Untold Dylan

By Tony Attwood

This review marks the start of the final leg of our journey through reviewing every Dylan song of which we can find a recording.

These final reviews come from Disc Six of the Complete Basement Tapes collection – separated out into a disc of their own seemingly without much sense of a chronological order.  These songs are grouped together because of their perceived poor quality, not because of anything else although the style and approach makes me think they did all come from around the same period of maybe a couple of weeks.

The CD consists of 21 recordings of which three are credited as “traditional arranged by Bob Dylan” while one of the tracks is a “take 2”, thus leaving 17 Dylan originals to be reviewed.

Track one is “Two dollars and 99 cents”.   It’s a 12 bar blues with a very bar room blues feeling, a relentless “drink it up, get smashed, pick up a woman on the cheap” feel.   The lyrics are not sorted at all; I doubt that Dylan had any thoughts about them when he started. apart from the tag line of “Two dollars and 99 cents”, but that phrase made him want the pounding barroom feel of the track.

If it had been worked on it could easily have been used at any time in the coming years as a filler track had Dylan needed one, but then I doubt that he ever needed one, or that he ever thought about the idea after putting this track down.  It was recorded, and I imagine the guys thought, “yeah, ok, so what now?  Anyone can a bottle opener?”

This is as close as I can get to the lyrics – if you can improve on them please do so without laughing at my feeble efforts.  I know they make no sense as they stand.

Go bag a sun dial
Two dollars and 99 cents
All mine I go down
Four dollars and 99 cents
It’s tomorrow
for to go
Lord lord tomorrow people go.

Don’t want a two dollar bill
One dollar 99 cents
You got ten dollars want a two dollar bill
Ten dollars and 99 cents
Had a good night 
Had a night with me and a hope on the devil’s son
Ain’t got a bus we’ll keep it level
Do or die man comes along and 
Why but  why shouldn’t I ?
Two dollars and 99 cents two dollars and 99 cents

Well she walk in and asks how much is that  mister
Two dollars and 99 cents
Oh you better go back and ask your sister
For two dollars and 99 cents
oh I am ????
two dollars and 99 cents
but you keep my way with your 
???? 
do or die why its too much to cry
Why oh why oh why why shouldn’t I?

So not particularly informative I’m afraid.  I imagine someone somewhere has made a fulsome song out of this, but doesn’t want to publicise it beyond playing it with their band otherwise there would be royalties to pay to Mr D’s corporation.

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

• Part 1 of the series appears here: Bob Dylan And Charles Baudelaire

Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan draws many of his images from the deck of Symbols placed before him by the French poet Charles Baudelaire. A symbol is a concise image with broad meaning:

(Baudelaire: Spleen I)

On one level, the following song lyrics are about the emotional struggle with love, compassion, and hate experienced by individuals in today’s society:

(Bob Dylan: Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts)

The Jack Of Hearts symbolizes love and sex; Lily, as does the Queen Of Spades, symbolizes Death.

Death – both literal and metaphorical:

(Baudelaire: To A Madonna)

The following fragmented song lyrics, peppered with updated Baudelairean imagery, could well refer to a poster of Brigette Bardot with a motorcycle; the grey flannel dwarf to an uptight businessman:

(Bob Dylan: Gates Of Eden)

According to many Romantic artists, the Reason of The Enlightenment casts God outside of the Universe, leaving Man, still locked outside of Eden, with only his physical body and it’s sensations – no Absolute moral authority to guide him or her, and no reward to look forward to in an ‘afterlife’. The Romantic Transcendentalists come up with the idea that the organic world of Nature is God’s Spirit imperfectly manifested – a hard sell when most people live in cities. Capitalist birds of prey swoop down to build their Edenic nests of concrete, plastered with  posters of Brigette Bardot on a motorcycle:

Expressed in black humour by the singer/songwriter:

(Bob Dylan: I Shall Be Free)

The Symbolists of their day champion Art as a replacement for the oh-so-boring capitalist gods who ride golden calves upon the platform of democracy. These  poets mount their silver steeds and ride off to rescue the Romanic damsel-in-distress.The Symbolists, even if ‘dandies’, explore the dark, desolate streets of the contemporary city in search of artistic inspiration.  Bob Dylan takes on a persona that emulates the art and lifestyle of the Symbolists – he drives a motorcycle, and the Queen of Spades jumps on, grabs him around the waist.

In the words of both Baudelaire and Dylan, Art is personified as a beautiful and unattainable woman that becomes a ‘thing in itself’ to worship:

(Baudelaire: The Living Torch)

Who among us would try to deny it?

(Bob Dylan: Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands)

The sound of the ticking clock, and pumping heart – the shortness of life – causes some Symbolist poets to scream at other-worldly religions, at flowery Romantic Transcendentalism …. and even at Art itself:

By Tony Attwood

I mentioned in my review of “Wild Wolf” (also on disc 5 of the Complete Basement Tapes collection) that the song reminded me of Tin Angel and Scarlet Town.

And here we are in Tin Angel country again, and I have begun to wonder if, when composing those songs from Tempest, Bob did indeed go back to the Basement Tapes and recall what he had been up to.

The factor that is a constant between Tin Angel and and Gonna Get You Now is nothing to do with the mood of the song or what’s in the lyrics but instead a lot to do with the structure, for both songs are based on one chord.

It is quite a hard trick to pull off, because changing the chord is one of the main ways of keeping the momentum going, especially in folk and popular music.   Take out the chords and we have left the lyrics and the melody as a way of taking the song forward, but there is always a sense of stasis. Nothing is really moving, all is the same.

Which is odd when the promise of the first line (and title) relates to what happens next, for this is a song whose prime message is “Gonna get you now”.

But not to worry because the words don’t make much sense anyway, and that message gets rather blurred as things progress.

Thanks as always in this series of songs to Haiku 61 for providing the lyrics.   I’ve made just the tiniest of adjustments, nothing more.

Gonna get you now
Word to your grandpa, come on home.
Well its sun in the  afternoon
Drama ain’t cold and brown.
Late last night on the top
She was heading to calling me ’round.
Gonna get you now.
Gonna get you now…
Word to your grandpa, come on home.
Well I was daydreaming on Sunday.
Monday came both ways.
Big storm, man,  it don’t bother me,
But I can’t seem to get it straight
Gonna get you now.
Going to your grandma, you’d better best come home

And just in case you go chasing off to hear this on Spotify, the fellas who run that show have been very misleading, for on the first page of Google at least when I was researching this song, is Gonna Get You Now, a song by Bob Dylan on Spotify but it leads to nothing of the kind, because the song isn’t even listed on Spotify, let alone providing us with a link to the recording.

Quite what the song is all about I don’t know, any more than I know why Bob was experimenting with a one chord song.  But if there was a set of linked thoughts in this piece maybe it was that the singer is tangled up in a mess and he really is stuck in this one single situation, and can’t get out.  Hence the single chord, symbolising being stuck.

It is hardly an advanced theory, but it is a theory.

The most famous of all the (almost) one chord songs was “I need your loving” although the composers cheated by having a brief moment of four ascending chords and then throwing in a sudden unexpected and brief “B” section.  It’s still a classic however.

What was so clever about that song was that not only did it only have one chord for the most part it also only had one line of lyrics for the most part.  And yet it needed two composers:  Bobby Robinson and Don Gardner.  That song was a hit in 1962 so maybe Bob remembered it, or maybe he hit on the one chord song quite separately.

So there we have it; quite an interesting sound built around one chord, a varying melody and a set of words that don’t seem to make any sense.  Post-modern Bob?

As it was, there was only one more Dylan original left in the Basement series – “All you have to do is dream” which goes in a completely different direction, with an utterly different feel, a complex set of chord changes, and a real melody.   And a theme in the first two lines that occupied Bob time and time again.

If the farmer has no silo
And his fuel cost runs up high
Well, that’s just how much I would love you
If you’d just only let me try.

If you are following these reviews in sequence, we’ll now move onto the final leg – the “bonus disc” of songs from the Basement series which were considered so badly recorded they couldn’t be included in the mainstream part of the show.  I’ll be working through the whole of that final disc in the coming weeks.

by Larry Fyffe

Poems of Charles Baudelaire shows the impact of Edgar Allan Poe; Bob Dylan’s song lyrics reveal the influence of Charles Baudelaire.

In one version thereof, Dylan sings:

(Bob Dylan: Tangled Up In Blue)

Dylan makes reference to a poem by Baudelaire (translated):

(Baudelaire: The Balcony)

Symbolist poet Beaudelaire admires the colourful Romantic paintings of Eugene Delacroix that deal with mankind’s pain and suffering. Bob Dylan studies the art of painting, and brings ‘Lady Liberty Leading The People’ by Delacroix to mind with a sly pun in the lyrics below:

(Bob Dylan: Tangled Up In Blue)

Eugene Delacroix paints ‘Tasso In The Madhouse’ – Torquato Tasso, an Italian poet from the sixteenth century, writes ‘Rinaldo’, a knightly romance that contains sexual imagery based on Sandro Botticelli’s ‘Birth Of Venus’:

(Baudelaire: On Eugene Delacroix’s Tasso In The Madhouse)

The singer/songwriter seeks out sexy Venus, his Muse:

(Bob Dylan: When I Paint My Masterpiece)

In the poem below, a cracked bell symbolizes a broken soul:

(Baudelaire: The Cracked Bell)

Not quite so dark are the song lyrics below:

(Bob Dylan: I Want You)

Other song lyrics draw a comparison with two French Symbolist poets influenced by Baudelaire:

(Bob Dylan: You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go)

Rimbaud writes of Venus:

(Arthur Rimbaud: Sun And Flesh)

Likewise for the singer/songwriter – Venus’ water balances Mars’ fire, makes love pure. Black-robed priests over-water it:

(Bob Dylan: Watered-Down Love)

By Tony Attwood

The first time I heard “Wild Wolf” I was immediately reminded of songs such as “Tin Angel” and “Scarlet Town” from Tempest.

It is primarily atmosphere that draws these songs together for me, the sense of brooding darkness that I think Bob was trying to create in such songs – atmosphere above and beyond the importance of any story or the lyrics… just the darkness.

The song is obviously held together by the primary use of minor chords and the prominence given to the bass and the percussion without any use of cymbals.  Very broody.

Here are the lyrics from Expecting Rain as copyrighted in 1973

Now the ruins are barely rolling / And the animals cant agree
On all the bushes in the nations / But nobody feels sorry for me
If I lost everything of all the cities / Yeah, but I can’t help his smog
The day, I feel it / She sure is standing / But the holy book is written
Oh, what page / They are all there / And as for a natural warning
But nobody done yet understand / Just like Pharoah and his armies
They made of solid bread, yeah / That old bad wolf’s gonna howl his way to morning’s
Hold to some big cavern / I would sit and wait, calling my children out there
But I just don’t mean to hesitate / And if I was a missionary leader
I would attempt to laugh and rage / Yet the wild wolf he’s still bubblin’ under
And not a babe

And as quoted by Haiku 61, which I think he borrowed from another site

Now the ruins are barely rolling
And the nations can’t agree
On all that all the nations
But nobody feels very sorry for me
If I lost everything of all the saving grace
Yeah, but I can’t help this smog
The day I feel it
She sure is standing
Now the holy book is written
Oh, what page
All are there
And as for a natural warning
But nobody done yet understand
Just like Pharaoh and his armies
They were made of a solid breath, yeah, and
That old bad wolf’s gonna howl his way from morning
Holed in some big cavern
I would sit and wait, calling my children outside
But I just don’t mean to hesitate
And if I was a master leader
I would attempt to laugh and rage
Yet the wild wolf he’s big old bad 
And not a babe

The song has a series of moving chords, that are not particularly complex but for the band to get them right, but complex enough that they have obviously rehearsed the piece before playing on this recording.  But despite that amount of effort Bob doesn’t seem to have worked much on the lyrics apart from writing them in a stream of consciousness manner.

But none of that compares to Haiku 61 where the writer really has exceeded himself…

Wild wolf, holy books.
Pharaoh’s armies made of bread.
No one cares for me.

Oh for the wit to write like that.  I could live without this track, but utterly love the Haiku and will keep that with me forever.

As for the Basement Tapes Complete it is very strange how these songs come one after the other.   “Going to Acapulco” comes next which is very different, but then there is “Gonna get you now” which uses the same accompaniment techniques but to a very different effect.

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 previously noted, Bob Dylan’s song lyrics reveal that the singer/songwriter tends to relate to the Gnostic and Gothic aspects of the poetry of Samuel Coleridge and Johnn Keats; the singer/songwriter flees from  the English Transcendentalist Romantics who, in reaction to orthodox religion, envision the light of some goodly Oneness floating out there in the world of Nature:

(John Keats: The Eve of St. Agnes)

The influence of mystical Keats – his individualistic search for release from an overly rational and ordered  world – is clearly shown in the song lyrics below:

(Bob Dylan: Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window)

An influence on Keats is an earlier English Romantic poet, rather Gnostical and paradoxical, who ponders the darkness:

She maketh answer to the clock

The Baron’s daughter enters the dark woods:

That poem by Coleridge influences an American poet:

Bringing it all back home to the singer/songwriter:

(Bob Dylan: Love Minus Zero)

Edgar Allan Poe is introduced to the French Symbolist poets by Charles Baudelaire:

(Edgar Allan Poe: The Sleeper)

A Symbolist poet takes another shot at the one-sidedly bright-themed Transcendentalists:

(Arthur Rimbaud: On The Subject Of Flowers)

The singer/songwriter picks the flowers:

(Bob Dylan: Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts)

Bob Dylan’s cosmological view is neither black nor white; if there is an answer, it’s blowing in the wind; you’re gonna have to service somebody – it may be the Devil or it may be the Lord:

(Bob Dylan: The Man In The Long Black Coat)

Dylan, surrounded by the sounds of music, is a silver-tongued devil who sings two-edged words.

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

“The flight of the bumblebee” is an orchestral interlude written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, composed at the end of the 19th century.  “It’s the flight of the bumblebee” is a track by Bob Dylan from the Basement Tapes.

So, allow me a moment to give a spot of historical context.

Although it was not especially central to the opera for which the piece was originally written, the “Flight of the Bumblebee” is today one of the most well known orchestral works of the classical romantic tradition.

The work comes at the end of Act III, Tableau 1, as the magic swan changes the Tsar’s son into an insect so that he can visit his father who does not know that he’s alive.   (This is opera, after all).

In the opera the Swan sings at the start of the flight, although the song with the singing is not generally heard outside of fulsome renditions of the opera.   Here are the lyrics….

Well, now, my bumblebee, go on a spree,
catch up with the ship on the sea,
go down secretly,
get deep into a crack.
Good luck, Gvidon, fly,
only do not stay long!

In Dylan’s version which appears as track 18 of disc 5 on the Complete Basement Tapes box set the pianist plays the opening theme from the orchestral music after which the electric piano and guitar move into a fairly standard blues with a few chordal variations.

If you go into Google and type in Bob Dylan bumblebee or some variation thereof you might well find what claims to be a 2014 rendition by Bob and the Band (which seems unlikely) and which is a young lady playing guitar and singing in a coffee bar. It’s very nice, and underneath (at least when I looked) is the statement Dylan Bumblebee 2009.  But I can assure you it is not Bob Dylan and not the song that appears on the Basement Tapes.

Deezer also has a listing that it claims is the song, but again it isn’t.  However Shazam really does manage to get 30 seconds of the recording – and indeed the right recording so if you really want to hear a bit, you can.

The pitchfork website has about the most reasonable commentary:

The sheer variety of different voices that Dylan tried out during the Basement Tapes period is astonishing. One of the most delightful of these pops up during this fragment. After Garth Hudson deftly picks out a bid the old piano lesson favorite, Bob emerges as a smooth, baritone crooner, singing sweetly of a bothersome bumblebee. As he brings the song to its hammy big finish, it’s possible Dylan has never sounded quite so relaxed.

And yes Lyric Wiki has written out the words. You might want to sit down before reading this

It’s the flight, the flight
Of the farm bumblebee

Yes, it’s the flight, it’s the flight
Of the bumblebee

Yes, it’s the flight
That mean ol’ flight
That mean ol’ flight of the bumblebee

Buzz-buzz-buzz

Well, it’s that flight
Yes, it’s that flight of the night
Of that ol’ bumblebee

Yes, it’s that flight
That flight of the night when it’s light
Now the birds that fly
That’s where you’ll find that ol’ bumblebee

Mean ol’ bumblebee
Rolling ’round the door
I give him all my candy
But he keeps coming back for more
That mean ol’ bumblebee

Can’t take a ??
I’m scratching on that bumblebee
Scratching still
I’m scratching on that ol’ bumblebee

and I rather think that is nicked from Haiku61, whose author deserves every credit for ploughing through the whole box set to devise the lyrics.

Here’s the Haiku itself, wonderful as ever

Mean old bumblebee,
He keeps taking my candy
Right from my front door.

And that I think is about that.

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 And John Keats (Part III)

by Larry Fyffe

Earlier Parts of this series are available at

Ye who holds that Bob Dylan knows not his Keats, knows not Bob Dylan. The singer/songwriter shows regret at not being able to establish a permanent love relationship:

(Bob Dylan: Tomorrow Is A Long Time)

In the lyrics above, the narrator accepts the reality of impermanence in relationships – he’s moving on:

(Bob Dylan: Shooting Star)

Bob Dylan is sorry.

For Romantic poet John Keats, a permanent relationship is the be-all and end-all of desire:

(John Keats: Bright Star)

John Keats is sad.

Both Dylan and Keats show Gnostic influence. There be alliterative snake-like ‘s’ sounds prominent in both their pieces, suggesting oxymoronic reticence mixed with danger. Bob Dylan keeps alert. Like Keats, he’s aware of the sleepless shape-shifting female of Greek mythology who seduces men and then consumes them. Her name is Lamia. In the poem above, Keats (or at least his persona) is willing to put up with the ‘sweet unrest’. If only she would lie beside him, Keats is ready to sacrifice everything.

Aware of Egyptian mythology, Bob Dylan envisions a war that is not only going on between the sexes, but within oneself; he mixes the mythological gods together as the ancient Egyptians did over time themselves:

(Bob Dylan: Angelina)

Some mythologists consider that Seth, the God of Disorder and a brother of Isis, be symbolized by a snake and a hyena.

Christianity, for Dylan, brings pieces of compassion to fit in the cosmological puzzle:

(Bob Dylan: Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands)

From Dylan’s perspective, the Jesus-like Lady has a ‘mercury mouth’ – tasted, it could be poisonous.

In a John Keats poem, two lovers safely flee together:

(John Keats: The Eve Of St. Agnes)

In a Dylan song, dice are rolled, and you take your chances – bad luck should they come up ‘snake eyes’:

(Bob Dylan: Romance In Durango/with J. Levy)

There’s a lot of Keats in Dylan – he takes his cake and eats it too.

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

Very unusually there is a little extract of this song on the internet – at least at the time of writing there was.  Quite what it is doing on the BBC Music site I don’t really know, but given that the record company has been particularly active in demanding the removal of most of the recordings that have appeared online, we should perhaps be grateful for this 30 seconds.

I know that these songs are just snippets and ideas, but really they are worth looking at.  For as a website I was reading this morning said, “Some may say the time of exploration is over,” (I translate from the French).   You can find where I was at Casino epoca latest promotions.  In Dylan’s case no, the time of exploration most certainly was not over; indeed with John Wesley Harding still to come this year, I think we can say it was still only just beginning.

And as for the oddity of the BBC site, assuming their link to the song it is still up by the time you play it you will find it here.

Deezer has a song that plays on what should be their page about this song, but Dylan it most certainly ain’t.

Adding to the oddities, the website “Nobody sings Dylan like Dylan” has a page with this song’s name and a set of lyrics that have nothing to do with Dylan.  Mystery upon mystery!

And so after a good half hour rummaging around among empty sites and links to other songs we come back to the one person who has worked on these songs seriously: the writer of Haiku 61 who gives us this haiku and the lyrics.  But for once I think I can do a little more than him in terms of the lyrics, although by and large we both agree.

First the haiku which sums it all up.

I want to leave you,
But my heart wants to stay, so
I’ll leave it with you.

That’s really clever; I don’t know how the guy does it, but that certainly is what the song seems to be about.

As a prelude to the lyrics the writer says, “I can’t understand everything that he’s saying,”   and I have to say I have the same problem.   Here’s my version…

Well I been inside but I’m living like morning low
And I don’t wanna treat they’re courting me not to go
When all the morning birds that fly away so so high
All now each and every one, my baby and I

I want to leave you now get married by
I want to leave you now but my heart says neither do I
Well I don’t want a mountain rainbow, it was a sound
Well my girl and Mary Lou my love come down

Now it’s a tune a week more happy tunes that they sang
And she dances me for the merry gift I can bring
Well that wide old mountain stand so high, wide and blue
O Mary Lou, can’t you see I love you too?

I want to leave you now but my heart’s too slow
I want to leave you, Mary Lou, but my heart says don’t go
Now so I’m sitting down in this old cafe ah well
I’m going to leave you now and my dear old happy home

It has been rehearsed as the band clearly know where they are going and Dylan has melody sorted out.   And they all know where to pause too!  And where to end

There’s a Latin feel and it ends with a very cheesy three quick chords from the band in the style of a cha-cha-cha ending which suggests to me Dylan was just relaxing and experimenting to see where the whole thing went.

I think this is in the compositional position of “My Woman She’s a-leaving” which was recorded just before; the music is sorted out and the band know what they are up to.  Also Dylan has the melody worked out.  It is just that “My woman” is much more in Dylan’s natural style while “Mary Lou” isn’t, and so it comes over as a less effective piece.

In between the two we have Santa Fe, which shows just how varied Bob was looking to be by this time.   But perhaps we should particular note that these three Dylan compositions which come next to each other on disc five of the Complete Basement Tapes really do move the whole collection forwards.

And I would say that it is helpful to hear “Dress it up better have it all” in the same context.  The lyrics may not be sorted, but Dylan has got the music worked out and so has the band.

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.

Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan likes to fiddle while Keats mourns.  Dylan turns  themes presented by other artists upside down.

As in the song lyrics below:

(Bob Dylan: Forever Young)

More optimistic is the singer about future happiness in the world of reality than the poet be.  Keats finds the actual world, outside the imagination, wanting:

(John Keats: Ode On A Grecian Urn)

The Dylanesque rhyme twist: ‘young’/’rung’ vs ‘young’/ ‘tongue’

Another poet, who’s also familiar to Dylan, focuses on the dark side of life:

(Rudyard Kipling: Gentleman-Rankers)

The Dylanesque rhyme twist again – Kipling and Dylan both end-rhyme ‘rung’ and ‘young’

Again, below, Dylan fiddles with themes, turns things around:

(Bob Dylan: Lay Lady Lay)

Contrasting with Keats’ melancholic view of the world outside his mind:

(John Keats: On Fame)

The Dylanesque twist – Keats and Dylan both end-rhyme ‘too’ and ‘you’.

Bob Dylan matches John Keats’ mood some of the time:

(Bob Dylan: Tell Ol’ Bill)

But overall Keats’ poetry is dark – for example, he depicts knights in shining armour who are doomed from here to eternity:

(John Keats: La Belle Dame Sans Merci)

Bob Dylan’s lyrics reveal that he’s more or less content living in the sensual world, especially if he has a real female Muse to go with it; he’ll bake his ideal cake for sure, but he’ll eat it in the real world:

(Bob Dylan: If Not For You)

Dylan end-rhymes ‘you’/’too’, coincidence or not, with Keats, ‘dew’/’too’.

The more Gnostic-influenced John Keats imagines he’s trapped with women in a Gothic place from which there is no physical release:

(John Keats: Lamia)

Not a compassionate sad-eyed lady of the lowlands is Lamia – she’s a beautiful woman without mercy.

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 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

There is a moment at the start of disc five of the Complete Basement Tapes that really makes me feel that Dylan has got over all the larking around and just playing other people’s songs for the hell of it.  The band start playing what to me (and perhaps some others, but I haven’t tested this theory, so I will just say “to me”) sounds like the opening of “It takes a lot to laugh it takes a train to cry”.

I would be willing to bet a pound or a dollar or a euro that the band thought that was what Dylan was going to sing.   He lets it roll on and on, and then suddenly starts singing “Blowing in the Wind”, and of course the band follow.   OK I don’t know if netbet.co.uk actually takes deals like this but one could try.

As a version of the classic, it doesn’t really work for me.  But it shows a level of imagination, and with the band really together.

It is just one of the tricks that are played on Disc Five.   The next is “One Too Many Mornings.”  On the credits it says “Lead vocals are sung by Bob Dylan” but I bet that dollar / pound/ euro again that it isn’t Bob in the first verse of “One Too Many”.  And I’ll also affirm that this song has been rehearsed and rehearsed as the timing and chord sequence is changed from the original album version.

In short disc five ain’t nothing like the previous four discs.  This is focused and tried out, both in the reworking of Dylan’s compositions, as well as in the traditional songs like “Ain’t no more cane”.  And I mention all this because if you have bought a copy of the Complete and thought “I can’t take no more of this” and given up after “Bourbon Street” dig out the box, dust it down, and start on disk five.

Anyway, my job here is to consider the Dylan originals that we haven’t covered elsewhere on this site and that leads me to “My woman she’s a leaving”.  Now I wouldn’t say this one track is worth the cost of the whole box, but if you’ve got the box, or know someone who has it, go and play this.   It is great.   Really great.

Bob doing that rock-blues 12 bar thing that he used to be able to do so brilliantly, with a bunch of musicians who really know what he is up to.   I won’t put that pound / dollar/ euro on it but I suspect you will play it again and again.

My Woman She’s a-Leavin’ of course has a haiku and it reads thus:

Woman’s hard to please.
Her man is a rolling stone,
And now she’s leaving.

In the end the Haiku writer sees it as “entertaining background music”.   I bow to his dedication with the haikus and his lyrics – which I reproduce below but I can’t share his opinion.   At this moment, for me, Bob was really back on track.

And not just with this song but the next track, Santa-Fe which I have already reviewed.   Like I say, do not judge disc 5 by anything else that is on the Complete Box.

And just to point out that the piece is rehearsed, there is not a straight 12 bar blues – there is a little variation at one point.  No one makes a mistake.  The guys knew what Bob was up to.

Broken out and fighting
But she’s all right out of of need
And she’s already mourning my hand
She’s open as some pages 
But I don’t have the need
But she’s already cheating my stand
Every time you morning plea
I open this heart to please
But she’s already held me in my hand

Now early in the morning she’s a hot and a hand to hold
I’m a rolling stone of desire
Well bless my potato she’s hungry but she’s feeling
And she’s all mashed up like to die
But she’s don’t leave me no combination
And I don’t need no congregation
And she hear them preaching on the fire

[Instrumental]

Well xxxxxx 
hear no bell a ring man
well it ain’t good bye
Reason on the panda mama’s kitchen
But she’s all messed up with desire
Well I hate to be no streetin’
But my woman she’s a leavin
And my feel no stand she’s no liar

[Instrumental]

Actually I made one little change there, but it would be churlish to say I’d really done anything particular to improve the transcription.

If you’ve got the box set go and play disc five.  If not, go and find a mate who has got it and borrow disc five.  It’s worth it.   And just leave the disc running.  Disc five is fun.

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 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

As you may have noticed, if you are a regular visitor to these pages, Untold Dylan is working its way through the last few songs on the Complete Basement Tapes that we’ve never covered before, to round off our attempt to review every Dylan song, of which we have a copy.

But here we pause for a moment in that pursuit to consider an overview of the whole Basement Tapes Box Set phenomena…

Thoughts on the Basement Tapes Box Set

by Kevin Lang

This review should have written itself.  In fact, I could have written it without listening to a single song.  In fact, I dare say I can tell you what every other review says.  I bet they say “it’s a fun, and loose, Bob Dylan.  Dylan finally leaves the spotlight behind and gets back to being Bob.  These sessions show a behind the scenes look at the genius mind.  We get a glance at the genius without the filters he so carefully created to keep us at bay.”

See, there is a ton of great early secret Dylan stuff.  But this ain’t it.

Allow me to clarify; early Bob Dylan’s demos may be my favorite thing in the world.  I can seriously only compare the joy of the first 3 ‘bootleg series’ to seeing Bob in real life.  That first set they released, long ago, was a peak behind the curtain, revealing demos, lost songs, and completely different takes.

You want to hear early Bob?  Get the Bootleg Series 1-3.    The alternate version of ‘Tangled up in Blue’ will change your life.  As for ‘Seven Curses’, I just can’t think of a better song, or better performance.

Yes, there is much to celebrate about a loose and fun Dylan.  But the Complete Basement Tapes, set is not it.

The Basement Tapes set comes in two flavors; one is a small 2 discs ‘best of the box’ kinda set.  Then, there is six disc set of everything that was recovered.   I have the former, and it’s about every song too long.

What happened?  What are we talking about?  Well, this is a super cool story.  I mean, I know you know it already, but just step back and think about it once again as if you’ve never heard it before.

Around 1965, Dylan was the biggest star on Earth.  He was also the voice of a generation. He absolutely hated both aspects of his life.  He was living in upstate New York town of Woodstock – yes that Woodstock.

Then Bob had a motorcycle accident.  They told everyone it was very bad, and you just may never see him again.  At least, not as you knew him.  Except some like Ultimate Classic Rock suggest it never happened. 

Dylan had just come off the insane beautiful and perfect masterpiece ‘Blonde on Blonde’.  He was set to head off on a long and gruelling tour, again.  With the accident, though, everything was put on hold.  How bad was Bob hurt?  What really happened that day?   We STILL do not know. Bob won’t say.

Personally, I think it was entirely and completely blown out of proportion by Bob and company.  It gave Bob a chance to disappear completely for a couple of years.  It has been strongly implied by his manager, the formidable Albert Grossman, that Bob spun out, and likely got a bruise or two when he fell of his bike.

That day in Woodstock, he went in as a boy and left as a man.  It gave him a chance to step off the success machine and go about his life like a regular man.  He had a wife, kids, and a nice place in the woods.  What’s better than that?

Well, music is, man.  Bob got bored, and enlisted a neighboring band (literally called ‘the Band’) to be his back up band.  He had a great plan; live behind the scenes as a professional songwriter for hire.  It was kind of always his plan.  The great ‘Witmark Demos’ were put together to shop Bob’s songs around.

In essence, Bob wisely figured he could have it all:  keep writing music, stop being famous, and get paid handsomely.  He got together with these fellas, the Band, and started jamming daily.  They were loose and happy, and just making music.  Bob simply wanted rough drafts for songs to sell.  To me, it totally makes sense.  Who wouldn’t want to buy a song from the greatest songwriter in history?

Even better, these sessions were recorded, and we have them now.  This piece, then, is to review those recordings, which were recently cleaned up, remastered, and re-released.  Isn’t that amazing?   We have a window into fun Bob, and happy Bob.  These tapes made it out of the basement and got released to huge acclaim.  According to Clinton Heylin, this was the first ‘bootleg’ ever.

Problem is this; musically, it sucks.  It is boring, and literally sounds like 5 dudes who are WICKED high tuning their instruments.  See, there is no such thing as ‘fun Bob’, or ‘Bob relaxed’.  Well, there is… but this isn’t it.  There was a ‘carefree Bob’, and this was captured in Pennebaker’s master study ‘Don’t look back’.  That was ’62, as Bob was just breaking big.  Of course, he wasn’t exactly all super happy fun in that film, either.  Actually, Bob told the guy to follow him around and catch everything.

When the film was done, Dylan realized it made him look like a dick (you GOTTA see his press conferences) and tried to have to film stopped.  Pennebaker won, and Dylan lost.  The judge is basically saying ‘well, yes… you do come off as a total dick in the film.  However, the film seems accurate to me, you are a dick!”

My point about the Basement Tapes Complete is this – don’t buy it.  You can have mine.  Instead, buy this (Bootleg Series 1-3) and the Witmark demos.  Most of this series of mini box sets have been amazing.  Any and all Bob is great, up to ’65, and the motorcycle ‘accident’.

The word is that the next ‘Bootleg’ series will be the Blood on the Tracks stuff.  Holy fuck, that album is good.  It is easily in my top five, along with ‘Siamese Dream’, ‘Appetite for Destruction’, ‘Yield’, and “Physical Graffiti’.

Last words are this – I kept raving about Tangled up in Blue above – even know it has NOTHING to do with the ‘Basement Tapes’.  I just wanted to show you there was still some serious genius in Bob come 1975.  To me, nearly none of that genius can be found in the Basement Tapes.

Don’t ever forget, Mr Jones is you.

Untold Dylan is always happy to take alternative views on aspects of Dylan’s music.  If you’ve an article you’d like to have considered for publication please do drop us a line.  This article has been edited slightly from the original which appeared on The Phantom Blog.

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 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

See also: Blake, Keats, And Spots Of Ink

Many of the poems of John Keats centre on the search by human beings for an ideal eternal home in a world of transient time – a theme singer/songwriter Bob Dylan expresses in many of his song lyrics.

Statues made of stone and such are symbols of this psychological urge to have time stand still:

(John Keats: Ode To A Grecian Urn)

Like Keats, Bob Dylan admires historical figures, including music and poetic icons of the past. But, again like Keats, he knows that the calling of a real artist is to keep truth and beauty moving onward; not a-standing still like a statue. Admonish he does political and religious activists, artists, and performers who pour themselves in a mould –  the lyrics below, perhaps alluding to Beat writer William Burroughs:

(Bob Dylan: Tombstone Blues)

That it’s not a good idea to unwaveringly follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ might be a message as well. Dylan almost always leaves some room for listener participation in interpreting the lyrics of his songs.

The singer/songwriter criticizes himself too – in the following lyrics, perhaps for sticking to political protests for a bit too long; a two-edged sword it be – getting comfort there for sure, but also typecast:

(Bob Dylan: Mississippi)

John Keats makes the point that an artist ought to refrain from becoming  out-of-touch with reality by forever writing sweet love songs in a world of woe:

(John Keats: Ode To A Grecian Urn)

Bob Dylan finds Keats’ poetry a little too dark. The singer/songwriter recognizes the psychological reality that  human beings yearn for permanent bliss in the world such as it is:

(Bob Dylan: Forever Young)

At the same time, Bob Dylan recognizes that any hoped-for ideal and permanency in a transient world is all but a dream:

(Bob Dylan: Visions Of Johanna)

Thusly, Keats’ poetry tends to be overly melancholic:

(Keats: Ode To A Nightingale)

On top of everything else, Dr. Death lurks around the corner:

(Bob Dylan: It’s Not Dark Yet)

Everybody knows that’s how it goes:

(Bob Dylan: You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go)

A Romantic to the end, Bob Dylan reminds everybody that Mother Nature will take care of you.

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 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

Disc 4 of the Basement Tapes Complete ends with two songs in which one of the gang plays the trombone, possibly for no reason other than the fact that there was a trombone available.  Both recordings are fairly painful and I suspect no one has ever played those tracks more than a few times.

The first is “Don’t you tell Henry” and the second is “Bourbon Street” which ends the disc.

The trombonist can play, up to a point, but I suspect there are two problems: one he is not warmed up and the other is that he is not used to this sort of improvisation on the trombone.   Being able to play in a conventional way and then improvise around a wandering theme are quite different things.

As for Bourbon Street – it is a street within New Orleans French Quarter – the original part of the city.  It’s an area of bars, night life and strip clubs.   Living on Bourbon Street, as Bob sings, means have lost yourself in misery and regret, and having nowhere else to go.

The name of the street was given by Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville who was in charge of developing the colony.  Three years after New Orleans was founded Adrien de Pauger was made royal engineer for the colony and developed the street layout naming the streets, as his patron required, after French royalty and Catholic saints. France at the time was ruled by the House of Bourbon.

Genius.com has had a bash at the lyrics and this is what they have delivered – I think its as close as anyone is likely to get.

I’d like another Bourbon Street
(??) oh so sweet
Hold that down, you better keep it neat
For when it’s over, it was incomplete
Oh, I took it down and said, oh, oh have a seat
But I don’t live down on Bourbon Street
No more, no more, no more, no more
No, I don’t live on Bourbon Street no more

Bourbon Street lordy-town
You better keep it sweet
Put all your loving apples on your feet
But I don’t even mind if you want to scratch your feet
You can bag it down in butter, butter sweet
Now don’t (??) on my Bourbon Street

Now, Bourbon Street
A happiness will get you, Bourbon Street
The girls they won’t forget you down at Bourbon Street
Here they come now
Here they come now
Here they come now
Oh them little girls

Well, I went down a-looking for Bourbon Street
I look a-high and low and then it took me off my feet
Bourbon Street
Oh man, let me tell ya, Bourbon Street
Mister bartender, I’ll have another Bourbon Street

Not more many people have ventured an opinion on this song which seems to come to an end part way through but is then picked up again, although the Washington Post did put forward this critique…

“Bob croaks “marvelous” and “play it pretty now, boys,” over a wounded trombone. Makes you almost miss Uriah Heep.”

Here’s the haiku

The reviewer calls the song “Complete chaos” which is a little harsh, for if you took out the trombone there is something there that could be turned into a proto-song from which something could emerge.   There certainly is a structure, even if the guys lose their way part way through.

But as the writer of the haiky says, “In essence he used to live there but don’t go there no more.”

I can’t imagine too many people playing the song more than once largely because if you set out to write a song of dissolution and decay, singing as if you are dissolute and decayed makes for such painful listening, no one wants to share the experience with you.

All in all this makes disc four a very strange experience for anyone who does play it through from start to end.  It starts with “Tears of Rage” (try take 3 if you have the complete album – it is the strongest performance).

Then we get the first outing for Quinn the Eskimo (which took me by surprise at just how gentle those first two takes of Quinn are, and how unrelated to anything else the song is).  Then we have “Nothing was Delivered”, which really does sound like Bob in full control, and then it all starts to go downhill with things like “Get Your Rocks Off” and on down and down until we get to Bourbon Street.  Which I suppose is appropriate.

One wonders what on earth was going on with the guys during that sequence of songs.

Anyway, that means we have now gone through all of the songs on disc four, although I must admit, not taking into account each of the various takes.   Disc five started with “Blowing in the wind” and I’ll pick up the tracks we have not reviewed before, in the remaining reviews.

All the 1967 songs are listed in the Dylan in the 60s file– just scroll down the list.  Each song reviewed is linked from the list to the review itself.

by Larry Fyffe

On behalf of their client (to wit, singer/songwriter Bob Dylan), the law firm of Einstein, Hood, Monk And Associates bring before the Court Of The Untold Inquisition the charge of blasphemy against one Tony Attwood, a self-proclaimed Dylanologist, in that on Friday, June 1, 2018, he did write and assert that:

“On the issue of punctuation, if you look at such Bob Dylan’s manuscripts that have been made available, they are not always that complete nor indeed accurate when it comes to the use of apostrophes.”

Einstein, Hood, And Monk respond in court that this may indeed be the case, but that it is a scurrilous accusation by the defendant Attwood that their client, Bob Dylan, carelessly uses an apostrophe when it comes to the importance of correctly spelling a proper name, to wit: “God’s River” vs “Gods River”.

Under the rules of the Court Of The Untold Inquisition, it is given to the readers of the ‘Untold Dylan’ website to decide the guilt or innocence of the defendant. They may also stand for him as the ‘Devil’s Advocate’ if they so wish.

Einstein, Hood, And Monk point out that the function of punctuation marks has always been taken very seriously by writers, and the courts; the following example they present:

In contrast with –

(Luke 23: 43)

Contend the lawyers: The first biblical version has no time for a stint in Purgatory; the second does. And it’s all due to the placement of the comma.

The lawyers on behalf of their client point out that Dylan writes:

(Bob Dylan: Summer Days)

They note the clear placement of the apostrophe in reference to the river.

Also pointed out is that the defendant writes the following in his analysis of the song:

Bay, tidal flats” (Attwood – Summer Days: Bob Dylan)

Einstein, Hood, And Monk present a map of Manitoba to the court which demonstrates that the defendant is correct in that the name of the Canadian River has  no apostrophe. The lawyers also point out that you’d need an All-Terrain-Vehicle, not a Cadillac, on the shores of Hudson Bay.

Addressing the Grand Inquistor, Mr. Hood inquires as to why Dylan would either write, since Elizabeth II is the Queen of Canada:

(Bob Dylan: Summer Days)

Mr. Monk rises and approaches the Bench and proclaims that the defendant practically confesses himself when in his analysis of ‘Summer Days’, he writes, “Suddenly the lines from ‘Mississippi’ come to my head” in reference to the following verse:

(Bob Dylan: Summer Days)

In the summation, Mr. Einstein states: “It’s not all relative, and clearly Bob Dylan is referring to Elvis Presley as the King, and to the Mississippi as God’s river.”

The jurors, the readers of ‘Untold’, are given their instructions by the judge: “Take this case very seriously before you cast your ballots as this trial could well be considered ‘The Trial Of The Century; as for Mr. Attwood – Will he or will he not be hanged by an apostrophe?”

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‘Morton Jonsson’ goes further; he relies on Euclid’s notion, and it’s converse  – ‘things equal to the same thing are equal to each other’:

“If ‘dog’ usually means ‘god’ then obviously the reverse must be true. It’s only logical.

‘Dog knows the secrets of your heart, he’ll tell them to you when you’re asleep’. No one knows you like your dog.

‘And some day if dog’s in heaven overlooking his preserve’; ‘Well, dog is in his heaven, and we all want what’s his.’ All dogs go to heaven. We know that. But will we meet them there?

‘Dog don’t make promises that he can’t keep’. Dog the truthful, the ever-faithful: Fido.

‘Tattooed my babies with a poison pen, mocked my dog, humiliated my friends’. They’ve got to quit kicking my dog around.

‘Standing by dog’s river, my soul is beginning to shake’. Shake like a wet dog, of course (‘Morton Jonsson’).

On this last point, major schisms develop among Dylan scholars.

For one, Tony Attwood contends that the location mentioned in the song ‘Summer Days’ by Bob Dylan ‘is  not in the deep south at all, but in the frozen north of Canada’. He makes reference to Gods River in northern Manitoba (Summer Days: Bob Dylan), but Attwood renounces the apostrophe: ‘Standing by God’s River, my soul is beginning to shake’ (Bob Dylan).

In the song ‘Summer Days’, I suggest that ‘Dylan has a vision of himself as Joshua, leader of the Jews, standing on the banks of the River Jordon, waiting for God to break the river’s flow so he can cross into the Promised Land of Canaan’ (F. Scott Fitzgerald And Bob Dylan). I also point that  heretic Attwood relies on the album ‘Mask Marauders’ about Dylan being up near Hudson Bay, Canada, and that the album is a pure fraud.

On the other hand, ‘TG McEwan’ references an authoritative book in making his claim that the ‘Mississippi is God’s River’:

‘The Mississippi is God’s river, mighty and yielding,

reaching the Rocky Mountains before reaching the music of New Orleans'(The Life And Times Of Nathaniel Lande).

Modern scholars decide that the immediate above is the one and true doctrine of the Dylan Church though who among us is going to argue with Euclid. Bob Dylan has a Jewish background so ‘Joshua’ gets a pass. But Attwood is unrepentant.

He’s been brought before the Dylan Inquisition, ordered to dress in sack cloth and walk on ashes and beg for forgiveness – by so doing, he might just possibly avoid being burned at the stake. ‘Dog Ma’ have mercy on his soul.

Indeed, this wouldn’t be the first time that someone has been done in by a punctuation mark (See: Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynn Truss).

The theological schism created by ‘Jonssonianism’ is nonetheless condemned by orthodox scholars for its introduction of Egyptian mythology into ‘McEwanism’, and the mighty Mississippi transformed into the Nile of America:

But not all dogs are friendly; ‘Abe says, Where you want this killing done? Dog says, Out on Highway 61’. Abraham recast, prophetically, as David Berchowitz, the Son of Sam, who also lets a dog tell him where the killing should be done.

‘Disillusioned words like bullets bark as human dogs aim for their mark’. Human dogs …a woman with the head of a hyena …the beast who comes as a man of peace.

‘The face of dog will appear, with his serpent eyes of obsidian”; The dog offers comfort in an hour of peril.

But he has snake eyes; what sort of comfort, and what sort of dog is this?

‘El perro nos vigila’ …The gods are barking and what’s done is done’ (‘Morton Jonsson’).

Clearly, the reference here is to ‘Seth’, the Egyptain dog-headed god of Chaos, who watches for his chance and mangles his brother Osiris to death. Their sister Isis is able to retrieve her dead  brother’s testicles, and she becomes pregnant.

Order is restored although sometimes Isis does get the Memphis blues again.

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 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

Disc two of the Basement Complete set ends with Dylan continuing to play the honkytonk piano which really does sound desperately in need of a friendly piano tuner, in an utterly standard 12 bar blues format accompanied by organ and lead guitar.

As ever we have a haiku provided ….

Don’t you play with him.
You might enjoy breaking hearts,
But yours might be next.

The haikuist (or whatever a person who writes haiku’s is called) described the song has having nonsense lyrics and summarises it as

It’s one more song about a guy warning a girl not to mess around with his delicate heart.

Heylin takes this in a slightly different way and suggests that Dylan was, at this stage of the Basement Tapes process just picking up on catch phrases that he could use, saying “he seems to be grabbing ideas from song titles”.

He notes that James Brown wrote a song called “Try Me” and that it gave Dylan two songs at this point: “Try me little girl” and our subject matter here, “Don’t you try me now.”

I doubt that Dylan was actually thinking about this phrase overtly – most likely it was just one of many in his head that he could pluck out at any time and try in a song.  And what we do see throughout this phase in his life is he is just playing with words.

I would never want to argue that many of the songs don’t have profound meanings within them, but I think we should be reminded that just occasionally Dylan provides us with songs that are just words and sounds – they are almost the musical equivalent of the abstract painting.

The following lyrics are provided on the clear understanding that I am awaiting someone more in tune with Dylan’s voice who can turn them into something more meaningful.  If I catch anyone laughing at the back of the class I shall be most annoyed.

Don’t you play with me we’re now wasting time

Don’t you play with me, we’re now wasting time

But you may think you’re having a good time oh no you’re just having a good bit of time (?)

Don’t you try me now, don’t you try and break my heart

Don’t you try me now, don’t you try and break my heart

Oh may think your’e having a good time but you just waiting for me (?) from the start

Well I ????

I rose my ??? feeling right on time

Don’t you try me now, don’t you try and break my heart

Oh yes you may think your having a good time but you just wake me ?? start

Well have me on the table I feel my guitar

Holding on me feel ??? whimp like a hollow dog (?!)

Don’t you try me now, don’t you try and break my heart

Oh you might think you’re coming after me but you know you’re just playing a part

Instrumental and end

And thus ends disc two of the Complete Basement Tapes.   I’ll continue with disc three shortly.

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 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

There is hardly any commentary that I can find on this song; indeed no one has even attempted to put the lyrics on line.  And yet it is much more of a serious attempt at a new song, with its own lyrics, own melody and own chord sequence than many of the other songs that have turned up on the first two discs of the basement tapes.

Certainly there is a lot of uncertainty within the song, and maybe that is what has put everyone off, but if one can hear beyond that lack of rehearsal and lack of clarity in the lyrics and chord sequences, there is something beneath that could have emerged into a full bloodied Dylan album track of much value… if only Bob had decided to persevere with the song and complete it.

As with the other non-released songs from the Basement Complete box set we have a haiku

Woman is no help
To guy who says he loves her
And needs her with him.

and I’m sure that is right as a summary – although the amount of the lyrics I can work out is negligible – the sum total of my input is given below as a set of isolated lines.

What is clearly laid down in this song is a descending bass accompanied by a series of minor chords and unexpected pauses.  But we also get a whole bunch of equally unexpected major chords on at the end of lines – unexpected not just to the listener, but also to the band who play minors while (I presume) Dylan, on the piano, plays the majors.

Did he think this would be an interesting clash – guitar playing minor, him playing major?  Or did he not notice, perhaps because he couldn’t hear them too well, or because he was so focused on making up the words?

As a technique, the major/minor clash sounds horrible to me, but Dylan kept going with it all the way through the song, so maybe he felt there was something there.  But even if not he could readily have corrected the situation with a quick word to the band and another run through.  But at this stage of the Basement Tapes we don’t get re-takes at all.

Indeed I have the feeling this song could have been quite something within a few days, but the opening note I made to myself the first time I heard this recording (“Hugely under rehearsed”) seems about right – unless there was no rehearsal at all.  Maybe he just started playing and the band joined in.

And curious as that sounds, this would make sense, since what Bob is doing with the major chords at the end of some lines is unexpected.  Most musicians would have gone to a minor each time – exactly as the band did.

As for the lyrics, I am not going to make a complete fool of myself by writing down anything more than a few lines that are fairly clear – these are only random lines, but they give you a feel for the song.  If you want to help me out, please do send in your version. I would consider any contributions a major favour.

Well I went and booked my ticket

You are just so wicked I don’t even try

Can’t make it alone

Well if I couldn’t have tomorrow

I can’t make it alone.

That’s not much I know, but it gives you the feeling.     And certainly by this point coming to the end of disc 2 in the set we are starting to get a series of new ideas from Bob which he is trying out, rather than just playing the songs that everyone knew, or straightforward 12 bar blues.

He is, if we take it that these songs are presented in the order in which they were recorded, getting the feel for what they were doing, and what they could do.  And what is particularly noticeable is that we are moving on through several phases of work here:

Phase 1: (Disc 1 of the Basement Complete, and the early part of disc 2) Playing lots of other people’s songs, with just occasional Dylan songs

Phase 2: (End of disc 2) Trying out a few new ideas by playing incomplete songs with the band following as best they may.

Phase 3: Multiple takes of new Dylan compositions.

Phase 4: Re-visiting old Dylan compositions.

The reviews will continue over the next month until we’ve looked at all the Dylan compositions on the Basement Tapes.

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 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