False Prophet (2020) part 8: They call me the Gris-Gris man

I don’t know what it means either: an index to the current series appearing on this website.

Previously in this series

False Prophet (2020) part 8: They call me the Gris-Gris man

by Jochen Markhorst

I’m first among equals - second to none
I’m last of the best - you can bury the rest
Bury ‘em naked with their silver and gold
Put ‘em six feet under and then pray for their souls

It has the same light-hearted function, intentionally probably, as the surreptitious, unobtrusive little self-portraits of Steen, Rembrandt and Van Eyk in their paintings; Dylan inserts a little wink into a text that might otherwise collapse under its own heaviness – similar also to the semi-serious references hidden behind “Miss Pearl”, “Mary Lou” and “only the lonely”.

After all, we are confronted with the heavy image of a dark prophet led up from the underworld to show us the way to the light. And who apparently has the stature to command us what to do with the corpses of his predecessors: we must bury them without clothing with their gold and silver, six feet underground. With which the Prophet again, like Dylan, seems to be picking left and right from canon, jukebox and mythology.

The second chest-beating of this verse, “I am second to none”, is familiar from plenty of songs, but is usually a compliment to the sung. “You’re second to none,” Curtis Mayfield and his Impressions sing in “Minstrel And Queen”, on their debut album in 1963 (incidentally, words Curtis does repeat in 1970 on his first solo album Curtis, in “The Makings Of You”). Billy J. Kramer devotes an entire song to it (“Second To None”, a 1964 B-side). Aretha in “School Days”, Joan Armatrading in “Join The Boys”, Boz Scaggs in “Simone”, and even James Bond’s dreaded, scary adversary Francisco Scaramanga gets that distinctive qualification: “An assassin that’s second to none / The man with the golden gun”.

And they are likewise the words Dylan himself chooses, though in this case not in a song, but to congratulate and compliment a valued comrade in arms. When Sam Lay, the drummer on “Highway 61 Revisited”, is awarded the Legends and Heroes Award in 2001, Dylan sends a telegram:

“It’s good you are being recognized. It’s so well-deserved. Walter, Wolf and Muddy, they must have known it too – that you’re second to none – your flawless musicianship and unsurpassed timing, maestro with the sticks and brushes.”

A cliché qualification all in all, which has some poetic lustre here in this song only through the literary motif of first-second-none. “Bury ‘em naked”, on the other hand, is an unusual word combination in song art, but then again we recognise it from religious works. Like from Legends of the Jews (1909), Louis Ginzberg’s compilation cum rewriting of hundreds of Biblical legends from Talmud and the Midrash, and the Old Testament from Genesis to Esther. In Ginzberg’s description of the doomed city of Sodom, we read:

“Once he was dead, the residents of the city came and took back the marked gold and silver which they had given him, and they would quarrel about the distribution of his clothes, for they would bury him naked.”
(Legends of the Jews 1:5:150)

… given the thrust that reading the Egyptian Book of the Dead appears to have not too far-fetched, in any case.

Much less far-fetched is the source for “I’m the last of the best” – borrowed from Dr John, no doubt. “A guy I know from New Orleans. I call him Mac, but you can call him Dr John,” as DJ Dylan says when announcing “Such A Night” in Episode 78 of his Theme Time Hour, “he headed to Los Angeles, and ended up being the Gris-Gris Ambassador”. Dylan gets to know him personally in New York, as a colleague on the recording sessions for Doug Sahm and Band in October ‘72, the upbeat, vibrant record on which Dylan seems to be little more than a session musician and Dr John plays organ on the Dylan song “Wallflower”, among others.

Apparently, Dylan has put Dr John’s indestructible 1968 debut album Dr John The Night Tripper – Gris-Gris on the turntable more than once, the record with the evergreens “Jump Sturdy” and especially “I Walk on Guilded Splinters”, but today Dylan echoes the opening song of that monument;

They call me, Dr. John, known as The Night Tripper
Got my satchel of Gris-Gris in my hand
They be trippin' up, back down the Bayou
I'm the last of the best, they call me the Gris-Gris man

… the irresistible “Gris Gris Gumbo Ya Ya Ya”, basically a blueprint for everything Dr John will make next (as Tom Waits occasionally seems to consult this blueprint as well); the sound Dylan seeks and finds on Rough And Rowdy Ways, the sound where you can feel the space around it, the “air being moved around the room,” as he calls it; the slightly-ominous New Orleans-voodoo vibe; the hollow backing vocals; the unusual arrangements and, above all, Dr. John’s singing voice – the voice Dylan chooses as a reference point when he wittily and ironically defends himself against criticism of his own singing style, in that wonderful MusiCares speech in 2015;

“No vocal range? When’s the last time you’ve read that about Dr. John? You’ve never read that about Dr John. Why don’t they say that about him? Slur my words, got no diction…”

And “Gris-Gris man”, by the way, despite all the vagueness, actually seems a fitting name for Dylan’s boastful, nameless prophet who is second to none.

“Six feet under”, the destination for the predecessors of the non-false prophet, is much more common and actually as much of a cliché as second to none, so we encounter it in many places in the canon and in Dylan’s jukebox. In Dylan’s stream of consciousness, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee’s “Trouble In Mind” (Lord, they put you six feet under / Shovellin’ mud directly in your face), Mississippi John Hurt’s “Louis Collins” (The angels laid him away, / They laid him six feet under the clay) and especially Dave Dudley’s version of “John Henry” are bobbing around, probably even on the surface;

Well they bury John Henry in the graveyard 
They laid him six feet under the sand
Everytime a freight train go a rollin' on by
They say yonder lies a steel drivin' man 
Lord Lord well yonder lies a steel drivin' man

“John Henry” has, after all, been under Dylan’s skin for sixty years. And since the summer of 2024, since Dave Dudley’s “Six Days On The Road” has appeared on the set list during the Outlaw Music Festival Tour, we know that DJ Dylan’s enthusiasm for Dudley at the time, during Episode 61 (“Second Countdown”, 12 December 2007) was not acted: “This song could not be denied. It even showed up in the pop charts.”

Charming, loving borrowings and references all of them – this prophet does indeed have a speaking style that copies the modus operandi of his spiritual father Dylan. But he remains an awesome, powerful prophet of course , this incomparable primus inter pares – you can bury the rest and pray for their souls.

To be continued. Next up False Prophet part 9: Just a closer walk with Thee

————–

Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:

Leave a Reply