While held captive for 32 months by Somali pirates, writer and Dylan fan Michael Scott Moore had plenty of opportunity to contemplate lyrics, especially All Along The Watchtower. He was given a Bible during his captivity and discovered, in Isaiah, “the ramparts, the princes, the two horsemen and the wildcat. The whole song clicked! It’s about the fall of Babylon! Or Western Capitalism. Or the music business.” His other favourite captivity song was Jokerman (“freedom just around the corner for you”).

We delve into the mysterious Infidels album in detail (“is he accusing the audience or himself with that title? I never got the sense that he left himself out of the equation”). Other topics covered: Dick Dale, Charlie McCoy, Bobbie Gentry, surfing in the Gaza Strip and the philosophy of Richard Mitchell. Don’t miss our most wide-ranging episode so far.

Michael Scott Moore is an award-winning journalist and novelist, author of a comic novel about L.A., Too Much of Nothing, as well as a travel book about surfing, Sweetness and Blood, which was named a best book of 2010 by The Economist. He’s been a visiting professor at the Columbia School of the Arts and worked for several years as an editor and writer at Spiegel Online in Berlin. Michael was kidnapped in early 2012 on a reporting trip to Somalia and held hostage. The Desert and the Sea, his memoir about that ordeal, became an international bestseller.

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Recorded 10th August 2021

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Michael Scott Moore

Is It Rolling, Bob? Talking Dylan