By Larry Fyffe
From the back cover of Bob Dylan’s fourth album:
henry miller stands on the other side of ping pong table
and keeps talking about me
(Bob Dylan: liner notes ~ Another Side Of Bob Dylan)
Miller’s known for writing novels that are intended to cause sexual excitement when read.
Bob Dylan goes out of his way to avoid truck-driving censors; he does not want to have his art – his writings, his songs, his music – mixed up in any obscenity trial.
Below, a portrayal of a gal eating a Mexican orange that parodies the “pornographic” writings of Henry Miller:
O'lady takes an orange out of her pocket
"got this from Aztec country - watch me boys"
she takes the orange & oozes and dribbles
all down her mouth all over her skirt
- more - more - more -
she's all covered in orange
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)
An example of Henry’s smutty literature:
O Tania, where now is that warm cunt of yours, those fat, heavy garters,
the soft, bulging thighs? There is a bone in my prick six inches long.
I will ream out every wrinkle in your cunt, Tania, big with seed.
(Henry Miller: Tropic Of Cancer)
Below, Dylan messes around with Miller’s tale in order to create humor:
Feel like falling in love with the first women I meet
Putting her in a wheelbarrow and wheeling her down the street
(Bob Dylan: Things Have Changed)
Miller is writing below about some kind of “kinky” sex game:
Sometimes he’d stand her on her hands, and push her around the room that way, like a wheelbarrow.
(Henry Miller: Tropic Of Cancer)
The lyrics beneath express a hope that there’s going to be sexual activity but certainly there’s no arousing depiction thereof:
Stay, lady, stay
Stay with your man a while
Until the break of day
Let me see you make him smile
(Bob Dylan: Lay Lady Lady)
The following song’s easily taken as a parody that features Henry’s bony part:
And you go watch the geek
Who immediately walks up to you
When he hears you speak
And says, "How does it feel
To be such a freak?"
And you say, "Impossible"
As he hands you a bone
(Bob Dylan: Ballad Of A Thin Man)
The final song’s surely about reaching a sexual climax, but that meaning, at first sight anyway, is not obvious.
It’s very euphemistic:
Well, I ride a mail train, baby Can't buy a thrill Well, I've been up all night, baby Leaning on the windowsill Well, if I die on top of the hill And if I don't make it You know my baby will (Bob Dylan: It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry)