scene in the lane.
Hmm.
I would like to know what is at the center of your world.
The center of my world?
[Laughs] Uh...
Well, you're no monkeying around.
Why?
It's very simple, this question.
[Clears throat] Um... hmm.
Well, I'm 22. I guess I would say me.
I suppose you're honest.
Well, don't you think that you're the center
or that you should be the center,
thinking with your own head, talking with your own mouth?
Yeah.
But there are things in the world, too, that are important.
I'm not denying that.
That's not what I'm saying.
- Okay, thank you. - [Clears throat]
[Robbie] New York, August 7, 1964.
Congress grants President Johnson
complete authority over the war in Vietnam
while she studies painting at Cooper Union
and he completes dubbing on his first major film.
She tells him she's sure it'll be a hit.
And the cats cross the roof, mad in love,
scream into drainpipes,
and it's I who am ready.
Ready to listen.
Never tired, never sad, never guilty.
# The guilty undertaker sighs #
# The lonesome organ-grinder cries #
# The silver saxophones say I should refuse you #
# The cracked bells and washed out horns #
# Blow into my face with scorn #
# But it's not that way #
# I wasn't born to lose you #
# I want you #
# I want you so bad #
# Honey, I want you #
# The drunken politician leaps #
# Upon the street where mothers weep #
# And the saviors who are fast asleep #
# They wait for you #
# And I wait for them to interrupt #
# Me drinking from my broken cup #
# And ask me to open up the gate for you #
# I want you #
# Yes, I want you so bad #
# Honey, I want you #
[no audible dialogue]
# Now all my fathers, they've gone down #
# True love, they've been without it #
# But all their daughters put me down #
# 'Cause I don't think about it #
[no audible dialogue]
# Well, I return to the Queen of Spades #
# And talk with my chambermaid #
# She knows and she's not afraid to look at her #
[Robbie] Shit! You all right?
# She is good to me and there's nothing she... #
Watch it!
It's not a fucking can of tomatoes.
# But it doesn't matter #
# I want you #
- # I want you # - [honking]
# Yes, I want you so bad #
# Honey, I want you #
# Now, your dancing child with his Chinese suit #
# He spoke to me, I took his flute #
# No, I wasn't very cute to him, was I? #
Okay, come on, let's go.
# But I did it because you lied #
# And because he took you for a ride #
It is my bike, you know.
Of course it is.
# Because I want you #
# I want you #
- # Yes, I want you so bad # - [laughs]
All right, here we go.
[Grunts] Watch your leg.
[Motor revs]
- Change the gear! - I am, I am!
- Change the gear! - Yeah, I know, I know.
[No audible dialogue]
[Claire] "It's wrong to say, 'I think. '
"One should say, 'I am thought. '
"I is someone else.
"I am present at the birth of my thought.
"I watch and I listen.
"I draw a stroke of the bow.
"A symphony stirs in the depths,
"or comes with a leap to the stage.
"It began with waves of disgust
and it ends... as we can't immediately seize this eternity...
it ends with a riot of perfumes. "
[Robbie] Grain of Sand had become
the underground hit of 1965,
and Robbie Clark the new James Dean,
Marlon Brando, and Jack Kerouac all rolled into one.
But the movie disappointed her.
The more they tried to make it youthful,
the more the images on screen seemed out of date.
It wasn't the film they had dreamed,
the film they had imagined and discussed,
the film they each wanted to live.
[Gunshots]
[EKG beeping]
[Man] Intriguing specimen, really.
Amazing endocrine system.
[Woman] So, he'll be all right, then?
[Man] Oh, he'll be fine.
Just a little water in the lungs.
[Woman] Oh, my.
Well, what do you know?
Looks like somebody might be able to thank you in person.
Son? Can you hear me?
I'm Dr. Field.
And this here lady pretty near saved your life.
Hello there. [Chuckles]
I-I'm Mrs. Peacock.
My husband and I, we're the ones that found you.
# Oh, the time will come up when the winds will stop #
# And the breeze will cease to be breathin' #
# Like the stillness in the wind #
# Before the hurricane begins #
# The hour that the ship comes in #
# And the sea will split and the ships will hit #
# And the sands on the shoreline #
# Will be shaken #
# And the tide will pound and the waves will sound #
# And the mornin' will be a-breakin' #
And no formal training? Remarkable.
# Sayin' we'll meet all your demands #
# But we'll shout from the bow "Your days are numbered" #
# And like Pharaoh's tribe #
# They'll be drownin' in the tide #
# And like Goliath #
# They'll be conquered #
- Just terrific! - Fantastic!
That was a fine job.
- Thank you, thank you. - That's just wonderful.
How about another helping?
- Woody? - Yes, ma'am.
More wine, Woody?
Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.
Do you know what your plans are from here?
My only real plan is to become a singer,
a real singer on television,
either that or a kind of voice of the people, you know?
Interesting.
Because I've been writing me some songs,
songs about what's going on.
And I'm going to take these songs,
and I'm going to head straight to Hollywood.
Going to make it big just like Elvis Presley.
[Chuckling] Well, Woody, I wouldn't be surprised
if you did just that.
- There you are, Woody. - Thank you.
And don't you go rushing off anyplace until you feel 1000/0, you hear?
Yes, ma'am.
Have to mother you while you still have a roof over your head.
- [Chuckles] - [Phone ringing]
Who on earth?
- Are you expecting a call? - No.
[Ringing continues]
So, Hollywood?
- Hello? - Not Tin Pan Alley?
Yes, it is. Who's calling?
Minnesota?
Well, how could...
Dr. Field, yes.
Would you hold on just a moment, please?
Esther?
It's a juvenile center in Minnesota.
A what?
Something... Corrections.
You talk to 'em, Jack.
They think it's Woody.
What do they know about Woody?
They said they're looking for some...
a juvenile, but...
some state, you know, fugitive.
Certainly not Woody.
# Seen the arrow on the doorpost #
# Sayin' this land is condemned #
[Woody] Now, I'm just one walker that's stood way up
and looked way down across plenty o' sights
in all their veiled and nakedest seasons.
Sighting it, hearing it,
seeing and feeling and breathing it in.
Sucking down on it.
Rubbing it all in the pores of my skin,
and the wind between my eyes
knocking honey in my comb.
Whoa.
# Blind Willie Mc Tell #
# See them big plantations burnin' #
# Hear the crackin' of the whips #
# Smell that sweet magnolia bloomin' #
# See the ghost of slavery ships #
May I help you?
Flowers for Mr. Guthrie.
Room 300. Just set 'em inside.
Thank you, ma'am.
# Well, God is in His heaven #
# And we all want what's His #
# But power and greed and corruptible seed #
# Seem to be all that there is #
# I'm gazin' out the window #
# Of the St. James Hotel #
# And I know no one can sing the blues #
# Like Blind Willie Mc Tell #
[no audible dialogue]
[No audible dialogue]
[Alice] I remember, uh,
Kennedy's funeral was on TV, and we were sitting outside.
You could hear it.
I was pulling up chunks of grass with my fist
and feeling like we were splitting apart.
And... And, yeah, I asked him
what did he think made us so different?
And he said it was simple.
You know, I thought that I could change things,
and he knew that no one could.
You know, look at Kennedy.
Then there was the fiasco at the Civil Liberties Union,
where Jack received the Civil Rights Award
and drank three vats of wine for the trouble.
[Jack] Thank you.
I wanna accept this on behalf of, uh,
everybody that went down to Cuba.
[Scattered applause]
First of all, because you're all young, you know?
And it's took me a long time to get young,
and now I consider myself young.
- [Murmurs, chuckling] - And I'm proud of it.
It ain't old people's world out there.
I mean, you all shouldn't even be here.
[Crowd murmurs]
I mean... it's not like before.
There's no black or white,
no more left wing, right wing, you know?
There's up wing and there's down wing,
which is why I think that, you know,
this man who shot President Kennedy,
this Lee Oswald,
I think I saw something that... that he felt... in me.
[Uproar]
Hey, but I'm just saying...
You can boo, but booing's got nothing to do with it!
They didn't understand me, you know,
because they got mind blinders on.
All they see is the cause
and how they use people for their cause.
And now they're trying to use me for something.
The want me to... want me to carry a picket sign
and have my picture taken,
be a good little nigger, you know,
and not mess up their little game.
All they want from me is finger-pointing songs.
I only got ten fingers.
[Alice] Anybody who lent that kid a dime
was sitting in that room that night.
A week later, he issued a formal apology.
[Jack] It's a fierce, heavy feeling,
thinking that something's expected of you,
but you don't know exactly what it is.
Brings forth a weird kind of guilt.
[Heart beating]
[No audible dialogue]
[Arthur] Woody Guthrie was dead.
Little Richard was becoming a preacher.
So, whether you were a folk singer or a Christian,
rock and roll was the devil.
Me, I was in a ditch, up a cliff,
out of step, ready to quit.
I wrote the kind of stuff you write when you have no place to live
and you're wrapped up in the fire pump.
I nearly killed myself with pity and despair.
And then I wrote it.
It was like swimming in lava.
Skipping, kicking,
catching a nail with your foot,
seeing your victim hanging from a tree.
[Crowd cheering in distance]
[Heartbeats continue]
The person who's coming out now
is a person who has, in a sense,
changed the face of American folk music...
[cheering]
Ladies and gentlemen,
the person who's coming out now...
[cheers grows louder]
...is a legend in his time.
And his name is Jude Quinn!
# Well, I try my best to be just like I am #
# But everybody wants you to be just like them #
# They say sing while you slave but I just get bored #
# Well, I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more #
I want that volume down now!
I can't turn the volume down!
- I can't even hear the words! - Hey, man...
Hey what's wrong?
Man, what are you going to do?
What are you going to do up there?
I'm going to cut the goddamn... lead!
[Indistinct dialogue]
## [Blaring]
[No audible dialogue]
[Grousing]
Sorry for everything I've done,
and, uh, I hope to remedy it soon.
- Shit! - Crap!
Garbage! J'accuse!
Ah, it's just like he's trying to conform
to some sort of popular taste
with this incredibly corny group behind him,
but he's just... he's just prostituting himself.
He's... He's just changed completely.
He's changed from what he was.
He's not the same as he was at first.
[Scottish accent] Nothing but a fake neurotic
crawling through the gutter.
If that is the way he walks through a gutter,
I would rather walk with my head up through a gutter than like him,
crawling through the bloody gutter,
just making a pile out of it!
That's what he is doing!
He is just making a pile out of it!
I kinda liked getting blasted out of my skin.
I think he's evil.
And we were his biggest fans.
# You've got a lot of nerve #
# To say you are my friend #
# When I was down #
# You just stood there grinning #
[women screaming]
# You've got a lot of nerve #
# To say you got a helping hand to lend #
# You just want to be #
# On the side that's winning #
[Man] It's not folk, it's not rock,
but a brand-new way of telling it like it is.
And Jude Quinn is definitely what's happening.
Here he comes now.
Mr. Quinn! Mr. Quinn!
Have you got a word for your fans?
Uh, astronaut.
# What a drag it is #
# To see you #
- Mr. Quinn! - Mr. Quinn!
- Over here! - Mr. Quinn!
- Yes? - Look over here, Jude!
Thank you.
Why do you think you were booed
at your recent appearance in New England?
Well, um, I f...
I figure there's a little boo in all of us.
- Jude! - Mr. Quinn, Mr. Quinn!
Is it true you no longer sing protest songs?
Who said that? [Chuckles]
I didn't say that.
I was just, uh... I read somewhere that you no longer do the protesting.
Well, that's all I ever do is protest.
Do you have a message?
Do you?
I mean, are you trying to accomplish anything?
Am I trying to accomplish anything?
Are you trying to change the world or anything?
What am I trying to change the word, did you say? Is...
You know, are you trying to push your idealism to the people?
- No. - Excuse me, Mr. Quinn.
Perhaps you could tell us...
Do you have a match?
...how many people who labor in the same musical vineyards
in which you toil...
That's very pretty.
How many would you say are protest singers today?
That is, people who protest against the social state we live in?
Uh, how many?
Yes. Are there many?
Yeah, um...
- I-I think there's about 136. - [Laughter]
Mr. Quinn, Keenan Jones from Culture Beat.
As someone symbolic of the protest movement among young people,
some have questioned, given your latest recordings,
whether or not you still care about people as you once did.
Yeah, but, you know,
we all have our own definitions of all those words.
"Care" and "people..."
Well, I think we all know the definition of people.
- [Chuckling] - Yeah.
Do we?
Well, is it your belief, then, that folk music
has, perchance, failed to achieve its goals with the Negro cause
or the cause of peace?
You know, saying "cause of peace"
is just like saying... like a hunk of butter.
You know, I don't know how you can listen to anybody
who wants you to believe is dedicated to the hunk
and not the butter.
I'm not sure I follow.
You know, I didn't come out of some cereal box.
There's... There's no one out there
who's ever going to be converted by a song.
There's no Phil Ochs song that's going to keep
a movement moving nor the picket line picketing.
His songs are acts of personal conscience,
like burning a draft card or burning yourself.
Doesn't do a damn thing except disassociate you
and your audience from all the evils of the world.
I refuse to be disassociated from that.
All these people, you know,
sitting around being offended by their own meaninglessness.
[Man] What am I asking?
I'm asking for your goddamn hotel security
to keep these assholes out of the lobby.
What? What?
And you, sir, are one of the dumbest assholes and most stupid persons
I've ever spoken to in my life, understand?
What?
Well, I certainly hope so.
- [Hangs up phone] - Son of a bitch English bastard.
Meaningless is right.
Do you think the average cat who works eight hours a day
gives a tit what I do?
Anyway, it's not going to keep me in heaven
or out of the fiery furnace, that's for sure.
Not gonna make me happy.
Let me see that.
Whoa, there she is again, your little debutante.
No way, man.
Is that Andy's new bird? Coco something?
Rivington.
Coco Rivington Rockefeller, Mrs. Howell III.
She's queen of the underground, and I don't mean tube.
She's got good style.
- I'd ball her. - Be my guest.
I think she's even here in, uh, London.
She's here?
So you dated her, did you?
Never. That girl's trouble.
[Man] Will you invite her to the party?
Sure. I always invite trouble.
[Chuckles]
# I'm beginning to hear voices #
# And there's no one around #
# Well, I'm all used up #
# Yeah #
# And the fields have turned brown #
[knocking at door]
[Man #1] Hold on a sec. There's someone at the door.
[Man #2] If it's that fucking concierge again,
I swear to God...
[Man #1] Yeah, who is it?
They're going to have to come up
with some different numbers if they want this to work.
No. Stu...
I'm not going to talk about this all goddamn day.
"Puffing heavily on his cigarette,
he smokes 80 a day."
- [Chuckling] - Sinatra wants it.
God. I'm glad I'm not me.
Hey! I've got something to say to you.
- Whoa! - Hey, fuck off!
- It's him I'm talkin' at. - Yeah, I'm listenin', man.
- Traitor! You wanker! - Listen, pal.
If you know what's good for you, you'll turn right around and get the fuck out of here.
Come on. Hey!
Hurry up.
Jason! You got to get in here, man. You better hurry.
- It's your boy I want. - Put that knife down. You hear me?
- Hey, man. - Jesus Christ.
Are you out of your fuckin' mind? What are you gonna do? Stab us all?
It's his fault! He's the one.
Stabbing truth in the eye.
I'm listening. What's the truth, man?
Easy, easy, easy. Now just put that down...
No! Walk away.
- Just relax. - Hey, back up.
Either be groovy or leave, man.
- Is he okay? - Yeah.
Everybody all right?
- Thanks for steppin' in. - My pleasure.
Just like a woman.
[Giggling, screaming]
# They sat together in the park #
# As the evening sky grew dark #
# She looked at him and he felt a spark #
# Tingle to his bones #
# 'Twas then he felt alone #
# And wished that he'd gone straight #
# And watched out for a simple twist of fate #
# They walked along by the old canal #
# A little confused, I remember well #
Claire! Claire, honey, you got to meet someone.
Hang on a second. Am I shitting you?
- Dirty son of a gun. - Claire, this is Sidney Green.
A very bad old friend of mine.
Hello.
She's a doll. Actress.
Uh, no, a painter. She's unbelievable.
And Sid's a collector.
What do you paint, honey?
Oh, they're... They're abstracts,
- most of what I do. - She's French?
Aw, for cryin' out loud.
Oh, oh. It's Mailer.
Norman Mailer?
Abstracts, huh?
# People tell me it's a sin #
# To know and feel too much within #
# I still believe she was my twin #
# But I lost the ring #
# She was born in the spring #
# But I was born too late #
# Blame it on a simple twist of fate #
[Arthur] Silence, experience shows,
is what terrifies people most.
## [Waltz, strings]
If he said he'll be here, he'll be here.
It's just such a terribly important booking.
Keenan seldom interviews.
He's really more of an opinion maker really,
on the telly, so, there's apt to be no time at all.
Is there a handler? Someone who looks after him?
I told you, he and John and Paul and George...
Yes, but did he ever get back?
- Pardon me. - What?
Do you know if Jude Quinn is in attendance?
The country-western singer?
No time for autographs, dearie.
- What's that over there? - Where?
- [Explosion] - [Sped-up voices]
[Beatle] Do the Watusi, John!
Whoa!
- [Giggling] - [Coordinator] Mr. Quinn?
Mr. Quinn, yoo-hoo.
Yes, Mr. Quinn, hello! We're all just here at the car. No worries.
Good. Sayonara.
Mother. Mother.
Oh, Mr. Quinn! What a privilege
- to have in our midst... - [fans screaming]
...a true visionary, and such a splendid example to the youth.
And such marvelous songs. So truly wonderful.
- Howdy. - Our dear friend,
Carolyn Hester, the folk singer?
She was saying, just the other day, how liberating
what you're doing really is for all... Mr. Quinn, hello!
Ma'am, I'm terribly sorry.
Carolyn said that? You tell Carolyn to come see me anytime,
now that she's, uh, liberated.
Jude, you know, like in the song "Generation Dungeon,"
when you say "he has the eyes of a camel