By Tony Attwood
In his final part in the series of articles on the Dylan song “False Prophet” (published on this site), Jochen wrote:
“Having resisted the label “prophet” for more than half a century, Dylan now then confesses: well alright, I am a prophet. Not a false one, a real one. And let me show you the way to the Light: Ricky Nelson and Jimmy Wages, Billy ‘The Kid’ Emerson and Roy Orbison, your guides from the underworld.”
And although I made an attempt a little while back to start reviewing, or maybe dissecting (or maybe better said, just fumbling around with) Dylan’s book, “The Philosophy of Modern Song” I really felt I was failing to get a grip with the work, so I stopped after just a couple of articles.
But I have been drawn back to a rock song specifically mentioned in that series of articles: “Take Me from This Garden of Evil”.
At the time I thought I could review the song within the context of what Dylan wrote in “The Philosophy of Modern Song,” but then after several days of false starts I had to conclude that I couldn’t write the piece, for the simple reason that I couldn’t follow Dylan’s argument within the book. What I then meant to write, but somehow never got around to, was “if you know what Dylan was saying about ‘Garden of Evil’, and can explain it to someone like me who doesn’t get it, please do write an article (preferably without calling me a complete idiot, although I will allow that if you really think that is helpful to your argument) explaining Dylan’s thinking. Email it to Tony@schools.co.uk and mention this article, so I know where you are starting from.
But life goes on, and yesterday, apropos nothing in particular, I decided to take another listen to “Take me from this garden of evil,” and also felt it was time to listen to some other works by Jimmy Wages. After all, if Bob reckons he is worth a chapter, he really has to be something, and I am the one missing out.
I also thought that if I did end up thinking it takes us somewhere, maybe I could try and consider one or two more from “The Philosophy”. And this I must stress is because I don’t fully get quite a few of Bob’s arguments in “The Philosophy”. So you are most welcome to have space here and put me right on all of this.
But first, Jimmy Wages
What strikes me about the music in this song is that it is constantly “not quite right” by which I don’t mean that the composer didn’t know what he was doing, but rather that he was deliberately doing the unexpected. As a result, the song which sounds upon a casual listen like a regular rock n roll piece played on guitar, bass and percussion (I don’t think there are other instruments involved, and I think that is for a very good reason), it is in fact, nothing of the kind.
To begin, the opening guitar solo which occupies the first six seconds does not use chords that are used anywhere else in the rest of the song – which is very unusual for rock n roll. It also gets me alert – not because I am transfixed by what chords a composer uses, but because the whole intro and then the opening of the song, sounds so unexpected and interesting.
For what we get in that briefest of solos is the chord of A and then the chord of A minor, before we are immediately hearing a regular rock n roll piece in D. OK the chord of A major is regularly found in a piece written in D, although A minor isn’t. But more than that: A minor never turns up again. Which may seem a technical point, but it does add to the feeling that there is something strange here, as it is immediately followed by another unexpected twist. In effect we have an intro that in terms of chords has nothing to do with the rest of the song.
As for the song, after that intro, it sounds and feels like it is a classic 12-bar blues which would mean that first line of lyrics is repeated but on the IV chord (in this case G) before reverting back to D, which we get. But then instead of the final line of the verse being on the expected chord of A, it stays on G, before resolving to D. The chord of A, from the introduction, like the chord of A minor, doesn’t get a look in.
D
Well a friendly face in a friendly place
Is what I like to see
G
Yeah, a friendly face in a friendly place
D
Is what I like to see
G
Well if you don't hurry, get away from here
D
This little girl is gonna set my pace
Now given that the lyrics are simply the singer telling his girlfriend to get here quick or else he is going to start “making out” as I think the term was with this new girl, this might sound like a load of totally unnecessary technical hogwash if you are not a musician. But even if that is so, I suspect you will feel that there is something different about the song. The changes are very slight – changing chords in one place a bit early, and not moving to the chord of A (the dominant chord as it is called by musicians for this key), and so on…. It sounds like regular rock n roll, but somehow, even though we do get back to the chord of D, it is odd. Edgy. Not quite right. But really, really fun and engaging nonetheless.
So yes, it is these subtle changes that make the difference, and it really doesn’t matter if you don’t know about which chord is which, because they give that feeling that there is something very different going on within this short song. Something is in fact slightly out of sync. Which is not to say anything is wrong, and certainly not at all unpleasant but it is just a bit unexpected. And it is all achieved by an introduction using a chord we don’t expect, and a chord change in the piece of music itself which is also just that bit different.
Thus instead of a 12 bar blues in the classic format, we get something just that bit more edgy. And maybe most non-musicians would never quite know what makes the difference, but that doesn’t matter if you feel the difference, the slight hint of uncertainty…. It is those changes of chords at different times, and the use of chords that are not quite where we expect them to be, that achieves this. It is an almost 12 bar blues but not.
As a result of this, the instrumental solo also sounds slightly unexpected – we intuitively expect it to be following the established pattern of chord changes (because that is what normally happens in rock n roll) but it doesn’t.
And then at the end we get the unexpected, “I don’t have long to ponder” and unexpectedly, the song stops.
Now I must admit that before Dylan introduced this song to us, I had no idea about Jimmy Wages, but going and looking I found Miss Pearl which usees the same rhythmic trickery…
I found an article on Jimmy Wages on the website of Bear Family Records which tells us that “Jimmy Wages was one of the great finds in the Sun vaults. A man of singularly warped vision and a true musical primitive, he was a little too deep into left-field even for Sun in its heyday.”
Apparently Jerry Lee Lewis backed Jimmy Wages on one session with Sun Records After that he “became a club act, touring as far afield as California.” He is quoted as saying “I’m just one who tried and didn’t make it,” adding “I got a lot of company.”
But now listening to this third example of his work, looking back we can see why he didn’t make it. Those time changes are just too much! The speed of the song makes it hard to dance to, and the time changes make one feel something isn’t right – which was probably the idea. And there are other songs in the catalogue with the same title. He was in fact being dragged away from the music he instinctively loved, and forced into something he was not.
Jimmy Wages was born in 1931 and passed away in 1999 aged 68. Today he is remembered not for the records that were released but for the much more experimental (some reports say “wild” recordings for Sun which remained unreleased for so many years. There is a list of his recordings here. But following the rejection of his wonderful variations on how the rhythm of rock songs could work, he was pushed toward more conventional music and his unique talent was lost..
But some of his early work can still be found, and those odd rhythmic changes can be found, even though he did reduce them over time.
This is a 12 bar blues which actually turns into an 11 bar blues, which no one else even seems to have attempted let alone pulled off. And we must remember that with recordings from this era, everything was taken as a single take – which is to say that these odd rhythms were part of the performance.
So yes, I still don’t fully get what Bob is saying, but I’m so pleased to have been introduced to the early music of Jimmy Wages