Bob Dylan And Charles Baudelaire

by Larry Fyffe

Poems of Charles Baudelaire shows the impact of Edgar Allan Poe; Bob Dylan’s song lyrics reveal the influence of Charles Baudelaire.

In one version thereof, Dylan sings:

Then she opened up a book of poems

And she started quotin’ it to me

It was written by Charles Baudelaire

Or some Italian poet from the thirteenth century

And every one of them words rang true

And glowed like burnin’ coal

(Bob Dylan: Tangled Up In Blue)

Dylan makes reference to a poem by Baudelaire (translated):

The evening lighted by the glow of the coals

The evening on the balcony, veiled in rose mist

How soft your breast was to me, how kind your heart

We often said imperishable things

The evenings lighted by the glow of the coals

(Baudelaire: The Balcony)

Symbolist poet Beaudelaire admires the colourful Romantic paintings of Eugene Delacroix that deal with mankind’s pain and suffering. Bob Dylan studies the art of painting, and brings ‘Lady Liberty Leading The People’ by Delacroix to mind with a sly pun in the lyrics below:

So I drifted down to New Orleans

Where I happen to be employed

Workin’ for a while on a fishing boat

Right outside Delacroix

But all the while I was alone

The past was close behind

I seen a lot of women

But she never escaped my mind

(Bob Dylan: Tangled Up In Blue)

Eugene Delacroix paints ‘Tasso In The Madhouse’ – Torquato Tasso, an Italian poet from the sixteenth century, writes ‘Rinaldo’, a knightly romance that contains sexual imagery based on Sandro Botticelli’s ‘Birth Of Venus’:

The poet in his cell, unkempt and sick

Who crushes underfoot a manuscript

Measure, with a gaze that horror has inflamed

The stair of madness where his soul was maimed

(Baudelaire: On Eugene Delacroix’s Tasso In The Madhouse)

The singer/songwriter seeks out sexy Venus, his Muse:

Got to hurry back to my hotel room

Where I got me a date with Botticelli’s niece

She promised to be right there with me

When I paint my masterpiece

(Bob Dylan: When I Paint My Masterpiece)

In the poem below, a cracked bell symbolizes a broken soul:

Happy’s the bell whose vigorous throat on high

In spite of time, is sound and still unspent

To hurl his faithful and religious cry

Like an old soldier watching in his tent

My soul is cracked, and when amidst it’s care

It tries with song to fill the frosty air

(Baudelaire: The Cracked Bell)

Not quite so dark are the song lyrics below:

The guilty undertaker sighs

The lonesome organ grinder cries

The silver saxophones say I should refuse you

The cracked bells and washed-out horns

Blow into my face with scorn

But it’s not that way

I wasn’t born to lose you

(Bob Dylan: I Want You)

Other song lyrics draw a comparison with two French Symbolist poets influenced by Baudelaire:

Situations have ended sad

Relationships have all been bad

Miner’ve been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud

But there’s no way I can compare

All those scenes to this affair

You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go

(Bob Dylan: You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go)

Rimbaud writes of Venus:

I believe, I believe in you, divine mother

Sea-born Aphrodite – oh, the path is bitter

Since the other God harnessed us to His cross

Flesh, marble, flower, Venus, in you I believe

Yes, Man is sad and ugly, and under the vast sky

(Arthur Rimbaud: Sun And Flesh)

Likewise for the singer/songwriter – Venus’ water balances Mars’ fire, makes love pure. Black-robed priests over-water it:

Love that’s pure ain’t no accident

Always on time, is always content

An eternal flame, quietly burning

You don’t want love that’s pure

You wanna drown love

You want a watered-down love

(Bob Dylan: Watered-Down Love)

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Bob Dylan And Charles Baudelaire

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