Dylan & us: beyond America. 4: The unchanging (heterosexual) love song – part 2

DYLAN & US: BEYOND AMERICA

by Wouter van Oorschot; Translated by Brent Annable

Previously in this series…

• Amuse bouche
• 1: Who the book is (not) for – part 1
• Who this book is (not) for – part 2
• 2: Anything but idolatry – part 1
• Anything but idolatry – part 2
• 3: Love, Dancing, Sex, Sadness, TR-63 – part 1
• 3: Love, Dancing, Sex, Sadness, TR-63 – part 2
• 3: Love, Dancing, Sex, Sadness, TR-63 – part 3
• 3: Love, Dancing, Sex, Sadness, TR-63 – part 4
• 4: The unchanging (heterosexual) love song – part 1

4. The unchanging (heterosexual) love song – part 2

I/you songs only become truly excruciating when they degenerate into swooning, moans of heartache, or worse – begging not to be left alone. Would it surprise you to learn that these variants are also extremely popular? As though people in the western world enjoy nothing more than wallowing in self-pity and helplessness. I will treat you to several more choice examples later. But no, rage or revenge is always preferable where heartache is concerned, such as in ‘Cry me a river’ by Julie London,

Julie London :

or tranquillity, such as ‘You don’t know what love is’ by Dinah Washington (both thankfully from 1955 as well).

Dinah Washington:

For record producers, therefore, songs of longing (either joyful or lugubrious) were commercially the most interesting, particularly when issued in the form of a seven-inch record or ‘45’. The single was the ideal vehicle for measuring, promoting, and especially capitalising on artists’ popularity, given that the price put them within reach of the less affluent teenagers, who were the majority.

In this sense, Parlophone – the record company that contracted The Beatles after they had been dropped by the somewhat larger Decca – could not have been happier. Their first seven singles, one per quarter, were all love songs of the desirous variety. With one exception: ‘She loves you’, which appeared in August 1963, is a glorious example of how innovative newcomers can breathe new life into a tired old ‘product’, with a subtle variation on the banal music-industry love morality of which I presented some ‘tasteful’ examples above. Although it seems unlikely that The Beatles were aware of their innovation, they cannot but have realised that both the music and lyrics of ‘She loves you’ had struck a chord. It had a cheerful tune with a few unexpected chord changes, an up-tempo rhythm, and hit an absolute home run by placing the declamatory chorus at the beginning of the song, instead of leading up to it somewhere in the middle. That, already, was innovative. But the lyrics themselves are also special: simple as always, but that is where the comparison ends. ‘She loves you’ is an ingenious moral commentary that draws from a completely different, far more female-friendly source than anything that had been dished up before. Here, a young man (I) speaks to his friend (you) who has hurt his girlfriend (she) and now fears that he has lost her. But the singer saw her only yesterday, and assures his friend that she still loves him and fully understands that he harbours no malicious designs. And with a girl like that, what he ought to do is count his blessings. The moral of the story lies in the last of the three four-line verses, when the singer – being cruel to be kind – says to his friend that although it is his choice, pride can also take its toll, and so he should apologise. Because… She loves you! Yeah, Yeah, Yeah! The final ‘yeah’ is declaimed as a magnificent three-part chord, and the whole thing is over in a mere 138 seconds (2:18).

She loves you:

To summarise: a man who has mistreated his beloved should swallow his pride and make amends. Compared to the moral quagmire of the 1950s discussed above, this message was revolutionary. What kind of reform was lacking in the United States, but already seemed to be brewing in Europe?

We can probably no longer pinpoint whether this is the reason why ‘She loves you’ was responsible for The Beatles’ European breakthrough, and became their record best-selling single in England. America was undoubtedly also ready for it, but the assassination of President Kennedy in that same year delayed The Beatles’ breakthrough to the United States for many months.

Their seventh single, ‘A hard days’ night’ appeared in July 1964, shortly before Bob Dylan came to visit them in their New York hotel. Their eighth, ‘I feel fine’, featuring ‘She’s a woman’ on the B-side, was released on 27 November and was the first to include two I/she songs instead of I/you.

Baby's good to me, you know
She's happy as can be, you know
She said so

I'm in love with her and I feel fine

Baby says she's mine, you know
She tells me all the time, you know
She said so

I'm in love with her and I feel fine

I'm so glad that she's my little girl
She's so glad, she's telling all the world


That her baby buys her things, you know
He buys her diamond rings, you know
She said s

She's in love with me and I feel fine, mmm

I feel fine Video:

We can ascertain that in the two years since ‘Love me do’, only minimal textual development had taken place, with everything remaining at a safe teenage level. It is also not so that Lennon and McCartney were trying to write poetry – they were first and foremost musicians who, with George Martin’s help, developed into fully-fledged songwriters. Nevertheless, after ‘I feel fine’ the I/she songs increased palpably in number. Whether this may have been the result of becoming acquainted with mind-altering substances is up to the reader to decide. What is certain is that the line ‘Turn me on when I get lonely’ from ‘She’s a woman’ introduced a turn of phrase that in 1964 was only known to those who had encountered the substance at an early stage, or who were ‘turned on’, which was only a small circle. Lennon later explained that he was the one who suggested the line to the somewhat conservative McCartney.

So much for The Beatles who, while they certainly gave an enormous impulse to the music of young people, cannot be suspected of having changed the world with earth-shattering love poetry.

continuation: What was the public to do? – part 1

Wouter’s book is only available in Dutch for now:

Dylan en wij zonder Amerika, Wouter van Oorschot | 9789044655179 | Boeken | bol

We will publish more chapters from it in English on Untold Dylan in the coming weeks