The last episode in this series was The best ever version of “Where are you tonight sweet Marie?”
Episdoe 32. 1966 (continued)
In previous articles in the “No Nobel Prize for Music” series I have dealt somewhat on the failure of the song She’s Your Lover Now, because it was a rare event in Bob’s writing career – writing about something real that happened (the break up of a relationship) and the failure to produce a recording that was felt (perhaps by Dylan, perhaps by the producer) to be suitable for the next album. Certainly listening to those recordings of the song, I rach the conclusion that the song itself just doesn’t work, but then, that’s just me.
So Bob then continued on his way, writing first Absolutely Sweet Marie which spent its time wondering where the woman of his imagination had gone, and then coming up with his final response to the break-up that he failed to deal with in “She’s your lover now”, with the magnificent Just like a woman.
One of the problems of course with thinking about Bob’s older work is that many of us (myself included) have lived with these songs through most of our adult lives, and so trying to see them in a way that allows proper analysis is difficult. But surely if ever one wanted a song that might show Dylan’s sublime musical and literary ability in the face of personal distress, this surely is it. For here in “Just like a woman” he finds the ultimate put down for the woman he has lost, suggesting that the way she behaves is typical of the female of the race, failing to grow up, behaving like a child.
It may not be the slightest bit politically correct, and of course if the music of the song were not as near to perfect as makes no odds, the song would be unacceptable in the modern world where it is not acceptable to disparage all of woman kind as acting as acting physically and emotonally in a unified manner which can be described as being “just like a woman”. One might say to a teenager, “you are behaving like a child” and get away with it, but to saying “that’s just like a woman” really isn’t acceptable. It isn’t acceptable now, and it wasn’t acceptable when Bob wrote it.
But here every very ends with saying that the woman is behaving like a little girl, which is just as sexist as the main comment itself.
Of course I am far from the first to point out the sexism of the lyrics. ” Bob Dylan: The Illustrated Record”, described the piece as “a devastating character assassination…the most sardonic, nastiest of all Dylan’s putdowns of former lovers.” In the New York Times we found Marion Meade proclaiming that “there’s no more complete catalogue of sexist slurs.”
But what these commentaries do not examine is how Bob can get away with such an overtly sexist set of lyrics? The answer, for me, even if for no one else, is not the fact that it is Dylan and so he can say anything, but rather in the music.
If you can forget the lyrics and just listen to the music, this is a stunningly beautiful song. What would be helpful here is if someone had made an instrumental version of the song – but mostly what we have are copies of the instrumental accompaniment simply without the lyrics. The nearest I have is this
which goes partway to showing us what a superb piece of music it is without the lyrics.
But of course, the devastating message that she’s just a child in her behaviour and emotional response is there always because we have heard the piece so many times. And a pretty devastating message it is.
Yet if we can ever separate ourselves from the lyrics and hear the music, it is an extraordinary piece. And all the more so because it doesn’t pull any tricks in terms of using chords from outside the key that it is in. All the chords in fact are chords that
C F G C
Nobody feels any pain
F G C
tonight as I stand inside the rain
F G F G
Everbody knows that Baby's got new clothes
F Em Dm C F G
But lately I see her ribbons and her bows,
Am C F G
have fallen from her curls.
Each of these chords is a chord that can be formed when playing only notes from the scale of C major – it is an absolute manual in writing a song just within the chords available in a certain key. There are no blues chords or any other variations that Dylan has used in the past. This is songwriting in the classical mould.
Nobody feels any pain
Tonight as I stand inside the rain
Everybody knows that baby’s got new clothes
But lately I see her ribbons and her bows
Have fallen from her curls
She takes just like a woman
Yes, she does, she makes love just like a woman
Yes, she does, and she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl
Bob’s build-up to writing Just Like A Woman, isn’t always mentioned in reviews of the song, but it does seem to me to be fundamental to grasping the full implication of the piece. This was his response to his own failed “She’s your lover now” which contains lines such as “Pain sure brings out the best in people, doesn’t it?”
That song never made it onto a record, despite Bob recording it over and over again, as we have seen in previous episodes of this series, but “Just like a woman” removed the intolerence and replaced it with acceptance as the title istself suggests and Bob gave the song 871 performances, making it his 16th most performed song of all time. Indeed it has more live versions than “It’s alright ma”, “Thunder on the mountain”, “Desolation Row,” “Times they are a changin”, and “It;s all over now baby blue”.
And of course other bands have picked up on the song too…
The song has all sorts of original elements to it in Dylan’s version such as starting with a Harmonica solo which actually plays the tune rather than an improvisation around it.
Also we really must note the gentility of the accompaniment. Of course we all know the song so well, we can pass over this but if you have a moment do go back to Bob’s album recording and listen to the accompaniment as he sings,
Harmonica solo, verse and chorus and coda
Feel the pain – start at 1 minute.
Now in my original draft of this little piece I was going to finish with this, but then I suddenly remembered an article by Jochen about seven years ago and I went back to find it, and for once my memory was not decieiving me.
The article is still on the site, and if you have time do have a look, and then indeed whether you have time or not, play the recording at the end of the piece. It will round off your reverie perfectly.
Previously in this series….
1: We might have noted the musical innovations more
2: From Hattie Carroll to the incoming ship
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
10: Black Crow to All I really want to do
12: Dylan does gothic and the world ends
14: After the Revolution – another revolution
15: Returning to the roots (but with new chords)
17: How strophic became something new: Love is just a four letter word
18: Bob reaches the subterranean
19: The conundrum of the song that gets worse
20: Add one chord, keep it simple, sing of love
21: It’s over. Start anew. It’s the end.
22: Desolation Row: perhaps the most amazing piece of popular music ever written
23: Can you please crawl out your window
25: Where the lyrics find new lands, keep the music simple
26: Tom Thumb’s journey. It wasn’t that bad was it?
27: From Queen Jane to the Thin Man
28: The song that revolutionised what popular music could do
29: Taking the music to completely new territory
30: Sooner or Later the committee will realise its error
31: The best ever version of “Where are you tonight sweet Marie?”
The melody is one of his Dylan’s best, which makes it so sad that the lyrics are so misogynist. I find it impossible to separate the music from the lyrics. I was 15 when “Blonde on Blonde” was released, and “Just Like a Woman” is probably my least favourite song on what is otherwise one of his great albums.
I think that the point of the lyrics is that the listener is intended to understand that the singer is, as he does in “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright”, singing a song to “try to make himself feel better” (notes to “Freewheelin'”) and failing. He begins by singing, “Nobody feels any pain”, and then goes on to make it clear that there is a lot of pain. And my reading of the lyrics is that he actually blames himself. “Ain’t it clear that—/ I just can’t fit/ Yes, I believe it’s time for us to quit”. The ‘woman’ in the song fails to see how confused he is. So no, I don’t think that the song is misogynistic, but heavily ironic and unflattering about himself.
I have always thought that the title of the album, Blond on Blond, points to the ambiguity of many of the situations and feelings described. Nothing is straightforward and unambiguous.
I’m really pleased you pointed out that all the chords are formed from the Cmajor scale. The genius is in the simplicity. It’s such a well constructed song, a primer on song writing. I learned so much about songwriting from Dylan; the first music book I bought was “The Free Wheelin’ Bob Dylan”. I still have it and still learn from him. I’m sure I always will.