The lyrics and the music: Alberta. The need for the two to be as one.

“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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Alberta is interesting in terms of understanding Dylan in that we have three recordings of the song to compare – recordings which clearly have followed some rehearsal – the band knows what’s going on.

But just to be clear this has nothing to do with the Lead Belly song of the same name – I’m putting a copy of that below just to prove my point.

In fact as far as I can see the original version of the song that Bob sang was this one which came out in 1946 and was written by Mary Wheeler; Lehman Engel; W. J. Reddick; Conrad Thibault – which is to say all of them or any of them, depending which book you read.

For all the promise of a recording on the internet, I can’t find one I can verify. But this one below came from 1957. The song was seemingly composed in the 1930s (but this is one of those songs where everyone writing about it seems to have a definitive view that their view, their dating and their recording really is the original. Certainly, the Lead Belly song of the same name sounds nothing like this.

Recording number one by Bob is slow, relaxed, and gently swinging – and clearly fully rehearsed. Everyone knows exactly what each is doing and how it all fits together. There is a real feeling of affection for Alberta that comes across here, both in Dylan’s singing and in the harmonica playing.

Everything about the music is relaxed and peaceful. It delivers a feeling that the singer really does care about what is on her mind. And this very much includes the harmonica part.

So effective is the musical accompaniment that the fact that the lyrics are repeated over and over again really doesn’t matter.

But now version number 2 and here we have the drum beat which gives a more solid, purposeful, and less relaxed feel. The percussion was there before, but previously gave a less driven emotion to the song. We now have a bounce and we are more forward.

The trouble I have with this version is that the music is so bouncy that it is hard to get any feeling that the singer has any connection with the lyrics. We appreciate the rhythm and the music, but no longer the message. The harmonica part too, seems to be out of phase with the lyrics as well.

Alberta No3 starts with the rhythm and chordal approach of “It takes a lot to laugh” although of course once the harmonica comes in we know it’s Alberta.

This is now even more forceful. Now the singer and his harmonica playing is dictating to the lady that she really has to be here and talk with him and listen to him. He really is telling her – and the beat and fulsome accompaniment let us know that. We have really started to lose the original feel.

The Eric Clapton version takes the song back to a 12 bar blues with its pleading of “where did you stay last night”. Now the music has changed totally, and the lyrics really aren’t that central to the song at all. Gentility has gone.

In fact put it simply the only Dylan version that really allows the performance to reflect the lyrics is the first one of those above.

And if you have the time I would invite you to play a little bit of the final version (Acoustic live) and then the Bob Gibson 50 version. They are as different as chalk and, well, whatever you want.

My point is that musicians can often get carried away by their own performance of a song and in rehearsal become so familiar with the lyrics that they can forget what the lyrics are actually saying, and thus forget the need for the lyrics and the music to be as one. For me Alterta #1 achieves this link in a way that the subsequent performances don’t, because only in that performance are the lyrics and music in harmony with each other.

Previously in this series….

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