Jolene: the real meaning and the music in Dylan’s song (and making fun of Clinton Heylin)

Thanks for this precious link, which I’ve never come across before. BTW: “Rolene” (like “Cadillac Walk”) was originally written and recorded by the great Moon Martin.
Cheers, Martin

One is able to observe Dylan’s effective use of both the red herring and the smoke screen by taking a close look at the song “Jolene” from his 2009 album Together Through Life as well as his most recent interview with Rolling Stone.

“Jolene” is a song that Dylan clearly favors, as he has performed it well over one hundred times. It has not fared so well critically. Here’s Sean Wilentz on the song in his book Bob Dylan in America:
Once more the simplest of the songs can contain layers that approach allusion, but only just. In her 1974 hit “Jolene,” Dolly Parton pleads with a raving beauty, “with flaming locks of auburn hair” and “eyes of emerald green,” begging her not to steal her man. Dylan’s “Jolene” does not even attempt to match Parton’s, which is one of the great performances in country-and-western music, but it is an interesting counterpart. In Dylan’s version, a toss-off steady rocker with a nice guitar hook, Jolene’s eyes are brown and Dylan sings as the king to her queen, while he packs a Saturday night special—a plain enough sex song, but lurking in the lyrics and the music are also hints of Robert Johnson’s “32-20 Blues,” as well as Victoria Spivey’s album recorded in early 1962, Three Kings and the Queen (on which a twenty-year-old Bob Dylan, no king, played harmonica in back of Big Joe Williams).
Wilentz, the would-be Dylan detective, is oblivious to the actual hints and illustrates, once again, how he fills the role of the tired beat cop who tells onlookers, “Nothing to see here folks, move along.”

Clinton Heylin expresses a particularly dismissive view of “Jolene” in his book Still On The Road: The Songs of Bob Dylan: Vol. 2: 1974-2008:
For a ditty that could as easily have been called “Baby I Am The King” to invite comparison with Dolly Parton’s consummate song of the same name suggests a certain chutzpah on the singer’s part. In the past, one would have expected such bravado to generally have been warranted. But this is truly desperate stuff. Line after line of missing links, it is tuneless, hopeless, almost worthless too.
What is hopeless and almost worthless is his assessment. The red herring has taken him far down the wrong path as well.

The red herring is Dolly Parton’s song of the same name. It is so powerful that Wilentz and Heylin are not able to see past it. Bill Flanagan asked Dylan about Parton’s song, resulting in this exchange:
Flanagan: Any chance your Jolene is the same woman who got Dolly Parton so worked up?
Dylan: You mean that woman with the flaming locks of auburn hair?
Flanagan: Yeah! Who’s smile is like a breath of Spring.
Dylan: Oh yeah, I remember her.
Flanagan: Is it the same one?
Dylan: It’s a different lady.
In this case Dylan is telling the truth – it is a different lady. The lady that he had in mind has a similar name, and she was the subject of a song that was a bigger pop hit than Parton’s “Jolene.” The song is “Rolene,” a Top 40 hit in 1979 for composer Moon Martin. In this case the cover version by Willy DeVille’s band Mink DeVille is the one to consider. A close look at the lyrics to Dylan’s “Jolene” reveals that it is comprised almost entirely of lines from songs found on the Mink DeVille albums Cabretta and Return To Magenta.

I first wrote about connections between Willy DeVille and Together Through Life back in 2009, before the album was released. At the time I pointed out that the song “This Dream of You” begins with, “How long can I stay in this nowhere café?” and how this echoes the Doc Pomus/Willy DeVille composition “Just To Walk That Little Girl Home” and its opening line “It’s closing time in this nowhere café.” Dylan had mentioned Doc Pomus in that Flanagan interview, so it was natural to look at the Doc Pomus catalog.

Besides the song “Rolene” there are eight other Mink DeVille songs to consider. Dylan used a similar method of construction in the song “Tweeter and the Monkey Man,” which is a pastiche of Bruce Springsteen song titles and themes. That one is obvious to even the most casual listener. In “Jolene” Dylan tweaks the formula by making the homage distinctly more difficult to recognize.

First verse of “Jolene”:
Well you’re comin’ down High Street, walkin’ in the sun
You make the dead man rise, and holler she’s the one
Jolene, Jolene
Baby, I am the king and you’re the queen
The connection in that first line is to the David Forman (aka Little Isidore) composition “‘A’ Train Lady.” High Street is mentioned five time in the fade out of the Mink DeVille version: “Following you all the way to High Street/Yes, I followed you to High Street/And I wished you were my baby/All the way, all the way/All the way to High Street/All the way, all the way/All the way to High Street/All the way, all the way/All the way to High Street.”

The second line in “Jolene” is the first of a pair of lines that originate in the song “Cadillac Walk.” That song includes, “dead men raise and sigh.” “Cadillac Walk” is another song that was written by Moon Martin. In “Tweeter and the Monkey Man” Dylan namechecks “Jersey Girl” – a song written by Tom Waits, but familiar through the version by Springsteen. By having two of his songs referenced one could consider Moon Martin to be the Tom Waits of “Jolene.”

Not only is the repeated “Jolene, Jolene” an echo of “Rolene, Rolene” from the song “Rolene,” but there is a distinctive guitar hook in the chorus of the Mink DeVille version that was likely the starting point for the guitar line that is played in the refrain of the Dylan song.

Second verse of “Jolene”:
Well it’s a long old highway, don’t ever end
I’ve got a Saturday night special, I’m back again
I’ll sleep by your door, lay my life on the line
You probably don’t know, but I’m gonna make you mine
The Mink DeVille song “Steady Drivin’ Man” includes both “You know that long old highway” and “She’s got a Saturday night special.”

The third line is built out of bits from the song “Just Your Friends”: “You know that all of the time I’ve laid my heart on the line” and “I don’t know why I want more but I will sleep by your door for the truth.” The second part of the couplet is taken from the Mink DeVille recording of “Little Girl” (a cover of the Phil Spector/Ellie Greenwich/Jeff Barry composition “Little Boy,” a hit for the Crystals). DeVille starts his version off with, “Little girl, you probably don’t know it.”

Third verse of “Jolene”:
I keep my hands in my pocket, I’m movin’ along
People think they know, but they’re all wrong
You’re something nice, I’m gonna grab my dice
I can’t say I haven’t paid the price
The first line of the third verse is right out of the song “Desperate Days”: “Put your hands in your pockets, you keep moving around.” With the third line Dylan is back to “Cadillac Walk,” reworking the line, “Ain’t she something nice/Bones rattle my dice.” Dylan rhymes the “dice” line with “I can’t say I haven’t paid the price,” which is from the Mink DeVille song “Soul Twist”: “No, I can’t say that you haven’t paid the price.”

Final verse of “Jolene”:
Well I found out the hard way, I’ve had my fill
You can’t fight somebody with his back to a hill
Those big brown eyes, they set off a spark
When you hold me in your arms things don’t look so dark
Dylan begins the final verse with more from the song “Soul Twist,” the first line: “I found out the hard way.” In Moon Martin’s original recording of “Rolene” he sings about her thighs. Willy DeVille took some liberties and changed that line to be about Rolene’s “big brown eyes.”

Dylan finishes the final verse with, “When you hold me in your arms things don’t look so dark” and that is straight out of the song “Guardian Angel”: “When you hold me in your arms, things don’t look so dark no more.”

One of the few lines in “Jolene” that doesn’t appear to come from a Mink DeVille recording is, “People think they know, but they’re all wrong.” One can apply that to Sean Wilentz’s notion that “Jolene” is a plain and simple toss-off with “layers that approach allusion, but only just.” He couldn’t be more wrong, as the song is a complicated construction that is almost entirely allusion. Just because he fails to recognize the allusions he seems to think that they don’t exist. What Clinton Heylin sees as, “Line after line of missing links” is anything but. The links to the first seven songs from Mink Deville’s Return to Magenta, as well as two of the songs from Cabretta, are right there – if one can dismiss the red herring and get past the smoke screen.

When considering if there was evidence of Dylan showing any interest in the music of Willy DeVille during the time when the songs on Together Through Life would likely have been written I came across a telling anecdote in a 2011 interview with musician Paul James conducted by Lisa McDonald that ran in smalltowntoronto.com. Beyond his own career Paul James played with Bo Diddley regionally for decades and has shared the stage with Dylan (and Dylan with him) many times, going back to 1986.

Paul James did a stretch as the touring guitarist for Mink Deville and is featured prominently on the DVD Mink DeVille: Live at Montreux 1982, which was released in April of 2008. James also wrote and recorded a song about his tenure with Mink DeVille, a reggae tune about what you end up doing when your band leader is “kicking the gong around” called “Waiting For Willy.”

In the interview Paul James talks about an encounter he had with Dylan in August of 2008: “I parked my van right in front of Dylan’s bus at Copps Coliseum, like I was told. And then these guys came and took me to my seat. I was then told, ‘Right after the encore, we’ll come back and bring you to Bob. He wants to talk to you.’ When I was taken to see Bob, the first thing he says to me is, ‘Hey, I saw that video where you played with Mink DeVille. Willy is something else.’ (Willy was still alive at this point). We talked about Mink DeVille and then Dylan said, ‘You think you could play guitar for me?’ I said, ‘Yea!'”

On Mink DeVille: Live at Montreux 1982 Willy straps on an acoustic guitar and a harmonica rack for the song “Just Your Friends” and it would be difficult for anyone not to see the impact of Dylan in the performance. The idea of Dylan watching it is compelling, but even more interesting is the notion of Dylan perhaps watching DeVille’s performance of the same song on the 2006 DVD Willy DeVille: Live in the Lowlands. As DeVille puts on the harmonica rack he tells the crowd, “To tell you the truth I hate this fucking thing, I really do. I can’t stand this thing, it drives me goddamn nuts. But I don’t have four hands so there’s nothing I can do about it. But right now at these moments when I have to put this on I would like to kill Bob Dylan.”

The September 27, 2012 issue of Rolling Stone featured a contentious interview with Dylan that, when parsed closely, shows Dylan actually giving hints as to the hidden layers of “Jolene.” In the interview Dylan talks about the walking blues and states, “I’ve been raised on that. The walking blues. ‘Walking to New Orleans,’ ‘Cadillac Walk,’ ‘Hand Me Down My Walkin’ Cane.’ It’s the only way I know. It comes natural.”

In the midst of venting about “wussies and pussies” who complain about his borrowing, people he calls “evil motherfuckers,” Dylan chooses to conceal the real action – unrecognized source material. Obviously Mink Deville’s “Cadillac Walk” is right there for the careful reader to consider and possibly track back to “Jolene.” In this case I can point out that I had already shown that I was aware of the origins of the song and had demonstrated this through a similar method – in the last paragraph of my 2012 April Fool’s Day post I intentionally incorporated lines from the Mink DeVille’s song “Soul Twist.” I also wrote about the connection in a post that appears in cipher form. I did these things to serve as a marker in the event that Dylan might do anything that could be viewed as tipping his hand as to the origins of “Jolene.” Dylan is using the interview as a game, something that I’ve demonstrated a number of times over the past few years. When encountering such elaborate game play one can choose to play along.

Also worth considering are the two other walking songs that Dylan decided to mention. Dylan quotes “Hand Me Down My Walkin’ Cane” in “Ain’t Talkin'” from Modern Times: “Ain’t talkin’, just walkin’/Hand me down my walkin’ cane.” That leaves Fats Domino’s “Walking To New Orleans.” The song “Soon After Midnight” on Tempest is essentially the ghost of the Bobby Fuller Four song “A New Shade of Blue,” but other songs haunt the recording as well. The loping rhythm and the way in which Dylan enunciates the line “A gal named Honey/Took my money” directly calls to mind Domino singing, “You use to be my honey/Till you spent all my money.” People were hearing and making this connection before the Rolling Stone interview was published. For instance, in a discussion of “Soon After Midnight” on expectingrain.com someone known as tensteel commented, “I also hear Fats Domino loud and clear, and just a little Ricky Nelson, especially shades of Lonesome Town. As far as Fats, listen to how Bob sings ‘muhhhnay,’ for money. Totally Domino.”

Dylan has presented three walking songs that play a role in Tempest, Together Through Life and Modern Times – his last three studio albums of new material in reverse chronological order. This pattern of behavior can be demonstrated again and again and again.

Dylan often will hide things in interviews in such an obscure way that only great attention to detail and rigorous digging will expose them. Occasionally he use the “in plain sight” approach and once in a while he will be quite straightforward. While discussing quotation with John Elderfield in an interview that appears in The Asia Series catalog Dylan states, “Minstrels did it all the time. Weird takes on Shakespeare plays, stuff like that.” That is as blunt and obvious as Dylan gets.

Thanks for this fine article, maybe this here is another hint at DeVille:

Currently, there’s “A Post-MusiCares Conversation with Bill Flanagan” on Dylan’s own homepage. Here’s a quote:

BF: ARE THERE ANY OTHER PERFORMERS BESIDES BILLY LEE RILEY THAT YOU CAN RECOMMEND FOR THE HALL OF FAME?

BD: Yeah sure, Willy DeVille for one, he stood out, his voice and presentation ought to have gotten him in there by now.

BF: I AGREE WITH YOU, MAYBE HE’S BEEN OVERLOOKED. HE CARRIED A LOT OF HISTORY. THE DRIFTERS, BEN E. KING, SOLOMON BURKE, STREET CORNER DOO WOP AND JOHN LEE HOOKER WERE ALL THERE IN WHAT HE DID AND HOW HE PERFORMED.

BD: I think so too.

… and of course, Freddy Koella played guitar for Willy DeVille !

best regards,
Carsten

There are Dylan songs I really want to like but are marred by a repetitve phrase. “Jolene”is one. Others that come to mind are – “Most Of The Time” – “Disease Of Conceit” .

Thanks for the great article on this song and comments made by all here. I just would like to say something about the unique and amazing guitarist Freddie Koella that played with Willie(there is a shot or two of him playing in the Cadillac Walk video above) before his later stint playing with Bob on his NET. I imagine maybe many of you are aware of him and this but just thought I would point it out for those who may not have known.

Excellent, and a special extra thanks to Lonesomefetter for the Moon Martin reference.
But unless “peter” is Scott Warmuth’s pseudonym on this page – it has to be?! because peter’s contribution is word-by-word Warmuth – my question would be (and still is): How about crediting Scott W in this Jolene-essay? Cf. “‘Jolene” meets the music of Willy DeVille,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn6Q0YvAA2c and “April Fool’s Day 2013: Bob Dylan, Revisionist Art, and The ‘Jolene’ Smoke Screen,” http://swarmuth.blogspot.com/2013/03/april-fools-day-2013-bob-dylan.html?q=mink. “Book Dylanologists” have a deplorable tendency not to credit Warmuth and other basic researchers, but Untold should not adopt that very bad habit. OK, it often happens that people find things in Dylan being unaware that others have already found them, but being unaware of Mr. SW is not an option. Leave it to His Bobness not to give references.