Breaking down the rigidity of the popular song. Dylan in 1963

By Tony Attwood

Author’s note: through my own lack of focus, caused by the postman knocking at my door, I published this article before I had made  the final adjustments.  The corrected version was published at 1140 GMT on 21 March.

My rambling review of Dylan’s songs of Dylan’s compositions of 1963 in terms of where the music came from, is almost complete, with just three songs left, (which I have mentioned previously)…

1. Lay Down your Weary Tune
2. One too many mornings
3. Restless Farewell

… all of which are songs of leaving and moving on and all of which have clear antecedents as I mentioned in my last piece (and there is a set of links to those articles at the end of this piece).

Of “Lay down your weary tune” Dylan himself said he was trying to capture to essence of Scottish folk music and songs showing this influence could include “The Water Is Wide”, “O Waly, Waly” and “I Wish, I Wish”.  But here we must be clear – these are “influences” not songs that Dylan copied from, and virtually all songs are influenced by previous music in some way or another.

And this raises the question, which, if any, of the songs Dylan composed in 1963 could be said to be truly original in a musical sense?

Now I am ready to be shot down here, but I am going to venture this list of titles as being musically original enough to Dylan to be cited as Dylan musical compositions, as opposed to those based on earlier compositions

1. Going back to Rome 12 bar blues
2. As I rode out one morning  Based on  W. H. Auden poem As I Walked Out One Evening
3. Dusty Old Fairgrounds A fast prelude to “Times they are a Changin”
4. Only a pawn in their game
5. North Country Blues
6. Gypsy Lou
7. When the ship comes in Influenced by “Pirate Jenny” from Brecht and Weill’s “The Threepenny Opera”
8. The Times they are a-Changin’

Now of these, the 12-bar blues, “Going back to Rome,” is not really a musical original since there are millions of 12-bar blues around, and the variation between one and another is slight.

But this raises another question.  Dylan spoke extensively about the influence Robert Johnson’s music had on him, and he has cited a few examples of Johnson’s music in this regard.   But I rather think that not too many people have gone back to Johnson’s songs to see exactly what influence they had on Dylan.

For example, take the song “Crossroad.”   This was written in 1932 but not recorded by Johnson until  November 1936, when Johnson recorded two takes of the song.

A casual listen will probably suggest that this is a 12 bar blues, although if you are really focused but not actually counting, you might feel there is something a bit odd about it.  Or better said, a lot that is rhythmically very unusual about it.

And this oddness comes about it because this is not a 12 bar blues but a 15 bar blues, and the question immediately is asked, whoever else ever wrote or sang a 15 bar blues?

Dylan acknowledges this – and indeed by chance (and believe me we don’t co-ordinate these things at all) just yesterday Jochen was quoting Dylan on the subject of Robert Johnson saying” He was so far ahead of his time that we still haven’t caught up with him. His status today couldn’t be any higher. Yet in his day, his songs must have confused people. It just goes to show you that great people follow their own path.”

In fact as noted Johnson made two  takes of the “Crossroads” song and the lyrics changed as he went along.  Here are the lyrics for take 2 taken from the Genius website

I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
Asked the Lord above, "Have mercy, save poor Bob if you please"

Mmmm, standin' at the crossroad, I tried to flag a ride
Standin' at the crossroad, I tried to flag a ride
Didn't nobody seem to know me, everybody pass me by

Mmmm, the sun goin' down boy, dark goin' catch me here
Oooo ooee eeee, boy dark goin' catch me here
I haven't got no lovin' sweet woman that love and feel my care

You can run, you can run, tell my friend boy Willie Brown
You can run, tell my friend boy Willie Brown
Lord that I'm standing at the crossroad, babe I believe I'm sinkin' down

Now the point is that although Bob said that he studied Robert Johnson’s music (and of course we have no reason to doubt the validity of that statement) it takes a few moments to understand how, where and when Bob started to utilise this notion of not making the structure of every line and verse the same.

In this regard my immediate thought here turns to Tambourine Man.  Here the first verse is six lines with the rhyme pattern A A B C C B

Though I know that evenin’s empire has returned into sand
Vanished from my hand
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping
My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming

The next verse runs to seven lines

A A B C D D E

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship
My senses have been stripped, my hands can’t feel to grip
My toes too numb to step
Wait only for my boot heels to be wanderin’
I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it

The third verse runs

A A B, C C C B

Though you might hear laughin’, spinnin’, swingin’ madly across the sun
It’s not aimed at anyone, it’s just escapin’ on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin’
And if you hear vague traces of skippin’ reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it’s just a ragged clown behind
I wouldn’t pay it any mind
It’s just a shadow you’re seein’ that he’s chasing

And finally we geta rhyme sequence of A A B B C C D, E E, F, G, H, D

Then take me disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time, 
far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees, 
out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach 
of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, 
circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today 
until tomorrow

So yes, if Robert Johnson’s music taught Bob anything it was surely about the ability of songs being sustained through different lengths of line, different numbers of lines in a verse, and an ever-changing rhyme scheme.

The point is that Bob however took this so much further than Robert Johnson, going way beyond the 12 bar blues to achieve his effects.

Now this seems to me to be interesting in many ways.  One is while many writers on the subject of Dylan’s work have gone to great lengths to talk about Johnson’s influence, they don’t seem to me to have really traced the impact.   (Although I could of course have missed the relevant books or articles completely, and if so please do put me right, because I really do want to trace how Bob came to write as he did).

And this is important, I feel, because I can instantly think of another place in which Bob extended the verses, in the Johnson style, and that is “Visions of Johanna”.

What Bob is doing is taking the route that Robert Johnson first explored showing that despite the insistence of pop composers to the contrary, verses do not all have to be in identical form.

The rigidity that was set aside by Robert Johnson, but which returned with a vengeance for the decades of the two-and-a-half-minute popular song, was finally one more rejected by Bob Dylan, (in this case in May 1966).

• Blowing in the Wind and No More Aucion Block
• Bob Dylan’s Dream How the most subtle of musical changes gave the song a totally different meaning
• Masters of War How Bob Dylan became a poet first and a songwriter second
• Girl from the north country, Farewell, All Over You, The Death of Emmett Till
• Davey Moore and Joni Mitchell’s complaint
• Walls of Red Wing and New Orleans Rag
• Seven Curses and With God on Our Side
• Dylan 1963, the era of other people’s songs: From talking blues to eternal circle
• North Country Blues and the evolution of the equality of lyrics AND music
• Dylan in 1963: “Gypsy Lou” and “Troubled and I Don’t Know Why”
• Why does Bob Dylan so often re-write the music of his songs?
• Dylan the composer: “Percy’s Song” and “One too many mornings”
• When Bob said Times are changing, it is quite likely he didn’t fully realise how.
• Bob Dylan: the composer of music  “When the Ship Comes In”