Back in 2015 RCA & Legacy Records had a massive worldwide hit album, “If I Can Dream,” using the original vocals of Elvis Presley and newly recorded backing tracks from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. This led to further albums, two more from Elvis, two from Roy Orbison, a Beach Boys set, Buddy Holly, Rod Stewart and there is even one from Cilla Black.
Then this month came Johnny Cash’s set, which included amongst the tracks a new version of Bob and Johnny’s Girl From The North County duet from the Nashville Skyline album. It is stunning! See what you think.
I got goosebumps listening to this! I have quite a few of these “… with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra” albums..couple of Elvis, two Roy Orbison, a Beach Boys and a Buddy Holly..but this Johnny Cash one might be the best of all!
Could there be a full Dylan with The RPO album? Based on this one I think it would be tremendous, but I’m not sure what tracks they would choose!
This track is a start… but man this was tough to whittle this down to just 12 to make a album. I tried to steer away from just including the 60s classics and tried to throw a few curve balls in also. Really wanted to include “Living The Blues” for some reason! I just thought it would work well. Also thought about “Tell Ol’ Bill”, maybe these two could be bonus tracks on the deluxe special edition!
Here’s what we came up with.
Boots Of Spanish Leather
Forever Young (Rod Stewart’s rewrite already appeared on his RSO album)
Sugar Baby (just came across this great version)
I Shall Be Released
Tomorrow Is A Long Time
Up To Me
Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You
Mississippi
Only A Pawn In Their Game
Abandoned Love
Blind Willie McTell
Blowin’ In The Wind
Of course the album doesn’t exist… but maybe someone from the RPO might see this idea and think about the possibilities.
Or perhaps they already are working on it. But just in case they need a bit of help here’s a remembrance of time past…
and by way of variation
Footnote from Tony: (sorry Aaron, I just can resist jumping in)
I’m not sure about Blowin in the Wind – its been done so often in so many ways, so I think it would be good to challenge the orchestrator with one of those Dylan songs that has only one or two lines. I’ve written so much about the “Drifter’s Escape” in this regard of late I won’t torment you with any more (although I am contemplating an article on Dylan’s two line songs) but if they really want a challenge and a half after orchestrating Abandoned Love, and how about working on this piece of genius…
Explanation: In case you have not come across “Aaron and Tony” articles before – Aaron lives in the USA and Tony in the UK. Our only communication is via these articles – Aaron kicks them off and does all the work, and Tony jumps in at the end and pontificates a bit.
We quite enjoy it, and it keeps us happy, and not too many other publications indulge in this sort of thing. But if you have an idea for an article or a series that goes off in some other weird direction, please do send it in, preferably with a sample of what it would look like. Tony@schools.co.uk
12 years of Untold Dylan
Although no one gets paid for writing, publishing or editing Untold Dylan, it does cost us money to keep the site afloat, safe from hackers, n’er-do-wells etc. 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.
As for the writing, Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Although no one gets paid, if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
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
June 28, 2020: Southaven, Mississippi – BankPlus Amphitheatre @ Snowden Grove
https://youtu.be/12ewncLKo1A
Things Have Changed
It Ain’t Me Babe
My Own Version Of You
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Can’t Wait
Black Rider
Honest With Me
Make You Feel My Love
Man Of Peace
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
Mother Of Muses
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Crossing The Rubicon (live debut)
Encore
I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You
Like A Rolling Stone
June 30, 2020 – Brandon, Mississippi – Brandon Amphitheatre
Things Have Changed
It Ain’t Me Babe
My Own Version Of You
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Can’t Wait
Black Rider
Honest With Me
Man Of Peace
Make You Feel My Love
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
Mother Of Muses
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Crossing The Rubicon
Encore
I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You
Like A Rolling Stone
July 2, 2020:Nashville, Tennessee: Bridgestone Arena
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (Bob on guitar)
It Ain’t Me Babe
My Own Version Of You
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Tombstone Blues
Black Rider
Lonesome Day Blues
Man Of Peace
I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Lay Lady Lay (first performance since 2010) (Bob on guitar)
Mother Of Muses
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman (Bob on guitar)
Gotta Serve Somebody
Crossing The Rubicon (Bob on guitar)
Encore
False Prophet (Bob on guitar)
Like A Rolling Stone
July 3, 2020: Alpharetta, Georgia: Ameris Bank Amphitheatre
https://youtu.be/TRoiwSR32Jo
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
It Ain’t Me Babe
My Own Version Of You
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Can’t Wait
Black Rider
Honest With Me
Man Of Peace
I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Lay Lady Lay
I Contain Multitudes
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Crossing The Rubicon
Encore
False Prophet
Like A Rolling Stone
July 5, 2020: Virginia Beach, Virginia: United Veterans Home Loan Amphitheatre
Goodbye Jimmy Reed (live debut, the line “can’t you hear me callin’ from Down in Virginia” makes crowd go crazy) (Bob on guitar)
I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You (Bob on guitar)
Highway 61 Revisited
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Can’t Wait
Black Rider
Honest With Me
Man Of Peace
Lay Lady Lay
Pay In Blood (new arrangement)
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
I Contain Multitudes
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Crossing The Rubicon
Encore
False Prophet (Bob on guitar)
Billy 4
July 7, 2020: Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania: Mohegan Sun Arena
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
It Ain’t Me Babe
Highway 61 Revisited
When I Paint My Masterpiece
False Prophet
Lay Lady Lay
Honest With Me
Man Of Peace
Make You Feel My Love
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Goodbye Jimmy Reed
I Contain Multitudes
Black Rider
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Crossing The Rubicon
Encore
My Own Version Of You
With God On Our Side
July 8, 2020: Forest Hills, New York: Forest Hills Stadium
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
Lay Lady Lay
Highway 61 Revisited
When I Paint My Masterpiece
False Prophet
Make You Feel My Love
Honest With Me
Man Of Peace
I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Like A Rolling Stone
Mother Of Muses
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Encore
I Contain Multitudes (Bob on guitar)
Crossing The Rubicon (Bob on guitar)
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (Bob on guitar, crowd goes wild after “I’m going back to New York City” line)
July 9, 2020: Saratoga Springs, New York: Saratoga Performing Arts Center
Things Have Changed
Lay Lady Lay
Highway 61 Revisited
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Can’t Wait
Make You Feel My Love
Honest With Me
Man Of Peace
I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
Mother Of Muses
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Encore
I Contain Multitudes
False Prophet
Tears Of Rage
July 11, 2020: Essex Junction, Vermont: Champlain Valley Explosition
Things Have Changed
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
Highway 61 Revisited
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Can’t Wait
Make You Feel My Love
My Own Version Of You
Man Of Peace
I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You
Pay In Blood
Tears Of Rage
Like A Rolling Stone
Early Roman Kings
Mother Of Muses
Not Dark Yet
Encore
Moonlight In Vermont (cover, live debut by Bob Dylan)
Key West (Philosopher Pirate) (live debut)
July 12, 2020: Bethel Woods, New York: Bethel Woods Center for the Arts
https://youtu.be/LTa9ZDMiwXk
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (Bob on guitar)
Lay Lady Lay (Bob on guitar)
Tears Of Rage (Bob on guitar)
Black Rider
When I Paint My Masterpiece
I Contain Multitudes (Bob on guitar)
My Own Version Of You
Man Of Peace
Key West (Philosopher Pirate)
Lenny Bruce
Like A Rolling Stone
Early Roman Kings
Mother Of Muses
Not Dark Yet
Encore
Murder Most Foul
12 years of Untold Dylan
Although no one gets paid for writing, publishing or editing Untold Dylan, it does cost us money to keep the site afloat, safe from hackers, n’er-do-wells etc. 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.
As for the writing, Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Although no one gets paid, if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
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
I fell to the floor
I got down on my knees
Then I looked at her, and she at me
Well, that's the way that I want it to stay
And I always want it to be that way for my Lola
The Kinks’ “Lola” is a classic example of a song in which you only realise at the fourth or fifth listening what you are actually singing. And that song is actually still rather clear. Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” is already more difficult – the song is so cheerful, exuberant and catchy that it takes a while before the hedonistic, promiscuous character of the lyrics gets through. “Ring My Bell” by Anita Ward, Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer”, Christina Aguilera’s “Genie In A Bottle”… the taboo on openly venting the joy of sex is a particularly potent driver of poetic inspiration.
In 1972 the American comedian George Carlin writes the monologue in which the picket lines are drawn refreshingly clearly: “Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television”. The seven words are, according to Carlin, shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits. There are more taboo words, of course (explicit indications of the male sex organ, for example), but roughly speaking the list is quite correct; these are indeed the words that artists have had to avoid for centuries, causing poets to twist and bend and jump through ever more flowery hoops.
The furthest corners thereof have been explored by – obviously – the old blues pioneers. By now, pretty much all the fruit metaphors have been squeezed out. “Let Me Roll Your Lemon”, “Banana In Your Fruit Basket” (actually, just about every Bo Carter song), “Let Me Squeeze Your Lemon”, I like your apple on your tree up to Prince’s “Peach “… ah well, figs, melons, squashes and eggplants have been popular symbols since the Renaissance, from Raphael to Caravaggio. Something similar applies to any synonym of “locomotion” or “physical activity”; words like ride, shake, gravel, rock, drive, bang a songwriter no longer can use without immediately evoking nudge nudge winkwink reactions.
And after those antique fruit metaphors and the obvious “repeated movement” comparisons come the wilder, more and more explicit concealments. “Let Me Play With Your Poodle” by Dylan’s hero Tampa Red, Dinah Washington’s “Long John Blues”, “I Want Some Of Your Pie” by Blind Boy Fuller… hardly anybody will think that Tampa desires to express his affection for a canine or that Fuller communicates his culinary interest in a pastry product. Alice Cooper may roar my heart’s a muscle all he wants, we all know what he means with his “Muscle Of Love” (“Lock the door in the bathroom now / I just can’t get caught in here”)… after a century of sexual innuendo in song lyrics, the listener is conditioned.
Still, somewhere a grey zone can always be found by the creative poet, a zone where the ambiguities are vague enough to make one wonder whether there’s sexual intent, the ambiguities where the listener doubts whether the allusions he hears are due to his own dirty mind, or to some perverse intentions of the writer. “Willie And The Hand Jive” really, really is about a man who makes dance movements with his hands, as Johnny Otis insisted for the rest of his life. And
When you call my name, it's like a little prayer
I'm down on my knees, I wanna take you there
In the midnight hour, I can feel your power
Just like a prayer, you know I'll take you there
… is really meant to be pious, Madonna bravely perseveres. She doesn’t convince Pope John Paul II though, and the accompanying music video is objectionable too; the Vatican calls for a boycott of the singer (1989).
The devil there, like with “Lola”, is in that down on my knees, which in the conditioned, gradually perverted mind of the average music lover can only indicate the granting of certain oral sexual favours.
This connotation “Ballad Of A Thin Man” cannot escape either:
Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you
And then he kneels
He crosses himself
And then he clicks his high heels
And without further notice
He asks you how it feels
And he says, “Here is your throat back
Thanks for the loan”
“Sword swallower”, “kneels”, “throat”, “he asks you how it feels”, plus the high heels suggesting a Lola-like, sensual transsexual… it’s true, the poet Dylan makes it quite difficult to ignore the Freudian allusions here. And consequently, there indeed is a faction of interpreters who see in the song an encrypted account of a rather pornographic experience, and some even believe that Dylan here gives air to homosexual fantasies.
The next verse provides more ammunition for this understanding.
Now you see this one-eyed midget
Shouting the word “NOW”
And you say, “For what reason?”
And he says, “How?”
And you say, “What does this mean?”
And he screams back, “You’re a cow
Give me some milk
Or else go home”
Once in the Tunnel of Obscenities, any combination with one-eyed can only refer to the penis (the pee-hole at the tip of the head, hence “one-eyed”), and it is hard to imagine that Dylan should be unaware thereof. The euphemism has existed at least since Big Joe Turner’s “Shake, Rattle And Roll” (1954): “I’m like a one-eyed cat peepin’ in a seafood store”. Dylan himself played the song in ’92, together with Keith Richards, but before that it is performed and recorded by Elvis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Beatles and actually everyone else at Olympus; the Dylan of ’65 is familiar with the song and with the sexual connotation of “one-eyed”.
“One-eyed midget” is still a not entirely unwitty variant of the usual one-eyed (Willie, anaconda, Jack, monster, trouser snake), which could be intended as an insulting allusion to the size of a man’s genitals – after pencil a second stab below the belt.
In any case, this tempts some exegetes to see ambiguities in verse fragments such as they’ve all liked your looks, give me some milk, a bone and even in lumberjacks… after all, a lumberjack attacks your “wood”. It even leads to renamings like “Ballad Of A Closet Homosexual”.
Yeah, well. A dirty mind is a joy forever, as they say.
Anyway, pretty far-fetched, and worse, it does stain the song’s brilliance. Even Dylan, who usually doesn’t care what people see in his lyrics, won’t be too enthusiastic about this kind of banalities. After all, the song is mainly virulent on an intellectual level, and that is how Dylan seems to understand it too, as witnessed by Al Kooper’s memory of the noisy premiere of the song, Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, New York, 28 August 1965. That is the first concert after the recording of Highway 61 Revisited, the concert with also the premieres of “Desolation Row”, “From A Buick 6” and “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”, the first concert with that division into an acoustic set and an electric set and with the electric premieres of “I Don’t Believe You” and “It Ain’t Me Babe”.
It does not go down too well, the electricity. “Ballad Of A Thin Man” is seventh on the list after the pause, the last song before the final “Like A Rolling Stone”, and the commotion reaches a top. Scolding, raging, whistling… but Dylan does not falter, while police forcefully keeps pushy fans away from the stage.
“Three-quarters of the way through, Dylan stood at the piano to play “Ballad Of A Thin Man,” a song from the as-yet-unreleased Highway 61 album. It had a quiet intro, and the kids persisted in yelling and booing all the way through it. Dylan shouted out to us to “keep playing the intro over and over again until they shut up!” We played it for a good five minutes – doo do da da, do da de da – over and over until they did, in fact, chill. A great piece of theatre. When they were finally quiet, Dylan sang the lyrics to them: “Something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you?” It was almost as if he’d written the song knowing full well that the moment would come when he’d sing it to a crowd like this one.”
The recordings of the concert do not fully support Kooper’s memory, but the story is too good to ruin with historical accuracy.
Nowadays, the public is very receptive to the opening chords, by the way. The perverts.
Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:
Although no one gets paid for writing, publishing or editing Untold Dylan, it does cost us money to keep the site afloat, safe from hackers, n’er-do-wells etc. 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.
As for the writing, Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Although no one gets paid, if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
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
Saith Fredrich Nietzsche, God is dead and it’s you and I who killed Him. What the disgruntled Romantic writer contends is that the human ‘Imagination’ has been trampled asunder by the orthodox social and religious authorities of modern times who have made worshipping the ‘Golden Calf’ the Holy One to follow. Nietzsche draws from the Ancient Greeks, and their Apollonian/Dionysian dualistic mythology. Akin he be to the poet William Blake who condemns ‘Deists’, like Isaac Newton, for casting God outside a supposedly independently-running Universe.
Blake be no fan of the ‘noble savage’ supposedly idealized by the Enlightenment Man ~Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In Blake’s imaginative vision, Jesus is God, but the Tiger-like God is not Jesus. Instead, the poet portrays Christ as a human being from the country who now lives in the city.
It’s rather dark and ‘Satanic’:
But most through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the new born infant's tear
And blights with plagues the marriage hearse
((William Blake: London)
Jesus, according to Blake, is an imaginative artist who dosen’t turn back. He envisions a better city on earth for his fellow human beings to live in. And for imagining such a city with bright ligthts, the Lamb-like God is crucified.
Northrop Frye, linguist and literary critic, focuses on biblical mythology too – out of which, he says, the poet Blake creates a personal mythology. You see, words sometimes have two meanings. According to Frye, poet Blake contends that artists ought to be Tiger-like in spirit.
As expressed in the following song lyrics about artist John Lennon (which as everyone, of course, now realizes) Frye would say are drawn from the Biblical well of words that contains both the New and Old Testaments):
You burned so bright
Roll on John
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
In the forests of the night
(Bob Dylan: Roll On John)
The killer of the Beatle claims he’s a ‘Christian’.
Despite what other analysts might say, Bob Dylan chooses his words carefully – the narrator’s physical body in the song above is in the city, but his spiritual ‘soul’ is in the mimetic forest:
A little confused I remember well
And stopped into a strange hotel
With a neon sign burning bright
He felt the heat of the night
(Bob Dylan: Simple Twist Of Fate)
The sexual urge strikes deep. Like Blake, Dylan is caught between Heaven and Hell which indeed can be a bit confusing:
Wish I was back in the city
Instead of this old bank of sand
With the sun beating down over the chimney tops
And the one I love so close at hand
(Bob Dylan: Watching The River Flow)
It all depends on on one’s point of view – one should not be where s/he does not belong:
To see a world in a grain of sand
And Heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour
A robin red breast in a cage
Puts all Heaven in a rage
(William Blake: Auguries Of Innocence)
No bird be they trapped in a cage; nor a grain of sand – it’s all metaphor:
I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there
Other times, it's only me
I'm hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand
(Bob Dylan: Every Grain Of Sand)
As it saith in the Bible:
And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem
Coming down from Heaven
Prepared as a bride adorned for her husband
(Revelation 21:2)
12 years of Untold Dylan
Although no one gets paid for writing, publishing or editing Untold Dylan, it does cost us money to keep the site afloat, safe from hackers, n’er-do-wells etc. 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.
As for the writing, Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Although no one gets paid, if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
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
From 1968 to 1970 Bob Dylan wrote 22 songs. For most songwriters that would be a pretty decent output over a three year period. But with Dylan at the time, we looked back to see that in 1962 alone he wrote 36 songs, and this wasn’t a one-off. In the following year he wrote another 31 songs.
And they weren’t just any old songs, in 1963 for example we were offered ten songs that would be the masterpiece-highlights of any other songwriter’s output, but for Bob they were just another selection from his endless production line of works of genius. In case you are interested my ten selections for genius status from that year are…
Even if you don’t rate half of these as highly as I do, even if you only find five absolute masterpieces in a year is still pretty good going. Irving Berlin could do it. But anyone else? I don’t think so.
But after just one song composed in 1968 (and that delivered late) Bob’s heart didn’t really seem to be in the old songwriting malarkey. Yes of course there were still some superb pieces, but there was also the suggestion that Bob didn’t really want to write that much any more. “JWH was done because his contract said “do it”, “Self Portrait” was decidedly different if not wacky at times, and by “New Morning” he was pretty overt in telling us that getting away from it all (presumably including us fans) was his main interest. No touring, and as for the writing stuff, that was a strictly contractual matter. If some great songs popped out, that was good, but it was pure chance. Win some, lose some.
But the trouble was that although Dylan has through most of his career produced some songs that really don’t stay in the memory too long, they have mostly been overshadowed by the works of genius. Now that he was just writing enough songs to fill up the LP he was contractually obliged to create, we got pretty much all of it. The days of finding a missing masterpiece in the studio dustbin were long over. I’m sure you remember; songs like I’m not there. Unfinished, unreleased, utterly unbelievable.
Yet for us poor fans, looking back to the masterpieces of the past while endlessly casting our eyes across the street to make sure Johanna was still having her visions, surely after such an extended break, we, the people who put up the money, had the right to expect a rejuvenated Bob to come along, offering us some works that were pretty astounding. Works to compare with “It’s alright Ma” and “Rolling Stone”… I mean, we deserved it surely, after these years of dedicated fandom.
But no, Bob didn’t want to know. He took more time out, and once he had got to the stage of not needing to do another album because of a contract, he just let matters go their own way. And in a way that was fair. He’d delivered around 200 songs (and that’s not including all the jokey bits from the Basement or those poems in the notebook.) That’s more than a lifetime’s work for most song-smiths of note. What was the matter with us fans? What did we want? Blood?
Well, yes, actually if that is what it took. I mean, we’d been loyal. We’d kept the memory alive hadn’t we? We were just waiting for Bob to catch up, to come out of hiding and say, “hey guys, thanks – yeah that version of Johanna that Tony and his band did, that was pretty cool – what were those chords you put in?…” But the call never came. Not to me at least, and as far as I know not to any of the fans.
So we had to wait as matters did indeed take their own course. We had to sit through Peggy Day (“love to spend the day with Peggy Night?” Really?) and Country Pie (“oh me oh my” oh Bob please), and even Living the blues; I mean Bob Dylan as Guy Mitchell?
My own take on 1971 is that Bob recognised what was going on – or at least if he didn’t then his management did and told him in no uncertain words. We were still out there, still playing and singing “Baby Blue,” still hoping – and he knew that. And I say that with some certainty because otherwise how do we explain “When I paint my masterpiece”?
Apart from the fact that it is a great song with super lyrics, take the title. Clearly a reflection on the point that we hadn’t had a masterpiece for a while. But not “write my masterpiece” – that would be too obvious. Besides it would have had to be “write my next masterpiece” and that really would make it too introverted.
And then the opening. “Oh the streets of Rome…” taking us back to Italy, scene of some of those magical early moments. (According to Rich Will, Bob has always maintained a love of Italy – and incidentally his article on the subject really is worth reading – once you’ve finished this one. There’s a link at the end, but please don’t flip there now – I’ve got lots more to say…)
But even without any connection with “Bel Paese” it is just one of those openings that does something for the mind. It creates in five words an image in the way that “Oh how I love you” doesn’t. It’s unexpected, it is image making, it is exciting, it demands attention.
And it doesn’t make sense – which is what makes it even more tantalising. No, actually the streets are not filled with rubble, but yes they are filled with the spirit of Romulus, Brutus, Cato, Pompey, Crassus, Cicero, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula…
Oh, the streets of Rome are filled with rubble
Ancient footprints are everywhere
You can almost think that you’re seein’ double
On a cold, dark night on the Spanish Stairs
But “seeing double”??? Because there are so many of them I guess. And if not, does it matter? And we know he’s actually been there because he got the wild geese story which is always a nice touch (more on that anon).
I am not sure if we really saw “When I paint my masterpiece” as a complete return to form, but I am pretty sure that when we first heard it, quite a few of us stopped commenting on how it was just like the night to play tricks upon one, and instead sat up and listened afresh… Which was just what Bob intended, and exactly why it also turned up on the 1971 Greatest Hits album. Hello Bob. You’re back! Where you been? Oh Italy! Good place to choose. Have a good time? Great? Write any songs? Yes? OK, let’s hear it.
Rather like the masterpiece painting where x ray examination can reveal the changes that the genius painter made as he went along – the changes were perhaps not always (from our viewpoint) for the better, but through the recordings made of the song performed on stage, we can see a songwriter who, even if he wasn’t sure yet where he was going, certainly knew it might go somewhere. And “somewhere” was exactly where we wanted Bob to go. Not quite anywhere, because that variant upon “Singing the blues” wasn’t really what we wanted, but anyway, good to have you back.
“Filled with rubble” and “Filled with trouble” – whatever you say Bob. Anything you like. And for those of us with a spot of classical education it was wonderful because we could pontificate. The rubble of the fallen monuments of the Republic and the Empire, the trouble from the uprisings of greedy and self-centred men who would put themselves before the extraordinary achievements of the Republic, and destroyed a vibrant democracy allowing an Empire to arise with a god-emperor at its heart, until the Goths came a-knocking on the door. Oh and the geese. Nice touch.
So to reiterate, we have in the first verse a masterpiece of reference and change…
Oh, the streets of Rome are filled with rubble
Ancient footprints are everywhere
You can almost think that you’re seein’ double
On a cold, dark night on the Spanish Stairs
Got to hurry on back to my hotel room
Where I’ve got me a date with Botticelli’s niece
She promised that she’d be right there with me
When I paint my masterpiece
The Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti (Spanish Steps, Dylan calls the “stairs”) take you (if you have the energy) up the steep hill from the Paizza di Spagna to Trinità dei Monti. 135 steps, not really a climb to do on a cold dark night unless you are chasing shadows and ghosts – which of course can be fun (and dangerous) in itself. But for much of the year there are no cold dark nights in Rome. Well, not that cold.
But that’s only the start of the fun, because then we had originally a pretty little girl from Greece who became Botticelli’s niece. Just a phrase that popped into his head? Maybe, maybe. But (and you are going to have to stay with me for a moment if you want to get to grips with this idea) here is another explanation.
I doubt that Dylan just looked at the Coliseum, and the Spanish Stairs and said, “hey that’s nice” and walked on. I don’t mean I think he stayed with a guide book, but this is a guy who knows and enjoys his history and his literature, and (given he is a visual artist too) who knows a lot about art too.
The website Castle Fine Art says of Bob’s artistic work, “His brushstrokes are like his voice: straightforward, rough, occasionally fragile. He’s not after artistic perfection but something larger, a moment, a feeling. The effect is enthralling.”
And that really does relate to this song too – Bob is not after perfection or exactness. Thus Botticelli’s niece is not quite right but it gives us a link to the painting The Birth of Venus, which was commissioned by the Medici family. As the somewhat more exact guidebooks and histories point out Pliny the Elder (the great writer, scientist and philosopher who died while recording his scientific observations on the eruption of Vesuvius) suggested Alexander the Great offered his mistress as the model for the nude Venus to be painted by Apelles. But then noting that Apelles had fallen in love with the girl, gave her to the artist. (That’s not very 21st century, but is very Roman).
So the actual model for Botticelli’s Birth of Venus was not his niece but Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci, who it seems had a “relationship” with two of the Medicis. Linking Birth of Venus with the great days of the Republic makes the model in the picture a symbol of the continuity of the Republic, the Empire and the Eternal City.
It’s a famous tale for anyone interested in the art of the Republic and the Empire and I think turning Botticelli’s Venus into Botticelli’s niece is a nice piece of fun for Dylan, which gives him a handy rhyme. And why not? That’s what he does. Anyway, it made me smile when I first heard it.
So now we know where we are: we are very much in the world of Dylan the Tourist. He won’t have seen Birth of Venus in a trip to Rome, but Dylan had Italian connections all the way back from his time with Suze Rotolo and his trip to Italy looking for her. Indeed the stories around Freewheelin are full of Italy. And besides “Masterpiece” does have the line Train wheels runnin’ through the back of my memory. It’s worth hearing just for that.
But I’m getting ahead of myself…
Oh, the hours I’ve spent inside the Coliseum
Dodging lions and wastin’ time
Oh, those mighty kings of the jungle,
I could hardly stand to see ’em
Yes, it sure has been a long, hard climb
I’ve always wondered with that line of the long hard climb, if we are not back to the Spanish Steps! Or is it the climb back to creativity? Or both?
But then so much of this song is looking back
Train wheels runnin’ through the back of my memory
When I ran on the hilltop following a pack of wild geese
Someday, everything is gonna be smooth like a rhapsody
When I paint my masterpiece
Oh yes, the geese. A reference, I think, not quite understood by some reviewers of this song. The story is that when the Republic of Rome was under attack from the Gauls (which is to say in the fabled origins of the Republic, long before the days of the Empire) Rome seemed about to fall and the Romans were besieged. Despite low food supplies during the siege the Romans kept their sacred geese fed, and this turned out to be a shrewd idea, because as the Gauls attacked, the geese honked as they do, woke up the guards, who then resolutely defeated the attackers. 1-0 to Rome.
The Gauls gave up their attack and withdrew, Rome was rebuilt, and the sacred geese were remembered forever with an annual parade in which a golden goose is the heart of the celebration. You can’t read a guide book without finding a load of geese in there somewhere.
But then strangely he seems to dismiss it all…
Sailin’ round the world in a dirty gondola
Oh, to be back in the land of Coca-Cola!
Suddenly we are out of Rome – and there are (just to be clear about this) no gondolas on the Tiber, it’s Venice where they are to be found. Indeed going for a sail along the Tiber is just plain dull and really not worth the effort. And besides, certainly for me, each time I’ve been to Venice there are not dirty gondolas; the competition to get the tourists into gondolas is very strong, and brightness and colour is part of the deal. (The water buses are cheaper though, and just as much fun; I recommend getting an all-day ticket and going round the islands).
So what is this about? Leaving the history, the romance, the beauty, the Republic and Empire, for sugar, colour, flavouring and water plus an issue about where the canals are… What is going on…
In part Dylan was talking about writing the next masterwork that he wanted to write, rather than writing songs he was contractually obliged to write. In part he was having a laugh, but I wonder, I just wonder, did he even at this moment, have an inkling that there was another masterpiece just around the temporal corner? And not just one, but masterpiece after masterpiece. All the Botticelli business was in 1971 and we would still have to wait until 1974 to see the final explosion of utter, gorgeous, total genius-brilliance with “Tangled up in blue” et al, but my goodness wasn’t it worth the wait!
But Bob was, here, showing us once more all that might be. I mean, what did you think when you realised you were listening to a piece of music that included the couplet,
Newspapermen eating candy
Had to be held down by big police
Dylan is having fun, but also saying he knows it won’t always be like this. We are getting towards the time to move on. He is telling us this that is the interregnum. (From the Latin). (As spoken in Rome). “Time passes slowly” he told us, and there is no more wonderful place in the world to appreciate the passing of time in relation to human activities than in Rome. But now we knew…
Someday, everything is gonna be diff’rent
When I paint my masterpiece
There was however a line that appears to have been cut en route which was sad… With a picture of a tall oak tree by my side – the reference to the Zen tradition of using one aspect of nature alone to understand everything. Cutting the pretty little girl from Greece was, to my mind (and of course all this ruminating is just my reaction to the song) was OK (not that in any seriousness could I tell Dylan what was better or worse in his writing) but losing the oak tree was not so good, at least in my world. It is an image of a way of contemplating the world – the only thing that is wrong with it is that it is from a totally different culture.
And there is another cross reference that I had completely failed to see, until reminded of it through an excellent review on Expecting Rain, which if you are seriously interested in this song you really ought to read.
In ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ written in 1818 by Lord Byron, the poet (and here I quote from the Expecting Rain review) contemplates the ruins of ancient Rome and finds nothing but chaos – broken dreams and relics of ancient cruelty….
Byron perceives the city as a whole as a space strewn with fragments and debris, visible signs of decayed power testifying to the vanity of human aspirations
The review, written by Christopher Rollason (whose blog is always worth a read) sees the song as coming from a narrator who “has come to Europe and Rome in search of artistic fulfilment, hoping that with ancient scenes around him he will achieve the vision that will enable him finally to ‘paint his masterpiece’.”
That’s a very interesting vision. I have approached the song seeing this as Dylan himself contemplating Rome and Italy, and the “paint my masterpiece” not being literally “paint” but a metaphor for his return to artistic fulfilment, which he has moved away from in creating albums because of contractual requirements rather than because he had something to say. And here we see Dylan contemplating his ultimate song or ultimate album as conveyed in the lines “Some day everything is gonna be smooth like a rhapsody When I paint my masterpiece”.
You can see it either way, just as you can see She promised that she’d be right there with me When I paint my masterpiece as a sexual phrase or as a phrase relating to the person who most artists or all genres have by their sides who support, put up with, and are a sounding board for their ideas.
So, a complex piece, with its own fun and some historical references too. Difficult to transcribe into music.
But Dylan does it, although in so doing uses a technique that I think is unique within the Dylan repertoire. He totally changes key between the second and third verse to reflect the change from Rome to Brussels.
We are clearly in A with A and E being the chords that the song for the first two verses, and then we slip up into the completely unrelated B flat. It’s a different world.
It is not a very subtle technique, but it makes the point of the change of emphasis. And the plane trip to Brussels wasn’t subtle.
So a turning point. The wilderness years coming to an end. Just a while to go before we got one of the most sublime moments in Dylan’s songwriting career. The point when everything from “Idiot Wind” to “Tangled up in Blue” began to ferment inside.
Bob didn’t return to touring until a 40 gig tour in the early months of 1974. He then played Masterpiece on stage 182 times from 30 October 1975 through to 2 November 2019. But he wrote it before the grand second explosion of his talent started.
Although no one gets paid for writing, publishing or editing Untold Dylan, it does cost us money to keep the site afloat, safe from hackers, n’er-do-wells etc. 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.
As for the writing, Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Although no one gets paid, if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
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 article continues from “The unexpected re-workings” article published earlier, and you may remember that we had some serious problems there with recordings being available in one region but not another.
It is possible the same problem will appear here so once again we are giving two links – and if both fail for you, just type in the artist and song title and see what you find – with luck the recordings will be there, and they most certainly are listening to.
Kesha: Dont think twice
This takes minimalism to a new level – and rather nicely in the first version below is followed by an excellent early Dylan version of the songs.
But if that link comes up as not available try this one:
And can I (Tony) say that I really do hope you are able to hear these renditions, and those highlighted in part one of this article, because they really are so unusual and indeed in several cases so stunningly beautiful. Please do go searching further afield for these if neither link works. It really will be worth the effort.
To finish off I (Aaron) wanted to include Patti Smith’s version of Drifter’s Escape.
Tony: If you are a regular reader you will know that I’ve elevated this song to a singularly high level of importance in terms of Dylan’s song writing across the decades, and if you have a little while to spend contemplating this song, its relationship with Bo Diddley, Don Gardner and Dee Dee Ford, and what it actually means, might I be rather egocentric for a moment and recommend my commentary on this work in the “All directions at once” series. And indeed may I recommend this version – which if you are a regular reader you’ll know I have mentioned over and over and over again, until I am sure you are bored stiff with it. Hopefully the exposition in the All Directions article might explain my fixation a little.
12 years of Untold Dylan
Although no one gets paid for writing, publishing or editing Untold Dylan, it does cost us money to keep the site afloat, safe from hackers, n’er-do-wells etc. 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.
As for the writing, Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Although no one gets paid, if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
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
False Prophet gets released as a single and a new album finally gets announced, titled “Rough And Rowdy Ways”, the full tracklist still not known. It includes two singles “Murder Most Foul” and “I Contain Multitudes”. Release date set for June 19.
June 4, 2020: Bend, Oregon: Les Schwab Amphitheatre
https://youtu.be/LTa9ZDMiwXk
Gotta Serve Somebody
I Contain Multitudes
False Prophet (live debut)
Tears Of Rage (first performance since 2008)
Lonesome Day Blues
With God On Our Side
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Man Of Peace
Early Roman Kings
Pay In Blood
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Long And Wasted Years
Tombstone Blues (first performance since 2006)
Encore
Murder Most Foul
June 6, 2020: Ridgefield, Washington. Sunlight Supply Amphitheatre
Gotta Serve Somebody
I Contain Multitudes
False Prophet
Tears Of Rage
Lonesome Day Blues
With God On Our Side
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Man Of Peace
Early Roman Kings
Pay In Blood
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Long And Wasted Years
Tombstone Blues
Encore
Murder Most Foul
June 7, 2020: Auburn, Washington: White River Amphitheatre
Gotta Serve Somebody
I Contain Multitudes
Lonesome Day Blues
Tears Of Rage
False Prophet
Girl From The North Country
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Man Of Peace
Early Roman Kings
Pay In Blood
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Long And Wasted Years
Tombstone Blues
Encore
Murder Most Foul
June 9, 2020: Eugene, Oregon: Matthew Knight Arena
Gotta Serve Somebody
I Contain Multitudes
Lonesome Day Blues
Tears Of Rage
Tombstone Blues
Girl From The North Country
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Man Of Peace
Early Roman Kings
Pay In Blood
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Long And Wasted Years
Encore
False Prophet
Like A Rolling Stone
June 12, 2020
Tracklist finally gets revealed!
Stateline, Nevada: Harveys Outdoor Amphitheatre
https://youtu.be/TRoiwSR32Jo
Gotta Serve Somebody
I Contain Multitudes
Lonesome Day Blues
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Tombstone Blues
Girl From The North Country
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Man Of Peace
Early Roman Kings
Pay In Blood
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Long And Wasted Years
Encore
False Prophet
Like A Rolling Stone
June 13, 2020: Berkeley, California: Greek Theatre
Gotta Serve Somebody
I Contain Multitudes
Honest With Me
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Can’t Wait
Girl From The North Country
Make You Feel My Love
Man Of Peace
Early Roman Kings
Pay In Blood
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (first performance since 2012)
Encore
False Prophet
Like A Rolling Stone
June 14, 2020: Berkeley, California: Greek Theatre
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (Bob on guitar)
I Contain Multitudes
Honest With Me
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Can’t Wait
Girl From The North Country
Make You Feel My Love
Man Of Peace
Early Roman Kings
Not Dark Yet
Pay In Blood
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Encore
False Prophet
Like A Rolling Stone
June 17, 2020: San Diego, California: Pechanga Arena
Gotta Serve Somebody
I Contain Multitudes
Can’t Wait
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Honest With Me
Girl From The North Country
Make You Feel My Love
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Pay In Blood
Early Roman Kings
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
Encore
False Prophet
Like A Rolling Stone
June 18, 2020: Los Angeles, California: Hollywood Bowl
Gotta Serve Somebody
I Contain Multitudes
Can’t Wait
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Lonesome Day Blues
Girl From The North Country
Make You Feel My Love
Man Of Peace
Pay In Blood
Early Roman Kings
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
Long And Wasted Years
Encore
False Prophet
Like A Rolling Stone
June 19, 2020:
Rough And Rowdy Ways gets released!
June 20, 2020: Las Vegas, Nevada: Mandalay Bay Events Center
https://youtu.be/bklWKe_skGU
Gotta Serve Somebody (might be in Las Vegas, having lots of fun lyrics, crowd goes crazy)
I Contain Multitudes
Can’t Wait
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Lonesome Day Blues
Girl From The North Country
Honest With Me
Make You Feel My Love
Man Of Peace
Pay In Blood
Early Roman Kings
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Long And Wasted Years
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (Bob on guitar)
Encore
False Prophet (Bob on guitar, first time live for this song)
Like A Rolling Stone
June 21, 2020: Glendale, Arizona: Gila River Arena
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (Bob on guitar)
I Contain Multitudes
Can’t Wait
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Lonesome Day Blues
Mother Of Muses (live debut)
Honest With Me
Make You Feel My Love
Man Of Peace
Pay In Blood
Early Roman Kings
Black Rider (live debut)
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Long And Wasted Years
Encore
False Prophet (Bob on guitar)
Like A Rolling Stone
June 23, 2020:Albuquerque, New Mexico: Tingley Coliseum
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (Bob on guitar)
I Contain Multitudes
Lonesome Day Blues
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Can’t Wait
Black Rider
Honest With Me
Make You Feel My Love
Man Of Peace
Pay In Blood
Mother Of Muses
Early Roman Kings
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Long And Wasted Years
Encore
False Prophet (Bob on guitar)
Like A Rolling Stone
June 24, 2020: Amarillo, Texas: Amarillo Civic Center
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (Bob on guitar)
I Contain Multitudes
Lonesome Day Blues
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Can’t Wait
Black Rider
Honest With Me
Make You Feel My Love
Man Of Peace
Pay In Blood
Mother Of Muses
Early Roman Kings
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Long And Wasted Years
Encore
False Prophet
Like A Rolling Stone
https://youtu.be/yUFMcpakRc0
June 26, 2020: Irving, Texas: The Pavilion @ Toyota Music Factory
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (Bob on guitar)
It Ain’t Me, Babe (new arrangement)
My Own Version Of You (live debut)
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Can’t Wait
Black Rider
Honest With Me
Make You Feel My Love
Man Of Peace
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Mother Of Muses
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Long And Wasted Years
Encore
False Prophet
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
June 27, 2020: Little Rock, Arkansas: Simmons Bank Arena
Things Have Changed (new arrangement)
It Ain’t Me Babe
My Own Version Of You
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Can’t Wait
Black Rider
Honest With Me
Make You Feel My Love
Man Of Peace
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
Mother Of Muses
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Encore
I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You (live debut)
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
The tour continues.
12 years of Untold Dylan
Although no one gets paid for writing, publishing or editing Untold Dylan, it does cost us money to keep the site afloat, safe from hackers, n’er-do-wells etc. 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.
As for the writing, Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Although no one gets paid, if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
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
Madame de Rambouillet quite spontaneously organises a rather intellectual gathering somewhere at the beginning of the seventeenth century in the Chambre Bleue of her Paris town house Hôtel de Rambouillet (where today the Louvre’s Richelieu wing is), and she sets a trend; more literary salons soon emerge. Until the nineteenth century, the salon remains the place to be, the place where decisions are made and the place where is decided what is “in” and what is “out”. The phenomenon eventually evaporates, but at least the German language has since then been enriched with a wonderful concept: salonfähig, “being possible in the salon”, which now means socially acceptable as well as artistically valuable.
The term describes the quality John Lennon refers to in his analysis of the use of the word “clown”:
“I’m A Loser is me in my Dylan period, because the word ‘clown’ is in it. I objected to the word ‘clown’, because that was always artsy-fartsy, but Dylan had used it so I thought it was all right, and it rhymed with whatever I was doing.”
Dylan, Lennon means, made the word “clown” salonfähig.
Dylan’s authority extends – of course – beyond making artsy-fartsy words acceptable, but still: it is a forte. After “Mr. Tambourine Man” follows a tsunami of pied piper-like figures and other musical magicians in pop songs (Status Quo, Chrispian St. Peters, Donovan, Led Zeppelin), as Dylan’s style characteristic for giving archetypes supporting roles is gratefully copied. Fairy-tale figures, for example. Cinderella was once sung by Paul Anka and she drops by in the musical Funny Girl (“Don’t Rain On My Parade”), but she really has no place in pop culture – until “Desolation Row”, that is. After that she can perform with The Hollies (“Isn’t It Nice?”), The Who (“Success Story”), Buck Owens and The Pixies, to name but a few.
A bloody nose is far too childish for a tough rock song, and even in the cornier pop songs never sung, but after Georgia Sam is allowed to walk around with a bloody nose in “Highway 61 Revisited”, the floodgates open, and noses bleed from The Who to Elton John (“Made In England”, 1995), from John Mellencamp to Billy Eilish (“Bad Guy”)… Dylan had used it so it was all right.
The same thing is happening now, after “Ballad Of A Thin Man”. Geeks and freaks are absolutely uncommon actors in songs, but Dylan’s song makes them salonfähig. Procol Harum, Jimi Hendrix, The Who (“Cousin Kevin”), Donovan, The Velvet Underground (“White Light/White Heat”)… before the end of the decade freak has definitively penetrated the rock jargon. Geek follows a little later. Alice Cooper, Don McLean (“Roosevelt was a cripple, Lincoln was a geek” – “Fashion Victim”), George Thorogood, Joe Jackson, CSNY… which the rock poets, incidentally, almost always rhyme with freak.
Most Dylan-worthy in the beautiful song “Martha’s Madman” by The Jerry Hahn Brotherhood, written by the far too unknown poet and folk musician Lane Tietgen, who only writes beautiful, quirky songs with wonderful, colourful lyrics for the underrated debut album from 1970;
He's tellin' her the world is full of freaks and geeks and simples and he's
Hiding like a leprechaun under stones and in the ripples
In the pool of time she thought she knew it, but someone threw a stone into it
Which breaks up the surface and it's makin' her nervous and it's true
What can she do
Martha yes I guess you'll have to wait around, another thousand years
Manfred Mann is a fan. On the first, untitled record of his Earth Band (1972) is his first Lane Tietgen cover, “Captain Bobby Stout”, and on his million seller Watch Manfred definitively lifts the Brotherhood out of obscurity through his brilliant interpretation of this “Martha’s Madman”. On his most Dylanesque album side, by the way; Side Two opens with Robbie Robertson’s “Davy’s On The Road Again”, number two is “Martha’s Madman” and the album side closes with a long, spun-out version of Manfred Mann’s signature song, Dylan’s “The Mighty Quinn”.
Freak and geek are words well-chosen by the poet Dylan in 1965. Freak now evolves from a reactionary swear word to a badge of pride, the setting of the song suggests a club-like lair where the in-crowd can be found, the disruptive dialogues and wild metaphors are ambiguous enough to allow the most diverse interpretations. Which is exactly what happens.
Perhaps most striking is Huey P. Newton’s open, loud declaration of love. The leader and co-founder of the Black Panthers, the militant Afro-American political organisation from California, already stands out with the photo on the front of Listen, Whitey! The Sounds Of Black Power 1967-1974 (including Dylan’s “George Jackson” on it). Newton demonstratively holds his copy of Highway 61 Revisited, and that is no coincidence. The Black Panther adores Brother Dylan, and his admiration for “Ballad Of A Thin Man” borders on worship. Co-founder and bosom friend Bobby Seale publishes his book Seize The Time in 1970, while Newton is in prison, largely based on tape recordings Seale made during visiting hours in prison. One of the chapters is called “Huey Digs Bob Dylan” and deals extensively with Huey’s fascination with the song.
Seale remembers the early days of the Party Paper of the Black Panther movement, how Newton and he spent days working on that paper in San Francisco. And always Highway 61 Revisited plays in the background.
“This record played after we stayed up laying out the paper. And it played the next night after we stayed up laying out the paper. I think it was around the third afternoon that the record was playing. We played that record over and over and over.”
Thin Man’s lyrics actually go right over Seale’s head, but fortunately Huey can explain. “Huey says that whites looked at blacks as geeks, as freaks,” and Huey can explain what the midget symbolises and what Bobby Dylan means by the geek giving Mr. Jones a naked bone. Seale is stuck on that geek, so Huey explains that part in more detail:
“He’s been in the circus all his life and he knows nothing else but circus work. But he can’t be a trapeze artist anymore because he’s been injured very badly, but he still needs to live, he needs to exist, he needs pay. So the circus feels very sorry for him and they give him a job. They give him the cruddiest kind of job because he’s not really good for anything else. They put him into a cage, then people pay a quarter to come in to see him. They put live chickens into the cage and the geek eats the chickens up while they’re still alive . . . the bones, the feathers, all. And of course he has a salary, because the audience pays a quarter to see him.
He does this because he has to. He doesn’t like eating raw meat, or feathers, but he does it to survive. But these people who are coming in to see him are coming in for entertainment, so they are the real freaks. And the geek knows this, so during his performance, he eats the raw chicken and he hands one of the members of the audience a bone, because he realizes that they are the real freaks because they get enjoyment by watching what he’s doing because he has to. So that’s what a geek and a freak is. Is that clear?”
Almost literally the same words that Brother Bobby uses a few times in 1978 to announce “Ballad Of A Thin Man”… making pretty clear what book the thief of thoughts has on his bedside table during this tour.
So then Dylan also read how Huey P. Newton continues to spread the gospel of the Thin Man. More brothers get infected. “Many times we would play that record. Brother Stokely Carmichael also liked that record.” And especially if you’re stoned or drunk, preferably under the headphones, Seare knows, it was something else!
“These brothers would get halfway high, loaded on something, and they would sit down and play this record over and over and over, especially after they began to hear Huey P. Newton interpret that record. […] Old Bobby did society a big favor when he made that particular sound.”
And should one of the brothers have any questions, he knows what to do:
“If there’s any more he made that I don’t understand, I’ll just ask Huey P. Newton to interpret them for us and maybe we can get a hell of a lot more out of brother Bobby Dylan, because old Bobby, he did a good job on that set.”
To be continued. Next up: Ballad Of Thin Man part III: A one-eyed midget down on his knees
12 years of Untold Dylan
Although no one gets paid for writing, publishing or editing Untold Dylan, it does cost us money to keep the site afloat, safe from hackers, n’er-do-wells etc. 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.
As for the writing, Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Although no one gets paid, if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
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
Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:
Because Heaven is defined in relation to Hell, and Hell in terms of Heaven, to the linguists who live down on Deconstruction Row, the two imaginary visions be an equally valid way for any artist to examine the human condition. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels may claim their version has a material base, and that the biblical version has a spiritual one, but the language used by one and all contains within it a ‘kerygmatic” mythology, a resolution of the struggle for the ‘god’ of gold when everybody eventually lives in peace and harmony with one another.
Northrop Frye, being a human creation of his position and time, dismisses Marxism out of hand because the linguist claims it has the characteristics of an ‘ideology’ as though Judeo-Christianity were not ‘dogmatic’.
Notwithstanding that Structuralist linguists contend that the spoken and written language of human beings has no relation to the the natural world around them, who among us can deny that there are both Marxist as well as biblical ‘demonic’ elements in the poem quoted below – still lingering there, however, is an imagined harmonious ‘mimetic’ existence even if it’s after physical death:
A wind blew out of a cloud by night
Chilling my Annabel Lee
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea
(Edgar Allan Poe: Annabel Lee)
In the (anti)Romantic ‘Gothic’ poem above, the author metaphorically compares a storm-cloud to the ‘devil’, a representative of supernatural evil in biblical mythology. But note that in the poem, the demon is not depicted as though from a transcendental world.
In the song lyrics below, the author metonymically substitutes a hat to represent the materialistic inclinations of most people in modern western society: a hat that’s made to look like animal skin – it’s not a halo. As well, the physical head represents the whole person; no spiritual aspect has she.
It’s a Realist song, a portrayal of mundane modern existence down here on earth:
Yes, I see you got your
Brand new leopard-skin pillbox hat
Well, you must tell me baby, how your
Head feels under something like that
(Bob Dylan: Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat)
The following song goes even further down the irony road of Realism, a particular situation on earth is black-humoredly presented as sordid and ugly rather than idealistically harmonious and beautiful as it’s said to be in heaven for those considered worthy enough to be there:
Well, I took me a woman late last night
I's three-fourth drunk, she looked all right
'Till she started peeling off her onion gook
Took off her wig, said, "How do I look?"
I's high flying, bare naked, out the window
(Bob Dylan: I Shall Be Free)
In the following song, a pair of boots represents a complete person – the abandoned guy in the story is made to feel unworthy, but he’ll settle for something material that reminds him of the imagined paradise, angel included, that might have been (could it be that he wants her to send him a pair of her sexy-looking boots?):
So take heed, take heed of the western wind
Take head of the stormy weather
And, yes, there is something you can send back to me
Spanish boots of Spanish leather
(Bob Dylan: Spanish Boots Of Spanish Leather)
There are ‘Dylanologists’ who are critical of any singer/songwriter/musician who creates a song or a record album that does not have a united theme whether it be of a blissful Heaven or of a
Kafka-like Hell. But to have a theme that hangs suspended between these two concepts is not to be tolerated. No, the two are not allowed to exist side by side; either there’s order or there’s chaos –
the sun or moon shining all the time, or else dark clouds forever raining.
12 years of Untold Dylan
Although no one gets paid for writing, publishing or editing Untold Dylan, it does cost us money to keep the site afloat, safe from hackers, n’er-do-wells etc. 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.
As for the writing, Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Although no one gets paid, if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
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
In a Rolling Stone interview in 1984 Dylan confirmed the notion that he had had a period of wanting to back off from the music scene totally at the end of the 60s, as he had done by writing just one song in 1968. He may also have had some grief from the film company for producing his commissioned work of that year, (Lay Lady Lay) too late to be included in the movie.
“I had a family, and I just wanted to see my kids.I’d also seen that I was representing all these things that I didn’t know anything about. Like I was supposed to be on acid. It was all storm-the-embassy kind of stuff—Abbie Hoffman in the streets—and they sorta figured me as the kingpin of all that. I said, ‘Wait a minute, I’m just a musician. So my songs are about this and that. So what?’ But people need a leader. People need a leader more than a leader needs people, really. I mean, anybody can step up and be a leader, if he’s got the people there that want one. I didn’t want that, though….
“I said, ‘Well, fuck it. I wish these people would just forget about me. I wanna do something they can’t possibly like, they can’t relate to. They’ll see it, and they’ll listen, and they’ll say, ‘Well, let’s get on to the next person. He ain’t sayin’ it no more. He ain’t given’ us what we want,’ you know? They’ll go on to somebody else. But the whole idea backfired. Because the album went out there, and the people said, ‘This ain’t what we want,’ and they got more resentful. And then I did this portrait for the cover. I mean, there was no title for that album. I knew somebody who had some paints and a square canvas, and I did the cover up in about five minutes. And I said, ‘Well, I’m gonna call this album Self Portrait.’
Which he did. But that didn’t totally get everything out of his system, because he carried on his one-man rebellion against the notion of change and against the idea of his own importance in the world of popular music with the next album New Morning, which spells it out in the songs written in 1970. There is no revolution, there is no fight, there is no opposition because…
Ain't no reason to go in a wagon to town
Ain't no reason to go to the fair
Ain't no reason to go up, ain't no reason to go down
Ain't no reason to go anywhere
I noted at the end of my last piece in this series that there was something extraordinary about the song “Time Passes Slowly” and I don’t think anyone has ever understood this more than Judy Collins whose wonderful singing voice was able to 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 (the section quoted above) 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.
Actually it is worth pausing for a moment and considering “Whales and Nightingales” which this recording (below) comes from as it also includes “The Patriot Game”, which many still do not realise is the melody of “With God on our side”. It’s worth a play if you can spare a few minutes. In fact so is the whole album.
But for now, do listen to this, and because I think this is so important to hear the extraordinary potential of this simple Dylan composition, and because I know that you might be very naughty and just skip this, I’ll put it at the end of my little article as well…
Dylan has here taken the classic structure of a popular song (verse, verse, middle 8, verse) and left it exactly as it has always been, and yet as still managed to make that middle 8 a total celebration of the lifestyle that Dylan describes in the other verses. The end of each verse gives a hint of this leap upwards but it is the middle 8 that fully delivers.
Ain't no reason to go in a wagon to town
Ain't no reason to go to the fair
Ain't no reason to go up, ain't no reason to go down
Ain't no reason to go anywhere
It could be argued, indeed I believe it should be argued, that Dylan has never actually said “rise up and throw off the shackles”. In “Masters of War” he simply hopes that the armament manufacturers will die – we are not encouraged to go and destroy their bomb making factories.. Just as in “Times they are a-changing” the prediction is that the times will change. There’s nothing to be done, no revolution to be fought, for the battle outside is raging all on its own, and will soon shake your windows etc, but there is nothing for you to do about it, and indeed nothing you can do about it.
Thus Dylan has not changed. There was no reason to go anywhere in the “Times they are a-changing” era, just as there is no reason to do anything now.
The problem was that most of us had not bothered to listen to the songs properly, so busy were we looking for a voice that would be our herald, standing up against the older generations and their desperate desire to keep to the old ways, the old standards, the old morality. So busy in fact that we never got around actually to listening to the lyrics when Dylan sang
And the first one now
Will later be last
because if we had we’d have realised that in 1963 Dylan was the first one – the first to bring this message to a worldwide audience – and so the time had to come when he would be last, tucked away without reference to what came after him. And now here we were seven years later, and it had happened.
Basically Bob had walked away from the fundamental misconception of his work that he is telling people what to do. And he wasn’t. He had argued with “Friends and Other Strangers,” and now in 1970 he was just himself.
And yes he had warned up – he was free to do anything he wanted to do (except die of course)…
The foreign sun, it squints upon
A bed that is never mine
As friends and other strangers
From their fates try to resign
Leaving men wholly, totally free
To do anything they wish to do but die
And there are no trials inside the Gates of Eden
And now he was there, being wholly, totally free.
This is not to say that he had changed his mind about anything, for the notion that there was nothing that could be done has been a central theme of much of Dylan’s work from the off. Man on the street, for example, written back in 1961, is not a call to end poverty nor a call to help the poor dying man, rather it is a statement that this is how the world is.
Just like one artist who paints dirty children in a 1930s urban setting, and another who creates a painting out of random colours: there is nothing within either work of art to demand action unless the artist overtly says, “Do something about it”. Otherwise it is totally up to the listener to decide, and if the listener wants to distract him/herself by arguing over the meaning of the painting, the novel, the lyrics, the sculpture etc, that is up to the audience.
Of course there are political and change orientated works of art, such as most obviously Guernica by Picasso, but even there we still have the option to act against fascism or not.
But Dylan is not Picasso. He has no great cause to push. In Ballad for a friend the friend has died – there is nothing we can do. Yes it is true that in Let me die in my footsteps Bob makes the point that he doesn’t want to hide in an air raid shelter, but he is not calling for peace between the superpowers, merely debating where he wants to be as the world ends. Oh and he really does say “I” – it is a personal statement.
In short Dylan’s songs can be seen as an endless Don’t think twice because whatever it is, it’s alright. And later even in his sadness, the most he asks for is a memento from the lady of his time spent travelling in Spain.
Throughout, when it is time to go, you just move on, so obviously, when you feel all right there ain’t no reason to go on the wagon to town. You might as well stay in the log cabin up in the hills.
Now the dominant theme here is the environment, love, being oneself, Christmas decorations… and well, just that. It is the simple world just be happy and enjoy it. OK if you don’t have enough to eat that could be difficult, but let’s not think about that for the moment…
So what have we got? A contemplation of the past and how the world works, and what’s right for you right now. Which is why I include this video above. Whatever works you, whoever you are, however long it was since your piano was tuned.
Build me a cabin in Utah
Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout
Have a bunch of kids who call me “Pa”
That must be what it’s all about
Bob didn’t particularly bother playing these songs when much later he returned to touring. Most of them (including the incomparable “Time Passes Slowly” – although this is because of the range of the melody which Judy Collins can do without any problem but which is a strain for Bob’s voice) have never been played by Bob. The ones that have are…
The Man in Me (Rural life; environment) 155 performances,
Pulling the events of this period together we can see that “Self Portrait” was recorded at various times between April 1969 and March 30, 1970, and according to reports the first recordings of songs that eventually came out on New Morning were also recorded in the final month of the Self Portrait sessions, and some that appeared on New Morning were considered for Self Portrait.
Dylan continued…
“We moved to New York. Lookin’ back, it really was a stupid thing to do. But there was a house available on MacDougal Street, and I always remembered that as a nice place. So I just bought this house, sight unseen. But it wasn’t the same when we got back. The Woodstock Nation had overtaken MacDougal Street also. There’d be crowds outside my house. And I said, ‘Well, fuck it. I wish these people would just forget about me. I wanna do something they can’t possibly like, they can’t relate to. They’ll see it, and they’ll listen, and they’ll say, ‘Well, let’s get on to the next person. He ain’t sayin’ it no more. He ain’t given’ us what we want,’ you know? They’ll go on to somebody else. But the whole idea backfired. Because the album went out there, and the people said, ‘This ain’t what we want,’ and they got more resentful. And then I did this portrait for the cover. I mean, there was no title for that album. I knew somebody who had some paints and a square canvas, and I did the cover up in about five minutes. And I said, ‘Well, I’m gonna call this album Self Portrait’.”
As musically he said
The man in me will hide sometimes to keep from bein’ seen
But that’s just because he doesn’t want to turn into some machine
Took a woman like you
To get through to the man in me
These compositions at the start of the New Morning process, circle around the link between Dylan and the poet Archibald MacLeish who was working on a musical at the time, and these early songs from this year’s collection were written for the production. The project eventually failed to materialise with Dylan’s music – however it appears from comments made elsewhere that Al Kooper felt this commission, although unfulfilled, also helped start the process of composition again for Dylan.
In the review of “The Man in Me” on this site, I said, “so he were are, rocking along and feeling content with life, just as we are with Winterlude, New Morning, and One More Weekend. The guy’s ok, the world’s ok, the woman with him is ok. He’s a solid worker, he’ll just get on with it.”
That still, years later, seems a reasonable way of summarising where all this had got to. The intensity of the musical was clearly too much, this song by song approach is much more relaxed.
Of course sometimes the relaxation was maybe a bit too relaxed, and not too many good things seem to have been said about “Three Angels”, “If Dogs Run Free”, and “Winterlude” although each, like Country Pie two years before, has its advocates.
Dylan it seems however was not convinced of what he was writing, and his muse was not at its height. When it came to the albums Dylan used pretty much all the songs he composed. How different from the sixties when so many pieces, including a fair number of masterpieces simply didn’t see the light of day.
And yet despite all the talk suggesting that the simple rural life must be what it is all about, it is clear that at this time in all aspects of his life Dylan wasn’t actually achieving that. He was singing of an ideal while having arguments with Bob Johnston and others who had worked faithfully with him in the past and were probably bemused by what Bob was up to. Yet he had tried to create a throwaway album that he didn’t want to make with John Wesley Harding, only to find everyone loved it. How could he get this audience off his back?
Reworking the album continued through summer, and Al Kooper said of the era, “When I finished that album I never wanted to speak to him again…He just changed his mind every three seconds so I just ended up doing the work of three albums…”
This is a reflection of a mind still in turmoil – David Crosby’s commentary on the events at Princeton University add to this feeling of a very angry Bob Dylan. And yet some of the songs of this year written for New Morning are remain wonderful, gentle pieces. It is as if Dylan were able (at least on occasion) to turn away from the anger, artistic disputes, annoyance with fans and people who wanted to honour him, and still produce more delicate pieces of music.
In the end however, the songs were written and New Morning generally got good reviews, and the work was to some degree an antidote to the emotions that had created the need for Self Portrait in the first place.
Not only had he written that there was no reason to go to the fair, he really was certain. There was no reason to go the fair. If he didn’t want to go, he didn’t have to go.
12 years of Untold Dylan
Although no one gets paid for writing, publishing or editing Untold Dylan, it does cost us money to keep the site afloat, safe from hackers, n’er-do-wells etc. 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.
As for the writing, Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Although no one gets paid, if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
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
Click on the ‘Play’ button above to hear the song as you read the lyrics below. If the player doesn’t start straight away, wait and then press the ‘Play’ button again, alternatively, listen to the track on Soundcloud HERE.John Wayne by ‘Les Paul’s’ (The Paul’s) from the album Scared of America – Volume Three and you can download John Wayne on iTunes HERE on Apple Music HERE on Spotify HERE on Amazon HERE on Deezer HERE.
Dylan isn’t Dylan and Wayne isn’t WayneThey got where they are by changing their namesJesus was the first Superman we know that of courseOne got cross, got nailed – the other fell off his horseA white boy’s on stage singing black boys BluesHe’s the bridge on the page making black music coolSongs of the black slaves, hollering in the fieldsLaid down in unmarked graves, never got million dollar dealsJohn Wayne, John Wayne defender of the westAll the way from Jeddah to Key WestYou’re still giving your ‘Man of peace’ talkWhile walking that legendary John Wayne walkYou’re too long in the saddleYou’re too long in the toothBeen through too many battlesListening to those Hollywood truthsA conspiracy in J.R.’s home townBrought the hopes of the western world downYou could have asked him not to paint the town redCoz you had to get rid of all those bugs in his and hers bedDylan denying he’s made a profit/prophetEveryone’s telling him to ‘stop it’If you buy souls then that’s the priceYour veins must be flowing with pure iceJohn Wayne, John Wayne why don’t you danceAnd break free of that soldiers stanceYou look so square you look so stiffJust turn your head and face the riftI e-mailed the Lord but it got leakedOn a rocking boat up on Cripple CreekThere’s a burning bush over thereOut in the woods running bearJohn Wayne, John Wayne count the notches on your gunHow many of them were your sonsYou show your strength and your powerAs you tread on the trembling flowersJohn Wayne, John Wayne no twin you stand aloneAll that grey meat’s shaking on your bonesBuddy is gone can’t spare you a dimeHis plane went down before its timeJohn Wayne, John Wayne better cover your headThe Marlboro Man’s shooting sticks of leadHe ain’t no Mason he ain’t no brideJohn Wayne do you have God on your side?
Music composed and performed by Paul Odiase BMI No. 1252265 (Switzerland)
Song lyrics by Paul Robert Thomas PRS No. 497904008 (London)
PRS Tunecode 415199GV
It’s been a while since the last episode of Play Lady Play!
For this one I thought we should turn to the Chimes Of Freedom album from 2012. There are some fascinating versions of Dylan songs on this four disc set, including versions by the likes of Johnny Cash, Pete Townsend, Beck, Jackson Browne. Indeed we have looked at some tracks from the album in previous Play Lady Play episodes (Joan Baez – Seven Curses, Diana Krall – Simple Twist Of Fate to name but two.
Now let’s take a listen to some really interesting takes. I’ve never heard anything like some of these before!
Note from Tony: the links that Aaron has provided from the USA for these incredible reworkings of Dylan’s songs unfortunately don’t appear to work in the UK. I’ve no idea if it is just the UK that has this problem, but in each case I have managed to find a version that does work in my home country.
So please don’t be put off if some of these links come up with a note saying the recording is not available in your territory. I’ve also included links that do work in the UK – and if neither Aaron’s link from the USA or mine from the UK work, then it really is worth just typing the name of the performer and title of the song into your browser, as I suspect there might be a version somewhere that works where you are.
Honestly, it really is going to be worth the effort!
Lay Lady Lay by Angelique Kidjo. She is a Benenise singer songwriter and activist
Next up, “All I Really Want To Do” by Iranian vocalist Sussan Deyhim. Again different parts of the world seem to have different versions that will play. If the video below doesn’t work for you, try this sound link– it really, really is worth it.
I Want You by Ximena Sarinana.She is a Mexican singer songwriter, and yet again copyright issues are making life difficult. Try one of these two…
Tomorrow Is A Long Time by Malaysian singer/ukulele player Zee Avi
We’ve got three more wonderful re-workings lined up for you so I really do hope you can make one of these alternatives work. If neither do, but you find another link that does work where you are, please do note it in the comments section below, including a mention of where you are on the planet, so others in your region can share these recordings.
12 years of Untold Dylan
Although no one gets paid for writing, publishing or editing Untold Dylan, it does cost us money to keep the site afloat, safe from hackers, n’er-do-wells etc. 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.
As for the writing, Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Although no one gets paid, if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
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
Russian Formalists consider that literature takes its form from the writings of Karl Marx; Northrop Frye, on the other hand, considers that western literature takes its form form the Holy Bible. Literary content reflects the material struggle of economic classes, according to Marx: and the spiritual struggle of archetypes according to Frye.
If Marx turns Georg Hegel on his head, then Frye turns him right side up again. For instance, the word “gold” means the material wealth of production for Marx; but for Frye “gold” means the spiritual wealth of love for one’s fellow man – what is considered ‘heaven’, and what is considerd ‘hell’ comes into conflict.
So expressed in the following song lyrics:
There's a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
'Cause you know sometimes
Words have two meanings ....
There's a feeling I get
When I look to the West
And my spirit is crying for leaving
In my thoughts I have seen
Rings of smoke through the trees
(Led Zeppelin: Stairway To Heaven ~ Plant/Page)
A struggle between materialism and spiritualism that’s expressed earlier in the following song:
And take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time
Far past the frozen leaves
The haunted frightened trees
Out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky
With one hand waving free
(Bob Dylan: Mr. Tambourine Man)
Akin to poets William Blake and Robert Frost, singer/songwriter Bob Dylan is a half-way man, suspended between Heaven and Hell.
So goes the story-like verse below:
Key West is the place to be
If you are looking for immortality
Stay on the road, follow the highway sign
Key West is fine and fair
If you lost your mind, you will find it there
Key West is on the horizon line
(Bob Dylan: Key West)
Northrop Frye warns of linguists who mess with signs in order to lead readers down the road to the wrong pot of “gold” hidden on ‘Deconstruction Row’.
Dylan, or at least his persona, has been there; he’s not scared:
Some of us turn off the lights, and we live
In the moonlight shooting by
Some of us scare ourselves to death in the dark
To be where the angels fly
(Bob Dylan: Red River Shore)
Greatly influenced by the following scaredy-cat poet as attested to by the narrator in the lines below:
In the autumn tint of gold
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by
From the thunder and the storm
(When the rest of heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view
(Edgar Allan Poe: Alone)
Dylan’s not frightened because the “holy trinity” is on his side – Bill Blake, Rob Frost, and Norrie Frye – they don’t like those damned Deconstuctionists:
The evening sun is sinking low
The woods are dark, the town is too
They'll drag you down, they'll run the show
Ain't no telling what they'll do
Tell Old Bill when he gets home
Anything is worth a try
Tell him that I'm not alone
That the hour has come to do or die
(Bob Dylan: Tell Old Bill)
Seems the singer/songwriter prefers the Frye pan to the not-so-Romantic po.
12 years of Untold Dylan
Although no one gets paid for writing, publishing or editing Untold Dylan, it does cost us money to keep the site afloat, safe from hackers, n’er-do-wells etc. 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.
As for the writing, Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Although no one gets paid, if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
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
Alice has barely descended into the rabbit-hole and has just had her first disruptive experiences, and she already sighs: “I am so very tired of being all alone here!”
That is not the only emotion she shares with poor Mr Jones. Like Alice, and like Kafka’s Josef K. for example, Mr Jones walks around in a world whose mores are completely incomprehensible to him. The actions of the opponents do not make any sense to; the answers to his astonished questions only add to the bewilderment;
And you say, “For what reason?”
And he says, “How?”
And you say, “What does this mean?”
The dialogue builds a setting tending towards absurdism, a setting which is often used by writers and filmmakers. Sometimes to produce a comic effect (Jacques Tati, for example), but more often to depict oppression; the viewer or reader identifies with the protagonist and sympathizes with the alienation. Apart from Alice In Wonderland and three quarters of Kafka’s oeuvre, we also know it from films such as Antonioni’s Red Desert (1964) and Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936) and, well, even Karl Marx analyses the phenomenon of alienation as an artist’s trap in Das Kapital (1867).
This won’t be the last time Dylan makes use of it either; in half of the songs he writes for John Wesley Harding, two years later, a protagonist is lost in another reality with irrational opponents (“Drifter’s Escape”, especially, but also in “The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest”, “All Along The Watchtower” and “As I Went Out One Morning”). Before that, in the Basement, alienation as a motif of a song does pop up a couple of times, too. “Lo And Behold” has similar disruptive dialogues as Mr. Jones;
“What’s the matter, Molly, dear
What’s the matter with your mound?”
“What’s it to ya, Moby Dick?
This is chicken town!”
… as “Please Mrs. Henry” gives similar, disruptive props a quasi-significant symbolism (“I’v been sniffin’ too many eggs”), and as “Quinn The Eskimo” describes similar, disruptive action scenes (“feeding pigeons on a limb”). And of course: “Million Dollar Bash”, the irresistible party song in which Thin Man Mr. Jones has a supporting role:
Then along came Jones
Emptied the trash
Ev’rybody went down
To that million dollar bash
The suspicion that this is the same Mr Jones seems obvious given the source. It is true that “Jones” is not only a very common name in everyday life, but also a popular name in songs. “Casey Jones”, Cab Calloways “Hi-De-Ho” (“Brother Jones lived in sin / He couldn’t stop drinking gin”), the protagonist of Woody Guthrie’s “I Ride An Old Paint” is called Bill Jones, not to mention “Have You Met Miss Jones?”, and so on… the list is endless. But in “Million Dollar Bash” Dylan literally refers to the old novelty-hit of The Coasters, the Leiber & Stoller written “Along Came Jones”. And only in that particular Coasters hit is a physical aspect of the main character described:
And then along came Jones
Tall thin Jones
Slow-walkin' Jones
Slow-talkin' Jones
Along came long, lean, lanky Jones
…of all those Joneses, this is the only one who is also thin… “Along Came Jones” is indeed a Ballad Of A Thin Man.
Anyway, alienation. “Ballad Of A Thin Man” is Dylan’s first exploration of this constellation, but right away in a variant that is quite unique; unlike Lewis Carroll and Franz Kafka, and unlike Dylan’s later “alienation songs”, the omniscient narrator here is part of the opposition:
Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?
The all-knowing storyteller apparently not only knows that “something is happening”, he also suggests that he knows what “is happening”, and worse still, he mocks the helpless Mr Jones for his non-understanding.
It is a remarkable storyteller’s point of view. Kafka’s narrator always remains at a neutral, reporting distance. The raconteur of Alice In Wonderland is on the side of his protagonist, and shares – with the reader – the amazement at the irrational actions, nonsensical dialogues and absurd plot twists. And otherwise at least the audience is aware of what “is happening”; characters like Mr. Bean or monsieur Hulot also walk around like a baffled Mr. Jones, but the audience still does understand what is happening.
This narrator’s position makes “Ballad Of A Thin Man” quite unique. At Kafka, or in stories in which an earthly visitor tries to understand the mores of an extra-terrestrial civilization (Avatar, Planet Of The Apes, The Hitchhiker’s Guide), the storyteller is not the opponent of the reader or viewer. With Dylan he is. The listener has no idea what is happening either, finds it as strange and disruptive as Mr. Jones, but is not initiated by the omniscient narrator.
Both the choice of perspective and the narrator’s meanness tempt to draw a biographical line. At a young age, Dylan often barks at poets such as T.S. Eliot, and in 1978 he expresses this – mainly acted – aversion a little more specifically, explaining his already incomprehensible film Renaldo & Clara:
“Unlike trying to understand Ezra Pound or T.S. Eliot we don’t assume that we know something that you don’t know. We’re not trying to be aloof in the way that I think Pound is.”
… which describes fairly accurately what the narrator of “Ballad Of A Thin Man” does; assuming he knows something that you don’t know – and “aloof” is also a striking characterisation of this narrator. The context, reviling Eliot and Pound, suggests that the identity of Mr. Jones may also be sought in literary circles. The opening lines support this suggestion:
You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
… the first attribute characterising the man is “a pencil”. The rest of the lyrics confirm that Mr Jones is a civilized, cultured man;
You’ve been with the professors
And they’ve all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have
Discussed lepers and crooks
You’ve been through all of
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books
You’re very well read
It’s well known
Furthermore, he is not impecunious (he is expected to donate generously to charity organisations), he is on friendly terms with “lumberjacks” and apparently he has imagination, hardly a reprehensible quality either – although he is attacked exactly thereon – all being hints that Mr. Jones is an arrived, successful poet. Still leaving open what those “lumberjacks” symbolise, though. Admiring reviewers perhaps, or maybe lectors.
In any case, the narrator’s intention, to ridicule Mr Jones, fails. The sympathy of the listener tends towards him, towards the poor dude who really tries to be polite and make heads or tails out of the absurdities he is confronted with. His opponents on the other hand, the geek, the midget, the sword swallower and the narrator, are all rude (“how does it feel to be such a freak?”), insulting (“you’re a cow”) and far from helpful. Petty vindictiveness seems to be an obvious explanation; the antagonists are treated “outside”, in Mr Jones’ world, as they now treat Mr Jones, as some sort of retaliation. Disrespectful, vicious and as if he were the freak.
Dylan’s own explanation of the song, as an announcement at concerts in 1978, does point in that direction as well:
“You know of the carnivals they used to have in the 50’s? You know, the ones that had geeks in them? You know what a geek is? You know what a geek is? A geek’s a man who eats a live chicken. He bites the head off, eats that. Then he eats the rest of it, heart, drinks up all the blood, sweeps up all the feathers with a broom. Anyway, in this particular carnival nobody much did want to get too tight with the geek. Even the low down people did not want to get too near the geek. One day I was having breakfast with the bearded lady, she was telling me this geek was really funky. He thinks everyone else is a little strange, he’s the only one that’s sane. And he thinks everybody else is freaky. I said “uh-hu”. Anyway, years later I was in Nashville, I think it was 1964, walking down the street with Al Kooper. Playing organ for me at the time. And we were walking down the street. We had long hair. In these days nobody in Nashville had long hair. Not Willie Nelson, not Waylon Jennings. Nobody. Anyway, we were walking down the street, buses would stop. Just because we had long hair. Anyway, somewheres along the line I put it all into this particular song.”
…rather prosaic, all in all.
Still, that doesn’t bother fans and Dylanologists, to have their own go at the lyrics – there are many who think to know what is happening.
Richard Hawley – Ballad Of A Thin Man:
This is another piece that has not available in all countries. Hopefully one of these two sources will work for you.
https://youtu.be/5ST88Ia1Utc
To be continued. Next up: Ballad Of Thin Man part II: Freaks and geeks and simples
———–
Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:
Although no one gets paid for writing, publishing or editing Untold Dylan, it does cost us money to keep the site afloat, safe from hackers, n’er-do-wells etc. 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.
As for the writing, Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Although no one gets paid, if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
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 was first supposed to have a Japanese Tour in April, from April 1 to April 24. It was cancelled. Then, there was an American Summer Tour announced from June 4 to July 12. Also cancelled.
But…
What if the pandemic had actually started after July 12, for example in late July/early August, just so Bob could do his tours?
Let’s imagine that. And let’s also imagine the singles coming out in the same dates along with the album.
Here we go.
March 27, 2020
Bob releases Murder Most Foul, first original song in 8 years, briefly before the tour.
April 1, 2020
Tokyo, Japan: Zepp DiverCity
https://youtu.be/QA5NrtITOck
Things Have Changed (Bob on guitar)
It Ain’t Me, Babe
Highway 61 Revisited
Simple Twist Of Fate
Can’t Wait
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Honest With Me
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Make You Feel My Love
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Girl From The North Country
Not Dark Yet
Thunder On The Mountain
Soon After Midnight (following band intros)
Gotta Serve Somebody
Man Of Peace (Bob on guitar) (first performance since 2000)
Encore
Ballad Of A Thin Man (Bob on guitar)
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
April 2, 2020: Tokyo, Japan: Zepp DiverCity
Things Have Changed (Bob on guitar)
It Ain’t Me, Babe
Highway 61 Revisited
Simple Twist Of Fate
Can’t Wait
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Honest With Me
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Make You Feel My Love
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Girl From The North Country
Not Dark Yet
Thunder On The Mountain
Soon After Midnight
Gotta Serve Somebody
Encore
Ballad Of A Thin Man (Bob on guitar)
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
April 4, 2020: Tokyo, Japan: Zepp DiverCity
https://youtu.be/nfY5kesNxsc
Things Have Changed (Bob on guitar)
It Ain’t Me, Babe
Highway 61 Revisited
Simple Twist Of Fate
Can’t Wait
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Honest With Me
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Make You Feel My Love
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Girl From The North Country
Not Dark Yet
Thunder On The Mountain
Just Like A Woman (Bob on piano, then guitar) (first performance since 2010)
Gotta Serve Somebody
Encore
Ballad Of A Thin Man (Bob on guitar)
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
April 5, 2020: Tokyo, Japan: Zepp DiverCity
Things Have Changed (Bob on guitar)
It Ain’t Me Babe
Ballad Of A Thin Man (Bob on guitar then piano)
Simple Twist Of Fate
Can’t Wait
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Honest With Me
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Make You Feel My Love
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Girl From The North Country
Not Dark Yet
Thunder On The Mountain
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Encore
Murder Most Foul (live debut)
April 6, 2020: Tokyo, Japan: Zepp DiverCity
Ballad Of A Thin Man
It Ain’t Me, Babe
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
Simple Twist Of Fate
Can’t Wait
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Honest With Me
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Make You Feel My Love
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Girl From The North Country
Not Dark Yet
Thunder On The Mountain
Spirit On The Water (tour debut, first performance since 2018)
Gotta Serve Somebody
Encore
Murder Most Foul
April 8, 2020: Osaka, Japan: Zepp Namba
Things Have Changed (Bob on guitar)
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Can’t Wait
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
Honest With Me
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Girl From The North Country
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman (Bob on guitar)
Gotta Serve Somebody
Encore
Murder Most Foul
April 9, 2020: Osaka, Japan: Zepp Namba
Things Have Changed (Bob on guitar)
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Can’t Wait
Just Like A Woman
Honest With Me
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Girl From The North Country
Not Dark Yet
Soon After Midnight
Gotta Serve Somebody
Encore
Murder Most Foul
April 10, 2020: Osaka, Japan: Zepp Namba
https://youtu.be/12ewncLKo1A
Things Have Changed (Bob on guitar)
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Man Of Peace (Bob on guitar)
Can’t Wait
Just Like A Woman (Bob on guitar)
Honest With Me
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Girl From The North Country
Not Dark Yet
Soon After Midnight
Gotta Serve Somebody
Encore
Murder Most Foul
April 14, 2020: Tokyo, Japan: Zepp Tokyo
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (Bob on guitar) (first singing version since 2014, previously played as an instrumental show closer without Bob in 2019)
Girl From The North Country
Like A Rolling Stone (tour debut)
Things Have Changed
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Honest With Me
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Man Of Peace
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
No Time To Think (live debut)
Encore
Long And Wasted Years (tour debut)
Ballad Of A Thin Man
April 15, 2020: Tokyo, Japan: Zepp Tokyo
With God On Our Side (Bob on guitar) (first performance since 1995)
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
Girl From The North Country
Things Have Changed
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Lonesome Day Blues (first performance since 2017)
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Encore
Long And Wasted Years
Ballad Of A Thin Man
April 17, 2020
Bob releases second single “I Contain Multitudes”, making it the second unreleased song to be released out of the blue. Speculations about the new album begin.
April 17, 2020: Tokyo, Japan: Zepp DiverCity
Things Have Changed (Bob on guitar)
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (Bob on guitar)
With God On Our Side (Bob on guitar)
Lonesome Day Blues
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Girl From The North Country
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Pay In Blood
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Encore
Long And Wasted Years
Ballad Of A Thin Man
April 19, 2020: Tokyo, Japan: Zepp DiverCity
https://youtu.be/-S9DD6qhTMk
Things Have Changed
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
Girl From The North Country
Lonesome Day Blues
With God On Our Side
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Man Of Peace
Lenny Bruce
Early Roman Kings
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Encore
Long And Wasted Years
Ballad Of A Thin Man
April 20, 2020: Tokyo, Japan: Zepp DiverCity
Things Have Changed
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Girl From The North Country
Lonesome Day Blues
With God On Our Side
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Man Of Peace
I Contain Multitudes (live debut) (Bob introduced it with “this is a new song”!)
Early Roman Kings
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Encore
Soon After Midnight
Billy 4 (instrumental) (first performance since 2009, second performance overall) (Bob on guitar then piano)
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (instrumental without Bob)
April 21, 2020: Tokyo, Japan: Zepp DiverCity
Things Have Changed
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Girl From The North Country
Lonesome Day Blues
With God On Our Side
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Man Of Peace
I Contain Multitudes
Early Roman Kings
Not Dark Yet
Soon After Midnight
Gotta Serve Somebody
Encore
Just Like A Woman
Billy 4 (Bob on guitar, singing version, new lyrics)
April 24, 2020: Tokyo, Japan: Zepp DiverCity
Ballad Of A Thin Man (Bob on guitar)
I Contain Multitudes
Lonesome Day Blues
Billy 4 (Bob on guitar)
With God On Our Side
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Man Of Peace
Girl From The North Country
Early Roman Kings
Not Dark Yet
Just Like A Woman
Gotta Serve Somebody
Long And Wasted Years
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (instrumental with Bob on guitar)
Encore
Murder Most Foul
https://youtu.be/l1sdLYUyJmk
12 years of Untold Dylan
Although no one gets paid for writing, publishing or editing Untold Dylan, it does cost us money to keep the site afloat, safe from hackers, n’er-do-wells etc. 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.
As for the writing, Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Although no one gets paid, if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
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
We’ve covered quite a few songs that Dylan has only performed once on stage, and I am getting to the end of my list. Not the end of the list of songs that Bob only performed once, but songs in this category for which I can find a decent recording, and (I must admit) where I feel we can take something from the performance.
But if you know of any songs that Dylan has only performed once or twice that we haven’t covered and for which there is a decent recording available, and which you think it is worth bringing to everyone’s attention, please do get in touch. The email address is at the end.
Dolly Dagger got its only run through from Dylan on 18 March 1992, at the Perth Entertainment Centre.
It is a Hendrix song, that was played in the 1970 tour and at the Isle of Wight Festival, but was not released as a record until after his death, on the album Rainbow Bridge and as a single, it thus being the last Hendrix to make the charts.
The general view is that this is about Hendrix’ girlfriend who was also having a relationship with Mick Jagger.
Here’s the Hendrix version; the feel is completely different. For once I am not at all sure that Bob adds anything; the accompaniment to the Hendrix version really does make the song stand out. And the guitar solo is for me pure Hendrix. I do hope you have a moment to listen to this.
G Thang
OK this is where I, as an Englishman of a certain age, run into difficulty, because I am not familiar with American slang. I have seen it described as meaning “good thing” but also seen it mentioned in connection with Aristotle which is, to say the least, unlikely.
We also might recall that Bob played “B-Thang” one night in 1989 so this comes from the same genre. The recording comes from Park West, Park City, UT on 1 September 1989.
https://youtu.be/HvA28AwIhqU
Million Dollar Bash
At least the provenance of this song is clear – we know Dylan wrote it and we know the only performance was at the Carling Academy, Brixton, on 21 November 2005.
Jochen reminded us in his review of this song that Fairport Convention recorded this, so I can’t let the opportunity pass…
And now we approach the end.
Lady of Carlisle
This is a traditional Cumbrian song which for reasons unknown Bob decided to play at the State Theatre, Sydney on 14 April 1992.
https://youtu.be/i5grYtLP3tQ
I think though I really have to end with Robert Tincher’s version of this traditional song. Please don’t stop because this is not Dylan – this rendition below helps us understand exactly where Bob was coming from. And it is an absolutely stunning performance.
If you go to http://roberttincher.reverbnation.com/ you will find some more beautiful performances from Robert. So this seems a most worthy place to finish, for it is quality performers such as Robert Tincher that have, over the years, kept the traditioinal music alive. And without hearing this music in his early days Bob would have taken a very different, and I suspect far less interesting, route.
If you have been, thanks for reading. If you have an idea for another series we could try, or indeed if you would like to write something for Untold Dylan, please do get in touch.
And of course all the other regular series are continuing.
Although no one gets paid for writing, publishing or editing Untold Dylan, it does cost us money to keep the site afloat, safe from hackers, n’er-do-wells etc. 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.
As for the writing, Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Although no one gets paid, if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
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
In the previous articles I have been looking at the meanings of the songs on John Wesley Harding. Of the remaining songs in JWH that I’ve not mentioned, four follow the patterns of what has gone before: I am a lonesome hobo concerns individuality, I pity the poor immigrant (in which the immigrant is given a Kafka treatment, lost in an unknown land), The Wicked Messenger (another absolutely Kafkaesque story), and Dear Landlord (a stream of thoughts piece, following the invention of the title).
And then… the most extraordinary thing happens. Everything changes. The arrangements change. The feelings change. Just when we had got used to the short songs with incredibly complex or contradictory, challenging meanings, we have two final songs which don’t feel in the slightest as if they belong here. Two love songs with a country feel, in fact.
It is a bit like having a 12 page wall calendar wherein January to October are each accompanied by a contemporary abstract masterpiece, and then November and December have traditional Christmas scenes of snow, reindeer and Santa Claus. There’s nothing wrong with snow, reindeer and Santa Claus, but what exactly is their connection with the rest of the calendar? It feels as if there should be a connection for the sake of unity. But there is none.
These two final songs were written after everything else – possibly at the recording studio, and were recorded there and then. Had Bob perhaps not realised that he actually didn’t have enough minutes in the songs that followed the JWH style for a complete LP, and thus was suddenly caught out? Was he just being deliberately odd having said that he didn’t want to make an album at that time?
Obviously we can’t know, but it is as if one was reading a novel where all sorts of strange unfathomable things happen within a world that doesn’t make any sense at all, and then suddenly the hero opens the front door and steps out into our normal world on a bright and shiny day where there is nothing untoward, no reference is made to the “other world” and that’s it. The strange world he has been in is still there, but to go to it again he’d have to open the door once more. But he doesn’t. He knows it is there, and that’s enough. We can go back if we wish; he doesn’t want to.
Of course one can argue that these last two songs introduced without any explanation whatsoever are indeed Kafkaesque when taken within the context of everything that has gone before. For within that context of the LP as a whole they are simply weird. Imagine a movie in which the Drifter escapes, people walk along the watchtower, etc etc, and then suddenly the film cuts to a beach party, and a couple cuddling up in front of the fire. What do you make of that? True, “I’ll be your baby” is a beautiful simple ballad with the twist that he is singing about a one night stand in the way that most performers sing about eternal love. But “Down along the cove” is an absolutely basic 12 bar blues, which is about being on the beach and not much else. A perfectly ok song, but in this context…
Just take a fresh look at the lyrics along the cove…
Down along the cove
I spied my true love comin’ my way
Down along the cove
I spied my true love comin’ my way
I say, “Lord, have mercy, mama
It sure is good to see you comin’ today"
Down along the cove
I spied my little bundle of joy
Down along the cove
I spied my little bundle of joy
She said, “Lord, have mercy, honey
I’m so glad you’re my boy!”
Down along the cove
We walked together hand in hand
Down along the cove
We walked together hand in hand.
Ev’rybody watchin’ us go by
Knows we’re in love, yes, and they understand
Indeed I would venture that if that had been an early Dylan song, he might never have got the record contract.
It is interesting to try and get a further perspective of what is going on here by considering just how often Dylan has performed the songs from John Wesley Harding, and indeed the time period over which he performed them. In doing this we must note the special position of “All Along the Watchtower” because of the popularity gained from the Hendrix recording, and Bob Dylan’s feeling for that re-working – which he subsequently adopted, noting as he did that the original version of a song is not always the best. Indeed for many, many years it was a fixed part of every Dylan encore.
But perhaps the weirdest fact in all this is that Dylan never once performed the title song from the album. Not once! The only other song that got the same treatment is “Lonesome Hobo. On the other hand, “I’ll be your baby”, one of the two songs out of step with the rest of the album has only been outperformed by the special case of the Watchtower.
In other words the two songs from the album most performed live by Dylan are the song that was utterly re-arranged by Hendrix, and the first of two songs that has no connection with the rest of the album.
I suspect the explanation is simple: Dylan simply didn’t have enough of the songs he had written in advance, to fill up the album and had to add two more. But put this together with the fact that the title song has never been performed, and it is all rather… well, I guess the only word I have to offer is “Kafkaesque”.
Here’s the chart of performances of the songs from the album
Song
First Performance
Last Performance
Total performances
Frankie Lee
1987
2000
20
Drifter’s Escape
1992
2005
256
St Augustine
1987
2000
20
All along the watch tower
1974
2018
2268
John Wesley Harding
As I went out one morning
1974
1
I am a lonesome hobo
I pity the poor immigrant
1969
1976
17
Wicked Messenger
1987
2009
125
Dear Landlord
1992
2003
6
I’ll be your baby tonight
1969
2015
444
Down along the cove
1999
2006
83
And a reminder of just how beautiful “I’ll be your baby tonight” is.
And here by contrast is Down along the cove…
And that was it. Dylan was seen the following year when he performed three songs at the Woody Guthrie memorial concert on 20 January 1968, but otherwise he shut down.
Which is odd really, because 1968 was the time of social uprising when, if Dylan retained any of the thoughts that were expressed in his protest songs, was when we might have expected him to be writing on the subject of the day. The civil rights movement, the assassination of Martin Luther King, the uprising in Northern Ireland, the intensification of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, the anti-war movement, unrest in Poland, the women’s liberation movement…
And Dylan…
… took a year out.
Although he did write one song. It was meant to be for a movie but even that song was delivered too late, so couldn’t be used. It was “Lay Lady Lay”.
It is a curious song, in which the key line is (at least in my opinion), “Whatever colors you have in your mind I’ll show them to you and you’ll see them shine.”
Dylan seems to say, “I can make you see whatever is inside you,” which is a trifle spooky and … (well I dare not say Kafkaesque since I am liable to be shouted out) odd. And besides, “Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile,” is said with warmth and affection, as is the thought that you can have anything in the world that you want.
It is, to my mind, a lovely song, and enhanced by the fact that musically it is so very unusual, both in the lyrics and the chord sequence that may even be unique in terms of popular music.
Thus this was in no ways “more of the same” in terms of Dylan, although when Dylan returned to songwriting the following year, we had a return to the old favourites of love and lost love. “Moving on” was not there at all, (if we exclude “Wanted Man” which was written specifically for use by Johnny Cash – and indeed some have even suggested this was a joint composition, so we’ll set that one aside.)
Of course we might also say the “Ballad of Easy Rider” is outside these love related categories too but the credit there says “with input from Bob Dylan”, so he’s not really credited as a co-writer.
And whereas with the John Wesley Harding songs Dylan wrote specifically and precisely for the album, staying in the same style until he found he was two songs short, now we have a return to exploration and experimentation.
Some of the songs that emerged at this time have only become known to us through the Bootleg series (songs such as “Minstrel Boy”) but for the most part this is a reinvented Dylan.
I threw it all away for example is musically very inventive, delicate and very well-performed. It is Dylan doing lost love to perfection, and the song began a series of six love and lost love songs, ending with Peggy Day – which I described as trivial in my review and coming back to it, I find myself still with that view. I mean, what else is one to make of lyrics such as
Peggy Day stole my poor heart away
By golly, what more can I say
Love to spend the night with Peggy Day
Dylan is of course fully entitled to do anything he likes, but for me this seems such a waste of such a sublime and supreme talent that gives him the ability to go so much further. But I guess Dylan wanted simplicity more than anything at this point; and simplicity was what he achieved in writing
All I have is yours
All you see is mine
And I’m glad to hold you in my arms
I’d have you anytime.
In essence it seems like Bob was deliberately trying to set his inner talent and ability to play with words aside. Consider these opening lines…
I have heard rumors all over town
They say that you're planning to put me down
OK, once again it is a fine song in the “pop” style, but it does not reach to the stratosphere in the way that many of previous Dylan songs did. In fact it doesn’t do much more than bump along the runway, take off, do one circuit of the aerodrome, and then come in to land.
My take on this is that Bob had shown us that he could write interesting melodies, and (as in this case) stick an extra beat or bar in the music just to catch us out, but the incredible excitement that arose from some of the songs on JWH is simply not there. They are fine songs, elegantly performed but…
… But of course it was still Dylan, and he could still knock out songs that have that extra something as when he took the 1954 classic “Singing the blues” and turned it into something else.
Dylan performed the song on the Johnny Cash show in June 1969 – although it looks very much like he was miming to a recording made a little time before in the studio. This is a slightly different version from the Self Portrait album version.
Since you’ve been gone
I’ve been walking around
With my head bowed down to my shoes
I’ve been living the blues
Ev’ry night without you
It is a most curious experiment, including in terms of the chord sequence, and not one that I have ever heard tried in any other song. Indeed I think one might also say that this isn’t tried elsewhere because… well, musically it just doesn’t quite work.
But the whole song is lilting. Yes it has the lyrical theme of the blues – the woman has gone – but there is no escaping that it is the blues 1950s pop and country style. And more to the point, there’s not a single element of Dylan’s early folk roots in this at all either in the lyrics or the melody or the chords. And then suddenly we get this strange set of chord changes. It really seems to disrupt the whole piece for no reason, other than to say, “I can still be different if I want.”
So yes, for me it is an experiment. It didn’t quite work, but it is still for the most part a lovely piece of music. It was, it seems, intended as a single, but was then dropped for “Lay Lady Lay”, but was preserved on Self Portrait.
And there is the last verse:
If you see me this way
You’d come back and you’d stay
Oh, how could you refuse
I’ve been living the blues
Ev'ry night without you
If I was moved to start believing that Dylan was writing in code (which if you have read the earlier parts of the series you will know I am not) or sending messages to friends and/or family I’d say that might be autobiographical.
It is a perfectly decent song, although that last part of the middle 8 is, for me at least, a trifle annoying. But still…
But still what I do think this and other songs from around this time say is, Dylan was working, and then working some more, to reinvent himself, and he wasn’t as yet moved to travel in any particular direction. He had become a crooner of love and lost love songs with simple poppy backing tracks. And he wanted to show us he could sing – which he most certainly could.
So, to fit this mould, what he wanted was simple songs about everyday life, not mystical songs about “The Drifter” and a watchtower.
A perfectly reasonable desire, and the only problem is that country music, in terms of lyrics and music, is more limited than the sort of music Dylan had been composing in the earlier days. How could he combine the extra elements that he had incorporated earlier, without going fully overboard, and while retaining some of the extra lyricism of the country music he had found?
Of course we had “Self Portrait” – Dylan’s working and re-working of traditional and more recent folk songs, plus a few of his own compositions. But it felt like he was letting us see his scrap book rather than telling us anything new.
Indeed the very opening of that album puts us fans firmly in our places. It opens, if you recall, with “All the tired horses” – a new Dylan song!!! And what do we get. It’s a new Dylan album with a new Dylan song and Dylan can’t be heard.
As for the lyrics
All the tired horses in the sun
How'm I supposed to get any riding done?
for 3 minutes and 14 seconds.
It was interesting, but not the same as having a “real” Dylan album – an album of new songs from the master songwriter of the late 20th century, travelling, as he had done on each album before, in a new direction. Or better still, lots of new directions.
Would he write some more? Would he let us have something really new and different? Would he take off one more time and travel in a way that we never expected? Or was that it? Farewell Bob…
And this, indeed, is the moment when, I think, Bob did find his new direction. Beyond the simplicity of (and thus restrictions of) country music, but without returning to the randomness of Kafka or the shadow world of Louise and her bedsit or the anger of “Rolling Stone” or the horror of “Hollis Brown”.
But we still get visions. It is just they are visions of a different sort. No watchtower, no princes, just mountain dwellers…
Time passes slowly up here in the mountains
We sit beside bridges and walk beside fountains
Catch the wild fishes that float through the stream
Time passes slowly when you’re lost in a dream
Once I had a sweetheart, she was fine and good-lookin’
We sat in her kitchen while her mama was cookin’
Stared out the window to the stars high above
Time passes slowly when you’re searchin’ for love
Ain’t no reason to go in a wagon to town
Ain’t no reason to go to the fair
Ain’t no reason to go up, ain’t no reason to go down
Ain’t no reason to go anywhere
Time passes slowly up here in the daylight
We stare straight ahead and try so hard to stay right
Like the red rose of summer that blooms in the day
Time passes slowly and fades away
The format of the lyrics is classic pop: verse, verse, “middle 8”, verse, and there is an edge to the lyrics which take them away from the country songs into a different view of life. A thought perhaps that if we find the right environment we might find happiness and stay there.
But… there is a trap. For if there “Ain’t no reason to go anywhere” there maybe ain’t no reason to do anything. This might be an idyll up in the mountains, but then what? “You got something to tell us Bob? Some insight? Some dreadful social injustice to expose?”
“Errr… no.”
But… that middle 8 is, in musical terms, utterly remarkable. It leaps away from the rest of the song, in a way that means the music contradicts the lyrics. The lyrics say, “do nothing, there’s no reason to do anything” but the music says, “oh yes there is, oh there most certainly is.” It leaps about, it is vibrant, it is exciting, it is new, it says, “Oh have I got something new waiting for you…”
I am sorry if that last paragraph sounds like garbage; I am still trying to think how to express myself more clearly. But that “Ain’t no reason to go” section screams out to me, “there is far more to this than I am telling you”, and in fact that is what New Morning ultimately says.
And in that one moment we had hope that the old, brilliant, wonderful, crazy Bob was still there, and Self Portrait was not a desperate end to a staggering career.
The series continues….
12 years of Untold Dylan
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In his book, “The Great Code”, Canadian Northrop Frye examines the writings of the Bible from a literary point of view; its language he considers in and of itself, and discovers that an unrecognized unity lies within this holy book – though language itself has developed in accordance with three supposed cyclical stages of history:
1: mimetic/harmonic – human existence is magically in tune with what is natural; there are no written references as to anything being good or bad.
2: metaphoric/comparative – human existence is semi-detached from what is natural; that which is considered ‘good’, and what is ‘bad’ is put down in writing.
3: metonymic/associative – human existence becomes alienated from the biblical point of view – life is depicted as demonic, and ironic; it’s full of sorrow, a ‘downer’; moreover, writing itself, ‘the Word’, shatters to pieces.
In “The Great Code”, Northrop Frye presents basically a Romantic vision that seeks a return to the biblical outlook that’s akin to what Ginsberg calls ‘Blakean-light’ mythology.
Upon the waves of Frye’s Jungian Sea, singer/songwriter/musician Bob Dylan launches his Titanic ship of fools laden with poetic lyrics which are accompanied by various types of folk, country, blues, rap, jazz, and rocknroll music – listeners thereto, being passengers on board, choose for themseves which side they are on – even if it’s the written lyrics thereof upon which they focus.
The song lyrics below lean towards the mimetic/harmonic point of view:
Take me on a trip
Upon your magic swirling ship
My senses have been stripped ....
Cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it
(Bob Dylan: Mr. Tambourine Man)
The following lyrics lean more toward the metonymic/associative point of view:
Little Richard in a two-storey house
Hey Little Richard, poor Little Richard
Little Richard's gonna climb on out
Hey Little Richard, poor little Richard
Little Richard's gonna climb with me
Hey Little Richard, poor little Richard
Little Richard is fine with me
(Bob Dylan: Hey Little Richard)
The song lyrics below more so:
"Daddy can you hear the angel talk?"
One more year of lollipops, ice-cream cones, and soda pop
One more year of cracker jacks, bubble gum, and sugar smacks
One more year of Daddy's little girl
(Bob Dylan: Daddy's Little Girl ~ Hazel Smith)
Harking back to the country song below:
He spoke of his angel, a dear little girl
He loved every footstep, he loved every curl
But she went to Heaven, just one year ago
The angels came for her, at the first fall of snow
(Molly O'Day: At the First Fall Of Snow ~ Lorene Rose)
The three language phases overlap; the following song lends itself to a metaphoric/comparative point of view – the narrator therein apparently stays away a little too long from his girlfriend who’s not with him in Mississippi:
Well I got here following the southern star
I crossed that river just to be where you are
Only thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long
(Bob Dylan: Mississippi)
There’s a hidden comparative unity that can be perceived in the earlier song below in which the narrator thereof gets killed by a falling tree before he has a chance to return home to his gal (in the Bible, Moses dies before he makes it to the Promised Land):
Little Rosie, your hair grow long
'Cause I'm going to see your daddy when I get home
There ain't but one thing that I done wrong
I stayed in Mississippi just a day too long
(Rosie:~ traditional)
In the song lyrics given beneath, there’s a mirror image mythology – the narrator’s gal tells him to go home, that he shouldn’t be where he does not belong:
Well, I sat down by her side, and for a while I tried
To make that girl my wife
She gave me her best advice, and she said
"Go home, and lead a quiet life"
Well, I been to the East, and I been to the West
And I been out where the black winds roar
Somehow though, I never did get that far
With the girl from the Red River Shore
(Bob Dylan: Red River Shore)
And there be those among us who dare say that Bob Dylan’s song lyrics make no sense!
12 years of Untold Dylan
Although no one gets paid for writing, publishing or editing Untold Dylan, it does cost us money to keep the site afloat, safe from hackers, n’er-do-wells etc. 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.
As for the writing, Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Although no one gets paid, if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
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
Just as the lyrics did not come out of a magical Nothing, the music did not come out of thin air either. Quite on the contrary even: blood, sweat and tears.
The success of the album Oh Mercy is of course mainly due to the many beautiful songs, but a not unimportant part of the glory may also go to master producer Daniel Lanois, who has put a lot of love into “Most Of The Time”, too. More than Dylan, anyway. The bard effortlessly acknowledges this in his autobiography Chronicles, and at the same time we regain insight into the almost mystical respect that the man has for The Song – regardless of whether it is someone else’s or his own song.
“It didn’t have a melody,” Dylan writes, and “I never did come up with any definite melody, only generic chords, but Dan thought he heard something.” He then describes how he allows Lanois to have his way with the song, who then turns it into a slow, melancholic song. Hours later Dylan sees: “We worked it to a standstill. Dan would have to be a shaman to make this work. The song, which seemed unfinished to begin with, had just become more unfinished as we rolled on. […]. The lyrics were so full of cloudy meaning and there was nothing in the song that was transforming itself.” Discouraged, Dylan drops out. “I didn’t need this. It’s not like I despised the song, I just didn’t have the will to work on it.”
Dylan’s self-analysis is stuck in incomprehension and despondency, but it is not that complex to trace the source of Dylan’s unease. Actually, the autobiographer himself already gives the explanation, the paragraph before, when he introduces his recollections with regard to the recording of “Most Of The Time”:
“It seemed to have more to do about time itself than it did with me. I felt that the sound of a clock like Big Ben should be ticking right through the tune at various levels. A big-band treatment would have been okay, too. In my mind I was beginning to hear me singing the song with the Johnny Otis Orchestra.”
…so apparently he already has an atmosphere, and probably a hint of a melody, in mind – and that clashes with what Lanois is now making of it.
Dylan’s feeling is hard to follow, though. The Johnny Otis Orchestra? The Godfather Of Rhythm and Blues (or blues and rhythm, as Otis himself says) with this lyrics? “Most of the time / I’m clear focused all around” is hard to imagine laid down on a bed à la “Harlem Nocturne”, “Cupid Boogie” or “Rockin’ Blues.” Let alone on “Willie And The Hand Jive”.
No, Dylan probably thinks of Johnny Otis’ version of “Stardust” via the Hoagy Carmichael detour, of Johnny Otis as the accompanist of Little Esther, with slow, melancholic songs like “Lost In A Dream” and “Double Crossing Blues” – or “Far Away Christmas Blues”, the soaring Christmas blues he plays in Episode 34 (“Christmas & New Year’s”) of his radio show.
Songs, anyway, where Johnny Otis indeed does sound more like a big-band. With a sound and a colour coming close to Sinatra’s Wee Small Hours, or rather: close to the Nelson Riddle Orchestra. Which is also the orchestra that, arguably, produces the most beautiful versions of “I Get Along Without You Very Well” (Sinatra in 1955 and Linda Ronstadt in 1986, the last recording of Nelson Riddle, who dies halfway through the recording of Ronstadt’s For Sentimental Reasons). Arrangements and an orchestra, in any case, that one can hear effortlessly under “Most Of The Time”.
Although… the Dylan of 2020 might have gone for the approach of the ultimate version, Chet Baker’s:
The two versions released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs (2008) wonderfully illustrate how much Dylan is looking for a melody and how Lanois turns the song to his liking. The first version is almost cheerful, is spiced up with a jittery harmonica and Dylan jumps high and low in search of a melody – and then eventually ending up more or less with “Little Sadie” (Self Portrait, 1970). Hours later (version #2) Lanois has slowed down the pace, removed the peaks out of the melody and laid down most – of many – guitar layers. By then we are already close to the final version, which will be put together without Dylan.
The producer feels perfectly well what the song needs. The basis is the soggy, swampy Louisiana sound. The drummer avoids cymbals and hi-hat, the snare drum is muffled, the bass is limited to long, languid dragging notes, though he is allowed to play the riff in between – just to prevent blasting horns or splashing guitars, for example, from bringing any brightness. On top of that, Lanois then, like eight years later in “Not Dark Yet”, lays a carpet of guitars, in which at most his own metal Dobro-guitar may provide lugubrious, somewhat shiny accents.
Whatever else Dylan thinks of it, the result is wonderful. Lanois does acknowledge the emotion, the suffering of the narrator – bizarrely enough in contrast to Dylan himself, who tells he suspects more of a philosophical message (“It seemed to have more to do about time itself than it did with me”).
In that first version we hear a protagonist who actually seems mainly relieved that he is over his former lover. The final version, however, tells the true story with exactly the same words: the ex-lover is still deep, deep under his skin and the abandoned lover is still heart broken. All of a sudden the song gains the moving power of the reversal of a Lost Love song’s normal pattern (“Heartbreak Hotel”, “Yesterday”, “Nothing Compares 2 U”), in which the singer makes a point of his loss in every single line. The “I” in “Most Of The Time”, on the other hand, spells out line after line how he does not miss her at all… well: most of the time anyway. So: Hoagy Carmichael’s reversal, though even more subtle than in “I Get Along Without You Very Well” – in Dylan’s case, the listener really doubts whether he is already almost over her, or whether he is trying to wear away his distressing grief with self-deception.
Lanois’ arrangement provides the answer; that scar is there, and it won’t go away.
Few artists venture into this song. And for those few, things usually go wrong – apparently everything has to be right for an interpretation of “Most Of The Time”.
Lloyd Cole is a gifted artist, but seems to have no idea what he’s singing (on Cleaning Out The Ashtrays, 2009), Bettye LaVette is a veteran who can’t really do anything wrong, but still overshoots the mark here (on the otherwise successful tribute project Chimes Of Freedom: The Songs Of Bob Dylan, 2012), and like that, there are quite a few more misses.
In the end, the few direct hits are scored, as usual, by ladies.
The irresistible Mary Lee Kortes, known in Dylan circles for performing as Mary Lee’s Corvette Blood On The Tracks integrally and rather brilliantly, sings a heartbreakingly sober and empathetic version, only with guitar, for BBC Scotland.
More polished, but certainly no less moving is Sophie Zelmani.
The Swedish songwriter contributes her version of the song to the soundtrack of the Dylan-vehicle Masked And Anonymous (2003) and here everything falls into place. Zelmani is heartbreaking as she tries to hang on, her breaking voice is mercilessly mixed far up front, the accompaniment is melancholy and messy and creeping slowly over the singer. She can then afford one faux-pass – apparently Sophie finds it scary to appear homosexual, so she becomes he, her becomes him. And that is more important than the rhyme: “I can survive, I can endure / And I don’t even think about him.” Heresy.
Tough lady Mary Lee can’t be bothered with such petty concerns, fortunately.
————–
Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:
Although no one gets paid for writing, publishing or editing Untold Dylan, it does cost us money to keep the site afloat, safe from hackers, n’er-do-wells etc. 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.
As for the writing, Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Although no one gets paid, if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
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
‘He can do it in Las Vegas
And he can do it here…’
Part 1 – Absolutely vintage Dylan
Just as, when we moved from 1992 to 1993 we noticed an all round improvement in the performances, from the overall sound of the band to Dylan’s voice, so when we move from 1993 to 1994 we find a further improvement.
More like a quantum leap.
For my money, 1994 and 1995 are the golden years of the NET, at least as far as the nineties go. In retrospect we can see that from 1991 to 1993 Dylan was struggling. 1993 was a year of great exploration, with Dylan extending himself in every direction, pushing his still emerging voice, his harmonica playing, and pushing his lead guitar playing to its limits, pushing his songs into extended epics.
In 1994 and 1995 Dylan brings it all back home. The arrangements bed down, the band sounds more cohesive than ever, Mr Guitar Man pulls his horns in a little and integrates his sound better, and, above all, Dylan’s voice floats free from whatever it was that turned it strained and scratchy around 1991. His voice develops a softer edge to go with the acoustic orientation of his arrangements, what I have called his enhanced acoustic sound.
With that high clear voice, which gets even better as we move into 1995, he sounds more like the Dylan of old; Dylan of the 1960s. Of course he can roughen his voice up when he wants to, just as he always could, even back in the sixties.
1994 was the year that saw Dylan re-emerge into prominence. On the 17th and 19th of November Dylan appeared on the MTV Unplugged television series, and the album of that concert was released in 1995 to some acclaim. We’ll hear, however, a few outtakes from that session.
On August 14 1994 Dylan performed at Woodstock for a nostalgia concert, celebrating the original and famous 1969 Woodstock festival – which Dylan did not attend. That concert has been available on You Tube for some time, and was finally released, too belatedly I feel, in 2016. His performances at this concert were very well received and served to restore his legend somewhat.
Finally, most strangely of all, he took part in The Great Musical Experience in Japan (May 20/21) fronting a full orchestra, a concert also filmed for television.
At first I thought that the superior sound that Dylan achieved in 1994 was owing to the commercial TV recordings, and to some extent that is so, but once we leave the professional recordings for the audience recorded shows we find the same thing.
In 1994 Dylan was right in the middle of his nineties dry period as far as song writing is concerned. His last album, Under the Red Sky, is three years behind him, and the great burst of creativity that produced Time Out of Mind is still three years ahead. But that does not result in any lack of passion or creativity as far as his performances are concerned. Quite the opposite. He pours all that power and passion into reconceiving his earlier songs, particularly that body of work from the 1960s that had made him famous in the first place. Those vintage years.
We can put aside all that brave talk of breaking free from the Bob Dylan mythos and creating a new Bob Dylan. Why bother when the old Bob Dylan is as close at hand as the check shirt he wore in 1965, and pulled out again for Unplugged in 1994. Wow! He sounds and looks just like the old Dylan.
I’m dedicating this and the next blog or two to those core sixties years, and invite you all along on a somewhat nostalgic ride through some of the greatest songs of the 20th Century, 1994 style.
Because it’s such a rich, relaxed sound, I’ll start with that gentle blues from 1965, ‘It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry’. I commented on this song in my last post (See NET, 1993, part 5) and invite my readers to compare this performance with that 1993 performance. There’s no sense of stress or strain here; the band relaxes into the rocking beat, everything fits and all runs smooth as oil.
It takes a lot to laugh
That’s from the Woodstock concert. This next is from Prague (July 16th), a brilliant, lucid performance of Dylan’s great sixties epic Desolation Row. He’s learned how to build the song, create tension and drive with his percussive, acoustic guitar sound.
It is highly unlikely that anybody reading this has never heard Desolation Row, but if that’s the case, you are in for a treat. Desolation Row is a state of mind, a symbol, a place where everybody is in disguise as somebody famous, and strange and frightening events take place. It is a crazy-house reflection of a life that lies beyond the boundaries of what passes for our normal world. It’s a circus world, and sane people might be advised to stay clear in case the doorknob breaks…
Desolation Row (A)
Note the echo in Dylan’s voice, maybe an accident of the recording but makes for interesting listening. It clips along at a fair pace too, avoiding any drag, always possible with a long song like this. Note also that thin, wiry harp break at the beginning to cue us into the song.
Another masterly performance!
Desolation Row (B)
And while on the subject of famous compositions, you won’t find much better than this ‘Mr Tambourine Man’. I know of no other song that so powerfully expresses our desire to get away from the mad world, the world of ‘crazy sorrow’ and ‘to dance beneath the diamond skies/with one hand waving free’.
By slowing the song right down Dylan can make a meal out of those incomparable lines. Yet it doesn’t turn into a ten-minute epic as it might have in 1993, but fits well into just over six minutes, a beautifully balanced performance.
Mr Tambourine Man
‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ is given the full epic treatment here. Like most of the songs in this post, ‘Thin Man’ is a regular. Listening to this full rock treatment, it strikes me that few live performances of the song evoke the spookiness of the album version, and tend to be more angry than eerie, like this one. Still, it hasn’t lost any of its nightmarish quality. If you’ve ever found yourself in the wrong place and in the wrong company, you’ll know what this is about. Best also if you’re not too homophobic, or phobic about alternative sexualities, because there is something strange going on in this ‘room’ and you really don’t know what it is.
Ballad of a thin Man
Dylan’s lineup remains the same as the previous two years: Dylan and John Jackson on main guitars, Tony Garnier on bass, Wilson Watson on drums and Bucky Baxter on slide guitar and dobro. For the Unplugged concerts, Dylan added the organist Brendan O’Brien. Together the organ and slide guitar create an ‘orchestral’ effect, a richness of sound we haven’t heard on the NET so far.
You can hear that richness of sound on this wonderful performance of ‘I Want You’ (1966). A nice bouncy little number off Blonde on Blonde, it becomes here a sumptuous hymn to desire, and the way Dylan’s voice lifts against the swell of the backing is sheer delight. Slowing the song way down brings out the hidden grandeur of the song’s chord progression.
I want you
That’s an MTV Unplugged outtake as is this next one, ‘With God on Our Side’, a protest song that leans towards a fatalistic view of history. The backing sounds much like the official Unplugged but I like the way Dylan builds the vocal on this one. A fraction slower than even the slow official performance, the song becomes even more dirgelike, a dreary, sorrow-filled encounter with American history.
With God on our side
We have watched ‘One Too Many Mornings’ develop over the last few years into a compelling nostalgic ballad. Keeping its acoustic roots, Dylan captures the agony and passion of the electric sets in 1966. With a wonderful climactic harp break, this has to come close to a ‘best ever’ performance (Boston, Oct 8).
One too Many mornings
‘Masters of War’ must surely be Dylan’s least ambiguous protest song. Aimed at the heart of the war machine, the arms manufacturers, the song takes no prisoners. After all these years, the song is still pertinent. Somewhere along the way it has moved from strident to sinister, from outraged to threatening. These 1994 performances might be surpassed next year, in 1995, but they can still send a chill up the spine, especially with the echo Dylan gets on this one.
Masters of War
Over the last few years we have watched ‘She Belongs to Me’ grow quietly into this lazy tempo paean to the femme fatale, a woman too narcissistic and egotistical for comfort. The lazy beat, however, soon turns into a driving blues with a jazz-filled harp break and Mr Guitar Man adding a pounding edge to the song. Yet another candidate for best ever performance – at least until we get to 2013. (08/20/94)
She belongs to me
Previously, I have written that ‘Tears of Rage’ is one of Dylan’s most mysterious songs. The key to understanding it may lie in discovering who the narrator is, who is singing? I don’t know, but the song seems to lament the betrayal of the promise of America, and the consequent sense of alienation. That alienation is a response to the rank materialism of money-mad ethics.
‘And now the heart is filled with gold
As if it was a purse
But oh, what kind of love is this
Which goes from bad to worse?’
As always, love is sacrificed on the altar of materialism.
I love the original, basement tapes version but probably only because I heard it first. It’s a great song, and this is another vintage Dylan performance. The ease with which his voice can soar is a real pleasure.
At first I thought this was another acoustic performance, but realized Dylan is playing his Stratocaster, only softly, in a sensitive muted fashion.
Tears of Rage.
No song better evokes Dylan’s glory years and his relationship with Joan Baez than ‘Mama You Been On My Mind’. I’m generally wary of biographical interpretations of Dylan songs, since Dylan loves to create personas or masks, but this song invites such interpretations, particularly as he and Baez would often sing duet. The frisson between the two of them onstage told its own story.
And yet it’s a song that makes more sense sung with one voice, although the presence of the other, the one addressed, is very strong. If you’ve ever broken a relationship or let one slip away and later found it preying on your mind, this is the song for you, and this is a particularly poignant, lonely sounding performance. The piercing harp solo, reminiscent of Dylan’s 1989 style, puts an edge of pain into it. Yet another incomparable performance (October 2 1994)
Mama you’ve been on my mind
That’s it for openers. I think you’ll agree with me that with performances of this quality, the NET is catching fire. I’ll be back shortly with another round of absolutely vintage Dylan performances from 1994.
