Bob Dylan and Sam Shepard may have crossed paths in the village in the 1960s, but when Shepard joined the Rolling Thunder Revue tour in 1975, their friendship developed and led to the pair co-writing ”Brownsville Girl,” the song Matthew Ingate recently named “Dylan’s great American novel.” Dylan and Shepard’s friendship also resulted in an interview at Dylan’s Malibu home for, “True Dylan,” a piece Shepard was writing for Esquire magazine. Part fiction, part dialogue, the dramatized interview reveals two creative giants in a candid conversation.
The quote in the title of this episode comes from Sam Shepard’s Rolling Thunder Logbook and is followed by, “The point isn’t to figure him out but to take him in. He gets into you anyway, so why not just take him in?” It may have been Shepard’s approach to “taking Dylan in” rather than trying to pin him down that allowed Dylan to feel comfortable and unguarded throughout their discussion.
The tape of that conversation, housed at the Wittliff Collection at Texas State University, was transcribed by Mason Moreno. From that transcription, Mason created a presentation that he delivered at the 2025 World of Bob Dylan conference in Tulsa and an essay that will appear in an upcoming issue of The Dylan Review. In this episode, Mason and I talk about the tape – what it was like to transcribe it, what we can learn from it, and its significance to Dylan Studies. We also cover many other Dylan-related topics.
Bio:
History major, Mason Moreno is an undergraduate researcher, local musician, and president and founder of the Musicians and Artists Club at Texas State University. He has presented at the World of Bob Dylan 2025 and is currently publishing his first article on the unheard interview tapes between Bob Dylan and Sam Shepard from 1986. He has also hosted and organized two Dylan tribute shows (alongside Dr. Jon Lasser) in Central Texas and has plans to continue his scholarship and musicianship past his collegiate studies.
Links:
Instagram: @masonieljamesm
X: @itsalrightmason
Substack: Mason Moreno
