Bob Dylan and Dissociative Identity Disorder
By Tony Attwood
Dylan has long been fascinated by the concept of the multiplicity of the self, evident in everything from his fondness for Arthur Rimbaud‘s phrase “Je est un autre” (“I is another”), which he said caused bells to go off when he first read it in the 1960s, through to the difference between the songs that he writes.
Bob’s subsequent claim has been that “I change during the course of a day. I wake and I’m one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I’m somebody else. I don’t know who I am most of the time. It doesn’t even matter to me” – something he professed both in the song “I and I” and in an an interview to promote Time Out of Mind in 1997.
So should we take that as a truth about Bob’s inner self? And if we do (which I guess we do since we have Bob’s word for it) what, if anything, does it tell us?
Certainly as a medical condition having multiple personalities is a known issue and it was for many years called “multiple personality disorder” although now it tends to be known as Dissociative Identity Disorder
Now of course I have never met Bob, all I have done, like most fans, is seen him on stage and on film, and listened to his songs. But it has seemed to me since I first came across these statements of Bob about his personality that we ought to be able to pick up some signs of the disorder in his songs.
But there are problems here. First, it is an established tradition in songwriting that the songs don’t have to be true reflections of the writer’s or performer’s state of mind even when the first person singular features strongly in the song. Indeed it would be hard to imagine Bob writing 550+ songs, if they all from the same state of mind. It could be done but I suspect it would get a bit dull.
What’s more, we can see a certain level of similarity in Bob’s viewpoints in his songs. He writes and sings anti-war songs for example but I am not sure he has written any songs that are the direct opposite, or even variant of the approach taken in “Masters of War”. However we must also note that quite a few of Bob’s songs do have a whole variety of viewpoints tumbling one over another, even if some (like his objection to war) remain a constant theme.
For example if we think of the last verses of “Hard Rain” Bob is himself saying that he is going out into the whole world to offer his message (“And I’ll tell it and speak it and think it and breathe it, And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it”) and yet the message is not there yet – the singer will go out and tell everyone, but “But I’ll know my song well before I start singing”.
So is that line just a device to give a powerful and enigmatic end to the song, or is it something that says that he can’t take his song out to the masses yet because he doesn’t quite know his own point of view well enough. Or maybe even because it is a bit confused?
This would, I think, not seem right to most people who were fans of Bob in his earlier song writing days, because those of us who were there revelled in his message, particularly that which said “Times they are a changing”. That associated Bob with so many of the protest movements against inequality etc, and yet despite the impact of “Times” Bob himself did not continue down that route.
If we think about the song “Times they are a changin,'” that song itself says that the ways of the past have become obsolete and if you want to survive in the new world, you have to change. This message, it says, should be noted by everyone, for just because the world now is as it is, it won’t be like this again tomorrow (“the wheel’s still in spin”) and we are all liable to find ourselves playing different roles in the future (“for the loser now…”)
Yet we cannot wait about to see how things turn out (“don’t block up the hall”), and we cannot allow the past to determine the future (“Your sons and your daughters…”)
So the only thing that is certain is the the world will change, attitudes will change, (“the slow one now will later be fast…”)
Of course we have all heard this lines ten thousand times, and it is easy to forget the power of their meaning, or to reduce it simply to a vague notion that the people will overthrow the old power base of money and politics and a new world order will come along.
But it can also mean that we are all of us changing every day; thus it could be seen as a description by Bob of his own endlessly changing personality and viewpoint, of his awareness of the multiplicity of the self.
I guess in terms of his life as a musician, we all witnessed this when Bob “went electric” as they saying goes. Whether the move from playing solo guitar and singing folk-orientated songs to playing rock music with a band was a musical example of “Je est un autre” it is perhaps not necessary to resolve, but rather we might just consider the fact that part of Bob’s majesty as a songwriter and performer is his ability to move through multiple styles and write songs on many different subjects while still retaining our interest and enthusiasm.
Indeed it has often struck me that although Bob was known as a “protest singer” early on, he moved away from that genre very quickly indeed.
Reflecting on this, while I think it is perhaps going too far to suggest Bob has had two or more utterly separate personality states, I would say he has certainly got the ability to write music in many different styles. So I am not sure that we get to see and hear different Bob Dylan’s each with his own unique ways of thinking, but he most certainly has explored a multiplicity of approaches to songs, which is something we very rarely find with other contemporary songwriters.
But this leads me to the thought: just how different are different Bob songs? If we compare a Dylan composition from Freewheelin for example with John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, Blood on the Tracks etc etc, we do hear an enormous difference both in terms of music and lyrics between the albums. But surely there is still a certain unity within each album.
I have been pondering that for some time – indeed it is something that has interested me as I have, myself, often felt I that throughout my life I have been several people. One who has written quite a few books and articles, one who has been a father to his now grown-up children, and indeed is now a grandfather to ten. One who was for many years chairman of a plc creating and publishing advertising copy, one who had a season ticket for a Premier League football club and would make his opinion known quite vociferously from time to time.. And a person who has for years, by way of relaxation, chosen to write songs for his own and amusement. Do I contain multitudes? Amateur songwriter, businessman, fanatical football fan, father, political activist, blogger…
In fact do we all contain multitudes?
Pondering this I went back to the “Time out of mind” interview in 1997 quoted above. And I ask, is a change of personality so very rare, or is that something that a lot of us involved in the creative arts go through? Is it a requirement of being a successful creative artist? Is that part of the process that stops the artist just churning out the same style of work over and over again? Or does it simply distinguish highly talented songwriters like Dylan, from the multiple one-hit-wonders who emerge just the once and then vanish?
Indeed, surely we have all come across pop and rock artists who seem to have a very limited repertoire from which they can’t move on. In this regard I think of Bill Haley who slipped from fame so quickly – he only had one style and couldn’t change, while the Beatles were able to reinvent their musical approach, over and over again… but still ultimately stopped.
Now I don’t in any way compare myself as a songwriter to Bob Dylan, of course not. But of course I have a unique insight into myself as an amateur songwriter – we all have unique insights into ourselves. And in that type of reflection I realise that while the books have been varied in style and content, the lyrics of the songs have tended to sit within an established pattern. A pattern which is related to myself and my own views of who and what I am am, what I have experienced and what I believe.
But of course Bob is utterly different, for what I have noticed and what I have commented upon before, is just how quickly Bob transformed his lyrics. If we take “Talking Bear Mountain” – Dylan took an existing format and used it in a completely new way – not a bad move for a 20 year old.
But looking back, “Song to Woodie” although not original music is a profound way to start your career as a lyricist.
But I think by the end of the year Bob was expressing himself – whether it was his real self or another self, in the song I was young when I left home – a song which processed the tragedy of the lonesome traveller. And now, thinking of Bob as the person who professes to change from one identity to another in the course of a day, I hear that song with a different appreciation. It is much more about leaving home mentally than physically.
Anyway I thought I would look at one year of Dylan’s work and see just how varied it was – how much could he be said to be jumping from one personality or indeed one person to another. In fact I cheated and chose 1982/3, which I knew would give myself a chance of finding what I was looking for.
It is a period of writing that produced 17 songs including at least a couple of masterpieces. But is it possible to look at these songs and say they are written by a man who is constantly changing?
Consider “Lord protect my child”
which was written just before Foot of Pride
Those songs are so different it is hard to imagine that they were written even in the same year let alone one shortly after the other.
So yes, from this initial skirmish into the theme I think there is something in this… not necessary that Bob becomes different people in a day but that most certainly he has been, within his writing, able to jump from theme to theme, in a way that many poets and songwriters don’t manage.