By Tony Attwood
Recently in this series….
- Restless Farewell
- Long and Wasted Years
- Mississippi
- Foot of Pride
- Things have changed
- Angelina
- Visions of Johanna
- Drifters’ Escape
- Tangled up in blue
One of the reasons for writing about a small number of Dylan’s songs in the context of them being a “life-changing experience” rather than simply calling these his “greatest works of genius” is because, in listening to Bob’s songs, I have learned just how much life can change over time. And just how many of those changes can be due to a song.
With Bob’s songs, I can refer back to my previous thoughts, visions, beliefs, ideas, writings…. And I can accept that I change not just as I write but also as I listen to one of these songs. This means I not only hear the song but also get transported to the time when I first heard the song, and can revise what the song is telling me now.
And one of the wonders of this concept is that quite often when I think back, I get a different vision, and a different insight. Not in every song, but still, quite often. “Tangled up in blue” always makes me think of a particular person (although I have chosen not to write about her in my review) while “Drifter’s Escape” takes me through the notion that I personally, have wandered through different fields of work, as a musician, in the theatre, as a novelist, as writer of advertisements, as a blogger – often not successful, but that’s how it has gone. Maybe I should have stayed with one medium and worked to make a success therein. But travelling across these different routes has been fun…. at least some of the time.
Indeed, I think of that particularly today, as in the last couple of weeks I have got back in touch with a pal from some 50 years ago – we spent a couple of years writing and occasionally performing as a duet and then went our own ways, I to the theatre and he into being a very successful film producer. But then a couple of weeks ago, I watched a movie on TV which I really enjoyed and so paid particular attention to the credits, and was staggered to find my old pal was the producer of the film I had just watched. I contacted his agent, and now the two of us are back chatting away to each other from different sides of the country.
So what I do find is that songs, films, events, comments, anything, can transport me to different times and different places, and bring back memories and friends long lost. And that I do value, because I do find some of these people and events from the past are (for me) really worth catching up with, either in memory, or indeed in real life.
“Tangled” was written in 1974, and in thinking of this, as I may have mentioned before, I am reminded that among songwriters and music producers there is the theory that there are only three valid subject areas for popular music: love, lost love and dance. And yes, I suppose we can put “Idiot Wind” into the lost love category, but it is more than that: it is denigration. Which makes me ask, has there ever been a song as vitriolic as this?
The answer to that is yes, as I discovered when searching for such songs on the internet, including quite a few I didn’t know. If you are interested, I’ll leave you to go looking. But in 1974 I think Bob went somewhere else with “Idiot Wind”, a song which not only had an unusual theme but also some remarkable lines, as for example…
“You’re an idiot, babe, It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe”
But there is more to the song than that, for the song is clearly in the key of G and yet it starts out with the chords C minor, D major, G major. And I appreciate that, if you are not a musician, that might leave you with a shrug of the shoulders, but I would still ask you to listen to it again and just see if you can feel those opening chords which accompany the lyrics
Someone's got it in for me, they're planting stories in the press
The minor chords are traditionally thought to be chords reflecting negativity, and in that regard, making “Someone’s got it in for me” accompanied by C minor, gives us a feeling that ok, the singer is objecting to all these negative tales appearing in the media.
But then we move to the unrelated D major, followed by G major. Now those last two chords are related together – they both appear in the key of D and the key of G, although neither of those keys accommodates C minor.
Through this very simple technique, which I have never come across in any other song I can think of, Bob tells us that musically, this is indeed a tangled up situation. Maybe we don’t immediately think that having stories about Bob in the press is a positive thing (which the two major chords suggest), but we sure know something odd is going on here, because that whole unusual chord sequence then repeats to the lyrics “Whoever it is….”
Writing a song about confusion is tough, because the composer has to decide where the positive and where the negative is, and somehow get the music and lyrics to combine and explore the contradiction – but here we find an extraordinarily successful way to do that. Even more so because the next couple of lines have us talk about a shooting, abduction, and sudden riches.
All of that is set in the key of G major and chords that naturally fit there, until we get to “I can’t help it if I’m lucky, which ends with the chord C6. Ending with the chord of C in the accompaniment would be a statement of real luck and positivity, but C6 is a much less certain chord – it is as if one is saying “I guess I’m lucky” but with a shrug of the shoulders…
Em Bm Am G They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy, Em Bm Am G She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me. Bm C6 I can't help it if I'm lucky.
And then we are off again with “People see me all the time” on C minor – that unrelated chord. This is the music of confusion, against the lyrics of confusion. Just look at the second set of five lines….
People see me all the time and they just can’t remember how to act;
Their minds are filled with big ideas, images and distorted facts.
Even you, yesterday you had to ask me where it was at,
I couldn’t believe after all these years
you didn’t know me better than that,
Sweet lady...
And we might even ponder for a moment the fact that there are five lines. Five Lines??? Who writes verses of five lines? And as for the number of beats per bar… well, I’ll leave you to work that out.
So life changing? Well yes. And although I am told it often doesn’t come across in my commentaries (thankfully), I am full of doubt about much of what I do, and can take negative comments very seriously. But this song showed me Bob standing up and telling his critics that they are wrong. He says “things happen” (destiny drove us apart) – and from that I learned, no it is not all my fault when it goes wrong. Other people can screw up just as much as I can.
But still that’s not all of it. For there is that final commentary which transformed my entire understanding of people and how we all interact…
Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats Blowing through the letters that we wrote Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves We’re idiots, babe It’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves
In short, it’s not me, it’s not her, it’s all of us.
Maybe there are hundreds of other songs that tell us that truth, but if so, then yes, I am an idiot because I never really grasped what those songs were about. But with that concluding verse, Bob told me the truth – we’re all idiots in terms of the way we see each other.
And so I accept that. I make huge mistakes all the time; I have made huge mistakes throughout my life. So does everyone else. That is how life is. So I guess the answer is, let’s just get on with it. That was my life-changing experience from this song.