In anticipation of his surprise new album Together Through Life (out April 21), smart-crazy (crazy-smart?) coot Bob Dylan talks to the TimesOnline. In the interview, he touches upon Barack Obama, U.S. Grant, and Civil War ghosts, among other things.

Well, a number of things [have struck me about Obama]. He’s got an interesting background. He’s like a fictional character, but he’s real. First off, his mother was a Kansas girl. Never lived in Kansas though, but with deep roots. You know, like Kansas bloody Kansas. John Brown the insurrectionist. Jesse James and Quantrill. Bushwhackers, Guerillas. Wizard of Oz Kansas. I think Barack has Jefferson Davis back there in his ancestry someplace. And then his father. An African intellectual. Bantu, Masai, Griot type heritage–cattle raiders, lion killers. I mean it’s just so incongruous that these two people would meet and fall in love. You kind of get past that though. And then you’re into his story. Like an odyssey except in reverse.

Exactly?