Try me little girl: Dylan tries honky tonk before moving on

by Tony Attwood

There is actually a copy of this song on the internet (at least at the moment of writing) – which is unusual for the Basement Complete – although it is only a fragment of the song, it gives you an idea if you don’t have the complete album.

https://soundhound.com/?t=100760562816634774

What we have here is a honky tonk 12 bar blues with some unusual extra chords added in – a complete song with lyrics.

The opening could be a thought through intro, but I rather suspect the guys had been playing for a while and only then did someone turn the tape on.

So we get three lines

Try me
Try me, little girl
We could raise a family

and then we go to the start of the first verse.  There are in fact two verses with the second being less distinct, or maybe less thought through, than the first.

Well they treat you like a dummy
Well they treat you like a slave
Nothin’ bout what you said, it’s all
What you gave
Try me
Try me
Try me, little girl
We could raise our family

Well, they treat so low
At the time I’ll ring out of way
Oh, baby tho baby, three’s gotta you gonna way
Oh, well it’s three in the morning
I get no room
Based on ?? she is ??
Try me
Try me
Try me, little girl
We gonna raise a family

Well, they treat so low
At the time I’ll ring out of way
Oh, nika tho nika, three’s gotta you gonna way
Oh, well it’s three in the morning,
I get no room
Based on cell she is sittin’ on room
Try me
Try me
Try me, little girl,
We gonna raise a family

The inimitiable Haiku 61 Revisted has ventured into this fragment and given us

Try me, little girl.
Let’s have ourselves a family.
Be with me, not them.

As the reviewer says, “The lyrics mostly make sense, but here and there they break down into syllabic silliness for the sake of speeding through the song.”

Given time this could have turned into a decent song, away from all the seriousness and insight of many of the album tracks that had come before it, but it was just that a standard bounce along 12 bar blues with an unexpected twist in the chords – which is seemingly there for no particular reason.

There might be some Dylan fans who particularly like this track, but I suspect that the majority of buyers of the complete set of Basement Tapes have listened, and moved on in the hope of more exciting fare later.

Indeed if we look at the compositions that came immediately before this, we can see that Dylan was indeed just trying out this, that and every other form to see what came out.

• I’m Your Teenage Prayer
• One’s Man’s Loss
• Lock your door
• Baby wont you be my baby
• Try me little girl

But this song does mark something of an end of this “let’s start and see what happens” approach because of next two songs on the Complete Basement series seem to be much more thought through.

Indeed it is interesting that having had all the recordings of other people’s songs we suddenly get six Dylan compositions in a row at the end of disc 2: a series that continues onto disk 3.

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