by Larry Fyffe

A creative technique of Post Modernist poetry and song lyrics is to take a number of quotes collected from a variety of sources – from movie or television shows, for example -, and to reconstruct some sense of order out of the apparent chaos – double-edged meaning and irony often resulting therefrom.

A Post Modernist writer leaves it up to the listener or reader to seek an even more coherent unity in the work of art based on his or her internalized cultural values. Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye contends western art is permeated with themes that come from the Old and the New Testament.

Some listeners have difficulty understanding Bob Dylan’s song lyrics because he uses this Post Modernist technique – think that his lyrics make no sense because they are not interrelated enough – too fragmented, too broken, to form a unified theme extolled by the culture at large. Such listeners and readers are conditioned to a culture where language is ‘structuralized’. That is, there is an order – if not obverved in Nature itself, then at least there is an ordered structure in the language used to describe it.

Post Modernists take these Structuralists to task by holding that human language itself is plugged full of ìnherent contradictions. Everything is broken. It’s just that a particular culture imposes order on the language spoken and written which, in turn, imposes order on human society, and on the world of nature. Singer/sonwriter Bob Dylan takes these contrasting viewpoints and tests them out in the lyrics; creates tension within them.

‘Tight Connection To My Heart’ is a good example of how Dylan uses the Post Modern technique:

Well, I had to move fast
And I couldn’t with you around my neck
I said I’d send for you, and I did
What did you expect?
(Bob Dylan: Tight Connection To My Heart)

In a ‘film noir’ (a ‘Sirocco’ is a warm humid wind), Harry Smith (Humphrey Bogart), runs guns to Syrian rebels, and gets into trouble with the French authorities; Harry finds his relationship with Violette burdensome, but, given the circumstances, in the end he helps her to escape from the danger:

I’ve got to move fast: I can’t with you around my neck
(Sirocco)

A follower of Northrop Frye might interpret the movie in a conventional thematic way that’s more in tune with themes from the New Testament than those from the Old, i.e., God ends up saving His Son (represented by Violette) though at first He thinks that His Father (represented by Harry) has abandoned Him. In the end, Harry, as both Father and Son, becomes more loving, and sacrifices himself.

The singer songwriter draws another cue card from the deck of an adventure movie. A pirate captain, played by Anthony Quinn, is betrayed in a court of law by a child in order to save her own skin, and he’s executed by the authorities. Zac is first mate on the pirate ship.

The singer/ songwriter refers to a song of his own that alludes to an episode from the TV series ‘Star Trek’:

There must be some kind of way outta here
Said the joker to the thief
There’s too much confusion
I can’t get no release
(Bob Dylan: All Along The Watchtower)

Bob Dylan’s lyrics above and below can be interpreted as Jesus thinking His Father plays some kind of big joke on Him, and the Saviour’s not yet ready to forget about what the result was. After all, He’s been made to suffer on a cross:

I’ll go along with the charade
Until I can find my way out
I know it was all a big joke
Whatever it was about
Someday maybe
I’ll remember to forget
(Bob Dylan: Tight Connection To My Heart)

In the pirate adventure movie, at the end of the trail for murder, the captain of the pirates sardonically says to his first mate:

‘Zac, you must be guilty of something’
(A High Wind In Jamacia)

Easily considered an allusion to the trail of Jesus before Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea.

So sings Dylan:

I must be guilty of something
You just whisper it into my ear
(Bob Dylan: Tight Connection To My Heart)

Canadian actor William Shatner plays Captain James Kirk of the Star Ship ‘Enterprise’ – he’s faces false accusations in a medieval castle:

Lieutenant Sulu: ‘How long do we go along with this charade?”
Captain Kirk: “Until we can think our way out”
(Star Trek: ‘The Squire Of Gothos’)

‘Tight Connection To My Heart’ is open to the interpretation that God requires sinful humans in order to carry out His Big Plan – that is, to save sinners through the sacrifice of His Son on a bloody cross. At the end of the song, Dylan, or at least his persona, can be said to have second thoughts about the vampiric aspects of Gothic Christianity:

Never could learn to drink that blood
And call it wine
Never could hold you, love
And call you mine
(Bob Dylan: Tight Connection To My Heart)

What else is on the site?

Untold Dylan contains a review of every Dylan musical composition of which we can find a copy (around 500) and over 300 other articles on Dylan, his work and the impact of his work.

You’ll find an index to our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.

The alphabetical index to the 552 song reviews can be found here.  If you know of anything we have missed please do write in.  The index of the songs in chronological order can be found here.

We also now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

And please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.

Details of the other articles so far published in this series are given at the end.

By Larry Fyffe

Singer/singwriter Bob Dylan, in a number of his song lyrics, makes references to movies that, more often than not, present a cynical view of human nature.

In one that he alludes to a southern belle named Regina Giddens, played by actress Bette Davis, who relies on her husband for financial support. She tells her sick husband:

‘It wasn’t what I wanted, but it didn’t take me long to find out my mistake’.

The movie is referred to in the following song lyrics:

What was it you wanted
Tell me again so I’ll know
What’s happening in there
What’s going on in your show
(Bob Dylan: What Was It You Wanted)

In the film noir, Regina says to her husband:

‘ I hope that you die. I hope you die soon. I’ll be waiting for you to die’
(The Little Foxes)

The singer/songerwriter makes a reference to the film in one of his early songs:

I hope that you die
And your death will come soon
I will follow your casket
On a pale afternoon
(Bob Dylan: Master’s Of War)

In a wartime drama, Humphrey Bogart plays ‘Steve’ Morgan, a captain of a fishing vessel. He ends up smuggling a couple of French resistance fighters with the help of his girl friend ‘Slim’ (Lauren BaCall). When ‘Steve’ asks a member of the French resistence if it’s fishermen who want to hire his boat, the reply is:

‘No, some friends of friends of mine’

A tribute is paid the movie in the song lyrics below:

Seems like only yesterday
I left my mind behind
Down in the Gypsy Cafe
With a friend of a friend of mine
(Bob Dylan: Love Is Just A Four-letter Word)

The movie ‘To Have And To Have Not’ is based on an Ernest Hemingway novel. In the film, the fishing captain says to ‘Slim’:

‘Stick around, we’re not through yet’
(To Have And To Have Not)

Dylan uses the line with irony in the following song:

Stick around, baby, we’re not through
Don’t look for me, I’ll see you
(Bob Dylan: When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky)

In these movies and in the song lyrics by Dylan, there be a beleaguered search for a way to escape from a world that is morally dark to one that radiates the light of love, a theme characteristic of the Romantic Transendentalist poets.

Some of the movies lighten up the darkness more than others. In a movie of adventure, Clark Gable, as Jack Thornton, heads to the Yukon in the Canadian North in search of gold, and finds love. Jack claims to follow the natural law of the wild:

‘If you want something, take it’
(The Call Of The Wild)

The movie is loosely based on a short novel written by Jack London:

Well it’s the nature of man
Is to beg and to steal
I do it myself
It’s not so unreal
The call of the wild’s
Forever at my door
(Bob Dylan: You Changed My Life)

Bob Dylan is an artist who follows the law – he begs and steals from classic movies.

• Bob Dylan And Western Movies
• Bob Dylan And Films Noir
• Bob Dylan And The Movies Continued

What else is on the site?

Untold Dylan contains a review of every Dylan musical composition of which we can find a copy (around 500) and over 300 other articles on Dylan, his work and the impact of his work.

You’ll find an index to our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.

The alphabetical index to the 552 song reviews can be found here.  If you know of anything we have missed please do write in.  The index of the songs in chronological order can be found here.

We also now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

And please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.

By Tony Attwood

Having claimed that we had reviewed every song that Dylan wrote of which there is a recording, I found I’d missed one.  And it isn’t one that a reader paying attention pointed out to me – I suddenly realised it was missing from the lists when I was updating the review of Silvio.

This song, with lyrics written by Robert Hunter has music by Bob Dylan (which is why it requires to be listed here), and what Dylan has given us is a variant 12 bar blues – it becomes a 12 bar during the instrumental breaks.  In the verses two extra lines are added.

The Bob Dylan official site (bobdylan.com) does have the lyrics up even though they are not by Dylan, so I imagine the song’s royalties are shared 50/50.  It credits both guys as co-writers.

Here’s the opening; it tells you most of what you need to know about the song – but it is somewhat rescued by a perfectly decent melody and accompaniment.  Nothing special, but it is fine.  I think however I could do without these lyrics.

The woman that I love she got a hook in her nose
her eyebrows meet, she wears second hand clothes
She speaks with a stutter and she walks with a hop
I don’t know why I love her but I just can’t stop

You know I love her
Yeah I love her
I’m in love with the Ugliest Girl in the World

If you don’t know it, and don’t have “Down in the Groove” the album is of course on Spotify although given those lyrics I am not sure it is worth the bother of going there.  Musically it is not the most inspiring of songs, but is not that bad; it is just the lyrics that seem to me to be… well, unnecessary  I suppose.  Hardly illuminating, uplifting, or revealing of a deeper truth.

As for finding a version other than the album recording there is a remix that is rather amusing, or at least somewhat droll, although again I am not sure it takes us any further in understanding why the song was written or why it was put on the album.

http://www.positively-bobdylan.com/bob-dylan-news/ugliest-girl-remix/

There is also a live version by a band supposedly doing a Dylan tribute.  It’s actually not very good in my opinion, but if you have never heard the song, don’t have the album and don’t know how to get onto spotify and listen to it for free, then I guess you could try this.  But really I don’t recommend it.  (That’s not the reason that there is no video at this point, I just can’t find one that is on

Last, I can’t work out when it was written, so in the chronology files I have taken a guess.  If you have any thoughts on when the guys wrote it, please do write it – ideally with some sort of evidence.

Otherwise I think it is a song we can readily forget, but the aim of this site is to review all the songs Dylan wrote or co-wrote, so I’m adding it.  A bit late, but better late…

What else is on the site?

Untold Dylan contains a review of every Dylan musical composition of which we can find a copy (around 500) and over 300 other articles on Dylan, his work and the impact of his work.

You’ll find an index to our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.

The alphabetical index to the 552 song reviews can be found here.  If you know of anything we have missed please do write in.  The index of the songs in chronological order can be found here.

We also now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

And please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.

There are details of the other articles on Dylan and the movies at the end of this piece

by Larry Fyffe

Here’s some more references to movies that Bob Dylan shows an interest in. Other sites, inaccurate at times, make note of some of these movies and their scripts.

In a movie, southern belle Banche (Vivien Leigh) says:

‘Please don’t get up, I’m only passing through’

In a song, Dylan sings:

Lot of water under the bridge; lot of other stuff too
‘Don’t get up gentlemen, I’m only passing through’
(Bob Dylan: Things Have Changed)

Whether Bob Dylan references a movie because it reflects his world view, or the singer/songwriter is simply reflecting the view presented in the movie is an interesting question.

Barbara Stanwyck stars in a romantic drama as Mae, Joe’s sister; she marries Jerry, a fisherman, gets bored, and has an affair with Jerry’s cynical best friend. Peggy (Marilyn Monroe), Joe’s girlfriend, works in a canning factory. Peggy says:

‘He can be sweet sometimes. But I don’t wanna have to work in a cannery if I got married’.

Brings to mind the following song lyrics:

With your sheet-metal memory of Cannery Row
And your magazine-husband who one day just had to go
(Bob Dylan: Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands)

Mae says to the fisherman who loves her:

‘Oh Jerry, don’t be so eager to make a mistake’
(Clash By Night)

Through his persona, singer/songwriter Bob Dylan presents a dark view of the world:

All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie
I’m in love with a woman who don’t even appeal to me
Mr. Jinx and Miss Lonely, they jumped in the lake
I’m not that eager to make a mistake
(Bob Dylan: Things Have Changed)

Likewise ‘noir’ is a film that stars Paul Newman as ‘Fast’ Eddie Felton, an up-and-coming pool shark, who beats ‘Minnesota Fats’. Sarah loves Eddie – he humiliates her too, and she kills herself:

‘Eddie, look, I’ve got troubles, and I think maybe you’ve got troubles. Maybe it’d be better if we just leave each other alone’
(The Hustler)

Dylan quotes Sarah in the lines below:

I guess I should have known
I got trouble, I think maybe you got troubles
I think maybe we’d better leave each other alone
(Bob Dylan: Seeing The Real You At Last)

Antony Quinn plays a pirate; James Coburn, his first mate Zac; Rosa is a
good-hearted brothel ‘madam’. A child captured by the priates is treated well by them, but she betrays them to save her own skin. The mighty Quinn says:

‘Zac, you must be guilty of something’
(A High Wind In Jamaica)

Dylan, and/or his persona’, takes a cynical view of people in authority, but also of human nature in general:

What ever you got to say to me
Won’t come as any shock
I must be guilty of something
You just whisper it into my ear
(Bob Dylan: Tight Connection To My Heart)

Another referenced movie is about ‘freaks’ who make a living by appearing in circus shows; it concerns how badly they are treated as if they didn’t have feelings like everybody else. Says one of the Siamese Twins:

‘Her master’s voice is calling’

The movie is paid tribute in the verse below that casts recording artists in the same light as ‘freaks’:

Neither one gonna turn and run
They’re makin’ a voyage to the sun
‘His Master’s Voice is a-calling me’
Tweedle-Dum say to Tweedle-Dee
(Bob Dylan: Tweedle-Dee And Tweedle-Dum)

Comedy films are alluded to as well:

‘Tell Aunt Minnie to send up a bigger room, will you?’
(A Night At The Opera)

The song following – humour, accompanied by the blues:

Time and Love has branded me with its claws
Had to go to Florida, dodgin’ Georgia laws
Po’ Boy in the hotel called ‘The Palace of Gloom’
Calls down to room service, say, ‘Send me up a room’
(Bob Dylan: Po’ Boy)

Comedy – used as a tool to hammer out the Existentialist viewpoint of the absurdity of material existence:

‘And two fried eggs, two poached eggs, two scrambled eggs, and two medium-boiled eggs’
‘And two hard-boilded eggs’
(A Night At The Opera)

Below, tribute is paid to the Marx Brothers:

I said ‘Tell me what I want’
She say, ‘You probably want hard-boiled eggs’
I said, ‘That’s right, bring me some’
She says, ‘We ain’t got any, you picked the wrong time to come’
(Bob Dylan: Highlands)

Bob Dylan and the movies

• Bob Dylan And Films Noir
• Bob Dylan And Western Movies

By Larry Fyffe

Post Modernism mixes ‘high brow’ and ‘low brow’ art together in a chunky soup. Rough and tough Western movies, and the traditional western folksongs of ‘singing cowboys’ have a strong influence on Bob Dylan’s lyrics and music; so do the Romantic poets – especially the Gothics.

Dylan recognizes the similarity of the themes in each of these genres – often dark and cloudy they be:

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy
into smiling
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance
it wore ….
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night’s
Plutonian shore
(Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven)

Sorrowful is the song below:

She wrote me a letter; she wrote it so kind
And in that letter these words she will find
'Come back to me darling, you're the one I adore
You're the one I will marry on the Red River shore'
(Kingston Trio: Red River Shore - traditional)

And so be it in the following gender-twisted version:

Well, I can’t escape from the memories
Of the one I’ll always adore
All those nights when I lay in the arms
Of the girl from the Red River shore
(Bob Dylan: Red River Shore)

Western movies, though often dark in plot, usually feature a good guy cowboy who saves the day.

Which brings us to the western movie ‘Red River Shore’, introduced by Rex Allen singing the (previously discussed) song ‘Red River Valley’ over the opening credits. It’s a story set in Oklahoma where lawman Allen saves ranchers from being swindled by dishonest oil businessmen. Western movies, made in the days when Bob Dylan is growing up, more often than not, star a basically good guy gunfighter, a hero, who, in the end, wins out, one way or another, over the bad guys.

By the way, Rex Allen records ‘Ramona’, a song from a movie by the same name, based on a Helen Jackson story set in Southern California. The movie is about love between a half-Indian girl and and a full-blooded Indian. In the film, because of racism things go badly. Ramona marries a well-to-rancher after the death of her Indian husband. This song too has been previously presented (See: Bob Dylan And Helen Jackson).

But back to the gunslingers – ‘The Oklahoma Kid’ movie stars James Cagney, a Lone Ranger-type vigilante hero. ‘The Kid’ deals with Humphrey Bogart who, with his gang of outlaws, runs the town of Tulsa. Sourced by others than myself – the Oklahoma Kid replies: ‘Go ahead and talk’ after the black-clad bad guy confronts him in the saloon, saying: ‘Kid, I want to talk to you’.

Bob Dylan takes on the persona of the Oklahoma Kid, and pays tribute to the movie in the song lyrics below:

You want to talk to me
Go ahead and talk
Whatever you got anything to say to me
Won’t come as any shock
(Bob Dylan: Tight Connection To My Heart)

In the western movie ‘Shane’, Alan Ladd plays a reformed gunfighter. He sides with Wyoming homesteaders against a ruthless cattle baron and his gang. Hired as a hand by a farmer, whose wife and son he takes a shining to, Shane prevents the homesteader from taking on one of the baron’s gunman by doing so himself. Shane kills the cattle baron as well – he eats, shoots, and leaves.

At the beginning of the movie, Shane meets the farmer:

Shane: ‘Would you put that gun down? Then I’ll leave’
———-: ‘What’s the difference? You’re leaving anyway’.
Shane: ‘I’d like it to be my idea’

In one of his songs, Dylan takes on the persona of Shane; it’s not necessary for the listener to know about the western movie, but some background to the song lyrics is added if the listener does know the plot of the movie:

You give me something to think about
Every time I see ya
Don’t worry, baby, I don’t mind leaving
I’d just like it to be my idea
(Bob Dylan: Never Gonna Be The Same Again)

The movie ‘Rose-Marie’, based on an operetta, features a singing Mountie, and gives rise to the popularity of ‘singing cowboy’ westerns:

Then I will know our love will come true
You’ll belong to me, and I’ll belong to you
Then I will know our love will come true
You’ll belong to me, and I’ll belong to you
(Eddy & McDonald: Indian Love Call – Hammerstein et al))

Bob Dylan, it might be said, takes on the role of the Mountie in the song ‘She Belongs To Me’ – ‘She nobody’s child, the Law can’t touch her at all’.

The plot of ‘Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts’ may be influenced by the storyline in the musical stage version of ‘Rose-Marie’, and in the film version Jack Flower is the brother of opera singer Rose-Marie (See: Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts: revealing the source of this and other Dylan songs).

It’s all mixed-up Post Modern confusion. Or as actor Robert Mitchum puts it – in a rodeo cowboy movie:

‘Broken bottles, broken bones, broken everything’.
(The Lusty Men)

And confirmed by the singer/songwriter:

Broken bottles, broken plates
Broken switches, broken gates
Broken dishes, broken parts
Streets are filled with broken hearts
Broken words never meant to be spoken
Everything is broken
(Bob Dylan: Everything Is Broken)

What else is on the site?

Untold Dylan contains a review of every Dylan musical composition of which we can find a copy (around 500) and over 300 other articles on Dylan, his work and the impact of his work.

You’ll find an index to our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.

The alphabetical index to the 552 song reviews can be found here.  If you know of anything we have missed please do write in.  The index of the songs in chronological order can be found here.

We also now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

And please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.

By Larry Fyffe

She Belongs To Me” is a 12 bar blues song, it’s lyrics open to different levels of interpretation.

Here’s one:

According to Greek mythology, Orpheus is such a great musician that when he plays the lyre everybody and everything is enchanted. His beautiful wife Eurydice dies, and descends to the dark Underworld.

Orpheus travels to the Underworld, and beguiles Hades with his music. Hades allows Orpheus to lead Eurydice out through the cave leading to the Underworld on condition that he does not look back until they have both reached the light. He looks back a moment too soon, and Eurydice falls back to the Underworld, her beauty lost to the world of the living forever.

Singer/songwriter and musician Bob Dylan revises the story – the female character Eurydice becomes the artist.

She’s transformed into Orpheus:

She’s got everything she needs, she’s an artist
She don’t look back
She can take the dark out of the night-time
And paint the daytime black

Possessing the talent of an artist, she can turn a Hell into a Heaven; a Heaven into a Hell:

You will start out standing
Proud to steal her anything she sees
But you will wind up peeking through her keyhole
Down upon your knees

She’s mature enough not to look back on the situation. It could spoil everything – she might lose what she’s got:

She never stumbles, she’s got no place to fall
She’s nobody’s child, the law can’t touch her at all

The title of the song is ironic. She has everything she needs. Because of the magic of her beauty, it is he who belongs to her:

She wears an Egyptian ring that sparkles before she speaks
She’s a hypnotist collector, you are a walking antique

So ‘Eurydice’ does not turn around. She’s got a mobile Grecian Urn that stays forever young. It’s best not to break it:

For ever warm and still to be enjoyed
For ever panting, and forever young
(John Keats: Ode On A Grecian Urn)

She’s an artist who has created a beautiful thing – an angel from Heaven that obeys commands to bring her beautiful things:

Bow down to her on Sunday
Salute her when her birthday comes
For Halloween give her a trumpet
And for Christmas buy her a drum

Best not to let him jump her railway gate -things could get ugly.

Apparently, Joan Baez makes the mistake of looking back to see if Bob Dylan is still following her folk crowd. And all Hell does break loose:

I bought you some cufflinks
You brought me something
We both know what memories can bring
They bring diamonds and rust
(Joan Baez: Diamonds And Rust)

You might also enjoy Dylan’s “She Belong to Me”: never has a 12 bar blues sounded more beautiful.”

And what is known as the definitive live performance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn00A2IQ8MQ

What else is on the site?

Untold Dylan contains a review of every Dylan musical composition of which we can find a copy (around 500) and over 300 other articles on Dylan, his work and the impact of his work.

You’ll find an index to our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.

The alphabetical index to the 552 song reviews can be found here.  If you know of anything we have missed please do write in.  The index of the songs in chronological order can be found here.

We also now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

And please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.

by Larry Fyffe

In his song lyrics, Bob Dylan grapples with the issue of balancing reason and rules, centred in the head, with emotions and desires, centered in the heart. James Frazer’s ‘The Golden Bough’ deals with the theme of regeneration that flows from mythology, through religion, to science. Venus helps Aeneas find the golden bough that’s required if he is to enter the Underworld.

Broadly speaking – in mythology, Apollo, the sun god, is the man of reason; his sister, Diana, the moon goddess, is the female of emotion. The bigger sun of the day is presented as having more power than the moon of the night.

In the religion of Judaism, Psalm 145 is considered an important guide as to how believers should conduct themselves:

I will extol thee, my God, O king
And I will bless thy name forever and ever …
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised
And His greatness is unsearchable…
The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion
Slow to anger, and of great mercy

Science would look for evidence, but the rules of the Sun-King be sacrosanct.
Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan is well-versed in Judaism, but is not uncritical thereof; nor is he of himself:

It’s been a long, long time
Since we loved each other
And our hearts were true
One time, for one brief day
I was the man for you …..
Shake it up baby, twist and shout
You know what it’s all about
What are you doing out there in the sun, anyway
Don’t you know the sun can burn your brains out?
(Bob Dylan: Long And Wasted Years)

The narrator in the song, taken as the persona of Dylan, blames himself for the broken relationship because he relied too much on patriarchal ‘reason’, but the woman is faulted for trying to be like a man (in symbolic terms, like the sun instead of the moon).

In the Edgar Allan Poe’s poem below, the focus is on a planet “warmer than Dian” – Venus, a symbol of sexual desire, overtakes the narrator’s reason, and guides him to the grave of his lost lover. The poem is situated in the Fall, a time of decay:

And I said, ‘What is written, sweet sister
On the door of this legended tomb?’
She replied, ‘Ulalume — Ulalume!’
‘Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!’
Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere
(Edgar Allen Poe: Ulalume)

The allegorical duality of darkness and light, a feature of Gnosticism, is characteristic of many of Bob Dylan’s song lyrics; the singer/songwriter spins an erotic Poe-etic dream:

Smoky autumn night, stars up in the sky
I see the sailin’ boats across the bay go by
Eucalyptus trees hang above the street
And then I turn my head for you’re approachin’ me
Moonlight on the water, fisherman’s daughter, floatin’
into my room
With a golden loom

Note the ‘Dylanesque rhyme twist’: ‘tomb’/’Ulalume’, and ‘room’/loom’.

The fisherman’s daughter (perhaps an imagined baby that Mary Magdalene has with Jesus) is a symbol of regeneration; the daughter, in this case, may not die, but she recedes:

And then I kiss your lips, and I lift your veil
But you’re gone, and all I seem to recall is
the smell of perfume
And your golden loom
(Bob Dylan: The Golden Loom)

It’s warmer than country pie.

Symbolist poets Baudelaire and Rimbaud draw on children’s fairy tales which they corrupt. Post Modernist writing features fragmentation that mixes high and low art with irony, and allusion. The male counterpart of the girl’s golden loom is none other than Rumpelstiltskin.

What else is on the site?

Untold Dylan contains a review of every Dylan musical composition of which we can find a copy (around 500) and over 300 other articles on Dylan, his work and the impact of his work.

You’ll find an index to our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.

The alphabetical index to the 552 song reviews can be found here.  If you know of anything we have missed please do write in.  The index of the songs in chronological order can be found here.

We also now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

And please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.

Waiting for the morning light.  By Simmons and Dylan?

Commentary by Tony Attwood

If not for you
Babe, I’d lay awake all night
Wait for the mornin’ light
To shine in through
But it would not be new
If not for you

That is the prime connection I can find between Bob Dylan and “Waiting for the morning light”.  The song is not mentioned on BobDylan.com, where even arrangements of other people’s work can be claimed to be at least partially Dylan’s copyright – and that seems to me to be a reason to be suspicious.

And although I am repeatedly critical of Heylin’s interpretation of Dylan’s work, I don’t think one can fault his dedication in digging through the documentation and commentaries to find everything going.  And he doesn’t mention it, not even once.

But it has been put to me that this is a Dylan collaboration, so I’ll mention it and put a question mark in the index.

This is how the story of the creation of this song is described by Gene Simmons

So I called his manager: ‘Can I speak with Bob?’ ‘What do you wanna talk to him about?’”

“’I… I wanna write a song with Bob.’ [Laughs] And all of a sudden within two days, an unmarked van shows up at my house and Bob gets out with an acoustic guitar in his hand, and tells his driver, ‘I’ll see you at the end of the day,’ comes up and we start strumming. I mean it was just like that.”

According to Gene in a commentary on Billboard.com, “Bob came up with the chords, most of them, and then I took it and wrote lyrics, melody, the rest of it… We understood each other right away. He picked up an acoustic guitar, and we just tossed it back and forth, ‘How ’bout this, how ’bout that?’ And he started to strum, because he — at least with me — tended to talk and strum guitar at the same time. And as soon as I heard the first three or four chords, I went, ‘Wait, wait, what’s that? Do that again.’ So I went and started to write a lyric around that.”

Now there is a problem with this story.  I don’t claim myself to be a great musician; when I worked as a musician in bands and in the theatre I was absolutely just a member of a regular ensemble.  But listening to this song I could hear exactly what the chord sequence was, and walk across to my piano and play it:

G major, E minor 7, C major 7, D.

So what doesn’t ring true for me is that a musician like Gene Simmons really couldn’t hear that straight away.   And even if he couldn’t, he could have looked at Bob’s hands and see what he was doing.  Believe me if you are a musician and someone plays that on guitar you don’t have a need to say, ‘Wait, wait, what’s that? Do that again.’

And as for the “most of them” suggestion about writing the chords.  Hell, there are only four of them.

If you doubt the notion that musicians can pick up what each other is doing instantly, just listen to the Basement Tapes Complete, especially disc six, and hear how the band pick up much, much more complex sequences than this straight away.  No, this story does not ring true to me at all.

There is also a “middle 8” and although there is a slight surprise there it is not something that really would have thrown a professional musician.   The song is in D major, but suddenly and without any warning it changes for the middle 8 with a sequence that runs

B flat major, F major, C major

That is in itself very ordinary and a modulation (that is a change of key) from G major to C major is perfectly normal.  What is unusual, is the throwing in of the B Flat.  It is very effective, and unusual, but it would not throw someone like Dylan.  For goodness sake, he’s been playing chord sequences since he was about 10.

Now I can tell you, having studied every single Dylan composition I can find (as witness this website) I have never heard Dylan do a jump like that from the G to the B flat.  It is not that it is unheard of, just that it is not Dylan.  I don’t mean that he hasn’t thrown a B flat into a song in G but rather that I can’t think of anywhere that he has suddenly changed keys in this way and then instantly come out again.

What I am saying is that the way musicians create song is like the way people speak with an accent.  When you hear someone speak, you don’t have to see them to know who it is.  Same with songwriting.

So what strikes me as odd is that this is just not Dylan.  You only have to listen to that “middle 8” to think “Dylan? absolutely not. Not in 1 million years.”  It is not that it doesn’t work, it is not Dylan.

And still I am back to the basic point, is this musician seriously telling us that Bob came in, did something on guitar or keyboard that he has never ever done anywhere else in his music, and then left it with the performer, while the performer says “wow what’s that?” when anyone working in music would be able to hear it and play it.

No, sorry I really, don’t believe it.  For goodness sake, I listened to the song once and knew the chords and I haven’t earned my living as a musician for years and years.  And this professional musician couldn’t catch the chords?  No, really, no.

But if you want to believe all that, and believe that Bob didn’t then want his part of the copyright, when he has so assiduously worked to protect his rights on every other song, even to the point of claiming rights on songs because he “arranged” them, well, that’s up to you.  You can of course believe.  All I can do is tell you how it seems to me.

Here are the lyrics

I’m waiting for the morning light
Then every night I wonder why
I always try to play it cool
I mean hello, but say goodbye
And I can’t help myself
I’m wide awake all through the night
Keep waiting for the morning light

Chorus:

And here I’m all alone
Sitting by the telephone
And I wonder why, I wonder why, I wonder why
I keep laughing when I wanna cry
And I wonder why

Every day seems like there’s no tomorrow
And every night I wonder why
Do I always seem to say it too
When things don’t always turn out right
And there you sit inside my picture frame
But it’s not the same
Ever since you said good bye

I always try to play it so cool
And I don’t know why…
Gotta keep on smiling
Gotta keep on laughing
When I want to cry…
I do believe it

By Larry Fyffe

Whether through pure coincidence, deliberate allusion, or subconscious memory, the song lyrics of Bob Dylan often reveal similar themes (the prospect of cyclical regeneration, for example), and writing styles of other authors. It seems that he’s gotta serve somebody:

It could be a Symbolist poet:

Through the blue summer days, I shall travel all the ways
Pricked by the ears of maize, trampling the dew
A dreamer, I will gaze, as underfoot the coolness plays
I let the evening breeze, drench my head anew
(Arthur Rimbaud: Sensation)

Of course it all depends on which English translation the singer/songwriter might have read – i.e., in the poem above, ‘dew’/’anew’ rhyme; in the song below, ‘blue’/’anew’ rhyme:

The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start anew
And it’s all over now, baby blue
(Bob Dylan: It’s All Over Now Baby Blue)

It could a traditional song – with images therein of soft snow, hard ice, and a chilling wind:

When the cold feathered snow does in plenty descend
And whiten the prospect around
The cutting wind from the North shall attend
Hard chilling and freezing the ground
When the hills and the dales are all covered with white
When the rivers congeal to the shore
When the bright twinkling stars shall proclaim a cold night
Then remember the state of the poor
(Remember The Poor)

In the song below, there’s diction that transfers symbolic meaning to the snow, wind, and ice:

If you’re travellin’ in the North country fair
Remember me to one who lives there
For she once was a true love of mine
If you go when the snowflakes storm
When the rivers freeze, and the summer ends
Please see she has a coat so warm
To keep her from the howling winds
(Girl From The North Country)

It could be a Christianized version thereof:

The time will come when our Saviour on Earth
All the world shall agree with one voice
All nations unite to salute the blest morn
And the whole of the Earth shall rejoice
And the grave rules triumphant no more
When grim death deprived of his killing sting
Saints, angels, and men ‘hallelujah’ will sing
Then the rich must remember the poor
(Remember The Poor)

An optimistc message, though less religious in tone, is delivered in the following song lyrics:

The time will come up
When the winds will stop
And the breeze will cease to be breathin’
Like the stillness in the wind
Before the hurricane begins
The hour that the ship comes in
(Bob Dylan: When The Ship Comes In)

It could be a melancholic Romantic poet:

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My senses, as though I had drunk
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
(John Keats: Ode To A Nightingale)

Christopher Ricks, underestimated as a literary critic by some analysts of Dylan’s lyrics, points out a Keats connection to a song:

Well, my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there has been some kind of pain
(Bob Dylan: Not Dark Yet)

It could be a Decadent writer:

“Behind every exquisite thing that has existed, there was something tragic”
(Oscar Wilde: The Picture Of Dorian Gray)

Symbolist Arthur Rimbaud be a latter-day Romantic poet – a disgruntled idealist. On the other hand, Decadent writer Oscar Wilde does not seek objective co-relatives in words drawn from the natural world of flowers.

Wilde makes no attempt to find a higher meaning for existence by looking to Nature. He looks instead to art: in ‘The Picture Of Dorian Gray’, though his portrait ages, Dorian himself remains forever young.

Note in the Keats poem and Dylan song the ‘Dylanesque rhyme twist’ -‘pains’/’drains’; ‘pain’/’drain’. He who thinks Dylan throws in rhymes just because they sound good to him, underestimates the singer/songwriter’s artistic ingenuity.

Dylan’s gotta serve somebody.

What else is on the site?

Untold Dylan contains a review of every Dylan musical composition of which we can find a copy (around 500) and over 300 other articles on Dylan, his work and the impact of his work.

You’ll find an index to our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.

The alphabetical index to the 552 song reviews can be found here.  If you know of anything we have missed please do write in.  The index of the songs in chronological order can be found here.

We also now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

And please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.

By Tony Attwood

This is it.  The End.  The Very End.

Not of the Untold Dylan website, (no worries there) but of the Basement Tapes Complete – the last album containing previously unheard compositions that Bob Dylan has released as of 10 July 2018.  Of course we hope that there will be more new songs from Bob, but for now this is it.

So, if you have not got a copy, how does the 138 track Basement Tapes Complete (Vol 11 of the Bootleg Series) end?  And did anyone actually get there by playing the whole of disc six through as one CD from start to end paying full attention throughout?  No chatting, no sending text messages, no quick trip off to make a sandwich…

If so, you get an award for stamina.  But I rather suspect that for many people, and certainly for me, interest and focus started to pale a little once the first half hour had passed.

But disc six of the Complete keeps on keeping on up to Track 21 (The Spanish Song – Take 2).  And then for anyone still alert there is the Hidden Track.   It’s just a regular track in terms of the Basement, and is in fact a re-write of 500 Miles.  It’s just not listed on the list of tracks either on the back of the box itself, nor within the booklet that holds the six discs.

However I get ahead of myself.  I’m reviewing the last three songs (Bring it on home, The Spanish Songs (takes 1 and 2) and the Hidden Track, all together here, because really, there’s not enough I can say on each to make it worthwhile creating three separate pages.

Bring in on home is a one liner of a song (and that line is “Bring it on home”).  It has a great beat and a lot of potential, and we have discussed one liners before (“I need your loving” – which I mentioned at some length in the discussion of Gonna Get you now.)   So this is not to say “Bring it on home” does not have possibilities. The problem is that those possibilities are not realised.  Haiku 61 still makes a superb effort:

This dude caught his train.
You should get ready for him.
He’s on his way home.

The Spanish Song Takes 1 and 2…  well this is what in English English we call larking around (I don’t know if that translates directly into American English – one might say “just messing about”).

It is a song of whoops and whistles sung in Spanish or mock Spanish (since I don’t speak Spanish I can’t tell you which).  And here Haiku 61, my help and support in moment’s of desperation throughout the whole 6.5 hours of the Basement Tapes, let’s me down, for the writer doesn’t even mention the track.  Maybe he’d had enough.  Maybe he doesn’t speak Spanish either.  I hope he’s ok and has good health insurance.

The song is based on “To Ramona”, and really I don’t quite see the point, but maybe someone else does and maybe much more to the point, there isn’t any point.  It is not that I am absolutely precious about “To Ramona”, although I do like the song, but this is just a bunch of guys who may have taken some stuff, and who think they are being funny are not (as I hear it) being very funny.

I make no allegations of course.  Maybe they hadn’t taken anything and just thought they were being funny.   Take two is much the same.

The Hidden Track is “500 miles from my home” in a broken hillbilly style which stops suddenly and then starts again with a re-write of “You’re my teenage prayer revisited”.  It ends with Bob saying “All right ladies and gentlemen thank you thank you thank you thank,” and some other words that I don’t get.

To dwell just a moment longer on this, “500 miles from my home” has been recorded seriously by Bob on “No Direction Home”

And there we are.

So at least you can distinguish between the people who have tried to consider all of the Basement Tapes Complete, and those rather annoying websites that have taken the names of the songs printed on the CD and put up a page for each song, which contains no lyrics, no information and the rather annoying little note saying “Be the first to make a comment.”   In writing all these reviews of the Complete, I’ve sometimes been tempted, but I suspect they’d just wipe it out.

As for disc six of the Basement Tapes, well, to be fair they do call it a “Bonus Disc” and make the point that the songs are often recorded with poor quality, so no one is pretending they are anything other than what they are.

In a way it is a sad ending, but I live in hope that “Bring it on Home”, “The Spanish Song” and the Hidden Track won’t be the last songs of Dylan I review.  Maybe there are some songs which an engineer recorded and which have seeped out into the public domain, which I have missed.  If so, once I find them, or they find me, I can offer my thoughts.  Maybe even at this very moment Bob is preparing to release a new album of original work.

But for now, on 10 July 2018, as far as I know, all the songs that Bob Dylan has written and which I can get hold of in a recorded format, are reviewed herein.  From here on it’s updates, albums, cover versions, and anything else that may be suggested.

Just in case you are interested, here is the complete list from the Basement Tapes Complete.  Disc six songs are given an asterisk, and may not be listed in the order in which they were recorded.

1. Edge of the Ocean
2. One for the road
3. Roll on Train
4. Under control
5. I’m guilty of loving you
6. I’m a fool for you
7. See you later Allen Ginsberg (1 and 2). 
8. Tiny Montgomery
9. Big Dog
10. I’m Your Teenage Prayer
11. One’s Man’s Loss
12. Lock your door
13. Baby wont you be my baby
14. Try me little girl
15. I can’t make it alone
16. Don’t you try me now
17. Million dollar bash
18. Yeah heavy and a bottle of bread
19. Please Mrs Henry
20. Lo and behold
21. Crash on the Levee
22. Dress it up, Better have it all
23. I’m not there (lost love, regret)
24. You ain’t going nowhere
25. This Wheel’s on Fire
26. I shall be released
27. Too Much of Nothing
28. Tears of rage
29. Quinn the Eskimo – The Mighty Quinn (surreal characters)
30. Open the Door Homer
31. Nothing was delivered
32. Sign on the cross
33. Sante Fe
34. Odds and Ends
35. Clothes line saga
36. I’m alright (note: the dating of this song is just a guess).
37. Apple Suckling Tree
38. Get your rocks off
39.  Silent Weekend
40. Don’t ya tell Henry
41. Going to Acapulco
42. Bourbon Street
43. My Woman She’s a Leavin’.
44. Mary Lou I love You Too
45. What’s it gonna be when it comes up?
46. It’s the flight of the Bumblebee
47. All you have to do is dream
48. Wild Wolf
49. Gonna Get You Now
50. Two dollars and 99 cents*
51. Jelly Bean*
52. Any Time*
53. Down by the station*
54. That’s the breaks*
55. Pretty Mary*
56. The King of France*
57. She’s on my mind again*. Note 56 & 57 are reviewed in the same article
58. On a rainy afternoon* Note this is not the same as  the 1966 song of the same title
59. I can’t come in with a broken heart*
60. Next time on the Highway*
61. Northern Claim*
62. Love is only mine*
63. Bring it on home* (see above)
64. The Spanish Song* (see above)
65. The Hidden Song* (see above)

By Larry Fyffe

Bob Dylan flashes the metaphorical light and dark chimes of Gnostic duality. The singer/songwriter draws upon the ‘brawn-brain’ (physical versus spiritual) theme to create dramatic tension in his song lyrics:

Don’t put on any airs when you’re down on
Rue Morgue Avenue
They got some hungry women there, and
they really make a mess out of you
(Bob Dylan: Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues)

Blame it on a story by Edgar Allan Poe. ‘The Murders In The Rue Morgue’, involves a detective who’s pitted against an orangutan, and the human turns out to be smarter. In another Wilde story, ‘The Picture Of Dorian Gray’, an Apollonian-like youth, named after mythological Dolus, stays forever young; however, he turns gray in his portrait:

They got Charles Darwin trapped out there
on Highway Five
Judge say to High Sheriff, ‘I want him dead
or alive
Either one, I don’t care’
High water everywhere
(Bob Dylan: High Water; for Charlie Patton)

Some religious fundamentalists may want Darwin’s evolutionary theory dead, but Dylan prefers to keep it alive so he can have fun with it:

The undercover cop was found
Face down in a field
The Monkey Man was on the bridge
Using Tweeter as a shield
(Bob Dylan: Tweeter And The Monkey Man)

Humans nature being what it is, Bob Dylan considers mankind a close relative of the ape:

‘Oh, please let not your heart be cold
This man is dearer to me than gold’
‘Oh, my dear, you must be blind
He’s a gutless ape with a worthless mind’
(Bob Dylan: Tin Angel)

Persons who get taken advantage of, especially so:

‘Do not let your passion rule
You think my heart the heart of a fool
And you, sir, you can not deny
You made a monkey of me, and why?’
(Bob Dylan: Tin Angel)

Simetimes, monkeys have a mind of their own:

Well, I sat my monkey on a log
And ordered him to do the dog
He wagged his tail, and shook his head
And went and did the cat instead
(Bob Dylan: I Shall Be Free, No. 10)

According to Dylan, Charles Darwin lends scientific credence to the Romantic metaphor – mankind’s in a struggle for survival in an environment that he’s not suited for:

Every step we take, we walk the line
Your days are numbered, so are mine
Time is pilin’ up, we struggle, and we scrape
We’re all boxed in, nowhere to escape
City’s just a jungle, more games to play
Trapped in the heart of it, trying to get away
I was raised in the country, I been workin’ in town
I been in trouble ever since I set my suitcase down
(Bob Dylan: Mississippi)

Darwin gives credence also to the mythology of Eden and the return to the Promised Land:

Gentlemen, he said
I don’t need your organization, I’ve shined your shoes
I’ve moved your mountains, and marked your cards
But Eden is burning, either get ready for elimination
Or else your hearts must have the courage for the
changing of the guards
(Bob Dylan: Changing Of The Guards)

As noted before, Bob Dylan is not apocalyptic in his outlook, as he is often thought to be. He holds out hope that mankind will adapt to his environment before it’s too late:

Now this is the law of the jungle
As old and as true as the sky
And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper
But the wolf that shall break it must die
(Rudyard Kipling: The Law Of The Jungle)

Mankind, sings Dylan, has the brains to break the law of the jungle, and still survive – he can change his mind for the better, and the environment that surrounds him too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqVgWZnLD-E

What else is on the site?

You’ll find an index to our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.

The index to the 500+ songs reviewed is now on a new page of its own.  You will find it here.  It contains links to reviews of every Dylan composition that we can find a recording of – if you know of anything we have missed please do write in.

We also now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

And please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.

By Tony Attwood

“Love is only mine” appears to have been improvised at the start but gradually gets sorted to some degree, giving the impression that Dylan had done a bit of work on this piece before he settles down to play it – but had forgotten where he was going.  At  the end he asks “What key haven’t we played in yet?”

And that question has a relevance here as this song is in C sharp major and occasionally is seems (although it is unclear as the instruments clash) C sharp minor, and quite honestly of all the thousands of pop and blues songs I’ve played, the only time I ever played in C Sharp major or minor was at an audition with band and they were trying me out with deliberately impossible requests.  I didn’t get the gig.

In fact one can hear members of the band playing odd notes here and there at the start which is exactly what it is like when one band member starts to play and says nothing to the rest of the ensemble who are left to work out what key it is in and what chord sequence is being used.

Except here not only is the key uncertain, so is the chord sequence, with one or two notable exceptions near the end, when a possibly rather interesting few elements of a song emerge.  But then Bob stops.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that given Bob was on the keyboards the chances are the band couldn’t see his hands and so took a while to find out where they were in terms of the key.  And even then since pop and rock musicians don’t often (if ever) play in C# or C#m they were then trying to find what chords naturally followed.

So this really is a rambling affair that stops after meandering around hither and yon, and you can hear from the tone of Bob’s voice that he’s not impressed by the result any more than we might be today.  In fact I suspect he was wondering why he started this in the first place.

As such I don’t think there was ever any serious attempt to pull the disparate elements of this song together as it meanders through chord after chord, Bob’s vocal line trying to keep up with what his fingers pick out on the electric piano.  Indeed I suspect that Bob forgot part way through what key he was actually meant to be in, and so it stops.

To make it harder Bob actually starts a minor third higher and suddenly switches.  Talk about messing with your band!

I know the lyrics below make no sense, but this is the best I can do and if you can evolve a better version please do send it in.  It’s pretty nonsensical, but then so is the music.

By Larry Fyffe

———————-

You might also enjoy:

• Exclusive Untold Interview: Bob Talks About Time Travelling In Canada
• Bob Dylan and the Red River Valley

———————-

Oddly, analysts of singer/songwriter Bob Dylan’s lyrics fail to mention that the song ‘Red River Shore’ is based a lot on Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry. You can tell this is so by the ‘Dylanesque Rhyme Twist’ – when Dylan pays tribute to a poem, he often repeats the same end-rhymes in song:

Well, the sun went down on me a long time ago
I had to go back from the door
I wish that I could have spent every hour of my life
With the girl from the Red River shore
(Bob Dylan: Red River Shore)

To wit:

Get thee back into the tempest, and the night’s Plutonian shore ….
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul has spoken
Leave my loneliness unbroken – quit the bust above my door
(Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven)

Or sometimes composes end-rhymes that are similar:

Some of us turn off the lights and we live
With 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)

‘To wit: ‘by/sky’ instead of ‘by/fly’:

From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by
(Edgar Allan Poe: Alone)

Bob Dylan’s songs of darkness are not so much ‘apocalyptic’ (of the end of the world) as ‘Gothic’ (spooky):

Though nothing looks familiar to me
I know I’ve stayed here before
Once, a thousand nights ago
With the girl from the Red River shore
(Bob Dylan: Red River Shore)

There be a pun on the oft-ghoulish Arabic tales known as ‘The Thousand Nights.’

Even the nursery rhyme mentioned in the song has sinister overtones:

Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How does your garden grow
With silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty maidens all in a row?
(Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary)

As he often does, Dylan, or should we say his persona, inverts themes – here he’s frustrated because he’s a failed “lady-killer” (‘I never did get that far’):

Pretty maidens all in a row lined up
Outside my cabin door
I’ve never wanted any of them wantin’ me
‘Cept the girl from the Red River shore
(Bob Dylan: Red River Shore)

She’s no pushover like some girls the narrator knows:

You used to be so amused
At Napoleon-in-rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you – you can’t refuse
(Bob Dylan: Like Rolling Stone)

In the verse below, doth thou knoweth about whom the narrator is speaking -Napoleon-in-rags, Jesus Christ, Edgar Allan Poe, or maybe even Bob Dylan himself?

Now I heard of a guy who lived a long time ago
A man of sorrow and strife
That if someone around him died and was dead
He knew how to bring’em back to life
Well, I don’t know what kind of language that he used
Or if they do that kind of thing anymore
(Bob Dylan: Red River Shore)

Poe-like Dylan, who often depicts modern life as death-like (‘the sun went down on me a long time ago’), brings the gal from the Red River shore back
to life.

Another source of the Red River is a Canadian folk song, revamped by Wilf Carter:

There’s a shack in the Red River Valley
That is shaded by evergreen trees
It was there that we all strolled together
And you said that you loved only me
Do you ever think of the day you left me
You promised some day you’d return?
(Wilf Carter: Red River Valley Blues)

One can never be sure about Bob Dylan.

Here’s Bob’s recording of the song: https://vimeo.com/233167417

And here is Wilf Carter…

What else is on the site?

You’ll find an index to our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.

The index to the 500+ songs reviewed is now on a new page of its own.  You will find it here.  It contains links to reviews of every Dylan composition that we can find a recording of – if you know of anything we have missed please do write in.

We also now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

And please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.

By Tony Attwood

This is one of those songs where Bob has an idea which focuses around the beat of the verse and the sudden variation of the scansion in the “Northern Claim” chorus.   But it hasn’t got any further than that.

Knowing that Bob could take weeks and on occasion months playing around with songs before he became fully comfortable with them there is no way of knowing where this song was supposed to be going or indeed what his intention was with the Northern Claim / Southern Claim dichotomy that emerges.

It might be that friends from the United States can explain it to me.  For the moment all I can think is that it could be any number of debates, arguments, points of view of battles between the north and south in America.  I don’t have enough information even to take a guess, but if this is a phrase that comes out of American folklore or the civil war or anything else in US history I would be most grateful if you could write in a let me know.  I haven’t got a clue.

And of course there is the fact that the composition is not just unfinished but also that it is poorly recorded.  Dylan however could take even the simplest of song elements and turn them into something well worth listening to if he felt so inspired – but here it seems the muse never took him.  And so where this was going and where it might have gone we’ll never know.

A lot of the lyrics below are pretty much guess work, so if you want to work out a variant version please do.  I’m not saying my version is right – it just is a version.  There are other versions available on the internet.

Well I took a first built engine on a travelling charge
Calling to darling and southern barge
Well it’s hard to make my getaway with pouring rain
Left myself inside the northern claim

Northern claim such sound of rain
Northern claim
Now all my life depends on a man of my dependence on a northern claim

Well I was found myself an ocean with a $10 fly
And the tombstone ladies looking passed on by
Well it’s bodies a-coming and my drive mobile
And I spend bullets flying, I rob, murder or steal

And it was northern claim beg borrow sound of rain
Northern claim suicidal rain
Well it don’t matter what you,
Don’t matter, just a southern claim

To me it sounds a bit plodding and uninspiring musically and would need a fairly nifty set of lyrics to make a song of real interest out of the current version, in my opinion.

Indeed I was even thinking of a plodding version of “Tombstone Blues” before I heard the word “tombstone” in the lyrics, and that got me remembering that I had compared “Next time on the Highway” with “From a Buick Six”.   Both this song and “Next time” are travelling songs, and maybe Bob had been thinking back to his work in 1967.   Consider this period of writing…

• Tombstone Blues
• Desolation Row
• From a Buick 6
• Can you please crawl out your window?
• Positively Fourth Street
• Highway 61 Revisited

These songs of disdain and songs of the highway were very strongly represented in this brilliant period of writing, and maybe, just maybe, with a lot of work this song could have become part of that epoch.  But, it didn’t.

What else is on the site?

You’ll find an index to our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.

The index to the 500+ songs reviewed is now on a new page of its own.  You will find it here.  It contains links to reviews of every Dylan composition that we can find a recording of – if you know of anything we have missed please do write in.

We also now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

And please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.

Bob Dylan: Lord Thomas, Lady Brown, Fair Eleanor, And The Tin Angel

by Larry Fyffe

The fact that the Untold Offices in London are left in a dismal, unkempt state at the end of each workday turns out to be a blessing in disguise. While straightening up a desk in the Archives Department, a cleaning lady uncovers a notebook that, at one time, belongs to Bob Dylan.

The notebook reveals a heretofore unknown source (as well as others sources already known) Dylan uses to inspire the dark lyrics in his Gothic ballad ‘Tin Angel’ – the tragic, traditional ballad ‘Lord Thomas And Fair Eleanor’. Therein, Lord Thomas and Eleanor are in love, but his mother insists that her son marry Lady Brown because she’s got money.

In ‘Tin Angel’, the wife of the Boss rides off with the Chief of a Scottish clan:

You got something to tell me, tell it to me, man
Come to the point as straight as you can
‘Old Henry Lee, Chief of the clan
Came riding through the woods and took her hand’
(Bob Dylan: Tin Angel)

As he often does, Dylan re-arranges the faces of the characters in the plot and gives them new names. In the original ballad, fair Eleanor (not the Boss) rides off in search of the missing loved one:

She clothed herself in gallant attire
And her merry men all was seen
And as she rode through every place
They took her to be a queen
(Lord Thomas And Fair Eleanor)

That same ballad, Bob Dylan alludes to in another one of his narrative songs:

Rosemary combed her hair and took
a carriage into town
She slipped in through the side door, looking
like a queen without a crown
(Bob Dylan: Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts)

There’s a second reference to ‘Lord Thomas And Fair Eleanor’ in ‘The Jack Of Hearts’ saga – Unfaithful to his wife Rosemary, ‘Big Jim lay covered up, killed by a penknife in the back’:

This Brown girl had a little penknife
Which was both keen and sharp
And betwixt the short ribs and long
She pricked fair Eleanor to the heart
(Lord Thomas And Fair Eleanor)

Now back to ‘Tin Angel’ – Seems Henry gets knifed in the heart by the wife of the Boss after the Chief of the clan kills her husband. Note the tribute paid to the old ballad that I call the ‘Dylanesque end-rhyme twist’ – ‘knee’/ ‘see ‘ – when Henry threatens the wife of the Boss:

I’d have given you the stars and the planets too
But what good would these things do?
Bow your heart if not your knee
Or never again this world, you’ll see
(Bob Dylan: Tin Angel)

Henry Lee, and fair Eleanor suffer the same fate, and same end-rhyme:

‘Oh art thou blind, Lord Thomas’, said she
‘Or can’t thou not very well see
Oh dost thou not see my own heart’s blood
Run trickling down my knee?’
(Lord Thomas And Fair Eleanor).

The Chief disparages the Boss as an inferior – for his being a mere member of the clan:

‘Oh my dear you must be blind
He’s a gutless ape with a worthless mind’
(Bob Dylan: Tin Angel)

With his sword, Lord Thomas cuts off Lady Brown’s head; then kills himself:

Oh dig my grave, Lord Thomas replied
Dig it both wide and deep
And lay fair Eleanor by my side
And the Brown girl at my feet
(Lord Thomas And Fair Eleanor)

The wife of the Boss kills herself too. It’s assonance everywhere, and a tragic tale of a love triangle:

She touched his lips and kissed his cheek
He tried to speak, but his breath was weak
‘You died for me, now I’ll die for you’
She put the blade to her heart, and she
ran it through
(Bob Dylan: Tin Angel)

Bringing it all back home to Scarlet Town:

O father, father, come dig my grave
Dig it wide and narrow
Poor William died for me today
I’ll die for him tomorrow
(Bob Dylan: Barbara Allen – traditional)

And so ends Dylan’s sad song:

All three lovers together in a heap
Thrown into the grave, forever to sleep
Funeral torches blazed away
Through the town and the village
all night and all day
(Bob Dylan: Tin Angel)

What else is on the site?

You’ll find an index to our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.

The index to the 500+ songs reviewed is now on a new page of its own.  You will find it here.  It contains links to reviews of every Dylan composition that we can find a recording of – if you know of anything we have missed please do write in.

We also now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

And please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.

By Tony Attwood

This 1967 song is Bob Dylan looking back a couple of years to “From a Buick Six” in 1965.  The song structure and themes are the same, and in fact there are a number of musical parallels in the instrumental work and melody line beyond the fact that both are 12 bar blues of the standard variety.

The recording quality is far superior to most of Disc six of the Basement Complete collection – the reason it is on the “bonus disc” is probably because of the talking over the music during the second instrumental break, and the fact that the two lines into the third verse the song just stops.

Or maybe they just had a bit of space.

Dylan sounds as if he has an idea for the lyrics with the title of the song, counting upwards through the next times he is on the highway, but he hasn’t really got beyond that.  And even if he had finished the lyrics I doubt that he would have recorded the song for an album given its proximity to Buick 6.

Here are the lyrics- they are of course approximate, and there may be some bits you want to correct…

First time on the highway I was six years old
She saw me empty she was lined up with gold
Next time on the highway was told with desire
Third time on the highway she got failing and fire
Soon then on the highway but don’t set me free
Next time on the highway gonna be the death of me

Instrumental verse

Well third time on the highway it was 19 0 10
They was treating the women just like they was treating the men
Next time on the highway  it was 19 0 12
Treating your brother just like you treat yourself
Third time on the highway it don’t matter to me.
Next time on the highway gonna be the death of me

Instrumental verse with voice over

Well the next first time on the blanket I was smoking my cigarette
Next time on the highway gonna be the death of me in fact you don’t 

And there it stops.

If we had not had From a Buick 6 before hand this could have been seen as an innovative piece of work that we might have wished Dylan had completed, but the existence of the Buick earlier rather removes much of the fascination, particularly as the lyrics, as far as they go, haven’t got too much to say about anything.

What else is on the site?

You’ll find an index to our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.

The index to the 500+ songs reviewed is now on a new page of its own.  You will find it here.  It contains links to reviews of every Dylan composition that we can find a recording of – if you know of anything we have missed please do write in.

We also now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

And please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.

by Larry Fyffe

As others have noticed, ‘Red River Shore’ by Bob Dylan shows the influence of at least a couple of traditional folk songs. I point out that it also shows the impact of Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry, in particular ‘The Raven’.

Following, is a traditional song that analysts of Bob Dylan’s lyrics miss as a source of another allegorical song by Dylan. There are words both contained within the traditional song, and Dylan’s song – ‘morning’ and ‘air’, and more or less paired are – ‘walked’/’went’, ‘espied’/’spied’, ‘fair’/’fairest’, ‘maid’/’damsel’, ‘charmer’/harm’:

It was on a summer’s morning
As I walked forth to take some air
Down by a shady arbour
Where seldom strangers do appear
I espied a comely fair maid
Who I thought was going astray
With a bunch of rushes in her hand
Which she had pulled on the way

The song above tells the tale of an innocent (symbolized by the ‘rushes’) girl who yields to a self-serving seducer, and is left stranded by the man who at first mistakes her for a prostitute:

I says, my lovely charmer
To you I mean no injury
But come and sit beside me
Beneath yon wide and shady tree
Where the lofty lark and linnet
Shall witness out mutual love
And I shall never deceive you
By all the powers above
(Traditional: The Bunch Of Rushes)

In the song below, the fair damsel, is figuratively a ‘prostitute’ in the grip (symbolized by the ‘chains’) of organized authority – could be a government, or it could be a civil rights group – could be the Devil, could be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody:

As I went out one morning
To breathe the air around Tom Paine’s
I spied the fairest damsel
That ever did walk in chains
I offered her my hand
She took me by the arm
I knew that very instant
She meant to do me harm

Tom Paine be a political writer, a Deist in the era of the Enlightenment, who searches for a reasonable way to hold in balance the freedom of the individual, and the common good of society as a whole:

Just then Tom Paine, himself
Came running across the field
Shouting at this lovely girl
And commanding her to yield
And as she was letting go her grip
Up Tom Paine did run
“I’m sorry, sir”, he said to me
“I’m sorry for what’s she’s done”
(Bob Dylan: As I Went Out One Morning)

Dylan upholds the Romantic position that all of us are born free, but everywhere we are in chains. Individual responsibility for one’s behaviour, as opposed to an imposed morality – by organized religion, for example -is the concern of the singer/songwriter:

A whore will pass the hat, collect a hundred
grand, and say, ‘thanks’
They like to take all this money from sin, build
big universities to study in
Sing ‘Amazing Grace’ all the way to the Swiss banks
(Bob Dylan: Foot Of Pride)

Tom Paine views government, personified below, as a necessary evil to prevent behaviour that’s harms those who carry rushes – a position that is inherently paradoxical; Dylan shies not away from controversy:

Every empire that enslaved him is gone
Egypt and Rome, even Babylon
He’s made a garden in the desert sand
In bed with nobody and under nobody’s command
He’s the neighbourhood bully
(Bob Dylan: Neighbourhood Bully)

There must be some way out of the paradox, and romanticizing and whitewashing the horrors of earthly existence is one attempt by Dylan to escape the trap:

But no charge against him
Could they prove
And there no man around
Who could track or chain him down
He was never known to make a foolish move
(Bob Dylan: John Wesley Harding)

Under such circumstances, cynicism is bound to raise it’s ugly head. In the long run, not much changes – there’s an eternal recurrence of good and evil; you’re stuck with Poe, Baudelaire, and Rimbaud:

Cinderella, she seems so easy
‘It takes one to know one’, she smiles ….
And the only sound that’s left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row
(Bob Dylan: Desolation Row)

Yes, it’s all been said before:

So make yourself quite easy
And merry be while I’m away
And bless the happy hour
You came to pull green rushes
(The Bunch Of Rushes)

Footnote: The link to The Bunch of Rushes above is to a contemporary vocal version of the song.  However today (in England at least) The Bunch of Rushes is often performed as an instrumental.  Here’s a particularly fine example.

You might also be interested in our index to Dylan’s references to British and French writers.

By Larry Fyffe

(Interview conducted by Larry Fyffe)

Untold: So, Bob, tell our readers about your visit to Canada in the winter of ’64.

Bob: Well, I was visitin’ my home town in Minnesota when I get this call from the CBC invitin’ me up to record some of my songs for them … so I hitchhike over to Kittson County, on the border – to Hallock, a small town on Two Rivers. … to join up with a Canadian friend of mine.

Untold: What’s his name?

Bob: Joe … Joe Two Rivers … an Ojibway-French guy …Metis, they call them; he’s from the Red River Valley, just across the border in Manitoba … works for the Canadian Forest Service with a bunch of forest rangers.

Untold: You ever mention Joe in any of your songs?

Bob: Kinda …made a joke about Joe in “Bob Dylan’s Blues”:

Well, the Lone Ranger and Tonto
They were walkin’ down the line
Fixin’ everybody’s troubles except mine

Untold: How about in any other songs?

Bob: “Red River Shore” tells the whole tale …. Two Rivers was with me up in
Red River Valley country in a log cabin where the songs were recorded for CBC-TV:

Pretty maids all in a row lined up
Outside my cabin door
I’ve never wanted any of them wantin’ me
‘Cept the girl from the Red River Shore

Untold: The gal from the Red River shore?

Bob: It’s a long story … Joe, he puts on this jacket given him by Chief Floating Cloud … mixes up some Indian herbs in a pipe, and we smoke it … the next thing I know I’m in some strange land.

Untold: Strange land?

Bob: Strange time, too … Joe later informs me that we travelled back to the old Red River Colony in Manitoba, and it’s 1869 all over again – I write about all about that long strange trip in the song:

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
She said, ‘Go home, and lead a quiet life’

Unold: You’re kiddin’ … You meet some gal from the North Country … back a century and a half ago?!

Bob: Yeah, I tried mixin’ up some herbs myself after I returned to the present so that I could go back to her, but it didn’t work out:

Well, I went back to see about her once
Went back to straighten it out
Everybody that I talked to had seen us there
Said they didn’t know who I was talkin’ about

Untold: What was her name?

Bob: ‘Rose Marie’ …Metis she was …so Joe tells me … she said ‘adieu’ all the time:

Well, the dream dried up a long time ago
Don’t know where it is anymore
True to life, true to me
Was the girl from the Red River Shore

Untold: So you still miss her?

Bob: You might say that … Even more than Edgar Poe misses his lost Lenore:

Well, I can’t escape from these memories
Of the one that I’ll always adore
All those nights, when I lay in the arms
Of the girl from the Red River Shore

Untold: Did you meet anyone else … back then?

Bob: No, but I was kinda hopin’ Jesus comes along, and brings Rose back to life for me:

Well, I don’t know what kind of language that He used
Or if they do that kind of thing anymore
Sometimes I think nobody ever saw me here at all
‘Cept the girl from the Red River Shore

Untold: What about Joe Two Rivers?

Bob: That’s the funny part ….Turns out his name’s ‘Mike’ …. from the Ukraine.

Untold: Oh …. Anyway, it’s a very beautiful song.

Bob: Yeah, the hills have a way of doin’ that to ya.

(End Of Interview)

Meanwhile…

You might also enjoy Untold’s earlier exclusive interview with Bob on the roof of the St James Hotel.

And our enquiry: “What did Bob Dylan die of?”

What else is on the site?

You’ll find an index to our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.

The index to the 500+ songs reviewed is now on a new page of its own.  You will find it here.  It contains links to reviews of every Dylan composition that we can find a recording of – if you know of anything we have missed please do write in.

We also now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

And please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.