By Tony Attwood
I was writing recently about Bob’s fascination with gambling in his early songs, and took time to have another listen – my first in quite a while – to Rambling Gambling Willie. Which in turn reminded of “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers, which deserves a return to the site, I think. It’s not Dylan, but that’s what one gets from exploring Dylan – the songs lead elsewhere.
But this in turn led me on to something quite different – a recollection of an article from Rolling Stone titled “The 25 Best Bob Dylan Songs of the 21st Century”
Now of course, everyone and his/her dog has a bash at listing Dylan’s best songs of this or that era, and then we find someone else’s list of the best, and maybe we change our minds or maybe think that the writer doesn’t have a clue what he/she is talking about.
And yes, that’s me too. Although at least I have this thing about finding Dylan songs that other people are not likely to include. And it was because I was thinking about an article I did a little while ago about Dylan’s gambling songs that I came to this song below.
I know it is not a gambling song about money, but it is about taking a gamble in life. And the point about this song is that a number of my friends who are Dylan fans like myself have somehow missed this song, which to my ear is an utterly perfect piece of music and encompasses the whole point of using life as a way of exploring, taking chances, taking risks, and indeed not simply sitting at home and being comfortable. And that’s not just me, it turned up as number 11 in Rolling Stone’s best Dylan songs of the 21st century. I think I might be inclined to put even higher if I were building such a list.
They, incidentally, had “Things Have Changed” as their top song, which I guess I would have included in my top 20 for the century, but not at number one. But of course, everyone has his or her own opinion.
And I thought of this song because, although it is not an outright gambling song as some of Bob’s earlier pieces were, it is about taking a gamble in life – a gamble on one person being the right one for now and forever. If you would like to know more about the gambling side of things, there is this website sportsbooks in NJ which can take you further.
Now, I find Huck’s Tune utterly enchanting. As far as I can tell, and you can correct me of course, it was written by the 2007 movie “Lucky You” which was a movie that had (I believe) very limited success.
But that doesn’t seem to matter at all with this song because, again, to me at least, it stands alone and is one of those Dylan songs that just occasionally comes back to me and demands to be played, either by running the recording or, in my case, through me playing it on the piano (as an instrumental I hasten to add, my singing voice went years ago).
And that is what is so wonderful about this piece of music – one can play it on the piano as a solo piece, and it is the sort of song people on hearing it can be inclined to ask, “What’s that?” It is simply one of Bob’s most sublime pieces of music – and that is before we even start to consider the lyrics. And indeed, thinking of gamblin,g that is what Bob did here – he ventured out and created a song quite unlike anything else he had written.
Musically, it is based around the three major chords that can be found in any key – Bob is in C major so the chords are C, F, and G – and I do think it is important to pause when listening to this song and remember that. Bob gets such elegance and feeling out of playing just the three major chords.
Of course, what he does is have fascinating lyrics (obviously – it’s Dylan) but also more unusually for Bob, a melody that reaches notes that we would not normally associate with the chords. So, for example, the phrase “Future Wife” is not G and C major as we might expect through casual listening, but G11 to C. And thanks yet again to Dylanchords for resolving that for me.
But there are also these lyrics – it begins,
Well I wandered alone, through a desert of stone And I dreamt of my future wife My sword’s in my hand, and I’m next in command In this version of death called life My plate and my cup, are right straight up I took a rose from the hand of a child When I kiss your lips, the honey drips But I’m gonna have to put you down for a while
Now those of us who care about Bob’s lyrics are not helped by the way they are written out on the official site, where the first line, as I have it above, is broken into two lines. And of course they should know, since presumably they get the manuscript straight from Bob, but this is not how it works as we hear it. What we hear is an internal rhyme, not two separate lines – and I think that makes a difference.
And there is an extraordinary enigma in this song. What are we to make of
Here come the nurse, With money in her purse Here come the ladies and men You push it all in, And you’ve no chance to win You play ’em on down to the end
It is, of course, possible to be dismissive of the lyrics, but that is often the case with Bob, and one really does need to listen to the song and take the whole thing in. And maybe if you, like me, are of what I might politely call the “older generation” who have grown up and lived life with Bob, then maybe you’ll be moved by these final lines.
The game’s gotten old The deck’s gone cold I’m gonna have to put you down for a while
And if not, well, at least be moved by the music. It’s beautiful.