My Own Version Of You (2020) part 9: You take things and you make them your own

Posted on July 5, 2025 by Tony Attwood

 

My Own Version Of You (2025) part 9

by Jochen Markhorst

IX         You take things and you make them your own

I get into trouble and I hit the wall
No place to turn - no place at all
I pick a number between one and two
And I ask myself what would Julius Caesar do

Todd Haynes’ beautiful biopic I’m Not There (2007) has an apt subtitle, “The Many Faces & Lives of Bob Dylan”, which fully lives up to its promise: the idea of having Dylan played by six different actors works well. Particularly intelligent is the idea of having the most clichéd, iconic Dylan, the neurotic, sunglasses-wearing, sardonic Dylan of the mid-1960s, with his pale skin, polka dot shirt and wild hair, played by a woman. This alone allows Haynes to avoid histrionics – which, as we see in 2024 in the performance by the talented Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown, is almost inevitable. Plus: Haynes is of course very fortunate to have been able to secure the exceptional Cate Blanchett for the role.

Anyway, 2007 is still a little too early to write a complete biography, obviously; Dylan will continue for a few more decades and calmly expand his resume with new Faces & Lives. So Haynes inevitably misses, and could not have predicted, the 2023 Dylan: Dylan the crowd pleaser.

The seventh leg of the Rough And Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour kicks off on 1 October 2023 in Kansas City, and Dylan has decided to open with Wilbert Harrison’s classic “Kansas City”, much to the delight of the audience. It’s not a spur-of-the-moment decision. It soon turns out to be policy: next we go to St. Louis, where he plays two songs written by the city’s most famous son, Chuck Berry (“Johnny B. Goode” and “Nadine”), and the opening of the third stop is “Born In Chicago” from the Paul Butterfield Blues Band – because we are in Chicago, indeed. In retrospect, we can even see that Dylan had been preparing his sudden, atypical friendliness towards the audience for years:

I’m giving myself to you, I am
From Salt Lake City to Birmingham
From East LA to San Antone
I don’t think I could bear to live my life alone

… in the first bridge of “I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You”. Dylan probably wrote the song sometime around 2019/2020, and the names of those four cities were not chosen at random: all four are places that appear on his 2022 tour calendar, and, even more atypically, he even makes a point of it: “From Salt Lake City to Birmingham!” the entertainer shouts as he announces the song on 30 June in Salt Lake City, predictably generating loud cheers and surprised applause.

In the autumn of 2023, after Kansas City, St. Louis and Chicago, we arrive in Milwaukee, which then does not inspire Dylan. He could have chosen something by Al Jarreau, or even more obvious, Steve Miller, but apparently Dylan is not in the mood to give out gifts today. He prefers playing Grateful Dead’s “Truckin’”, which does name-check Chicago, New York, Detroit, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and Buffalo, but not Milwaukee. The Milwaukeans will have to console themselves with the fact that their neighbours in Dylan’s next stop Grand Rapids (14 October), don’t get anything special either. He rejects Alice Cooper’s “I Like Girls” (I bought a Porsche and I’m leaving Grand Rapids), and even Grand Rapids’ son Del Shannon, who does have a place in Dylan’s heart, fails to inspire him. Dylan opts for another rendition of Chuck Berry’s “Nadine” Sure, Nadine is walking towards a coffee-coloured Cadillac, but Cadillac is still about 90 miles from Grand Rapids – way too far to evoke local patriotic feelings in his audience.

But then next stop Indiana is treated to a personal touch again, with the surprising choice of “Longest Days” by Hoosier John Mellencamp, and even more surprising is 20 October Cincinnati: Dwight Yoakam’s forgotten album track “South Of Cincinnati”, from Dwight’s 1986 debut album Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.  Surprising and odd, as Dylan has many, often more attractive alternatives to choose from. “Susie Cincinnati” from the Beach Boys, Ray Charles’ “The Cincinnati Kid”, Buck Owens’ “Sam’s Place” (There’s Hootch-why-kootchy Hattie, she comes from Cincinnati), “Cincinnati Lou” by Merle Travis, Waylon Jennings, Dave Dudley… there are dozens of songs to choose from if you want to add a personal touch to your Cincinnati concert. And often enough, excellent songs from artists who are held in high regard by Dylan. Bobby Bare’s “Cincinnati Jail”, for example, Johnny Cash’s “Papa Was a Good Man” (okay, that’s a terrible song), Hank Williams’ “Pan American”, and especially Connie Smith’s unabashed declaration of love, her 1967 hit “Cincinnati, Ohio”:

There she lies at the foot of the hill
Shinin' like a jewel in the valley below  
Cincinnati, Ohio.

And let’s not forget Sinatra’s “I Can’t Get Started” (In Cincinnati or in Rangoon, I simply smile and all the gals swoon), another highlight from Dylan’s beloved American Songbook. In fairness, it should be noted that it is not so much the grandeur or beauty of the city, but rather the euphony of the word “Cincinnati” which usually motivates the décor choice.

Sinatra, Cash, Hank, Buck Owens, Bobby Bare and Merle Haggard… but Dylan chooses Dwight Yoakam. His afterword conveys a certain intimacy: “Dwight wrote that, you know that. I think he wrote it for King Records.” Partly fake news (Yoakam never signed with King Records), but that familiar “Dwight” stands out. Which makes sense: the men know each other and Dylan does appreciate him. They even have sung together: the background vocals for Carlene Carter’s 1993 recording of Dylan’s “Trust Yourself” are provided by the occasional duo Yoakam & Dylan, and a quarter of a century before “South Of Cincinnati” Dylan had already played another Yoakam song: the flawless tear-in-your-beer ballad “The Heart That You Own” (West Palm Beach, 1999).

It makes it all the more likely that Dylan is giving a nod to Dwight Yoakam here in this fourth verse. “Cincinnati” may appear in hundreds of songs, but there is really only one song with that strange, absurd concept of “pick a number between one and two,” and that is the closing track on Yoakam’s 2003 album Population Me, “The Back of Your Hand”:

Take a guess at where I stand
Pick a number one to two
Take a look at the back of your hand
Just like you know it
You know me too

Funny, and not entirely unusual in a Dylan song, such a paraphrase from a song by an admired colleague. However, it becomes more puzzling when we look at the credits: “The Back of Your Hand” is one of the few songs not written by Dwight himself. It was written by actor Gregg Lee Henry, the actor who usually plays the bad guy and whom we know from films such as Brian De Palma’s Body Double (1984), the Guardians Of The Galaxy series (2014-23), dozens of TV series and, above all, as the serial killer Dennis Rader in the horror television film The Hunt for the BTK Killer (2005).

In June 2017, Gregg has a somewhat more demanding role: he is playing the title role in the Shakespeare play that is on the programme for this year’s annual Shakespeare in the Park in Central Park. Dylan is nearby: on 13, 14 and 15 June, he is in Port Chester, barely a 45-minute drive from Central Park. And Dylan is a big, self-proclaimed Shakespeare fan (“I like to see Shakespeare plays, so I’ll go — I mean, even if it’s in a different language. I don’t care, I just like Shakespeare, you know” – AARP interview 2015). So it’s very likely that Dylan seized the opportunity. And what does he see?

I pick a number between one and two
And I ask myself what would Julius Caesar do

… he sees how Gregg Lee Henry, the actor who wrote Yoakam’s “The Back of Your Hand” with the chorus line “Pick a number one to two”, gets into trouble on stage, is pushed against the wall, no place to turn – no place at all, and then murdered by Casca, Cinna, Cassius and even Brutus – Dylan sees Gregg Lee Henry playing Julius Caesar.

In a controversial performance, incidentally – Gregg’s Julius Caesar is very much modelled on Donald Trump, which is causing the organisation quite a few problems. How did you prepare for that role, Backstage asks Gregg Lee Henry in May 2017.

“You invest your creativity in your part. You can watch other films and productions of Julius Caesar and see what they did and see whether it’s worth stealing or not! [laughs] Which is true of all art—you take things and you make them your own.”

I create, says Gregg, very Dylanesque, my own version of you. And then chooses – coincidentally, probably – almost the same words as Dylan did at the time in that famous Rolling Stone interview, 2012: “You make everything yours. We all do it.”

 —————–

To be continued. Next up My Own Version Of You part 10: And then see if you can make it make sense

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:

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *