12/01/2009 by Tony Attwood.

There is something distasteful about Neighbourhood Bully, despite Dylan’s assertions that it is not about Zionism.  Maybe it is not.  Maybe it is just about the state of Israel.  I would always appreciate that one is not the other, but still…

The point is that if you are going to write a song in praise of something it is best either to be romantic, or to evolve a scene of pastel colours, and soft tones.  If you want to be tough, be selective in what you say.  If you get into hard facts it is always going to be difficult if you slip up at any point and ay something that is palpably untrue.

In Neighbourhood Bully there’s eleven bouncing rocking strophic verses all fixed on three chords.  It gives you a sense of power and certainty.  You want to say, wow, yeah, let’s go and get them.  Except, except…

Take the opening.   “His enemies say, he’s on their land”.  Yes, when speaking of the state of Israel, most of the world, and United Nations Resolution 242, say that the land Israel took during the six days war should be returned to the countries from which it took the land.  Long term occupation is not acceptable. 

So Dylan’s got it right there.  People do say Israel is on their neighbours’ land.  Equally most people with a semblance of a balanced view of the world acknowledge that the Six Days War was not started by Israel, and that Israel showed extraordinary military ability by knocking out all their neighbours so quickly.

But where does that get us?   Simply to an argument that says that Israel has made matters worse for itself by continuing the occupation, and that had it worked out a settlement within the first year, it would not still be fighting.  Can’t prove it of course, but it is an argument.

What has all this got to do with “Neighborhood Bully”?  Simply that by invoking a line such as “on their land” in the second out of 55 lines of a song, Dylan invites us to get involved in such debate.  The song continues by telling us how badly off Israel is, how everyone is against Israel, and then we have….

Verse six, which opens with the classic, “He got no allies to really speak of,” and we think simply of the United States of America, and are reminded of the fact that 40% of Israel’s budget is spent on defence – an insane level of expenditure which can only be maintained by the financial contribution of the USA.

This is not to attempt in a few lines to have a serious debate about Israel, but to think about the song.  If Dylan really wants to make a statement about Israel, then putting that line in is catastrophic.  For the neutral listener it destroys the song in one simple line – and we still have five and a half verses to go.

Back on the political front, in writing this I am of course aware that the US also gives extraordinary levels of aid to Egypt, following the Camp David Accord, and I’m aware of the corruption and insanity of the many Arab regimes – indeed I have lived part of my life in one of the Arab protagonists against Israel, which at least gives me a little insight.

But I repeat this is not the main thrust of my problem with this song.  It is the point I made at the start.  If you are going to do a political song, you don’t have to be balanced (no such song ever is), and your facts don’t have to be inclusive (ditto).   But you have to avoid lines which are just so incredibly wrong that they bring the whole song down and make those who don’t believe dismiss what you have said.

Think of “Times they are a changing”.  It brings us all together, and joins everyone.   “Neighbourhood Bully” just pushes people further apart.

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23/11/2008 by Tony Attwood.

Numerous reference books suggest that Jokerman is one of Dylan’s masterpieces. A great poetic adventure that encapsulates everyone and everything from Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats (1884) to… well, anything you like. All mixed with a mature and detailed reflection on Judaism, and the books of laws in the Old Testament.

Such approaches tend to ignore the fact that Dylan himself doesn’t like the piece much (see http://www.interferenza.com/bcs/interw/1991zollo.htm for one such interview), and the fact that when he has sung it live he has often chopped out verses seemingly at random and just thrown it in cos the kids like it.

Dylan’s view seems to be that it is a failed song, a song the lyrics of which he changed too often for it to work any more. As for the music, it is more complex than the old 12 bars tunes but not exactly the first movement of a string quartet.

And one thing is for sure (and is missed out in most commentaries) the music and the lyrics have nothing in common.

The music is simple, bouncy, fun, but not especially exciting or unusual. It works, it serves as a basis for a stream of words, but not much more. For the song to work, the lyrics have to be both electrified and at one with the music, meaning they have to be bouncy and fun.

Consider for a moment the great work which apparently was recorded in time for Infidels but didn’t make the cut – “Blind Willie McTell”. Here the brooding melody and chord changes fit perfectly with the brooding lyrics, even if neither have anything to do with Blind Willie McTell. That’s fine because the man of the title has nothing to do with the song.

But in Jokerman we have a muddle – a bouncy tune that has nothing to add to the feeling – except that the Jokerman is a Jokerman. Which would work if there was something jokey in the lyrics, but even from line two, “While the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing” we have nothing funny. Are you going to make a joke out of “a snake in both of your fists”? I suspect not.

OK, comes the answer, he’s not that kind of Jokerman – he’s more the kind that plays a joke on the whole universe – a nasty twisted joke – a devil with an evil laugh.

Right - so where does that leave, “Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune, Bird fly high by the light of the moon”?

It is all so confusing, that we look for some sort of way out. This is not surrealism, or the musical version of a Jackson Pollock, it is something quite different. It is just a muddle. So when we hear, with that same bouncy 2/4 tune which mutates into 4/4 at the chorus, that suddenly Dylan is talking about Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the books of laws in the Old Testament, we think, maybe this is going to sort it out. Dylan is laughing at the old laws – that’s what the bouncy song is about.

And here there certainly needs to be comment and a half. Leviticus is the book of the Bible that tells us to stone to death married women who have sex with another man, who tell us not to approach the house of the Lord if wearing clothes made of two or more cloths, and not to approach if our eyesight is not sound (which cuts out anyone wearing glasses). There is a lot of stuff about killing goats too.

But there is nothing on this. Not even with the wildest imagination is there anything there that offers us any insight. I am not searching for meaning any more than I am searching for meaning in Jackson Pollock, to take the example that came into my head earlier. All I am doing is looking for an insight. A way of saying yes, this is why the melody is like it is, why we have a 2/4 verse and a 4/4 chorus. Why we have a Jokerman.

I think Dylan was right in that interview – there is nothing but nothing here apart from a set of lines along a vaguely messianic theme to inappropriate music.

And that is not to remove the one great track from the album, as some would have it. Rather it is to let us look elsewhere, where the issue is entirely Israel. Neighbourhood Bully, for example, is a song that I, with my political views, am extremely unhappy with, unless I twist the meaning so much I think I leave behind anything Dylan meant. But as a work of art, it is something far more than Jokerman ever became.

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