By Tony Attwood
The King of France, Track 9 of disc six on the Basement Complete is another song in which Bob has a roughly worked out chord sequence, and an idea for a song – the King of France goes to the USA and appears to have various misadventures.
It is very hard to work out the lyrics although the melody itself develops quite nicely over time as the Dylan on keyboards gets some accompaniment from his pals, but I think overall this is another approach to the nonsense story line of Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream but not at all as well worked out.
The French monarchy ended in 1792 as part of the French Revolution which began in 1789, although the line continues as pretenders to the throne and has reached Louis XX, who is Louis Alphonse, Duke of Anjou.
The chord sequence behind the song is nothing special – everything would come from the lyrics if the song were to be developed – as was the case with the 115th Dream.
Track 10 on the same CD is “She’s on my mind again.” Again the recording is very poor, but this sounds more worked out. It’s got a sad, regretful sound as you might expect. The format is verse-verse-verse without any break. The surprise at the end of each verse is the movement to the chord of the minor 6th (A minor if you were playing in C) which instantly transfers back into the start of the next verse without any pause. It’s not a very common technique for Bob.
Rather unexpectedly there is a version sung in Japanese on YouTube
The lyrics in English could be something like this for the first few verses…
Morning rose and dangle me
I’m notified but she don’t cost me
She’s on my way she goes
Anyway she want to try
Don’t believe away too long
Go make me from my head gone
She don’t mind at all the way she goes
Happen in a fall
Raining’s on my open way
Ah you tried to holler too hard
Tried to loosen its on my bail
Ending in the summertime
Molly loses all my pay
No babe don’t listen on every day
She’s on my mind, she’s all
Ready for the morning time
It continues in a similar way for quite a few more verses but without a clue as to what the words really are or what the theme of the song is, I have found it beyond me to put in the lyrics. If you can work it out please do submit and you’ll get a full recognition.
Although to tell you the truth, I don’t think it matters. It is just the idea of the chords and the opening line and after that it is make it up as we go along.
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