Bob Dylan admits past heroin habit

U.S. folk music icon Bob Dylan admitted in a previously unreleased 1966 interview he was addicted to heroin in the early 1960s. "I kicked a heroin habit in New York City," the BBC quoted Dylan as saying in the decades-old recording. "I got very, very strung out for a while, I mean really, very strung out. And I kicked the habit. I had about a $25-a-day habit and I kicked it." The British broadcaster said the admission is remarkable because it is the first time Dylan is heard confirming rumors about his being addicted to drugs. Dylan, who turns 70 Tuesday, said on the tapes he considered committing suicide after his music career took off. "Death to me is nothing ... death to me means nothing as long as I can die fast. Many times I've known I could have been able to die fast, and I could have easily gone over and done it," the BBC reported he said. "I'll admit to having this suicidal thing ... but I came through this time. ... I'm not the kind of cat that's going to cut off an ear if I can't do something. I'm the kind of cat that would just commit suicide. ... I'd shoot myself in the brain if things got bad. I'd jump from a window ... man, I would shoot myself. You know I can think about death, man, openly." The tapes were uncovered during research for a revised and updated edition of British music critic and journalist Robert Shelton's 1986 Dylan biography, "No Direction Home," the BBC said. Shelton, who is credited with helping Dylan start his career, died in 1995.