By Tony Attwood
Editorial note: I regret to say I have had a major problem with the computers that run Untold Dylan, which means that, among other things, I am not receiving or able to send emails at the moment. I am hoping that service might be restored within the next two days, and that then I will be able to answer emails and publish articles I have missed.
In the meantime, I have found a way to write and publish another piece about Dylan’s work as a life-changing experience, and so that is what I can offer.
Previously in this series about Dylan songs that have changed my life, I wrote about
Now I am not writing about songs in the order I heard them, or in the order of the impact they made on me. It is just as I think about them and one springs to mind, in the hope that maybe if you have had a positive life-changing experience as a result of a Dylan song, my opening up this topic might help reflect further on that, and maybe even get a little more out of the experience, no matter how long ago it occurred.
Now I must admit that suggesting that for me, the song “Mississippi” has initiated a life-changing experience is really odd, since I have never been there. Indeed, I have never lived in the United States, although I have visited several times. But I have lived outside of Europe for a while, so I can relate directly to the idea and all it implies.
So the whole notion of the line about “Only one thing that I did wrong” etc is not something I can share regarding Mississippi, but I can consider the concepts within the song. First, I really have done loads of things wrong, and actually, I suspect Bob probably feels the same. Indeed, he quite probably feels there are many more things he’s done wrong – it’s just a bit of poetic liberty. So, I’ve done loads of things wrong, although in my later life, I have tried to balance the numbers up a bit by going out of my way to be more helpful and give more time to others. I’ve no idea if it has worked, but the thought is there.
But I am influenced further in terms of this song because it is one of those Dylan pieces that, although it hit me like a storm arriving out of nowhere the first time I heard it, I have relived multiple times with some of the cover versions. And by this I don’t mean I’ve heard the cover version and thought, and thought, “Wow!” but rather something far more than that. With the covers, I have found something in the song that I never knew about before.
But above all, I have long wondered why this song should have such an influence on me, a guy who is thoroughly English, but has visited the USA on a number of occasions (although never been to the Mississippi). So how can this be a life changer for a person who has never even been there – and be a life changer not just through the original but through cover versions too?
The Dixie Chicks bring a bounce to the song that is, for me, beyond the bounce and energy that Bob gives us, so that I cal readidly translate the chorus line from “stayed in Mississippi” into something so powerful that it no longer has any connection with Mississippi and places I have never visited, but it has that much larger meaning of my not always takng up every opporunity that has come my way. The thing I have done wrong is that I have enjoyed the experiences that life has given me, but not always followed them through to see where else they can lead, and in some cases, just ignored them altogether.
Of course, you don’t know me, so from your perspective, this could be just an excuse for having spent a lifetime sitting on my backside writing commentaries rather than getting up and doing things. That I do understand, so I am going to try to explain a bit further. But I want to stress this is not because I love writing about me – in fact, I don’t – but I take this up now because it does seem to me that this issue of Dylan songs changing one’s life is at the very least interesting, and quite possibly rather important. I have a few friends for whom the Bible has changed their lives. I know that for me, writing books and then having the very occasional note from a reader saying how much impact the book had on her/him has been a life-changing moment. So how could this song change me?
One of the prime factors here is actually not the lyrics, but the music.
The song consists of three long verses, and each verse opens with a four-line section which musically is repeated. In verse one that section starts, “Every step of the way we walk the line” and the musical repeat starts “City’s just a jungle, more games to play”
Now those eight lines are almost entirely based around one chord – the only variation comes with an extra chord right at the end of the fourth line (for example, with “nowhere to escape).
So we have eight lines which are basically directing us toward the melody and the lyrics, until suddenly everything changes. Musically, the song changes from the tonic chord (the key chord) and we can feel the build-up – but not in the melody, but in the whole accompaniment. The line and a half that reads
Got nothing for you, I had nothing before Don’t even have anything
builds and builds and builds until we hit “for myself anymore.”
Now this is one of those lines that is so easy to miss in terms of its impact, perhaps because the melody and musical arrangement are so brilliant. But the fact is that by taking “for myself anmore,” Bob is pointing out how much he has done for everyone else, that he’s got nothing left. That is of course, the artist’s dilemma. He puts himself into his work, and the audience takes it away. What is left at the end of the show, or once the record is made?
Now I don’t know anything about Bob’s inner personality – I don’t know if he is a self-centred man, or a man who is always giving to others, but I have concluded at this late point in my life that the decision I took to try and do more tot balance those two attributes – what we do for others and what we do to look after ourselves – was a good thing to do.
So I am delighted to hear Bob say that in a song – but more than that, musically he puts this enormous impact on “for myself anymore”. He has given himself to us, and what have we done in return? We have cheered and shouted and listened, of course that is true. But we have also demanded more. Plus, there are other people around who have criticised, criticised and criticised, as if they are somehow the people who know more about songwriting than Bob does.
And that line brings home to me that point. What must it be like to have people who endlessly criticise your work, when others are saying “you ar the best ever”? People who have never written a song telling Bob that he’s off form with this album, or that one particular song shouldn’t be on the album.
Now I think Bob captures that issue in the lines
Sky full of fire, pain pourin’ down Nothing you can sell me, I’ll see you around
Through this interpretation of the song, Bob is not actually talking about Mississippi, but about the whole notion of trying to please the audience. He is saying, “I am doing it my way”, and in fact, with that final couplet, he should have left these nay-sayers behind years ago….
Only one thing I did wrong Stayed in Mississippi a day too long
Now I could go on and on through this song, pointing out one brilliant line after another, but this little series of mine is about the way some Dylan songs have given me a life-changing experience, and now I am getting to my central point. The line…
Some people will offer you their hand and some won't
OK, there are many, many other lines in this song that are remarkable and memorable, but none that, for me, have been utterly life-changing. It is not the only one, but if I have to pick a line, that is it. A nd not just for the lyrics, but I beg you either to play it to yourself in your head, if you can do that, or if not, get the CD or record or internet recording out and play that line.
It builds up and up and up and takes us up to “Last night I knew you, tonight I don’t”. And that is it. That is the couplet that has really been with me ever since I first heard it. It doesn’t say either of us is superior to the othere – but that we are all moving all of the time.
I don’t want to make too much of these pieces about the Dylan songs that have influenced me, to be about me; I want to write about Dylan. But I am going to have to deviate from that wish here, just to explain.
I perceive myself as a fairly friendly, nice guy who stands by his friends and helps them when they are in need. Of course, I might be fooling myself, and maybe if you ever found some of my friends or maybe ex-friends, they will tell you exactly the opposite. But that is how I see myself, and I feel I have on occasion been let down quite badly by just a few of these friends.
Now I am getting old, not as old as Bob but still quite old, and so the chance of any of these ex-friends reading this is virtually zero, either because they have passed away or because the last thing in the world they would waste their time doing is reading something written by me. But as I reflect on my past, I do feel that occasionally a friend I have gone out of my way to help, has then passed me by and not wanted to know me some years later when we have met again.
And in that one line, “Some people will offer you their hand and some won’t, last night I knew you tonight I don’t” Bob has said to me, “it’s not just you that happens to. Some people just take and then walk away, with no thought of being there with you at a later date.
It took me years to learn that this is true. I really hope it hasn’t stopped me offering my hand to friends when I can. Instead, it has stopped me from being disappointed when maybe I don’t get any thanks afterwards, or they do not have time for me, later.
I also love
All my powers of expression and thoughts so sublimeCould never do you justice in reason or rhyme
which stopped me writing love songs about the wome I have loved. But the real knockout line for me – the lines I have carried with me ever since I first heard the song and just kept playing it over and over again – the line that made me want to include this song in this little series is
Some people will offer you their hand and some won't
And that really is the story of my life, although until Bob sang it I couldn’t see it. For many years, I knew myself as an only child – it was only a couple of years ago I got an email from a guy I didn’t know who wrote and said, “I’m your brother”, and so it turned out to be. I had no idea I had a brother, I was utterly shocked, but ever since we have got to know each other and got on very well. And it made me realise jusst how alone I had been before we met.
And so finally we get to the resolution, as in “Things should start to get interesting right about now” and of course “I know that fortune is waitin’ to be kind.”
How very, very true. Even at an advanced age, those linese contain everything I need.
Thank you Bob. I would probably have made this strange journey that has been my life without you, but I am sure it would have taken longer.
After all, some people will offer you their hand and some won’t.