By Tony Attwood
A little while back, I moved away from the regular series that are published here and wrote a little piece returning to one of the themes that occupied Bob in his writing for a while – that of gambling. And from there recently got into a conversation over a meal with some friends about gambling songs in general.
And it was during the course of that conversation that the point was made that if we were talking about gambling songs and Bob Dylan, we had to include “Black Diamond Bay.” And this turned out to be a favourite debating point, with it being pointed out that what we had not done was publish a recording of that song by Bob’s co-composer of that piece, Jacques Levy.
Now, here I hit an issue. For all the reports say that Jacques wrote the lyrics and Bob wrote the music, which, to me, just as a starting point, seems unlikely. For from general observation of Bob’s music I’d expect this to be the other way around: lyrics by Bob, music by Jacques.
And indeed it is more than general observation that points this way. Just look at the way the chords run along through the song – take this for example… (my source here is the excellent and always accurate Dylan Chords website).
C /b Am G D(/f#) C
As the last ship sails and the moon fades away
C /b Am G
From Black Diamond Bay.
If that chord sequence was written by Bob then I would say it is either unique within his songwriting career it is at least pretty unusual – and that is not the only sequence in the piece that makes me think Bob was the author of the lyrics.
Now, according to the official Dylan site, the song was performed live only once by Bob on 25 May 1976. But the theme of course applies to all casinos – if you want to take this further, you might have a look at Online Casino Missouri | Legal MO Online Casino Gambling 2025.
Anyway, the official reports of the song do insist that Jacques Levy wrote the lyrics and Bob wrote the music, and I’m just a guy who listens to the music and draws a conclusion. And my conclusion is that if Bob did write this music, it really is a one-off for him; it just doesn’t seem his style.
And yet when we come to the lyrics, these seem “pure Bob” to me. For here we must remember that this is a strophic song, meaning that it is verse, verse, verse, with each verse being the same, musically. This is Bob’s most common style, and it also describes most folk music, including virtually all Bob’s gambling songs.
One other little detail is that where Bob has written music in a lively music of this nature, it is very rare for him to start a piece in a major key (G major in this case), with a minor chord (Em). It just isn’t Bob’s style of composing, whatever the record company might say.
However, if Bob did write the lyrics, why wouldn’t he want it to be known? I suspect quite simply because they don’t make much sense. We are introduced to a lady of a certain age who isn’t gambling, a man asks for a rope and a pen, storm clouds gather, people come and go, there’s a volcano, there’s a panic, people fall in love, the island sinks, the gambler wins the jackpot, a man watches the news.
Now, none of that seems very Bob Dylan to me. Yes Bob jumps around in the lyrics, but not quite in this way. What is Bob, is the way the music moves along without any refernce to these lyrics. And with each verse being musically the same; so we get the sense that no matter what happens, no matter what the chaos, life goes on.
The whole effect is achieved by the fact of having seven verses that are musically identical – the strophic approach that Bob has so often utilised. The world as described in the lyrics falls apart, by the music goes on in the same way: that is a style Bob has often used.
So I’d put forward the view that Jacques wrote the music and played it on the piano, Bob liked it, and put lyrics to it. And the point is, everyone who wants to gamble can indeed do so.