The lyrics AND the music: The Wicked Messenger

 

An index to the current series appearing on this website appears on the home page.    A list of the previous articles in this series appears at the end.

“The Lyrics and the Music” (or sometimes “the music and the lyrics”) 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.

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The musical accompaniment for The Wicked Messenger is either unique in terms of Dylan’s work, or at the very least extremely unusual.   For as Dylan sings there is no chordal accompaniment at all, but a musical counter-theme picked out on what I take to be double bass and guitar.

So in effect what we have are two melodic lines- one the (mostly) descending notes of the two instruments, and the other Bob singing a perfectly decent vocal line..

There is a recording of Dylan playing this with the Dead, and although there is a little more accompaniment the basic is retained.  And a recording from 1997 in which the descending counter melody is virtually removed, just making the occasional appearance.

And in between each verse we have a wailing harmonica interlude that has nothing to do with the verses, but which seems to symbolise the messenger’s distress – or maybe his wickedness.

At which point what we are left with is a simple two chord rock song, which seems to me to have lost much of its point…. although the instrumental break does return to the descending line that is the heart of the original.

As ever on tour, Bob played with the song, jettisoning the original musical approach for something quite different, and which really didn’t seem to have anything to do with the lyrics…

However by 2003 in London the counter melody is back, but there is so much also going on in the accompaniment the impact of that stark original is lost.   And indeed the change of the rhythm also further distracts from the starkness of the original.

Thus by the time of that performance above the essence of the music has been lost, and for me that then means that the whole essence of the song has gone.  Although of course by then everyone in the audience would know what the song was originally, and so can appreciate the extension.  But then, I think we lose any thought of who and what the messenger was.

In my imagination the messenger from Eli is a man travelling alone for hour upon hour, ruminating on the messages he is carrying and preparing to flatter the recipients of the messages in the hope of a fulsome reward – or at least food and water.

And yes, the sparseness of the original does take me back to that earlier time when messages were indeed carried by a single person along worn tracks rather than paved roads.  But there is a bizarre curiosity in the song as we move from the messages he carries to the messenger himself, who we find complaining about the effect of his work on his body, and the response at the end of those who received the messages he carried.

The simplicity of the piece, using the three verse format so common in the JWH album is reflected by the simplicity of the musical accompaniment, and it is the descending nature of the accompaniment that helps emphasise the world wearyness and tiredness a messenger must feel.   For the messages merely result in him being given another message to take back, and so on, without end.

Plus of course the fact that many confront him but few have anything to say, apart from the total rejection of his work, comes at the end:  “If ye cannot bring good news, then don’t bring any.”

Thus that descending bass in the original reflects the messenger making his weary way from one place to another without reward.  It keeps up a decent speed because those who give him the messages want them delivered quickly, but for him it is just repeat, repeat, repeat.

For all these reasons, the original therefore works – the music and the lyrics both reflecting the endless repetition of the tedious job, without making the music itself tedious.  But this is lost in the live performances where the need to put on a show dominates the meaning of the lyrics.  Meanwhile the wailing discordant harmonica which has nothing to do with the melody symbolises the tedium and the pain of the messenger’s endless, and largely unrewarded, work

The songs reviewed from the music plus lyrics viewpoint…

• A Hard Rain’s A-gonna Fall. 
• Abandoned Love
• All along the watchtower
• Angelina
• Ballad for a Friend
• Beyond here lies nothing
• Blind Willie McTell
• Black Diamond Bay
• Can you please crawl out your window
• Caribbean Wind – Dylan’s musical exploration of evolving uncertainty
• Chimes of Freedom
• Cold Irons Bound
• Cover Down Pray Through
• Dark Eyes
• Desolation Row
• Drifter’s Escape
• Don’t think twice it’s all right.
• Early Roman Kings
• Every grain of sand
• Everything is broken
• Foot of pride
• Gates of Eden
• Goodbye Jimmy Reed, and the 13 bar blues
• High Water, a rise, a fall, a bounce, a flood
• Highway 61 Revisited
• I believe in you
• “I Want You”. It was never meant to be like this.
• Idiot wind
• If not for you
• It takes a lot to laugh
• It’s all over now baby blue
• It’s all right ma: life really is ok despite everything.
• Isis
• It ain’t me babe
• Jokerman
• Just like a woman
• Key West
• Lenny Bruce is Dead
• Love Sick
• Man in the Long Black Coat
• Masters of War
• Mississippi
• Not Dark Yet
• One too many mornings
• Shelter from the Storm
• Simple Twist of Fate
• Sign on the window
• Tangled up in blue
• Tombstone Blues
•  Yonder Comes Sin