Recent pieces
- Can a Bob Dylan song be a life-changing experience? Visions of Johanna
- Jan’s Take 5: Ballad Of Hollis Brown
By Tony Attwood
Ten years ago I wrote a piece about “Yonder Comes Sin” and raved about its excitement and elegance. I also played the recording time and again, when picking my song for 1980 had no doubt “Yonder Comes Sin” was the one. But then….
But then, I went to do my usual check, making sure that the old memory wasn’t playing tricks, and would you know, “Yonder Comes Sin” is NOT listed on the official Dylan site. And that is odd because the copy I cited before is still there.
Now, this matters a bit to me, since this was one of the Dylan songs I raved over when working through the review of every song that we could find that Dylan had written and recorded, so to lose it from the official site was a bit of a surprise.
Of course, taking the shortcut I tried AI and it was confirmed as a Dylan song, with AI telling me “He composed the song in 1980 during his “Born Again” gospel era, and it was later officially released on his 2017 archival album, Trouble No More: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 13..”
So that makes it look like an error on the official BobDylan.com website. (Do they get Bob to write a word of thanks when such a mistake is pointed out, I wonder?) Still even if not, if they bother to read this site, they’ll see my point, for I have searched diligently across the site and there is no sign of “Yonder.” But as ever, if you can show me to be wrong, please do write in, and I can be more definitive. However, for the moment, we can say, not for the first time, that BobDylan.com is not 100%. Unless… unless of course Bob didn’t write it. But no, that’s silly.
So to go back to the song, I have mentioned on this site, that I do not share Bob’s view of religion that emerged at this time, not in any way because I am trying to prove anyone wrong, but simply to help explain where I come from when considering songs with a religious base.
For, as an atheist, I can still do much more than just appreciate and enjoy this song. In short, I utterly love it and have played the recording many, many times, as well as devised my own (rather unsatisfactory) arrangement for voice and piano.
It is, in short, one of those songs that one can perform or listen to, without giving the lyrics a literal meaning in relation to the religious concept of “sin”. For mostly it is the music that drives this piece along.
But if one bothers to delve a bit further, there is something very different about this song, because each verse is made up of two sections. The second section, which begins “Yonder comes sin” sounds like it is going to be a chorus, meaning it will be the same each and every time it is performed, but it isn’t.
If I may take up a moment of your time, let me spell this out, because I know that one or two of my friends have enjoyed the song without fully appreciating the very unusual construction, this is how it goes…
This pattern of mixing blues notes and blues chords with a song in a major key and a bouncy non-blues melody does generate a really interseting sound, and that sound fits exactly with lyrics such as “You see this woman standin’ next to me, She’s foreign to your sight, Well, hеr eyes may be a diffеrent colour than mine, But her blood is red and her bones are white.”
In short, in a very clever and entertaining way, Bob is able to mix the questions of contrast both in the music and the lyrics. Indeed, as I have noted before on this site, Bob gives us a rock beat and a blues feel within the same song. Not many songwriters manage to get away with that so successfully.
But then what really stands out is what he does in the chorus – a mixture of the reflection we get from the title line, repeated almost as if it is inevitable, a sort of “here it comes again” feel to “Yonder comes sin,” followed by the quite unexpected chorus line which on the official Dylan site (and thus presumably on his script of the lyrics) is in parenthsis.
Yonder comes sin (Ready and steady, willing and able) Yonder comes sin (Standin' on the chair, standin' on the table) Look at your feet, see where they've been to Look at your hands, see what they've been into Can't you take it on the chin?
This is so unusual for Dylan (in fact, without looking through his list of 550 or so songs, I think it might be unique), and it works so well, one is left wondering a) why he didn’t release it, and b) why he didn’t perform it.
OK, in terms of performance, it probably won’t work without a female chorus, and maybe Bob felt that was the only song with a chorus line in it that he wanted to perform. Which is why it never got performed.
But not having this performed also means we lost what some years ago I described as the “delicious kick in the end of the verse with the way that Dylan takes down the vocalisation of “Yonder comes sin”.” Rather than give power and force to the final line, Bob takes it back. He doesn’t need to shout it out because sin is always there.
But maybe there is a problem with making a song about sin into a song full of fun. I’m not a Christian, so I can’t really appreciate that point, but certainly the song is quite different in its feel from the other pieces he wrote around this time, such as Property of Jesus, Every Grain of Sand, and Caribbean Wind.
Who knows what was in Bob’s head, but even though the song did not get played in concert or even listed on the official website, we can at least be grateful that he wrote it.
Maybe, just maybe (and this of course, is a total wild guess here) Bob just felt he was making sin sound like too much fun. Maybe having written the much more sombre “When He Returns” Bob felt he was making sin sound like a good option, and the return of the Lord was sounding to mournful.
Of course, I don’t know, and as an atheist, I can only respond to these wonderful pieces as works of art which I adore and have listened to all these years after their creation simply for what they are: songs that make me feel good. And maybe that was not the idea at all.
Anyway, I am sure you have more than enough of my ramblings, but just in case you want something more, there is another article on “Yonder” which was published a couple of years back, in the lyrics and the music series, which you might find helps pass a few spare minues. It’s here.
The previous articles in this series on my nominations for “song of the year” are below.
- 1961. I was young when I left home
- 1962: Tomorrow is a long time
- 1963: Seven Curses
- 1964: Gates of Eden
- 1965: Visions of Johnanna
- 1966: One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
- 1967 part 1: “Drifter’s Escape”
- 1967 part 2: I’m not there
- 1968: Bob stops but even so (Lay Lady Lay)
- 1969: I’ll have you any time
- 1970: Time passes slowly
- 1971: When I paint my Masterpiece, and Watching the River Flow
- 1972, Forever Young – preparing to open a minor door
- 1973: Amarillo and a back-up just in case.
- 1974: Idiot Wind
- 1975: Isis
- 1977: Journey through the dark heat
- 1978/9: When He Returns