The lyrics and the music: Dark Eyes – how deep inside can we go?

By Tony Attwood

One of the very first articles I wrote for Untold Dylan (some 16 years ago ) was a review of “Dark Eyes”, in which I mentioned the Carrie Myers cover version, bemoaning the fact that I could only point the readers (of which at the time there were very few) to Spotify – there being no recording of that version freely available on the internet.

Now all these years later, finding to my utter surprise that both myself and Untold Dylan are still here, I find that the Carrie Myers and the Proper Way version is freely available, my first thought was simply to update the review. And maybe I will sometime, but it then struck me that this version of “Dark Eyes” would make for a perfect example of what I wanted to say about the song in the “lyrics and music” series. So here we are.

What comes across from listening to this version is the power of the melody. OK the vocalist here makes use of her wonderful range and she does vary the melody somewhat but in essence what we have is the original melody, the lyrics and a banjo.

Oh, the gentlemen are talking and the midnight moon is on the riverside,
They're drinking up and walking and it is time for me to slide.
I live in another world where life and death are memorized,
Where the earth is strung with lovers' pearls and all I see are dark eyes.

Of course the singer is playing with the melody quite a lot and the banjo gives a totally different feel to those lines, but my point is that such an arrangement would not be possible if Dylan had not written such a distinctive, beautiful melody to accompany those lyrics (or maybe the other way around – written such distinctive lyrics to accompany a melody he wrote first).

If we now go back to Dylan’s original (which is here if you need reminding) his version is also completely bare and sparse, leaving the melody and lyrics to carry us through, with just the simplest guitar accompaniment and a harmonica break.

There is no attempt to do anything with the melody other than allow it to carry the lyrics. There is no temptation to interpret “another drum” or the dead rising in the music – which I know sounds utterly, utterly crazy, but you’d be amazed what lesser composers and arrangers will try. We simply have the melody and that simple guitar part.

In fact, when one thinks of it, the lyrics are really tempting with regards to the symbolism and images, and a lesser writer, or a writer less in control of his own work (and thus possibly influenced by an idiot record company producer) might be tempted to take any of these images and reflect them in music…

A cock is crowing far away and another soldier's deep in prayer,
Some mother's child has gone astray, she can't find him anywhere.
But I can hear another drum beating for the dead that rise,
Whom nature's beast fears as they come and all I see are dark eyes.

But Dylan doesn’t do that – indeed he creates and melody and accompaniment that simply doesn’t allow this to happen. The world he portrays here is one that moves along step by step, beat by beat. Nothing is allowed to change that beat, not even

They tell me to be discreet for all intended purposes,
They tell me revenge is sweet and from where they stand, I'm sure it is.
But I feel nothing for their game where beauty goes unrecognized,
All I feel is heat and flame and all I see are dark eyes.

There is pain here, there is a desire for movement and expression, but none of that is allowed. He FEELS the heat and flame, but because all he sees are dark eyes, he will not and indeed cannot express it. Even the beauty of the song is unrecognised because that is not what he sees.

And it is only at the end that we understand why, with the “French girl” and “drunken man” line. The world is wrecked, there is no emotion that he can touch or feel, and so the music has to express this and keep it, as indeed it does. In fact “A million faces at my feet but all I see are dark eyes,” then rings out truer and more powerfully than it ever could with a deeper or more complex accompaniment.

So what Dylan has done is created a really wonderful melody and some enormously powerful images and ideas in the lyrics. But to combine the two in a song with a rock accompaniment would destroy the impact of the notion of dark eyes. So he keeps it simple, and it works to perfectly – but is not suitable for a concert performance.

Thus I suspect (although obviously I can’t prove, and Bob isn’t taking my calls) that this plaintiveness combined with the sense of being lost in the lyrics, is why he only ever played this wonderful song eight times live. It is just not suited for the concert hall. It requires total silence in the background, not the sort of noise you get at a Dylan show. It requires total attention from the audience, not the chattering that goes on, the whistling etc etc.

So not for a show – but as a song, that beautiful but plaintive melody, that straightforward rhythm and those simple chord changes do everything needed to put across the extraordinary depth of meaning and feeling that the song contains.

Carrie Myers gets this. She uses her voice to play with the melody and lyrics while the banjo continues its own way, almost as if she is not there. If the melody were not so elegant, if the chord changes were not so controlled, that reworking would not be possible.

But more, Carrie Myers and her arrangers know that there must be a return to the simplicity of the melody and banjo after the additional chords are introduced and that’s what we get.

I can’t imagine Dylan moving into such an arrangement, which is just about the only sort of arrangement that could work – hence the limited exposure of this classic on the tour.

Thus we have a stunning melody, amazing lyrics, and an incredibly simple accompaniment. And that’s the only way it can work.

The lyrics and the music: the series…

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