No Nobel Prize for Music: Sooner or Later the committee will realise its error

 

By Tony Attwood

Prelude: this is an article about “Sooner or Later” which I consider to be one of Bob’s utter masterpieces, but the article includes within it a diversion into “Sad Eyed Lady”.  I’ve included the diversion because “Sad Eyed” is clearly an important Dylan composition, but if you feel you’ve had enough of it, I would urge you, if I may, to pick up on “Sooner or Later” for which the discussion starts again with “So Bob has ventured into the extremes”.

Here’s the article…

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In 1965, Bob Dylan wrote 29 songs.   You probably have your own personal nominations for what were the utter works of genius from that year, mine include a song of farewell, a song of disdain, and two songs considering how we see the world…  They are…

• It’s all over now baby blue
• Like a Rolling Stone
• Desolation Row
• Visions of Johanna

Those songs are, to my mind, so extraordinarily brilliant both in terms of music and lyrics, that they would be enough for other composers to have composed in an entire lifetime and hence be remembered just for those songs.  Dylan wrote them in one year, along with 25 other songs.

But then of course, he faced the question, what on earth could he do to follow up on that?  The answer was One of us must know (Sooner or Later).

This is how it sounded in 1997.

Which is a fair bit different from the original recording

To my mind, in 1966 Bob produced a whole stream of excellent songs, but only one of those approached the extraordinary standards of 1965, and that was this one: “One of us must know”.  You, of course, may disagree, but for me the standards of those four compositions from 1965 are just so far beyond belief I both can’t imagine others getting anywhere close, and can’t imagine how Bob could have considered how to take his writing forward.

But Bob did continue and he produced 22 songs, many of which found their way onto albums.   And the subjects within the lyrics were most varied, but to me, somehow Bob seemed to find variations of real merit in the music a little more difficult.

Yet musically, “One of us must know,” did something rather unusual for a Dylan song, for it contained a chorus.   Which is to say a set of music and lyrics that was repeated identically after each verse.

But, sooner or later, one of us must know
You just did what you’re supposed to do
Sooner or later, one of us must know
That I really did try to get close to you

Choruses have not been a centrepiece of Dylan’s work, although they do occur from time to time.  Perhaps from this period, the chorus that everyone remembers is that from “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” which is unusual in that it consists of 10 bars of music.

But “Sad Eyed Lady” which was composed a short while before “Sooner of Later” has within it another musical secret that goes far beyond the issue of having a chorus.

The first thing we notice is that the underlying beat is running 1-2-3, 1-2-3, and we get eight of these 1-2-3 pulses to each line.  So in line one we get three beats on “mer”, three on “cury”, three on “mouth” and three on “in the”.

Now of course, we don’t hear it like this because no instrument is playing the 123 beats like this, but this is the pulse that runs beneath the music.    The pulse we hear is the beginning of each group of three grouped into groups of four.   So for the first line we hear  “mer”, “mouth” “miss” and “times” as the emphasised words while the three beat below pass into the subconscious (except for the minds of tedious musicians who like to know what lies beneath).

The beats we perceive are on “mer” “cury” “mouth” “in” “miss” “ary” “times” and a final beat leading into “and your” as the start of the next line..

So effectively one can hear this is eight groups of three beats (thus two groups of three beat on “mer-cury” another group of three on “mouth” and again on “in the”) or ignore the underlying 1-2-3 pulse and hear four beats on “mer”, “cury”, “mouth” and “in the”.

This implied triple beat has a very important effect in the song because it stops the implied two strong beats and two light beats in each bar from becoming tedious.  Quite simply we feel there is something happening beneath plodding emphasis on the four beats which otherewise might become much more noticeable.

With your / mercury mouth in the  missionary times

Also the underlying three-beat pulse, which is never made explicit gives a sense of something else happening which lies just below the surface although no instrument is actually playing the three beats – they are just implied.

What’s more the 1-2-3 pulse disappears when we get to the chorus and the emphasis on the four beats in a bar is all that we have

1   2    3    4       1  2  3 4
Sad eyed lady of the lowland

This then is revolutionary stuff for Dylan and by and large for pop or rock music.  And that perhaps along with the length of the song (at over 11 minutes) means that it has never been performed in public by Bob.   But we can still pause, even without a live recording we can note that in this song, if we count the phrases such as “With your mercury mouth in the missionary times” as 2 bars of music, we actually have a verse of 26 bars – which I have never come across in any other song.

1. With your mercury mouth in the missionary times (2 bars)
2. And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes (2 bars)
3. And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes (2 bars)
4. Oh, who among them do they think could bury you? (2 bars)
5. With your pockets well protected at last (2 bars)
6. And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass (2 bars)
7. And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass (2 bars)
8. Who among them do they think could carry you? (2 bars)
9. Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands (2 bars)
10. Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes (2 bars)
11. My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums (2 bars)
12. Should I leave them by your gate (2 bars)
13. Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait? (2 bars)

It is a structure that removes from the casual listener any sense of where we actually are in the progress of the song.  Each two bars feels complete, but there is no structure in the sense that we know where we are at the other extreme of rock music – the classic 12 bar blues – which, despite its name in most upbeat blues songs, becomes a 24 bar song.   (Think of Tutti Fruiti as a perfect example – the title line is in fact two bars of music).

But to return to Dylan, “Sad Eyed Lady” is never performed, probably because it has an unusual musical structure and is approaching 11 and a half minutes long.

Immediately after that Bob wrote (in order) Tell Me Momma (which is a sort of farewell to folk music song of moving on).  Next Fourth Time Around (another song of moving on) is a straight 12-bar blues, complete with the first line of the song being repeated against the fourth chord (IV) in the traditional style.  Indeed in terms of pop, rock and blues, you can’t get more traditional musically than Leopard skin pill-box hat

So Bob ventured into the extremes of “Sad Eyed Lady,” then came back to the everyday format of the 12 bar blues, before moving on once more with One of us must know (another song of lost love).

And in many regards, for any listener who is expecting Bob to deliver songs that take us into territory unknown, this is certainly it.

Having a chorus in the song is not unique for Dylan, but it is not that common; more to the point, having a chorus that is this strong both in lyrics and music is unusual.  As is the flow of the chords throughout the song.

But if we want something that really is unexpected, it is that held note at the end of the verse.   And this is exactly what the music needs when we consider that the third and final verse with the words ” do you any harm” on the album recording Bob changes the melody and holds “harm” on a different note from that used in the previous words.

Then, if we listen to those final sung lines, Bob seems to be expressing all his frustration and indeed even anger on what quite possibly is not a note that he meant to sing!

And then, even more extraordinarily, there is a fade out.   I don’t know how many fade out Bob has used in his songs but I don’t think it has been many, and if I was forced to place a bet I’d say something went wrong at the very end of this recording (with him singing the wrong note), but Bob felt he had delivered everything he could, so the fade out was impposed, and the wrongly sung notes at the end of the final verse are kept.

But now if you are still with me, listen to this version; now we have what can only be called a bounce – indeed, it is a song one can dance in a modern jive form to this.   The final note of the third verse is sung at the pitch it should be sung at, and the whole thing is fun.  (And yes, I have danced to it, and it really is fun, although perhaps I should say, probably just for those of us who did it; we really had a whale of a time).

The bitterness and regret have gone – now this is a song saying “well, yes, that’s what happened, and you know, that’s how it goes.”

So it is a song that is in keeping the same lyrics and melody (except for the mistake at the end of the LP recording) but can be utterly transformed by the beat.

Bob, I think, used the chorus here to great effect because the whole point of the song is that the “one of us must know” concept hasn’t come yet – it will come.  Thus, the need to repeat the chorus – to emphasise that the chorus is the future (thus can be repeated) while the verse is the past (over and done no need to repeat).

Sad though the song is, and presumably these are real memories that Bob is singing about, I am so pleased that he could face the song and play it in public, although far fewer times than many of his other songs.

There are available on the internet a number of other recordings of the song from the Tour but the quality is often rather modest, and that is a tragedy for such a wonderful song.

So I will leave you with what I consider the best of the covers.    And if you don’t know this version, I would urge you to find time to listen to the whole song with no interruptions or extraneous sound.   Just let it ride over you, and should you ever wish to, reflect on your life and where it goes now.    (Of course, that is just me reflecting on what this song means to me.  How you take it, as always, is obviously up to you.)

Is it one of Dylan’s greatest ever compositions?  For me yes, although I know I am in a minority.

 

• 1: We might have noted the musical innovations more
• 2: From Hattie Carroll to the incoming ship
• 3: From Times to Percy’s song
• 4: Combining musical traditions in unique ways
• 5: Using music to take us to a world of hope
• 6: Chimes of Freedom and Tambourine Man
• 7: Bending the form to its very limits
• 8: From Denise to Mama
• 9: Balled in Plain D
• 10: Black Crow to All I really want to do
• 11: I’ll keep it with mine
• 12: Dylan does gothic and the world ends
• 13: The Gates of Eden
• 14: After the Revolution – another revolution
• 15: Returning to the roots (but with new chords)
• 16. From “It’s all right” to “Angelina”. What happened?
• 17: How strophic became something new: Love is just a four letter word
• 18: Bob reaches the subterranean
• 19: The conundrum of the song that gets worse
• 20: Add one chord, keep it simple, sing of love
• 21: It’s over. Start anew. It’s the end.
• 22: Desolation Row: perhaps the most amazing piece of popular music ever written
• 23: Can you please crawl out your window
• 24: Positively Fourth Street
• 25: Where the lyrics find new lands, keep the music simple
• 26:  Tom Thumb’s journey. It wasn’t that bad was it?
• 27: From Queen Jane to the Thin Man
• 28: The song that revolutionised what popular music could do
• 29: Taking the music to completely new territory