by Jochen Markhorst
XVI “Repeat anyone else you like, only not yourself!”
The anarchic nature and Calvin’s lust for disorder and chaos speaks from the slightly insane look of his eyes in the last panel. He is picturing the mayhem, that much is clear. A live performance of Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece probably would have disappointed him, though. Closer to his ideal came the premiere of another illustrious classical piece, Stravinsky’s Sacre du Printemps in Paris, 29 May 1913. During that premiere tumult broke out, there was shouting and throwing and fighting, and the gendarmerie had to restore order in the hall.
In the subsequent mythologisation and oversimplification of the event, Stravinsky’s music is usually identified as the culprit, as the casus belli. It was said to have been so different, ferocious, rhythmically complex with atonal and dissonant passages, that the audience’s sense of art and mental grasp were offended. A fairly ineradicable reading; in variants, it is thus dished out to this day whenever Le Sacre du Printemps is mentioned anywhere.
It is incorrect. Reliable reconstructions and witness accounts have long since shown that not the music but rather the ballet had been the trigger for the riot. The choreography by the greatest dancer of the 20th century, Vaslav Nijinsky, disconcerted the conservative part of the audience. Instead of the usual tutus and swan fluttering and graceful sautés, Nijinsky had the Ballet de Russes perform in peasant clothes, stomping their feet, inelegantly tossing limbs around… the hooting and whistling of the audience were so loud, according to reviews, that they even drowned out the music, forcing Nijinsky to shout the count to his dancers. Whether he also screamed play it fucking loud to the orchestra, history does not tell.
The parallels with the premiere of “It Takes A Lot To Laugh” are unmistakable. Dylan introduced the song in that short set at that illustrious Dylan-goes-electric concert at the Newport Folk Festival in July 1965, when the song was still called “Phantom Engineer”. “People remember it differently,” says Theodore Bickel in a 2011 interview for the Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation, “but I remember it well,” after he, too, recited that pumped-up version of the Battle of Newport. The version in which the audience reacted with dismay to the new Dylan, insulted and indignant, booing him off stage.
“There were a lot of boos,” as festival boss George Wein confirmed in 2018. “The pro-rock world is trying to say there was more cheering, but no: there were more boos.”
The version hinted at in the film A Complete Unknown (James Mangold, 2024) as well, but which has long since been nuanced: the booing was focused primarily on the lousy sound quality, and secondly on the short duration of the set (three songs), not so much on the songs and the fact that they were played electrically. The sound recording of “Phantom Engineer” does sober up in that respect, too. We hear a last snippet of “normal” cheering after the previous song, “Like A Rolling Stone”, during the following performance we hear nothing special from the audience, and after the song, the last song of the electric set, there is “normal” applause. The hoots and whistles don’t rise until the audience sees Dylan leaving the stage.
Bob Dylan at Newport – Phantom Engineer:
At this premiere the song still sounds as it was recorded days before, during the first Highway 61 sessions: rushed, up-tempo and spotlighting Mike Bloomfield’s assertive guitar. Then, after the final recording, “It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry”, as the song is now officially renamed, disappears from the setlist – 93 concerts around the world until the motorbike accident in July 1966, but not a single “It Takes A Lot”. No concerts in 1967, only a contribution to a Woody Guthrie Memorial in 1968, only the Isle Of Wight concert in 1969, no gigs in 1970, and only one performance in 1971… and that’s where Dylan plays “It Takes A Lot” for the second time in his career. Twice even: at both the early and late session of The Concert For Bangladesh. With a very special band, at that: George Harrison on guitar, Ringo Starr on tambourine and (inevitable in 1971) Leon Russell on bass.
It Takes a Lot to Laugh Concert for Bangladesh 1971:
The performance is a surprisingly faithful copy of the album version. Equally set in with acoustic guitar, Harrison’s electric guitar just as subservient as Bloomfield at the time, tempo similar (only slightly faster), harmonica solo after the second verse and harmonica solo as the finale, and exactly the same lyrics – presumably Dylan didn’t want to make things too difficult for his one-off backing band.
No concerts in the last two years of the Seven Lean Years 1967-1973 either. Then, when Dylan finally reports back to the front, the drought is over. Well, technically anyway – more than a single trickle in the hard rain it is not. In Dylan’s comeback, the 1974 Tour of America with The Band, a series of forty concerts, “It Takes A Lot” appears one single time on the setlist (Toronto 9 January). We are then converted back to up-tempo, more rock than blues, and it stays that way for a while: at the Rolling Thunder Revue 1975-76, the song is on the setlist eleven times, and “It Takes A Lot” has become a pure rock song – courtesy of Supreme Spider From Mars Mick Ronson, the blonde guitar god who made such a crushing impression on log writer Sam Shepard:
“Ronson, on the other hand, really gets off on this monster crowd. His initial style is broad and theatrical anyway, coming from English “rave-up” and David Bowie. He begins to uncork all the flash he’s been holding back throughout the tour. Giant, spread-eagle leaps into thin air. Triple vertical spins, wrapping the guitar cord around him like a boa constrictor, slashing at the guitar with huge full-arm uppercuts. Platinumblond hair spraying in all directions. Then stalking around the stage, stiff legged, Frankenstein macho strutting, shaking the neck of the guitar with his vicious chord hand as though throttling his weaker brother. All the time, never losing a lick.”
(Sam Shepard, Rolling Thunder Logbook p. 166, 1977)
It Takes a Lot to Laugh live at Boston Music Hall – Nov 1975:
Audiences are grateful and excited for a Dylan who is more electric than ever – great artists evolve faster than their audiences, after all. Which soulmate Igor realised as well, faced with all the hatred after the premiere of Le Sacre du Printemps:
“I cannot, I simply c a n n o t write what they want from me—that is, repeat myself—repeat anyone else you like, only not yourself!—for that is how people write themselves out. But enough about L e S a c r e . It makes me miserable”
. (Stravinsky, letter to Alexandre Benois, 1913)
… Stravinsky crystal-clearly and emotionally articulating Dylan’s conception of art half a century avant la lettre.
To be continued. Next up It Takes A Lot Part 17: Well, I ride on the “A” train, baby
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Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:
- Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
- Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
- Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
- Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
- Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
- Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
- Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits
- John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville
- Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s lookin’ for the fuse
- Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978
- Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2nd Big Bang
- Time Out Of Mind: The Rising of an Old Master
- Crossing The Rubicon: Dylan’s latter-day classic
- Nashville Skyline: Bob Dylan’s other type of music
- Nick Drake’s River Man: A very British Masterpiece
- I Contain Multitudes: Bob Dylan’s Account of the Long Strange Trip
- Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B
- Bob Dylan’s High Water (for Charley Patton)
- Bob Dylan’s 1971
Like A Rolling Stone b/w Gates Of Eden: Bob Dylan kicks open the door
Shelley in poetry, like Stravinsky afterwards in music, touched by the ‘tooth and claw’ of Darwinian biological evolution, pushed open the bounds of their artistic techniques but for them Nature and/or God restrained the rawness of the rites of Spring to a cyclical recurrence. “Spiritual” Transcendental peaceful nature, accompanued by the harmonies of the likes of Peter, Paul, and Mary, faded away. Nevertheless, singer/songwriter/musician Bob Dylan strayed not that far from the middle of the Frosty road sided though it was by the shadows of Gothic trees.