Albuquerque makes the national media this week as 94 Rock DJ Scott Warmuth becomes The Guy Who Googled Dylan. His discovery? Dylan lyrics from several songs on his new album Modern Times are pretty clearly swipes from obscure Civil War poet Henry Timrod. Both The New York Times and NPR snapped up the bait.On the website Dylan Pool (not a “chat room” as major media would have it), Warmuth explains that he “grabbed a phrase at random from the record, ‘frailer than the flowers,’ and entered it into Google. A Timrod poem was among the results. I figured there could be more to find so I downloaded a file with all of Timrod’s poems and started searching for words and phrases from Bob’s new record and the hits just kept on coming.” Thus are teapot-sized tempests created.But Warmuth is just the messenger. While some heartbroken fans revile poor old Bob for being a “thieving swine,” Warmuth is generous: “You could give the collected works of Henry Timrod to a bunch of people, but none of them are going to come up with Bob Dylan songs.” Curiously, no mention of monkeys and typewriters.Bob has no comment.
Google Lays Dylan Low
2 min read
