By Tony Attwood
Recently in this series….
- Restless Farewell
- Long and Wasted Years
- Mississippi
- Foot of Pride
- Things have changed
- Angelina
- Visions of Johanna
- Drifters’ Escape
- Tangled up in blue
- Idiot Wind
The point of this series is that a small number of Dylan songs have had an influence on me which goes far beyond them being a song I really like, a song which I might play on the piano or guitar, a song which turns up on my collection of favourite songs…. Rather this series comes out of the idea that a few songs have actually meant something to me such that even if I have not changed my attitude as a result of the song, I have at least reconsidered a fundamental point in relation to how I see the world.
And to make a further point, I am not sure there are many other artists who have ever done that to me via their art, be it a painting, a novel, a play… I may have enjoyed the work enormously, and maybe it has made me think. But that list of ten songs linked to at the top of the page, have offered me something more than that.
Of course ten is a nice round number, but for me life rarely works like that, and I must admit that I did feel a bit uneasy when I first created the sketch for this set of articles and found I had eleven such songs – because I knew I particularly wanted to include Dark Eyes.
But then of course I realised; there is a 21st century song of Bob’s that I have been raving over since it first got released, much to most people’s bemusement. The question was, though, did it change my life? And ultimately the answer is “yes”. Just as the message of “Dark Eyes” reminded me that although my good friends and I could recognise that we are in a world in which most of the people we know see the world around us as made up of so many people who are lost, there was one more message from Bob which has ever since day one of hearing it given me joy.
And that joy comes from a single simple line. A line that sweeps aside all the sadness and negativity of “Dark Eyes” and leaves me thinking, even this late in my life (still just those few years behind Bob himself), I still know that anything is worth a try. Even setting up and running a daily blog on Bob Dylan, when hundreds of thousands of other people have done the same. (OK maybe not quite that number, but still quite a few).
“Dark Eyes” 1995
But there is still one other song – a song I endlessly write about and talk about and even play to friends which should be “out there” but never is. Bob has recorded it in several ways but none have made it.
And then having done that Bob changed it totally it totally, but it rests only on Bootleg 8 and is not played in public.
Musically it is just based on the standard three chords, and jogs us along through a merry tune. So why is it so special to me?
It is a song about things coming to an end, and writing this at the grand old age of 79, having first picked up on Bob’s work aged maybe 16, it seems appropriate to have a song across the ages. But certainly, looking at the world stage from an Englishman’s point of view, the line “The tempest struggles in the air” really doese seem to ring true. I am not sure I have previously lived through such as world as that we have now.
But besides that there are so many lines that ring true to me. Take “Remember me, you’ll understand / Emotions we can never share” as I think of all my friends who have never understood my tastes in music and literature, or what I have written, but have always been my best, dear friends, always there for me, no matter what crazy idea I have just come up with.
So I’m not in a nameless place, I am not totally on my own but I have had occasional friends who have “trampled on me” as they passed by – (although only a few). And indeed I find myself today in a most curious place. I live in a small village which dates back to before the Domesday Book, so is, or is at least 1000 years old. And this week a friend from whom I have not heard for many, many, many years dropped me a note to ask if I was the Tony Attwood who wrote about Dylan and wrote … well I won’t bore you with that … and if so she and I were friends many, many years ago, and she now lives in this same hamlet as I do. In fact in the same street!
And it is all fine as she “didn’t trample on me”, at least not as far as I can remember. I hope we might be meeting up in a few days It is certainly many, many years since we last met (25 maybe?).
But to get back to “songs as a life-changing experience,” I saw my friend’s note and immediately thought of this song which speaks to me of the travails of life, and how we need to just keep on keeping on doing our best to make it all ok. No matter what happens.
So in Tell ol Bill, I have remembered…
I tried to find one smiling faceTo drive the shadow from my headI'm stranded in this nameless placeLying restless in a heavy bed
and yes somhow I have come out the other side, and amazingly there’s an old friend from years gone by who has put a card through my door.
So I do reflect now that I am no longer “stranded in this nameless place”. But instead I heard that penultimate verse…
Tell ol' Bill when he comes homeAnything is worth a try
and out of this long and complicated song that seems so contradictory in terms of whether the singer did actually get out of his torment or not, I happily take the message that although I had some bad days in the past, they are gone, I am in this beautiful village that dates back over 1000 years and I am enjoying life.
Of course not everything is perfect – far from it. As with so many people who have the fortune to reach their 80th year my I find my memory is playing tricks and what was said to me five minutes ago I often can’t remember, but still, no existence at the end of one’s life is going to be perfect and this life that I have got is turning out quite a bit better than many others I have noticed as I have passed by.
And maybe my friend from years ago will just leave a passing kiss upon my brow (at my age any kiss is worth hanging around for), but also maybe she’ll remember times past in a more positive way.
So yes, I have always cherished this song which most others have passed by, and enjoyed every aspect of its performance: music and lyrics. Why it was never on an album I have no idea. So I add, knowing of course that my re-interpretation of the lyrics for my own purpsoes has nothing to do with Bob’s original meaning, this as my last life changing song…
All the world I would defyLet me make it plain as dayI look at you now and I sighHow could it be any other way?
I have elsewhere traced the history of Dylan’s song from a variety of sources, and I have noted the misty, removed feeling in the lyrics, which I find particularly interesting as I am about to meet a friend not seen on known for I don’t know how many years.
And crazy though it sounds, and hopeless though I must now appear to many, I find this song to be a helpful, useful companion at moments like this. I don’t go around saying “Anything is worth a try”, (not at my age!) but I try and open myself to possibilities and options, while I find others around me more inclined to be saying at moments like this, “No, I didn’t really want to know.” I still do. I always want to know and want to try.
For me, “Anything is worth a try,” is the order of the day. Being now in my late 70s having entered my 80th year, I have had a number of occasions where I have reached out to old friends from decades ago, or they have reached out to me, and I have found it fascinating as You trampled on me as you passed, Left the coldest kiss upon my brow, All my doubts and fears have gone at last, I’ve nothing more to tell you now.
Maybe the enemy is at the gate but still, I can think
Tell Ol’ Bill when he comes home, Anything is worth a try,
A composite piece taken from many different sources and inspirations, but most certainly but also, an utter masterpiece.
If you have been reading this series, thank you. I hope you too found something in the notion that a Bob Dylan can be a life changing experience.
All the world I would defyLet me make it plain as dayI look at you now and I sighHow could it be any other way?
Tony