Far away from the music: Heylin’s “Double Life” volume 2 espisode 4

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By Tony Attwood

The series looking at volume 1 of Clinton Heylin’s epic review of Bob Dylan concluded here, and at the end of that piece, you will find an index to all the articles that were part of that series.  This is part four of the review of Volume 2 of Heylin’s opus., “Far Away from Myself.”

Previously….

If you would like to know about the essence of Heylin’s vision of Dylan, you could do worse than turn to volume two of the Double Life of Bob Dylan, “Far Away from Myself,” and without having to plough through the 700 odd pages of the book you could take a look at page 84 where Heylin reports that in one interview Dylan says that he songs on the John Wesley Harding album gave real insights into himself.  Heylin’s response is that the songs reflected nothing of Dylan’s “inner me”.

In short – we are told we can ignore anything and and quite possibly everything that Dylan has said, for the only person who can really judge where the truth lies is …. Heylin.  He presents no evidence for his claim, but he can claim it because he is Heylin.

Now of course it is quite possible that Heylin is right in the sense that this was one of Dylan’s misleading comments.  But it is also possible that Bob was totally tied up with the creative flow of what he was writing.

However either way, there is something that utterly stands out in the JWH album and that is that we have a classic type of pop album of the type we used to get, in which there are  12 straight songs of a similar type.  Exactly as pop stars used to present to their fans.  And in fact Dylan goes further and creates 12 songs most of which each of three verses, with the only variation major variations being with the last song, “I’ll be your baby tonight” which again has three verses but also has a “middle 8” (a verse with a different melody and chord structure which traditionally appears between verse two and three).  Put another way, in musical terms we have an album of 11 strophic songs (ie verse, verse, verse) and one ternary song (which songs A B A, with the first A section repeated).

Heylin reports the explanation for this sudden drop into conventional songwriting (the A A B A format has been a classic of popular music from the earliest days) was that Dylan was finding it hard to write new songs at all.   And yet the style and approach of the songs on the album is very varied.

Even when the subject matter appears to be similar (as for example with “Drifters’s Escape” – which according to Heylin was the first song recorded, and with “I am a lonesome hobo”) the instrumentation is the same.   And yet it is a mark of Dylan’s ability that either through careful planning or because it just happened, the two songs are utterly different, and indeed the songs are written from completely different perspectives.

What makes this such an extraordinary song is that it is an appeal from the disenfranchised, who wish to fight against a state but have nothing to fight with or brain with.   The and its systems that the disenfranchised don’t understand.   But this is not a song about pity, it is a song in which each side is completely unable to understand any aspect of the other.

The drifter finds himself in a world that he doesn’t know and can’t understand.  The judge appears to find the drifter as being a person without merit, suggesting it is pointless him even trying to grasp what is going on.   Meanwhile the jury in the trial seem to have got the taste of power and either want to hear another case or want the drifter to be subjected to an even worse punishment.

But then either by chance or through divine intervention the drifter gets away.

And not only is this simple tale told in three straight verses, it is told with just one line of music used four times in each verse…

Oh, help me in my weakness I heard the drifter sayAs they carried him from the courtroom and were taking him away
"My trip hasn't been a pleasant one and my time, it isn't longAnd I still do not know what it was that I've done wrong"
The music strongly suggests to us that this is the playing out of class warfare between the legal system and the drifter whose only crime is to be what he has always been, over and over again, for the music just repeats itself over and over and over, and will always do so.
Now there is a lot to be said about Drifter’s Escape, but what actually happens in the book is that Heylin chooses the songs he thinks are best songs and proclaims them as such, as if it is self-evident and as if everyone who listens for more than a few seconds will firmly agree, because they ARE the best songs.   And then he goes on and draws his conclusions based on his own evidence which turns out in fact to be a totally arbitrary selection of songs.
Worse, Heylin is so certain of himself as the arbiter of all truth, that even when there is one, and only one source of evidence, he seeks to cast doubt upon it with phrases such as, “if the session logs can be believed…”
But, why would they not be believed – what reason could there be for them to be falsified?   Heylin seems uncomfortable with Dylan recording five takes in one session – and yet Dylan has had quite a lot of practice of being a performer by this stage, and the songs are extraordinarily simple.   Why would the logs not be right?
I think it is a point worth labouring because the aim of Heylin here, as in many other places, is to cast doubt on everything so that he can then become the absolute arbiter of all reality.
The fact is the “Drifter” is a masterpiece in terms of its combination of message and music.  The drifter has had everything taken from him – even his ability to walk away from the courtroom – he is utterly powerless.  This is expressed in the fact that each line of the song is identical: 12 identical musical lines which musically express the ceaseless repetition of his life.
But normally such a run through of one line of music performed 12 times would be intolerable.   Even the 12 bar blues only repeats the first line (and even then over a different chord), and has a variant final line.   And what’s more it uses three chords not one.   Indeed it is hard to think of any other song which uses the same melody and same chord over and over throughout the song.
Yet Dylan pulls this off, and the fact that many people since have enjoyed listening to this song, shows just what a success the song is.  It even has others record it too.
What is clear, as Heylin does admit, is that at this time Dylan was also reading the contracts that he had tied himself to, and realised that they were very much biased toward the interest of the record company – which of course is understandable because the record company drew up the contract, and Heylin makes much of the notion of trust and betrayal being at the heart of Dylan’s concerns at this time.
It is fascinating to consider this point, in the light of the lyrics that Dylan wrote for John Wesley Harding, as there is much within these songs on this very theme.  The mere fact that “All along the watchtower”  opens with
There must be some kind of way outta hereSaid the joker to the thiefThere's too much confusionI can't get no relief
Business men, they drink my winePlowmen dig my earthNone will level on the lineNobody offered his word

is surely by itself quite a clue.

But Heylin insists on going his own way, disbelieving Dylan’s statements that the songs on the JWH album revealed a lot about Dylan’s inner self with the simple rebuttal that they revealed nothing of his inner self and were simply song writing exercises.

And how does Heylin know this?  We are not told.  How then can he justify such a statement?   Again we are not told.  It is just a case the Heylin says and it is demanded that we accept his word.   Apparently Bob told George Harrison that he was finding it hard to write songs, and maybe so, but even if one is going to acknowledge that, one should then surely agree that John Wesley Harding is a remarkable achievement given the extremely limited resources it uses.

Quite why Heylin is so keen to denigrate the JWH album is difficult to tell.  Maybe because so many people like it.  Maybe because it resulted in such a major hit for Jimi Hendrix.   Maybe because it deliberately made so much out of such simple musical bases, meaning it gives Heylin less to write about.   It is hard to say, but fortunately for many of us, the album was made, and remains.

3 Comments

  1. Long ago before the First Crusade
    Way back before England or America were made
    Heylin created his Everglade
    which got turned over by Attwoods spade

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