Bob Dylan calls plagiarism accusers 'wussies'

NEW YORK (AFP) - Legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan defended himself on Thursday against suggestions that he plagiarized some of his lyrics, calling accusers complaining "wussies."

"Wussies and p****** complain about that stuff. It's an old thing," Dylan, 71, said in an interview to be published on Friday in Rolling Stone magazine.

Dylan, whose 35th studio album "Tempest" went on sale on Tuesday, said that borrowing, or quoting, from sources as diverse as Japanese author Junichi Saga and American Civil War poet Henry Timrod was normal for folk musicians.

"Yeah, in folk and jazz, quotation is a rich and enriching tradition. That certainly is true. It's true for everybody, but me. There are different rules for me," he said in a bitterly angry rebuttal.