If only there had been a Nobel Prize for Music: Part 9 – Ballad in Plain D

By Tony Attwood

Details of the previous eight episodes of this series are given at the end.

Now to begin with, you might perhaps be bemused.  This is a series about music, and Bob Dylan’s musical achievement.   And yet here I am taking up a whole article on a song containing 13 by and large unchanging verses as the singer expresses his deep sadness about not being able to hold a relationship together.   It is dead simple, and any half- competent folk singer could bore an audience stupid by the end of verse two – or three at the latest.  If there is something to be found here, surely it is in the lyrics, not the simple melody repeated 13 times.

And yet, and yet…

To start with the lyrics, since they dominate most people’s consciousness of the song, if we look at Dylan’s compositions of 1964 purely from the point of view of the lyrics we might conclude that part way through that year he was obsessed by relationships.  We have It ain’t me babe (a song of farewell performed 1120 times on stage), Denise Denise  (a song about a lady, never performed by Dylan) Mama you’ve been on my mind (another lost love song, performed 201 times on stage) and then this monumental Ballad in Plain D  (never performed even once on stage).

“It ain’t me babe” and “Plain D” both made it onto the “Another Side” album, the others didn’t.  “Plain D” runs to 438 words, lasts eight minutes 18 seconds.  There was a second Dylan version it seems, but the recording online only gets as far as the sister, and then is faded out, and doesn’t seem to add anything notable to our understanding of the song (at least in my opinion).  So I am bypassing that.

But what is interesting about the song musically is that it modulates.  The piece does start and end sounding as if it is in D, (although to achieve the effects Bob has, it is actually played in C with a capo on the second fret – thank you to the inestimable Dylan chords for that awareness).   But maybe Bob’s guitar playing is perhaps a technicality when compared with the main difference between this song and most folk or pop or indeed rock songs – for it modulates.  Which means it changes key.

And before I go on I’d like to try and emphasise these points.   It’s not in Plain D in that it is actually played in C (thank you again as ever to Dylan Chords for making that very plain).  But to make my own point, “modulation”( which is common in much western music), is very rare in folk and most pop music.

Without going into the nuances of Bob’s performance the chords are

A    D           Bm        D     
I    once loved a girl, her skin it was bronze
                        Bm              C          G
With the innocence of a lamb, she was gentle like a fawn
  D           Bm           D    
I courted her proudly, but now she is gone
                       A7   D
Gone as the season she's taken.

The modulation (that is the change of key) comes in the second line and is effected by using the chord of B minor (Bm) which is a chord that is found both in songs in the key of D major and songs in G major.    So when we have “lamb” sung against the chord of B minor, that doesn’t feel or sound strange.   But that movement to C major at “gentle” tells us that we have indeed changed keys – since the chord of C major doesn’t naturally occur in the key of D, and thus musicians feel the modulation.  Non-musicians more likely feel that the music at this point is “a bit odd” (as one friend put it to me).

But the oddness doesn’t linger for then we are straight back to D – the key we started in and the verse ends on D, just to emphasise that this is exactly where we are.

Musically the modulation and the return to the tonic at the end help the listener stay focussed – although whether focussed enough to want to play this long recording regularly I don’t know.   I bought the album when it came out, but mostly avoided playing this track.

But I think Dylan was conscious of the issue he had created with such a long track consisting of 13 vocal verses and one instrumental verse (played by the harmonica) – which is one reason for introducing the modulation.  For that key change takes us a little by surprise, and helps us work through and keep focussed on what might otherwise be 13 identical verses.

The melody and approach of the song has been traced back by many writers to the traditional English songs, “The False Bride” and “Once I had a sweetheart” and these of course exist in many forms, depending on which part of England they were originally noted in by those who dedicated their lives to finding and notating the traditional songs of England.  And since then it has been recorded in its original form…

But to return to Dylan, what else has he done musically which is so unusual?   First, he’s run 13 verses in the same basic form.  That really takes us back to the days of 15th Century English folk music.   Second, he changes the chord sequence slightly as he goes, maybe just to keep our interest, maybe to keep up his interest, maybe because he really feels each change does indeed reflect the changing lyrics

Bob has also added an instrumental verse with a very plaintive harmonica and a conclusion, which is very much in the folk tradition, but far less common in contemporary music.

Furthermore, throughout the song the chordal accompaniment changes often moving away from the modulating second line of C,  Am,  Bb,  F, to the chord sequence which drops the Bb.  This happens regularly and so by verse 13 we are half-expecting (even if it is only subconsciously) a variation and we do get it with the complete omission of the Bb chord which has made such an impact on the music in the earlier verses.

This comes as Bob is singing ‘Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me, “How good, how good does it feel to be free”? And I answer them most mysteriously ‘Are birds free from the chains of the skyway”?’

This really is a very extraordinary work.  Highly repetitive, much longer than other songs on the album, having variation but often in quite a subtle way, modulating in most verses, and never performed live, even in a shortened version.

And it leaves us with a question, does it have to be that long?   True, it is not an absolutely strophic piece since the chordal accompaniment does change regularly, if subtly.  And the lyrics do take us to some strange metaphors – at least I think this is a metaphor….

With unseen consciousness, I possessed in my grip
A magnificent mantelpiece, though its heart being chipped
Noticing not that I'd already slipped
To the sin of love's false security

Perhaps above all I am left with is the thought that there is a magnificent piece of songwriting here, and if it had been a much shorter piece it might have been performed by Bob.  Likewise, if it had been a piece that could be performed with an ensemble, then in its existing length it might have become a concert piece.   Or if the verses had been eight lines with varied chordal accompaniment and melodic variation, again it could have been a welcomed concert piece.

But of course, the point is that the singer is lost and morose, knowing what he has thrown away, and how much of it was his fault.    And I am left with the thought that if only that had been written after Tambourine Man Bob might well have attempted to play it with the band, and with all the musical variations that would have made it a piece that would have gripped audiences the world over.

Sadly, if that is the case, it came too soon, and I suspect many a Dylan fan has played the one recording of the song rarely over the years.  But if you are still here, maybe you could try this….

If only there had been a Nobel Prize for Music

• 1: We might have noted the musical innovations more
• 2: From Hattie Carroll to the incoming ship
• 3: From Times to Percy’s song
• 4: Combining musical traditions in unique ways
• 5: Using music to take us to a world of hope
• 6: Chimes of Freedom and Tambourine Man
• 7: Bending the form to its very limits
• 8: From Denise to Mama