Bob Dylan: "Elvis must have felt it too"

From the Times:

Q: When you think back to the Civil War, one thing you forget is that no battles, except Gettysburg, were fought in the North.

Bob Dylan: Yeah. That’s what probably makes the Southern part of the country so different.

Q: There is a certain sensibility, but I’m not sure how that connects?

BD: It must be the Southern air. It’s filled with rambling ghosts and disturbed spirits. They’re all screaming and forlorning. It’s like they are caught in some weird web - some purgatory between heaven and hell and they can’t rest. They can’t live, and they can’t die. It’s like they were cut off in their prime, wanting to tell somebody something. It’s all over the place. There are war fields everywhere … a lot of times even in people’s backyards.

Q: Have you felt them?

BD: Oh sure. You’d be surprised. I was in Elvis’s hometown – Tupelo. And I was trying to feel what Elvis would have felt back when he was growing up.

Q: Did you feel all the music Elvis must have heard?

BD: No, but I’ll tell you what I did feel. I felt the ghosts from the bloody battle that Sherman fought against Forrest and drove him out. There’s an eeriness to the town. A sadness that lingers. Elvis must have felt it too.