By Tony Attwood
To Romana has a very important place in our attempt to understand the way in which Bob Dylan writes some of his songs. Where there are many commentators who like to see each metaphor, each image and indeed each line carry deeper meanings, reflecting on some particular approach to life that the commentator is seeking to promote, a study of the way in which this song was written, with its borrowed tune and multiple amendments over time, gives a different viewpoint.
What we see here is the use of what some have found to be an old folk tune, which had already been used for a highly successful country (but utterly depressing and fearsome) folk song in the 1930s, which Dylan developed and amended constantly. Indeed what the scraps and notes collected by Heylin shows is a couple of lines jotted down here and there, gradually evolving into a coherent song.
The point here is that the notes reveal not a clear idea of what the song was about and what direction it should take, but rather a number of different interesting lines and possibilities which gradually coalesce around the lyrical theme and the developing melody.
To return to the issue of the origins of the music, several writers have noted that the melody itself is a traditional piece of Mexican folk music – and while I know something of British folk music, and a smaller amount about the music of the Appalachian mountains this now takes me way beyond all my areas of expertise. I just have to take other people’s word for it, but if you can find that original piece, or indeed if you know about Mexican folk music and can tell if this melody relates to that music, please do share the information you have.
But it is possible to find versions of Rex Griffin’s song The Last Letter which certainly does have a strong musical resemblance to Ramona. Apart from the melody is the fact that what we have here is a waltz – it is in three beats in a bar, rather than the normal two. Dylan used this rarely – Sara is the most obvious other example. It could also be described as a piece in 6/8, but the original Rex Griffin song is clearly a waltz, so that’s probably what was in Dylan’s mind.) In terms of the chord sequence and melody Dylan does vary both a little from the original, but not much; what we are getting is G, G6, G7, G, G6, G7, D…
This use of the melody either from a country tragedy song or from Mexico, the use of a chord sequence which Dylan works and reworks through the whole album, hugely re-worked lines as Dylan seeks again and again to find the right phraseology… none of this contradicts nor confirms that the song is sung for Joan Baez, or Nico, who was with Dylan in Greece when he started sketching it. (The connection with Mexico, and with Dylan’s line about returning “back to the south” is tentative in the extreme. Joan Baez was born in New York, although her father was Mexican; she is bi-lingual Spanish and English, and Ramona is a Spanish name. So it is all possible, but in terms of the song I still think this is stretching it).
The notion that Baez is the focus particularly comes from Baez’ autobiography, “And a voice to sing with” where (I have read) Baez mentions that Dylan called her Ramona. Now I haven’t read the book – I know I should to complete this review, but for the moment there isn’t time. If you have and can write back and quote a line or two of a relevant section I’d be grateful. (And I’m holding back here because I have seen it before that a person writes, “In xxx he says that…” when “he” most certainly doesn’t. The story gets passed on from person to person, so I am cautious).
And even if Dylan did call Baez “Ramona” that is not proof that he is singing about her – after all he might well have started strumming that guitar sequence and enjoyed the half rhyme of “Ramona” and “closer.”
But quite why Dylan would then use a melody of a song about a suicide for a publicly made statement to Joan Baez is really hard to work out. It is much easier to cope with this if the song is just a song about an imaginary situation – not least because if the song is about Baez, and it was written or at least sketched when Dylan was in Greece with Nico, why is he writing
Ramona, come closer
Shut softly your watery eyes
That is not to say that many songs are not clearly about one person or one idea, but rather to say that in many cases Dylan’s songs are made up of interesting phrases and ideas mixed together as an abstract designed to be tantalisingly close to something we recognise and something coherent throughout, but not quite.
If we just look at the first verse there is no context established, we don’t know what’s going on, there is no background, it is just… there, being played to us
Shut softly your watery eyes
The pangs of your sadness
Will pass as your senses will rise
The flowers of the city
Though breathlike, get deathlike at times
And there’s no use in tryin’
To deal with the dyin’
Though I cannot explain that in lines.
I still wish to kiss
As to be by the strength of you skin
Your magnetic movements
Still capture the minutes I’m in
But it grieves my heart, love
To see you tryin’ to be a part of
A world that just don’t exist
A vacuum, a scheme, babe
That sucks you into feelin’ like this.
Has been twisted and fed
With worthless foam from the mouth
I can tell you are torn
Between stayin’ and returnin’
Back to the South
You’ve been fooled into thinking
That the finishin’ end is at hand
Yet there’s no one to beat you
No one to defeat you
‘Cept the thoughts of yourself feeling bad
That you’re better ‘n no one
And no one is better ‘n you
If you really believe that
You know you have
Nothing to win and nothing to lose
From fixtures and forces and friends
Your sorrow does stem
That hype you and type you
Making you feel
That you gotta be just like them.
But soon my words
They would turn into a meaningless ring
For deep in my heart
I know there is no help I can bring
Everything passes
Everything changes
Just do what you think you should do
And someday, maybe
Who knows, baby
I’ll come and be cryin’ to you.
The fact is that everything does pass and change, and ultimately to anyone who seems confused and seems to be too strongly influenced by events and people we might deem to be unsuitable, what we don’t have here is the vigour of “you go your way and I’ll go mine”.
The advice “do what you think you should do” is perfectly sound, because no amount of argument will actually win; in matters of the heart logic never beats emotion. And it is at the same time flawed, of course, because the singer is just trying to remove himself from the entanglement with Ramona – which is an interesting position to get to as it is the exact opposite of the Last Letter which ends horrifically as we discover the letter is indeed the last letter, as it is a suicide note…
When you are weary and tired of another man’s gold
When you are lonely remember this letter my own
Don’t try to answer me though I’ve suffered anguish untold
If you don’t love me I just wish you would leave me alone.
While I am writing this letter I think of the past
And of the promises that you are breaking so free
But to this world I will soon say my farewell at last
I will be gone when you read this last letter from me.
The man who is saying farewell to Ramona knows he’s hurting Ramona who is crying her eyes out, but he’s trying to excuse himself by saying she’s been listening to those around and about. “Be yourself”, in such circumstances, is about as futile a piece of advice as there can be, because all Ramona has is the singer, who is rejecting her, and the fixtures and forces and friends that are tangling her up.
In fact, as all mainstream psychology shows, most of us do what is expected of us most of the time. Yes we can change by removing ourselves from one circle and planting ourselves in another – but it is never as easy as that, and it can take years. How do you go out and find a new bunch of friends? You can’t because those people already have their own lives and associations and friendships.
Ramona, in reality is vulnerable, and the advice from the singer to her is not going to make her any less vulnerable, nor any less unhappy.
“All I really wanna do, is baby be friends with you,” doesn’t work if “baby” wants more, or indeed less. In fact one possible outcome is that she moves over to the character in the Last Letter, and her reply is dreadful and appalling especially as we note that the opening line of that song is Why do you treat me as if I were only a friend…
The Last Letter has been described as delivering “a mood of utter loneliness unequaled in country music,” and it is extraordinary to think that Dylan has in effect written the prelude to The Last Letter, with Ramona. Quite why people want to sing The Last Letter is beyond me – but that’s neither here nor there because a lot of what people like is beyond me. But it was performed and recorded by Gene Autry and that made it a standard in the genre. Rambin’ Jack Elliott, Willie Nelson, and the Blue Sky Boys, all recorded it.
But… I don’t think this was Dylan’s idea at all, because in effect not only did Dylan borrow and manipulate the melody, he also consciously or sub-consciously took the starting point of the lyrics from “My Melancholy Baby”, which although dating from 1911, has been recorded so many times that it is hard to imagine Dylan, a student of 20th century music if ever there was one, did not know the song.
So, to be clear, we have “To Ramona” which is a “I can’t deal with you when you are like this” song, which is built upon “The Last Letter” which is a song about a suicide note, and “My Melancholy Baby” which is about a woman who is so sad that she is making the man she loves sad.
Come to me my melancholy baby,
Cuddle up and don’t be blue
All your fears are foolish fancies, may be
You know dear, that I’m in love with you.
Ev’ry cloud must have a silver lining;
Wait until the sun shines through.
Smile my honey, dear, while I kiss away each tear,
Or else I shall be melancholy too.
Lines such as
It’s all just a dream, babe
A vacuum, a scheme, babe
That sucks you into feelin’ like this.
reflect this, as does the end, if we take it literally, where “I shall be melancholy too” reflects
“I’ll come and be crying to you”
But none of this critique means that lines such as “from fixtures and forces and friends your sorrow does stem,” are not absolutely exquisite and fit the music perfectly. Of course they are, of course they do. The sources in fact don’t matter unless we are trying to argue that the song was for or about Joan Baez.
A stunning review that provides so much insight and food for thought. My mind was going in all directions as I read it, being reminded of other songs such as Visions of Johanna and It’s All over now Baby Blue. But mostly I was captured by the interpretation of the song itself and would regard it as one of the best reviews on this site. Thanks so much.
This was a wonderful and well thought out review, and I appreciated it considerably. But I think the more credible explanation must be put into the context of Dylan’s broader body of work. I think it shallow to ascribe his insights into the travails of the human heart to any one woman, or couple of women. This is a distillation that he is sharing with himself and the audience about conclusions he has come to regarding relationships and his (our) relationship to them.
Look at Tangled Up In Blue: he is talking obviously about several different women as if they were one woman. All of his insights and his metaphores are an amalgam of the conclusions, or perhaps, more accurately, hypotheses, are a reflection of the mind of a gifted artist attempting to understand himself and the people he has known.
Hello Tony, Thank you for posting this interesting essay. Join us inside Bob Dylan’s Music Box http://thebobdylanproject.com/Song/id/679/To-Ramona and listen to every version of every song.
Hi Tony, this is a different take on Ramona as i thought it was about. Joan sounds like Ramona in the way you interpreted it. Thanks very much for your perspective. I thought it might be regarding a very young Mavis Staples (cracked country lips, strength of your skin, returning to the South) who was traveling with her family The Staples Singers during the Civil Rights movement. They were together for brief periods of time in NY, Washington DC, etc. Ain’t it just like Dylan to write in layers. I read that Mavis stated that she was drawn to Dylan but she wasn’t sure how her father or Dr. King would view their friendship.
As a songwriter myself, with some similaries to Dylan (not too many), this song is easy to understand. The way I write, if I had written this, and I could have, it wouldn’t be 100% about any one person. I borrow bits and pieces, I make new pieces, I start with one idea and I move to a different idea. I wrote a song about my wife, but I made her an Appalachian mountain girl and changed a few other things until it could be about her or about someone else. The bunny is to come up with a decent song. Not to make a eulogy about a person who isn’t even dead yet.
Another great piece, it’s about time I thanked you for these articles. I’ve been going through the All The Songs and then checking out various versions and covers available. I started off reading everything I could find relating to each song but this has turned into the only place I’m still returning to, as it offers something different (obviously a lot of the facts and stories are repeated endlessly online).
This seems a good place to point out that I’ve never understood the need to associate certain songs with specific people (specifically women). Personally, when I write a poem there’s never any specific girlfriend in mind. The girl in the poem is always a fictional composite of all the women I’ve ever known and all the women I would wish to know, whether I want it to be or not. We rarely fall in love with real people because we’re too busy imposing all our hopes and dreams onto them. How can we write about real people when they become unreal the minute we try to capture their essence?
‘Ramona’ is a famous romantic novel by Helen Jackson.
“How generous!” warmly exclaimed Ramona,”I think they are better than we are, Felipe!” – Helen Jackson: ‘Ramona’
An interesting perspective on To Ramona, however, I think songs such as this one, does not require any deep examination nor speculation on it’s meaning. It is what it is. I first listened to this song in the 60’s and simply liked the melody and the way the lyrics flowed. A few years later and a few years wiser and experienced, I thought I knew a couple women like Ramona. When listening to that song I my mind was immersed in thoughts of those women. Decades later my mind conjures up different visions of Ramona, not Dylan’s Ramona but my Ramonas, each of them very different but all of them much the same. Sometimes I think we try to study these songs too much rather than to appreciate them for what they elicit in our minds. Songs, like art, should evoke ones personal feelings, otherwise we can miss the beauty and simplicity of the authors work and focus too much on it’s meaning.
I’ve been listening to “Ramona” as my in car song for short journeys. All the other songs I do that with are by Dylan. Every time I listen I feel I understand what he is saying better each time – even though I sometimes reinterpret what I think the sing is about. It is wonderfully evocative and sometimes refers me to “Simple Twist of Fate” – everything is contingent and yet at the same time determined by context and temporality. Thank you Tony for your explicative interpretation – I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
Hi Tony,
Great commentary. For the “ramona” bit in “A Voice to Sing With,” see pp. 86-89, where Baez includes a letter she wrote to her parents in summer 1964, followed by a hilarious send-up written by Dylan, in the voice of Baez, saying that he calls her ramona and makes reference to things like “crack country lips” and “no use tryin'” and “words like ‘exist.'” Also includes “everything passes, everything changes.”
“Ramona” is the same gal of “Spanish Harlem Incident”. I don’t know if D. was ever seriously addicted to smack but for sure he dabbled in it. “Ramona” is a very real Harlem prostitute strung out on the “breath-like” “death-like” “flowers of the city” (“flowers” meaning poppies, the source of all opioids) and D. is telling her to clean up, tho he sly admits at the conclusion “someday…i may come crying to you;” he is not at her level of serious addiction but admits he is playing with fire. Ramona’s “watery eyes” are a typical withdrawal symptom. like Charles Baudelaire, D. combines beauty with sordidness./ on same album, the “black crows” of “Black Crow Blues” are black prostititutes. D. was between girlfriends as indicated on the underrated confession “Ballad In Plain D” concerning his rows with suze roltolo’s sister that ended the relationship.
“So the message is “be true to yourself”. And if Dylan left it at that, it would be a nice, enjoyable piece, but perhaps one that we would not pause over too long. But he doesn’t… for although he takes an early run at “you go your way and I’ll go mine” – which in essence is fairly heartless, and often an excuse for not being involved, he adds those final two lines about coming crying to you, that either show deep humanity and feeling for Ramona, or else twist the knife even further by offering her false hope.”
??? I understand nothing of this anti-woman talk.
Boys boys boys. Try to think differently.
There is something gone wrong with Ramona. He warns her that what she’s believes is not truth, is not love. He sees she’s not happy, she has stranded in an unhappy world and he tries to get her out of this. Back to him.
Many many songs of Dylan have this message. This is one of the best.
I always was of the opinion that the singer was addressing a female friend (Baez or Suze) about their allegiance to the Civil Rights Movement. While Bob seems to have strong feelings about racial equality, he is not one who believes in “movements” as he made clear when he accepted the Tom Paine award and hinted at in “don’t follow leaders……” He also refers to “going back to the south” which I understood as Selma and the locations of various Civil Rights marches.
Pretty sure I read some of this somewhere and it made sense in my understanding of what I have read about Dylan and his unique way of seeing the world.
“he started writing poetry … he started calling me ramona”
(Joan Baez: And A Voice To Sing With)