Untold Dylan

By Tony Attwood

I doubt that I can add much (or better put, “anything”) to the story told so often, but every other morning at the moment I write a review of a Dylan song not yet included on the Untold Dylan site, and as this song might have a bit of Dylan in it, here is the tale for completeness, along with a couple of links to recordings of the song.

The best summary of the ownership of the song that I have seen describes this as a song written by Roger McGuinn “with input from Bob Dylan”.  Dylan is however not credited.  There is a movie version of the song by Roger McGuinn and a second version by the Byrds – which as far as I know was for some odd reason never issued in the UK.  I’ve linked to both below.

Rolling Stone magazine said at the time the song expressed the complete feeling that existed at the end of the 1960s: “the weary blues and dashed expectations of a decade’s worth of social insurrection.”  I remember it well (the weary blues and dashed expectations that is).

The background story is that the movie makers wanted to use “It’s Alright Ma” over the closing credits but Bob refused to allow this and the story is that Bob didn’t like the end of the film – although others have said that he felt his name was just being used for exploitative purposes.

It is then reported that Bob was asked to write a new song, but given that he didn’t like the film (or at least the ending) he declined and instead picked up a table napkin and wrote on it

The river flows, it flows to the sea/Wherever that river goes, that’s where I want to be/Flow, river, flow

And then McGuinn turned that into “The Ballad of Easy Rider.”   The tale finishes with the suggestion that when Bob was shown the film prior to release he saw the credit of himself at the end but asked for it to be removed.   Some have Bob saying words to the effect, “I just gave you a line that’s all.”

So can we untangle anything from these tales?  Some 18 months or so later Bob came up with Watching the River Flow and I think the point here is that Dylan had experienced what Easy Rider was about but hadn’t yet written the song to go with the disillusion he now felt.  Now with “Watching” he had done just that – at least to some extent.

But when he did get to that topic the river was something to be watched, contemplated and maybe remembered.  For example

Daylight sneakin’ through the window
And I’m still in this all-night café
Walkin’ to and fro beneath the moon
Out to where the trucks are rollin’ slow
To sit down on this bank of sand
And watch the river flow

Much later the river became another metaphor for the journey life, as with the old man’s reflection on the matter many years later

Well, I’ve been to London and I’ve been to gay Paree
I’ve followed the river and I got to the sea
I’ve been down on the bottom of a world full of lies
I ain’t looking for nothing in anyone’s eyes
Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

Or then again, later still

The river whispers in my ear
I’ve hardly a penny to my name
The heavens have never seemed so near
All of my body glows with flame

That river has witnessed a lot.

Here are the two recordings of the Ballad of Easy Rider, perhaps with Bob’s input, perhaps not…

and the Byrds

Think there’s something missing or wrong with this review?

You are of course always welcome to write a comment below, but if you’d like to go further, you could write an alternative review – we’ve already published quite a few of these.  We try to avoid publishing reviews and comments that are rude or just criticisms of what is written elsewhere – but if you have a positive take on this song or any other Dylan song, and would like it considered for publication, please do email Tony@schools.co.uk

What else is on the site

1: Almost 500 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

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

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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

Figurative language flies from the bow bent by singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. No end of trouble his flaming arrows bring to the literalist passengers clinging to the listing side of the Holy Titanic as it rides out the Great Flood.

Seth, one of the rebellious sons of the Egyptian mythological Earth and Sky Gods, and the brother of Isis and Osiris, makes a surprise appearance on the ship’s Judeo-Christian minstrel show.

Seth plays a giant with a heart of evil, a dark angel sent forth by the Demiurge to sing ‘Nearer My God To Thee’:

There were giants in the earth in these days, and also after that
When the sons of God came unto the daughters of men
And they bare children to them, the same became mighty men
Which were of old, men of renown
And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth
And every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually
(Genesis 6: 4,5)

Presented in the figurative and allegorical language that becomes known as ‘Gnostic’ style, with content that emphasizes everlasting evil trapped within the material world, flesh-eating giants appear in a book called the Holy Bible where the giants inhabit the land of Canaan:

And they told him, and said
We come into the land whither thou sentest us
And surly it floweth with milk and honey …..
And there we saw giants, the sons of Anak
Which come of the giants
And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers
And so we were in their sight
(Numbers 13: 27, 33)

As well, poet Dante Alighieri, the Italian poet from the 14th century, uses the mythological and biblical imagery of characters like Seth and Lucifer to serve as allegorical symbols for disorder:

The emperor of the realm of sorrow
At mid-breast from the ice issued forth
And better with a giant I compare
Than do giants with those arms of his
(Dante: The Divine Comedy, Canto 34)

Poet Wallace Stevens uses the imagery and symbolism from the medieval poetry above to express a Modernistic Existentialist point of view – that, through language, a spiritual meaning upon melting existence can be imposed though none there be:

Call the roller of big cigars
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds ….
The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream
(Wallace Stevens: The Emperor Of Ice Cream)

A Birmingham British rocknroll metal band uses Satanic imagery from Dante’s poetry:

Evil souls fall to Hell
Ever trapped in burning cell
(Black Sabbath: Electric Funeral)

As pictured below in dark-framed Gnostic imagery:

But first declare what fellows of the tomb
In burning cells await the final doom
(Dante: The Divine Comedy, Canto 10)

Bob Dylan drops his bucket, like the Romantic Gothic poet Samuel Coleridge does, into the deep well that holds fragments of Biblical/Dantesque imagery.

To Dylan, for the most part, the United States of America represents a newly discovered land of disenchantment:

Oh, Angelina, oh, Angelina
In the valley of the giants where the stars
and stripes explode
The peaches were sweet and the milk
and honey flowed …..
Beat a path of retreat up them spiral staircases
Pass the tree of smoke, pass the angel
with four faces
Begging God for mercy and weeping in unholy places
(Bob Dylan: Angelina)

Bringing it all back home to the Old Testament where surrealistic images like a wheel-of-fortune with four faces turn: one of them with a face of a man, one of an ox, one of a lion, and one of an eagle.

In modern times, an eagle is on the presidential flag of the United States, and on the flag of Mexico; a lion, with a flaming mane, is seen on the flag of Ethiopia, and on the flag of Argentina with its head in the form of the sun:

Behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures
With his four faces
Ezekiel 1:15)

That the Old Testament God -Yahweh – was right on. That’s one way of looking at all these creative imaginings. The Tree of Knowledge grows in a universe that is composed of smoke and mirrors. Specifically, it grows in a gambling house down in New Orleans called the ‘Rising Sun’.

Best to retreat than mistake the house of ill-repute for a home:

It’s undeniable what they’d have you to think
It’s indescribable it can drive you to drink
They said it was the land of milk and honey
Now they say it’s the land of money
(Bob Dylan: Unbelievable)

Ask the Jack of Hearts- he knows all about it.

You might also be interested in

• Bob Dylan and Angelina
• Angenlina: a Shot of Love
• Dylan’s Angelina: an alternative view

Think there’s something missing or wrong with this review?

You are of course always welcome to write a comment below, but if you’d like to go further, you could write an alternative review – we’ve already published quite a few of these.  We try to avoid publishing reviews and comments that are rude or just criticisms of what is written elsewhere – but if you have a positive take on this song or any other Dylan song, and would like it considered for publication, please do email Tony@schools.co.uk

What else is on the site

1: Over 490 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

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

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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

During the time when Bob Dylan was working with Johnny Cash and creating “Wanted Man” he also worked with Carl Perkins, one of the great, great rock n rollers, and the two co-wrote Champaign, Illinois.  (Both Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins were with Sun records and came up through the same musical traditions although each ended up with a different sound and style).

Carl Perkins was of course the composer of “Blue Suede Shoes” which was taken up by Elvis Presley, and became Sun Records first record to sell over 1 million copies.  Perkins and Cash also wrote the song “That’s Right” together.

So the guys all knew each other, but quite how Champaign Illinois got into the mix no one is quite certain, although the city does have its own claims to fame, being associated with such luminaries as Steve Chen and Jawed Karim who founded You Tube.  It is 135 miles south of Chicago with an estimated population was 84,513 people (in 2014).

But I am not sure the song registered highly in Bob’s memory banks because when he did play in the city 16 years after composing the piece, for a Farm Aid concert, he didn’t perform this song.  But then, Bob has a lot of songs to pick from.

How much of the song is Dylan and how much Perkins we don’t know but the opening sounds more Dylan than “Blue Suede Shoes” to me…

I got a woman in Morocco,
I got a woman in Spain,
Woman that’s done stole my heart,
She lives up in Champaign.

I say Champaign, Champaign, Illinois,
I certainly do enjoy Champaign, Illinois.

That chorus line makes me think that Illinois was chosen to rhyme with enjoy and then the guys searched out a city or town that could fit the line – maybe deliberately picking a location that some of us (especially those of us from beyond the US) might never have heard of. (No insult intended to Champaign – I am sure the residents of that city won’t have heard of the village of Great Oakley where I live, even though it is mentioned in the Domesday Book, published 1086 AD.  Although to be fair Champaign is a little larger if a little younger).

Here is the version from Carl Perkins – it appears the album “On Top” released in 1969, the year of the composition.

The melody is based around the classic 12 bar blues format but with an extended open chord to accommodate the lyrics, and it sounds to me the sort of melody that singers used to this style of music can improvise just by seeing the lyrics.  Which makes me suppose that it was the lyrics that Bob knocked out and gave to Mr Perkins – the melody doesn’t sound very Dylan to me at all.  And come to that nor does the bounce of the song (which is maybe why Bob didn’t try it when he played in Champaign.

But there is another song called Champaign Illinois which I discovered by chance while trying to do my usual bit of meandering research – and it has a very strong connection with Dylan.

Now I must make it clear I am not the first to travel this route.  The website Smile Politely got there long before me, and full credit to them.  I arrived late, having taken a long and winding route.

This second version comes from the album “The Grand Theatre, Volume One” which is the 8th album from the band Old 97s, and was released in October, 2010.  The song takes the melody of “Desolation Row” and makes it much more upbeat, adds new lyrics and has the title “Champaign Illinois”.   I must say I rather like this – it has no connection to the Dylan and Perkins song and I would probably never have come across it had it not been for the undertaking of this little of research – but I’m glad I found it.

The story that is reported is that the manager of the band knew Dylan’s management team and so via that were able to get a copy of a recording of the song to Bob.  Apparently Bob asked for a copy of the lyrics and then agreed to its release, and a 50/50 split in the royalties from the album.

There are those who would say that this song is part stolen, but the fact is Dylan gave permission, and perhaps we might also remember just how many times Bob has re-used the melodies of others.

Here are the lyrics

The bottom line’s been snorted
The bottom card’s been dealt
No one knows like you know right now
How truly bad it felt

All your life you wasted
On dreamin’ about the day
Worker bees kill off their queen
And carry all her eggs away

Oh, then if you die fearin’ God
And painfully employed
No, you will not go to Heaven
You’ll go to Champaign, Illinois

Up north in Chicago
Where booze makes no one blush
Memories come back to you
In a double Bourbon rush

Memories that aren’t all bad
And neither, my friend, are you
There is an argument there must be some Heaven meant
For hearts that are half true

Oh, and if you spend your whole life
Rollin’ horses into Troy
No, you will not go to heaven
You’ll go to Champaign, Illinois
No, you will not go to heaven
You’ll go to Champaign, Illinois

Roll on blacktop highway
Circles towards the sun
Springfield’s in the distance
And that’s the last big one

After that comes judgment
Oh, and judgment will be swift
You will be eliminated
But here’s a parting gift

Oh, if you die fearin’ God
And painfully employed
No, you will not go to Heaven
You’ll go to Champaign, Illinois
No, you will not go to heaven
You’ll go to Champaign, Illinois

No, you will not go to heaven
You’ll go to Champaign, Illinois

I hope you enjoyed that, and even if not, you can maybe imagine me playing it over and over looking out over the trees and fields in rural England, rather enjoying myself having found another interesting piece of Dylan I never knew existed.

Think there’s something missing or wrong with this review?

You are of course always welcome to write a comment below, but if you’d like to go further, you could write an alternative review – we’ve already published quite a few of these.  We try to avoid publishing reviews and comments that are rude or just criticisms of what is written elsewhere – but if you have a positive take on this song or any other Dylan song, and would like it considered for publication, please do email Tony@schools.co.uk

What else is on the site

1: Over 490 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

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

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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

Bob Dylan tried out “Wanted Man” for “Nashville Skyline” but no complete version of the song was recorded at the sessions, (according to Heylin), and so the versions that we know about were those delivered by Johnny Cash.

There has been some debate as to whether the song was a joint compositional venture or a solo Dylan song.  Cash said in his San Quentin introduction referring to Dylan “he and I wrote a song together,” but the records show that Dylan copyrighted it, and Cash didn’t seem to argue with that, which is probably the definitive bit of evidence on the matter.

The song then became the opening track of “At San Quentin” – an album that stayed at the top of the American LP charts for a month.

We have a couple of versions of the song available on line (at least available at this moment as I write this little note).  One appears within in a Rolling Stone article, “See Johnny Cash sing Wanted Man at San Quentin Prison”

The other version has a link further down the article.

“At San Quentin” was the 31st album of  Cash, and was the second of his prison albums (the earlier one being recorded at Folsom Prison, and the song is an obvious one for such a setting – indeed I presume Dylan wrote the song with the concert in mind.

Musically and lyrically it is very simple – which doesn’t mean it is any the worse for that, as some of the most beautiful and memorable songs are exquisitely simple, but for me (and as always it is a very personal review) neither the melody nor the lyrics nor the chordal accompaniment do anything to make it stand out.  But then I’ve never been incarcerated.

Incidentally if you are not American, you, like me, might be a trifle puzzled by the phrase “on the lam” – which I am told is what in England we would call “on the run”.

Wanted man in California, wanted man in Buffalo
Wanted man in Kansas City, wanted man in Ohio
Wanted man in Mississippi, wanted man in old Cheyenne
Wherever you might look tonight, you might see this wanted man

I might be in Colorado or Georgia by the sea
Working for some man who may not know at all who I might be
If you ever see me comin’ and if you know who I am
Don’t you breathe it to nobody ’cause you know I’m on the lam

I also take it that the characters mentioned in the third verse are just names of imaginary women the singer has up and left, possibly stealing from them before he went – but again because I am far from being an expert on American folk culture I can’t be sure.  I do know Nellie Johnson was a civil rights activist, but otherwise…

Wanted man by Lucy Watson, wanted man by Jeannie Brown
Wanted man by Nellie Johnson, wanted man in this next town
But I’ve had all that I’ve wanted of a lot of things I had
And a lot more than I needed of some things that turned out bad

Likewise only some of the names ring cultural bells for me, but clearly meant a lot to the prison audience, but of course we all know that Juarez can be Dylan’s shorthand for desperation and despair as in “Just like Tom Thumb’s Blues.”   I’m sure someone will be kind enough to write in and let me know if all the towns, regions and states that subsequently get mentioned actually mean something other than the fact that the singer is wanted just about everywhere in the US and Mexico.

It is difficult to date the composition of the song exactly but I’d have it at the end of the writing of the songs that did appear on Nashville Skyline – but I am happy to be corrected.

• Tell me it isn’t true
• Tonight I’ll be Staying Here With You
• Wanted Man
• Champaign Illinois
• Living the blues

After those songs Bob had another pause before he returned with a completely different approach the following year which took him into…

• Time passes slowly
• Father of night
• Went to see the gypsy
• All the tired horses
• If not for you

Think there’s something missing or wrong with this review?

You are of course always welcome to write a comment below, but if you’d like to go further, you could write an alternative review – we’ve already published quite a few of these.  We try to avoid publishing reviews and comments that are rude or just criticisms of what is written elsewhere – but if you have a positive take on this song or any other Dylan song, and would like it considered for publication, please do email Tony@schools.co.uk

What else is on the site

1: Over 490 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

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

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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

You can read part one of this review of Dylan and Rastafarianism here

Bob Dylan And Rastafarianism (Part II): “I And I”.  By Larry Fyffe

The spiritual beliefs and reggae-syle music of Bob Marley have an influence on the works of Bob Dylan. The Rastas of Jamaica consider the Church followers of the religion known as Christianity to be infidels. To them, the Judeo-Christian God is actually a Demiurge, a flawed spirit.

White-skinned biblical interpreters, they of the race who brought slavery and colonialism to the black peoples of the world, corrupt the Word of the Lord. Even unto the real name of the Lord which is ‘Jah’:

Sing unto God, sing praises to his name
Extol him that rideth the upon the heavens
By his name Jah, and rejoice before him
(Psalm 68: 4)

Saith the Rastas, little mention is made by white Christian bible-thumpers of Moses (who leads the Hebrews out of Egypt from slavery) being partnered with a non-Hebrew woman, a ‘stranger’ from Abyssinia.

Not so quiet are Moses’ siblings:

And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses ….
For he had married an Ethiopian woman
(I Numbers 12:1)

Nor seldom is it mentioned much that King Solomon, an envoy of the Hebrew God, ‘loved many strange women’ – including an Ethiopian who, according to the Holy Bible, exchanges psalms with King Solomon of Canaan:

The king hath brought me into his chambers
We will be glad and rejoice in thee
We will remember thy love more than wine
The upright love thee
I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem
(Solomon’s Song 1: 4,5)

She could well be the Queen of Sheba:

And King Solomon gave unto the Queen Of Sheba
all her desire
Whatsoever she asked, beside that which Solomon
gave her of his royal bounty
So she turned and went to her own country, she
and her servants
(I Kings 10:13)

So it’s not at all surprising that Rastas believe that Jesus Christ, a descendant of Solomon, is a black-skinned Messiah. Also, that Jesus reincarnates in the figure of Haile Selassie – the Emperor of Ethiopia comes equipped with a ‘promised land’ for Africans who have been taken to America in chains.

A religious motto of the mystic Rastas is ‘I and I’ which means that Jah’s holy spirit of love lies within each of His chosen people, and unites them into One. Eventually, Jah will also gather together the infidels, including white bald-headed ones who use bad words like ‘hell’-o.

Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, who’s full of irony pellets when he thinks spiritual matters are getting a bit overly optimistic, dumps a truckload on top of the Rastafarian city of dreamers:

Been so long since a strange woman
has slept in my bed
Look how sweet she sleeps, how free
must be her dreams
In another lifetime she must have owned
the world, or been faithfully wed
To some righteous king who wrote psalms
beside moonlit streams
(Bob Dylan: I And I)

In the Old Testament ‘strange’ means not of the Hebrew faith. The strange woman in the song lyrics above be akin to the Gnostic Lady of Wisdom; Coleridge’s Abyssinian maid who in Kubla Kann on her dulcimer played; and, last but not least, King Solomon’s black lover from Ethiopia.

And then comes the swirling dust of the Dylanesque twister – in the Tweedle Dee -Tweedle Dum world of organized two-faced Christian hypocrisy, whether black-coloured or white-coloured, the sad-eyed lady is down on her luck – her deck of cards is missing an ace and a one-eyed jack:

In creation where one’s nature neither honours nor forgives
I and I
One says to the other, no man sees my face and lives
(Bob Dylan: I And I)

In short, most of Earth’s creatures under the control of the Demiurge keep the good part of themselves to themselves – Jah’s holy spirit within is kept hidden away:

When a cop pulled him over to the side
of the road
Just like the time before and the time
before that
In Paterson that’s just the way things go
If you’re black you might as well not show
up on the street
(Bob Dylan: Hurricane)

Below is the list of main articles on “I and I” and Rastafarianism elsewhere on this site…

I and I: God finds out Dylan thinks He maybe isn’t almighty after all.

I and I: Bob Dylan: an alternative vision

The stranger in Bob Dylan’s “I and I”

Bob Dylan and Rastafarianism

Bob Dylan and the Bible: an Index.

What else is on the site

1: Over 490 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

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

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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 is that Bob Dylan gave George Harrison more expansive and inventive lyrics, while George Harrison gave Bob Dylan new chords to play with.

The story, like so many in popular culture, doesn’t exactly stack up – one only has to to listen to the experiments going on, on the Dylan “hotel tapes” in 1966, to recognise that of course Dylan knew his way around all those major sevenths and diminished chords much earlier than that – from the start he was an accomplished musician who often just chose to focus on the standard chords of folk.  Just listen to the implied chords created by the descending bass in the verses of “It’s Alright Ma”.

And in fact in George Harrison’s autobiography he writes that Dylan was “saying show me some chords.  How do you get those tunes?”  Dylan’s question in fact was about putting melodies on top of chords that he already knew perfectly well, not one about not knowing the chords in the first place.  (Even I bought the book of 1000 guitar chords when I was 13.  Everyone had one of those at this time – aspiring guitarists probably still do).

My thought (and I might be proven wrong on this if someone can find an example otherwise) is that although Dylan knew all these chords he rarely if ever used them on the piano, an instrument he is far less adept at playing than the guitar.  Now that is important because it is much easier on the piano to change the chord around and put a different note at the top, in order to help evolve a melody, than it is on the guitar.

Harrison, my guess is, could overcome this because he was a natural singer, a natural harmoniser (often putting his own harmonies onto his solo recordings – some Dylan would never ever do), and so a person who could hear the breakdown of the chord as a potential starting point for a melody.  Those of us who play the piano, but don’t have the melodic talent of Harrison, work it out on the piano.

Thus in melodies Bob loses out both ways – he has never had the automatic ability to make harmonies with his voice, and he is not a natural pianist.  Of course that doesn’t mean he can’t write melodies – to say that would be nonsense.  But his absolute foremost strength is in the lyrics and in that brief comment he was looking to overcome his temporary writers’ block and move on in a new way.

So in that conversation each musician was seeking to understand the other’s greatest ability. In the rest of the conversation as reported by Harrison he says, “come on write some words” and Bob came up with the absolutely boundless, all encompassing simplicity of

All I have is yours
All you see is mine
And I’m glad to hold you in my arms
I’d have you anytime.

As a personal aside, I was never a fan of the Beatles and never bought their albums or singles, but was drawn to the “All things must pass” album of Harrison, and I still have the LPs in the original box at home.  I actually didn’t know Dylan co-wrote it (there were other things on my mind in 1970, having just left home and moved to London) until much, much later, although I was a committed Dylan fan from the release of Freewheelin onwards.

As it is I haven’t played the album for years – until today – and the only bit of it I could immediately remember when starting to think about it for this review were those “All I have is yours” lines.  Without the extra interest of knowing they were Dylan lines, they had stuck with me all through the decades.  Bob does that to me.

The song was written at Bob’s house near Woodstock – and we should note was probably written in the early part of 1969 when Bob was struggling to get the compositional urge moving again, having only written one song the previous year (Lay Lady Lay).

According to one review, “The song reflects the environment in which it was written, as Harrison’s verses urge the shy and elusive Dylan to let down his guard, and the Dylan-composed choruses respond with a message of welcome.”  Maybe so.  It seems a nice thought.

Harrison’s recording has Eric Clapton on lead guitar and Phil Spector as co-producer.  With Bob as a co-writer on this song it seemed to have everything – although other than those lines of Bob, as I started to gather my thoughts on writing this review, the only other song from the album that I could eventually conjure up before I dug the box set out and put it on the turntable was “Beware of Darkness” – which again probably reflects where I was in 1970.  Having just played it for the first time in a couple of decades my spine is still tingling in a way that isn’t exactly what I like to experience these days….

Watch out now, take care
Beware of soft shoe shufflers
Dancing down the sidewalks
As each unconscious sufferer
Wanders aimlessly
Beware of Maya

https://youtu.be/Kz_w87sU_lg

Watch out now, take care
Beware of the thoughts that linger
Winding up inside your head
The hopelessness around you
In the dead of night

But back to the main purpose of today’s ramble…

There is another Harrison version of the song on this demo album

It starts at around 5 minutes 30 seconds.   

And of course there is also his version of  “If not for you” on the Harrison “All things” album.

All Things Must Pass, was released on Apple Records in November 1970.  Was it really almost 50 years ago?  Maybe I’m excused not remembering the rest of it.

Here are the lyrics…

Let me say it, let me play it
Let me lay it on you
Let me know you, let me show you
Let me grow it on you
All I have is yours
All you see is mine
And I’m glad to have you in my arms
I’d have you any time

Let me in here, I know I’ve been here
Let me into your heart
Let me know you, let me show you
Let me roll it to you
All I have is yours
All you see is mine
And I’m glad to have you in my arms
I’d have you any time

Twins Osiris and Isis married they be; Osiris is killed by his brother Seth who usurps the throne. Using ‘gypsy’ magic, Isis revives her male twin and husand long enough to become pregnant, and, by so doing, she preserves the natural order through an heir; Osiris becomes the guide of the dark valley below the horizon; Isis, of the daytime sky above.

Taking artistic license, Bob and Jaques cook the Egyptain stuff up in a pot with Christianity mixed in:

(Bob Dylan: Oh Sister)

Everyone’s part of Adam and Eve’s huge family. Biographical suggestions in regards to Bob Dylan pop into the listener’s head –  like perhaps, Egyptian sister-goddess Isis really represents Joan Baez (and/or Sara Dylan):

(Bob Dylan: She Belongs To Me)

With its roots in the Holy Bible, Rastafaranism is a form of intuitive Gnosticism, a mysticism that holds that the messiah of the chosen African people is Jesus, a black descendant of King Solomon; Haile Selassie of Ethiopia be the Second Coming thereof, the King of kings in the Promised Land. For Rastafarians, many of whose forefathers were enslaved not that long ago by white Europeans of modern Babylon, Ethiopia is thought of as New Jerusalem.

The dark and light motif remains in many a Rasta song,  but peace is at hand, saith Jah (Yahweh) in the Bible:

(Psalm 68: 31)

Haile Selassie, sworn enemy of the Italian invaders in World War II, is envisioned by the followers of the Rasta religion in terms of symbolism found within the pages of Judeo-Christian Bible:

(Revelation 20: 11)

During the 1960’s and ’70’s, Jamaican Rastafaranian Bob Marley, a well-known singer/songwriter of Caribbean popular songs and music, expands the appeal of reggae music:

Below, a song covered with reggae music, originally performed country style by Claude Gray:

(Bob Marley: One Cup Of Coffee)

Accompanied by ‘gypsy’ music, Dylan presents lyrics that emphasize the light and dark aspects of mystic Gnosticism:

(Bob Dylan: One More Cup Of Coffee)

In the following verse, Bob Dylan, as usual, notes he’s well aware of how religion gets manipulated to demonstrate that God favours the side one is on. Alluding to the Bible’s ‘Song Of Solomon,’ Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’, and Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’, he satirically sings about Rastafarian-like politics blowing in the wind:

(Bob Dylan: Caribbean Wind)

By Tony Attwood

“I Don’t Want to Do It” was written by Dylan after “I threw it all away” in 1968 and was seemingly given to George Harrison who demoed it for “All things must pass” but then passed up on it.  (There is a link to this demo below).

However although Dylan did not record it Harrison returned to “I don’t want to do it” later and recorded the song again in 1984 and released it in 1985.  The song was produced by Dave Edmunds who was famous (at least in my house) for songs such as “Girls Talk” and “Queen of Hearts”.  It was the only song Harrison released between 1982 and 1987.

Dave Edmunds’ involvement came about because he was helping to select the music for the soundtrack of the film, Porky’s Revenge! (itself a sequel to “Porky’s”) and this movie then contained the song.  The version of the song released as a single is different from the version heard in the movie but in both cases the vocal harmonies as well as the lead vocal are performed by Harrison.

The movie version of the song was later remastered by Dave Edmunds and included in the album “Let it Roll: Songs by George Harrison”

The demo from the All Things Must Pass sessions as a Harrison solo is included on this web page – just scroll down – sorry I can’t separate it out from the article.

It has been suggested that Dylan was writing about leaving his wife and young family in order to go touring, and the fact of being torn between the two – as we now know he stayed at home.

Here are the lyrics

Looking back upon my youth
The time I always knew the truth
I don’t want to do it
I don’t want to say goodbye

To go back in the yard and play
If I could only have another day
I don’t want to do it
I don’t want to make you cry

To go back
On the hill beside the track
And try to concentrate
All in all the places that I want to be
No, it shows you that I could not wait

So come back into my arms again
This love of ours, it has no end
I don’t want to do it
I don’t want to make you cry

I have finally plumped for the song being placed here in the chronology of 1969

• Minstrel Boy
• I threw it all away
• I don’t want to do it
• I’d have you anytime
• To be alone with you
• One more night

but dates around this time are confusing (well, at least for me) and certainly others don’t put Minstrel Boy at this point in the sequence.  I’ll have a look at “I’d have you anytime” next.

Think there’s something missing or wrong with this review?

You are of course always welcome to write a comment below, but if you’d like to go further, you could write an alternative review – we’ve already published quite a few of these.  We try to avoid publishing reviews and comments that are rude or just criticisms of what is written elsewhere – but if you have a positive take on this song or any other Dylan song, and would like it considered for publication, please do email Tony@schools.co.uk

What else is on the site

1: Over 490 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

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

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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

Surrealistic singer/songwriter Bob Dylan delves into Gnostic mysticism in a number of his songs. In one, Dylan seeks out a divine female messenger (Angelina) who apparently comes from the mysterious, far-off Spirit God of Goodness that lies hidden behind the Demiurge, the commander of the material Universe.

A characteristic part of the cosmology of Gnosticism is the depiction, as in the song lyric following, of the dualistic nature of light and darkness, the latter an allegorical symbol for the Evil in the material world wherein mankind is trapped – considered by some Gnostics due to sin; by others due to ignorance:

I came to a high place of darkness and light
The dividing line ran though the centre of town
(Bob Dylan: Isis)

The evolution of Christian and Hebrew Gnosticism goes back in time to the mythology of ancient Egypt – to Isis and Osiris the married offspring of Father Earth and Mother Sky; to Seth(disorder, symbolized by the hyena and by the snake), who, out of jealousy, kills his brother Osiris (order), places him in a coffin, and takes over the throne. Isis puts the pieces of Osiris back together, gets herself with child, and hides the baby in the bushes by the Nile.

According to a Bible-related Gnostic version, Cain kills brother Abel, they, the offspring of Adam and Eve, and Seth is then born to Eve as a more suitable replacemnt father for the human race.

In the Dylan’s depiction of Seth in the song lyrics below, the meaning is left open for the listener to create a reasonable interpretion on his/her own:

His eyes were two slits that would make
a snake proud
With a face that any painter would paint as
he walked through the crowd
Worshipping a god with the body of a woman
well-endowed
And the head of a hyena
(Bob Dylan: Angelina)

In ‘Angelina’, Dylan mixes the Egyptain mythology in with the Book Of Revelation. What this mixture of mythological and biblical medicine means (in so far as masked and mysterious God goes) is obscure:

I see pieces of men marching, trying to
take heaven by force
I can see the unknown rider, I can see the
pale white horse
In God’s truth tell me what you want, and you’ll
have it of course
Just step into the arena
(Bob Dylan: Angelina)

In terms of black humour, what could be suggested here is that a good ol’ professional wrestling match is in order; I mean, if Angelina steps into the arena with Dylan’s persona, God might be found out not to be a very manly God!

Below, the biblical allusion:

And I saw, and behold, a white horse
And he that sat on him had a bow
And a crown was given unto him
And he went forth conquering and to conquer
(Revelation 6:2)

And so it goes. Biblical theologians argue among themselves whether the pale rider represents Jesus Christ, a messenger from Yahweh ; or the Demiurge himself, the AntiChrist – that is, the Roman Emperor of that time. Maybe, it’s Clint Eastwood, the man with no name, for all we know.

Anyway in ‘Isis’, the persona of Robert Allan Poeically could be be twisted to be interpreted as a somewhat jagged Seth-like Satanic figure who just can’t get no satisfaction:

I picked up his body and I dragged him inside
Threw him down in the hole, and I put back the cover
I said a quick prayer, and I felt satisfied
Then I went to find Isis just to tell her I love her
(Bob Dylan: Isis)

There are critics out there who feel that Bob Dylan chooses his words haphazardly, or simply because they rhyme; for this grave sin, these people are surely going to go straight to Hell -and without a last supper:

Bright are the stars that shine
Dark is the sky
I know this love of mine
Will never die
And I love her
(Beatles: And I Love Her)

What else is on the site

1: Over 490 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

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

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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 are, it seems, two “On a rainy afternoon” songs by Dylan.  One which is one of the Glasgow hotel songs recorded along with “What kind of friend is this” and “I can’t leave her behind” and the other which turns up on The Basement Tapes Complete.  This review deals with the hotel song from 1966.

This swing-along song has always reminded me somehow of the interest Dylan had in the music of earlier days which he indulged in, on some of his later albums, taking themes, lyrics and even music from the great songs of the 20s to the 50s.

However I was forced to rethink that a little when I read an article on Expecting Rain (an excellent website that you really ought to read if you don’t already) in which a correspondent noted a link between Rainy Afternoon and the song “Soldier Boy” by The Shirelles, from 1962.

Here’s the link to that song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NYw83uAQig

and to Dylan’s hotel song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE3owtjQmSc

The writer adds, “As you can hear, the phrase at 0:20, “You were my first love/and you’ll be my last” is quite close to the Dylan’s “Now she’s walking in the morning/Howlin’ you come home.”

I find that a very interesting comment, but I would also want to throw in the fact that what is particularly stunning is that this song comes from the time of “Most Likely You Go Your Way”, “Temporary Like Achilles” and “Rainy Day Women”.

It is, stepping back from everything we know about Dylan and his writing, quite extraordinary that one composer could be contemplating both these styles at almost the same time.  It is almost if Bob is saying, “well, here is another direction I could be going in, if the mood takes me.”

And to be clear, it is not a question of whether what Dylan sings is somehow purloined from an earlier song, but rather that he was being influenced by all these different sources at once.

The mood didn’t exactly take him down the route we hear in this song, at that time, because events got in the way, as we know, and the hotel tapes theme turned into the Basement Tapes, which were in part influenced by the musicians Dylan had around him at the time.  But it does give us a clue to the extraordinary range of Dylan’s options and possibilities in the 1960s.

And it possibly is the antecedent to Dylan’s decision to travel in such different directions subsequently, what with Nashville Skyline and so on.

In this incarnation Dylan is taking two different tracks – one lyrical as he gives us a “please come home” song (just about the polar opposite of Rainy Day Women and the like) and a focus on melody (something that Dylan could quite often ignore if he felt like it – as with the monotonal verses of “It’s all right ma”).

Plus the chord sequence is not at all what we might associate with Dylan who was spending much of his time in the studios seeing what could be done with the standard three chords of the blues.  Visions of Johanna, we might recall, for all the might of  expression and possibility of meaning, is a three chord song.

By contrast, at one point in this recording Dylan plays

Dm, F, Bb, Am, Gm, C7, F, Bb, F

as the accompaniment to just one line.

Several writers have been good enough to put down a transcript of what Dylan sings.  There are variations of interpretation but the one below seems as good as any.  Even though these lyrics are clearly not a completed song, and Dylan is making some of them up as they go along, it is a great insight how Dylan can work with songwriting.  What we have is an opening idea, and then phrases and sounds that fit.  If he had wanted to turn this into a song he would record, Dylan would then undoubtedly have written the lyrics thus far in a notebook or on hotel notepaper, and then started to manipulate them as he saw fit.  I suspect virtually many of his songs begin like this; perhaps the majority.

But please remember these lyrics are an approximation of what is sung, in many parts with Dylan making it up as he goes.

Now she’s walkin’ in the morning
Howlin’ you come home
I’ll be on my way, so long, forlorn
You just can’t go

I will get it if I have to
If I have to please come home
Try, but I’ll be dry, and I crave you
If I haunt you back all day

Carry my trouble
Yes you satisfy my mind
I’ll try to tell you, if I can’t come in
And I must stay true

I’ll be happy in the morning
I try my best, I will try to help you
If I can, and I leave it too
But I just can’t find you away
Won’t some time away

That’s the way I think she told me
Heart she bent on me
I’ll be out all morning, for you
But you can’t stop me

Yes, I try my best to please you
Try my best, but if I fail
You must help me to see you
As I go by…

Now, if you send me a letter
I’ll be on my way to get it for you
I’ll be with my sister too
I can’t find me what to do

Yes, I’ve been trying to get a message
To you, but you have to treat me
I won’t let her to
And then I try my best to hunt her, you…

As Bob Dylan himself said in 2016, “Everything worth doing takes time. You have to write a hundred bad songs before you write one good one. And you have to sacrifice a lot of things that you might not be prepared for. Like it or not, you are in this alone and have to follow your own star.”

Think there’s something missing or wrong with this review?

You are of course always welcome to write a comment below, but if you’d like to go further, you could write an alternative review – we’ve already published quite a few of these.  We try to avoid publishing reviews and comments that are rude or just criticisms of what is written elsewhere – but if you have a positive take on this song or any other Dylan song, and would like it considered for publication, please do email Tony@schools.co.uk

What else is on the site

1: Over 490 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

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

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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 article is here…

• A frankly delivered Gnostic message. Dylan’s Every grain of sand revisited.

By Larry Fyffe

Kees de Graaf, an examiner of Bob Dylan’s song lyrics finds ‘Every Grain Of Sand’ to be a devotional song that’s been fermented in the vats of Christian beliefs; apparently, for de Graaf there can be only one proper interpretation – the song’s all about confessing and repenting in order to get God’s help in resisting temptation:

I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer’s dream, in the chill of a wintry light
In the bittter dance of loneliness fading into space
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face
(Bob Dylan: Every Grain Of Sand)

In the lyrics above, Dylan quite likely references the plight of the sad-eyed lady from ‘Twelfth Night’, and at the same time refers to two other plays by William Shakespeare – ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and ‘The Winter’s Tale’. In any event, one detects in a number of his song lyrics that Dylan detests Christian intolerance of those with a same sex orientation:

I been to Babylon
I gotta confess
I could still hear the voice crying
in the wilderness
(Bob Dylan: Someone’s Got A Hold Of My Heart)

Nor is it an orthodox Christian view on sexuality that William Blake puts forth in his poetry, ie, the bitter fading out of the innocence of youth – a view taken in Dylan’s “Every Grain Of Sand” above, and presented in the Blake verse below:

I wandered through each chartered street
Near where the chartered Thames does flow
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe
(William Blake: London)

And William Blake in his day wonders why God permits church fathers to ignore the cries of child chimney-sweeps, and allows the blood of soldiers to run down palace walls. Bob Dylan questions how a loving God can cast Adam and Eve into a world that has an H-Bomb hovering over every town:

So now that I’m leavin’
I’m weary as hell
The confusion I’m feeling
Ain’t no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
That if God’s on our side
He’ll stop the next war
(Bob Dylan: With God On Our Side)

The use of irony and black humour by Dylan in songs concerning social values is often lost on examiners of his lyrics who are doctrinaire in their religious beliefs – so much so that alternate interpretations of such songs are often overlooked.

For example, in the following lyrics, the singer/songwriter notes that he’s already confessed seemingly quite without any effect, and so, in the face of possible danger, he’s getting out of town with the other folks. As Snagglepuss the cat says in the cartoons – “exodus, stage right”:

Everybody going and I want to go too
Don’t want to take a chance with somebody new
I did all I could, and I did it right there and then
I’ve already confessed, no need to confess again
(Bob Dylan: Thunder On The Mountain)

Can you blame the townspeople? Nowadays, Zeus, the God of Thunder, in his wrath, besides having control of whirlwinds and twisters, has bolts of H-Bombs to throw down on the sinful:

And all the people saw the thundering, and the lightnings
And the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking
And when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off
(Exodus 20:19)

A serious gospel song Dylan is capable of singing, but a Mark Twain sense of humour he retains when singing about a real nuclear, rather than a mythological, apocalypse:

Well, I spied me a girl, and before she could leave
I said “Let’s go play Adam and Eve”
I took her hand, and my heart it was thumpin’
When she said, “Hey, man, you crazy or somethin’
You see what happened last time they started”
(Bob Dylan: Talkin’ World War III Blues)

The Untold Dylan review of this song appears here

What else is on the site

1: Over 480 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

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

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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 are a whole load of false trails supposedly leading to on line versions of this song which are either closed down or go nowhere at all or lead to another song, and indeed wandering through them I nearly gave up, completely unable to understand why this song is so very highly regarded by some readers of Expecting Rain. 

But then I finally found what they were talking about: the best recording by far

http://nodepression.com/video/bob-dylan-i-cant-leave-her-behind

And the deletions of tracks from the internet being what it is, I suppose that might well disappear soon.  Which means you might have to go out and buy The Cutting Edge, where it can be found on disk 18 in two versions.

It’s nice but on its own I am not sure I would spend all that money just for this one.

Where she leads me I do not know
Well, she leads me where she goes
I can’t find her nowhere
Well, she needs me here
All aware I can’t hear her walk
I just cannot hear her talk
Though sometimes, you know you will
And when she comes my way
I’ll just be left any night or day
I will hear her say
That I don’t wanna try
I tried, also cried
But I can’t leave her behind

But in case that link vanishes here is another link this time to version B

The song is described in some quarters as a country song, pre-dating but related to the “Nashville Skyline” approach but I feel that is stretching it a little.  It is gentle and lyrical but not particularly country, at least to my ear.

Anyway, it turned up in Pennebaker’s documentary relating to 1966, “Eat The Document.”

I think it is fair to say when heard in the first link above I had to admit it is a really lovely song, and not at all what one is used to from Dylan, but for me (and of course this is very personal) it is not distinguished from a fairly large number of other love and lost love songs.

Clearly from the Expecting Rain comments some people really do love this song, and I am not knocking that.  It is just on the very personal basis it doesn’t have that unique something that makes Dylan songs at once recognisable as Dylan songs no matter how, where and when played.

Think there’s something missing or wrong with this review?

You are of course always welcome to write a comment below, but if you’d like to go further, you could write an alternative review – we’ve already published quite a few of these.  We try to avoid publishing reviews and comments that are rude or just criticisms of what is written elsewhere – but if you have a positive take on this song or any other Dylan song, and would like it considered for publication, please do email Tony@schools.co.uk

What else is on the site

1: Over 490 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

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

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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 Kees de Graaf presents ‘Every Grain Of Sand’ by Bob Dylan as without doubt a song of dogma-bound Christian certitude, it’s lyrics are more influenced by the Swedenborgian Gnosticist and allegorical poetry of William Blake than, frankly, Kees admits.

PreRomantic poet William Blake advocates the figurative techings ofJesus Christ, and envisions the Jewish prophet as a rebel against the seated demiurgical God Who is too quick to anger and too slow to forgive. Blake be against authoritarian religious leaders that invent doctrines like babies being born with ‘original sin’ in order to make everyone feel guilty and ashamed as they grow into adulthood.The singer/songwriter jots down notes:

I gaze into the doorway of temptation’s angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand
(Bob Dylan: Every Grain Of Sand)

The biblical reference is:

But the very hairs of your head are numbered
(Matthew 10:30)

Institutional Christian dogma has it that this quote means that God knows everything, and that the Judeo-Christian Bible is the source of all knowledge, and that Church leaders have the training to inform you properly as to what God wants to get across.

In general, Gnosticism holds that the Universe is bursting forth in fragmented pieces both dark and light; on Earth it’s frozen in material darkness where the Spirit of Light is as far away as the land of Pooh Bear and the honey jar.

Blake and Dylan take on a modernistic view rather akin to the Gnosticism of yesteryear – there are artists, who don’t look back, since they have been given just enough time to shred a little light into the gloom through their works . In short, search they do for priority of purpose in life before all their hair falls out, everyone of them being numbered:

Don’t have the inclination to look back on my mistake
Like Cain, l now behold the chain of events that I must break
In the fury of the moment I can see my master’s hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand

The literary reference is:

To see the world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower
(William Blake: Auguries Of innocence)

“Ol’ Bill” Blake solidifies in relief engravings his imaginative mythological thoughts for those who have eyes to see; singer/songwriter Bobby ‘Dee’ is able to hear the whole world in a ‘grain of sand’, and be heard by it, due to the invention of a time machine that is capable of reproducing the sounds of musicians singing. For anyone who believes that God is dead, he who has ears to hear, let him listen. A Gnostic secret is revealed, released, and delivered, the fury of the moment broken:

They’re making a voyage to the sun
‘His Master’s Voice’ is calling me
Says Tweedle-dee Dum to Tweedle-dee Dee.
(Bob Dylan: Tweedle-Dee And Tweedle-Dum)

Albert Grossman, aka ‘Judas, the Priest’, is an example of an angelic/demonic messenger from the Master Demiurge to whom kneel howling bloodhounds, frankly ‘Dee’ for one, who smell fame and fortune coming from the windows of the Eternity Music Company:

“Just tell me where you’ll be”
Judas pointed down the road
And said, “Eternity”
“Eternity?”, said Frankie Lee
With a voice as cold as ice
“That’s right”, said Judas Priest, ” ‘Eternity’
Though you might call it ‘Paradise.’ ”
(Bob Dylan: Frankie Lee And Judas Priest)

By Tony Attwood

We have one recording of “If you want my love” from 1966, and pretty poor quality it is too – by which I mean the recording is poor, because this 12 bar song shows perfectly just what Dylan can do with a format that has been used over and over, even though around the three minute mark he starts throwing in a couple of diminished chords just to try something different.

What I find interesting is that no one has picked up this song from 1966 and done something with it.  There’s hardly any mention of it on the internet and the tiny reference Heylin makes to the song is utterly derisory suggesting the song demonstrates “no real surges of imagination”.

Well I disagree, painful though the quality of the recording is.  There really is something utterly bluesy and just right in this song which if Dylan had performed it on stage would have brought the house down.

There is also a problem with the one and only recording I can find on the internet, at least when I play it since it is preluded with not just one but two adverts.  Then the video insists on resetting its volume button to zero each time (it’s the thing bottom right next to the square if you get this problem).

Now maybe you won’t want to play it over and over again (which is what I do when writing these reviews) so that won’t matter.  But if you want to get the hang of this song it is all very frustrating.  So frustrating that I am almost tempted to do a recording myself just so we have something to preserve the song.

Yes it is just a blues, and the lyrics are far from complete, but Bob Dylan when just messing around with a tape recorder can create blues songs at the drop of a hat as great as many of the classics from earlier years.

So, indeed, it is painful because of the quality but if you really want to know about the stuff Dylan just threw away, try it.

And maybe next time I’m in a studio I’ll have a go.  Unless someone else wants to record it first – in which case tell me and I’ll put that up straight away.

Don’t forget to check the audio button bottom right next to the square, just in case with you it does the same as with me and resets itself to zero each time!

Think there’s something missing or wrong with this review?

You are of course always welcome to write a comment below, but if you’d like to go further, you could write an alternative review – we’ve already published quite a few of these.  We try to avoid publishing reviews and comments that are rude or just criticisms of what is written elsewhere – but if you have a positive take on this song or any other Dylan song, and would like it considered for publication, please do email Tony@schools.co.uk

What else is on the site

1: Over 480 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

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

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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

By Tony Attwood

This review related to the bootlegged version, not the Rolling Thunder Review version.  There is no available version on the internet, so we offer our version, above, recorded in 2022.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

I had so carefully put the torment that Patty’s Gone to Laredo brings, right out of my mind for years and years until Larry mentioned it in his article Saith Dylan: ‘By A Forked Tongue, Be Not Enticed’  and it all came back to me and I just HAD to go and listen to it again.

And the torment returned.

For this song sounds like an absolute winner, a brilliant piece of Dylan, one of the great lost works that would be on my ever growing CD of all the brilliant songs Bob thought never to let us have on an album.

But…. it is so mished and mashed and mucked about with by putting a sound track over the top of people chatting that it makes huge demands on the imagination to make out what it was all about.

Yes, that soundtrack does make the song ever more poignant because the singer is bemoaning the sadness of his life (I think) while the audience couldn’t give a damn and are just chatting among themselves.

OK I get that.  But I also want the song.  I want a pure, clear and clean copy.  So please would one of the people who are a little bit close to Bob and who occasionally do me the absolute kindness of getting in touch off the record with a comment about something on the site, just phone Bob (at an appropriate time of course – I don’t want him disturbed while he’s composing or rehearsing or playing with the grandkids) and say “that old bloke in England who does all these reviews and is a big fan has asked if you could spare five minutes to lay down a version of “Patty’s gone” and send it to him with a set of lyrics, so he can do a proper review…”

In the meantime, and back in the real world, Heylin tells us, “This could well be the long-rumoured song he allegedly wrote about Patty Hearst in 1975. It was included in Dylan’s cinematic folly Renaldo & Clara (1978), but otherwise left unused.”

So he didn’t find out anything either.  But now I’ve been forced to remember it and start pining for it, there is a link below.  I am certainly not going to risk transcribing the words, but if you would like to, please be my guest.

The film, as you probably will know, is a deliberate mix of three separate film types all at once, with clips from the Rolling Thunder Revue. There is also the film of Ruben Carter (the Hurricane) and has Bob Dylan playing Renaldo and his wife of the time Sara playing Clara with Ronnie Hawkins playing Bob Dylan.  We get the Jack Kerouac (of On the Road) grave, Allen Ginsberg and others.  All the stuff that goes into Bob’s past.

The origins of it all is Les Enfants du Paradis which is considered by many aficionados of French movies (and by and large by the French) as the best film of all time.

So it is a torment.  I am not saying that it would be the best Dylan song of all time if we could hear it properly, but I suspect it would be on the album of total and utter gems from Dylan, if we had a proper recording of it.  And I am not saying rush out and watch Les Enfants du Paradis if you are not familiar with post war black and white movies from France, because if that era of film making does happen to be your cup of tea, as it was in mine in younger days, you probably know it already.

But maybe that’s the point.

Oh Bob.  You certainly know how to torment us.

Think there’s something missing or wrong with this review?

You are of course always welcome to write a comment below, but if you’d like to go further, you could write an alternative review – we’ve already published quite a few of these.  We try to avoid publishing reviews and comments that are rude or just criticisms of what is written elsewhere – but if you have a positive take on this song or any other Dylan song, and would like it considered for publication, please do email Tony@schools.co.uk

What else is on the site

1: Over 480 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

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

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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

The organizers of orthodox Christianity come up with the idea of ‘original sin’ so that choosing to be ‘good’ isn’t the way to salvation; rather the intervention of a priestly class (a Church) is needed.

Many forms of Gnosticism, with the concept of a far, far-away ‘God’, hold that the solid material body in which most people are trapped prevents the faint but goodly spark within them from being ignited, ie, beware of those with “violence in the eyes” and “assassin’s eyes”.

Other Gnosticists hold that the apparent material/spiritual duality is due to people’s perception being limited by their senses. A modern Gnostic poet William Blake be a strong influence on the beat poetry of Allen Ginsberg and on the song lyrics of Bob Dylan.

If the doors of perception were cleansed
Enerything would appear to man as it is, infinite
(William Blake: The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell)

Ginsberg and Dylan search for Gnostic messengers, precious angels with a clear perspective to assist them light the torch within – ie, a humane teacher (like Jesus), or a kindred friend, but especially a fiery sex partner. In through the doors of persception these messengers bring bright light into a dull world:

How did I meet you? I don’t know
A messenger sent me in a topical storm
You were there in the winter, moonlight on the snow
And on Lily Pond Lane when the weather was warm
(Bob Dylan: Sara)

Allegorically speaking, encountering such an ‘angel’ turns one’s perception of reality upside down:

If not for you
Babe, I could not even find the door
I couldn’t even find the floor
I’d be sad and blue, if not for you
(Bob Dylan: If Not For You)

Dylan sings out that the spiritual spark is kindled to flame in the heart of the individual in spite of a ‘subtle enemy’, holier-than-thou religious institutions that chain followers to dogmas such as Christ being literally the ‘Son of God’.

A hallmark of Postmodernist writing is its tendency to employ irony – the author expresses the opposite of what s/he really means. Furthermore, the author often leaves it an open question whether or not s/he is in fact being ironic:

Now there’s spiritual warfare and flesh and
blood breaking down
Ya either got faith or ya got unbelief and there
ain’t no neutral ground
The enemy is subtle, how be it we are so deceived
When the truth’s in our heart, and we still don’t believe …..
You’re the queen of my flesh girl, you’re my
woman, my delight
You’re the lamp of my soul, girl, you’re the torch
of the night
But there is violence in the eyes, girl, so let us not
be enticed
On the way out of Egypt, through Ethiopia, to the
judgment hall of Christ
(Bob Dylan: Precious Angel)

Looking at double-meaning, multi-level lyrics in the context of the author’s art as a whole lends some assistance in determining what possible meanings are actually intended to be conveyed, ie, Jewish slaves seeking the Promised Land of Israel, and former black slaves, the Promised Land of Ethiopia, uniting in Christ’s teachings about love for others – though not in Christian institutions.

Bob Dylan in his lyrics has always cautioned his listeners not to be misled by political, economic, and religious authorities because they do not necessarily have the best interests of their underlings in mind:

I spied the fairest damsel
That ever did walk in chains
I offered her my hand
She took me by the arm
I knew that very instant
She meant to do me harm
(Bob Dylan: As I Went Out One Morning)

As well as his own, the true artist tries to uncover what actually lies behind the door of another person’s mind:

Well, I got the fever down in my pockets
The Persian drunkard, he follows me
Yes, I can take him to your house, but I can’t unlock it
You see you forgot to leave me with the key
(Bob Dylan: Absolutely Sweet Marie)

In reference to the context of that enigma, ‘door’ and ‘key’ be symbols used by Dylan:

Patty gone to Laredo
But she be back soon ….
The door is locked and the key’s inside
(Bob Dylan: Patty’s Gone To Loredo)

That the door to the meaning of human existence itself is closed, Dylan expresses in words that Frederich Nietzsche himself might employ – that all religious truths about such matters as an afterlife add up to one big lie; merely mythologies they be, created by the human imagination, and figurative language:

The lamp-post stands with folded arms
Its iron claws attached to curbs ‘neath holes
where babies wail
Though its shadows metal badge all and all
can only fall
With a crashing but meaningless blow
And no sound ever comes from the Gates of Eden
(Bob Dylan: Gates Of Eden)

Existentialism writ large, a perception of the world where no metal-badged human robots, conditioned to produce and protect materialistic things, will ever get to see the blazing face of God, though desire they might to board the bus to Paradise:

Mama, take this badge off of me
I can’t use it anymore
It’s gettin’ dark, too dark, for me to see
I feel like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door
(Bob Dylan: Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door)

The sad-eyed prophet of the Gnostic mystics laments the triumph of reason over desire:

Serpent reasoning us entice
Of good and evil, virtue and vice
Doubt self-jealous, watery folly
Struggling through Earth’s melancholy
(William Blake: The Keys To The Gates Of Paradise)

Blake’s mythology contends that the cause of sorrow in the present world is that the ‘elements’ of earth, air, fire, and water are out of balance within the human body.

What else is on the site

1: Over 480 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

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

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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

Not for the first time I found myself a bit confused.  According to adverts this song appears on “Bob Dylan The Cutting Edge 1965 – 1966: The Bootleg Series Vol.12: Collector’s Edition” but I can’t find a complete song listing for this which includes this track on Dylan’s official site.

There is a page on the official Dylan site for this site titled “Bob Dylan the complete track listing” which is actually blank.  It comes up on a Wiki search

Bob Dylan The Cutting Edge 1965 – 1966: The Bootleg Series Vol.12 …

There is another page which purports to have the full track listing but doesn’t include this song.   However the discogs site does have it and there it is on disc 18 track 18 so I am sure that is right and it is the official site that is getting tangled up in songs.   If they read this and notice and sort it out, I’m sure they’ll also want to drop me a note and say thank you for pointing the blank page out.

But since I am sitting here writing these reviews in my retirement when money flows not quite as freely as it did in my earlier days, I am not that moved to splash out lots and lots of the readies on buying this album specifically to get this track so I’m working for the version available on line.

But if you have the album, and this song is indeed on it, and it is a different version from that offered below, please do write in and say and then, please do write a review which we can publish here.  (And even if not, if you want to write an alternative review, please do get in touch – see below).

Anyway, below is a link to this song on the internet.  It is a ramble, with disconnected largely unintelligible (to me at least) lyrics, and most certainly very unfinished, but as is the way with Bob it includes some delightful moments which if turned into a song could well have given us something of another gem.

The first 40 seconds involve the two guys discussing the chord sequence and I think Bob is explaining a part which goes from B minor to E, but moving on from there we get a nice run through of a proto-song for which much of the music is worked out, but the lyrics very unclear.

At 2 minutes we get another run through.  But there is no way I am going to make an absolute prat of myself attempting to make anything of the lyrics that follow.

At 3 minutes 10 seconds we get another burst at it which shows the song really beginning to come together.

Clearly in this process if Bob had continued with the song he would later have sat down with the notebook and maybe later the typewriter and set out the lyrics which would have changed over and over, in order to fit with the music – which would have evolved a little bit further.

As such there is a real value in this recording, since it does give a good insight into Bob Dylan’s approach to writing at this point.  It doesn’t mean this is typical, or that he stayed with this method through the years, but it suggests that around 1966 this was his way forward.

It becomes an enjoyable prototype by the end, and you never know, it could have gone on to be a delightful light piece.  All that happened was that Bob lost interest and moved on.  For in those days new songs from his lips and fingers were ten a penny.

If you have a spare five minutes, and haven’t heard the piece before, do give it a listen.

Think there’s something missing or wrong with this review?

You are of course always welcome to write a comment below, but if you’d like to go further, you could write an alternative review – we’ve already published quite a few of these.  We try to avoid publishing reviews and comments that are rude or just criticisms of what is written elsewhere – but if you have a positive take on this song or any other Dylan song, and would like it considered for publication, please do email Tony@schools.co.uk

What else is on the site

1: Over 480 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

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

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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

They’ve Got A Lotta Nerve

by Larry Fyffe

There are art critics who say that Bob Dylan is associated with folk music but not with literature and therefore he should not have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. However, these critics appear not to be aware of many of Dylan’s song lyrics that pay tribute to poets, both great and small.

Some examples:

Charles Baudelaire: those eaves illuminated by burning coal
(The Balcony)
Bob Dylan: those words rang true and glowed like burning coal
(Tangled Up In Blue)

William Blake: tiger, tiger burning bright in the forests of the night
(The Tiger)
Bob Dylan: with a neon burning bright, he felt the heat of the night
(Simple Twist Of Fate)

William Blake: and did those feet in ancient time walk upon England’s mountains green
(Jerusalem)
Bob Dylan: I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
(Every Grain Of Sand)

Robert Burns: my heart’s In the highlands, my heart is not here
(My Heart’s In The Highlands)
Bob Dylan: my heart’s in the highlands at the break of dawn
(Highlands)

Geoffrey Chaucer: I’m your servant night and day
(Canterbury Tales)
Bob Dylan: remember this, I’m your servant both night and day
(Thunder On The Mountain)

Geoffrey Chaucer: I’m pretty sure she’ll make me kill someone
(Canterbury Tales)
Bob Dylan: I’m pretty sure she’ll make me kill someone
(My Wife’s Home Town)

Edward Cummings: the most who die, the more we live
(What If A Much Of A Which Of A Wind)
Bob Dylan: the more I die, the more I live
(Pay In Blood)

Emily Dickinson: there came a wind like a bugle
(There Came A Wind)
Bob Dylan: the morning breeze like a bugle blew
(Lay Down Your Weary Tune)

John Donne: therefore, do not send for whom the bell tolls
(For Whom The Bell Tolls)
Bob Dylan: for whom does the bell toll love
(Moonlight)

Thomas Eliot: in the room the women come and go
(The Love Song Of J Alfred Prufrock)
Bob Dylan: while all the women came and went
(All Along The Watchtower)

Robert Frost: the woods are lovely, dark and deep
(Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening)
Bob Dylan: the woods are dark, the town isn’t new
(Tell Ol’ Bill)

Omar Khayyam: the moving finger having writ moves on
(The Rubaiyat)
Bob Dylan: the moving finger is moving on
(Narrow Way)

Archibald MacLeish: and here face down in the sun
(You Andrew Marvell)
Bob Dylan: if you don’t mind sleeping with your face down in the sun
(Foot Of Pride)

John Milton: wherefore with thou came not all hell broke loose
(Paradise Lost)
Bob Dylan: and any minute now, I’m expecting all hell to break loose
(Things Have Changed)

Edgar Allan Poe: take this kiss upon the brow
(A Dream Within A Dream)
Bob Dylan: you trampled me as you passed, left the coldest kiss upon my brow
(Tell Ol’ Bill)

Edgar Allan Poe: and faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door
(The Raven)
Bob Dylan: red light glowing, blowing like she’s at my chamber door
(Duquesne Whistle)

Edgar Allan Poe: no more shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree
(To One In Paradise)
Bob Dylan: beneath the thunder-blasted trees, the words are ringin’
off your tongue
(Tell Ol’ Bill)

Percy Shelley: from the altar of dark ocean to the sapphire-tinted skies
(Lines Written Among Euganean Hills)
Bob Dylan: I’m looking up into sapphire-tinted skies
(Things Have Changed)

Edward Spenser: my love is like ice and I to fire
(My Love Is Like To Ice)
Bob Dylan: yet she’s true, like ice, like fire
(Love Minus Zero)

Alfred Tennyson: their’s but to do and die
(The Charge Of The Light Brigade)
Bob Dylan: that the hour has come to do or die
(Tell Ol’ Bill)

Henry Timrod: but still along yon dim Atlantic line
(Charleston)
Bob Dylan: all along the dim Atlantic line
(‘Cross The Green Mountain)

Henry Timrod: and strove with logic frailer than the flowers
(A Rhapsody Of A Southern Winter Night)
Bob Dylan: more frailer than the flowers, these precious hours
(When The Deal Goes Down)

Henry Timrod: a childish dream is now a deathless need
(A Vision Of Poesy)
Bob Dylan: well, a childish dream is a deathless need
(Tweedle-Dum And Tweedle-Dee)

John Tolkien: all that is gold does not glitter
(All That Is Gold)
Bob Dylan: all that’s gold doesn’t shine
(Going, Going, Gone)

Walt Whitman: while they stand at the doorway, he is dead already
(Come Up From The Fields Father)
Bob Dylan: but he’ll never get better, he’s already dead
(‘Cross The Green Mountain)

John Whittier: the beggar crouching at the gate
(Chapel Of Hermits)
Bob Dylan: beggers crouched at the gate
(Scarlet Town)

John Whittier: the palm-leaf shadow for the hot noon hours
(To Avis Keene)
Bob Dylan: Scarlet Town in the hot noon hours
(Scarlet Town)

(William Yeats: black out; heaven blazing in my head
(Lapis Lazuli)
Bob Dylan: I slept by the stream, heaven blazing in my head
(‘Cross The Green Mountain)

In fact, it is Bob Dylan who did much to marry the music of modern pop culture to so-called ‘high-brow’ poetry.

What else is on the site

1: Over 480 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

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

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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 idea for this song’s title could have come from, “What kind of man is this” by Koko Taylor.  Although the feel of the songs is different in each case, they are both 12 bar blues, and it is quite possible Dylan either deliberately or through a half-buried memory, returned to the title for this highly enjoyable improvised piece.

What Dylan does is give the 12 bar format a real bounce and some real light energy – and it is once of those songs I really wish he had been able to finish off and deliver in a recording studio, while keeping the wonderful lighthearted bounce.   It is the sort of song most songwriters would have been proud of, cherished and most certainly put on an album – and played at the gigs.

We have the one recording from the hotel room, of which the first 30 seconds (after whatever advert is served up to you) is a false start.

The lyrics which follow are based as ever on the work of Eyolf Østrem – I have added a couple of elements of my own, but those are probably going to be the ones that are totally wrong in everyone else’s opinion!

But the point about the words here, as in other rough drafts of song, is that they are an approximation.  Bob seems to have some idea of the song’s lyrics in his head, but the others are made up as they go along.

It was around this time that Dylan did an interview saying that the songs he didn’t get to record were just forgotten since he didn’t keep notes.  It is such a shame that he didn’t keep notes of this one because it could not only have become not just a great album song, as I have suggested, but a wonderful song to sing part way through a concert before he got back to the songs we all know.

Starting at 30 seconds into the recording.

Tell me What kind of friend is this?
What kind of friend is this?
Who loves me behind my back
What kind of friend is this
Shows up every place I've been
She act kind of 'lone
but she don't
She making a loan
But you know she won't
She so languid in the morning
And she's making it on my bed
Aw, what kind of friend is this?

What kind of friend is this?
What kind of friend is this?
makin' [...]
What kind of friend is this?
Losing up anything
Back off, boy
When she goes down
[Lay down laid]
She's walking around
Well, she ain't got nothin'
but she's teedle toodle tummin' on a
pack of beans
Tell me what kind of friend is this?

Well she [don't lean if she don't man]
You know she's gonna be her dog.
She [done gone], She no whore
Heart stopped a-beating and she [...]

Well, what kind of friend is this
make me holler to and fro
who wants to go everywhere I wanna go
Back off, she
don't care for me
[...] own lady
if she could only see
I'd give her everything
If she comes back along to this 
Tell me what kind of friend is this?

What else is on the site

1: Over 480 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

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

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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

You May Be A Rock’n’Roll Addict Prancing On An Adage
But You Gonna Have To Serve Somebody

By Larry Fyffe

The way that Bob Dylan views earthly existence, at least as expressed through his song lyrics, is a rather consistent one:

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the Devil, or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
(Bob Dylan: Gotta Serve Somebody)

The verse above declares that at present mankind has basically two sides – one physical, and the other spiritual – both of which need attending to. As the pre-Romantic poet William Blake notes, the trick is to get the sides in balance, to make them whole again, to make them One.

So says the American Romantic Tanscendentalist poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Wishing her joy of her wedding and louding lauding
her husband
Then he said with a smile, “I should have
remembered the adage
‘If you will be well served, you must serve yourself’ ”
(Henry Longfellow: The Courtship Of Miles Standish)

That is to say, mankind being a social animal, the feelings of others must be taken into account along with one’s own – ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’, as the adage goes . It’s not easy advice to follow when no-one knows for sure what another individual really wants.

Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan is well versed in the history of America and the accompanying Romantic myths of that country as the new Promised Land.   Its adages be why wandering pilgrims sail to the shores of the New World. Though death awaits all mortals, a new way of life be promised there:

The call of my master compelled me from home
No kindred or relative nigh
I met the contagion and sank to the tomb
My soul flew to mansions high
Go tell my companion and children most dear
To weep not for me now that I’m gone
The same hand that led me through the sea most severe
Has kindly assisted me home
(Bob Dylan: traditional -The Lone Pilgrim)

Those words of a Calvinist God are akin to those of an American poet of the Civil War:

We know not the temple of the Fates
God has inscribed her doom
And all untroubled in her faith, she waits
The triumph or the tomb
(Henry Timrod: Charleston)

The master of language as well as its servant, the innovative use of words by Bob Dylan defy any assertion that a simple, dogmatic religious message lies within his song lyrics.

The artistically creative songwriter (or at least his persona as the lone existentialist pilgrim) is self-reliant; he finds in his art solace from the storm, a shelter from the mystery of a creation whose source is unknown, imprisoned forever and a day behind the gates of Eden:

And high and hushed arose the stately trees
Yet shut within themselves, like dungeons, where
Lay fetter all the secrets of the breeze
(Henry Timrod: Visions Of Poesy)

For whatever reason, overly-religious Dylanologists cannot hear the Nuances, the ironic voices of the mermaids, singing along side the carefully crafted ship of Dylan’s lyrics:

Tweedle-Dee And Tweedle-Dum
All that and and more and then some
They walk among the stately trees
They know the secrets of the breeze
(Bob Dylan: Tweedle-Dee And Tweedle-Dum)

In regards to Timrod, a poet skeptical of authority, comes to mind:

Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me
The carriage held but just ourselves
And immortality
(Emily Dickinson: Because I Could Not Stop For Death)

As a master thief, guitar picker Dylan breaks into the shop of the English language and carries off the words he finds there, even as the technology that stores and reproduces the human voice becomes the Messiah of the music world:

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

A self-reliant man, with talent and a little timely luck, becomes a self-made man, an Apollian ‘god’ – with many a Nipper at his feet:

They run a brick-and-tile company
Tweedle-dee Dum and Tweedle-dee Dee ….
Well, a noble truth is a sacred creed
My pretty baby, she’s lookin’ around
She wearin’ a multi-thousand dollar gown
(Bob Dylan: Tweedle-Dee And Tweedle-Dum)

A well-thought out plan can’t hurt the situation:

Thou also, Son of Man, take a tile
And lay it before thee
And portray upon it the city, even Jerusalem
(Ezekiel 4:1)

The would-be achiever works hard; learns from what others have to offer. He’s smart enough to steal the secrets of the trade without falling into the pit of pride.

So if one yearns to be an artist, there’s nothing like learning how to create an eye-catching image from a painting by Vincent Van Vogh or an ear-catching alliterative adage from a poem by Henry Timrod:

A childish dream is now a deathless need
Which drives him to far hills and distant wilds
The solemn faith and fevour of his creed
Bold as a martyr’s, simple as a child’s
The eagle knew him as she knew the blast
And the deer did not flee him as he passed
(Henry Timrod: A Vision Of Poetry)

Indeed, it is astonishing to observe that Dylan is critized for taking lines from the works of the writers of yesteryear. Like all good writers do when they are lost at sea, poet Henry Timrod borrows from such poets as Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Burns; singer/songwriter Bob Dylan takes from all three:

No more, no more, no more ….
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree
Or the stricken eagle soar
(Edgar Allan Poe: To One In Paradise)

And another by the same Gothic Romantic poet:

Take this kiss upon the brow
And, in parting from you now
Thus much let me avow
(Edgar Allan Poe: A Dream Within A Dream)

Below, Dylan alludes to both the Poe and Timrod verses quoted above:

You trampled on me as you passed
Left the coldest kiss upon my brow ….
Beneath the thunder-blasted tree
The words ringin’ off your tongue
(Bob Dylan: Tell Ol’ Bill)

Alluding to poet Poe once again, Dylan points out that stealing is a traditional part of art. However, professional artists polish the stolen goods so that they once again appear as good as new:

Well, the nature of man is to beg and to steal
I do it my self, it’s not so unreal
The call of the wild is forever at my door
Wants me to fly like an eagle
While being chained to the floor
(Bob Dylan: You Changed My Life)

The old Romantic literary theme of lamenting the replacement of rural life with that of the city, Dylan unveils from a country-cabin constructed by a TV studio in the heart of Toronto:

Well, my heart’s In the highlands with the horses and hounds
Way up in the border country far from the towns
(Bob Dylan: Highlands)

Paying tribute to a Romantic poet of times gone by:

My heart’s In the highlands, my heart is not here
My heart’s In the highlands a-chasing the deer
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe
My heart’s In the highlands wherever I go
(Robert Burns: My Heart’s In The Highlands)

What a lot of gall some religious zealots and some music critics must possess to think that they could ever destroy you.

What else is on the site

1: Over 480 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

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

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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