The lyrics and the music: I believe in you

“The Lyrics and the Music” is a series by Tony Attwood which tries to find out what happens when one reviews a Dylan song not primarily as a set of lyrics, but as a piece of music which includes lyrics.   An updated list of previous articles in the series is given at the end.

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This series of articles includes songs that I find ok, songs I like, songs I really really like, and then there are songs that absolutely move me.    And this is one of the latter.

And it has this effect because of the combination of the lyrics and the music, a combination which allows Dylan to express extraordinarily strong emotions of love for the woman, and frustration and annoyance with those around him, at the same time in the same song.  It is an extraordinarily difficult feat to achieve.

If we start with the lyrics, the opening verse is incredibly powerful – expressing the way in which a belief in a person can surpass all the comments of others, and all the events that surround that person.  It’s powerful stuff.

They ask me how I feel
And if my love is real
And how I know I'll make it through
And they, they look at me and frown,
They'd like to drive me from this town,
They don't want me around
'Cause I believe in you

But now add the music.   There’s a rare delicacy in the composition, starting so gently as it does but with that unexpected rise to “make it through” with its sudden touch of falsetto which sounds almost as if Bob’s voice is breaking with emotion.

Against this gentleness in the music, there is a gentle person singing – a person who cannot be bullied by public opinion and by the mob, but who will stay with his belief in this one person who is the subject of the song.

Plus there are moments in which the vocal line is taken down to express both the singer’s love and his willingness to take his love’s side no matter what

And that which you've given me today
Is worth more than I could pay
And no matter what they say
I believe in you

I believe in you

I believe in you when winter turn to summer,
I believe in you when white turn to black,
I believe in you even though I be outnumbered
Oh, though the earth may shake me
Oh, though my friends forsake me
Oh, even that couldn't make me go back

Don't let me change my heart,
Keep me set apart
From all the plans they do pursue
And I, I don't mind the pain
Don't mind the driving rain
I know I will sustain
'Cause I believe in you

The musical contrasts within this song, expressed almost totally by Dylan’s singing, rather than by the band, are remarkable.  Normally in pop and rock, if some extra emotion is to be expressed it is done so through taking up the sound, expressing more in the percussion and so on.

So how is all this achieved?  First, through the way Dylan sings, with Bob expressing all the emotion in his voice while the music from the band is always there expressing the gentleness of the lady about whom he is singing.   His vocals in contrast express his struggles with those who “don’t want me around”.

Thus the rise of the melody in the third line expresses the angst and pain.   The extra energy expressed in “I believe in you even through the tears and the laughter,” and in the following lines is the clear affirmation of belief, but the gentleness is never lost; it always returns.  The gentility of the singer’s feelings, the love, the affection, always overcomes anything else.

So the question for someone like me who is interested in the music as well as the lyrics is, how on earth did Bob achieve all this within one song?   The answer is through pure inventiveness – which is an absolute mark of Bob Dylan’s musical genius.

The first point is that the verses are seven lines long – extremely unusual in the field of popular music where four and eight line verses are the order of the day.   We don’t know there are seven lines of course (unless setting out to count) but we feel there is something here, something different, something not exactly edgy, but with an extra unexpected tension.

Here’s the first verse and you can see also the unexpected rhyming pattern.  Lines 1 and 2 rhyme, but then line three stands on its own, it seems.  Lines four, five and six rhyme (“around” sounding as a rhyme for “town”) and then in the seventh line we get the rhyme for “through” in line three.  Very unusual, very effective, but hidden until we start looking.

They ask me how I feel
And if my love is real
And how I know I'll make it through
And they, they look at me and frown,
They'd like to drive me from this town,
They don't want me around
'Cause I believe in you

Thus we don’t notice any of this until it is written out and studied, but we feel the effect of the contrast between the doubt of those asking how he feels, those who want to drive him out, and his unwavering belief.

Oh, though the earth may shake me
Oh, though my friends forsake me
Oh, even that couldn't make me go back

Musically this is an extraordinary composition – not only for the structure and rhyming scheme that it uses, but the way the music itself changes.  This is Dylan as a composer of music at his most sublime, and although one can read or listen to the words and admire them, it is only when one adds the music and feels the way the music copes with the seven line verses that one can fully appreciate the genius at work in this piece.

If we want to describe any song (rather than set of lyrics) by Dylan as a work of genius, then this surely is one of the songs we must choose.