The Philosophy of Modern Song: “Big River” and the question of rhymes

Posted on April 16, 2026 by Tony Attwood

 

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By Tony Attwood

“Big River” is one of two songs in Bob Dylan’s collection within the Philosophy of Modern Song,  by Johnny Cash- the other being “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town”.

“Big River” was, in fact, both written and recorded by Johnny Cash, and so I guess Bob, in including this song in his collection, was considering both Cash’s ability as a performer and as a songwriter.  And that thought led me to think much more carefully than I might otherwise have done, about these lyrics of this song.  These begin….

Now I taught the weeping willow how to cryAnd I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky

Those really are quite remarkable opening lines – perhaps not lines that we might consider Bob would have written, but nevertheless exceptional lines for a song in any of the popular music traditions.   Has anyone else written opening lines to a popular song that are like that?  If so, please do write in and tell me, as I’d like to hear the song.

The one thing that I find slightly odd about them, however (and as ever this is just my response, I am not trying to give an absolute judgement on the piece), is that there is no connection that I can feel between the bouncy, upbeat, lively music and those sorrowful, sad lines

And indeed the lyrics do carry on in this same vein …

And the tears that I cried for thatWoman are gonna flood you, Big RiverAnd I'm gonna sit right here until I die

Of course, the music, as is the case in virtually all popular songs, continues in the same way as it started.  And indeed in this regard, the composer has little choice.  This track was released in 1958, which means it came out as a ten-inch, 78rpm disc, and that gave it a maximum length of three minutes.  The recordings could be longer, but to achieve greater length, there was a cost in terms of two negative effects.

First, DJs on the radio didn’t like playing songs that lasted much more than two and a half minutes, and second, in order to get beyond three minutes, the volume of the recording had to be reduced a little.   So the notion arose that pop songs in the days of 78rpm discs lasted mostly between two and two and a half minutes.   They could be longer but DHs and their producers in the US worried that their audience might get bored and switch to another station.

In fact, now I come to listen to it, this song is actually on the short side in terms of the songs of that time – around two minutes 10 seconds – which is interesting (for me if no one else) given that Bob is known as a composer who extended the length of contemporary songs beyond anything we had previously come across.   Yet Dylan’s work grew out of a popular tradition of short songs – let us not forget that “Hound Dog” by Elvis Presley, for example, was around 2 minutes 13 seconds.

But more than anything else, I come back to the clash between the music and the lyrics on the one hand, and the fact that the lyrics really are unusual and interesting, on the other.  By which I mean that having written such interesting lyrics, surely Mr Cash could have written a melody that was more appropriate to such lyrics.  Or, seeing it all the other way around,  having written the melody and accompaniment we now have, could he not have written a less sorrowful set of lyrics?

That, of course, is just my own thinking, but as I try to get out of that line of thought, I wonder why Bob liked this so much.   Was it the music, or was it the imagery of the lyrics, or indeed was it the fact that one could write such sad lyrics with such an upbeat, fun musical accompaniment?  Or was it the point that the music and lyrics in popular music do not have to have any link?

(Diverting from the theme of this article for a moment, I would add that this is something I have often considered concerning Dylan.   If I think for a moment of the opening instrumental accompaniment of “Desolation Row” as if I have never heard it before, and then hear that opening line, “They’re selling postcards of the hanging…”   How can that line work with that music?  And of course we find the answer within the contrast that song has at its heart – we are in hell, but we are pretending we’re doing fine.)

And there is more (if you are still with me), for there is a curious variation in the rhyming scheme, and I wonder if it was here that Bob realised just how far he too could deviate from the traditional rhyme scheme in songs, without anyone worrying about it.

Then you took me to St. Louis later on, down the riverA freighter said, "She's been here, but she's gone, boys, she's gone"I found her trail in Memphis, but she just walked up the blockShe raised a few eyebrows and then she went on down alone

Of course, being English, I speak with an English accent, and maybe there are parts of the United States where “gone” does rhyme with “alone”.  If so, my apologies because I have not heard such an accent, and when I listen to this song, I do hear that verse as a verse without rhyme.

But as we know, Bob would himself often stretch rhymes quite considerably, and indeed he took the whole issue of rhymes within songs to new limits – as I have tried to explore in the past.   And I just wonder if it wasn’t the influence of this verse in “Big River” that edged Bob a little further along that exploratory route.   After all, no one has actually said that songs have to have lines that rhyme.

Previously in this series

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