———————-
You might also enjoy
by Larry Fyffe
Not noticed other than by ‘Untold Dylan’, the song by Bob Dylan called ‘Handy Dandy’ is a lyrical broth in which the translated French poet Charles Baudelaire is stewing. Typical of his cooking style, Dylan mixes in a batch of other poetic medicines as well.
Baudelaire is a free-spending, whore-seeking, alcohol-drinking, drug-taking, ‘dandy’ who deplores boring bourgeois life. He pens ‘The Flowers Of Evil’, concerning the sorrows that accompany life, sex, and death; he even once tries suicide:
(Charles Baudelaire: The Mask)
Bob Dylan treads more lightly:
Like Baudelaire, Dylan alludes to nursery rhymes:
(Handy Spanky : nursery rhyme)
Charles Baudelaire spends loads of money on an Afro-Fench dancer; he calls her his ‘Black Venus’:
(Charles Baudelaire: The Dancing Serpent)
Baudelaire’s sinister images are not lost on the singer/songwriter:
(Bob Dylan: Handy Dandy)
Nor are lost the images from the romantic lyrics of a folk song:
(Wild Mountain Thyme)
A song influenced by the darker Symbolist poet Paul Verlaine contains similar imagery:
Baudelaire’s ‘surrealistic’ water fountain be not so pure, clear, or cool:
(Charles Baudelaire: Fountain Of Blood)
Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan humourously repeats a phrase from another Symbolist poet who is influenced by Baudelaire:
(Bob Dylan: Handy Dandy)
To wit:
(Arthur Rimbaud: On The Subject Of Flowers)
(Bob Dylan: Summer Days)
(Bob Dylan: Handy Dandy)
The two other Symbolist poets mentioned catch Baudelaire’s melancholia:
(Paul Verlaine: After Three Years)
What else is on the site?
You’ll find an index to our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page. You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.
The index to the 500+ songs reviewed is now on a new page of its own. You will find it here. It contains links to reviews of every Dylan composition that we can find a recording of – if you know of anything we have missed please do write in.
We also now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews
Sorry – “build my love a tower”
**Afro-French
*** how much time I got
**** fortress on the mountain