by Jochen Markhorst
VIII Boredom! Hail to you, Mother of Muses
Odysseus is warmly welcomed by Alcinous, ruler of the island of Scheria and father of Nausicaa. He is treated to a banquet, and entertainment is provided by a top-class performer: “Call in the inspired bard Demodocus. God has given the man the gift of song; to him, above all others, the power to please, however the spirit moves him to sing.” And after the performance, the impressed Odysseus praises the blind bard in glowing terms: “I respect you, Demodocus, more than any man alive – surely the Muse has taught you, Zeus’s daughter, or the god Apollo himself. How true to life, all too true …” (Book VIII, A Day for Songs and Contests, translated by Robert Fagles). Dylan fans will, incidentally, notice that Dylan reuses that very same phrase, true to life, in the outtake “Red River Shore” (1997; True to life, true to me / Was the girl from the red river shore).
It is universal and timeless. Shakespeare invoking the Muse, Dante imploring the Muses, Apollo and God to “breathe the song into his breast”, Walt Whitman seeking the Muse within himself and in everyday reality (“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,” the opening lines of the poem from which Dylan borrows I contain multitudes, “Song of Myself”, 1892), or the most ambivalent of them all, Goethe, as in:
Oft sind alle neune gekommen, ich meyne die Musen;
Doch ich hörte sie nicht, hatte das Mädchen im Schooß.
Nun verließ ich mein Liebchen, mich haben die Musen verlassen,
Und ich schielte, verwirrt, seitwärts nach Messer und Strick.
Aber der Himmel ist voll von Göttern, du kamst mir zu Hülfe
Langeweile! du bist Mutter der Musen gegrüßt.
All Nine often used to come to me, I mean the Muses:
Yet I did not hear them, for I held the girl in my lap
Now I've left my sweetheart: the Muses have forsaken me,
And, bewildered, I glanced sideways at the knife and the noose.
But Heaven is full of gods: You came to my aid:
Boredom! Hail to you, Mother of Muses.
("Epigram 27" - Venetian Epigrams, 1790)
… Goethe does, admittedly, acknowledge the existence of the Nine Muses, but ignores them as he has such a lovely girl sitting on his lap. When he finally leaves her room, the offended Muses have vanished, but never mind: Goethe receives his divine spark from the true Mother of the Muses: Boredom.
And: throughout the centuries, invoking the muse has remained a self-fulfilling act; the act of invocation itself inspires artists from Homer to Dylan. Or, if not literally a muse, then at least something mystical, something supernatural. Bowie, for example, chooses a powerful, poetic image:
Inspirations have I none Just to touch the flaming dove All I have is my love of love And love is not loving ("Soul Love", 1972)
… the flaming dove, the symbol of the descent of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:3) – an image with religious connotations, then, which Dylan is sure to appreciate as well. Although Bowie himself is somewhat reserved, or perhaps a little too modest, about his poetry. In the acclaimed BBC documentary David Bowie: Five Years (2013), he dismisses the comparison with Dylan, putting it into perspective:
“I am not a Bob Dylan – I am not someone that can sit down and stoically write down a clear picture of what is happening, you know. But I can leave a very strong impression of how I feel about it.”
More common than the image of the flaming dove is the winged horse Pegasus, which we encounter from the psychedelic phase of The Hollies (You can go where you want, I can take you anywhere – “Pegasus”, 1967) to the symphonic chic of Procol Harum (While horsemen ride across the green / And Snow White still remains unseen / Pegasus, the winged horse, / Relays his messages by Morse code – “Pandora’s Box”, 1975), right through to John Denver, Iggy Pop and the sardonic Eminem (I’m on my Pegasus, my high horse, and I’m fly – “Doomsday Pt.2”, 2024)… “Riding Pegasus” has become just as enduring a metaphor for receiving inspiration as “a visit from the Muse”.
The most down-to-earth of them all, whilst retaining a touch of mystique, is – remarkably enough – the poetic grandmaster whom Dylan regards as his equal (“As far as I’m concerned, Leonard, you’re Number 1”):
“I think that any songwriter, and I think that Bob Dylan knows this more than all of us: you don’t write the songs anyhow. If you’re lucky, you can keep the vehicle healthy and responsive over the years. If you’re lucky. Your own intentions have very little to do with this. You can keep the body as well-oiled and receptive as possible, but whether you’re actually going to be able to go for the long haul is really not your own choice.”
(Leonard Cohen, speaking at the Canadian consulate in Los Angeles, on October 13, 2016)
It is Leonard Cohen’s last public appearance, coincidentally on the very same day that Bob Dylan is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, and in his speech Cohen does devote a few words to that milestone, but mainly to songwriting in general. With that same blend we so often hear from exceptional songwriters – that blend of humility and mysticism. “I’m only a conduit,” or something to that effect; the same sentiment we hear, in different words, from such diverse greats as Barry Gibb, Chris Martin, Paul Simon and Sir Paul. Although, in Dylan’s case, Leonard Cohen does acknowledge a touch of divine intervention:
“I have tremendous admiration for that kind of courage and that kind of belief in one’s own inspiration. That the gods are going to be favorable to you. that you’re going to go in there with nothing but the will and the skill, and the thing is going to emerge. And great stuff has been done that way. It’s not like this never works. there are masters of that style. Dylan is one of them. I think he’s gone in with nothing and come up with great things.”
(SongTalk interview Paul Zollo, 1992)
Which is, of course, what Dylan in a sense – and with charming modesty – more or less confirms: “I’m just the postman. I deliver the songs” (Melody Maker, 29 July 1978). And the sender being the Mother of Muses, as we have come to accept by now.
To be continued. Next up Mother Of Muses part 9: “It was never about whether it was in tune or out of tune” (final)
Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle: 
- Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
- Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
- Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
- Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
- Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
- Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
- Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits
- John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville
- Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s looking for the fuse
- Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978
- Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2nd Big Bang
- Time Out Of Mind: The Rising of an Old Master
- Crossing The Rubicon: Dylan’s latter-day classic
- Nashville Skyline: Bob Dylan’s other type of music
- Nick Drake’s River Man: A very British Masterpiece
- I Contain Multitudes: Bob Dylan’s Account of the Long Strange Trip
- Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B
- Bob Dylan’s High Water (for Charley Patton)
- Bob Dylan’s 1971
- Like A Rolling Stone b/w Gates Of Eden: Bob Dylan kicks open the door
- It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry b/w Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues – Bob Dylan’s melancholy blues
- Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side A
- Bob Dylan takes Highway 61 – Seven mercurial songs
