By Tony Attwood
This series looks at the way in which Bob Dylan’s compositions have evolved musically over time. An index to previous articles is given at the end.
The changes that came over Bob Dylan the composer, can be seen through such recent articles as
One musical line sung 12 times to 130 worlds Bob invents a totally new musical form There is a change we can see and a change we can't see
I am not sure if Bob constantly returns to writing 12 bar blues after writing more complex pieces just to show he can, even when he has just composed one of his most highly adventurous songs, which strays a long way from the standard format. But that is what he has often done. And One more weekend sounds at first listen to be just that – a 12 bar blues which comes along after a period of experimentation with the writing.
But then something unexpected happens.
We get two verses of standard 12 bar blues format in terms of “Slippin and slidin” and “Come on down to my ship honey” and then suddenly, completely unexpectedly, we get a “middle 8” section. That is conventional enough, but here the middle eight is not only completely different musically but also, contrary to the norms of pop songs which themselves so often include the “middle 8,” as a break from verse after verse after verse, it only comes once. And that is unusual. Bob has done this before – but very few other composers in the genre do this.
The song is performed in A major, and the middle 8 starts in D major, which is conventional enough, (the aim is to be musially different at this point so the listener doesn’t feel he/she is getting the same music over and over) but Dylan immediately moves on to unrelated chords, first of C major and then B major, and from there he modulates the music to the key of E. The process is then repeated over the second group of three lines. As ever Dylanchords sets out the whole set of lyrics for the song; here is the unexpected and once only used middle 8.
D We'll fly the night away, C Hang out the whole next day, B E7 Things will be okay, You wait and see. D We'll go someplace unknown, C Leave all the children home, B E7 Honey, why not go alone Just you and me.
It is obviously not a great innovation to have a middle 8 that is only heard once – although it is very unusual – but to have a verse section that is so clearly in the blues tradition of chords (just A, D and E major chords throughout) and then to have such a varient approach with the once-only middle 8, including a modulation to the key of E (which allows a smooth return to the original key of A for the last verses) – that certainly is unusual in popular music.
So again, we have Bob following the pattern of musical convention, plus a few unique extra chordal variations in the music. But what makes this song particularly noteworthy when we come to consider the music and the lyrics is that while the music does take on an unexpected turn in the middle eight with its chords used, along with the final modulation, while the lyrics stay pretty much at ground level much of the time.
Of course, lyrically, the image of the “weasel on the run” is not what you would normally hear in a rock song, although I think images of animals on the run do turn up occasionally in the blues, but the second line about “looking good” and “have some fun” are absolutely standard rock n roll. And indeed, if you didn’t know the composer and heard someone else sing the last two lines of each verse, the last person you would think of as the composer is surely Bob Dylan.
But here’s one other thought: it is a song with extra complexity, and it was never performed on stage. I wonder if there is a pattern in that.
However just to show that this was no one-off, in the next song Dylan wrote (“New Morning”) he takes us on a different musical journey. The verse of New Morning uses the chords of A (the key chord), B minor, C# minor, D, and F#minor – all of which are standard chords for any popular song of the traditional type written in the key of A major.
Now the point about pop and rock is that generally, where it uses more than the standard three chords available in every key, it uses some of the blues chords (which in the key of A major would be C major and G major). But Dylan ignores those and instead uses the more “classical” chords (as opposed to “blues chords” of B minor, C# minor and F# minor.
Of course, Bob is not the first person to do this, but my point is that this is an unusual change for him, and it comes alongside these other variations in his songwriting that we have already noted at this time. It is as if he is deliberately seeking something different musically in his songwriting, and if I have to make a guess, I would say with songs like this Bob wrote the chord sequence first, deliberately using sequences he has not used before, and then added the melody and lyrics on top. And this I would further suggest is exactly the opposite way around from the way in which he wrote songs such as “Blowing in the Wind” and “The Times They Are a-Changing”.
This variant approach, which changes the order in which the constituent elements of the song are written, continues with the next song he composed: New Morning. Here again, we are getting the more unusual chords, as we can see in this transcription, again taken from the excellent Dylan chords site
A D A D
Can't you hear that rooster crowin'?
A C#m/g#
Rabbit runnin' down across the road
A7/g F#m D
Underneath the bridge where the water flowed through
Bm C#m
So happy just to see you smile
D E(11)
Underneath the sky of blue
A D A D
On this new morning, new morning
A D A
On this new morning with you.
Only the two chorus lines at the end give us a hint of popular music with pop / rock music chords. And as one final additional point, Eyolf Østrem whose site I am quoting the chord sequence from, adds in his commentary that there is, “Very little Bob-guitar on this one. He just plays the A’s and D’s, and when the going get rough i.e. the second line, where there are some more chords, the rough gets going: Dylan stops playing.”
I wonder what the implication of that is. Surely as a guitarist, these chords are in no way beyond Dylan’s ability to play. But if not, why would he stop playing? Unless just maybe, Bob said to one of the musicians, “give me a couple of unusual chords to add in here,” and the musician obliged. OK I know that is fanciful but well, there is something strange here.
Whatever the cause, what we have here is an album in which Bob deliberately moves away from the standard chordal accompaniment of the past and ventures onto musical pathways new. Not avant-garde garde of course, but new (or at the very least unusual) for him.
Previously in this series….
1: We might have noted the musical innovations more 2: From Hattie Carroll to the incoming ship 3: From Times to Percy’s song 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 8: From Denise to Mama 9: Balled in Plain 10:Black Crow to All I really want to do 11: I’ll keep it with mine 12:Dylan does gothic and the world ends 13: The Gates of Eden 14: After the Revolution – another revolution 15: Returning to the roots (but with new chords) 16: From “It’s all right” to “Angelina”. What appened? 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 24: Positively Fourth Street 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?” 32: Just like a woman 33: Most likely you go your way 34: Everybody must get stoned 35: Obviously 5 Believers 36: I Want You Creativity dries up 37: Creativity dries up - the descent towards the basement. 38: One musical line sung 12 times to 130 worlds 39: Bob invents a totally new musical form 40: There is a change we can see and a change we can't see 41: A sign on the window tells us that change is here