The songs Bob wrote and then ignored: Tell ol Bill

The songs Bob wrote and then ignored. 

• Ballad for a Friend and the issue of originality
• Dirt Road Blues and Too Much of Nothing
• The utterly brilliant Angelina, plus Maybe Someday, Under you spell
• The album title songs Dylan wrote and ignored: JWH, Nashville Skyline.
• The songs Bob has never performed: Temporary Like Achilles
• No time, time passes and Dirge
• World Gone Wrong, She’s your lover, Foot of Pride
• Abandoned Love and Up to Me
• Concluding thoughts and knocked out examples 

By Tony Attwood

When an article appears with the title “Concluding thoughts” then it is a fair bet that it is the last article in the series.  And so I intended the last article in the list above to be, but I remained disappointed that I couldn’t find anything new to say in relation to one of my own utter favourite Dylan songs in the written but not released catagory: “Tell Ol Bill”.  And so I left it.

There is a passing relationship with a traditional American song in this composition – but really it doesn’t go much beyond the title…. but I dealt with that and everything else I could think of in the earlier article “All Directions At Once 66: Tell Ol’ Bill”

And I didn’t return to Tell Ol’ Bill, much as I love the song, for the recent little series “The Songs that Bob Wrote and then Ignored” because indeed, I had written so much (or as one colleague said to me “raved so much”) about the song that there seemed nothing more to say.

But now we have the Tell Ol Bill Sessions on the internet and we can hear just how much work Bob was willing to go through to try and get a version that he felt was valid for an album.   And even if you are not particularly attracted to the song, I would recommend just popping into this series of recordings, in order to get an insight into the way Bob works, and the level of work put into finding the right version – even though in this case he did not think of it as worth releasing, or indeed playing.

Take for example the version that begins just after the 11-minute marker.   If this was the only version we ever heard, I’d be there saying “I can see why he abandoned it.”

But then suddenly after what I personally find a rather plodding version, just after 18 minutes we get a version that clearly is en route to the final destination of the song.    That version stops after a while, but it does show the jump Dylan can make in terms of arrangements.  A radical change to the percussion and we are off in a new direction.

We can’t hear all the discussions, but it is clear that Bob is hearing possibilities in the song that no one else is.   So on 21’30” minutes we are getting a little closer – and it is interesting that after so many tries already Bob can still find it in himself to deliver the song in a new way.

At 24 minutes we are off again – and just listen to Bob’s singing – he has been singing this over and over (and he must have sung it many times before bringing it to the studio for this attempt to get a version that he wants to release) and yet he can still find new life in the piece.

Of course, I don’t think each idea works – like the sudden break in the 24 minute version, but then what do I know?  What I would say is this recording is remarkable because it does give us insights into ideas that are tried right through but then abandoned never to be heard again – until the release of this collection.

What I would also add is that around the 30-minute mark however, we are getting remarkably close to that final “take nine” edition of the song.   But I really don’t like the piano part with its repeated note.  Was that Bob playing?  If so, what on earth is he trying to do?

But what is interesting is that around 33 minutes Bob seems to be taking the song in a totally new direction, and although that doesn’t lead to the final version, it does have some elements within it that make it to the end.  And this is at the moment when the comment is made “Maybe we should change it all… everything”.   Thankfully that did not prevail.

However on 35 minutes we are starting to hear a different version again… Bob starts it up and the band follow – although we are now getting minor chords where previously we were getting majors.   The effect is (for me at least) unnerving, for minor chords give such a totally different feel from that achieved using the major chords of most of the other versions.  But as we know, Bob is always willing to try something else…

And in this minor key approach, there is something that fits with the lyrics – although the recording of the minor key version breaks down, it leaves a feeling… a sense … of something extra that could be brought into the song; it is out there and just needs to be caught….

But then, yet again on 38 minutes, we are back to a more bouncy version.

Now I know this is a long listen, and really most of us don’t want to spend such much time on failed versions of a song, but what we can do is hear this extraordinary song emerge.  For around the 39 minute mark we really are hearing the song where it could get to and then suddenly at 39 minutes 30 seconds, we have it.

What the “it” is, is a combination of a solid beat, but with Bob still singing in the soft way that he adopted through the earlier recordings.  It is a real contrast, which it seems ought not to work, and yet, somehow, it does.

But just in case you really don’t want to hear how Bob works and re-works the song, you can of course skip to the final version – the one over which I rave and rave, and which Bob thought was not worthy of inclusion anywhere, or even worthy of playing on stage.

As I have said so often before, why this song was not released and not played in concert is quite beyond me.  My view is that for any other artist this could be seen as the high point of his musical achievement.  But for Bob it was just another song that was written, worked on over and over, and then thrown away, never to be played in public.

As I once said, this is Visions of Johanna with a beat.

The river whispers in my ear
I've hardly a penny to my name
The heavens have never seemed so near
All of my body glows with flame

The tempest struggles in the air
And to myself alone I sing
It could sink me then and there
I can hear those echoes ring

I tried to find one smiling face
To drive the shadows from my head
I'm stranded in this nameless place
Lying restless in a heavy bed

Tell me straight out if you will
Why must you torture me within?
Why must you come down off of your hill?
And throw my fate to the clouds and wind

Far away in a silent land
Secret thoughts are hard to bear
Remember me, you'll understand
Emotions we can never share

You trampled on me as you passed
Left the coldest kiss upon my brow
All my doubts and fears have gone at last
I've nothing more to tell you now

I walk past tranquil lakes and streams
As each new season's dawn awaits
I lay awake at night with troubled dreams
The enemy is at the gate

Beneath the thunder blasted trees
The words are ringing off your tongue
The ground is hard at times like these
The stars are cold, the night is young

The rocks are bleak, the trees are bare
Iron clouds are floating by
Snowflakes falling in my hair
Beneath the grey and stormy sky

The evening sun is sinking low
The woods are dark, the town isn't new
They'll drag you down, they'll run the show
They will see you black and blue

Tell ol' Bill when he comes home
Anything is worth a try
Tell him that I'm not alone
And that the hour has come to do or die

All the world I would defy
Let me make it plain as day
I look at you and now I sigh
How could it be any other way?