by Larry Fyffe
Much like the writings of the GrecoRoman mythologists, and of the Abrahamics, Zoroastra says the Almighty is a good force that some individuals choose to ignore. Mani instead says black and dark forces struggle for dominance over individuals. Swedenborg says the white forces have won, but most individuals on earth haven’t received the news yet. In his poetry, William Blake says at this particular time the black forces of society dominate most individual’s earthly existence. In his, Percy Shelley says it’s time that individuals side with the good forces. In his poems, John Keats says all of this makes him a sad individual. In his, Robert Frost says, as an individualist, he’s rather hesitant as to which path to take.
Into the song pot below, Bob Dylan throws pieces of the aforementioned writers to see what comes out after it’s all boiled up.
From the Holy Bible, Bob tosses in a balance-carrier who rides the back of a black horse:
And when he had opened the third seal .... And I beheld, and lo a black horse And he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand (Revelations 7:5)
Black forces, at least for the time being, carry more weight:
Black Rider, black rider, you've been living too hard Been up all night, have to be on your guard (Bob Dylan: Black Rider)
Doth taste a lot like Blake:
And priests in black gowns, were making their rounds And binding with briars, my joys and desires (William Blake: The Garden Of Love)
The cook puts a bit more Bible into the broth:
Because strait is the gate And narrow is the way Which leadeth unto life And few there be that find it (St. Matthew 7:14)
Seasons the soup:
The path that you're taking, too narrow to walk Every step of the way, another stumbling block (Bob Dylan: Black Rider)
Dylan drops in a cube of poetry to cool things down:
The road that you're on, same road that you know Just not the same as it was a minute ago (Bob Dylan: Black Rider)
Plops in Frost:
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence Two roads diverged in the woods, and I I took the one less travelled by And that has made all the difference (Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken)
Adds in Priapus who’s pinched from a bag of black-humoured Greco-Roman mythology.
Aphrodite’s son Priapus is cursed by Hera, the wife of Zeus, to bear a big permanent erection except when needed; like the time that he loses hardness because of the braying of a donkey. Hera is angry at the foamy sex goddess because Paris judged her more beautiful than she:
The size of your cock will get you know where I'll suffer in silence, hold it right there
At such times, it’s convenient to claim that one’s high moral principles be the cause of the deflation:
Maybe I'll take the high moral ground Some enchanted evening, I'll sing you a song Black Rider, black rider, you've been on the job too long (Bob Dylan: Black Rider)
Like this song for instance:
Some enchanted evening, someone may be laughing You may here her laughing across a crowded room And night after night, as strange as it seems The sound of her laughter will sing in your dreams (Frank Sinatra: Some Enchanted Evening ~ Rogers/Hammerstein)
In the Bible, Alohlah and Aholibah are depicted as whores who ‘sleep’ with Assyrians and Babylonians – or at least the guys there who have penises as large as those on donkeys:
For she doted upon their paramours whose flesh is the flesh of asses... (Ezekiel 23: 20)
So it is said of Sinatra’s appendage. Likewise, Christian lore has it that Satan (who charms Eve) has a large snake-like phallus.
‘Black Rider, Black Rider’ is a real boner.
*Mani instead says light and dark forces ….
“The size of your cock will get you know where.”
I like the humour and ambiguity of “you know where” but the official lyric does read “nowhere”.
I no that!…
Thanks for the correction…I don’t no how that snuck in!
You fell into the fire and you’re eating the flame: A Buddhist trope, putting out the fires of suffering.
Black Rider / Black Rider / Go home to your wife / Stop visiting mine . This tale is as ageless as the Cave. Who hasn’t had to ward off someone comming in to town and trying to steal your lover. Lead Belly sang about that drifter thief “Shorty George”. So did Woody Guthrie about “Gypsy Dave”. No wonder Bob could comes up with lyrics like ” I”ll take a sword and hack off your arm”. Reminds me of anther earlier thought “and i’ll stand over your grave / till im sure that your dead”. So the last line accepts this as ” You been on the job too long”.
My read is this is about not being ready for death. Not ready for that black rider at least not yet.
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“Black rider, black rider, you’ve been on the job too long”
alludes to the tradtional murder ballad “Been On The Job Too Long”
*traditional
If Dylan tries not to write the same song multiple times then, then it is likely that the tBlack Rider is not one of the other Black images he has written of before. So not the temptor/Satan figure of the Man in the Long Black Coat. Nor depression (a la Churchill’s Black Fog.) I don’t see it is about Black Live Matters, though who would exclude racism from being a Black Rider on the US, but I don’t see personal racism as something Dylan would be inclined to confess to the world. So what else could it be?
The most likely thing, I think, is Sin (as a condition/state/alienable force making him stuff up, not sin a verb or as individual actions or temptations or responsibilities: so textbook “original sin.”) And, in particular, the fascination of Sin. He is sick of it, he is not impressed with its cock, and so on.
Which means, interestingly, that “Black Rider” may be a fairly direct borrowing from the Lord of the Rings. The Black Rider is a ringwraith: as they let the power of their rings take over, they faded away into near nothing figures.
Like Dylan, Tolkein did not write allegories, where every figure and detail has some symbolic meaning. But the top-level ideas were symbolic, and then he would let the stories unfold within that general symbolism (and where necessary, in spite of it.) In Tolkein, the lifelong Catholic raised by a priest, the Rings (especially the One Ring) represent Sin, with its knowledge, glamour, and power.
(So, just in relation to the ring-bearing and destruction, Frodo is a Christ figure, Sam is a Mary figure, Gandalf is a figure of the prophets/the church, and so on. But this does not affect the plot, it just adds a layer of significance to them, where readers may feel there is something profound about them without being able to put you finger on, or feel you are being preached at.)
Of all his albums, Rough and Rowdy Ways (surely the album title is a giveaway?) is the one with most snippets from well-known classical sayings (crossing the Rubicon: perhaps not well-kniwn in the US) to pop songs to political figures to popular films. So it is the only album where I think we might expect to find “Black Rider” being a reference to some popular book/film. Not exactly the same, but invoking it in some way.
Which makes this song, like Crossing the Rubicon, I’ve made up my Mind, and My own Version of You, yet another song on the album with the motif “I have decided.”