The Philosophy of Modern Song: Big River and a long, long journey

Posted on April 11, 2026 by Tony Attwood

 

By Tony Attwood

There are two Johnny Cash songs in Dylan’s “Philosophy of Modern Song.”    One is “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town” and today’s chosen song, “Big River.”

And musically, “Big River” is a very challenging song; a song that has taken me on a long, strange journey, as you might see, if you stay with me to the end of this piece.    Here is Bob performing the piece…

Now, if you look up the chords on the leading websites that give the guitar chords and lyrics of each song and you will see that the opening of “Big River” runs

E
Now I taught the weeping willow how to cry
E                                                                          (F#)    B7
And I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky

And indeed, if you have not played in bands and spent an hour or two (prior to the internet doing everything for us) listening to a recording and writing out the chords, you might well have listened to versins that have no F# in them.   Indeed in Bob’s version above, he sings the melody as if there is no F#7 chord happening. Ing at all between the chords of E and B7.

But go back to the musical opening, which indeed Bob keeps, in his version, there are the notes B, B, B, A, G, E played several times.    And if you have played in a band or studied some music, you will know that G is not a note in the chord of E major (normally written as simply “E”.)  In short, this is all a bit confusing.

In fact, I don’t get a sense of either E major or E minor in the opening of the song, but of a chord without the third note (the note which determines if the chord is major or minor).   And I would add, it is not a dramatic effect, but it is important because it is fundamental to the feeling of the song.

But then, as the vocals come in, we do get E major, and indeed the vocal line does incorporate a G# note within it.    And at this point, you may well be thinking, “What does it matter?”  G or G# – they are just notes.  Sing one, play the other, so what?

Yet in fact, it matters a lot, because it is this implication of E minor in the instrumental part, contrasted with E major once the vocals come in, which gives the song its feel of contrast. Having a chord without the “third” in it gives a sense of bleakness, even if that moment is only temporary.    And watching the film of Johnny Cash play, I think (although I admit it is not 100% clear) that he is edging in and out of a chord with no third in it at all, and a standard E major chord.  (And remember we are talking about a pop song here – a song that is supposed to be simple and easy to play!)

Now consider the opening of the song.  The lyrics at the start about teaching the weeping willow how to cry, and are indeed open and bleak – there is nothing solid and jolly as the major chord would imply.    And we don’t get that major chord until “Clear blue sky”.   Indeed, we should even note the last words of that opening verse, “until I die”.

You could sing “until I die” over a major chord, and coming straight after the B7 chord, that is exactly what you musically expect – but it would make nonsense of the lyrics.

Now, of course, I don’t know how Bob appreciated the song, although obviously I can see that he described it as a masterclass in songwriting, where the lyrics felt like “words turned to bone.”   But what fascinates me is how this is achieved with such a jolly, jaunty musical accompaniment.

It is possible, of course, to create the music of darkness in terms of mood, while still using major chords.  I am sure you know the opening of “Visions of Johanna” as well as I do, and if you are a musician, you will have played the opening chords of A, D, E7, A to the lyrics “Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re trying to be so quiet?”

Three major chords – the three fundamental chords of the key of A major, with not a minor chord in sight, and yet those lyrics are utterly frightening, if we ever pause to contemplate them.

And I think this shows us Bob’s desire to avoid the obvious in his music.   He doesn’t simply use minor chords to represent sadness and uncertainty through the melody, rhythm and lyrics.  Plus, I suspect that he appreciated just how the impact of major and minor chords can be bent to the composer’s needs and wishes through songs such as this.

In short, I suspect Bob values “Big River” so highly because of the way it expresses sadness and loss, without using the approaches that songwriters normally take and which can sound rather hackyned.

Of course, there is a million miles between “Big River” and “Visions,” but the technicalities of the music in each song focus on how to write about sadness, desolation, loss, etc., without resorting to the overused traditional approach of throwing minor chords in all over the place.   Bob discovered how to write songs of loss and desolation without minor chords, for instead he added the harmonica parts in which he would “bend” the third note of the scale (which tells us if the chord is major or minor) through the way he played the harmonica.   Johnny Cash used a different technique, by playing chords where either the third was not played and not emphasised (or indeed not included) in the melody.

“Big River” was released as a single in 1958, and ” Visions of Johanna ” in 1965, just seven years later.   Now I am not suggesting Bob listened to “Big River” while writing “Visions” but rather that he knew Big River well (it was in the country charts for getting on for a third of a year, after all).   Big River is overtly about lost love, while for me, Johanna is about a lost way of life.  And to emphasise my point, I am not saying Bob listened to Johnny Cash before writing “Visions”, but rather that both composers, each in his own way, were seeking to write about loss without using the traditional minor chords in the background.

Of course, Visions itself can be transformed from Dylan’s original into something else, and the genius of that piece is that the meanings still come across despite the re-write of the music – it is just the flavour that changes, nothing more.

But then, if you are a regular reader of my ramblings, and you have somehow managed to remember anything I’ve written (and there is no reason why you should), you won’t be surprised to find that here is the Old Crow Medicine Show version.

The point is that the philosophy of modern song is changeable not just through the lyrics but also through the music.

Sadness and light can be painted through music in a billion ways.  It is a fact that I feel Bob learned early on in his writing – and indeed if I ever lose that feeling, I just have to listen to the wailing of the harmonica in Bob’s own original recording, between each verse.  But as Bob taught us all decades ago, all music can have multiple meanings.

Previously in this series

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