Part two of a synopsis of “Dylan and us: beyond America” by Wouter van Oorschot:
For now, Wouter’s book is only available in Dutch:
Dylan en wij zonder Amerika, Wouter van Oorschot | 9789044655179 | Boeken | bol
Previously, we published two chapters:
What you really don’t want: reconsidering “It ain’t me babe” – Untold Dylan (bob-dylan.org.uk)
and
All I really want to do: What you really want – Untold Dylan (bob-dylan.org.uk)
We plan to publish a few more chapters in English on Untold Dylan in the near future
- What you really want
‘All I really want to do’ as the first of two brackets between which Mr. Dylan, with his almum Another side…, showed his self-liberation as an artist both mentally (matters of love) and socially (matters of politics).
- What you do not want at any cost
‘It’ain’t me, babe’ as the second bracket in which Mr, Dylan presented the first dense example of a completely new, one might add revolutionary type of lovesong to world literature, thus expressing a mentality that would eventually become his artistic trademark: his resolute rejection of ‘love-possessiveness’ –, all this set off against examples such as ‘Tell me’ (Rolling Stones), ‘I can’t help myself’ (Four Tops), ‘You dont have to say you love me’(Springfield) and even ‘You are the sunshine of my life’ (Wonder).
The chapter is closed off by showing the fourth stanza of this song (‘You’re talking turns me off, babe’…) that Mr. Dylan decided to drop, thus showing his great artistic instinct for quality as it would have weakened the song as a whole enormously.
- The interchangeable I and You
The argument here is that ‘It ain’t me, babe’ (and quite some lyrics that would soon follow) stripped the century-old lovesong of its ‘only natural’ heterosexual character, thus enabling teenagers of whatever sex or gender to freely interpret them and/or identify themselves as desired, with either the ‘you’ and/or ‘I’ in the lyrics.
One of the main reasons why Mr. Dylan’s work appeals to so many women and non-heterosexuals all over the world is exactly this: not only there was no talk of just ‘he’ or ‘she’ anymore, but all the more of an ‘I’ who explained to his or her lover why their relationship must and shall end. This could be anyone. Basically, during the roaring sixties Mr. Dylan’s ‘you’ and ‘I’ – lyrics became genderless for many people.
- Attack!
Two songs that explore the theme of telling the ‘you’-person to leave, follow shortly after the harsh ‘It aint’me, babe’: a more friendly suggestion in ‘If you gotta go, go now’ and an even harsher ‘It’s all over now, baby blue’ in which there’s only talk of a ‘you’.
This trio forms the upbeat to what I call later on the ‘Battle of Newport’ – with a wink to the Battle at Nieuwpoort along the coast of Dutch-Flanders on July 2nd 1600 during the 80-year war between Spain and the The Netherlands, which ended with the independence of the Dutch Republic.
- What remains is only You
This one deals with ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ and the impact it had on me, barely thirteen years old, during the summer of 1965. For me it was Mr. Dylan’s third song that I had ever heard after ‘All I really want to do’ (that I had already almost forgotten) and ‘Subterranean homesick blues’ which is why I could not perceive him other than as ‘a rockstar from the start’.
The very fact that ‘Miss Lonely’ (and her counterpart ‘Little Boy Lost’ just a little later on) became archetypical figures for people all over the world, implies that Mr. Dylan managed to unleash his art from the boundaries of his home country. By doing so, unforseen he found himself in the eye of the hurricane of the revolutionary period that humanity faced at the time. Important as well – and maybe difficult for Americans to imagine what this meant – was that only thanks to its worldwide ‘tophit’ status Mr. Dylan’s previous five longplay records were finally released in most other parts of the world after the release of number six Highway 61 revisited, which is why for non-Americans his folky period came too late in the day, so to speak.
- So what: chronology?
I share the view of Tony Attwood and Olof Björner (website ‘Expecting rain’) that with respect to content and style ‘Can YOU please crawl out your window?’, called ‘Look at Barry run’ at first, originated after ‘Like a rolling stone’ but surely before ‘Positively 4th street’.
The fact however that these two follow-up singles were released in the opposite order, raises questions about Mr. Dylan’s artistic development in reaction to the start of the Battle of Newport on July 25th. One of those is the motivation for why he left them off the Highway 61 revisited-lp which had enough space left to include them.
It is my strong belief that nobody else but Mr. Dylan decided and insisted upon it. That ‘Positively 4th street’ was to be the follow-up single for ‘Like a rolling stone’ and therefore he saw to it that is was left off the LP, whereas he considered ‘Look at Barry run’ as a leftover, not good enouigh for the album, but which finally, in another setting, became ‘Can YOU please crawl out your window?’ and was released in The Hawks-version because at the time of that recording ‘I wanna be your lover’ did not fit and there was no other song with ‘hit’-potential available.
- Unravel the magnificent flop just like that
As I personally consider ‘Can YOU please crawl out your window? as the key to my understanding of Mr. Dylan’s art, this chapter is at the heart of my essay. Quite some words are spent on the last stanza that can be heard on the single but has always been omitted both on www.BobDylan.com and in the four consecutive Simon & Schuster editions of Lyrics. I also examine why the single flopped.
One of the reasons may have been that it was a forced attempt to create an even better follow-up for ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ than ‘Positively 4th street’ had proven to be, but that it’s June/July content, in spite of The Hawks memorable facelift of the music on November 30, did no longer fit to Mr. Dylan’s actual state of mind, as he had already moved on to create lyrics that would be included in Blonde on Blonde.
- From failed single to good single but next flop
A follow-up single for the flopped previous one could have been ‘She’s your lover now’. The way in which Mr. Dylan performed this song entirely on his own on January 21st 1966, behind the studio A piano after a long day and almost 20 unsatisfactory attempts with The Hawks, is magnificent.
But that he dropped the song and never returned to it is another splendid example of his artistic integrity. He must have felt that he had met the frontier of his extraordinary talent and that he should come up with something more simple, which he did a few days later when he recorded ‘One of us must know (sooner or later)’ and which of course he decided to be his new single. The fact that this one flopped even more than ‘Can YOU please crawl out your window?’ is a an extraordinary fact that must have been quite disappointing for him.
- Burned out at the zenith
This chapter deals with the release of Blonde on blonde and the World Tour 1966 (for which I use a fragment of the opening song of the electric set ‘Tell me, Momma’ to show what happened there musically).
The first two of the three quoted songs, ‘Rainy Day Women #12 & 35’ and ‘Pledging my time’, show that Mr. Dylan had determinedly stopped trying to explain to his fans and followers whatever he had been trying to (‘How can I explain, it’s so hard to get on.’). They are witty songs of deliberate resignation so to speak.
The third quoted song however, ‘Most likely you go your way (and I’ll go mine)’ is Mr. Dylan at his most powerful and sarcastic best, in which for the very last time he floors his entire public at large with just one punch: it is an absolute highlight in his oeuvre until then (and would remain that in later years). He was at the very first peak of his career, even surpassing The Beatles as ‘front page news’. Transcribed bits of my own making of interviews during the Tour and fragments taken from Mr. Scorcese’s documentary ‘No direction home’, show Mr. Dylan witty and sharp as ever but exhausted at the same time, speaking the prophetic words before his last concert in London: ‘Man I’m gonna get me a new Bob Dylan next week; give me a new Bob Dylan and use him, use him… Use the new Bob Dylan and we’ll see how long he lasts…’ He had lost part one of the Battle of Newport but returned home with a head held high as he had given all he possibly could.
Dessert
While reckoning that many lyrics from 1967 onwards share the Nobel Prize quality of the ones of the revolutionary years 1964-1966 that I discussed, having made my point I decided to summarize the rich harvest of later years in order to avoid an exhaustive enumeration of the oeuvre that would discourage the common reader.
- Boy becomes ‘recording artist’
This final chapter’s title indicates that for Mr. Dylan after the necessary 1966 break, nothing was ever the same. From his ambition ‘to join Little Richard’ until his temporary disappearance after the 1966 World Tour, his artistic development had followed a straight upward line.
Whatever purpose he may have had by returning to the public arena with such an amazing record as John Wesly Harding on the break of New Years Eve 1967, whose sound and content baffled everybody who had been left by the ‘boy’ that made Blonde on Blonde, it soon turned out to be the starting point of a ‘recording artist’ who deliberately saw to it that people could never ever pin him down to an image they believed he should have and stick to.
I chose ‘Dear Landlord’ as the most impressive song on that record because of the last two lines of the three stanzas, culminating in the promise of not underestimating on the sole condition that it must be mutual.
‘Battle of Newport’ being just a metaphor for Mr. Dylan’s fight for artistic freedom, with his return, he simply started a ‘second round’ for which ‘change’ was the keyword for the years to come. In my opinion, this has led to varying results between 1969 and 1990, the most astonishing of them being the religious period between 1979 and 1981. Being an atheist myself, this wasn’t for me, except for what I consider to be a faraway echo of ‘All I really want to do’, the really witty song ‘Gotta Serve Somebody’ and this, as so many times, again due to the last stanza.
I pay some attention as well to what others have imprudently called the ‘Never Ending Tour’ and I would not be surprised if Mr. Dylan’s motivation for his hard work during so many years would thrive on his final acceptance of the fact that for tens of thousands of people throughout the world he had indeed become the leader that he never had wanted to be. Of course, this is nothing but speculation.
My closing statement is that not too long before Mr. Dylan started touring the world each year, in 1989 something must have happened that made him decide to once more, and for the very last time, punch the possessive people who had never stopped annoying him emotionally and socially. He then wrote his masterpiece ‘What was it you wanted?’ which I present as a Final Chord of the battle to which in later years he would only seldom refer in veiled words.
Apéritif
Here I pay tribute to the man who during his whole career approached the poet that others named him with humour and irony, such as his self-mockery in ‘I shall be free no. 10’ (1964) and how he was basically right when he described himself as ‘song and dance man’ during the well-known December 1965 press conference. Nevertheless: even if most of Mr. Dylan’s 600 or so song lyrics may be considered being just that, I firmly support these two beautiful lines of the Dutch poet Jacques Bloem (1887–1966):
Is this enough: a bunch of poems
for the justification of a life
and yes, I think it is in Mr. Dylan’s case. For sure
Epilogue
During my life, Mr. Dylan has become a ‘persona’ that does not overlap with the man that I do not, and do not wish to, know personally. One can befriend an artist without him being aware of that through is art. Therefore: what I pretend in my essay is nothing about who Mr. Dylan is as a person because I have not the faintest idea about that. All I have done is present to the obliging reader what his art and persona mean to me. And yes I have befriended him through that. To this I can only add that I feel a kind of compassion for the homeless and directionless tragedy of his art, which seems to be the price that Mr. Dylan had to pay. And if I am to outlive him I shall mourn the death of an artist whose work has been a lifelong companion and source of inspiration for me. For that at least I owe many thank to Mr. Dylan himself, not his persona.