Tag: Dylan

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Sean Penn and Dylan Penn Make ‘Flag Day’ a Household Affair

Sean Penn and Dylan Penn Make ‘Flag Day’ a Family Affair

MALIBU, Calif. — Sure, Sean Penn has two Oscars. But at home, his children Dylan Frances Penn and Hopper Jack Penn wanted to pelt him with tomatoes.

“I tell jokes terribly,” Sean admitted. “They always tell me, ‘You probably should have stopped there.’”

“As you do with your dad,” Dylan added, rolling her eyes affectionately. Despite her father’s failings as a stand-up comic, she trusts him as the director who could kick-start her acting career — if she wants one. “Flag Day,” which premiered in competition at Cannes and is in theaters Aug. 20, stars the two in an adaptation of the journalist Jennifer Vogel’s memoir, “Flim-Flam Man,” about her shaky young adulthood in the orbit of her charismatic con man father, who died following a high-speed police pursuit.

Sean handed Dylan the book when she was a teenager. She passed. Now 30, she took nearly 15 more years to agree to make the film, long enough for her 61-year-old father, Sean, to come around himself to doing double-duty as director and leading man, the first time he’s tried to do both. “I don’t think stereophonically,” Sean said.

He had an easier time convincing his son, Hopper, to sign on to a small role as Vogel’s brother.

“He just asked me to play Nick and that was that,” Hopper said by email.

Sean and Dylan were sitting in their front yard in the shade of an Airstream trailer named Las Vegas, in honor of Sean’s intended elopement to Leila George. (Because of the pandemic, the couple was instead married by a county commissioner over Zoom last summer as Sean’s nonprofit CORE opened a Covid-19 testing site at Dodger Stadium that has since evolved into a fleet of mobile vaccination units.)

Alongside three large dogs continually changing their mind about where to nap, the two talked over each other, and indulgently allowed themselves to be interrupted, as they hashed out their maturing relationship. “I know what the stamps are in her passport — and she knows mine,” Sean said. “And it was thrilling that we were able to transfer it to a movie.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

This is a film about finding your own identity apart from your parents. Dylan, you avoided acting. You worked at an ad agency, you helped edit scripts, you delivered pizzas — how were your tips?

DYLAN PENN Terrible.

SEAN PENN That terrified me. All those frat houses around U.C.L.A.

DYLAN I started modeling like six months into being a pizza delivery girl. I would work at night doing pizza deliveries, but during the day, I was doing full hair and makeup for a shoot. So I would show up to these frat houses and they’re like, “Oh, did someone order a stripper?” Nope! Just a pizza. I always thought I would be in the film industry, but I expected to be behind the camera. When I was, like 15, 16, the first time you came to me with this project, I just felt like it was a really silly thing to do.

Acting?

DYLAN Adults dressing up as different people. The real reason that I got into acting in the first place was because I told my parents [her mother is the actor Robin Wright] I wanted to direct eventually, and both of them told me that I should know what it’s like to be an actor before I direct so that I know how to direct an actor.

Was this film always going to be the two of you?

SEAN I was going to be involved in it first as an actor. She didn’t feel ready for it. And then when it came back around, it came to me as a director. So then I was just going to direct it. And then we got into a bind about a month out from shooting, and I had to just jump in and I’m so glad that I did.

DYLAN It was a real shock because we’ve never worked together. The idea of him directing me was already like a big undertaking. The idea of being so vulnerable with your own family in front of 40, 50 crew members is daunting.

SEAN Your dirty laundry is going to be aired on a daily basis. I don’t mean your family history dirty laundry, but I mean that day’s emotional interactions with each other. But on the upside, I’ve never been so excited on any movie set as when I was in a scene with her, or just watching her kill it. In particular, the thing that all actors say, but very few do, is that listening is everything. She listens in a way that I love watching because she doesn’t tell you what she’s thinking. I like putting the camera close on her because she’s not going to wink at you.

What about Sean as a director makes him unique?

DYLAN His vision is so fully realized ahead of time. Even working in a space where, financially, it was a bit of a constraint, there was no limit to making that vision become a reality. A prop, a location, my hair. Literally, the opening where Regina King and I had a scene together. I walked in and he was like, “You would not be wearing mascara.” And I remember being so pissed. It was a fight for 10 minutes to take the mascara off.

SEAN It was a two-and-a-half-hour standoff.

DYLAN I was wrong. But I’m stubborn and it was a fight.

SEAN I will just say on your behalf, a lot of times where she had a different view, more often than not, I came around to thinking that she had the right idea. So I would be very interested in seeing the things that she directs.

Acting dynasties go back to the Barrymores. But it feels like your family is shaping a directing dynasty. Dylan, both of your parents released films in the last year that they directed, and Sean, your father, Leo Penn, was a director.

SEAN I spent a lot of time with him as a kid on sets. TV one-hour dramas. He was much more patient. A gentler sort. But I’m sure that a lot of my general sense of what a director’s job is comes from him.

And he directed you in “Little House on the Prairie”?

SEAN That was summer money as an extra as a kid. I didn’t think I wanted to get involved in film until senior year of high school.

And “Judgment in Berlin” [a 1988 film that featured Sean as a trial witness].

SEAN That was a great experience. We talk about in this story, how much of your parents do you really know? The deceptions in the relationship between John and Jennifer — from John to Jennifer.

Even with a gentle, open, loving man, it took going to Berlin, knowing [that during World War II] he’d flown those low-altitude bombing missions virtually where we were, and walking with him through a square where mothers are pushing strollers. I won’t call it regret by any means, but the humanization of what he’d done from the air had wiped him out.

Getting to know one’s parents makes me think of Dylan’s Instagram post from a couple of years ago of your dad’s first wedding day.

DYLAN It was the first time that I realized, “Oh, my parents are people without me.” And this is like on a deep level, after going through a lot of family therapy. I get asked so much, “Wait, so you’re Madonna’s daughter?” Oh right! He was married to her — they had a life together.

You were 5 when you left Los Angeles and moved to Northern California. Just before, your mother was surprised by people with guns in your driveway. Do you remember that?

DYLAN I remember it vividly. It was me, my mom and my brother in the car. We pulled in around 10 p.m. and these two guys were standing in the driveway. My mom just said, “Don’t get out of the car. Don’t make a sound.” She got out and they pointed a gun at her stomach and she threw the keys in the bushes and yanked us out of the car. That superhero thing that moms take on when their children are in jeopardy.

SEAN And then they took the car.

DYLAN They crashed.

SEAN They finally crashed into a dumpster and took off running. They actually caught the second guy with a heat sensor from the aerial unit. He had gotten into a dumpster himself, but because he’d been running, his body was hot and they were able to see his heat.

DYLAN [This is one] reason my mom has said she didn’t want us growing up in this paparazzi frenzy that L.A. was becoming. Now, it’s beyond what it was in the ’90s.

It’s pretty impossible for anybody not to remark on how much you look like your mom. On the inside, do you see your dad?

DYLAN Oh my God. I feel like we’re both very alpha personalities, but with that, also being introverted in terms of our private life. I think a lot of my strength comes from watching my dad. My mom, as well, but just in different ways. I also think we see things in similar ways and emotionally react similarly, just in terms of, like movies that we watch, that we cry at —

SEAN Everything.

DYLAN It’s like what a lot of people have with their best friends. You both observe the same things.

SEAN Through a similar lens.

DYLAN Yeah, through a similar lens.

Some of these scenes seem like they would have been hard to shoot, really harrowing. You’re recording her as she’s watching you die onscreen.

DYLAN It’s an awful thing to watch. It was the first time that I felt 100 percent like my dad is not there — this is my dad — and I really felt like he was shooting himself in the head. I was crying and I could hear him crying behind the camera.

SEAN Watching you cry over me. [Fake sobbing] It’s so sad to see you lose your father!

You were crying, too?

SEAN She made me cry a lot. She makes me cry a lot. You kind of feel like somebody should call Child Protective Services on you for directing. What are you putting your kid through?

There’s a line in this film: “I think the greatest hope a man can have is to leave something beautiful behind — something he made.” Am I alone in thinking that line had a resonance for you?

SEAN Oh, no. It has resonance for me as you say it. Yes. Listen, I don’t know what else I was doing here. Now with two kids that I feel so proud of who are already accomplishing things out of their own gifts. On a beautiful day, despite a pandemic and everything else, you kind of go, it’s all gravy from here. Knock wood. [Knocks on a palm tree] But no question, I would be lost without ’em.

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Sally Grossman, Immortalized on a Dylan Album Cowl, Dies at 81

Sally Grossman, Immortalized on a Dylan Album Cover, Dies at 81

Along the way, she met Mr. Grossman, who made a name for himself as a manager of folk music acts that played in such places, including Peter, Paul and Mary, which he brought together.

“The office was always full of people,” Ms. Grossman recalled in an interview in 1987. “Peter, Paul and Mary of course, but also Ian and Sylvia, Richie Havens, Gordon Lightfoot, other musicians, artists, poets.”

The couple, who married in 1964, settled in Woodstock, where Mr. Grossman had acquired land and which Mr. Dylan had discovered around the same time, and settled there with his family.

In due course, the photo shoot for the album cover came.

“I took 10 recordings,” Mr. Kramer told The Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2014. A picture of Mr. Dylan holding a cat was a keeper. “This was the only time that all three subjects looked at the lens,” said Kramer.

The photo, staged by Mr. Kramer with Mr. Dylan’s input, was an early example of a mini-trend in loading covers with images that invite insight into the music. The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band ”(1967) might be the best-known example.

The album itself was a breakthrough for Mr. Dylan, marking his transition from acoustic to electric. One of his tracks was “Mr. Tambourine Man ”,“ Subterranean Homesick Blues ”and“ Maggie’s Farm ”.

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Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Quickly-Yi Previn, Dylan Farrow: A Timeline

Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Soon-Yi Previn, Dylan Farrow: A Timeline

For years, the account given by Woody Allen’s then-7-year-old adopted daughter Dylan Farrow in the days following Aug. 4, 1992, when she says he sexually assaulted her, has been central to her case against him.

The specialists who heard the child’s account then and in later years have been divided on whether it was credible or whether it was coerced by her adoptive mother, Mia Farrow. But the public has only heard Dylan, as an adult, recount what she told her mother nearly 30 years ago.

Now Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick’s four-part documentary, “Allen v. Farrow,” which premieres on HBO on Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern (and streams on HBO Max), will for the first time include video footage of Dylan, recorded by her mother, describing what happened to her just days after she said Mr. Allen molested her.

The film is the latest development in a case that has been debated for nearly 30 years. It made headlines again in 2014 when Mr. Allen received a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes — and Dylan Farrow wrote an open letter, posted by the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, recounting her story in detail in response.

Then, in September 2018, New York magazine published a lengthy interview with Soon-Yi Previn, her first extended remarks on her relationship with Mr. Allen, who began to date her mother, Mia, when Ms. Previn was a young girl. Mr. Allen and Ms. Previn began a romantic relationship in 1991, when Ms. Previn was 21.

Mr. Allen has long denied assaulting his daughter and argued that Mia Farrow coached Dylan to say she had been assaulted after discovering that Ms. Previn and Mr. Allen were having an affair.

This timeline highlights important dates and developments in the narrative that has its roots in the 1970s. Based on New York Times articles and other news reports, it is a guide, not a comprehensive accounting, and will be updated periodically.

Mia Farrow and her husband, André Previn, adopt Soon-Yi Previn, from Korea; she is believed to be about 7 years old.

Woody Allen and Ms. Farrow are introduced at Elaine’s, the Manhattan restaurant, and later begin a relationship.

The couple’s first movie together, “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy,” is released. They would collaborate on 12 more films, including “The Purple Rose of Cairo” and “Hannah and Her Sisters.”

Ms. Farrow adopts a baby girl, Dylan, who was born in Texas.

Ms. Farrow and Mr. Allen have a son, Ronan. Ms. Farrow would later suggest in a 2013 Vanity Fair interview that Frank Sinatra may have been his father.

Mr. Allen adopts Dylan and Moses Farrow, one of Ms. Farrow’s sons, whom she adopted in 1980. Mr. Allen, who is 56, begins an affair with Ms. Farrow’s 21-year-old daughter, Ms. Previn, around this time.

Ms. Farrow discovers nude photographs of Ms. Previn in Mr. Allen’s apartment. He later testifies in court that he thought the affair would remain secret.

With the affair between Mr. Allen and Ms. Previn continuing, Ms. Farrow calls Susan Coates, a psychologist who had been helping the family, and describes Mr. Allen as “satanic and evil” and begs her to “find a way to stop him.”

According to Dylan Farrow, Mr. Allen abused her that day, touching her genitalia. She was 7 at the time. She detailed her accusation in January 2018 on “CBS This Morning”:

DYLAN FARROW: I was taken to a small attic crawl space in my mother’s country house in Connecticut by my father. He instructed me to lay down on my stomach and play with my brother’s toy train that was set up. And he sat behind me in the doorway, and as I played with the toy train, I was sexually assaulted … As a 7-year-old I would say, I would have said he touched my private parts.

GAYLE KING: Mmhmm. OK.

FARROW: Which I did say.

KING: All right. All right.

FARROW: As a 32-year-old, he touched my labia and my vulva with his finger.

Casey Pascal, a friend of Ms. Farrow’s, tells her that Dylan’s babysitter described observing Mr. Allen in a position with Dylan that seemed inappropriate. According to Vanity Fair, Ms. Farrow immediately asked Dylan about it, and she gave her account to her mother.

Ms. Farrow calls Dr. Coates, the psychologist, and says Dylan has complained that Mr. Allen has abused her. A major question later considered in court was whether Ms. Farrow had coached her daughter during this period. According to later court testimony by Dr. Coates, she is struck by Ms. Farrow’s calm during the call, as opposed to her agitated state in the Aug. 1 call.

Mr. Allen sues Ms. Farrow in New York State Court for custody of Ronan, Dylan and Moses Farrow.

Mr. Allen releases a statement confirming his relationship with Ms. Previn, saying it is “real and happily all true.” The same day, the Connecticut State Police announce they are investigating Mr. Allen. The focus: the allegations that he molested Dylan.

Mr. Allen makes a public appearance to say he is “saddened” by the child abuse allegations and calls them “false” and “outrageous.”

Vanity Fair publishes “Mia’s Story,” a lengthy reported piece about Ms. Farrow, her family, the abuse allegations and her history with Mr. Allen.

Mr. Allen speaks on “60 Minutes” and defends himself against the molestation allegations.

After a seven-month inquiry by a team of child-abuse investigators at Yale-New Haven Hospital, Mr. Allen’s lawyers say he has been cleared of molesting Dylan Farrow. Ms. Farrow’s legal team calls the confidential report “incomplete and inaccurate.” The report, which was commissioned by Connecticut law enforcement, was never officially released, but media outlets reported some of its contents.

The custody trial begins. Mr. Allen takes the stand and describes the disintegration of his relationship with Ms. Farrow. He testifies that Ms. Farrow threatened him in phone calls and flew into rages in front of the children after the two started falling out.

Ms. Farrow takes the stand. She goes into detail about what Dylan told her the previous summer. She says she worried that Mr. Allen had a sexual attraction to Dylan from when she was 2 years old.

Dr. Coates testifies that she told Mr. Allen she feared for his safety because of threats made by Ms. Farrow. She says that she considered Mr. Allen’s relationship with Dylan to be “inappropriately intense,” but not sexual. The next day, Ms. Farrow’s lawyer portrayed Dr. Coates as “mesmerized” by Mr. Allen.

A child psychiatrist testifies that the report from Yale-New Haven Hospital is “seriously flawed.”

A sworn statement from John M. Leventhal, the doctor who led the Yale-New Haven team, is released to the public. It theorizes that Dylan was emotionally unstable and coached by Ms. Farrow to accuse Mr. Allen. The Yale-New Haven team interviewed Dylan nine times and said she changed details throughout the interviews; Dr. Leventhal said in his statement that he had interviewed her, but Vanity Fair reported years later that he had not.

Mr. Allen loses the custody battle. Acting Justice Elliott Wilk of the State Supreme Court said Mr. Allen is “self-absorbed, untrustworthy and insensitive.” He denies Mr. Allen visitation rights with Dylan.

Frank Maco, a state’s attorney in Connecticut, announces that while he has “probable cause” to prosecute Mr. Allen, he would decline to press charges to spare Dylan the trauma of a trial. Mr. Maco says he believed that Dylan had been molested.

Mr. Allen marries Ms. Previn.

Mr. Allen gives a long interview to Time magazine’s Walter Isaacson recounting his relationship with Soon-Yi — “The heart wants what it wants,” he says — and again denies the allegations by Dylan and Mia Farrow.

After years of relatively little news coverage of Mr. Allen and Mia and Dylan Farrow, Ronan Farrow posts on Twitter: “Happy father’s day — or as they call it in my family, happy brother-in-law’s day.”

Dylan Farrow goes on the record for the first time in an interview with Vanity Fair. She is 28 now and describes receiving entreaties from Mr. Allen from when she was 18. She says of the alleged abuse by Mr. Allen: “There’s a lot I don’t remember, but what happened in the attic I remember. I remember what I was wearing and what I wasn’t wearing.”

In response to Mr. Allen receiving a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes, which Diane Keaton accepted on his behalf, Ronan Farrow posts on Twitter: “Missed the Woody Allen tribute — did they put the part where a woman publicly confirmed he molested her at age 7 before or after Annie Hall?”

Dylan Farrow writes an open letter recounting her story in detail, posted by the Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.

After the letter, Mia Farrow posts on Twitter: “I love my daughter. I will always protect her. A lot of ugliness is going to be aimed at me. But this is not about me, it’s about her truth.”

In response to Dylan’s open letter, Moses Farrow defends Mr. Allen in an interview with People Magazine, saying Mia Farrow coached the children to hate Mr. Allen. He says that Dylan was never molested and that Ms. Farrow was a bully.

Mr. Allen, writing in the Opinion section of The Times, denies the allegations again.

Ms. Keaton and Alec Baldwin, two friends and stars in Allen films, defend him in the face of Dylan Farrow’s accusations. Cate Blanchett, the star of Mr. Allen’s “Blue Jasmine,” is more circumspect, saying she hopes Mr. Allen and the family “find some sort of resolution and peace.” Lena Dunham calls Dylan “courageous” and urges people to read her open letter.

In a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter, Ronan Farrow writes about the struggles that Dylan faced in getting her story out and says he believes Dylan’s account.

The New York Times, and then Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker, publish articles about sexual harassment, abuse and rape allegations against Harvey Weinstein.

Mr. Allen says he feels “sad for Harvey” and warns against “a witch hunt atmosphere.” He later calls Mr. Weinstein “a sad, sick man.”

Kate Winslet, the star of Mr. Allen’s film “Wonder Wheel,” demurs when asked about the accusations against Mr. Allen: “It’s just a difficult discussion. I’d rather respectfully not enter it today.” Griffin Newman, an actor in Mr. Allen’s next film, “A Rainy Day in New York,” expresses regret for working with him and pledges to donate his salary to an organization that fights sexual violence.

The actor Elliot Page says that working with Mr. Allen on the film “To Rome With Love” was “the biggest regret of my career” and expresses sympathy for women and minors who have suffered sexual abuse.

Dylan Farrow writes an op-ed for The Los Angeles Times: “Why has the #MeToo revolution spared Woody Allen?”

Colin Firth and Greta Gerwig say they would not work with Mr. Allen again. Mira Sorvino, who won an Oscar for Mr. Allen’s “Mighty Aphrodite,” rebukes him and expresses support for Dylan. Rebecca Hall and Timothée Chalamet, two stars of “A Rainy Day in New York,” also criticize him and donate their salaries from the film to charity. Ms. Winslet, alluding to Mr. Allen, expresses “bitter regrets that I have about poor decisions to work with individuals with whom I wish I had not.”

“CBS This Morning” airs the first television interview with Dylan Farrow, where she recounts the allegations. Mr. Allen again denies them.

The actor Peter Sarsgaard, in an interview with Chuck Todd on “MTP Daily,” says he would not do another Allen movie. As for Jeff Daniels, who was also asked in the interview whether he would work with Mr. Allen again, he says, “He will always be a great American filmmaker and I got to work with him at the age of 30 and it changed my life.” Mr. Daniels adds: “I believe Dylan Farrow. So now, would I do another one with Woody? The difficult decision would be to — turn him down. Because of ‘Purple Rose.’”

New York magazine publishes a long interview with Ms. Previn in which she accuses Ms. Farrow of harsh parenting and defends Mr. Allen, who sits in on parts of the conversation.

The Times publishes an interview with the actor Jude Law, who worked with Mr. Allen on “A Rainy Day in New York,” in which he says the shelving of the film by the distributor, Amazon Studios, was a “terrible shame.”

When asked about the accusations against Mr. Allen, Mr. Law said he did not want to get involved in the conversation: “I just don’t feel like it was my place to comment, and it’s too delicate a situation. I feel like enough has been said about it. It’s a private affair.”

Mr. Allen sues Amazon for canceling a $68 million movie deal. (Amazon had backed out amid renewed focus on Dylan’s allegations.) Weeks later, The Times reports that Mr. Allen is shooting a new movie in Spain, backed by the Barcelona-based conglomerate Mediapro.

When asked why it was working with Mr. Allen after Amazon had stopped doing so, Mediapro said in a statement, “We have a 10-year relationship with Mr. Allen and, like all projects we produce, we judge the creator by its work.”

Mr. Allen and Amazon settle; terms are not disclosed.

Grand Central Publishing, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, announces that it will publish Mr. Allen’s memoir, “Apropos of Nothing,” on April 7. The book is described as a comprehensive account of his life, “both personal and professional,” including details about his relationships with “family, friends and the loves of his life.”

In a statement on Twitter, Dylan Farrow harshly criticizes Hachette, which had previously published Ronan Farrow’s book “Catch and Kill,” which recounts how he reported sexual assault allegations against the producer Harvey Weinstein. She calls the decision to publish Mr. Allen’s memoir “an utter betrayal.”

Dozens of Hachette employees stage a walkout in protest. The next day, Hachette announces it will no longer publish “Apropos of Nothing.”

Mr. Allen’s book is published by Arcade Publishing. In the book, he again denies that he sexually abused Dylan and calls the allegations “a total fabrication from start to finish.”

The HBO documentary “Allen v. Farrow” makes public for the first time the video footage from 1992 when Mia Farrow recorded Dylan, at age 7, reporting that Mr. Allen had sexually assaulted her. Mr. Allen and Soon-Yi Previn release a statement shortly after the episode airs, which denies the allegations and calls the series a “shoddy hit piece.”

The publisher of Mr. Allen’s memoir says the filmmakers used snippets from the audiobook without his permission. The filmmakers say they used “legally limited audio excerpts” under the Fair Use doctrine, which has been invoked to allow artists and journalists — including documentary filmmakers — to use limited amounts of copyrighted works in certain circumstances.

Sara Aridi contributed reporting.

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Bob Dylan Sells His Complete Songwriting Catalog to Common Music

Bob Dylan Sells His Entire Songwriting Catalog to Universal Music

Bob Dylan’s memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, opened in 1962 with the signing of his first music publishing deal – an agreement on the copyrights of the aspiring songwriter’s work. The terms of this agreement, brokered by Lou Levy of Leeds Music Publishing, were approved by the young Dylan.

“Lou paid me a hundred dollars in future royalties to sign the paper,” he wrote, “and that was fine with me.”

Fifty-eight years, more than 600 songs, and a Nobel Prize later, the cultural and economic value of Dylan’s songwriting corpus has grown exponentially.

On Monday Universal Music Publishing Group announced that it had signed a landmark deal to purchase Dylan’s entire songwriting catalog – including world-changing classics like “Blowin ‘in the Wind,” “The Times They Are A-Changin” and “Like.” “a Rolling Stone” – in what is perhaps the largest takeover of the music publishing rights by a single songwriter.

The deal, which spanned Dylan’s entire career from his earliest songs to his latest album, “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” was made directly with Dylan, 79, who has long controlled the vast majority of his own songwriting copyrights.

The price has not been disclosed, but is estimated at more than $ 300 million.

“It’s no secret that the art of songwriting is the fundamental key to all great music, and it’s no secret that Bob is one of the greatest practitioners of the art,” said Lucian Grainge, executive director of Universal Music Group in one Opinion.

The deal is the newest and most recognizable in this year’s music catalog market as artists young and old have sold their songs while publishers and investors have raised billions of dollars from public and private sources to encourage writers to say goodbye to their creations .

Last week, Stevie Nicks sold a controlling interest in their songwriting catalog for an estimated $ 80 million to Primary Wave Music, an independent publisher and marketing company. Hipgnosis Songs Fund, a UK company that quickly gained a foothold in just two and a half years, recently announced that it spent approximately $ 670 million from March to September seeking rights to more than 44,000 Blondie songs , Rick James, to acquire. Barry Manilow, Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders and others.

However, Dylan’s catalog is a special gem, revered in ways that perhaps no other popular musician has achieved. His song book has changed folk, rock and pop, and he has an almost mythical status as a contemporary bard. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 “because he created new poetic forms of expression within the great American singing tradition”.

To a degree that still amazes and shocked his audience, Dylan has long been aggressive about marketing his music, including pursuing licensing agreements to get his songs on television advertisements.

In 1994, Dylan had the accounting firm Coopers & Lybrand – predecessor of the current giant PricewaterhouseCoopers – use Richie Havens ‘rendition of his 1964 protest hymn “The Times They Are A-Changin'” in a television commercial. Fans, media commentators, and even other artists reacted in horror; Time magazine headlined the controversy, “Just in case you haven’t heard, the 60s are over.”

The Coopers & Lybrand spot was a long way from Dylan’s last commercial license: he made a prominent deal for a Victoria’s Secret TV spot in 2004 and later worked with Apple, Cadillac, Pepsi, and IBM. Two years ago he started a high-end whiskey brand, Heaven’s Door.

With Universal now in control of his work, Dylan will no longer have a veto over how his songs are used. After the deal was announced early Monday, users on Twitter had a field day of hackneyed puns hinting at how Dylan’s work could be used. “Pay Lady Pay,” quipped one user. “Involved in Blue Cross / Blue Shield,” wrote another.

Even so, Universal insisted that using Dylan’s work it would be tasteful.

Jody Gerson, general manager of Universal’s publishing division, said, “It is both a privilege and a responsibility to represent the work of one of the greatest songwriters of all time – whose cultural significance cannot be overstated.”

Dylan is the kind of writer whose music publishers tend to calm down. Not only has it proven itself, but most of its songs were written by Dylan alone and frequently covered by other artists – each use generating royalties. According to Universal, Dylan’s songs have been recorded more than 6,000 times.

Music publishing is the side of the business that deals with songwriting and composition copyrights – the lyrics and melodies of songs in their most basic form – that are different from what is required for a recording. Publishers and authors collect royalties and royalties when their work is sold, streamed, broadcast on the radio, or used in a film or commercial. (The recent sale of Taylor Swift’s first six albums only covered recording rights for that material. Swift signed a separate release agreement with Universal in February.)

Streaming has helped boost the entire music market – US publishers raised $ 3.7 billion in 2019, according to the National Music Publishers’ Association – which attracted new investors from the steady and growing revenue from music rights get dressed by.

Dylan’s deal includes 100 percent of his rights to all songs in his catalog, including the income he receives as a songwriter and his control over the copyright of each song. In return for paying Dylan, Universal, a division of the French media conglomerate Vivendi, will collect all future revenue from the songs.

Dylan had no comment on the deal.

Music publishing has been a little-known cornerstone of Dylan’s career. The songs he recorded with the band in 1967, for example, which were widely available at the time and were later collected in Dylan’s 1975 album The Basement Tapes, were intended as demos to be passed on to other recording artists.

Much of Dylan’s business empire is run by the Bob Dylan Music Company, a small New York office that manages its publishing rights in the United States. (Elsewhere in the world, his catalog was managed by Sony / ATV, which will remain so until his contract expires in a few years.)

The deal includes more than 600 songs spread across a number of publishers that Dylan had over the years. With the exception of his original Leeds Music deal, which included seven songs, including “Song for Woody” and “Talkin ‘New York,” Dylan eventually took full control of all of his copyrights from these catalogs. Leeds was sold to MCA in 1964, which became Universal.

The Universal deal also includes Dylan’s interest in a number of songs he wrote with fellow songwriters. Of the more than 600 tracks included in the deal, there is only one that Dylan is not a writer on but still owns the copyright: Robbie Robertson’s “The Weight” as recorded by the band.

However, the agreement does not include any of Dylan’s unreleased songs. It also doesn’t cover work that Dylan will write in the future, leaving open the possibility that he might choose to work with another publisher on that material.