Hallelujah: Bob Dylan’s most un-Dylan like song

By Larry Fyffe and Tony Attwood

To be clear, in this article we are talking here primarily about the Dylan composition, “Hallelujah” not the Leonard Cohen song, which Dylan performed on a couple of occasions.  The official Dylan site only refers to the Cohen song, which isn’t very helpful. They don’t seem to realise there was a Dylan composition of the same name.

https://youtu.be/B6IoRNRahqo

So the Hallelujah that we are referring to, the 1981 outtake, is one of a collection from that year which include Dylan compositions and the work of others.  Here’s the list

Wind Blowing On The Water
Is It Worth It?
Magic 
Ah Ah Ah Ah (High Away) 
Borrowed Time

If Dylan songs have anything in common it is that they have a clear structure.  Not always the same structure (by which I mean it isn’t always verse-verse-verse, or verse / chorus / verse chorus or any other variations), but still a structure – a structure of the sections of the song, and a structure within each section.

But listening to Hallelujah it is rather difficult to work out what is going on.  Of course there is a structure, but it just doesn’t come across immediately not least because the melody and the bass part seem to have completely separate lives of their own with Bob performing a meandering melody line against an active bass line.

Yet this is clearly a well thought through and rehearsed piece but it doesn’t seem to be anything like finished. Where, after all, are the rest of the words? Surely with such an intricate musical line such as the one we have here, Bob would have composed more lyrics.

A guess as to how this composition evolved would be that the bass player one day came in with that line, Bob liked it, and started to evolve the melody around it. But the complexities of the piece mean that this clearly was not done as the recording was running. Everyone here knows exactly what is going on – and what is going on is not normal for Dylan.

But what of the words?   They are not clear but fortunately one of us (and it is not Tony) has an ear for these things…

Park it in your drive, in your door
Birds in the meadow
I've been here before
It's a long day
From South Bend to your manor
Lost your way
Below
(Hallelujah, hallelujah .....)

Save me if you find it in your will
Well, I wish, wish you well
These feathers are by your side, me yea
(Hallelujah, hallelujah .....)

They've seen your feathers, and your will
Tie your banner on you well
'Cause I want you
And I couldn't wail
Stick the feather there
Hallelujah, hallelujah ....)

And having got that far it is possible to say that the song is most likely to have been inspired by:

So oft have I invoked thee for my muse
And found such fair assistance in my verse ....
Have added feathers to the learned's wing
And given grace a double majesty

(William Shakespeare: Sonnet LXXVIII)

It is the “feathers” that points to the particular sonnet, and “Will” that points to the author.

The British made fun of the American rebels for trying to imitate overly-pompous European fashion known as ‘macaroni’ as in…

Yankee Doodle went to town a-riding on a pony
Stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni

(Yankee Doodle)

So Dylan could be making fun of himself for trying to imitate Shakespeare – ie, by writing a piece of macaroni….as the Bard might himself be doing.

But it is also most likely that this song was abandoned when it was far from finished, so also very likely that there were to have been more clues as to what was going on, if Dylan had actually finished the job.

Anyway, if you have been reading, you have just read what we think is the world’s first ever review of this Dylan song. And if you have been, thank you for reading.

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