I'm Not There. Page #2

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.

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.

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.

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?

In his first exclusive interview in 20 years...

Tonight, we bring you face-to-face

with the real Jack Rollins.

# 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.

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 #

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 #

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 #

# 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 #

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.

You reckon he's some kind of midget?

Get off of there, grunt!

I ain't doing nothing!

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!

Ahh!

Ah, you little...

Give me...

This here young'un,

the Tiny Troubadour,

is going to sing a little song.

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?

He's lyingl

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.

Here's the boot camps, with tanks, jeeps,

bullet-shooting machine guns,

and 80 soldiers.

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?

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