Untold Dylan

This is episode 38 of “All Directions at Once”, a series which considers Bob Dylan’s songwriting in the order in which he wrote the songs, attempting to see Dylan’s creativity as a wave form, endlessly ebbing and flowing, considering how each song affected the next.

The previous episode was All directions: where now Señor? There’s more than enough time to think

The full index to the series is here

By Tony Attwood

In this series we  have now reached 1977, and when we look back at how Dylan progressed through the 70s to get here we find an extraordinary journey.  It is a journey that I fear many commentators upon the compositions of Bob Dylan have not taken into account as they consider Dylan’s work song by song, looking only at what was happening to him at the time, rather than what he had written in the months or years before.

As such, these commentators don’t see the journey that his songwriting has been travelling.  They miss the ebb and flow of a creative person’s world, instead treating each work as an object standing in isolation, rather than seeing it as part of the continuing evolution of the artist’s thoughts, through his evolving creativity, through thoughts influenced by interactions with the world around, by beliefs, friends, ideas…

So, to try and make this a little clearer in terms of how this progression has been working with Dylan in the 1970s, I’d like at this point to take an overview of how that decade has panned out thus far.

My aim in particular is to see how the composition of “No time to think” came out of all that went before.  Because this is indeed what I think happened.   I feel that over time there was a build up of thoughts and ideas which enabled Dylan to compose what I perceive as the utter, sublime masterpiece that is “No time”.

The start of the decade saw Dylan in retreat, composing what became “New Morning,” starting with the exquisite “Time passes slowly” – a song title which is the exact opposite of “No time to think” at the end of the period.  Indeed these two titles alone should give us a clue as to what was happening to Dylan over these years.   And that awareness should be leading commentators on Dylan to ponder how he evolved his writing across the years.  Yet they have not done this, because generally they do not see Dylan as an artist whose work is itself an ebb and flow; a ceaseless progression of possibilities and ideas.  Each creation, each song, is an isolated incident to be dissected without reference to anything beyond the immediate moment.

And yet across these years Bob moved from a comment that he was, “Starin’ out the window to the stars high above; Time passes slowly when you’re searchin’ for love” to one that says, “In death, you face life with a child and a wife, Who sleep-walks through your dreams into walls.”   That is quite a journey, and it fascinates me as to how Dylan happened to take it.

After such thoughts of the rural idyll, 1971 was a year of pause and explorations, not least because unless one has a burning imperative in one’s work, and one has plenty of money, there really is no reason to go anywhere.   Yet we can feel a contradiction here because this was the moment when Bob Dylan composed “When I paint my masterpiece” a song which expressed a yearning for greater artistic development which in itself suggested that the rural idyll was all right for a while, but not forever.  He was ok where he was, but knew there would be a change somewhere down the road.  The masterpiece was just slightly visible above the horizon.

As Dylan returned to contemplate the wider world around him he regained a fascination with the everyday reality of life, so it is not too surprising that there was also a venture into writing about a real person.  The George Jackson song that followed annoyed many commentators who felt that art should be truthful rather than, well, artistic, but I feel Dylan knew where he was going with this.

Another pause followed until in 1972 we had “Forever Young” – a song which took us back to the family idyll of “no reason to go anywhere”, and then the composition of the film music – another exploration into the unknown.

So we find the emergence of the notion that there is more to art than contentment until the dam burst in 1973 and the songs began to pour forth once again without any form of restriction or desire to push everything into the same constraining idyll of rural life.

At first there is no direction so that as the creative genius flexes his muscles once more (if being a creative genius allows one to flex muscles) and Dylan seeks his new direction, exploring everything from “You Angel You” and “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” through to “Dirge” and “Wedding Song”.

And I do think it is worth pausing for a moment to reiterate the enormous steps taken  between the first two and the last two of those songs.  “You Angel”still  has a lot of rural idyll within it; the notion of perfection, of pleasure, of the sheer joy of his feelings.

Could it actually be the same composer who in the same year also composed “Dirge”?  It seems hard to believe but it was, and we can only conclude that something profound had happened to Dylan during that year.

To be able to switch style and genre in this way in the course of a year is remarkable, and most certainly those last two songs (Dirge, and Wedding Song) shout out to anyone willing to listen, that Bob is now travelling in a very new direction.    Plus those last two songs of the year must have told Dylan (as if he didn’t know) that he could now go in any direction he wanted, and create the music that he wanted to create, no matter what it was.

So what does he do?  He gives us either his greatest ever, or at least one of his greatest ever, works (or at least a sigh of relief that it is not a bad work) in 1974 producing song after song of such utter and sublime genius that someone unfamiliar with Dylan on hearing it for  the first time might mistake it for his greatest hits.  And he does it through a unique approach to popular song writing: through exploring people with their different views of reality.  Blood on the Tracks.

But that in turn leaves a huge problem.  For what does one do after producing one’s masterpiece?  Sadly for many creative artists throughout all art forms, the answer turns out to be that the artist declines as he or she desperately seeks to create something as good, or even better, but can’t, while the critics say of each new work that it is “not a patch on….”

Yet amazingly, Bob had no such problems for he immediately gave us an extraordinary  song in a minor key (unusual for Bob) and a tale of an outsider performed as a duet, in “One more cup of coffee”…

You've never learned to read or write
There's no books upon your shelf
And your pleasure know no limits
Your voice is like a meadow lark
But your heart is like an ocean
Mysterious and dark

followed by a gentle love/lost love song with “Golden Loom”.   Indeed if one listens to “One more cup of coffee” and then “Golden Loom” it seems extraordinary that one was written after the other.  This is an extraordinary progression both lyrically and musically.

And then if that were not enough Bob is off again, changing directions once more as we have “Oh Sister” continuing his back and forth exchange with Joan Baez, which had started with “Diamonds and Rust.”

So now we are clearly thinking families and close relationships.  Thus “Abandoned Love” makes an obvious follow up and the songs are in a pattern; it is making sense as a theme.  People, their ways of seeing the world, their thoughts…

This was how Dylan seemed to be considering the world through his compositions when Jacques Levy turned up and added a new level: not just songs that are personal but songs that are much broader. Songs in which real and mythical people are entwined with real and mythical places.  People and places that are not just different in themselves but can change overnight.

One after the other they arrived, and if we listen to the songs in the order written it becomes clear: the real and the mythical are deliberately mixed, often as with “Joey”, even in the same song.  Sometimes also with cynicism mixed with humour (as “Mozambique” is recast from war-torn poverty to an island paradise and paraded as a jaunty happy advert).

Next we had songs about actual real people.  “Rita May,” and “Hurricane” as Bob lept thither and yon, playing with the history of real places (Black Diamond Bay, Mozambique, Durango, Laredo) and these real people.  They all turn up in the next sequence of seven songs before we suddenly have another change, announced appropriately enough with the “Changing of the Guards”

To create this many changes of style, direction and message over the space of a few years is an utterly extraordinary creative endeavour, and it is not surprising that as we reach 1977 Dylan clearly felt he had done that and now a new sound and a new approach was required.  So he goes a travelling on a “long-distance train rolling through the rain,” knowing that it is time to move on once more…

So, he’s admitted it is a time for change, a time for asking questions, and ultimately, just as the notion of religion is slowly emerging into his mind, he returns to the notion of the old man, the Wandering Jew as Chaucer has it, and (at least in his stories) Dylan meets the old man and writes “Senor”.

But in this new land where truth and fantasy merge (at least given the way that the story of the old man changes each time Bob tells it) it is clearly also an opportunity for Bob to look at creating new poetic and musical forms.  And if the musical form is not totally new, at least it is a form that no one had ever used in popular music before.   So we had “No Time to Think.”  So complex indeed that Bob never once played it on stage, which is very much our loss…

To consider this song we have consider the purpose of the lyrics.  Are they there to tell a story, describe feelings and emotions, paint a picture, encourage the listener to dance, express sadness?   And the answer is yes of course, all that.  But not just that because they can also portray the abstract.  We have words and music, but not meanings that can be expressed as words alone.  We have emotions and feelings that need more than words.

In such a situation the words may not make sense in the rational way, but they will still express something – and that something is valuable indeed because it is expression through words of an essence that cannot be portrayed through words.    Jochen noted this in his review when he picked out, “Bible references, echoes of ancient mythology, unusual word combinations (so-called catachresis) and replicated fragments from old songs.”

But instead of seeing this work as a brilliant opening of the door onto a new dimension of song writing, some critics found it lacking.

Yet for me it is a towering masterpiece, not only as a single song but as a summation of Dylan’s work.   It is such a perfect description of a world that doesn’t make sense.  A world the human race is rushing to destroy, while praying to its own gods for salvation.   A world where Christianity has flourished simultaneously as a power for good and a centre for child abuse.  Where every image, thought, idea, complexity and contradiction crashes into each other, so that we really do have no time to think.

But because much of the phraseology doesn’t make sense in the conventional sense it is dismissed.  And yet if the world makes no sense, why shouldn’t the song make no sense? Just consider these couplets…

In death, you face life with a child and a wife
Who sleep-walks through your dreams into walls.

Betrayed by a kiss on a cool night of bliss
In the valley of the missing link

….the country priestess will want you
Her worst is better than best.

I'd have paid off the traitor and killed him much later
But that's just the way that I am.

Madmen oppose him, but your kindness throws him
To survive it you play deaf and dumb.

Warlords of sorrow and queens of tomorrow
Will offer their heads for a prayer.

You know you can't keep her and the water gets deeper
That is leading you onto the brink

You've murdered your vanity, buried your sanity
For pleasure you must now resist.
Lovers obey you but they cannot sway you
They're not even sure you exist.

Fools making laws for the breaking of jaws
And the sound of the keys as they clink
But there's no time to think.

You turn around for one real last glimpse of Camille
'Neath the moon shinin' bloody and pink

Bullets can harm you and death can disarm you
But no, you will not be deceived.
Stripped of all virtue as you crawl through the dirt,
You can give but you cannot receive.

No time to prepare for the victim that's there,
No time to suffer or blink
And no time to think.

There has never previously been a song like this.  It is an utter monument to a way of portraying the emotions and feelings of uncertainty in a world moving so fast that even trying to decode a fraction of it means you miss the next bit.

Yes Dylan agrees, “I’m only a man, Doin’ the best that I can…”   And it turns out that this best is so much better than everyone else, because no one that I can recall has attempted to venture into this territory through the medium of writing a song.  It is The Drifter’s Escape in full glorious technicolor detail.

But sadly, many who analyse the songs from this period tend to forget the creations as works of art and instead become fixated by Bob’s life.  Few, if any, get near the notion that this might just be Bob following his intellectual and creative direction as he has moved away from there being no reason to do anything at all.  After all as Jochen said in his book on the album, “This is 1978, Dylan has been saying je est un autre for over a decade now, but to no avail.”

As Dylan says in interviews, “It’s the sound and the words. Words don’t interfere with it… they give it purpose.”   And the self-appointed (one sometimes feels one should actually write “self-anointed”) critics don’t like it.   In fact I suspect they would have liked it even less if they had woken up to realise that the source of Dylan’s inspiration is T.S. Eliot’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.”  If you want the full detail there is no better place to find it than here.

In short, Dylan has taken an established (if not widely known) classic form of writing, and has found words to fit into the form.  Indeed the form, not the message, has become the centre, the heart-beat, the essence.  Of course it is ok if, as a listener, as a fan, you don’t take the form on board, and instead you listen to the music and enjoy it.  But then it is also fine if you don’t like the music and you turn it off.  As Dylan said, song long before, there’s no reason to go anywhere.  Reason doesn’t have anything to do with it.

But the professional critic, the self-ordained interpreter of Dylan, the writer who invites the world to see his workings out and his opinions as definitive, really needs to understand that when the fans are faced by critics who miss the whole point of the creative endeavour, what is the point of the critics?

What we actually have here is Dylan creating a totally new artistic concept, taking his mood from a movie, and his form from an utter master of 20th century English poetry, while adding to it his own unique literary and musical style.   And the result is a totally new direction for, what for want of another phrase, we call “popular music”

As for Bob’s 1977 problem, it was simple.  After a masterpiece such as this which breaks every boundary we knew existed and then a few more that the rest of us hadn’t discovered, where next?  Where next indeed.

There’s nowhere else because when there is no time to think this is all there is.  Just play it again.

By Jochen Markhorst

Jet Pilot (1965) part I: Greetings from Vermillion

II          I threw it all away

Well, she's got Jet Pilot eyes from her hips on down.
All the bombardiers are trying to force her out of town.

It is a somewhat awkward segment of Dylan’s autobiography, in Chronicles (2004), the part in which in a rather woolly and mystical manner rambles on about a “highly controlled system” working “in a cyclical way”, helping him out of an artistic impasse in the 1980s. The system, the autobiographer reveals, was already explained to him in the 1960s by Lonnie Johnson:

“I didn’t invent this style. It had been shown to me in the early ’60s by Lonnie Johnson. Lonnie was the great jazz and blues artist from the ’30s who was still performing in the ’60s. Robert Johnson had learned a lot from him. Lonnie took me aside one night and showed me a style of playing based on an odd-numbered instead of even-number system. He had me play chords and he demonstrated how to do it. This was just something he knew about, not necessarily something he used because he did so many different kinds of songs. He said, ‘This might help you,’ and I had the idea that he was showing me something secretive, though it didn’t make sense to me at that time because I needed to strum the guitar in order to get my ideas across.”

Dylan then spends more than 600 words on a kind of explanation of this “system”, which, it seems, is based on varying the 2, the 4 and the 7 of the diatonic scale. Solemnly, he declares that it is “for real” and “most advantageous”. Using, in short, the jargon with which a vague acquaintance of yesteryear tries to persuade you to take part in a pyramid scheme. Dylan concludes, confusion-inducing:

“I’m not a numerologist. I don’t know why the number 3 is more metaphysically powerful than the number 2, but it is.”

… just when the reader thinks, well, apparently it’s all about the 2 and the 4 and the 7, the not-a-numerologist serves up the bouncer that the 3 is “more metaphysically powerful”.

Anyway, the admiration for Lonnie Johnson is deep and sincere. Lonnie Johnson (1899-1970) is already a legend when Dylan meets him in Greenwich Village. The young Dylan is invited by Victoria Spicey to sing and play harmonica on “Sitting On Top Of The World” on Three Kings And A Queen (1963), the album on which Spicey is accompanied by Big Joe Williams, Roosevelt Sykes and Lonnie Johnson, and already well before Chronicles, in the Biograph booklet (1985) he expresses his admiration and gratitude:

“I was lucky to meet Lonnie Johnson at the same club I was working and I must say he greatly influenced me. You can hear it in that first record, I mean Corrina, Corrina… that’s pretty much Lonnie Johnson. I used to watch him every chance I got and sometimes he’d let me play with him.”

In 1992, for Good As I Been To You, he records Lonnie’s biggest hit (seven weeks at number 1 on the R&B charts), “Tomorrow Night” from 1947, the song Dylan would perform no less than sixty times in the 1990s – almost always in the same way as his example Lonnie Johnson. In Theme Time Radio Hour he plays two Johnson songs, both times introduced with eulogies (“our next performer is truly one of the greats”) and extensive life sketches.

In 1965, when Dylan records “Jet Pilot”, the reverence is more subtle. For the opening line, she’s got Jet Pilot eyes from her hips on down, Dylan quotes from a fairly unknown Lonnie Johnson song, from “Bow Legged Baby” from 1961:

Yes, my baby 's so fine and mella, bow legged from her hips on down.
Yes, my baby 's so fine and mella, bow legged from her hips on down.
And the way she throws them hips when she walks, 
                       she'll make a rabbit hug a hound

Lonnie’s other big hit then provides a shaky bridge to that absurd Jet Pilot eyes. In 1947, Johnson scored not only with “Tomorrow Night” but also with the scabrous “He’s A Jelly-Roll Baker”, the title DJ Dylan also mentions both times when he talks about Lonnie. It’s a catchy blues with exactly the kind of corny ambiguities Dylan has a soft spot for:

I was sentenced for murder in the first degree,
The Judge's wife call up and says, "Let that man go free!
He's a Jelly Roll Baker, he's got the best jelly roll in town.
He's the only man can bake jelly roll, with his damper down."

The words “Jelly-Roll Baker” have an approximate sound and rhythm similar to the words “Jet Pilot eyes”, so who knows – the wordplay part of Dylan’s associative, playful and meandering creativity does make even bolder leaps in these mercurial years, after all. The second part, from her hips on down, popping out of the same Lonnie Johnson drawer, does make sense, in that case. Coincidentally, “He’s A Jelly-Roll Baker” can be found on Blues & Ballads, the album Johnson recorded with Elmer Snowden in 1960 – which also includes the other song radio broadcaster Dylan plays on Theme Time Radio Hour and the performer Dylan has on his repertoire, “Backwater Blues”.

“Jet Pilot” is immediately rejected again, so the alienating expression jet pilot eyes doesn’t get a chance to penetrate the rock vernacular, doesn’t get a shine like jewels and binoculars, or Mr. Jones, or weatherman. It did have the potential, as the charming, understated Dylan reverence “You’re A Big Girl” shows, taken from the most Dylanesque, and most successful album by British band The Charlatans, Tellin’ Stories (2004);

See her through jet pilot eyes
Mysterious and thin
Like a raven breakin' free
From the towers they keep you in

https://youtu.be/5Iyiw2BhUH0

… for one of the many subtle, unobtrusive Dylan references, the Madchesters choose the relatively obscure jet pilot eyes.

Tellin’ Stories is still a great album, by the way – with The Charlatans’ answer song to “Like A Rolling Stone”, the more melancholy “Get On It” (no matter how you’re feeling, you’re never on your own), and with The Charlatans’ upbeat riposte to “Girl Of The North Country”, the bouncing “North Country Boy” (I threw it all away / I don’t know where I put it / But I miss it all the same).

Very nice songs, all of them. Varying on the 2, the 4 and the 7, undoubtedly. Though never as beautiful as their slightly weird, yet irresistible cover of “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You” (2002).

To be continued. Next up: Jet Pilot part III: A whole lotta woman

Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:

• Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
• Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
• Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
• Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
• Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
• Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
• Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits (German)
• John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville

What else?

There are details of some of our more recent articles listed on our home page.  You’ll also find, at the top of the page, and index to some of our series established over the years.

If you have an article or an idea for an article which could be published on Untold Dylan, please do write to Tony@schools.co.uk with the details – or indeed the article itself.

We also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with getting on for 10,000 members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link    And because we don’t do political debates on our Facebook group there is a separate group for debating Bob Dylan’s politics – Icicles Hanging Down

by Larry Fyffe

Bob Dylan pays tribute to folk, country, gospel, and blues songs as well as nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and higher forms of literary output:

The party's over, there's less and less to say
I got new eyes, everything looks far away
Well, my heart's in the Highland at the break of day
Over the hills, and far away
(Bob Dylan: Highland)

Above, the singer/songwriter/musician references a nursery rhyme, a Scottish poet, and pays tribute to a satirical musical play from yesteryear; there’s the Dylanesque “rhyme twist” ~ ‘say’/’away’/’day’; ~ ‘play’/’stray’/ ‘away’/’day’:

And I would love you all the day
Every night would kiss and play
If with me you'd fondly stray
Over the hills, and far away
(John Gay: Over The Hills And Far Away/Beggar's Opera)

A long rendition of nursery rhyme ‘Tom The Piper’s Son’ goes thusly:

Tom with his pipe did play
"Over The Hill And Far Away"
Tom with his pipe made such a noise
That he pleased both the girls and boys
(Tom The Piper's Son ~ traditional)

Dylan does a well worn end-rhyme ~ ‘door’/’before’ ~ to express that life, especially as it moves along to its latter days, can feel at times rather monotonous:

Every day it's the same thing out the door
Feel further away than ever before
(Bob Dylan: Highland)

Saved Bobby be by his one true love – popular music accompanied by lyrics that refer, directly or obliquely, to ‘low’ and to ‘high’ works of art – including humourous and satirical ones like Gay’s “Beggar’s Opera” that’s cited above.

There’s another Tom, too; perhaps Freud’s great great grandfather  – Tom Thumb’s tiny, but he’s a little rascal; always poking his head into things, and getting himself into all kinds of trouble, like falling into pudding batter, getting cooked, and then saved because of a fart:

Let the wind blow low, let the wind blow high
One day the little boy and girl were baked in a pie
(Bob Dylan: Under Red Sky)

Troubles trouble Tom; Tom’s always getting into trouble:

They got some hungry women there
And they really make a mess outta you
(Bob Dylan: Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues)

John Gay’s work evoles into the “Ten Penny Opera”:

Look out, Miss Lotte Lenya, and old Lucy Brown
Yes, that line forms on the right, babe
Now that's Macky's back in town
(Bobby Darin: Mack The Knife ~ Weill/Brecht/Blitzstein)

And Tom’s still operating too – under a different name:

Now, every boy and girl's gonna get their bang
'Cause Tiny Montgomery's gonna shake that thing
Tell everybody down in old 'Frisco
That Tiny Montgomery's coming down to say hello
(Bob Dylan: Tiny Montgomery)

by Tony Attwood

Getting on for five years ago I wrote a little piece in which I tried to highlight a few of Bob’s great lines which were not the ones that everyone would immediately know.

Most of my choices were lines that every Dylan fan would surely know, but three of them were lines that although the avid connoisseur would identify at once, not everyone would.  Furthermore they are lines which, although we might be able to explain them, are still lines that can make us (or perhaps I should just say, “can make me”) stop what I am doing and think.

And then think some more.

Here are the three I found in that earlier article.

• My patron saint is a-fighting with a ghost
• Everyone is wearing a disguise
• There’s a black Mercedes rollin’ through the combat zone

The point is not just that they are a trifle obscure in the sense that there will be many Dylan fans who can’t place these lines at once, but also they have that level of enigma that I really love about a lot of Dylan’s work.

Lines such as “There must be some way out of here said the joker to the thief” have that enigma as well, but we are so used to such lines that the initial impact has long since gone.  They have now become part of the vocabulary.  But where we can find lines that have slipped through the net of general consciousness, such lines can give us a further pause for thought.

Two suggestions that were given in the earlier article about this very much met my criteria of enigma and not being a line that maybe not every Dylan fan knows were

By Jochen Markhorst

Well, she's got Jet Pilot eyes from her hips on down.
All the bombardiers are trying to force her out of town.
She's five feet nine and she carries a monkey wrench.
She weighs more by the foot than she does by the inch.
She got all the downtown boys, all at her command
But you've got to watch her closely 'cause she ain't no woman
She's a man.

The success of Biograph, the 1985 compilation box, sets a trend. The 3-CD set collects 53 released and unreleased tracks and goes platinum – which is mainly thanks to the eighteen unreleased tracks.

Record companies are becoming aware of all the gold uselessly glittering in their archives, and so in the following years the market is flooded with similar basement clearances. Many of these are, alas, utterly superfluous, slightly tweaked Greatest Hits collections and, above all, painfully transparent attempts to extract money from the pockets of fans. Lou Reed tries it with the saltless Between Thought And Expression, Aerosmith pleases the fans with Pandora’s Box, Elton John with To Be Continued, Beckology is Jeff Beck’s half-successful attempt, Eric Clapton’s Crossroads… it’s a long list, and the companies succeed in their objectives: the collector’s boxes generally sell very well.

The accompanying booklets are especially appealing to fans; also following in the footsteps of Dylan’s Biograph, most compilers put love and energy into extensive booklets with background information on the songs, commentaries by the artists themselves, recording details and often an essay-like contribution by a musicologist or talented journalist.

For Biograph, that part is taken care of by Cameron Crowe, the versatile author and film director (Hard Times At Ridgemont High, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky) who has always remained an editor for the music magazine Rolling Stone in between projects.

His work for the Biograph booklet is thorough and entertaining enough, larded with interesting interview fragments, but for the seasoned Dylan fan, the comments from the master himself are of course the most fascinating. Dylan openly apologises for the viciousness of “Ballad In Plain D”, for example (“It was a mistake to record it and I regret it”), suggests curious candour here and there (“I was thinking of living with somebody for all the wrong reasons,” with “Caribbean Wind”), has intriguing opinions about his own songs (“This is not my type of song, I think I just did it to do it,” on “On A Night Like This”).

There is also an amusing by-catch for the know-it-alls. The well-informed authority Cameron Crowe gets it wrong every now and then and grants the everyday rock fan a few moments of petty glory. The short commentary on “I Wanna Be Your Lover”, for instance, opens with a somewhat embarrassing error by the Rolling Stone editor. “A tip of the hat to the only song recorded by both The Beatles and the Rolling Stones – Lennon and McCartney’s I Want To Be Your Man.”

Apart from the misspelling (the title is “I Wanna Be Your Man”): three-quarters of the participants of any given pub quiz in any sleepy little country town would effortlessly rattle off four, five, six songs that were recorded by both The Beatles and The Stones. “Money”, “Carol”, “Memphis, Tennessee”, “Roll Over Beethoven”, “Little Queenie”, and if the pub quiz compiler likes trick questions, you can continue for a while with songs the Fab Four and the Glimmer Twins recorded together: “Dandelion”, “We Love You”, “All You Need Is Love”).

Comparably poorly documented, and equally unimportant, is Dylan’s quoted comment on “I Don’t Believe You”: “I wrote this in Greece, Athens, or maybe Vermillion, a town up to the coast.” The spelling of the village’s name causes more authors problems. With some biographers, the story pops up that Dylan spent a few weeks with German chanteuse Nico, pre-Velvet Underground, travelling from Paris to a town near Athens, to the coastal village of “Vernilya” (according to Clinton Heylin) or “Vermilya” (according to Robert Shelton).

The place does not exist in either of the three spellings. More reliable is the bequeathed testimony of Dylan’s handyman Victor Maimudes, who tells he drove Dylan for a short sunny holiday to Vouliagmeni, a coastal town that is indeed 23 kilometers south of Athens.

A third slip by Cameron Crowe finds more followers and is found in the short commentary to a song, to “Jet Pilot”:

“This un-issued track from 1965 offers a humorous glimpse at the historic sessions for Highway 61. ‘The songs changed all the time,’ recalled Al Kooper. ‘We would try different tempos, he would try other words. Most of the songs had different titles.’ […] This song, complete with a surprise ending, was the original version of Tombstone Blues.”

It is, without a second thought, taken up in articles, on websites and in reviews. “The unfinished songs like Jet Pilot, which later became Tombstone Blues,” writes the Australian Rolling Stone (January ’86). “The original version of the very different Tombstone Blues,” writes Graham Reid on his entertaining website Elsewhere, and comme ça, Crowe’s mistake slowly becomes a music history fact.

It is, however, demonstrably false, both Crowe’s attribution of the song to the Highway 61 sessions, and the claim that it is a primal version of “Tombstone Blues”.

“Jet Pilot” was recorded on 5 October 1965, when Highway 61 Revisited had been in the shops for five weeks, with “Tombstone Blues” also on it, and so, if you want to catalogue it under an album title at all, it should be classified under “The first Blonde On Blonde recording session”. In fact, though, the recordings on that Tuesday in October fall a bit between two stools. The day begins with “Medicine Sunday”, the primal version of “Temporary Like Achilles”, followed by “Jet Pilot” (one take only, of 1’27” – on Biograph the same take is shortened to 49 seconds), two half-takes of “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?” and the day ends with very attractive improvisations by The Band (“Instrumental Number One”, a kind of mercurial mash-up of “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?” and “She’s Your Lover Now”). The only recording that could have actually been released on Blonde On Blonde is one of the six complete takes of “I Wanna Be Your Lover” – but is ultimately passed over.

In short, none of the 5 October recordings, nor any of the song titles at all, end up on Blonde On Blonde. The next recording session is eight weeks later, on 30 November 1965, the day with the first takes of “Visions Of Johanna” – it is in any case purer, factually more correct, to qualify this November day as “The first Blonde On Blonde session day”. So let’s consider 5 October 1965 as a washed-out island between two mighty continents, as a Medicine Sunday between Desolation Row and the Lowlands.

Crowe’s mistake is, of course, not at all incomprehensible. “Jet Pilot” has the same drive as “Tombstone Blues”, Robbie Robertson plays a copy of Bloomfield’s lick, it’s in the same key (E) and The sweet pretty things are in bed now of course has the same rhythm, the same number of syllables and is recited with the same snarl as She’s got Jet Pilot eyes from her hips on down.

Ain’t got no shoes either, probably.

To be continued. Next up: Jet Pilot part II: I threw it all away

———–

Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:

• Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
• Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
• Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
• Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
• Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
• Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
• Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits (German)
• John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville

Do you have a tale to tell via Untold Dylan?

We now have over 2000 articles on this site, and many of them are personal tales about attending a concert, listening to Dylan, cover versions, or the individual writer’s own appreciation of Dylan and his music.

These articles are written for Untold by Dylan fans, and if you have a view of Dylan that you feel could be of interest to others, we’d love to hear from you.

To see the variety of approaches we have included in this site, just go to the top of the page and look at the various headings under the picture – each one contains an index of articles on a Dylan theme.  Or look at the latest series listed on our home page.  If you write a piece you can add to these, or create your own theme, or simply send in a one-off contribution.   As long as it gives a different insight into Dylan and his work, we may be well interested in publishing it.

Sadly, we don’t have the funds to pay, but Untold Dylan does have a very wide readership, so your work will be seen by a huge number of people.   If you have an article please email Tony@schools.co.uk   If the article is ready, please attach as a word file.

One other thing: we never ask for donations, and we try to survive on the income from our advertisers, so if you enjoy Untold Dylan, and you’ve got an ad blocker, could I beg you to turn it off while here. I’m not asking you to click on ads for the sake of it, but at least allow us to add one more to the number of people who see the full page including the adverts.   Thanks.

And one other, other thing: we also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with around 8500 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link    And because we don’t do political debates on our Facebook group there is a separate group for debating Bob Dylan’s politics – Icicles Hanging Down

This is part of our mega-series covering the whole of the Never Ending Tour.  There is an index to the series here.

By Mike Johnson (Kiwipoet)

In the first post in this 1995 series ( See Part 1 ) I introduced Dylan’s 1995 Prague concerts with some sample sounds. This post I’ve set aside for my favourite performances from Dylan’s three night gig, 11^th 12^th, and 13^th of March. For my ear, this is the cream of the cream, maybe the best Dylan you’ll ever hear, although it’s difficult to make such a claim because of the changes in Dylan’s voice and style over the years.

There is magic in these Prague concerts. Perhaps the flu stretched him to the point where… I don’t know, something else happened. A breakthrough of a kind in terms of the range of his vocal expression, and emotional expression in his harmonica playing. He wasn’t just up there grinding it out; there is a fire in these performances, and a sense of restraint. We feel the banked up emotion behind the restraint, just as we do with the great blues singers like Lightning Hopkins and Otis Span.

The setlist over the three nights varied, with not many songs done on all three nights. ‘Tangled Up in Blue’, however, on its way to becoming one of the three most performed Dylan song ever, did turn up on all three setlists. While Dylan achieves an extended emotional range by slowing down many of the songs performed in Prague, with ‘Tangled’ he speeds it up, or at least gives that impression from the urgency of the backing. All three performances crackle with energy. They are more disciplined than the ten, twelve minute versions we find in 1993/4, years in which epic versions ruled, but all the more punchy for it. (Those interested in the evolution of this song might enjoy the two postscripts to my Master Harpist series.

• Tangled up in Harmonicas: Part 1
• Tangled up in Harmonicas: Part 2

The first performance, from the 11^th, scintillates with energy, with Dylan’s voice swooping through the lyrics, with the sharp edged harmonica to finish off. If you don’t start moving your feet to this one, they may be glued to the floor.

Tangled up in Blue: 1

The performance from the 12^th kicks along at about the same speed but the sound is more full bodied. That might be the recording, it’s hard to tell. With these faster versions we get the sense of a life flashing by, or hurtling by; it all goes by so fast. Before we can catch up with events, more events have piled on top. The slower version from the album and the even slower version from the 1974 New York recordings, the first takes of the song, make it a much more contemplative, reflective song than it is here, performed at this hectic pace. We fall headlong through life, from one scene to the next, with hardly time to remember, ‘all the people we used to know.’

Tangled up in Blue: 2

On the 13^th Dylan introduces the song with the harp and launches into another faultless vocal performance. What is amazing is that if you listen to all three vocals you find he sings it differently each time, emphasising and elongating different words, creating different tonal effects.

Tangled up in Blue: 3

‘License to Kill’ is a quiet, reflective protest song from Infidels. The chorus centres around a bereaved woman, lamenting the death of a loved one, maybe a soldier. The verses tend to focus on the training and brainwashing of a killer, and the subsequent plight of mankind. When I wrote about this song when it appeared in 1993, I quoted these lyrics:

‘Now, he's hell-bent for destruction, he's afraid and confused,
And his brain has been mismanaged with great skill
All he believes are his eyes
And his eyes, they just tell him lies’

I suggested that this reminded me of more current killers, those who think that a license to carry firearms is a license to kill. (See NET, 1993, Part 5) That was written before the January 6^th attack on the Capitol in the US. Now the lyrics seem even more contemporary:

‘Now he worships at an altar of a stagnant pool
And when he sees his reflection, he's fulfilled
Oh, man is opposed to fair play,
He wants it all and he wants it his way’

In this last verse the attack opens up to include all of humanity, the killers and the colluders. It’s humankind’s massive greed that gets in the way.

This may not be Dylan’s greatest protest song, but this performance from the 13^th is certainly the greatest performance of the song. The power of performance is such that Dylan convinces us that it is a great song. The plaintive harp break at the end is the icing on the cake.

License to Kill

‘Man in the Long Black Coat’ is a spooky song based on the Devil at the Dance motif from Oh Mercy (1989) Dylan had been cultivating for three years. Those following these posts will have been alerted to the growing strength of this song in performance, with Dylan trying out slow tempos and varying musical arrangements. Its evolution has been from a swampy supernatural story to a cosmic drama of demonic seduction. As with the best Dylan songs, the drama pulls us into its orbit with its more universal application:

‘Preacher was talking there's a sermon he gave
He said every man's conscience is vile and depraved
You cannot depend on it to be your guide
When it's you who must keep it satisfied’

The message is dark: we cannot alone find our way in the moral jungle, especially as, according to the old saying, the devil can quote scriptures.

‘He looked into her eyes when she stopped him to ask
If he wanted to dance, he had a face like a mask
Somebody said from the Bible he'd quote
There was dust on the man in the long black coat’

This leaves us in a limbo where we are neither alive nor dead but ‘float’ in some kind of intermediary zone:

‘But people don't live or die people just float
She went with the man in the long black coat’

These words remind me of  ‘the disrobed faceless forms of no position’ we can find in ‘Chimes of Freedom’ way back in 1964.

At Prague the song was another of those rare ones that was performed on all three nights, and what a magnificent sequence they make. At last we feel that the song has come into focus. Enjoy these three performances, as the song will never sound so good again.

On the first night, the 11^th, it’s all in place except the harmonica. The long drawn out sounds on the steel guitar, the deep, thundery base. Magnificent.

Man in the long black coat: 1

Magnificent as that was, it was just a warm up for what was to come on the 12^th, with Dylan’s triumphant harmonica to the fore.

I wrote about the March 12^th performance for the Master Harpist series. I can’t say it better now than I said it then, so, with my editor’s indulgence, I’m putting in this quote from that article:

‘The pop and rock music of the 1980s veered towards creating sonic landscapes, orchestral sounds, and we don’t normally associate Bob Dylan with this kind of music, but in this grand and grandiose version of ‘Man in The Long Black Coat’ you hear Dylan and his band aiming for a full orchestral effect, which is where the harmonica comes in, lifting the song into one huge wall of sound. It’s a pity that the recording devices, or the original sound system for all I know, was not up to capturing the full range of this magnificent achievement – not to mention the limitations of MP3s! It’s a sheer blast, with long sustained harmonica notes pushing the music ever higher, finally floating above the wall of sound, thin and insistent, and ultimately as haunting as the song itself. The first solo is just a warm up for the climax to follow the last verse.’

I can’t add much to that except to say that every time I play this one, it exerts the same deep, magical pull. It is undoubtedly one of Dylan’s finest moments onstage.

Man in the long black coat: 2

The third performance of the song, on the 13^th seems like an anticlimax when compared to the 12^th,  but of course it is another out of the box rendition. The vocal is just as magnificent and while the harp does not soar into the stratosphere, it has a sharp, cutting edge.

Man in the long black coat: 3

Two songs always linked in my mind are ‘It’s All Over Now Baby Blue’ and ‘It Ain’t Me Babe.’ Both were written about the same time (1964) and both seem to be get lost songs. But things are not always what they seem when it comes to Dylan. These may be goodbye and good luck songs, but they are also love songs of the highest order, particularly ‘Baby Blue’.

‘It Ain’t Me Babe,’ may sound brash and dismissive if it’s sung that way, and it does work that way, but sung in a lonely, tender voice it becomes something else. Can we ever dismiss a lover without some tinge of regret, some strain of sorrow? And can love ever be banished by such brave assertions and protestations? Listen to this performance from the 12^th and decide for yourself. And if you are in any doubt, try that most gentle and fragile harp break. Such exquisite restraint.

It ain’t me babe

But for the final coup-de-grace as far as outstanding performances go, and a strong candidate for the best ever Dylan harp performance, we must turn to ‘Baby Blue’ on the first night, the 11^th.

Once again, I wrote about this performance for the Master Harpist series, and again with my editor’s indulgence I’ll quote myself:

‘Baby Blue’, performed in a strident, declarative, in-your-face manner, might be classed as one of Dylan’s put-down songs: get yourself together and piss off! But sung the way he does at Prague, the song, all through the vocal, skirts the edges of heartbreak, and when the harmonica takes over, the mood is pushed into outright heartbreak. There’s been a lot of tedious speculation as to whether this song is for Joan Baez (do we really care?), or was written as a farewell to the protest movement (ho-hum), but what these speculations might obscure is that ‘Baby Blue’ is a break-up song, which implies heart-break, finality, the end of love. It is love’s last song.

Suddenly the lyrics don’t sound so tough any more, and we wonder if he’s exhorting himself to get a new life as much as the ‘you’ he’s addressing. Listen to how Dylan lifts his voice in the last verse, how the harmonica takes over from where the voice leaves off, lays bare the real heartbreak and gives unrestrained voice to grief. Dylan can’t cry onstage, but his harmonica can, and boy it sure does, and how painful it is at the end as he repeats the same notes over and over, like one of those protracted goodbyes everybody hates but sometimes you just can’t escape. Just one more goodbye…one more… all the way to emotional exhaustion:

It’s all over now baby blue

What a note on which to end this post of the best of the best at Prague, 1995. I’ll be back soon to finish off what Dylan started at Prague.

Kia Ora

————

Do you have a tale to tell via Untold Dylan?

We now have over 2000 articles on this site, and many of them are personal tales about attending a concert, listening to Dylan, cover versions, or the individual writer’s own appreciation of Dylan and his music.

These articles are written for Untold by Dylan fans, and if you have a view of Dylan that you feel could be of interest to others, we’d love to hear from you.

To see the variety of approaches we have included in this site, just go to the top of the page and look at the various headings under the picture – each one contains an index of articles on a Dylan theme.  Or look at the latest series listed on our home page.  If you write a piece you can add to these, or create your own theme, or simply send in a one-off contribution.   As long as it gives a different insight into Dylan and his work, we may be well interested in publishing it.

Sadly, we don’t have the funds to pay, but Untold Dylan does have a very wide readership, so your work will be seen by a huge number of people.   If you have an article please email Tony@schools.co.uk   If the article is ready, please attach as a word file.

One other thing: we never ask for donations, and we try to survive on the income from our advertisers, so if you enjoy Untold Dylan, and you’ve got an ad blocker, could I beg you to turn it off while here. I’m not asking you to click on ads for the sake of it, but at least allow us to add one more to the number of people who see the full page including the adverts.   Thanks.

And one other, other thing: we also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with around 8500 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link    And because we don’t do political debates on our Facebook group there is a separate group for debating Bob Dylan’s politics – Icicles Hanging Down

Bob Dylan And Andrew Marvell Part 1

By Larry Fyffe

Take what you have gathered from coincidence, but both poet Andrew Marvell, and singer/songwriter Bob Dylan present to their audience a Gnostic-like vision of the Cosmos; it’s physical side, pierced by darkness and death; its spiritual side full of light.

A love lost cuts down any thoughts of the beauty in natural environment:

Unthankful meadows, could you so
A fellowship so true forego
And in your gaudy May-games meet
While I lay trodden under feet
When Juliana came, and she
What I do to grass, does to my thoughts and me
(Andrew Marvell: The Mower's Song)

Akin to the  sorrowful sentiment expressed in the song lyrics below:

Shadows are falling, and I've been here all day
It's too hot to sleep, time is running away
Feels like my soul has turned into steel
I still got the scars that the sun didn't heal
(Bob Dylan: Not Dark Yet)

At the very least, there is a Jungian link to the lines quoted beneath; detracted the mower be, and accidently cuts his flesh with his own scythe:

Hark how the Damon mower sung
With love of Juliana stung
While everything did seem to paint
The scene more fit for his complaint
Like her fair eyes the day was fair
But scorching like his amorous care
Sharp like his scythe his sorrow was
And withered like his hopes the grass
(Andrew Marvell: Damon The Mower)

In the following rural poem, the physical plane, represented by blinking glow-worms, is no match for the idealized plane, represented by Juliana, who’s beloved by the narrator – the loss of contact with the spiritual world of light, that she represents to him, displaces his mind:

Your courteous lights in vain you waste
Since Juliana is come
For she my mind hath so displaced
That I shall never find my home
(Andrew Marvel:The Mower And The Glow-Worms)

The glow-worms are replaced by a night watchman in the song lyrics below:

We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it's him or them that's insane
Louise, she's all right, she's just near
She's delicate, and seems like the mirror
But she's just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna's not here
(Bob Dylan: Visions Of Johanna)

In the above city song, the physical plane is represented by Louise with her handful of rain; she is no match for the idealized plane, represented by Johanna, who’s beloved by the narrator – the loss of contact with the spiritual world of light, that she represents to him, conquers his mind:

Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In the room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind

However, there’s still hope for both artists – Marvell and Dylan – who have suffered in the physical world – their art will give them life after they’ve gone:

He writes, everything's been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my consciousness explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys in the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain
(Bob Dylan: Visions Of Johanna)

Do you have a tale to tell via Untold Dylan?

We now have over 2000 articles on this site, and many of them are personal tales about attending a concert, listening to Dylan, cover versions, or the individual writer’s own appreciation of Dylan and his music.

These articles are written for Untold by Dylan fans, and if you have a view of Dylan that you feel could be of interest to others, we’d love to hear from you.

To see the variety of approaches we have included in this site, just go to the top of the page and look at the various headings under the picture – each one contains an index of articles on a Dylan theme.  Or look at the latest series listed on our home page.  If you write a piece you can add to these, or create your own theme, or simply send in a one-off contribution.   As long as it gives a different insight into Dylan and his work, we may be well interested in publishing it.

Sadly, we don’t have the funds to pay, but Untold Dylan does have a very wide readership, so your work will be seen by a huge number of people.   If you have an article please email Tony@schools.co.uk   If the article is ready, please attach as a word file.

One other thing: we never ask for donations, and we try to survive on the income from our advertisers, so if you enjoy Untold Dylan, and you’ve got an ad blocker, could I beg you to turn it off while here. I’m not asking you to click on ads for the sake of it, but at least allow us to add one more to the number of people who see the full page including the adverts.   Thanks.

And one other, other thing: we also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with around 8500 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link    And because we don’t do political debates on our Facebook group there is a separate group for debating Bob Dylan’s politics – Icicles Hanging Down

by Tony Attwood

This is episode 37 of “All Directions at Once”, a series which considers Bob Dylan’s songwriting in the order in which he wrote the songs, attempting to see Dylan’s creativity as a wave form, endlessly ebbing and flowing.   The most recent episodes are….

• 34: Onwards from manipulated reality
• 35. Durango ends the affair, Bob seeks a new way, Patti’s gone.
• All Directions 36: all hail the new direction

The full index to the series is here

We are now in 1977 and have in the previous article considered “Changing of the Guards” and “Is your love in vain”?  And the next song composed, Señor, has already been mentioned in my plod through Dylan’s songs as they are considered in the order written, noting that it contains an element of “Seven Days” in it.

And now as we move on we also have to take into account the fact that such reports as we have of Dylan’s private life, he was now in the first elements of conversion to Christianity, while also settling his divorce.

So perhaps it is not surprising that the tales we are told of the recording sessions for Street Legal are tales of chaos – Dylan coming and going, not settling, being in a bad mood etc etc, and the album that resulted is one that, according to the reviews I have read, was particularly disliked in the USA although not in all the countries where people took a particular interest in what he might do next.

But these events in Dylan’s life are of interest as I seek to explore his compositions as a continuing stream of events, not as isolated moment.   And so Señor, the next composition, is interesting in that  it was performed regularly across subsequent years, unlike songs such as, “Where are you tonight” which hit the dust before the end of 1978.  It would seem that Señor had something for Bob that lasted beyond the turmoil of this year.

In 1978 Dylan also told the story of how he was on a train going from Mexico to San Diego and how a strange old man got on the train, and Dylan felt the urge to talk to him.  But it seems the story told in the concerts started off as a fairly simple tale and gradually adding the notion that when Dylan finally did want to talk to the man, he had gone.  In short, over time the story changed, perhaps to fit Bob’s changing mood.

From the moment I first heard the song I felt a link to Bryan MacLean’s masterpiece “Old Man” which is found on Love’s “Forever Changes” album.  It is not just the opening verse which tells of a somewhat mysterious person

I once knew a man
Been everywhere in the world
Gave me a tiny ivory ball
Said it would bring me good
Never believed it would until
I have been loving you

but also the fact that Bryan MacLean was part of the Vineyard Christian ministry which Dylan joined.  “Old Man” was written in 1966, so pre-dates Señor, but I am sure Dylan would have known the song, and it is possible that MacLean was part of Dylan’s conversion.  The notion of the Old Man, the passing stranger, indeed the Wandering Jew, is of course ancient, and I cannot believe Dylan did not know “Forever Changes” – it is one of the albums that at the time everyone who had an interest in the way popular music could be expanded into something ever more insightful, ever more interesting, knew inside out.

If we accept that Dylan did know “Old Man” the ins and outs of Señor are easier to place

Señor, señor, do you know where we’re heading?
Lincoln County Road or Armageddon?
Seems like I been down this way before
Is there any truth in that, señor?

I also hear reference to a religious conversion in the song…

Well, the last thing I remember before I stripped and kneeled
Was that trainload of fools bogged down in a magnetic field
A gypsy with a broken flag and a flashing ring
Said, “Son, this ain’t a dream no more, it’s the real thing”

The later verse involving cutting loose from the past, walking away from all that was previously known, getting going onto the new life is certainly what MacLean had to do.  For he was offered a solo contract, once Love had broken up, only to have it cancelled because the quality of his work was not considered to be up to scratch.  One great song, and that’s it, it’s over.

The recording below is not from the “Forever Changes” album, but offers an extra insight into how MacLean saw the song himself.

Forever Changes was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008 as well as being added to the National Recording Registry in May 2012.  Sadly Bryan died on Christmas Day 1998 before these ultimate accolades appeared.

Now I am not suggesting that Dylan’s old man is MacLean’s old man in any way, but there are similarities and as I say, they did both go to the same church.

I am also taken with the fact that Christopher Rollason, in his review, called “Señor” “a wasteland with no easy answers… Political and religious readings are both possible, but, at least on first listening, this song propels the listener into a dark and desolate borderland world, where nothing can be taken on trust.”

In short, it is as if the Old Man on this occasion gives all the wrong answers – but the maybe suggests the positive answers were just around the corner.  Finding the Old Man was the key, but the journey was far from easy.

It is interesting that in Señor what we have is darkness, despair and destruction: the trainload of fools – just as Dylan is facing his divorce and all that this entails.

In death, you face life with a child and a wife
Who sleep-walks through your dreams into walls
You’re a soldier of mercy, you’re cold and you curse
“He who cannot be trusted must fall”

What Dylan has done is captured these snatched moments from his darker times and turned them into a song.

And let us not forget the imagery.  That gives us the thought that there is no literal meaning to each line, no need to analyse, we go around in circles, ideas bumping into each other like the lines bump into each other here.   This is “Not Dark Yet” but without the resignation.

There is also the element of being used – everyone wants a bit of Dylan for themselves.   As he says, “You fight for the throne and you travel alone…” only to be “Betrayed by a kiss on a cool night of bliss”.   

“Equality, liberty, humility, simplicity” – everything we ever wanted, all now seems to be mashed up in a melting pot (if you see what I mean).   The man destroyed by divorce has not recovered but he is partially here admitting at last that there is “No time to choose when the truth must die.”

I disagree with commentators who talk about this song having apocalyptic themes, the Bible and all the rest.  To me this is about the emotions of rejection, the arguments, love gone, now she hates me and wants to take me for every penny.  That is the start and the end of the song.   All the hurt comes pouring out.

But there is more, and I certainly get it until Jochen pointed it out that the weird rhyme scheme comes from a letter written by TS Eliot to Anthony Laude thanking him for dinner.   Jochen tells us that it is a “rhyme scheme that one will not find anywhere in the world literature: aab-ccb dd-ee-ff.”

In death, you face life
with a child and a wife
Who sleep-walks through your dreams into walls

You’re a soldier of mercy,
you’re cold and you curse “He
who cannot be trusted must fall”

Loneliness,
tenderness,
high society,
notoriety

You fight for the throne
and you travel alone
Unknown as you slowly sink
And there’s no time to think

No honey, I suspect you all
Of being intellectual
And so, instead of gushin’ on
Let’s have a big discussion on
Timidity, stupidity, solidity, frigidity
Avidity, turbidity, Manhattan and viscidity
Fatality, morality, legality, finality
Neutrality, reality, or Southern hospitality
Promposity, verbosity
I'm losing my velocity
But let’s not talk about love

This is the Dylan I have been trying to write about – the Dylan where the words are more important than the meaning of the words, the phrases too being more important than their meanings, but where underlying feelings are expressed through the connections created which would otherwise never be considered.

If only we can escape the tyranny of the meanings of the words, and accept  the words as simply a part of the music, then appreciation becomes much easier.  No one (or at least no one I know) worries about the fact that Dylan might record a song in F sharp but then play it on stage in A flat.  No one gets worked up at how many times he uses the 12 bar blues format.   And, indeed, Dylan has made this oh so clear, as for example in a Playboy interview in 1977.

The gourmet cat was of course Cumberleylaude,
Who did very little to earn his dinner and board,
Indeed, he was always out and about,
Patronising the haunts where he would find,
People are generous and nice and kind,
Serving good food to this culinary lout!

With care he chooses his place to dine,
And dresses accordingly, if he has time,
Tasting all that Neville Road offers,
With never a thought for anyone’s coffers!
The best is only fit for the best he opines,
When he wants salmon, or duck, or expensive French wines.

In death, you face life
with a child and a wife
Who sleep-walks through your dreams into walls
You’re a soldier of mercy,
you’re cold and you curse “He
who cannot be trusted must fall”

Loneliness,
tenderness,
high society,
notoriety

You fight for the throne
and you travel alone
Unknown as you slowly sink
And there’s no time to think

by Jochen Markhorst

Infidels (1983), which is celebrated as a resurrection, is not Dylan’s first comeback. That would be the album New Morning (1970), another work for which time has been less kind than the press and fans were when it was released. The album was revalued in 2013, after the release of The Bootleg Series 10 – Another Self Portrait. On it, there are nine rejected New Morning outtakes and the flaring sentiment is comparable to the regret after the release of the Infidels outtakes: New Morning could have been a so much better album. The alternative arrangements by the later frustrated Al Kooper –

“When we had recorded everything, Bob pulled out some random tracks he had cut in the last year and added those to the oversupply we already had from the current sessions. Then we began to select and sequence. He changed his mind daily and the weeks began to drag on. This drove me nuts. We had a final title and cover artwork, but we had a new sequence and songlist every day,”

– the strings in “Sign On The Window”, the truly splendid rasping and growling horns in “New Morning”, Leadbelly’s “Bring Me A Little Water”, “If Dogs Run Free” without the nerve-racking scat of neurotic Maeretha Stewart… all of them wonderful variants, more compelling, more musical or more charming than the choices Dylan eventually puts on record.

Only the forgotten gem Time Passes Slowly does not lose its lustre even 44 years later. On Another Self Portrait there are two alternative, very successful versions, which are much more groomed anyway. The #1 is sung with passion and is enriched with the catchy lalala blabbering that is eventually used for “The Man In Me”. Al Kooper has put even more love into #2. Roaring organ work in an arrangement copied almost exactly from Joe Cocker’s “With A Little Help From My Friends” and once again a passionate Dylan. It is definitely a remarkable piece of work in his oeuvre; this sound and this Janis Joplin-like energy are hardly anywhere to be found. But for once the master is right: with this song, with these introspective, pastoral lyrics, the arrangement is completely out of place.

The record version is rough, small and intimate – and above all honest. Indeed, in this messy format, the music immediately gives voice to those first words. Time passes slowly, here in the mountains.

Considering all the effort and the struggles that have been fought over this song (from March to August 1970, this song keeps him busy, thirty recordings are made, the twenty-fifth appears on the album), it is all the more confusing that Dylan drops it immediately after New Morning, to never play it again. It is, however, rightly selected for the retrospective Biograph (1985), so it is not entirely vilified.

But it is no more than an isolated outburst; Dylan will never play the song after 1985 either. The master thus places “Time Passes Slowly” in the same category as, for example, “Never Say Goodbye” and “Clothes Line Saga”, wonderful songs that chronicle a peaceful life outside the frenzy of the day, that bear witness to a wrinkle-free existence, that breathe a corniness that cannot be accused of any worldly commitment – except for home sweet home and harmony. And perhaps that is why these songs are not taken to the stage; they are far too small for that.

As an extreme metaphor for that life outside Time, for that domestic peace, for “no reason to go anywhere”, Dylan the poet again chooses the image of the fishing dad. Apparently, that is one of the poet’s first associations with peace and quiet. In “Yea! Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread” (1967) trout fishing still has an exuberant, adventurous air, but three years later “fishing” illustrates idyllic peace of mind. “Sign On The Window” sings of trout fishing as one of the things “what it’s all about”, in “Tangled Up In Blue” the narrator has some peace when working on a fishing boat, when Hurricane doesn’t have to box, he looks for paradise where the trout streams flow and in “Floater” he doesn’t fish for trout for a change, but for catfish (“bullhead”, of the catfish genus). There are no testimonies of Dylan fishing, and there are no photos of the master in mud boots with a fishing rod. It is therefore likely that “fishing” is mainly meant metaphorically – to illustrate a detachment of the narrator.

Judy Collins is quick on the uptake. New Morning is released on 19 October 1970, but in August 1970 “Time Passes Slowly” is already on her album Whales and Nightingales. The album has some curiosity value because she has a few humpback whales singing along, on a rather insufferable a cappella arrangement of “Farewell To Tarwathie”. A song that has left traces before, by the way; in ’64 Dylan discovered the song in Baez’s record collection, probably on Ewan MacColl’s and A.L. Lloyd’s Thar She Blows! (1960), and decided to use it as a template for “Farewell Angelina”. It’s a nice whaling ballad in its own right, but not really a traditional, which is what Baez, Collins, Wikipedia and dozens of other sources parrot after each other to this day. Lloyd introduced the world to Tarwathie with an earnest, quite impressive story in the liner notes, in which he reveals that the song was sung by whalers in the nineteenth century and how it was probably written by one George Scrogie somewhere near Aberdeen around 1850. And Lloyd himself learned it in Durban from a native of Ballater (Aberdeenshire) in 1938.

The German folklorist Jürgen Kloss convincingly shows on his fascinating, rich website Just Another Tune, that this song too is in fact a forgery – the folk giant A.L. Lloyd (1908-1983) suspiciously often “discovered” ancient folk songs that he had actually created himself. Ironically, in this case, he probably based it on two American Cowboy Songs from Lomax’s collection (1938), “The Railroad Corral” and “Rye Whiskey”.

Anyway, Dylan’s “Time Passes Slowly”. The song fits on my album, Judy Collins later writes in her autobiography Sweet Judy Blue Eyes, because it, too, is one of the songs that “explore the power of nature in our lives, the idea that all life is sacred, and the idea that the planet, in its beauty and fragility, is being hunted, like the great whales, to depletion”. Big, perhaps a little too theatrical words, which do, however, fit Collins’ approach to “Time Passes Slowly”; stately and very serious, with violins and all. But in spite of that, her version still seems to have loyal fans, or maybe because of it. Perhaps, though, Collins could have let the song mature a bit first.

Nevertheless, she is to be credited with being the first, and one of the few, to recognise the power of the song; to the present day it is very rarely covered. A sympathetic exception is Ted Shinn’s version on the wonderful tribute project Positively Pikes Peak – The Pikes Peak Region Sings Bob Dylan (2011); in any case, a much more intimate, and much more mountainous, reading than Collins’.

Both are surpassed by Rachel Faro, who in 1974, with the help of legendary producer John Simon (The Band, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen), is allowed to record her first record, the forgotten gem Refugees. Simon’s influence on the arrangement and sound are unmistakable, but Rachel is a force of nature on her own: gorgeous rustle on her voice, beautiful phrasing, and heartbreakingly fading away in the final, slow minutes as she sings Time passes slowly and fades away. Her rendition of the song does pass very slowly, as it should.

Rich Robinson deserves credit as well. The former guitarist of The Black Crowes and acknowledged Dylan fan, who always left the singing to big brother and fellow Dylan fan Chris, sings “Time Passes Slowly” on stage every now and then and does a brilliant job. He incorporates the Another Self Portrait version #1 partly into his interpretation and scores especially with his delivery: Robinson sings “behind the notes” and thus demonstrates, arguably even more so than Dylan does, the languid carefreeness of the narrator.

Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:

• Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
• Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
• Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
• Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
• Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
• Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
• Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits (German)
• John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville

Two footnotes from Tony:

If you don’t have a CD of Another Self Portrait, it is available in full on Spotify, and really worth a play.

And to add one other thought: Jochen and I have been having a very friendly exchange of different opinions over the value of Judy Collins’ interpretations of Dylan, after I initially raved over her “Time Passes Slowly” and then tried (not very well) to justify myself in a little piece “Judy Collins Sings Dylan”.  In my view, its really worth a listen.

And while we are on the subject I’d also like to include a mention for Aaron’s remarkable series Play Lady Play which takes on the whole issue of women singing Dylan and is really worth looking through.  There are some utterly stunning renditions there too.

———

Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:

• Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
• Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
• Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
• Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
• Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
• Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
• Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits (German)
• John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville

Do you have a tale to tell via Untold Dylan?

We now have over 2000 articles on this site, and many of them are personal tales about attending a concert, listening to Dylan, cover versions, or the individual writer’s own appreciation of Dylan and his music.

These articles are written for Untold by Dylan fans, and if you have a view of Dylan that you feel could be of interest to others, we’d love to hear from you.

To see the variety of approaches we have included in this site, just go to the top of the page and look at the various headings under the picture – each one contains an index of articles on a Dylan theme.  Or look at the latest series listed on our home page.  If you write a piece you can add to these, or create your own theme, or simply send in a one-off contribution.   As long as it gives a different insight into Dylan and his work, we may be well interested in publishing it.

Sadly, we don’t have the funds to pay, but Untold Dylan does have a very wide readership, so your work will be seen by a huge number of people.   If you have an article please email Tony@schools.co.uk   If the article is ready, please attach as a word file.

One other thing: we never ask for donations, and we try to survive on the income from our advertisers, so if you enjoy Untold Dylan, and you’ve got an ad blocker, could I beg you to turn it off while here. I’m not asking you to click on ads for the sake of it, but at least allow us to add one more to the number of people who see the full page including the adverts.   Thanks.

And one other, other thing: we also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with around 8500 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link    And because we don’t do political debates on our Facebook group there is a separate group for debating Bob Dylan’s politics – Icicles Hanging Down

by Larry Fyffe

Andrew Marvell is grouped in with the Metaphysical poets; he advances the “carpe diem’ theme that’s present in the poems of Robert Herrick as well – seize the day, including having have sex every chance you get, before it’s too late.

In the days of the lyrics below, “hue” and “glow” rhyme:

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning glow ....
Now let us sport us while we may
And now, like amorous birds of prey
(Andrew Marvell: To His Coy Mistress)

A theme that runs in the song lyrics below wherein it seems that the author thereof wishes he had a bed big enough, and lots of time to use it:

Why wait any longer for the world to begin
You can have your cake and eat it too
Why wait any longer for the one you love
When he's standing in front of you
(Bob Dylan: Lay Lady Lay)

There be new girls to conquer, and there be new worlds to conquer. In the following poem, there’s a fanciful vision of Puritans seizing a supposed Promised Land to the west.

By not employing the standard English structure “bright orange”, the author avoids the problem of there being no proper rhyme for ‘orange’:

He gave us this eternal spring
Which here enamels everything ...
He hangs in shades the orange bright
Like golden lamps in a green night
(Andrew  Marvell: Bermudas)

In the humorous, ironical lines of the song below, the narrator heads off in search of the western paradise, but he doesn’t get very far; nor does he find the holy Grail Of Rhyme:

Pulled my cap down over my eyes
And headed out for western skies
So long, New York
Howdy, East Orange
(Bob Dylan: Talking New York)

More seriously, the followers of Almighty God fail to seize the opportunity to conquer themselves, to make up for their bodily and materialistic desires, to redeem themselves.

So saith the Holy Bible:

We see not our signs
There is no more any prophet
Neither is there among us
Any that knoweth how long
(Psalm 74 :9)

For which the poet below admonishes himself:

When for the thorns with which I long, too long
With many a piercing wound
My Saviour's head have crowned
I seek garlands to redress that wrong
(Andrew Marvell: Coronet)

The narrator in the song below takes the easy way out; instead of changing himself, the metaphorical stallion changes mares:

Well, I got a new pony, she knows how to fox-trot, lope, and pace
How much longer
She got great big hind legs
And long black shaggy hair above her face
(Bob Dylan: New Pony)

Borrowing from:

I'm gonna buy me a pony
Can pace, fox-trot, and run
(Fred McDowell: Highway 61 Blues)

Despite the assertions of the “It’s The Music Stupid School Of Dylanology”, Bob Dylan lyrics, whether you agree with them or not, do contain meaningful messages.

Do you have a tale to tell via Untold Dylan?

We now have over 2000 articles on this site, and many of them are personal tales about attending a concert, listening to Dylan, cover versions, or the individual writer’s own appreciation of Dylan and his music.

These articles are written for Untold by Dylan fans, and if you have a view of Dylan that you feel could be of interest to others, we’d love to hear from you.

To see the variety of approaches we have included in this site, just go to the top of the page and look at the various headings under the picture – each one contains an index of articles on a Dylan theme.  Or look at the latest series listed on our home page.  If you write a piece you can add to these, or create your own theme, or simply send in a one-off contribution.   As long as it gives a different insight into Dylan and his work, we may be well interested in publishing it.

Sadly, we don’t have the funds to pay, but Untold Dylan does have a very wide readership, so your work will be seen by a huge number of people.   If you have an article please email Tony@schools.co.uk   If the article is ready, please attach as a word file.

One other thing: we never ask for donations, and we try to survive on the income from our advertisers, so if you enjoy Untold Dylan, and you’ve got an ad blocker, could I beg you to turn it off while here. I’m not asking you to click on ads for the sake of it, but at least allow us to add one more to the number of people who see the full page including the adverts.   Thanks.

And one other, other thing: we also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with around 8500 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link    And because we don’t do political debates on our Facebook group there is a separate group for debating Bob Dylan’s politics – Icicles Hanging Down

Patrick Roefflaer

This article is part of a series of over 30 articles which review the artwork on each of Dylan’s albums.   Today it is John Wesley Harding.

You can find an index to all the previous articles in this series here

• Album: John Welsley Harding
• Released: December 27, 1967
• Photographer: John Berg
• Liner Notes: Bob Dylan
• Art-director: John Berg

1967 was the year of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, psychedelic music, the Summer of Love… Pretty “colors ev’rywhere”, as The Rolling Stones put it in ‘She’s a Rainbow’.

What a sharp contrast with Bob Dylan’s new album released in the last week of the year. John Wesley Harding, the first new material of the singer in more than 18 months, appears without any publicity. No sitars on this album, no screeching guitar solos, just twelve short acoustic songs with pared-down lyrics.

The monochrome cover too seems simple and down to earth: surrounded by a grey border, you see an informal black and white photo, like a snapshot from a family album.

At first glance there are four unknown men with hats. For most people at the time it must have taken a while to recognize the man in the middle as Bob Dylan. He looks very different to the young man from the ’66 World Tour: gone is the big curly hairdo, gone are the dark glasses…. They are replaced by a black cowboy hat and a fluffy beard.  And then there’s that grin… He looks older, grown up…

The austere photo is taken by Columbia Records art director John Berg himself. “[Dylan’s manager] Albert Grossman called me and said Bob wanted to be able to see the pictures right away to make a decision, so I suggested we use Polaroids.”  For his trip, all the way to Woodstock, Berg is accompanied by his boss, Bob Cato. Cato carries a color camera and Berg a black and white one.

The photo session takes place in the garden of the house of Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman. “It was the coldest day of the year’, recalled Berg. ‘It was like 20 below zero. It was so cold that we ran outside, the Bauls, the woodworker and whoever else were there, took pictures until it was no longer possible and then rushed back in for a brandy. As soon as I took a picture, someone tucked the Polaroid under his arm, as they should not get too cold during development. Inside, we placed the photos on a fancy large table and Bobby chose this photo for the cover.”

It all sounds very simple.

But is it really that simple? And who are those other guys?

The Bauls of Bengal

Who are these people Berg called Bauls and how do they end up with Bob Dylan?

They are identified as Purna (actually Purnan) and Luxman Das, sons of Nabani Das Khyepa Baul, the last real ancient adept avadhuta tantric bauls of Bengal.

Bengal, a region in the northeast of India, has had a tradition of itinerant musicians going back centuries, called bauls. Bauls were Sanskrit scholars in the oral tradition. In their mostly self-written songs, these men convey a message of “eternal truth.” “Baul” means something akin to “half way” implying that they don’t care much about social norms. It is a nickname that the musicians wear with pride.

When in the mid-1960s, influenced by John Coltrane and The Beatles, interest in Indian music arouse, the poet Allen Ginsberg advised Grossman to contact the Bauls. Ginsberg had moved to India in 1962 and stayed for some time with Nabani Das.

Grossman contacted him, but as bauls had never left India before, Nabani Das wouldn’t travel to the USA. However he advised his sons to take up the invitation.

In an interview published in 1995 in The Telegraph India, Purna Das shared how he ended up in Woodstock. “It started with a phone call. It was [January] 1967 and I was living in Kali Temple Road. The Oberoi Grand Hotel boss told me that Albert Grossman, Bob Dylan’s manager, wanted to meet me. […] He invited me to America. I said yes and said I would bring ten to twelve people. That was fine for him.”

Their first performance took place on September 14, 1967, at the legendary Fillmore in San Francisco. They were on the bill as LDM Spiritual Band, with LDM standing for Lok Dharma Mahashram. That was an idea from Asoke Fakir, a journalist who – the only one in the company – spoke English and therefore set himself up as their manager. Asoke also happened to be the founder and “International Chairman” of the Mahashram of the same name.

But when Asoke suddenly disappeared, taking all the money with him, Grossman provided shelter for the stranded musicians in a newly furnished apartment above a barn in the grounds around his home. “Albert took [us] to Woodstock,” confirms Purna, “It was there that I first met Bob Dylan, as well as artists like Joan Baez, members of The Band, Tina Turner, Peter, Paul …”

Dylan showed interest in the company. He liked to experiment with their strange instruments and listened to their philosophy that wisdom is obtained by getting to know your own body. “One night he told me that if I am a Bengali Baul from India, he was an American Baul,” Purna Das recalls. “We both bring music with roots. Our goals are the same, he said: “Sing to the people, tell their translations and spread love through music”. ” Purna believes that Dylan asked de Bauls to pose for the photo in order to make them more famous.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Some fans see the artwork of John Wesley Harding as an answer/parody to that of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper. Although there’s no sign of him playing any of that albums’ song during the months he spent playing with the Band in the basement of their Big Pink house, Dylan must have been aware of that album as his portrait can be seen on the cover. Like everybody else in that picture he was contacted to give permission to use it.

On the cover photo, The Beatles are surrounded by a multitude of famous figures: movie stars, writers, singers, philosophers and Eastern gurus.

Like The Beatles, Dylan takes center stage in his photo, but instead of a mass of familiar cardboard heads, his company consists of only three men. Two of them can be seen as his Eastern gurus.

Sally Grossman however didn’t buy that theory. In 2002, she declared, “The Bauls lived there [in Woodstock] and so did Dylan. Their attendance was not planned. The fact that the local carpenter is also in the picture proves that it is all pure coincidence.”

That carpenter and stonemason is identified as Charlie Joy, who happened to be working at Grossman’s house that day.

The fifth man

Now there’s only the white hat, front left that remains a mystery.

From one of two other photos known from this session, we know that a fifth person was indeed present. It is not known who he is and especially why only his hat can be seen in the photo. Is the man squatting? Or is his hat left on a stump?

More Beatles?

Music fragments played in reverse and psychedelic effects on the covers from that time stimulate – perhaps sharpened by mind-altering means – to search for hidden messages. People have even been caught making a hole in a cover to be able to play it on their turntable. The most striking example is the ridiculous but persistent “Paul is dead” story.

Dylan’s seemingly simple cover does not escape the sleuths either. On March 9, 1968, the American magazine Rolling Stone published an article entitled “Dylan Record Puts Beatles Up a Tree.” It explains that faces would be hidden just about everywhere in the cover photo of John Wesley Harding. “Most obvious is a group of faces that become visible when you turn the cover upside down; in the treetop, in the lighter part, you can see at least seven faces. Turning the cover in other directions reveals even more faces: near elbows, bushes and the lines of the coats. ”

If you really want to, you can spot John Lennon and / or George Harrison as the most visible figures.

That leads to speculation that the faces would be those of the four Beatles, plus some of their friends. Donovan maybe?

The author of the article, Michael Ochs, contacted the photographer about it.

“It’s quintessentially Dylan,” replied John Berg vaguely, “Very mystical.”

He didn’t want to go into it further. “Happy Hunting,” he added.

In the 1990s, John Bauldie wrote a series about Bob Dylan’s covers. For this he asked Berg again about the hidden images. “I got a call from Rolling Stone in San Francisco,” he explained. “Someone had discovered little Beatles faces and Jesus’ hand in the trunk. Well, I had a proof of the cover on the wall. So I took it off and turned it around and yes… Hahaha! I mean, if you wanted to see it, you saw it. I was just as amazed as anyone else.”

No longer monochrome

In England and the rest of Europe the record was released weeks later than in the US: at the end of January or even in February 1968. Curiously enough, the gray border around the photo has been adjusted for these pressings: a kind of pale beige in England and a bit sepia-ish for the mainland. In the eighties more color variants followed with a kind of fluorescent yellow as a bizarre low point.

Do you have a tale to tell via Untold Dylan?

We now have over 2000 articles on this site, and many of them are personal tales about attending a concert, listening to Dylan, cover versions, or the individual writer’s own appreciation of Dylan and his music.

These articles are written for Untold by Dylan fans, and if you have a view of Dylan that you feel could be of interest to others, we’d love to hear from you.

To see the variety of approaches we have included in this site, just go to the top of the page and look at the various headings under the picture – each one contains an index of articles on a Dylan theme.  Or look at the latest series listed on our home page.  If you write a piece you can add to these, or create your own theme, or simply send in a one-off contribution.   As long as it gives a different insight into Dylan and his work, we may be well interested in publishing it.

Sadly, we don’t have the funds to pay, but Untold Dylan does have a very wide readership, so your work will be seen by a huge number of people.   If you have an article please email Tony@schools.co.uk   If the article is ready, please attach as a word file.

One other thing: we never ask for donations, and we try to survive on the income from our advertisers, so if you enjoy Untold Dylan, and you’ve got an ad blocker, could I beg you to turn it off while here. I’m not asking you to click on ads for the sake of it, but at least allow us to add one more to the number of people who see the full page including the adverts.   Thanks.

And one other, other thing: we also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with around 8500 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link    And because we don’t do political debates on our Facebook group there is a separate group for debating Bob Dylan’s politics – Icicles Hanging Down

Dylan Obscuranti 

By Tony Attwood

This is an imaginary album consisting of both lesser known Dylan songs performed either by himself or (mostly) other people, or re-worked versions of songs which take the song into somewhere completely different.

You can hear the opening tracks on our You Tube channel or via the articles…

• Track 1: Angelina but not as we know it
• Track 2. Tomorrow is a long time
• Track 3 – I’m not there
• Track 4 – Mama you been on my mind
• Track 5 – Love is just a four letter word
• Track 6 – To fall in love with you

And now track 7:

The point of this imaginary album is not that the songs are all unknown – that is obvious already.

But track seven is one that everyone must know, Restless Farewell.  But this one version by Dylan is for me something so extraordinary that it really needs to be on this album.

It was created for the Frank Sinatra Farewell concert, and you can tell at once it is not the normal Dylan performance, for this is rehearsed to perfection – as indeed it needed to be not just out of respect for the honoured guest but also because of the orchestra and band playing together behind Dylan.   The arrangement alone makes this performance a work of sublime art.

Indeed it is for me one of the most magical moments of music that I have ever heard in my life.

The song was part of a trilogy of songs written at the end of 1963 and early 1964 concerning leaving and hurting:

• One too many mornings
• Restless Farewell
• Guess I’m doing fine 

Amazingly Bob only played this song in public twice, once on 17 May 1964 and once on 21 May 1998.  This performance, before the invited audience, seemingly doesn’t count.

If you are interested in reading more about this song you might enjoy “The Dylan Nobody Knows: The Clancy Brothers and Restless Farewell.”

Do you have a tale to tell via Untold Dylan?

We now have over 2000 articles on this site, and many of them are personal tales about attending a concert, listening to Dylan, cover versions, or the individual writer’s own appreciation of Dylan and his music.

These articles are written for Untold by Dylan fans, and if you have a view of Dylan that you feel could be of interest to others, we’d love to hear from you.

To see the variety of approaches we have included in this site, just go to the top of the page and look at the various headings under the picture – each one contains an index of articles on a Dylan theme.  Or look at the latest series listed on our home page.  If you write a piece you can add to these, or create your own theme, or simply send in a one-off contribution.   As long as it gives a different insight into Dylan and his work, we may be well interested in publishing it.

Sadly, we don’t have the funds to pay, but Untold Dylan does have a very wide readership, so your work will be seen by a huge number of people.   If you have an article please email Tony@schools.co.uk   If the article is ready, please attach as a word file.

One other thing: we never ask for donations, and we try to survive on the income from our advertisers, so if you enjoy Untold Dylan, and you’ve got an ad blocker, could I beg you to turn it off while here. I’m not asking you to click on ads for the sake of it, but at least allow us to add one more to the number of people who see the full page including the adverts.   Thanks.

And one other, other thing: we also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with around 8500 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link    And because we don’t do political debates on our Facebook group there is a separate group for debating Bob Dylan’s politics – Icicles Hanging Down

By Larry Fyffe

• Bob Dylan and Robert Herrick (Part I)
• Bob Dylan And Robert Herrick (Part II)
• Bob Dylan And Robert Herrick (Part III): Visions Of Juliana)

Bob Dylan is singing out:

We sit here stranded, though we are all doing our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, tempting you to defy it
(Bob Dylan: Visions Of Johanna)

He’s on a freight train coming up around the bend with a bunch of odds and ends on board –  including Robert Herrick, Andrew Marvell, Edward Taylor, and William Blake.

As the train chugs along the tracks, they sip on a few pints; make up songs together.

First Rob comes up with the verse below ; he sings it in a loud voice:

And, as a vapor, or a drop of rain
Once lost, can never been found again ....
All love, all liking, all delight
Lies down with us in endless night
(Robert Herrick: Corinna's Going A-Maying)

Bill chimes in:

Every morn, and every night
Some are born to sweet delight
Some are born to sweet delight
Some are born to endless night
(William Blake: Auguries Of Innocence)

Bob finishes it off:

And stopped into a strange hotel
With a neon burning bright
He felt the heat of the night
Hit him like a freight train

(Bob Dylan: Simple Twist Of Fate)

Everyone has a few more sips, and Eddie starts a new one:

Who spread its canopy, or curtains spun
Who in this bowling alley bowled the sun
Who made it always when it rises set
To go at once both down, and up to get
(Edward Taylor: The Preface)

Andy jumps in with:

Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life
(Andrew Marvell: To His Coy Mistress)

And it’s closed out by Bobby:

I shook his hand, and said, "Goodbye"
Ran out to the street 
When a bowling ball came down the road
And knocked me off my feet
(Bob Dylan: 115th Dream)

A couple of bottles of wine are opened up; Rob takes a gulp from one of’em; breaks into a hymn:

In the hour of my distress
When temptations me oppress
And when I my sins confess
Sweet Spirit comfort me

(Robert Herrick: His Litany To The Holy Spirit)

They’re all having a great time; Bob takes a mouthful, and comes up with this mournful ending:

In the time of my confession
In the hour of my deepest need ....
There's a dying voice within me
Reaching out somewhere
Toiling in the danger
And in the morals of despair

(Bob Dylan: Every Grain Of Sand)

It’s all in fun, serving as a bit of distraction from being stuck on the freight train that’s running on tracks

…. ’til Rob gets a bit to tipsy, raises his glass, and proposes a toast to Andy’s girlfried whose name is Juliana:

Breathe, Julia, breathe, and I’ll protest,
    Nay more, I’ll deeply swear,
That all the spices of the east
    Are circumfused there.

(Robert Herrick: on Julia’s Breath)

Without thinking, Bob steps in between them when Andy pulls out a penknife, and threatens to kill Rob right there and then; ad libbing, Bob picks up his guitar, and sings a song in opera style to Rob, who’s scared ….I  mean, really scared:

Idiot wind

Blowing through the flowers on your tomb
Blowing through the curtains in your room
Idiot wind
Blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot, babe
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe

(Bob Dylan: Idiot Wind)

Anyway, all hell breaks loose with fists a-flying, bottles a-breaking, ….the engine, boxcars …. everything jumps off the tracks, ….everybody gets scalded by the steam.

Do you have a tale to tell via Untold Dylan?

We now have over 2000 articles on this site, and many of them are personal tales about attending a concert, listening to Dylan, cover versions, or the individual writer’s own appreciation of Dylan and his music.

These articles are written for Untold by Dylan fans, and if you have a view of Dylan that you feel could be of interest to others, we’d love to hear from you.

To see the variety of approaches we have included in this site, just go to the top of the page and look at the various headings under the picture – each one contains an index of articles on a Dylan theme.  Or look at the latest series listed on our home page.  If you write a piece you can add to these, or create your own theme, or simply send in a one-off contribution.   As long as it gives a different insight into Dylan and his work, we may be well interested in publishing it.

Sadly, we don’t have the funds to pay, but Untold Dylan does have a very wide readership, so your work will be seen by a huge number of people.   If you have an article please email Tony@schools.co.uk   If the article is ready, please attach as a word file.

One other thing: we never ask for donations, and we try to survive on the income from our advertisers, so if you enjoy Untold Dylan, and you’ve got an ad blocker, could I beg you to turn it off while here. I’m not asking you to click on ads for the sake of it, but at least allow us to add one more to the number of people who see the full page including the adverts.   Thanks.

And one other, other thing: we also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with around 8500 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link    And because we don’t do political debates on our Facebook group there is a separate group for debating Bob Dylan’s politics – Icicles Hanging Down

by Jochen Markhorst

• Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues  part I: Thin Air
• Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues II: The Thoughts Of Mary Jane
• Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues part III
• Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues part IV: Charlie Rich… he’s a good poet
• Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (1965) part V The ghosts of our people
• Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues VI: A piece of hop with black coffee and a shot of tequila
• Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues VII: A style based on ignorance
• Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues VIII: The 60s covers, into the stratosphere

IX         Tom, get your plane right on time

Tom, get your plane right on time
I know your part'll go fine
Fly down to Mexico
Doh-n-doh-de-doh-n-doh
And here I am
The only living boy in New York

It is tempting to regard one of Paul Simon’s Very Great Songs as an answer song to “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”. “Tom”, “Mexico”, “New York” and further down a fitting text fragment like

Half of the time we're gone
But we don't know where
And we don't know where

… a poetic leap from Dylan’s song to “The Only Living Boy In New York” is not that big. Unverifiable reports further state that Dylan was present as an observer at the recording of the song and expressed his admiration. An attractive, but presumably rather romanticised story. Perhaps distilled from a report that can be verified, from Dylan’s interview with USA Today, April ’99, prior to the American tour the two greats undertook together that year:

“I mean, Paul’s written extraordinary songs, hasn’t he? I consider him one of the pre-eminent songwriters of the times. Every song he does has got a vitality you don’t find everywhere. . .  I’ve always liked “Only Living Boy from New York” [sic] and other songs from Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

But alas, there is no bridge to Tom Thumb; Simon’s song is a barely disguised salute to Garfunkel. “Tom” was Garfunkel’s stage name in the early years, when the duo still called themselves Tom & Jerry, and Art indeed is in Mexico, shooting his part in Mike Nichols’ film adaptation of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (1970).

Still, real covers follow in abundance after the sixties. After big guns such as Gordon Lightfoot, Nina Simone and Judy Collins, the whole premier league picks the song up, in the following decades. The Scottish legend Frankie Miller in 1973, “the only white guy that’s ever brought a tear to my eye,” as Rod Stewart has stated, Linda Ronstadt, Sir Douglas Quintet, and of course the usual suspects – Grateful Dead, Robyn Hitchcock, Jimmy LaFave, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Bryan Ferry…

Bryan Ferry’s cover is on the tribute album Dylanesque (2007), which, in keeping with Ferry’s trademark irony, is anything but dylanesque – but his Dylan love is genuine, that’s for sure. The first song on his first solo album (1973) is an unforgettable Ferrynisation of “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”, and is also the first of a long line of reverences. In interviews, Ferry is never less than respectful, in extremis, of course, in the Dylanesque interviews. “There’s a richness in the words which offsets the simplicity of the music sometimes,” and…

“It’s the quality of the writing, really. The vocabulary, the imagery, the poetry of it all. So I think they’re open to interpretation. Especially the early songs because he only played them on (acoustic) guitar.”

For “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”, Ferry chooses, as with his 2007 adaptations of “The Times They Are A-Changin'” and “If Not For You”, a similar guitar chug like Dylan happens to use – remarkably – also for his later renditions of “Desolation Row” (on MTV Unplugged, for instance). In general, the album – outside of Dylan circles, obviously – is well received; it sells well (gold within a few weeks) and most reviews are friendly to downright positive.

The more vicious reviewers blame Ferry for stylish soullessness and treating the song “as if it were just an assemblage of syllables and notes like anything else he could rubber-stamp the “Bryan Ferry” brand onto,” but actually precisely that creates the same, appealing tension as it did in Hard Rain. Less neurotic maybe, this time, and more rock ‘n’ roll… but also with a particularly attractive harmonica, very elegant.

The song is almost impossible to spoil anyway. The music has, as Ferry says, a simplicity that also gives the lesser gods a chance to shine – and that same simplicity allows a wide range of interpretation. The irresistible String Cheese Incident turn it into a calypso-flavoured Latin dance, the trashy Blue Birds are pleasantly disrespectful (among more trashy covers on the cheerful tribute collector Outlaw Blues, 2008), the beautiful guitar miniature that Wall Matthews makes of it (with dramatic vocals by Aleta Greene) or the psychedelic soul ballad by Wendy Saddington (with The Copperwine, 1971)… they are actually all beautiful. In the category Weird Yet Charming, Lisa Hannigan scores the highest. Recorded June 2008 accompanied by a cheap glockenspiel, a guitar and a xylophone, in Dick Mack’s pub in Dingle, County Kerry, on the Atlantic coast:

But probably the most beautiful of the twenty-first century is put on the album Fresh Horses by Jim Byrnes in 2004. Brilliantly arranged mash-up of folk, blues and rock full of small, loving, unobtrusive accents under the surface (extra guitars, percussion, organ), and with two pianos, as it should be.

You can find it here.

Actor, blues musician and three-time Juno Award winner Jim Byrnes was born in St. Louis, on Highway 61. – what more do you need to know about somebody?

Paul Simon plays a Dylan song now and then. “The Times They Are A-Changin’”, “Don’t Think Twice”, “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”. But he never flies down to visit Tom in Mexico. He gets all the news he needs on the weather report. And it’s always raining in Juarez.

Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:

• Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
• Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
• Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
• Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
• Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
• Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
• Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits (German)
• John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville

Do you have a tale to tell via Untold Dylan?

We now have over 2000 articles on this site, and many of them are personal tales about attending a concert, listening to Dylan, cover versions, or the individual writer’s own appreciation of Dylan and his music.

These articles are written for Untold by Dylan fans, and if you have a view of Dylan that you feel could be of interest to others, we’d love to hear from you.

To see the variety of approaches we have included in this site, just go to the top of the page and look at the various headings under the picture – each one contains an index of articles on a Dylan theme.  Or look at the latest series listed on our home page.  If you write a piece you can add to these, or create your own theme, or simply send in a one-off contribution.   As long as it gives a different insight into Dylan and his work, we may be well interested in publishing it.

Sadly, we don’t have the funds to pay, but Untold Dylan does have a very wide readership, so your work will be seen by a huge number of people.   If you have an article please email Tony@schools.co.uk   If the article is ready, please attach as a word file.

One other thing: we never ask for donations, and we try to survive on the income from our advertisers, so if you enjoy Untold Dylan, and you’ve got an ad blocker, could I beg you to turn it off while here. I’m not asking you to click on ads for the sake of it, but at least allow us to add one more to the number of people who see the full page including the adverts.   Thanks.

And one other, other thing: we also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with around 8500 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link    And because we don’t do political debates on our Facebook group there is a separate group for debating Bob Dylan’s politics – Icicles Hanging Down

by Larry Fyffe

Whenas in silks my my Julia goes
Then, then methinks how sweetly flows
The liquefaction of her clothes
(Robert Herrick: Upon Julia's Clothes)

And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
(Bob Dylan: Visions Of Johanna)

Then, Julia, let me woo thee
Thus, thus to come unto me
And when I shall meet thy silvery feet
My soul I'll pour into thee
(Robert Herrick: The Night Piece: To Julia)

The blessings of tranquillity
Yet I know the time to strike
I'll take you 'cross the river dear
You've no need to linger here
I know the kind of things you like
(Bob Dylan: Moonlight)

Dew sat on Julia's hair
And spangled too
Like leaves that laden are
With trembling dew
Or glittered to my sight
As when beams
Have thy reflected light
Danced by the streams
(Robert Herrick: Upon Julia's Hair Filled With Dew

The trailing moss, and mystic glow
Purple blossoms soft as snow
Step up, and drop the coin right in the slot
The fading light of sunset glowed
(Bob Dylan: Moonlight)

But yet for love's sake let thy lips
Give my dead picture one engendering kiss
Work that to life, and let me forever dwell
In thy rememberance, Julia. So farewell
(Robert Herrick: His Sailing From Julia)

Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
(Bob Dylan: Visions Of Johanna)

By Tony Attwood

In his review of the covers of “Just like Tom Thumb’s Blues” Jochen indicated that he really didn’t appreciate the Judy Collins version.

Now although we don’t meet up to discuss the articles on this site (what with him being in the Netherlands, and me in the middle of England) I do find that I agree with most of his thoughts about music and lyrics.  But here I find myself totally at odds, for I find Judy Collins one of the most exquisite re-interpreters of Dylan’s work.

So since I have the benefit of being the person who decides what is published on this site, I thought I’d use that position of power to try and explain why I like Ms Collins’ version of Tom Thumb, and several other Dylan classics.

First a moment of background.  Ms Collins, as you may know has been making albums from the start of the 1960s, (and is indeed even older than me) and rose to fame in 1967 with Both Sides Now.  But long before that she was achieving fame – not least as a child prodigy classical pianist.

Obviously you can read all about her music, and her sadly troubled life, elsewhere on the internet, but I just want to focus on her Dylan interpretations, starting with one that I recently got carried away by, in my “All directions” series… Time Passes Slowly…

What I wrote about there was what I felt was the way in which she can deal with the ebbs and flows of this song simple song in a way that Dylan himself could not contemplate.  And because of this she is able to take the middle 8 (Ain’t no reason to go) and give it a calm beauty that Dylan intends in the lyrics, but can’t deliver as he not only doesn’t have the range, but didn’t have the benefit of Ms Collins’ musical arranger.  Bob of course can hear it in his head (otherwise he could not have written the piece) but it takes a voice as beautiful as Ms Collins to show us what this really means.

It works because the high point of that simple song is the middle eight, and the vocals give the music an extra urgency at that point through its harmonies with the electric guitar, while then taking us down again with “ain’t no reason to go… anywhere”).

So to return to  “Tom Thumb” Jochen said…

Her “socks-off knocking” cover is introduced by pretentious flute work that one would sooner appreciate in fabric softener commercials or a nature documentary about butterflies in the English countryside than in a rendition of a folk rock classic. The harp in the second verse doesn’t make it any better, and it keeps going downhill; melancholy clarinet, increasing neuroticism in the flutes, misplaced al nientes, silences suggesting a Disney dramatic build-up and Judy’s flat vocals… no…”

What I like so much, is that Judy Collins takes these really edgy dark lyrics (“they’ll really make a mess of you” turns up in the first verse, and by the second verse “I haven’t got the strength to get up and take another shot.”

Now to add such a simple accompaniment is not that difficult, it can be used to give a sense of bleakness very easily.   But no, here it is the woodwind that gives us the accompaniment – even when we are howling at the moon.

The contrast is stunning, and it works for me so perfectly because Ms Collins is so utterly controlled.  It is like standing in the middle of a battle field in the first world war and listening to Mozart’s string quartet number 14.  It is utterly incongruous, and I have no idea if the battle field and Mozart idea would work, but Judy Collins does make it happen.

There is a sort of sympathy and understanding of a world reduced to the simplicity of its utter collapse as expressed in the lyrics.  Yes it is dark and disastrous, but somehow she is sailing through unharmed.  We don’t know how or why, and really I don’t want to know how or why, but somehow she is existing through the horrors of the lyrics.

It is, for me, the contrast of so much of daily life.  Here am I, typing away on my computer, my world seems quite safe, I am financially ok, those I care about are ok, the snow in my garden is glistening in the winter sunshine, but the world around me is falling apart.  The virus is still ripping its way through much of the planet, my country’s economy is destroyed, my country has a leader who appears to me (and it’s just a personal view of course) to know as much about leadership as the turnip I put in last night’s stew, I haven’t seen many of my friends for months, and… well I won’t bore you with my personal details.

What Judy Collins does, as I listen to her at this moment, is somehow contrast the good and the bad, the beauty and the ugly.  I don’t understand most of the world any more, and that lack of understanding combined with a fair amount of horror and anger on my part could be expressed by jagged edges, or it can be expressed by contrasts.  What Judy Collins gives me is the contrast.

A similar effect can be heard on “Like a Rolling Stone” in the introductory verse, where she resits the temptation to put any energy into “Didn’t you”.  “It’s all over now baby blue” works simply because Ms Collins has such a gorgeously huge vocal range, which is what the song really requires.  And she can put in different emotions, no matter which part of that range she is using.

Sometimes the arrangement ideas are so simple – on “Simple Twist of Fate”… each lines draws us forward, we don’t know if there is a beat’s pause coming up at the end of line, or how long the pauses are going to be.  This makes the opening three lines, which are musically identical, all hold our attention.  We really don’t know how long each note is going to be held… we are simply carried forward.

Even songs such as “Gotta Serve Somebody” which are written in a way to make the message as clear as possible, there is still some fun to be found.   But it is when we get to Dark Eyes that I really found myself having to sit down and listen again and again.  The voice is out of time with the piano, and through this the meanings are transformed.  Through that version of the song I get a new set of insights of a song I have known and played since the day the album arrived in the UK.  That version of this song really does give me a feeling that no what irresponsible nonsense the politicians of my country pour forth, I can survive and still be me.  The fractional change of the orchestration for the “Drunken man is at the wheel” verse is something I can never forget.  Along with the instrumental verse that ends the piece.

“I believe in you” which I have mentioned before, comes from this album, and it makes me wonder not for the first time if Judy has the same orchestrator with all her work.  Whoever makes the arrangements, she or he has a remarkable understanding of what her voice can do.

I’ll stop my eulogy and leave you (if you are still with me) with one more

Do you have a tale to tell via Untold Dylan?

We now have over 2000 articles on this site, and many of them are personal tales about attending a concert, listening to Dylan, cover versions, or the individual writer’s own appreciation of Dylan and his music.

These articles are written for Untold by Dylan fans, and if you have a view of Dylan that you feel could be of interest to others, we’d love to hear from you.

To see the variety of approaches we have included in this site, just go to the top of the page and look at the various headings under the picture – each one contains an index of articles on a Dylan theme.  Or look at the latest series listed on our home page.  If you write a piece you can add to these, or create your own theme, or simply send in a one-off contribution.   As long as it gives a different insight into Dylan and his work, we may be well interested in publishing it.

Sadly, we don’t have the funds to pay, but Untold Dylan does have a very wide readership, so your work will be seen by a huge number of people.   If you have an article please email Tony@schools.co.uk   If the article is ready, please attach as a word file.

One other thing: we never ask for donations, and we try to survive on the income from our advertisers, so if you enjoy Untold Dylan, and you’ve got an ad blocker, could I beg you to turn it off while here. I’m not asking you to click on ads for the sake of it, but at least allow us to add one more to the number of people who see the full page including the adverts.   Thanks.

And one other, other thing: we also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with around 8500 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link    And because we don’t do political debates on our Facebook group there is a separate group for debating Bob Dylan’s politics – Icicles Hanging Down

Previously in this series…

• Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues  part I: Thin Air
• Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues II: The Thoughts Of Mary Jane
• Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues part III
• Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues part IV: Charlie Rich… he’s a good poet
• Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (1965) part V The ghosts of our people
• Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues VI: A piece of hop with black coffee and a shot of tequila
• Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues VII: A style based on ignorance

by Jochen Markhorst

“Paradoxically, In My Life was just what we hoped it would be: the singer-songwriter material my fans expected, plus some totally unexpected selections. Dylan was represented, of course, with “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” but with orchestration by Josh Rifkin that would have knocked the socks off Dylan had he been wearing any.”
(Judy Collins, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes, 2011)

Judy Collins’ self-congratulatory autobiography is rather marred by smug, immodest and boastful outbursts, and by that standard, her comments on her recording of this Dylan cover do fit in. But the arrangement that Collins continues to extol over 40 years later does not really stand the test of time. Her “socks-off knocking” cover is introduced by pretentious flute work that one would sooner appreciate in fabric softener commercials or a nature documentary about butterflies in the English countryside than in a rendition of a folk rock classic. The harp in the second verse doesn’t make it any better, and it keeps going downhill; melancholy clarinet, increasing neuroticism in the flutes, misplaced al nientes, silences suggesting a Disney dramatic build-up and Judy’s flat vocals… no, Dylan or any other fan of the song won’t need suspenders.

But she does pick up the song quickly. Judy records the song in the summer of ’66, when the song is less than a year old. But she’s not the first. Highway 61 Revisited is in shops August 30, and four days later, Friday, September 3, the then relatively unknown Canadian Gordon Lightfoot performs on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. He plays two songs: his unforgettable masterpiece “Early Morning Rain”, which Dylan will record a few years later for Self Portrait, and before that the brand new “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”. The orchestra tape features the music that can also be heard on the single; Gordon has already recorded the song before the broadcast, including the irresistible horns.

Tom Thumb is not the only overlap of both troubadours. In 1965, Lightfoot joins the artist menagerie of Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman, and has, at the time of his Tonight Show debut, been performing with limited success for a couple of years now. Gordon has recorded a few singles, and has already had some hits in Canada. He is also present at the Newport Folk Festival ’65, at Dylan’s famous electric gig, performing too, a few hours before, on that same Sunday, 25 July. His setlist is untraceable, but in a David Gahr photo book is a picture of Lightfoot’s 12-string guitar, taken that very same day. On the side is a handwritten note with some eighty song titles: his repertoire includes a handful of Dylan songs (“Blowin’ In The Wind”, “Hollis Brown”, “Girl From The North Country”, “Don’t Think Twice”) and songs that Dylan has on a pedestal as well (“Wildwood Flower”, “I Still Miss Someone”, “Diamond Joe”, to name a few).

And Dylan is a more than interested listener to Lightfoot’s records, as he reveals in an interview with Jann Wenner in ’69:

“I heard the sound that Gordon Lightfoot was getting, with Charlie McCoy and Kenny Buttrey. I’d used Charlie and Kenny both before, and I figured if he could get that sound, I could. But we couldn’t get it. (Laughs)”

Dylan refers to Lightfoot’s second album, The Way I Feel (1968), the album with the monumental “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” and the beautiful “Song For A Winter’s Night” – wonderful songs, with indeed a warm and sparkling sound completely different from John Wesley Harding’s dim, muffled sound.

Lightfoot’s Tom Thumb sounds like a rush job, though. For the single that will be released the same month of September, apparently the same master tape was used as for the Tonight Show. The sound is unbalanced, fluctuating between warm and shrill, and dull and sharp, mistakes are not corrected, the tempo is unsteady, as is the volume – yet the recording has an indestructible, timeless charm. Only the tambourine could have been mixed out.

Three months later, the second professional Tom Thumb cover demonstrates the opposite of such an indestructible, timeless approach. Barry McGuire records his version of the song for his second album, This Precious Time, which was to build on the world success of “Eve Of Destruction”. It is a nice album, but it is mainly of music history value because he has old friends make their studio debut as backing choir: John Phillips, Denny Doherty, Cass Eliot and Michelle Phillips. The birth of The Mamas And The Papas, in other words, debuting their “California Dreamin’”. Having done their work for McGuire, they politely ask Dunhill Records boss Lou Adler if they may sing and record their own version over the same tape. It’s Thursday 4 November 1965, all the leaves are brown and the sky is grey – and the rest is history.

Beautiful enough, but McGuire’s approach to Dylan’s masterpiece is a catastrophe. Overacting has always been McGuire’s pitfall, but here he even seems to be parodying himself on that front; posturing crackly voice and utterly misplaced bits of parlando à la Captain Kirk’s bizarre excursions into music land (William Shatner – The Transformed Man, 1968). McGuire obviously has a bigger budget and more studio time than Gordon Lightfoot, but still: more is often less. The producer decides on an irritatingly rigid left/right stereo separation and a reverb as if Barry were standing in the empty hall of a metal factory. “Ha ha,” Barry recites, bereft of any mirth, and “How does that feel?”, concluding with an incomprehensible “Baby walk home, come on”.

Equally dated, but charming nevertheless, is the pure Westcoast of West, Ron Cornelius’ little successful band. Hazy harmonies and breezy guitar fiddling like, say, Harpers Bizarre, Peppermint Trolley Company, or one of those many, many forgotten San Francisco bands of the Summer of Love – and partly exactly because of that, of that abundance, West never really floated upwards, presumably. Cornelius, however, remains infested with the Dylan virus. The B-side of their Tom Thumb single features “Baby You Been On My Mind”, and their second LP Bridges (1969) features a rare, and very enjoyable, “Down Along The Cove” cover. Produced in Nashville by Dylan producer Bob Johnston, who then invites Cornelius to help on Leonard Cohen’s Song From A Room and Dylan’s Self Portrait sessions. Apparently, Dylan likes what he hears; on New Morning Cornelius plays again, and after that he remains Cohen’s side-man for most of the 1970s (he has a co-credit on “Chelsea Hotel No. 2”).

In between, he makes one beautiful, totally ignored solo album (Tin Luck, 1972). “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” he never plays again.

The sixties still have some more obscurities to offer (obviously). Like the enchanting, but not overly talented Marianne Faithfull carbon copy Deena Webster in a touching old-fashioned Lady Jane arrangement;

On the otherwise equally moving LP Tuesday’s Child (1968), there are at least equally charmingly failed versions of The Bee Gees’ “New York Mining Disaster 1941” and Donovan’s “Colours”, but also a still special “House Of The Rising Sun”. Where Deena suddenly sounds like Joan Baez, by the way.

Also from the Westcoast comes the act that is even a few degrees more obscure than Cornelius’ West: the psych-folk duo Maffitt / Davies. Not only the beauty, but also the injustice is comparable; their only LP, The Rise And Fall Of Honesty (1968) is a gem of harmonies, Americana and guitar tapestries. The opening track is another wonderful Dylan cover, the spectacularly orchestrated “Just Like A Woman”.

Still, forever lost in the rain of Juarez, bizarrely – the record was never even re-released on CD.

Worth mentioning furthermore are at most Jennifer Warnes’ soulful attempt to emulate Dusty In Memphis (See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Heal Me, 1969) and Alex Campbell’s ludicrously hopping tune (At The Tivoli Gardens, 1967), but every sixties cover pales, of course, in comparison to the icy grandeur with which Nina Simone takes Dylan’s song into the stratosphere (on To Love Somebody, 1969, which also features her covers of “The Times They Are A-Changin'” and “I Shall Be Released”).

Sweet Nina, the goddess of gloom.

Next up: Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues part IX, the finale: The after-the-sixties covers

Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:

• Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
• Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
• Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
• Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
• Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
• Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
• Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits (German)
• John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville

Do you have a tale to tell via Untold Dylan?

We now have over 2000 articles on this site, and many of them are personal tales about attending a concert, listening to Dylan, cover versions, or the individual writer’s own appreciation of Dylan and his music.

These articles are written for Untold by Dylan fans, and if you have a view of Dylan that you feel could be of interest to others, we’d love to hear from you.

To see the variety of approaches we have included in this site, just go to the top of the page and look at the various headings under the picture – each one contains an index of articles on a Dylan theme.  Or look at the latest series listed on our home page.  If you write a piece you can add to these, or create your own theme, or simply send in a one-off contribution.   As long as it gives a different insight into Dylan and his work, we may be well interested in publishing it.

Sadly, we don’t have the funds to pay, but Untold Dylan does have a very wide readership, so your work will be seen by a huge number of people.   If you have an article please email Tony@schools.co.uk   If the article is ready, please attach as a word file.

One other thing: we never ask for donations, and we try to survive on the income from our advertisers, so if you enjoy Untold Dylan, and you’ve got an ad blocker, could I beg you to turn it off while here. I’m not asking you to click on ads for the sake of it, but at least allow us to add one more to the number of people who see the full page including the adverts.   Thanks.

And one other, other thing: we also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with around 8500 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link    And because we don’t do political debates on our Facebook group there is a separate group for debating Bob Dylan’s politics – Icicles Hanging Down

By Tony Attwood

Bob Dylan Showcase: write the music to a Dylan song

You might recall that a while back we introduced the Bob Dylan Showcase in which readers of Untold Dylan could send in a recording of themselves performing a Dylan song, or a song that related to or was inspired by Dylan’s work in some way.

The collection of recordings we mustered are of course still online and you can reach them via the Untold Dylan Showcase Directory.

Included in this series were a number of songs to which Dylan had written the lyrics, but for which neither he nor anyone else had written any music, and so some of these were completed, allowing the composers to claim, quite reasonably, to have co-written a Dylan song.  All such songs are listed in our alphabetical index of Dylan songs.

As with all nice ideas, gradually its time passed and we moved on but in doing so, two sets of Dylan lyrics were left.

• Bowling alley blues
• California Brown Eyed Baby

and I did say in my last post about this idea, “If you can write the music to either of these songs, please record it and send it to tony@schools.co.uk   If you don’t Tony will have to do it himself, and you don’t want that.”

Well, you were warned, so I’ve composed, and now present, for the first time

“California Brown Eyed Baby”

by Bob Dylan

and Tony Attwood

Here is one version of the lyrics – but there is another with a couple of variations which I have used as they were slightly easier to set…

Anyway it is just meant as a bit of fun.  And if you want to join in you can have a go with Bowling alley blues which I must warn you is fiendish in the extreme.

But equally please do go back to the entries that we had from readers of the site and if you have a recording of yourself or your band or your mates, and it in any way relates to Dylan, please email me the file – send it to Tony@schools.co.uk

Thanks.

Do you have a tale to tell via Untold Dylan?

We now have over 2000 articles on this site, and many of them are personal tales about attending a concert, listening to Dylan, cover versions, or the individual writer’s own appreciation of Dylan and his music.

These articles are written for Untold by Dylan fans, and if you have a view of Dylan that you feel could be of interest to others, we’d love to hear from you.

To see the variety of approaches we have included in this site, just go to the top of the page and look at the various headings under the picture – each one contains an index of articles on a Dylan theme.  Or look at the latest series listed on our home page.  If you write a piece you can add to these, or create your own theme, or simply send in a one-off contribution.   As long as it gives a different insight into Dylan and his work, we may be well interested in publishing it.

Sadly, we don’t have the funds to pay, but Untold Dylan does have a very wide readership, so your work will be seen by a huge number of people.   If you have an article please email Tony@schools.co.uk   If the article is ready, please attach as a word file.

One other thing: we never ask for donations, and we try to survive on the income from our advertisers, so if you enjoy Untold Dylan, and you’ve got an ad blocker, could I beg you to turn it off while here. I’m not asking you to click on ads for the sake of it, but at least allow us to add one more to the number of people who see the full page including the adverts.   Thanks.

And one other, other thing: we also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with around 8500 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link    And because we don’t do political debates on our Facebook group there is a separate group for debating Bob Dylan’s politics – Icicles Hanging Down

Bob Dylan And Robert Herrick Part I

Hence they have borne my Lord; behold! the stone
Is rolled away, and my sweet Saviour's gone
Tell me, white angel, what is now become
Of Him we lately sealed up in the tomb
(Robert Herrick: His Coming To The Sepulchre)

The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene
Early, when it was dark unto the sepulchre
And seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre ...
She supposing Him to be the gardener
Saith unto Him, Sir, if they have borne Him hence
Tell me where you have laid Him
(Book Of John 20: 1,15)

Someone hit me from behind ....
As I walked out in the mystic garden
On a hot summer day, a hot summer lawn
Excuse me, ma'am, I beg your pardon
There's no one here, the gardener is gone
(Bob Dylan: Ain't Talking)

A country dance was being held in the garden
I felt a bump, and heard an 'Oh, I beg your pardon'
Suddenly I saw polka dots and moodbeams
All around a pug-nosed dream
(Frank Sinatra: Polka Dots And Moonbeams ~ Burke/Van Heusen)

Our life is short; and our days run
As fast as does the sun
And as a vapour, or a drop of rain
Once lost, can never be found again
(Robert Herrick: Corrina's Going A-Maying)

You promised to love me, but what do I see
Just you coming, spilling juice over me
Odds and ends, odds and ends
Lost time is not found again

All things decay with time: The forest sees
The growth and down-fall of her aged trees
The timber tall, which three-score lustres stood
The proud dictator of the state-like wood
I mean the sovereign of all plants, the oak
Droops, dies, and falls without the cleaver's stroke
(Richard Herrick: All Things Decay And Die)

The lights on my native land are glowing
I wonder if they'll know me next time 'round
I wonder if that old oak tree's still standing
That old oak tree, the one we used to climb
(Bob Dylan: Duquesne Whistle)