NEW YORK (AP) – Bob Dylan’s songs may have spoken for a generation in the 1960s, but he never saw himself as more than a singer-songwriter.

“”You’re the prophet. You’re the savior.’ I never wanted to be a prophet or a savior,” Dylan tells Ed Bradley on CBS’ “60 Minutes.” Excerpts of Sunday night’s scheduled broadcast were released in advance by the network.

“Elvis maybe. I could see myself becoming him,” Dylan says. “But prophet? No.”

The idea of such a perception made him feel like an “impostor,” he says.

“It was like being in an Edgar Allan Poe story and you’re just not that person everybody thinks you are, though they call you that all the time.”

He added, “If you examine the songs I don’t believe you’re going find anything in there that says that I’m a spokesman for anybody or anything, really.”

One of Dylan’s songs, “Like a Rolling Stone,” was recently named the top song of all-time by Rolling Stone magazine.

“No other pop song has so thoroughly challenged and transformed the commercial laws and artistic conventions of its time, for all-time,” wrote senior editor David Fricke.

But it’s an honor Dylan downplays.

“You know, the list, they change names … quite frequently, really. I don’t pay much attention to that,” says the 63-year-old singer, who recently published his memoir, “Chronicles: Volume One.”

The interview is Dylan’s first TV interview in 19 years, CBS said.

Hanks to attend ceremony

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) – News that actor Tom Hanks plans to attend remembrance ceremonies for the 60th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge sent tourism officials scurrying to find him a place to stay since all hotel rooms have been taken.

Tourism officials said Friday that Hanks, star of the Steven Spielberg film “Saving Private Ryan,” apparently planned to stay Dec. 15-19 in the southeast town of Bastogne, where commemoration services will be held for one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.

However, officials said they hadn’t received final confirmation from Hanks that he would join a 25-member veterans group that made the lodging request on his behalf.

Hotels had sold out across the Ardennes region for over a year ahead of the anniversary, officials said.

Some 80,000 American soldiers were killed, wounded or went missing during Hitler’s last desperate stand to reverse the Allied advance. German casualties numbered between 80,000 and 120,000.

“Last week we got a request for a room from American actor Tom Hanks, but we didn’t have any more rooms,” Emilie Louvignie of the Bastogne tourism office told Belgian daily De Morgen. “We made an urgent call around town to see if any one could put him up, and we found a place he could rent downtown.”

The anniversary of the Ardennes offensive is expected to draw thousands, including some 80 American veterans.


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