Previously in this series….
- 1961. “I was young when I left home”
- 1962: Tomorrow is a long time
- 1963: Seven Curses
- 1964: Gates of Eden
- 1965: Visions of Johnanna
- 1966: One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
- 1967 part 1: “Drifter’s Escape”
I have raved over “I’m not there” since the earliest days of this website, and there is of course, a link between this song and the other song I have chosen for this year: “Drifters Escape”. The two songs, for me, simply fit together. Although obviously they didn’t for Bob for he kept one, but lost the second.
I didn’t intend to cheat in this series by having two songs of the year, but on reaching 1967 I really did find myself torn between two different Dylan compositions, and since I am writing this, I’m making the rules.
“I’m not there,” the movie, was released in 2007 along with Dylan’s version of the song. The film has six actors who have been “inspired by the music and the many lives of Bob Dylan.” The album of the movie includes the Dylan performance of “I’m not there” taken from the Basement Tape days. The Sonic Youth version of the song comes from this album.
So why does it haunt me? The chord sequence is fairly unusual but not that unusual, the vocals are interesting but not that stunning… so what is it?
For me I think it is the atmosphere of that the song creates – that alternation between the cast down vocie in one verse and the desperate pleading in the second verse.
The song has ten verses in groups of two, the first with the vocals almost growling in the lowest register Dylan can reach, and the answering voice an octave higher.
I’m personally not convinced by the Bob Dylan version any more – it used to fascinate me but over time its allure has faded, and for it has been replaced by the version above. Maybe I’m just getting older. Maybe I’ve been working on this site too long – but then maybe we all should change over time. But in case you don’t know it, Bob’s version is further down the page.
The late John Bauldie, who wrote the quarterly magazine, The Telegraph, called it “Dylan’s saddest song, achieved without benefit of context or detail. It’s like listening to the inspiration before the song is wrapped around it.”
Take just one verse…
“Well it’s all about diffusion and I cry for her veil, I don’t need anybody now beside me to tell. And it’s all affirmation I receive but it’s not, she’s a lone-hearted beauty but she don’t like this spot and she’ gone.”
It is a perfect statement of utter confusion, of the singer wanting to get to know her, and be with her and understand her, but she doesn’t share any of that – she just moves on. It is that feeling of starting to know about what is going on in the world, and finding someone else with views that are interesting, but somehow not being able to get close.
It is that feeling of saying “I am so close to you but you won’t come anywhere close to me.” It is being utterly confused and finding someone who seems to be able to sail through all this confusion and move on, leaving one behind, lost, isolated, unsure.
Even if this song were nothing else, it gives us one of the great insights into Dylan’s songwriting technique. But of course, it is much more. So much, much more.
The fact that so much of the world has just past this song by without a second thought tells us a lot about the world, and indeed about relationships and about music.
It is of course just a rough recording, and Bob probably doesn’t even remember he wrote it. But from the first time I heard it, onto today, it has been part of my life. And that I think is the point, not just for me, but for many other people too. There’s no point having one or two lines of this song, it is so much more.
But if we were to be required to explain in terms of one line why this song is so wonderful, I would select the ending
I wish I was there to help her but I’m not there, I’m gone.
If you want to get a different perspective on this song try the lyrics written like this…
Things are all right and she’s all too tight in my neighbourhood, she cries both day and night I know it because it was there. It’s a milestone but she’s down on her luck and she’s daily salooning about to make a hard-earned buck; I was there. I believe that she’d stop him if she would start to care, I believe that she’d look upon the side that used to care. And I’d go by the Lord anywhere she’s on my way but I don’t belong there. No, I don’t belong to her, I don’t belong to anybody she’s my Christ-forsaken-angel but she don’t hear me cry, she’s a lone-hearted mystic and she can’t carry on when I’m there she’s all right, but then she’s not, when I’m gone.
Heaven knows that the answer she’s not calling no one she’s the way, forsaken beauty for she’s mine, for the one and I lost her hesitation by temptation lest it runs but she don’t honour me but I’m not there, I’m gone.
Now I’ll cry tonight like I cried the night before and I’m left on the highway but I still dream about the door; it’s so long, she’s forsaken by her faith, where’s to tell? it don’t have consternation, she’s my all, fare-thee-well. Now when I’ll teach that lady I was born to love her but she knows that the kingdom waits so high above her, and I run but I race but it’s not too fast or still but I don’t perceive her, I’m not there, I’m gone.
Well it’s all about diffusion and I cry for her veil I don’t need anybody now beside me to tell and it’s all affirmation I receive but it’s not she’s a lone-hearted beauty but she don’t like this spot and she’ gone. Yeah, she’s gone like the radio below the shining yesterday but now she’s home beside me and I’d like her here to stay. She’s a lone, forsaken beauty and she don’t trust anyone and I wish I was beside her but I’m not there, I’m gone.
Well, it’s too hard to stay here and I don’t want to leave it’s so bad, for so few see, but she’s a heart too hard to need. It’s alone, it’s a crime the way she hauls me around, but she don’t fall to hate me but tears are gone, I’m her painted clown. Yes, I believe that it’s rightful oh, I believe it in my mind I’ve been told like I said one night before, “Carry on the crying” And the old gypsy told her like I said, “Carry on,” I wish I was there to help her but I’m not there, I’m gone.