Bob Dylan’s “Death is not the end” Why?

By Tony Attwood

As an atheist I make pronouncements on religious matters with enormous caution, normally just complaining that I live in one of only three countries where the religious authorities sit in Parliament and affect the laws of my country.

But of course with Dylan’s music I am often drawn into religious issues, and so today I find myself remembering a Jewish friend telling me some time ago that the attitude of Judaism to the afterlife is in essence “We aren’t really sure.”

This was backed up by my watching recently Woody Allen’s brilliant movie “Cafe Society” in which it is said several times over, (I think by Ken Stott’s character) that Jews don’t believe in life after death.

Reading around the subject I understand that is a simplification, but the thought came back to me in listening to one of my all time least favourite Dylan compositions “Death is not the end” and wondering quite what made him write this.

My favourite response to such a “why?” question these days is to look at the sequence of Dylan’s writing at the time and in this case we find a sequence of compositions that runs

• Someone’s got a hold of my heart 
• Neighbourhood Bully
• Tell Me
• Foot of Pride
• Julius and Ethel
• Lord Protect my Child
• Death is not the End.
• I once knew a man

Now this is one hell of a varied list from the sublime to the ludicrous (in my humble opinion) and in the ludicrous camp I would put both “Tell Me” and this song, “Death is not the end”.

We can see “Death” comes straight after “Lord Protect my Child”, so it is fairly clear where Dylan was going at this moment – but before “Lord Protect” we had “Julius and Ethel”, a right rollicking rocker, and a really good listen.  After we had that most sublime of blues variations “I once knew a man”.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

What’s more the last gospel song had come a year before, and looking at what else Dylan was writing at the time of that song (Thief on the Cross), it is clear that his mind had moved a long way from the period the hard core of Christian songs.

“Lord Protect My Child” and “Death is not the end” must of course be linked, but it is curious that Dylan would record “Death” and release it on an album (although somewhat later) when there were so many other songs of such merit lurking around waiting for him to release his definitive version of each.   I have tried to explain elsewhere why I think Dylan held back on “Blind Willie” for example, but I am completely unable to understand why “Caribbean Wind” (among others) was passed over in favour of this song.

I have heard it said by some fellow musicians that every song can be rescued no matter how bad it is, and so I have been trying to find a version of this song I can live with (if you will pardon the expression at this point).   This is about the best I can find….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59cA_Rj22lY

There was however ultimately redemption for me – but I’ll come back to that in a minute – I’ll try and finish my review of “Death” first.

The Dylan recording of Death Is Not the End was made in 1983 very soon after it was composed, as far as I can tell, and that means it came at the time of Infidels.  But it didn’t hit the streets until 1988 with “Down in the Groove” – and the recording most certainly is the same one as made originally in that it has Robbie Shakespeare and Mark Knopfler on it (although goodness knows what they thought was going on when they played it through.  At least they only had to play it once).

And that leads to the question – if Dylan could only bring himself to play it once with the band (the recording on the album was done in one take only), and he has never once played it in question, why did he put it on the record?

And while pondering this I also remembered the original cover to Down in the Groove (shown here).  Personally I think they should have used it – but that is another matter.

There are other cover versions around, but they don’t really do too much for me – but the fact that they exist by reputable artists shows that clearly there is something in the song that I am simply not getting.  Not for the first time I am sure.

For me Dylan as a lyricist is at his best when he drops us hints of where he is, and takes us on journeys through images and metaphors.  Not when he spells it all out as with

When you’re sad and when you’re lonely
And you haven’t got a friend
Just remember that death is not the end
And all that you’ve held sacred
Falls down and does not mend
Just remember that death is not the end

Worse, and of course this is just my view, when in this song Dylan does decide to give us some images, they are so everyday, so ordinary, that they take us nowhere new.

When you’re standing at the crossroads
That you cannot comprehend
Just remember that death is not the end
And all your dreams have vanished
And you don’t know what’s up the bend
Just remember that death is not the end

And just when we think it can’t get any more humdrum the next verse opens

When the storm clouds gather ’round you

Of course Bob can’t just deliver such everyday lines throughout so we do, at the end, get a little light relief (as it were) with

When the cities are on fire
With the burning flesh of men

But then that doesn’t link too well with all that has gone before.  As a piece of poetry it just falls flat on its face.  It’s as if Dylan ended “It’s all right ma” with the line “here’s a box of chocolates for Mother’s Day”.

Heylin suggested that “Dylan’s intent all along may have been to show the rich vein of music he listened to when growing up in Hibbing,” and that might be true.  But Heylin’s subsequent argument that a period of writer’s block was causing him difficulty is not held up by the quality of music that Dylan presented around this time.  The list of songs written before and after this one shows how much unused material Dylan had at his disposal at this time, any of which he could have put on the album.

The only other explanation that I have come up with as to why this song was ever written, let alone released, is that Dylan, at the time of the putting together of “Down in the Groove” was going through the musical equivalent of self harm.  As an explanation it is unusual, but possible. But then so is almost anything.

So not for me, as you will have gathered.  But doing the research for writing up this little note on this song, I did come across “Death is not the end” by Shut up and Dance which is also not to my taste, and nothing to do with Dylan but was a distraction.  And finally to rescue my sanity (and to distract from the fact that I shut my hand in my car door yesterday morning and I am now bandaged up and finding it hard to type, so I am not really having the best of times) I did indulge myself by playing my favourite Waterboys track.

Therefore, just in case you find “Death is not the end” as little to your taste as it is to mine, spare a few moments to enjoy something quite different.   (And in case this is the first review you’ve ever read on this site, I would assure you, it doesn’t normally get as negative, or as lateral, as this).

 

 

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