When Bob clearly said, “Songs don’t have to mean anything:” The Whiffenpoof Song.

According to Whiffenpoof historian James M. Howard, quoted in Wikipedia, the comedian Joseph Cawthorn (1868 – 1949) would tell the tale, in a piece of nonsense poetry, of how he caught a whiffenpoof fish saying, “A drivaling grilyal yandled its flail, One day by a Whiffenpoof’s grave.”

By the time the song reached me as a child, it was reduced to the six lines starting “We are poor little lambs….” and of course, multiple decades later, I still remember it, as indeed many people can recall the songs they were sung as a child.

But the issue that is raised here goes far deeper, for it brings to us the question of whether the lyrics of songs have to mean anything at all.   Indeed, as we have noted before (and as I was just reminded by my computer, which insists on giving me an AI feed when I do a Google search, “Dylan himself suggested some lyrics felt ‘ghost’ written, while others are pointedly clear, showcasing his range from protest to poetic ambiguity.

It then goes on to quote me, which I am not sure if I should be honoured by or horrified by, but I guess it does mean that AI has caught up with this website, a fact of which I am rather pleased.

Anyway, more to the point, the article also stated that Dylan’s work often “features dreamlike verses, bizarre characters (like the “jelly-faced women”), and abstract narratives that defy simple interpretation, serving more as evocative experiences than literal stories.”   Which, I guess we know, and which we can now link back to “The Whiffenpoof Song” as this is indeed reminding us that his choice of phrases and songs without clear and direct meanings is continuing a tradition that goes back many centuries.

Here is an example: Louis Armstrong’s “Heebie Jeebies“

Say, I've got the Heebie
I mean the Jeebies
Talking about
The dance, the Heebie Jeebies
Do, because they're boys
Because it pleases me to be joy
Say, don't you know it?
You don't know 'bout; don't be blue
Someone will teach you
Come on and do that dance
They call the Heebie Jeebies dance
Yes, ma'am
Papa's got the Heebie Jeebies dance

So we take the message that I guess most of us who love the work of Dylan have realised for some time: songs don’t have to make sense.

Thus, I would take it that Bob, though selecting “The Whiffenpoof Song” is indeed reminding us that his choice of phrases and songs without clear and direct meanings, is simply continuing a tradition that goes back many centuries.  And there is nothing wrong with that.  Indeed, quite the reverse.