My Own Version Of You (2020) part 14: Carrying a noose on a silver tray

My Own Version Of You (2020) part 14

by Jochen Markhorst

 

XIV      Carrying a noose on a silver tray

You can bring it to St. Peter - you can bring it to Jerome
You can move it on over - bring it all the way home
Bring it to the corner where the children play
You can bring it to me on a silver tray

The opening line of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (1988) does have a Dylanesque touch. “To be born again,” sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, “first you have to die.” It seems to be a variation on the words that inspired Steve Jobs throughout his life, on He not busy being born is busy dying from “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”, and has a similar implication: the new comes forth from the old. Five pages later, Rushdie makes the link with music as a life-giving force:

‘Fly,’ Chamcha shrieked at Gibreel. ‘Start flying, now.’ And added, without knowing its source, the second command: ‘And sing.’
How does newness come into the world? How is it born?
Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made?

Novelty, Rushdie reveals, originates from “fusions, translations, conjoinings,” from what already exists, in other words. Much like Dylan constructs his songs and like he continues to transform, reinterpret and rebuild his own songs on stage. And in extremis like we see with artists who go into the studio and re-record old work. Not re-recordings for copyright reasons, such as Taylor Swift’s Taylor’s Version series, or as the spiritual fathers of that legal move, The Everly Brothers (who re-recorded all their hits for Warner Brothers after leaving Cadence Records in 1960), or for pragmatic reasons, such as Bing Crosby’s re-recording of “White Christmas” in 1947 because the original master tape was damaged, but artists who re-record old work for artistic reasons.

Which is rarely a success, by the way. Except for the artist himself, re-recordings seldom generate enthusiasm. In the final phase of his career, starting in 1994, Gerry Rafferty peppered his records with re-recordings of old Stealers Wheel songs, including lesser-known gems such as “Over My Head” and “Right Or Wrong”, but also re-recordings of old, well-known hits such as “Late Again”, “You Put Something Better Inside Of Me” and even “Stuck In The Middle With You” (with a symbolic bonus value: it is the last track on his last album, the posthumously released Rest In Blue, differing from the original only in minor details). Wonderful songs, performed by a brilliant artist and masterfully produced – but all without the je ne sais quoi of the original. A certain something that seems to become more discernable while listening to Brian Wilson’s second attempt at Smile (2004) or Cat Stevens’ anniversary album Tea For The Tillerman2, the complete revision of his 50-year-old masterpiece from 1970: you miss the wabi-sabi (侘 寂), the beauty that can be found in inadequacy, in transience and in authenticity – you miss the perfect imperfection. Small imperfections that are, however, precisely the reason for the artist to revise the work;

“I could update my catalog a little bit and show how I sound today. I also wanted to take some expeditions and adventures with the songs, which I certainly have done with some of them. I have taken them to a slightly different sphere of sonicality. That was another reason.”
(Rolling Stone interview, 28 May 2020)

Tea For The Tillerman2 opens (again, of course) with the question that Cat Stevens has apparently been grappling with for half a century: “Where Do The Children Play?”, to which Dylan, also in 2020, but three months before Stevens’ re-release, already provided an answer: Bring it to the corner where the children play – Cat Stevens (or rather: Yusuf / Cat Stevens, as he calls himself in 2020) should have looked around. But more importantly, with “My Own Version Of You” and with his 21st-century output in general for that matter, Dylan demonstrates the validity of both Salman Rushdie’s definition of newness and the truth of Stravinsky’s stern admonition: “Repeat anyone else you like, only not yourself!” (letter to Alexandre Benois, 1913).

The message from Dylan’s narrator to his creature in this sixth verse seems to further elaborate on the overarching theme, the how of songwriting: how to fill your palette. A little St. Peter for the confessional colour, for the message; a dash of Jerome for the foundation, the blues; a few shades of nursery rhymes from the children’s corner for the melody; and present it all on a silver tray.

At least, the silver tray from the final line seems to be intended as the bearer of beauty, of a successful end product. Which certainly is the metaphorical meaning in most of the songs in Dylan’s jukebox, anyway. As in Bobby Bloom’s evergreen “Montego Bay” (how cool the rum is from his silver tray), or Brian Wilson in his cheesy gem “Christmasey” (all the goodies are stashed away / waitin’ for you on a silver tray), Springsteen’s “You’ll Be Comin’ Down” (A silver plate of pearls my golden child / It’s all yours at least for a little while), and dozens of other songs… a silver tray usually signifies something like “perfection”, “desirability”, “beauty”. The only one who escapes this, however, provides a significant portion of the content of Dylan’s cultural grab bag as well, has a prominent place on Dylan’s bookshelf: Brother Bill, William S. Burroughs, the junkie beat poet who has been popping up in Dylan’s oeuvre from time to time for more than half a century now.

Brian Wilson 

Burroughs clearly has a thing for silver trays – one or more appear in each of his books. But they never carry anything socially acceptable, and usually something illegal. “He comes back carrying the noose on a silver tray” (Naked Lunch); “The nurse was back with a hypo on a little silver tray” (Cities of the Red Night); “a tray of old knives and rings, with the silver plate flaking off” (Queer); “the nurse moved around the lawn with her silver trays feeding the junk in” (Nova Express); “a waitress carrying a skull on a tray” (Junky)… no pearl necklaces, crystal wine glasses or Christmas presents, in any case.

All of which seems far away from the implication here in Dylan’s song, the implication that a song adorns the silver platter. Still, on the other hand… the songs here on Rough And Rowdy Ways serve up pistols and knives, a hateful heart and a poisoned brain, blood and body parts, a crooked knife and death days, and that’s just a small selection of the numerous violent ingredients. On second thought, Dylan’s narrator might just be sending his creature to Brother Bill’s macabre trays indeed. After all: to be born, first you have to die.

—————-

To be continued. Next up My Own Version Of You part 15: “And Mick can write!”

 

Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:

 

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