- Return to the Basement Tapes part one: fun and misery
- Murder Most Foul part 12: A rub dub, just relaxing in the tub
By Tony Attwood
If you have been paying attention (although really there is no reason why you should be) you’ll know that I recently turned my attention back to the Basement Tapes and was ruminating over their take on fun and misery. And in so doing I meandered onto the song “Dress it up, better have it all” only to find that the recording linked to within that article is no longer to be found on the internet.
And so I thought I would offer a new placement – just in case you haven’t played this piece for a long time.
It is a a standard 12 bar blues but with a variation which is not unique but makes for a change
"Oh, mos' feet and it hang, can't you see?" I groan.
She says, 'Oh, wha' it's all right." I said,
"Jesus, don't take it at all."
She's a past-cold beauty, but she can't light a cannonball.
Now, down by the river she's a-hop on her knees,
and I holler to my baby, yelling, "Please, please, please!"
Oh, then I hit her and doubt my chase at all.
Now, no hoax. Let's go! But it's that pure soul,
and it's off the ball.
Now, honey, I'm making a hot to road.
Now I'm happy to leaving, but it's a heavy load.
I said, "Ah, my babe. She don't meet me no half at all."
Dress it up. Best to pick up, bub: better have it all.
Well, hot dog, goody me. Settle on a trail
Down apart my knees I can't find my kerry. Find a nail!
She old top these... oh, better hold mine up.
Please, let's go, 'n' I hope it don't interrupt.
[Spoken lines against the instrumental verse
[Oh, do it again, now. One time for Bozo and his dog.
Hot skimmin’, jumpaway. yay, yay, yay, yay.]
I hope it come' easy; I hope it comes hard; I hope I sit me down yon' sit a little a chicken yard. Open up, ol' Henry. Get that boy on home. Tell Bess momma, he's up 'n' gone too long.
What is particularly interesting to me is that this recording was seemingly followed by the composition of “I’m not there” – a totally different song.
And this is something that has long fascinated me – it is the ability of Bob the composer to change the entire style, approach and lyrics of the songs he writes from one to the next. For even if the songs were not written immediately one after the other, the fact is that all the evidence points to the notion that they were written close in time to one another.
Yet everything about the two songs is utterly different.
And this is fascinating as it seems to overcome any thought that Bob is writing a series of songs according to his mood or issues that affect him. It is more that he wakes up as a new person and writes a new song in a new way. Which is indeed what I have rather laboriously been trying to do of late.
However in my recent rambles I have not been able to find much relating to this willingness, need or ability to change styles and approaches from one song to the next. Rather the suggestion is generally that he writes in a certain style for a while and then move on. That of course might well be true, for example in what is generally called his “religious period” but the fact is that much of the time I really do think he does jump from style to style – and to good effect.
Just look back to the lyrics of “Dress it up” and the lyrics below – it is hard to imagine they were written by the same man, let alone the same man working on these two songs just a few days apart from each other. And then if you play the songs again, the contrast is not just overwhelming, I think I might call it “disturbing”
Things are crashing down She's all too tight In my neighbourhood She cried both day and night I know it because it was there It's a milestone But she's down on her luck And the day makes her lonely But to make it hard to buck, now and then I believe that she'd stop him If she would start to care I believe that she'd look upon His side that used to care And I'd go by the Lord Anywhere she's on my way But I don't belong there No I don't belong to her I don't belong to any body She's my Christ-forsaken angel But she don't hear me cry She's a lone-hearted mystic And she can't carry on When I'm there, she's all right But she's not when I'm gone Heaven knows that the answer She don't calling no one She's the way, forsaken beauty For she's mine, for the one And I lost her, hesitation By temptation as it runs But she don't holler me But I'm not there, I'm gone Now I'll cry tonight Like I cried the night before And I'm knees on the hassle But I'll dream about the door It's so long, she's forsaken By her faith, worse to tell It don't have contonation She smiles, fare thee well Now when I treat to leave 'er I was born to love her But she knows that the kingdom awaits So high above her And I run a better race But it's not too fast still But I don't perceive her I'm not there, I'm gone Well it's all about diffusion And I cry for her veil I don't need anybody now Beside me to tell And it's all affirmation I receive but it's not She's a lone-hearted beauty But she's gone like a spark And she calls Yeah, she's gone like the rain Below the shining yesterday But now she's home beside me And I'd like her here to stay She's a lone, forsaken beauty And it don't trust anyone And I wish I was beside her But I'm not there, I'm gone Well, it's too hard to stay here And I don't want to leave It's so bad, for so few See, but she's a heart too hard to need It's alone, it's a crime The way she mauls me around But she don't fall to hate me But tears are gone, a painted clown Yes, I believe that it's rightful Oh, I believe it in my mind I've been told like I said one night before Carry on the cryin' And the sole gypsy told her Like I said, carry on I wish I was there to help her But I'm not there, I'm gone
Now of course of late I have been fascinated by “I’m not there” for ages – and indeed I was writing about it just six months ago, but to me it is a most remarkable song, made all the more remarkable by what Dylan was writing around that time.
And yet despite what I have just written above, the one clue that we have to explain Bob’s thinking as he wrote this comes from looking at what he wrote before and after: the theme is nothing in this world makes sense at all.
- Please Mrs Henry (My life is a mess)
- Lo and behold (Nothing makes sense)
- Crash on the Levee (The flood)
- Dress it up, Better have it all
- I’m not there (lost love, regret)
- You ain’t going nowhere (nothing means anything)
- This Wheel’s on Fire (disdain, but I’m not letting go)
- I shall be released (I am trapped)
- Too Much of Nothing (Being trapped)
When the specific point of each song, as summarised in a brief phrase as above, is that everything is confused, broken, negative. Even “This Wheel’s on Fire” which is normally performed as a lively, bouncy tune.
But the fact is that I think we have lost some of the meanings within these songs by not seeing and hearing them in the order they were written, for when we do we can see that Bob, like other composers could get stuck in a rut, in which events in his own life dictated what he could write.
Increasingly I feel that for most of his career (not all of it, for there are exceptions) it is helpful to see each song individually, and accept that Bob was jumping from one concept to another, but then just occasionally getting stuck on one idea.