By Tony Attwood
I recently published the article “I don’t know who I am most of the time. It doesn’t even matter to me” which focussed on Bob’s view that his personality, or perhaps his view of the world, changes on a regular basis. That continued from the earlier piece Bob Dylan and the multiplicity of the ever evolving self which introduced the topic.
I’m interested in this theme because Bob has not, over time, given away many insights on how he comes to write the songs he has composed – songs which although clearly falling into the category of “songs” are so very different, one from another in terms of their lyrical content.
Now in one very real sense we should expect this – after all in 1962 Bob wrote and recorded an astonishing 36 songs, which dealt with a massive array of different subjects. I’ve published the full list of them, in the order that they were written (as far as I can tell) with a short summary of what the song is about, in the “Dylan songs of the 1950s and 1960s” piece, which is still on the site.
And thinking of Bob’s comments I was led to wonder if Bob had what is known as Dissociative Identity Disorder which is what made him jump from theme to theme in his songs, and indeed one might occasionally say, within a single song.
With this in mind I’ve taken another look at a selection of the songs from 1962 and taken a particular look at one sequence of songs from that year.
Now I have to say I don’t have definitive evidence of the order in which the songs were written, and it does look as if on occasion Bob started a song, abandoned it, wrote something else and came back to the earlier song later. But for this little subset I think the order of composition is right. (In the copy in Songs of the 50s and 60s I have given a very brief statement of what each song is about, and I have left that in, in the extract below).
- Don’t think twice (Song of Leaving)
- Mixed up confusion (Rock n roller is confused)
- I’d hate to be you on that dreadful day (Bob gets the ship ready to come in)
- Paths of Victory. (The future will be fine)
- Train A Travellin’ (Stand up and protest about what’s going on around you)
- Walking Down the Line (Keep on moving on)
- Ye Playboys and Playgirls (Stand up and change the world)
Now it does strike me that there is a theme in this list (and I would stress this selection wasn’t chosen specifically to match my thesis – and I’ll hope to show that in subsequent articles). That theme is one of moving on in the future – of dealing with the world rather than letting it dictate what you are and what you do.
Indeed if we take the first verse of “Don’t think twice” this is clearly about moving on being a central element in coping with the world that we find ourselves in.
It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babeIf'n you don't know by nowAnd it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babeIt'll never do somehowWhen your rooster crows at the break of dawnLook out your window and I'll be goneYou're the reason I'm a-traveling onBut don't think twice, it's all right
Now I do think we need to treat song lyrics with a certain care when it comes to finding a broader insight into the composer’s thoughts, because lyrics can often be manipulated away from their intended meaning to fit with the rhyme pattern, and the structure of the song, but even so the line, “Where I’m bound, I can’t tell” does seem to me to be in keeping with Bob’s comment decades later 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.”
It would of course also fit with Bob’s desire to keep on touring and the impression that I have had (and maybe a few others have had too) that at the start of a tour, Bob hasn’t exactly worked out quite what he is going to play and how he’s going to play it, on the tour.
It really does seem to me that the phrase, “Where I’m bound I can’t tell” is an insight into a fundamental (perhaps THE fundamental) aspect of Bob’s music. And what this means is that when an album comes out that sounds completely different from the last album, this was not necessarily planned. It just happened (although obviously with the aid of a sympathetic producer along the way).
In relation to this I have gone back to listen to a song from Dylan’s early catalogue which at the time of writing this piece, I couldn’t actually call to mind….
The trail is dusty And my road it might be rough But the better roads are waiting And boys it ain’t far off (Chorus....) Trails of troubles Roads of battles Paths of victory We shall walk I walked down by the river I turned my head up high I saw that silver linin’ That was hangin’ in the sky (Chorus) The evenin’ dusk was rollin’ I was walking down the track There was a one-way wind a-blowin’ And it was blowin’ at my back (Chorus) The gravel road is bumpy It’s a hard road to ride But there’s a clearer road a-waitin’ With the cinders on the side (Chorus) That evening train was rollin’ The hummin’ of its wheels My eyes they saw a better day As I looked across the fields (Chorus) The trail is dusty The road it might be rough But the good road is a-waitin’ And boys it ain’t far off Trails of troubles Roads of battles Paths of victory We shall walk
Now at the heart of this song, as in many folk songs of this type, is the hope and belief that everything will be ok in the end, but tucked within that is also the view that there are many different worlds out there to be explored. So this is not a song of a person who is fighting the enemy but a song that tells us that although there is a vast number of problems ahead, if we keep marching on and facing each battle we’ll get there (wherever there is) in the end.
This is a very different concept from that expressed in many other folk songs of the era, but is similar in once sense to Times They Are A-Changing, in that the end is not specified. Nor is what we have to do to reach that end point specified. What is specified is the concept of change and moving on. Or as it is said in some songs “keep on keeping on”.
And now I come to reflect on Bob’s phrase “I don’t know where I am most of the time” this song from such a very early stage in his songwriting, seems to reflect that point. It is indeed as if this notion of endlessly probing and changing has been there all the time. Direction is not the key issue, it is simply change.