With his new album, 'Tempest,' reaping a fresh whirlwind of critical hosannas, you'd think Bob Dylan would be in a pretty good mood these days -- but if a newly posted clip from his recent Rolling Stone interview is anything to go by, he's just as cantankerous as ever.

Asked to respond to the accusations that he improperly used quotes from Junichi Saga's 'Confessions of a Yakuza' and the work of Civil War poet Henry Timrod, Dylan grumbled, "As far as Henry Timrod is concerned, have you even heard of him? Who's been reading him lately? And who's pushed him to the forefront? Who's been making you read him? And ask his descendants what they think of the hoopla."

He continued, "If you think it's so easy to quote him and it can help your work, do it yourself and see how far you can get. Wussies and pussies complain about that stuff. It's an old thing – it's part of the tradition. It goes way back."

Getting warmed up now, Dylan reached back into the past for another famous example of critical injustice. "These are the same people that tried to pin the name Judas on me," he argued. "Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you've been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified. All those evil motherf---ers can rot in hell."

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