Untold Dylan

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

by Larry Fyffe

Nearly every song by Bob Dylan is about God and Jesus, but let’s face it – God’s beyond full comprehension by mere humans, and because of this those of the Jewish faith do not utter or spell His name out in full. It’s well known that Bob Dylan is a Messianic Jew and he avoids the issue, at least some of the time, by spelling God’s name backwards:

(Bob Dylan: I Shall Be Free No.10)

This time ‘blue-eyed’ Bob Dylan himself is arrogant. Dylan envisions the cataclysm-to-come, but presents himself as a sinless ‘white’ man who dares to claim that he  ‘walks’ (that is, controls)the Almighty. He even questions the way ‘black’ God treats humans (including witches) as if they didn’t deserve it; then he commits more blasphemy when he says it’s the girl’s ‘rainbow’ instead of God’s.

In the song below, Dylan’s persona in the song tells listeners that it’s not mankind who’s to blame at all:

The sin of hubris in the above song is committed by human pawns; thinking they’ve got God (He’s got no name) on a chain, they feel that they can sin any time they want to with impunity.

But don’t forget that God’s still in charge, and He only gives the pawns the right to move between good and evil up to a point; if they make a really bad move, they’ll get a severe tug on their choke chain – maybe even get drowned in a sack with a bunch of rocks in it.

In the lyrics above, Bob Dylan is taken in by the nihilist visions of Frederich Nietzsche. Dylan imagines that God is chained up outside of the Universe. In the movie version of this modern corrupt philosophy, known as  Godless Existentialism, Doctor McCoy tells Captain Kirk, ‘He’s dead, Jim – the dog is dead’.

Of course, in some songs, Dylan is just talking about the four-legged creature. Below, he compares people to dogs:

(Bob Dylan: If Dogs Run Free)

The song writer shows here the the influence of Transcendalist Romantic Poets like Walt Whitman. A blade of grass represents the individual who stands up all by him or herself. God’s around all right, but he’s just a pagan spirit in nature; the narrator in the song is complacent – he doesn’t require God’s direction because he can figure things out for himself.

But we all know that it’s dangerous to let dogs off of their leashes, don’t we.

by Tony Attwood

There is actually a copy of this song on the internet (at least at the moment of writing) – which is unusual for the Basement Complete – although it is only a fragment of the song, it gives you an idea if you don’t have the complete album.

https://soundhound.com/?t=100760562816634774

What we have here is a honky tonk 12 bar blues with some unusual extra chords added in – a complete song with lyrics.

The opening could be a thought through intro, but I rather suspect the guys had been playing for a while and only then did someone turn the tape on.

So we get three lines

Try me
Try me, little girl
We could raise a family

and then we go to the start of the first verse.  There are in fact two verses with the second being less distinct, or maybe less thought through, than the first.

Well they treat you like a dummy
Well they treat you like a slave
Nothin’ bout what you said, it’s all
What you gave
Try me
Try me
Try me, little girl
We could raise our family

Well, they treat so low
At the time I’ll ring out of way
Oh, baby tho baby, three’s gotta you gonna way
Oh, well it’s three in the morning
I get no room
Based on ?? she is ??
Try me
Try me
Try me, little girl
We gonna raise a family

Well, they treat so low
At the time I’ll ring out of way
Oh, nika tho nika, three’s gotta you gonna way
Oh, well it’s three in the morning,
I get no room
Based on cell she is sittin’ on room
Try me
Try me
Try me, little girl,
We gonna raise a family

The inimitiable Haiku 61 Revisted has ventured into this fragment and given us

Try me, little girl.
Let’s have ourselves a family.
Be with me, not them.

As the reviewer says, “The lyrics mostly make sense, but here and there they break down into syllabic silliness for the sake of speeding through the song.”

Given time this could have turned into a decent song, away from all the seriousness and insight of many of the album tracks that had come before it, but it was just that a standard bounce along 12 bar blues with an unexpected twist in the chords – which is seemingly there for no particular reason.

There might be some Dylan fans who particularly like this track, but I suspect that the majority of buyers of the complete set of Basement Tapes have listened, and moved on in the hope of more exciting fare later.

Indeed if we look at the compositions that came immediately before this, we can see that Dylan was indeed just trying out this, that and every other form to see what came out.

• I’m Your Teenage Prayer
• One’s Man’s Loss
• Lock your door
• Baby wont you be my baby
• Try me little girl

But this song does mark something of an end of this “let’s start and see what happens” approach because of next two songs on the Complete Basement series seem to be much more thought through.

Indeed it is interesting that having had all the recordings of other people’s songs we suddenly get six Dylan compositions in a row at the end of disc 2: a series that continues onto disk 3.

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

Though they be mostly farm hands, and not Bob Dylan scholars, our Untold team of intrepid archaeologists have been able to piece together one of the fragmented, hard-to-decipher ‘Dylan scrolls’ that were discovered in a damp cave near the Black Sea.

With the exception of  this team , the readers of ‘Untold Dylan’ are the first to see the results.

Warning in regards to the parchment – everything is broken – so our team of specialists have not necessarily assembled and deciphered the lyrics exactly the way they were originally written:

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.

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

Dylanologists who are followers of conventional Christian beliefs twist the lyrics of certain songs by Bob Dylan to make them ‘fit in’; however, when listened to without the encumbrance of standard religious doctrines, the lyrics tend to reveal a mystical, a ‘gnostic’ search for ‘wisdom’ – a wisdom that is garnered by lucky ones through knowledge of ancient religions and mythologies.

Thinkers like Emanuel Swedenborg, Pyotre Ouspensky, and Carl Jung account for a Universe in which God appears to dance with the Devil by linking up  microcosmic aspects thereof with the microcosmic.

Akin to Frederich Nietzsche and William Yeats, and even in a song that’s written especially for children, singer/songwriter Bob Dylan presents images on the microcosmic level of an individual who copes with a life, a life that, according to some mystics, recurs over and over again for all eternity – a cosmological  view that’s unlike the main form of  Christainity that envisions a life linear, ending in a permanent ‘afterlife’:

(Bob Dylan: Wiggle, Wiggle)

Accordingly, such mystics express, in unique spiritual visions, a love for life,  and a coping with dark situations in which one finds him or herself by kicking up their boot heels rather than settling for a life of utter drudgery in the land of the living dead –  a better life in some external hereafter is a mirage; what’s in one’s head is what matters:

(Bob Dylan: Wiggle, Wiggle)

In short, fear not life – dance with Satan who dresses in satin and silk:

(Bob Dylan: Wiggle, Wiggle)

An Australian Rolling Stone-influenced bar band clean up the lyrics of one of their songs called ‘Everybody Wiggle’, written by John Fields, and put it out on a record suitable for children:

Wiggle to this song

(The Cockroaches: Get Ready To Wiggle)

Through many a dark hour, I’ve been thinking about this due to the recurring rhymes in the two songs; their themes both appear to be a wild Dionysiac search for ‘gnostic’ wisdom with the end rhymes ‘long/wrong/strong’ suggesting a macroscopic connection with The Cockroaches, an archetypal coincidence, for sure:

(Bob Dylan: God Knows)

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.

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 story surrounding this song is a little complicated but seems verified by the announcement made at the start of the track in the video below.

The song started as a track called “Shirley Temple Don’t Live Here Anymore” and it was either an outtake from “Under the red sky” or was written during the Red Sky sessions for Paula Abdul, the choreographer who went on to have six number one hits in the 1980s and 1990s.

For whatever reason she decided not to record the song, and at some time after that Dylan wrote some new lyrics for the song and it was then left for about 15 or 16 years until Was Not Was put it on an album.

That is the only recording I can find of the song, and here it is…

And here the lyrics

Well they came and they corrupted
And they took what was theirs
Your sorrow and your pity
Leaving ’em upstairs
You might think that it matters
But it ain’t like before
Mr Alice doesn’t live here anymore

Where that old drugstore was
Is now a museum
Everyone’s changed
You can’t hardly see ’em
All the piano players
Have gone off to war
Mr Alice doesn’t live here no no more

Now the chimney is rotten
And the wallpaper’s torn
The garden in the back
Won’t grow no more corn
The windows are boarded
With paper mache
And even the dog
Just ran away

Judy Collins went downstairs
With her brother Phil
Jukebox blasting
Bloody Marys through the wind and the air
His brother and sister
Are waiting by the door
But that old maggot doesn’t live here no no more

I get the hang of this all the way through to the last verse – the world is falling apart and everything has cracked and broken which is a way of seeing the story of “Alice doesn’t live here anymore” as she leaves her home and heads for California.   But the Judy and Phil Collins reference seems … well, what?   Nonsense?  Or a reflection that the world of music has fallen apart just as every other aspect of life has?

Is the Phil Collins reference related to his abandoning his family when he daughter was young.  The Bloody Mary reference might be a note about his infamous drinking life style.  A “Shirley Temple” is a non-alcoholic cocktail, but I doubt that this helps.  I think I’m trying to analyse something that isn’t there.

So quite clearly, I don’t know, and I’m not really intrigued enough by the song to make much more effort to sort this out.

After all it doesn’t really sound like a Bob Dylan piece, but I am putting my review in here in the hope that someone will be able to tell me I have completely got this all wrong and for anyone with half a brain the answer is…

Or maybe someone else has another recording?

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.

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

——————–

• Part One of this series appears here.
• Part Two of this series appears here

By Larry Fyffe

As previously mentioned, surrealistic poet Arthur Rimbaud refers to nursery rhymes of yore, more often than not twisting their themes.  In days of old such rhymes be a coded way to convey political or religious messages in order to avoid being burned at the stake. Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan makes modern use of this literary device, adding traditional songs to the list.

Post Modern irony be a characteristic feature of a number of Bob Dylan’s songs. For example, the fragmented lyrics of ‘Scarlet Town’, based on the old ballad ‘Barbara Allan’, can be interrupted as a narrative about Little Boy Blue who refrains from blowing his trumpet in case it wakes up Jesus who is hiding under a haystack; it’d be all over for Baby Blue if the Christ-to-be, not really that inclined to have His sensual physical body crucified, manages to escape from His predestined fate – for the Christ Child to become the Messiah, there must  be no way for Him to get out of the crucifixion; Mankind won’t get saved (see: Bob Dylan And Arthur Rimbaud – Part II):

(Bob Dylan: Scarlet Town)

As the song referenced in the black-humoured lyrics above indicates, it would be severely messing with destiny if Jesus gets away, and never comes back ever again to tend His sheep, most having gone astray:

(Ernest Tubb: Walking The Floor Over You)

In the manner of Arthur Rimbaud, Bob Dylan plays around with other nursery rhymes in his song lyrics:

One’s about the possibility of an apocalyptic nuclear war:

(Bob Dylan: Under The Red Sky)

The source is an old rhyme – the intent of which is to scare the wits out of children:

(Sing A Song Of Six Pence: Nursery Rhyme)

Below is another bit from the Dylan song about The Bomb:

(Bob Dylan: Under The Red Sky)

The source be a rhyme about childhood sexual curiosity:

(There Was A Little Boy: Nursery Rhyme)

But there’s more to the lyrics than that when Rimbaud’s poetic symbolism is taken into account. He, like poet William Blake, ridicules the Christian Church for celebrating with Christmas suppers the suppression of  human sexuality (symbolized Rimbaud does by the colour ‘red’ – Freud’s ‘Id’, ‘the other’, as it were). This fosters  psychological problems, according to the French poet.

With Existentialist humour, Dylan out-rimbauds Rimbard:

(Bob Dylan: Country Pie)

The source, of course:

(Little Jack Horner: Nursery Rhyme)

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.

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  Arthur Rimbaud Part 1 can be found here

————-

By Larry Fyffe

The French surrealist poet Arthur Rimbaud turns fairy tales and nursery rhymes up side down and inside out:

Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, follows Rimbaud down the same dark path to the latrines:

Ambiguous the words are for sure – apparently the narrator, and the one to whom he is speaking to in the song, they weep not easily.

The first reference is to the Holy Bible:

(Luke 23:28)

These words are spoken at the time Jesus is going to be put to death; he  shows no remorse to the authorities of the status quo for his rebellious behaviour, and in return asks for no pity; He’s got God on his side as far as He is concerned.

The second reference is to a nursery rhyme:

(Nursery Rhyme)

Mixing in the message from the nursery rhyme – though He’s leaving everyone down on Earth to go astray, it’s best to leave the little shepherd Jesus alone  lest he starts to cry that he doesn’t really want to die.

It’s back to the Bible:

(I Corinthians 15:52)

Suggesting that the little boy eventually  gets to blast his horn, and though help comes too late to save Him from the cross, it comes just in the knick of time to save everybody else. The Universe unfolds as it should

The trumpet player asleep in the manger jumps up and begins to sing and dance that the times, they are a-changing.

Well anyhow, that’s one way to interpret the song ‘Scarlet Town’. Bob Dyan does not the dark as much as Rimbard does, and lights things up a little at the end of the song:

Rimbaud lights no such match:

.

By Tony Attwood

These are three songs from disk 2 of the Complete Basement Tapes set.

Big Dog sounds an interesting song but we only get about 20 seconds of it with some sort of technical glitch in the middle.  But we have a haiku for it

After this we get I’m your teenage prayer, which has already been reviewed.

So I’m going to jump on to One Man’s Loss which is a much more interesting song, for here we have Dylan working with a serious idea.  OK it is just a 12 bar blues, but at least he’s stopped fooling around and I get the feeling that with a big of work this could have turned into something worth considering for an album.

The always excellent Dylan Chords site has given us a good bash at the lyrics other than the first verse which due to the mix makes the vocal pretty hard to decipher.  The song has a very rough feel, and it is quite possible that Bob was nowhere near the mic when he sang the first verse.

But then he steps up

[Let's take a cherry], I can't make it no more
Can't stop, she's breaking all time on the floor
Better come down easy or don't come down at all
You don't try and to please me, somebody's gonna fall
One man's loss always is another man's gain
Yes, one man's joy always is another man's pain
.
Eight o'clock in the morning, [better] step aside
[let me be to your] warning, you better go by
Three times a loser, number 45
better not lose her, best stay alive
One man's loss always is another man's gain
Yes, one man's joy always is another man's pain
.
Wish I'd have found me [...] at the wall
One look at the watch, you better [lord at all]
You can't stop it or wait it [...] at night
Too hard to keep you waiting, calls me aside
One man's loss always is another man's gain
Yes, one man's joy always is another man's pain

It is quite extraordinary to listen to the CD, and hear all the bits of inconsequential playing and singing and hear the band slowly settle themselves down a bit – although not that much because the song that comes immediately before this one is “Be careful of the stones that you throw.”  Which if you don’t know it, is one of those mawkish country and western pieces in which the verses are spoken.

And then we get some real solid blues from Bob.

“One man’s loss” is track 22 on disc two, but only the fourth Dylan composition on the disc – all the others being traditional, blues or older pop songs.

But assuming that the tape is reproduced on the CD in the order it was recorded, Bob clearly was building up to trying to get his compositional act together.   The Dylan compositions thus far were 

• See you later Alan Ginsberg
• Tiny Montgomery
• Big Dog
• I’m your teenage prayer

But “One man’s loss” starts a run of seven originals, and it really brings hope that the messing about, and just playing through old songs.  OK, that promise isn’t always maintained because the next song is another snippet of just a few seconds (“One man’s loss”) but there is a suggestion that at last we are getting somewhere.

And even “One man’s loss” is annoying because it really does sound promising, but we have what we have, and ultimately that missing track might have been really good – or just another half idea.

As this disc of the Basement Tapes Complete suggests there is a lot of incidental music on the set, and its prime purpose is as a historical document that shows us just how Bob got things together.  Indeed it is not until we are onto disc 3 and some 55 songs on from the start that we start to hear the Band go back over songs to explore different ways of approaching them.

We are witnessing the artist in progress.  It may not be to everyone’s taste but it gives us clues as to how the great songwriter worked.

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.

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