Publisher’s note: “It’s alright ma” is the third song to be considered in the “History in Performance” series. A full index of the articles relating to “Mr Tambourine Man” and “Gates of Eden” appears at the end of the article. Previously in relation to “It’s alright ma” we have published
- It’s All Right Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) – A History in Performance, Part 1
- It’s All Right Ma: A History in Performance, Part 2: 1975/81. Stuffed graveyards and false gods.
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) – A History in Performance, Part 3: 1984 – One who sings with his tongue on fire.
By Mike Johnson
[I read somewhere once that if you wanted the very best, the acme of Dylan’s pre-electric work, you couldn’t do better than listen to side B of Bringing It All Back Home, 1964. Four songs, ‘Mr Tambourine Man,’ ‘Gates of Eden,’ ‘It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)’ and ‘It’s All Over Now Baby Blue’ represent the pinnacle of Dylan’s acoustic achievement. In this series I aim to chart how each of these foundation songs fared in performance over the years, the changing face of each song and its ultimate fate (at least to date).]
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
I was going to begin this article by commenting that unlike some of Dylan’s longer songs, such as ‘Tangled Up In Blue,’ ‘It’s Alright, Ma’ did not suffer from having verses cut in performances of the song as the years rolled by. But that’s not quite true. Quite a chunk of the song was removed and never heard again after the 1960s. These are the two verses that were dropped:
For them that must obey authority That they do not respect in any degree Who despise their jobs, their destinies Speak jealously of them that are free Cultivate their flowers to be Nothing more than something they invest in While some on principles baptized To strict party platform ties Social clubs in drag disguise Outsiders they can freely criticize Tell nothing except who to idolize And then say God bless him While one who sings with his tongue on fire Gargles in the rat race choir Bent out of shape from society’s pliers Cares not to come up any higher But rather get you down in the hole That he’s in But I mean no harm nor put fault On anyone that lives in a vault But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him
I think I can understand why Dylan dropped the second of these verses. The ‘one who sings with his tongue on fire’ could be seen as referring to Dylan himself, with the verse implying that listening to such a singer will only make you depressed. Who wants to be ‘down in the hole that he’s in’? Dylan might have rightly felt that listening to his songs does not create that effect, or provoke that response. Rather, in its anger and defiance, the song is uplifting, or at least I would argue so. (And the fault/vault rhyme seems clumsy to me). We could argue that this verse, with its personal focus, is not fully in harmony with the thrust of the song, which is an attack on bad-faith cultural attitudes.
The verse ‘for them that must obey authority’ however does seem to fit with the rest of the song, and it is harder to see why it was dropped. I don’t know about ‘cultivating their flowers to be’ as he doesn’t sing these words on the album or in the 1960s performances, where it comes out as
Speak jealously of them that are free Do what they do just to be Nothing more than something they invest in
I like the pithiness of this, and regret that Dylan dropped it. Maybe it just didn’t quite work for him.
Nevertheless, this cutting does not affect the overall balance of the song the way some of the cuts to ‘Tangled’ do. There’s so much here that the verses are hardly missed.
In the last article I traced the journey of the song to the scintillating 1981 performances, which I can only urge the reader of this article to go back and catch. Dylan didn’t perform between 1981 and 1984, so it’s to that year we now turn.
In the 1984 tour of Europe, Dylan abandoned the female chorus, the organ and the big sounds of the gospel years for a stripped down band. This is often billed as the Dylan/Santana tour, although there is some doubt about how often Santana played on this tour. Only rarely do you hear Santana’s distinctive guitar sound.
‘It’s Alright, Ma,’ now twenty years old, was played over twenty-five times during that tour and remained the acoustic centrepiece of the concerts along with a new version of ‘Tangled.’ At this stage, Dylan was still doing solo acoustic performances of these two songs. They were these blasts from the past, with ‘It’s Alright, Ma’ representing Dylan’s solo acoustic early ‘protest’ period, being the mother of all protest songs. Dylan keeps the tempo fast and spits out the words as of old, even if his voice sounds a bit thinner than before. This first recording’s from Hamburg, May 31st.
1984 Hamburg
That does the job, but at Wembley (July) he cranks the vocal up, stretches his voice, to give us an exciting performance. Great to see the vid of him belting it out. Notice the audience responding to that famous line,
But even the president of the United States Sometimes must have to stand naked
Audiences have often cheered at this line. (I wonder what the response would be if he performed it now).
1984 Wembley
In 1986 Dylan teamed up with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in a collaboration that remained in place until 1987. He did the first two concerts of that tour here in New Zealand/Aotearoa, and audiences here felt that Dylan was using these opening concerts for rehearsals. I was at the second, Auckland concert, and it was not Dylan’s finest hour – nor did it reflect well on our noisy, fractious audience. At one point Dylan had to tell the crowd not to throw bottles. There were dissatisfied Tom Petty fans who wanted to hear more of him, and showed their ire, and the setlist was quite bitsy, with no real arc.
I thought twice about including ‘It’s Alright, Ma’ from that Auckland concert (Feb 7th). You may know that I like to choose the best recordings of the best performances, and this one is neither. I am including it, not so much out of an ‘I was there’ nostalgia, but as a reminder that Dylan is not always on top of his game delivering scintillating performances. In Chronicles, Dylan wrote movingly about losing his connection to many of his old songs, how he could only relate to a few of them, and I think you can hear that in this recording. He seems hesitant, uncertain even, there are odd pauses and guitar fill-ins – but despite that it was the highlight of the concert for me.
What it will show is how much better the tour, and this song, sounded by the time they arrived in Australia a few days later. Here’s the Auckland performance:
1986 Auckland
Now to Australia. Unfortunately the YouTuber hasn’t provided the date, but I suspect it is from one of the four Sydney concerts that ran from Feb 10th to 13th. Now we’re talking! Dylan is right on top of the song and rips through it in fine Jeremiah style. All the excitement is back.
If you’ve seen the movie of that 1986 tour, Hard to Handle, you’ll be familiar with this performance, somewhat confusingly dated as both on the 24th and 25th of Feb, when Dylan returned to Sydney for two further concerts. I prefer the earlier performance, as in this one Dylan’s vocal kind of surges predictably, but hell, who’s complaining. All the old fire and brimstone is there.
1986 Hard to Handle
Dylan did not perform the song in 1987, so we have to move to the first year of the NET, 1988, to catch it again. That’s where I’ll be starting in the next article.
See you then
Kia Ora
Previously in this series
Mr Tambourine Man
- Part 1: A masterpiece is born
- Part 2: 1966 – Darker hues.
- Part 3: Chasing Shadows
- Part 4: 1978-1986. Far From the Twisted Reach
- Part 5: 1986-1993: Evening’s Empire
- Part 6: 1994 – 99: My weariness amazes me
- Part 7: 2000 – 2010: the jingle jangle.
The Gates of Eden