Untold Dylan

by Tony Attwood

We’ve got four titles circulating for this song

• Definitively Van Gough,
• Definitely Van Gough
• Spuriously Seventeen Windows.
• Positively Van Gough

The suggestion in some quarters is that this is a song Dylan had been working on it for some time before it was recorded in the Denver hotel room at 3am, rather than it being one of those spur of the moment events where a song simply comes pouring out.  The reason behind this is train of thought is the sophistication of the rhymes which it is argued, are hard to create as one goes along.  I’m not too sure of this argument.

On the other hand there are numerous changes in the chord structure which suggest that although there has been some working out of the lyrics of the song thus far, much of the music remains uncertain.  As ever it is Eyolf Østrem who unravels this pointing out that the position of the capo is moved early on, as part of what he classifies as six “takes” of the song.

What also makes it seem more immediate and less polished is the fact that the images created fall over each other without really having a clear story.  Again “Visions” doesn’t have a complete story, but a set of, well, “visions”.  However those visions and images seem much more polished and coherent than here.  So if the lyrics have been evolving for a while, I suspect there was still quite a way to go with the music and the lyrics.

This is not to say that the lyrics are second rate – not at all.  It is more that judging from what else Dylan was doing around this time – it seems likely that the song could be worked on further before completion, and that what we had here was the equivalent to an early sketch.

It also seems that the song was written after Blonde on Blonde had been completed and so could be considered the start of the next album, following the themes and styles evolving through “Bringing it all back home”, “Highway 61” and “Blonde” itself, except of course that events got in the way and that didn’t happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV7g9GTtHSw

Certainly such evidence as there is, is that Dylan was still in the habit of sitting up into the early hours, or maybe all night, playing with the ideas of songs.  Thus suggesting that this was by no means an isolated experiment in the creation of new music.

The actor Rosemary Garrett who was at one of these occasions spoke of the ideas for the images within the song already have been created and are then woven together with the music being added to fit these ideas and that seems a reasonable report, although with the caveat that the images were still open to change.

As you may have noticed, if you are a regular reader, I am regularly criticised for not hearing the songs correctly when there is no official version provided so rather than me try and put the lyrics together I am drawing from other sources

When I’d ask why the painting was deadly
Nobody could pick up my sign
‘Cept for the cook, she was always friendly
But she’d only ask, “What’s on your mind?”
She’d say that especially when it was raining
I’d say “Oh, I don’t know”
But then she’d press and I’d say, “You see that painting?
Do you think it’s been done by Van Gogh?”

The cook she said call her Maria
She’d always point for the same boy to come forth
Saying, “He trades cattle, it’s his own idea
And he also makes trips to the North
Have you ever seen his naked calf bleed?”
I’d say, “Oh no, why does it show?”
And she’d whisper in my ear that he’s a half-breed
And I’d say, “Fine, but can he paint like Van Gogh?”

I can’t remember his name he never gave it
But I always figured he could go home
Til when he’d gave me his card and said, “Save it”
I could see by his eyes he was alone
But it was sad how his four leaf clover
Drawn on his calling card showed
That it was given back to him a-many times over
And it most definitely was not done by Van Gogh

There is a further verse that is incomplete – the tape stops.

Thank you to Lloyd Cox

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 is a classic rhythm and blues in the “12 bar” style (there are of course not 12 bars in most latter day 12 bar blues, but the structure is always called that).  And I particularly like the alternative version linked to below, which somehow seems to have a particular vigour and energy that refreshes the lyrics after 50 years of knowing the song.  Mind you we are listening not only to Bob Dylan sing the lyrics, but also Al Kooper on organ and Mike Bloomfield playing guitar, so it ought to be good.  Which of course it is.

The lyrics are just a bit of fun about a woman who does everything for the man; she might not be a great beauty and he might not love her with utter devotion, but she really looks after him and the child and no matter what sort of mess he gets into, she’s there to get him out.

But there is subtlety here too as on the album version Mike Bloomfield decides to do his own thing and in the last line of each verse after the first, as he changes the chord he is playing away from what we would expect in the classic 12 bar format.  Maybe he forgot how it went (so extremely unlikely it is unimaginable), maybe he just decided to do his own thing, or maybe he tried it and Bob said “yes do that”.  It gives a discordant feel as the verse comes to the end, adding a sort of extra jaggedness which very much fits with the lyrics.

Even more interestingly, for me but probably no one else, the extraordinary Eyolf Østrem doesn’t comment on this in his Dylan chords review, but a commentator on Wiki heard it.  Which makes me wonder if it is really there.  I’m starting to doubt myself.

This variation doesn’t occur in the alternative version below – but then because of the speed this variant version has a lot more to say in the the repeated “bound to put a blanket on my bed.”   I am not sure that Bob is particularly known for his alliteration, and in the album version somehow the repeated “b” words make far less impact, but on the alternative version it is hard to miss them.

Plus it is a song where the lyrics can be changed – in the variant version for example she walks like Rimbaud rather than Bo Diddley.  I know how Bo Diddley walked, but Rimbaud?  I wonder if there is any note of his gait.

In many ways it is a song in great contrast to the rest of the album, which runs of course from “Like a Rolling Stone” to “Desolation Row,” and this song has always seemed somewhat out of place tucked between “It takes a lot to laugh” and “Thin Man”.   But maybe that was the point.

Also I find it interesting that the album presents the songs pretty much in the order that they were recorded between June 16 and August 4.  I am not sure that has happened very often with Dylan.  I am sure someone knows (to save me checking each song in turn).

As a postscript, since I was looking around for anyone else who hears the clash of chords and bass at the end of the later verses, I stumbled across the Wiki legacy comment which I found rather interesting.  In relation to this, one of the Wiki editors wrote, in July 2017.

This section indiscriminately collects miscellaneous information. Please compress this material to remove any irrelevant or unimportant information.

Maybe the editor was having a bad day as I rather like the listing.  Mind you Wiki editors once banned Untold Dylan from the whole of Wikipedia for not being authoritative enough  to comment, so it seems they can be quite a crouchy bunch.

So, just in case someone at Wiki decides to take the “indiscriminate collection” down, here, preserved for as long as this site exists, is indeed an indiscriminate collection of miscellaneous information which I rather enjoyed.

• The name of a 2002 novel by Stephen King, From a Buick 8 is adapted from the title of this song.
• The track “From a Motel 6” on the 1993 Yo La Tengo album Painful is a nod to the title of this song.
• The Billy Bragg song “From a Vauxhall Velox” on the 1984 album Brewing Up with Billy Bragg was written as a response to “From a Buick 6”.
• In an Apple presentation held in 2006, Steve Jobs noted that this was his favorite track of all time.

And just to take a left turn, Yo La Tengo’s song is reminiscent of Dandy Warhols in their prime.  Maybe its not for you, but, well I love it.  If you play it and like it, stay with the rest of the album.

You shouldn’t hide but you always do
Cause even when you’re gone I can see right through
You want disconnection
You want me there enough for two

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 Surrealistic, allegorical as well as alchemist, songwriter Bob Dylan mixes American folk legend, slave history, the working class struggle, and Biblical imagery into his music to produce powerful songs that retain an outlook of coal-black hope, so characteristic of the Romantic Symbolists:

John Henry, he had a woman
Her name was Mary Magdalene
She would go to the tunnel and sing for John
Lord, Lord, just to hear John Henry’s hammer ring
John Henry had a li’l woman, her name was Lucy Ann
John Henry took sick and had to go to bed
Lucy Ann drove steel like a man
Lord, Lord, Lucy Ann drove steel like a man
Captain says to John Henry
Gonna bring me a steam drill ’round
Gonna take that steam drill out on the job
Lord, Lord, gonna whop that steel on down’
(Traditional: John Henry)

The dual threats of the industrial captain’s technology, and of the fickle sexuality of womenkind become a recurring theme in Dylan’s songs:

You say you love me with what may be love
Don’t you remember makin’ baby love
Yes, you got your steam drill
Now you’re lookin’ for some kid
To get it to work for you
Like your nine-pound hammer did
But I know that you know that you show
Something is tearing up your mind
(Bob Dylan: Tell Me Momma)

Likewise, below:

You say you love me and you’re thinking of me
But you know you could be wrong
(Bob Dylan: Most Likely You Go Your Way)

And again, with a change of Cubic proportions:

You know, I know, the sun will always shine
So baby please stop crying
‘Cause you’re tearing up my mind
(Bob Dylan: Please Stop Crying)

According to folk legend, the Afro-American hammer-wielding John Henry dies after winning a steel driving contest against a railway company’s steam-driven drill machine.

Bob Dylan creatively drills the figurative language and imagery like that of ‘Tell Me Momma’ into the ground; he uses the imagery, motifs, colourful diction and story line of John Henry, the steel-drivin’ man, adding Dylanesque twists:

Sold my guitar to the baker’s son
For a few crumbs and a place to hide
But I can get another one
And I’ll play for Magdalena as we ride
(Bob Dylan: Romance In Durango)

Double meaning; double standards:

I got this graveyard woman, you know she keeps the kids
But my soleful mama, you know she keeps me hid
Well, you know I need a steam shovel mama to keep away the dead
I need a dump truck mama to unload my head
She brings me everything and more, and just like I said
Well, if I go down dyin’, you know she’s bound to put a blanket on my bed
(Bob Dylan: From A Buick 6)

Mixed with a dash of black humour:

Yes, I see you on your window ledge
But I can’t tell just how far away you are from the edge
And anyway you’re just gonna make people jump and roar
(Bob Dylan: Tell Me, Momma)

Now and then a switch of rhyming partners:

I’ve been livin’ on the edge
Now I’ve just got to go
Before I get to the ledge
I’m going, going, gone
(Bob Dylan: Going, Going, Gone)

While Mary Magdalene kisses the boot-heels of the Bobby Jesus:

Well, I ride a mail train baby, can’t buy a thrill
Well, I’ve been up all night, leaning on the window sill
Well, if I die on top of the hill
And if I don’t make it, you know my baby will
(Bob Dylan: It Takes A Lot To Laugh)

Meanwhile back at the igloo, Anthony Inuk is Inuit with “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life”:

Everybody’s in despair
Every boy and girl
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here
Everybody’s gonna jump for joy
(Bob Dylan: The Mighty Quinn)

Seems Bob Dylan relies on John Henry quite a bit:

Hey, John, come and get me some candy goods ….
Come on, baby, I’m your friend
(Bob Dylan: Tell Me, Momma)

And everybody lives happy afterwards:

Tell your mama not to worry
Because this is just my friend
(Bob Dylan: Obviously Five Believers)

DYLAN AND IT TAKES A LOT TO LAUGH: the series

• Rocks and Gravel.  The origin of “It takes a lot to laugh”
• It takes a lot to laugh it takes a train to cry.  Dylan works out the Phantom Engineer
• It takes a lot to laugh it takes a train to cry.  50 Years on.
• Bob Dylan: Tell Woody, Andy, John Henry and Momma Mary that it takes a lot to laugh

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 three “Tell me” songs by Dylan all told

• Tell me which appeared on Bootleg 1-3 and has never been performed by Bob, which was written in 1983
• Tell me it isn’t true which appeared on Nashville Skyline and was performed live 76 times between 2000 and 2005.  This was written in 1969.
• Tell Me Momma – which appeared on Bootleg 4 and was played 15 times in 1966 as the introduction to the electric set on the tour but which has never been touched since by Dylan.  This is the one that is the subject of this little review.

Now the first problem we have is that the lyrics published on Dylan’s official web site are nothing like the lyrics that he sung.  I suspect this happened because the song was written specifically to open the electric set and Dylan just needed a song that no one knew and which no one would particularly notice if he made a mistake or changed the words.  It’s just a way of getting the set going.

After the run of 15 performances he dropped the song and it was never heard again, so quite possibly the official lyrics come from a draft which Dylan later changed in performance.

The first verse is however fairly clearly right

Ol’ black Bascom, don’t break no mirrors
Cold black water dog, make no tears
You say you love me with what may be love
Don’t you remember makin’ baby love?
Got your steam drill built and you’re lookin’ for some kid
To get it to work for you like your nine-pound hammer did
But I know that you know that I know that you show
Something is tearing up your mind

Tell me, momma
Tell me, momma
Tell me, momma, what is it?
What’s wrong with you this time?

So we are asking what is he talking about?

The suggestion is made that “Bascom” is Bascom Lamar Lunsford who sang  “I Wish I Was a Mole In the Ground” with the lines

which Dylan used in “Stuck inside of Mobile” with the line

But why he has become “Ol Black Bascom” I don’t know.  He was known  as the “Minster of the Appalachians” and he was one of the great collectors of the music.  If you are English and know about English folk music, then think of Cecil Sharp but with extra eccentricity.

There is an interesting video of Bascom and a commentary here – and if you are interested in the history of American music – which of course Bob Dylan knew so much about, then I would recommend this four minute video.  If you are really interested stay with it as it runs onto a second video.  The clog dancing section early on in the second video is something to behold.

Bascom Lunsford is still very much celebrated for his work and each year there is a Bascom Lamar Lunsford “Minstrel of Appalachia” Festival held.  To sum up his importance, here is a bit of the blurb from a DVD about his life and work

Lunsford was a superb mountain musician who spent his life hunting down the songs, dances and unknown performers of the Appalachian region. He fought to bring dignity to “hillbilly music” and this made him a folk hero. He recorded thousands of songs for the Smithsonian. In the summer of 1928, he created the first Bluegrass Festival by founding his first Asheville Mountain Dance and Folk Festival. 

But… I am still worried about the lines

Ol’ black Bascom, don’t break no mirrors
Cold black water dog, make no tears

Bascom was not black, I don’t know any connection with mirrors, nor anything about “cold black water dog”.  If you do, please say.

And just in case I am on the wrong track I’ve found Marion C. Bascom a civil rights leader who marched with Martin Luther King Jnr in Alabama, and particularly intriguingly  Wilford Bascom “Pitchfork” Smith (1884-1939), described as a muckraking publisher in Missouri and Texas.

And also Rose Flanders Bascom (1880-1915), America’s first female lion tamer.

After that it is all get very obscure, (if that were not obscure enough) so I stopped and went back to the Dylan song, but not before I had checked what Heylin has to say on the subject.  He says that Dylan was consistently singing

Ah well, maybe the Bascom was just put in to give people like me something to do.  But it IS on the published lyric, so it must mean something.  Mustn’t it?

Verse two in performance has some significant variations from the published version, and I would only make myself look stupid if I tried to work out what Dylan is singing.

Verse there keeps most of the same rhymes but again with words that bear not too much relationship to the published version.

So all told not of it gives any clue as to what this is really about.  If indeed it is about anything other than getting the band together and getting through the first song without any disasters.

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

Following is a relatively unknown chapter in the life of Robert Allen Zimmerman; right here, told for the first time by ‘Untold Dylan’.

As the story goes, dressed in rags, with a record named ‘Desire’ under his arm, singer/songwriter Bob Dylan (using the alias ‘Stanley Casanova’) gets off a city bus in the old French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Seems that an Allan Grey makes the mistake of revealing to Stanley the place where his pen is.  The scarlet-shirted Casanova, who is the leader of a street gang of a variety of light-loving Gnosticists known as the ‘The Goats’, doesn’t like that man named Grey.

At the time, Bob, aka Stanley, is playing seven-card stud poker with his buddies at “Good Time Dante’s”, a cabaret in the working class district of New Orleans, a desolation row misnamed ‘Elysian Fields’. Allan’s assassin-eyed wife, Snow White DuBois, is sitting on Casanova’s knee, holding in her hand a glass of champagne, and singing ‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life’.

A stage direction, and for something completely different, a poetic allusion:

Here comes the place that cleaves our place in twain
Thy road, the right, towards Pluto’s dwelling goes
And leads to fields Elysian
But to the left, goes the sinful souls to doom
(Virgil: Aeneus)

The ‘Lord Of The Goats’, thanks his bodyguards of Hell’s Angels for stabbing Grey, and then lover-boy Bob runs off to Venice, Italy, with the Virgin Princess of the Woods and the money she inherits from Allan’s estate called the ‘Beautiful Dream’:

They say I shot a man named Gray
And took his wife to Italy
She inherited a million bucks
And when she died, it came to me
I can’t help it if I’m lucky
(Bob Dylan: Idiot Wind)

Tennessee Williams, a clairvoyant, writes a play based on Bob Dylan’s New Orleans adventure long before it ever happens – ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, it’s called.

Lyrics of Dylan songs (he changes ‘e’ to an ‘a’ in character names under legal advice), support the near-accuracy of Tennessee Williams’ look into the future. For instance, the name ‘Sarah’ which means ‘princess’ appears in more than one Dylan song:

A worried man with a worried mind
No one in front of me and nothing behind
There’s a woman on my lap and she’s drinking champagne
Got white skin and assassin’s eyes
I’m looking up into sapphire-tinted skies
I’m well-dressed, waiting for the last train
(Bob Dylan: Things Have Changed)

Directions for the scene setting on stage, and another poetic allusion:

From the altar of dark ocean
To the sapphire-tinted skies
(Percy Shelley: Euganean Hills)

The text of the script about the Life of Bob relates to a flashback that Casanova is having in Venice – he’s imagining Blanche DuBois sitting on his knee back at Dante’s cabaret on Desolation Row. A tale it is from rags to riches for Dylan, but he’s leaving Italy in a hurry for some reason.

In a guilt-induced Freudian slip, Casanova, below in the song ‘Things Have Changed’, mutters a line originally said by Blanche in the movie version of Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” – once again confirming the accuracy of the play.

Seems that Stanley figuratively dumps Snow White’s mind (not literally her body) somewhere upstream from the structure that the Greecey pig Lord Byron calls ‘The Bridge of Sighs’ . She’s as good as dead as far as Bob is concerned, but still, he’s a worried man with some guilty feelings:

Standing on the gallows with my head in a noose
And any minute now I’m expecting all hell to break loose ….
Lot of water under the bridge, lot of other stuff too
‘Don’t get up gentlemen, I’m only passing through’
(Bob Dylan: Things Have Changed)

Another stage direction and yet another poetic allusion:

Sisterly, brotherly
Father, motherly
Feelings had changed
Love by harsh evidence
Thrown from its eminence
Even God’s providence
Seemed estranged
(Thomas Hood: The Bridge Of Sighs)

In the play by Tennessee Williams, Snow White Blanche finally reaches the blissful state of Elysian Fields, the heavenly Euganean Hills, by losing her mind.

Not so ‘Stanley’ – he’s determined to endure the pains of hell-on-earth by doing things his way. If there’s any Hell below, he’s not concerned.

A final poetic allusion … thank God:

But wherefore thou alone?
Wherefore with thee
Came not all hell broke loose?
(John Milton: Paradise Lost)

Here the drama ends with Bob Dylan singing:

They are spoon-feeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they’ll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words
(Bob Dylan: Desolation Row)

And so the play about the Life of Bob Dylan ends – with a big foot stomping on his head for committing the sin of Pride.

By Tony Attwood

What song did Bob Dylan write just before Visions of Johanna?

It is an interesting question, because so many people (including me) see Johanna as such a masterpiece, it would be interesting to know quite what did come along just before – not least so that we could take a listen and maybe pick out one or two pointers as to how Bob Dylan’s music and poetry were emerging at the time.

Here’s the list of the compositions about this time at the end of Dylan’s period of composing in late summer and autumn 1965.

1. Ballad of a thin man
2. Jet Pilot
3. Medicine Sunday
4. I wanna be your lover
5. Long Distance Operator
6. Visions of Johanna

“Ballad of a thin man” ended a series of vitriolic songs that began with Crawl out your window, and 4th street.  It was followed by three of the more throw away songs (even if  the throwing out was on occasion only temporary) and then this little piece, which really doesn’t seem to add much to the sum of human knowledge.

It is a 12 bar blues with a bit of a variant at one point which was apparently played once by Dylan in a show in 1965 – and later rescued by the Band.  It was included on the original Basement Tapes record.

Here’s the Band…

The lyrics don’t add too much in my opinion, but maybe you can get more out of them than me.

Long-distance operator
Place this call, it’s not for fun
Long-distance operator
Please, place this call, you know it’s not for fun
I gotta get a message to my baby
You know, she’s not just anyone

There are thousands in the phone booth
Thousands at the gate
There are thousands in the phone booth
Thousands at the gate
Ev’rybody wants to make a long-distance call
But you know they’re just gonna have to wait

If a call comes from Louisiana
Please, let it ride
If a call comes from Louisiana
Please, let it ride
This phone booth’s on fire
It’s getting hot inside

Ev’rybody wants to be my friend
But nobody wants to get higher
Ev’rybody wants to be my friend
But nobody wants to get higher
Long-distance operator
I believe I’m stranglin’ on this telephone wire

Heylin has also come up with an extra verse that apparently was later cut…

I am not sure that adds too much,but I include it for the sake of completeness.

But I long ago stopped trying to understand what could lead Dylan not just to write some of these throw-away songs (for so it appears to me) but to bother to keep them.  By which I mean, most songwriters that I have come across have hundreds of rejects that they compose and set aside, never allowing them to be heard.  And none of the people I know has ever written something as extraordinary for an opening line as what was to come next.

How does

connect with

Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re trying to be so quiet?

I guess if I knew I could write a paper on it and deliver it in every university studying the work of Dylan and then retire on the proceeds.  But I can’t, except for one thing.  He is writing about an enigmatic woman in that “lost” verse.  And if you want an enigmatic woman, Johanna surely is your first port of call.

So yes, we still have the recording of Long Distance Operator, but these Visions of Johanna are now all that remain.

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 was another piece from 1965 that was created around the time of “Jet Pilot” and “Can you please crawl out your window.”  Jet Pilot got nowhere, “Can you please” became a single – the follow up to “4th Street” but not as popular, and “Medicine Sunday” ultimately converted itself into Temporary Like Achilles, which used both elements of the melody, and the final line of “Medicine Sunday”.   Here is the full, total and complete set of lyrics…

Well, that midnight train pulled on all down the track
You’re standing there watching, with your hands tied behind your back
And you smile so pretty, and nod to the prison guard
Well, I know you want my loving, mama but you’re so hard

And here it is

Trains, railroads, trains – it was a constant theme of Bob’s at the time.  Maybe someone could create a list of all the songs of Dylan that have railroad connotations.   Just for the hell of it.

So the story is that Dylan had got together with the Hawks in Toronto in September 1965 and they played as an ensemble in Texas nine days later.

Two weeks after that they went to a studio in New York with the aim of producing the follow up to “Positively 4th Street” while seeing what else could be conjured up as a follow up to Highway 61 Revisited.

Two run throughs of “Medicine Sunday” emerged and after that they went onto another new song “Freeze out” which became “Visions of Johanna” as well as polishing off  “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?”  So a fairly productive time.

Later Midnight Train (the phrase from the first line of the song) became a bootleg album intended for release in Germany, consisting of  eight recordings from various Dylan studio sessions, including this snippet of a song, and two live performances.  And in an interesting twist the notes on the album sleeve were in part taken from the All Music Guide, an online reference I often use, and through which I found this bootleg album.  (It weren’t me that stole the details, honest).

What else is on the site

1: Over 470 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 song lyrics of Bob Dylan reveal the influence of two major playwrights: William Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams – the first living in a time shattered by the discovery of a New World; the second, in a time shattered by the discovery of a New Bomb. The New Clear World be a place to escape to; the Nuclear World be a place from which there is no escape.

In Shakespeare’s day, there is hope of Paradise Regained:

Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the sky is not clouded all day
(Brewster Higley: The Western Home)

Rendered in music form, the poem above is sung by cowboy Gene Autry. In the multi-layered song below, Bob Dylan refers to a play by Tennessee Williams:

Well, they’re going to the country, they’re gonna retire
They’re taking a streetcar named desire …
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
Tweedle-Dee Dee and Tweedle-Dee Dum
All that and more and then some
They walk among stately trees
They know the secrets of the breeze

(Bob Dylan: Tweedle Dee And Tweedle Dum)

Dylan needs not a weathermam; he knows which way the breeze is blowing.

Sun Records of Memphis, Tennessee, and His Masters Voice, music recording labels, be the means to the modern Edenic Paradise of ‘stately trees’.

The dark psychological play by Tennessee Williams features a post-slavery Southern belle, a little white riding hood from the wolf-infested woods, who prefers to escape into a world of fantasy rather than face up to the new social order – the romantic ‘American Dream’ turns not only into nightmare but into nuclear apocalypse:

“I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic!
I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them.”
(Tennessee Williams: A Street Car Named Desire)

Not the wooden floor of a theatre stage, but the poetic image of an electron-carrying needle lowered to the surface of a vinyl record ‘waxed in black’ is the streetcar named ‘Desire’ upon which the autry-angel strides:

Of war and peace the truth just twists
It’s curfew gull just glides
Upon four-legged forest clouds
The cowboy angel rides
With his candle lit into the sun
Though its glow is waxed in black
All except when ‘neath the trees of Eden
(Bob Dylan: Gates Of Eden)

“Candles To the Sun” is a Tennessee Williams play about the hard life faced by
helmet-lighted men enclosed deep in Alabama coal mines – reflected in the following song lyrics as well:

I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
(Bob Dylan: A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall)

Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, as does Williams in his play “Camino Real”, gives the Nuclear Age a postmodernist twist by squeezing the broken shell of the ‘Fat Man’ atom bomb back together again by reversing time (see Untold: Desolation Row Revisited: making sense of the masterpiece now we live there)

“Caged birds accept each other but flight is what they long for”
(Tennessee Williams: Camino Real”)

That is to say, human individuals desire that their spirit be given enough room to live before their physical body dies:

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood with his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago with his friend, a jealous monk
Now he looked so immaculately frightful as he bummed a cigarette
And he went off sniffing drain pipes and reciting the alphabet
You would not think to look at him, but he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin on Desolation Row
(Bob Dylan: Desolation Row)

Out at sea, thinking quickly, Bob Dylan puts on a sparkling diamond ring that’s initialled ‘B.D’, dresses up like Blanche DuBois – and just in the nick of time, he reaches the last lifeboat being lowered from the Titanic.

What else is on the site

1: Over 470 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

Updated 7 May 2018 with a link to a version of Desolation Row that seems particularly relevant.

“Desolation Row” was subject to a brief review in the early days of this website; brief because I found it hard to say anything that had not been said 1000 times over about this masterpiece.  But then a comment about that review was sent in from Mike Reynolds in 2017 to the effect that  “The song is loosely based on Tennessee Williams’ ‘Camino Real’.”

It was not something I had considered at all because I’ve always found Tennessee Williams’ work hard to approach (perhaps because of my Englishness), and indeed no one else had ever mentioned it, but I was really glad of the insight, and it gave me a completely new view.  Hence a second review of the song.

Heylin, in his fulsome review, notes that Dylan draws on Nietzsche, Kafka and Kierkegaard to “fuel a bleak, dystopian worldview”, but says that “references to the likes of Ophelia, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, TS Eliot and Ezra Pound in his oral epic in no way affirm an intimate knowledge of Shakespeare, Victor Hugo or the authors of The Waste Land and The Cantos respectively.”

He adds that at this time Dylan “drew more from the world of painting than from any extra curricular reading.”

I had no grounds to argue with this at the time, but became increasingly uneasy about the commentary as I have followed Larry’s pieces on this site, in which he has repeatedly shown the depth of knowledge that Dylan has of writers past and present.  But it wasn’t until the comment about Camino Real was made that I decided to return to the song.  The knowledge of Camino Real takes me in such a different direction that I felt the need to write a totally new review, rather than to add to the old one.

Camino Real is a play written in 1953 relating to El Camino Real, a “dead-end place” in a town surrounded by desert with only occasional ways of reaching the outside world. The playwright described it as “nothing more nor less than my conception of the time and the world I live in.”

You can see at once where this is going, I’m sure, and there are so many links with Dylan and “Desolation Row” from this play that the link to the play seems to me to be a key to understanding not just this song but a lot of Dylan’s work, and I am horrified by the fact that it has taken me so many years to find it.

The play contains Gutman, named after Sydney Greenstreet’s character from The Maltese Falcon and Signor Ferrari (again played by Greenstreet this time in Casablanca.  (Taking characters from movies, messing them around a bit and putting them in an new art work is so very Dylan, I feel, and something that again helps convince me that we are on the right track here).

There is also a range of literary characters who pop up including  Casanova, Lord Byron, and Esmeralda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.   So yes it is possible that as Heylin suggests  “references to the likes of Ophelia, [etc]… in no way affirm an intimate knowledge of Shakespeare, [etc]” but I don’t think this is the point.  The relationship with the world portrayed in Camino Real and its isolation from all these points of reference, is I suspect, the starting point of the song.

Camino Real has a storyline that is generally described as illogical and impossible, and focuses in fact on the point that there is no plot, because ultimately all these people and all their situations are irrelevant to anything else, (which in itself is ironic because the play closed on Broadway after just 60 shows).  The NY Times called it “a strange and disturbing drama.” 

That, I believe,  is what Dylan was expressing – the irrelevance of everything within the world we live in.  Even the horrors expressed in the opening lines which remind us of what actually did happen in the US, cannot burst through in a world where all these events just explode around us; there is so much out there nothing has a chance to make sense.  Indeed, too much of nothing.

We can perhaps also understand more about the song by considering Dylan’s writing in the months before and after the song including Subterranean Homesick Blues and Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream in both of which he invented a way to take Beat Poetry into rock music.  These are not songs of explanation or insight, save the insight that nothing makes sense any more.

Also in this year Dylan gave us It takes a lot to laugh it takes a train to cry which ends with the thought of the entire train getting lost – even having a set of rail tracks can’t actually help us find a direction or purpose.

At the same time Dylan was developing what I’ve called the songs of disdain – such as Like a Rolling Stone and (subsequent to Desolation Row) Can you please crawl out your window? and Positively Fourth Street.  What he has done with “Desolation Row” it now seems to me, is shown us that just as personal interactions with the world and the people we know within it, all break down, so the world itself in terms of being something that we can understand, also breaks down.  There is no makingssense of what we now see around us, be it on a personal level or with a broader perspective.

The theme is now of the familiar characters in disturbing and different places, slightly familiar events but not the right events in the right time or place – like a nightmare where nothing is quite what it should be, and nothing can ever be resolved.

That is Desolation Row.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9XZHVZBF7A

If you found this article of interest you might also like to read Bob Dylan and Tennessee Williams: there is no escape

What else is on the site

1: Over 470 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 influenced the singer/songwriter is by the sentimental and emotional Nature-guided Romantics, no poetry affects the song lyrics of Bob Dylan like that of the ornate and witty writing of the Baroque Metaphysical poet John Donne, filled as it is by hyperbolic trope, erotic imagery, paradoxical contrast, and extended metaphor.

Based on a Donne poem is Perry Como’s 1959 Grammy Award-winning song:

Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
And never let it fade away
Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Save it for a rainy day
For love may come and tap you on the shoulder
Some starless night
Just in case you feel you want to hold her
You’ll have a pocket full of starlight
(Writers- Pockriss; Vance: Catch A Falling Star)

The source-poem, seldom, if ever, mentioned:

Go catch a falling star
Get with child a mandrake root
Tell me where all past years are
Or who cleft the devil’s foot
Teach me to hear the mermaids singing
(John Donne: Go Catch A Falling Star)

In Greek mythology, Odysseus has himself tied to the mast of his ship so he can hear the words that the mermaids are singing – about things that are going to happen in the hereafter upon this earth.

Done in is the Modernist poet TS Eliot by Donne:

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each
I do not think that they will sing for me
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black
(TS Eliot: The Love Song Of J Alfred Prufrock)

Likewise Bob Dylan:

And Ezra Pound And TS Eliot
Fighting in the captain’s tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row
(Bob Dylan: Desolation Row)

A former lover of Bob Dylan, compares herself to mermaid-like Venus on a half-shell, protecting her man:

Well you burst on the scene
Already a legend
The unwashed phenomenon
The original vagabond
You strayed into my arms
And there you stayed
Temporarily lost at sea
The Madonna was yours for free
Yes the girl on the half-shell
Would keep you from harm
(Joan Baez: Diamonds And Rust)

Dylan himself fears being trapped by society’s pliers, symbolized by the female:

I see my light come shining
From the west down to the east
Any day now, any day now, I shall be released
(Bob Dylan: I Shall Be Released)

Both John Donne and Bob Dylan depict earth-dwelling humankind as having a spiritual side, symbolized by the Sun, by God, or by Jesus, coming from the East, that is entangled intimately with a material side coming from the opposite direction, symbolized by the darkness of night; womankind both writers oft place in the latter category.

Hence, is’t that I am carried towards the west
This day when my soul form bends toward the east
There shall I see the sun, by rising set
And by that setting endless day beget
(John Donne: Riding Westward)

Without the sense of darkness and night, there’d be no contrasting sense of light and day, no comparison for what is life and what is death:

Each man’s death diminishes me
Therefore send not to know
For whom the bell tolls
It tolls for thee
(John Donne: For Whom The Bell Toll)

Figuratively speaking, a heart broken over a love lost of a woman can be compared to dying:

When the last rays of daylight go down
Buddy, you’ll roll no more
I can hear the church bells in the yard
I wonder who they’re ringin’ for?
I know that I can’t win
But my heart just won’t give in
Last night I danced with a stranger
But she reminded me you were the one
You left me in the doorway cryin’
In the dark land of the sun
(Bob Dylan: Standing In The Doorway)

The rather dark Baroque message of Donne and Eliot is softened a bit by the singer/songwriter through the addition of some Whitmanian Transcendental sentiment:

The trailing moss and mystic glow
Purple blossoms soft as snow
My tears keep flowing to the sea
Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief
It takes a thief to catch a thief
For whom does the bell toll for love?
It tolls for you and me
(Bob Dylan: Moonlight)

As in the poem that follows:

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed
And the great star early drooped in the western
sky in the night
I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring …..
O powerful western fallen star!
O shades of night – O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappeared – O the black murk that
hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless – O helpless
soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul
(Walt Whitman: When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloomed)

A feature of Baroque poetry is the colour black:

Oh, the gentlemen are talking and the midnight moon
is on the riverside
They are drinking up and walking and it is time for
me to slide
I live in another world where life and death are memorized
Where the earth is strung with lover’s pearls and all I
see are dark eyes
(Bob Dylan: Dark Eyes)

Bob Dylan ties himself to the mast of the ship so that he can hear the words that the melodic mermaids are singing to him – he wants to see the face of God, and live to tell about it.

What else is on the site

1: Over 470 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 little snippet of a song (there’s a link to it at the end of my comments) comes from The Bootleg Series, Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965 – 1966 Deluxe Edition released in 2015 wherein it is called Lunatic Princess.

Heylin calls it “Why do you have to be so frantic” which is almost in the lyrics, and notes that Dylan said that at the time he was in the habit of just talking into a microphone, going into the control room and writing down what he had just said, change it a little and then use the resultant material for a song.

Here’s roughly what he got this time around

Any temptation to look at this and think Dylan had lost it however would be unfair.  Artists in all areas of the arts tend to use multiple methods to stimulate their creativity and come up with ideas, and just taking an early element of such a process (which of course is never intended for public consumption) is not a basis for judging the artist’s output.

As I have mentioned before, as a person who worked in music, the theatre and as a writer, I’ve also paid my way in life before the royalties clicked in by teaching a university course in creativity, which focused on stimulating one’s creative output by working with the environment, and then using the resultant ideas that pop into one’s head.

A very simple example of this came with the notion of looking out of the window on train journey and taking the people one could see in the countryside as the characters about whom one would write there and then, with the additional rule being that one could not stop writing.  (Fortunately I can touch type so writing and looking is not too hard).

Before putting this to my students I naturally tried it myself several times, and on one journey from Northamptonshire to London (about 80 miles) a couple of years ago I was busy looking out the window while recording my thoughts on my laptop, I noticed in the reflection in the glass, a lady sitting diagonally opposite me looking at me intently.  In my writing I suddenly brought her into the evolving story…

That’s the way it works.  It doesn’t mean that this story that I wrote on the train was ever going to be published but rather that the notes could be used in something else, evolved into something else, forgotten, remembered, reworked, ignored, reused and so on until ultimately they are dropped forever or they find a place somewhere – in this case popping up here as an explanation of the way Dylan has explored creative possibilities.  One never knows where these ideas will turn up.

What we have with Dylan are his notes; and artists’ notes can be weird and wonderful things.  And yes they did have some value.

So here is the song

Now take a deep breath and try Slow Train

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijh42sc6P4E

You may or may not, depending on your inclination, hear the half remembered framework from the earlier song. The timing is different but there are connections.  Not a straight copy, but there is link.

I have to hand this insight to Clinton Heylin.  I was still thinking “now I’ve heard this somewhere…” when I read his comment to this effect in “Revolution in the Air.”

It is by no means the clearest link between one song and another in Dylan, and Heylin rarely mentions such links even when there are whole musical phrases cut from one song and put in another, so I’m wondering if someone else pointed it out to him.  But perhaps I am being unkind.

What else is on the site

1: Over 470 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

In today’s entertainment news:

Big time wrestler Yahweh refuses to step aside and allow business partner Messiah establish peace in the Middle East.

The excuses given by the God of the Hebrews for not doing so are wearing thin, according to anonymous news sources; they claim that this is leading to cynicism among His followers. It’s also reported that cat-calls can be heard coming from audiences attending the Promised Land Wrestling Concert. Apparently, the crowds do not expect any of the fights on the card to end in Yahweh’s favour.

Yahweh’s manager Daniel re-assures the Hebrews by telling them a few of the funny things that happened to him on the way to the Forum. He also tells them that it was faith in his favourite star wrestler that kept him from being eaten by the lions:

And He worketh signs and wonders in heaven and earth
Who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions
(Daniel 6: 27)

At the concert, Daniel listens to Dylan singinging songs about fighting for what one believes in:

Oh, the hours, I’ve spent inside the Coliseum
Dodging lions and wastin’ time
Oh, those mighty kings of the jungle
I could hardly stand to see’em
Yes, it sure has been a long, hard climb
(Bob Dylan: When I Paint My Masterpiece)

Dylan’s guest throws promotional pamplets into the audience, telling them to keep the faith. If they do, Daniel promises that there’ll be a really, really ‘big shew’ coming up around the bend – the climatic showdown between the forces of good and evil.

Yahweh’s manager plasters the place with posters that say – Be there or be square; times they are a-changing; forget about the Assyrian and the Babylonian gang members, and those Persians drunkards.

Daniel describes a vision he had of a wrestler that’s going to bring the house down:

And behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible
And strong exceedingly, and it had great iron teeth
It devoured and brake in pieces
And stamped the residue with the feet of it
And it was diverse from all the other beasts that were before
And it had ten horns
(Daniel 7: 7)

Declares Daniel – Yes – Zeus – the twisted storm-cloud Thunder God, – the one and only head deity of the Roman Empire!

Many of the images in his songs, Bob Dylan draws from the surrealistic preFreudian stories that Daniel promotes in his book about Judeo-Christian wrestling.

Daniel’s stories are modernized a bit by Dylan in the song lyrics.The good news is that life down here on earth will indeed get better; the bad news is there’s a-gonna be a big bloody blockbuster smack-down before that happens. But the important news is that the wrestling match between Zeus and Yahweh will be held in America’s capital city, not in Judea’s:

Thunder on the mountain heavy as can be
Mean old twister bearing down on me
All the ladies of Washington scrambling to get out of town
Looks like something bad gonna happen, better roll your
airplane down
(Bob Dylan: Thunder On The Mountain)

Zeus, the skirt-chasing god of the Romans, and the Hebrew God of ‘Exodus’, are given equal billing by Bob:

And it came to pass on the third day in the morning
That there were thunders and lightenings
And a black cloud on the mountain
And the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud
So that all the people that was in the camp trembled
(Exodus 19:16)

To further promote the wrestling motif, a number of Dylan songs present the United States as the New Babylon with the American Civil War serving as the fulfilling of Daniel’s apocalyptic vision:

And there followed hail and fire mingled with blood
And they were cast down upon the earth
And the third part of trees was burnt up
And all the green grass was burnt up ….
And there fell a great star from heaven burning as it were a lamp
And if fell upon the third part of the rivers
And the fountains of waters
(Revelations 8: 7,10)

And so sings Dylan:

I cross the green mountain
I slept by the stream
Heaven burnin’ in my head
I dreamt a monstrous dream
Something’ came up out of the sea
Swept through the land of the rich and the free ….
In the deep green grasses
Of the blood-stained woods
They never dreamed of surrenderin’
They fell where they stood
Stars fell over Alabama
And I saw each star
You’re walkin’ in dreams
Whoever you are
(Bob Dylan: ‘Cross The Green Mountain)

Surrounded by smoke, thunder and lightning, Zeus will then step into the ring.

What else is on the site

1: Over 470 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

I have no idea how many 12 bar blues Dylan has written in his career but I think there are quite a few of them.  Some are memorable and some are, well, not so memorable.

“California” was written and recorded on or around 13 January 1965 along with or roundabout the time of such songs as Outlaw Blues (which shares the same format but is not the same song), Love Minus Zero, Subterranean Homesick Blues, She Belongs to Me etc etc. For me, personally it falls into the less than completely memorable category.

This song turned up on NCIS: The Official TV Soundtrack – Vol. 2 compilation on November 3rd.   It is said in publicity blurb that “The track has been freshly mixed and mastered for this release, and on the same day the soundtrack hits stores, the song will also be featured on an episode of NCIS.”  So I am not sure if we are listening to an original here or the remixed version.

Also apparently “Things Have Changed, also appeared on NCIS and the first volume of its soundtrack.

According to Clinton Heylonboth “California” and “Outlaw Blues” were recorded on the same day, but that is not to say that they are the same song or that “California” is an early version of “Outlaw” or indeed the other way around..

Originally considered a early version of “Outlaw Blues,” “California” itself was in fact a piano-driven number that Dylan ended up scrapping, but not before lending one of its verses to “Outlaw Blues.”

Here are the lyrics…

I’m goin’ down south
’Neath the borderline
I’m goin’ down south
’Neath the borderline
Some fat momma
Kissed my mouth one time

San Francisco’s fine
You sure get lots of sun
San Francisco is fine
You sure get lots of sun
But I’m used to four seasons
California’s got but one

The last verse written for this song was then moved over to Outlaw Blues

Well, I got my dark sunglasses
I got for good luck my black tooth
I got my dark sunglasses
And for good luck I got my black tooth
Don’t ask me nothin’ about nothin’
I just might tell you the truth

Also another verse written down but not recorded

And at that point I think I shall leave it.

What else is on the site

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

The index to all the 590 Dylan compositions and co-compositions that we have found on the A to Z page.

We also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with over 2000 active members.  (Try imagining a place where it is always safe and warm).  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

If you are interested in Dylan’s work from a particular year or era, your best place to start is Bob Dylan year by year.

On the other hand if you would like to write for this website, please do drop me a line with details of your idea, or if you prefer, a whole article.  Email Tony@schools.co.uk

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

Bob Dylan: Like Every Sparrow Falling

by Larry Fyffe

Fed up with watching the Christian team drink from the Cup of the Golden Baal, singer/singwriter Bob Dylan turns to “Monty Python’s And Sigmund Freud’s Playbook Of Practical Advice” in search of inspiration for the Jewish soccer team in this year’s religious playoffs.

Sport psychologist Dr. Bob dangles a cloak-and-dagger watch-chain in front of the face of Old Testament coach Abraham, and sings to him the lyrics of an auto-suggestive song:

Well, I return to the Queen of Spades
And talk with my chambermaid
She knows that I’m not afraid
To look at her
She is kind to me
And there’s nothing she doesn’t see
She knows where I’d like to be
But it doesn’t matter
(Bob Dylan: I Want You)

The sport psychologist is aware that Abraham’s wife Sarah is a sad-eyed lady of the lowlands because she’s not conceiving; in Freudian terms, she’s a stumbling block to her husband’s creative instincts – her deck of cards dealing the energy-draining Queen of Spades to her football-coach husband.

So sports-adviser Bob, after scanning Monty’s Playbook, hints to Abraham that he ought to mix things up with that groupie slave gal who’s been hanging around the clubhouse – the one wearing the Egyptian ring that sparkles before she speaks.

The coach taketh the advice:

Now, Sarah, Abraham’s wife, bare him no children
And she had a handmaid, an Egyptian
Whose name was Hagar …..
And Abraham called his son’s name
Which Hagar bare, ‘Ishmael’
(Genesis 16: 1,15)

In a Playbook footnote, co-author Sigmund Freud points out that disowning and throwing Ishmael out of the clubhouse into the desert, after Sarah gives birth to Isaac, is likely the subconscious source of the boxing-matches that keep erupting during the never-ending Middle Eastern football match between Abraham’s two sons – with Ishmael coaching the Islamic ‘Lambs’ team and his half-brother Isaac, coaching the Judaic ‘Bullies’.

Forgotten, it seems, is that all the footballers on both sides are supposed to be the Sons of Adam:

What has he done to wear so many scars
Does he change the course of rivers
Does he pollute the moon and the stars
Neighbourhood bully standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still
Neighbourhood bully
(Bob Dylan: Neighbourhood Bully)

Computing in the relativity equations of Albert Einstein with the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud, Dr. Bob concludes that the two ball teams keep kicking the ball of guilt around and fighting, because the time left showing on the clock remains always the same.

In another psychoanalytic song, Dr. Bob argues that it’s actually the fault of the game’s cloven-hoofed referee, sitting as he is over there in his dusty black coat on the sidelines, eating hey and pizza while Hell freezes over.

‘No, it isn’t’, retorts the referee, referencing poet John Milton, ‘It be God Who caused Adam to Fall, not me; the fix was in from the get-go’:

Not I, said the referee
Don’t point your finger at me
I could’ve stopped it in the eighth
An’ maybe kept him from his fate
But the crowd would’ve booed l’m sure
At not gettin’ their money’s worth
It’s too bad he had to go
But there was a pressure on me too, you know
It wasn’t me who made him fall
No, you can’t blame me at all
(Bob Dylan: Who Killed Davey Moore)

But the singer/songwriter’s not that concerned; he’s a CBC lumberjack and he’s okay. He’s more concerned about being ‘let go’ than he is about wondering whether some fallen sparrow or parrot is dead or not:

I had a job in the great north woods
Working as a cook for a spell
But I never did like it all that much
And one day the axe just fell
(Bob Dylan: Tangled Up In Blue)

More to the point, any lumberjack standing around in a Toronto bar while he’s wearing a pair of high-heel shoes knows it can be positively a painful experience:

I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is
To see you
(Bob Dylan: Positively 4th Street)

What else is on the site

1: Over 470 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

In writing these reviews I have found a few songs I have never heard before. But there are more songs I have heard, and then have forgotten – and suddenly I hear the song again and am blown off my feet.

OK, not literally but I did sit down very suddenly as I heard Joan Baez move straight out of her introductory chitchat and start singing “Love is just a four letter word”.   How could I ever have forgotten this piece?  And I mean not just the song, but this rendition is just WOW WOW WOW.

And yes I know that in the past five years I have “discovered” 20 odd Dylan songs of which I have said you must hear this now, now, now but when it comes down to it there is such an extraordinary collection of songs that Dylan wrote and which were not released (or occasionally in which the wrong version – in my view – was released) that yes there are 20+ forgotten gems out there.

Here it is… and do pay attention to her chit chat at the start even if you can’t get what she is saying – it is the way she starts the song out of nothing (as much as anything else) that is so wonderful.  I have been playing this for two days solid driving everyone else utterly mad…

In fact if you want to leave recordings running you also get Lily, Rosemary…

But back to “Love is…”

Joan Baez sings a completely different last verse from that shown on the Dylan site, and Heylin quotes another version which opens with

which is pretty good stuff in my view.  In fact we are reminded once again that Dylan has this incredible ability to take ordinary phrases and put complete scenes into them.  Take for example

Down in the Gypsy Café
With a friend of a friend of mine

That is so simple and so extraordinary within the context.  Here’s the first verse in full…

In fact reports suggest that Joan began performing the piece even before it was finished and she sings a part of it in “Don’t Look Back”.  It first turned up on  Any Day Now, in 1968 and she has since recorded it three more times and released it as a single.

But it seems that Bob either didn’t like or just never got around to finishing it – at least from the snippets of information that are revealed through reminiscences and commentary.  (And we can get a hint as to why he didn’t want it when the next song he produced was Subterranean Homesick Blues.  He was going some place very different.)

The live version is, for me a much better version than the one that appears on “The First Ten Years” where the fill in accompaniments (sitar in the first verse, piano in the second etc) just get in the way and sound horribly imposed and unnecessary.

There are some strange versions of it out there, such as an instrumental by Hit Crew Masters and / or “Studio Musicians” (not to my taste in either case). Then there is the Joy of Cooking version, which has an extra push that Joan Baez ignores, and which rounds off each verse in a way that I don’t find musically necessary. Not to be confused with “Love Ain’t Just another four letter word” which is quite a different kettle of fish.

Here’s another live solo version embedded within an article just in case the earlier link goes down – it is slightly more gentle than the first one above.

And here is a studio version taken at a slower speed and with the extra accompaniment.

And another version with a rather famous guest

There are many more versions around on the internet by JB.  They are all worth listening to.  They really are.

Musically the song is very unusual for Dylan – maybe there is another use of this chord sequence, but there certainly isn’t a melody like this…

It is in G but often doesn’t quite seem like that rotating around the other chords of the key:

D, Em, D, Em, D, Em

D, Am, D, Am, D, Am, D, Am

C D

D7 G

It doesn’t break any of the conventions of popular music, it is just that I don’t know anyone else who has done this. And it is a clever ploy because you feel it is in G all the time, but we don’t actually get to the key chord until the very end.

Clever guy this Bob Dylan.

And what a beautiful, beautiful, exquisite, wonderful song.

What else is on the site

1: Over 470 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

Bob Dylan’s Ol’ Time Incongruous Log Cabin

By Larry Fyffe

The 1964 CBC-TV performance by Bob Dylan in a ‘log cabin’ is described by Clinton Heylin as “the most incòngruous of settings, a log cabin filled with working men pretending to pay attention” (Bob Dylan: Stolen Moments).

Dylanologist Heylin appears to be unaware that the singer/songwriter spent much of his youth near the northern United States border with Canada.

The State of Minnesota is known as ‘the land of a thousand lakes’ and has lots of fishing lodges and a long history of logging white pine, as does my own home province of New Brunswick, Canada:

By the old wooden some where our hats was hung
Our words were told, our songs was sung
Where we longed for nothin’ and we’re satisfied
Talkin’ and a-jokin’ about the world outside
(Bob Dylan: Bob Dylan’s Dream)

Dylan draws on the history of logging in a number of songs – one based on a true story from New Brunswick – back in the days of axes, oxen, crosscut saws, log drives, and lumber camps:

I landed in New Brunswick, that lumbering country
I hired to work in the lumber woods
On the Sou’-West Miramichi ….
Now there’s danger on the ocean
Where the waves roll mountain high
There’s danger on the battlefield
Where angry bullets fly
There’s danger in the lumber woods
For death lurks sullen there
(Calhoun: Peter Emberley)

Dylan broadens the the song into a sociological theme:

And there’s danger on the ocean
Where the salt waves split high
And there’s danger on the battlefield
Where the shells of bullets fly
And there’s danger in this open world
Where men strive to be free
And for me the greatest danger was in society ….
Farewell unto the old north woods
Of which I use to roam
(Bob Dylan: Ballad Of Donald White)

Here’s a more recent example that references the New Brunswick folksong
and, somewhat humourously, Dylan’s CBC ‘log cabin’ experience:

I had a job in the great north woods
Working as a cook for a spell
But I never did like it all that much
And one day the axe just fell
(Bob Dylan: Tangled Up In Blue)

Heylin apparently misses the Dylanesque theme of the lost opportunity of founding a frontier of freedom in the New World – whether up North or down South.

In the following song lyrics, the call of spacious land is mentioned yet again:

Gonna make a lot of money, gonna go up north
I’ll plant and I’ll harvest what the earth brings forth
The hammer’s on the table, the pitchfork’s on the shelf
For the love of God, you ought to take pity on yourself
(Bob Dylan: Thunder On The Mountain)

The myth of the United States as the biblical Promised Land lingers on in the American consciousness:

If you’re travelling in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the border line
Remember me to one who lives there
For she once was a true love of mine
(Bob Dylan: Girl From The North Country)

However, the ditches of the American Dream fill up with images of gun smoke, diamond jims and outlaws in songs by Bob Dylan:

Campin’ out all night on the berenda
Dealin’ cards ’til dawn in the hacienda
Up to Boot Hill, they’d like to send ya
Billy, don’t you turn your back on me
(Bob Dylan: Billy I)

The utopian dreams of Paradise Regained turn into monstrous nightmares – slavery, the deadliest of the nation’s sins:

I cross the green mountain, I sit by the stream
Heaven blazing in my head, I dreamt a monstrous dream
Something came up out of the sea
Swept through the land of the rich and the free
(Bob Dylan: ‘Cross The Green Mountain)

A reference to symbolism found within the Holy Bible, and to the poetic imagery of William Yeats:

And I stood upon the sand of the sea
And saw a beast rise up out of the sea
Having seven heads and ten horns
And upon his horns ten crowns
And upon his heads the name of blasphemy
(Revelations 13: 1)

‘Heaven blazing in my head’ is not the only allusion made to Yeats:

But I’ll see you in the sky above
In the tall grass, in the one I love
(Bob Dylan: You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome)

More thoughts about Beauty lost:

Through hollow lands, and hilly lands
I will find out where she has gone
And kiss her lips and take her hands
And walk among long dappled grass
(William Yeats: Song Of The Wandering Aengus)

What else is on the site

1: Over 470 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 suggestion is that Dylan took the title from the song of the same name by Randy and the Rainbows – it was a hit the previous August, but of course sounds nothing like Bob’s song, which is a straight 12 bar blues.

The original song (which I’ll give a link to at the end, along with a link to Bob’s song) has this sort of lyric

Denise, Denise, oh, with your eyes so blue
Denise, Denise, I’ve got a crush on you
Denise, Denise, I’m so in love with you

Bob goes with

Denise, Denise
Gal, what’s on your mind?
Denise, Denise
Gal, what’s on your mind?
You got your eyes closed
Heaven knows that you ain’t blind

He’s having a laugh at the traditions of the popular bubble gum song, and that’s about the sum of it.  It might be significant that the song seems to have come after “It ain’t me Babe” and “Motorpsycho Nightmare” – he was in rejection and laughter mode, a combination that can lead to hysteria and humour in equal measures.

Whether he was actually talking to himself all the way through because the girl isn’t there, or he is talking to himself because the bubble gum girl is so vacuous that there’s nothing inside her head, we don’t know.  And of course it doesn’t really matter – it is not meant to be analysed full on… unless one is writing a blog such as this!

The list of songs composed around this time gives us quite an insight: we were getting a right old mix of everything with just a hint of lost love until lost love becomes the theme.  Denise Denise is an attempt to make light of the issues of lost love but then we are into the serious and (with Plain D) viscous mode.

• Chimes of Freedom (Protest)
• Mr Tambourine Man (Surrealism; the way we see the world)
• I don’t believe you (She acts like we never have met) (Lost love)
• Spanish Harlem Incident (Love)
• Motorpsycho Nightmare  (Humour)
• It ain’t me babe (Song of Farewell)
• Denise Denise (humour)
• Mama you’ve been on my mind (Lost love)
• Ballad in Plain D  (Lost love)
• Black Crow Blues (Lost love)

Heylin has done us a service with this one by tracking down the original copy of the writing, with some additional verses:

and

So we go on, and it is mostly quite offensive, although with the occasional admission that he’s not really at the game himself.

Well, I can see you smiling
But oh your mouth is inside out
I can see you smiling
But you’re smiling inside out
Well, I know you’re laughin’
But what are you laughin’ about

Well, if you’re tryin’ to throw me
Babe, I’ve already been tossed
If you’re tryin’ to throw me
Babe, I’ve already been tossed
Babe, you’re tryin’ to lose me
Babe, I’m already lost

Well, what are you doing
Are you flying or have you flipped?
Oh, what are you doing
Are you flying or have you flipped?
Well, you call my name
And then say your tongue just slipped

Denise, Denise
You’re concealed here on the shelf
Denise, Denise
You’re concealed here on the shelf
I’m looking deep in your eyes, babe
And all I can see is myself

The feelings expressed in this song however were just a passing interlude, for the next song that Dylan wrote seems to have been Mama you’ve been on my mind, which is an altogether different kettle of fish.

And maybe that is one of the many, many facets of Dylan’s genius – that he could move from a song like this one onto that.  It really was just an interlude.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2rhqDFChKk

And here are the Rainbows with the original.   The Blondie version came later.

What else is on the site

1: Over 470 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

Concerning Dylan’s Conversion To Islam

by Larry Fyffe

Time to settle the rumours, against the advice of our lawyers. Because stories are being planted in the mainstream press, ‘Untold’ has decided to reveal that, yes, Bob Dylan a few years ago secretly converted to the Islamic religion.

A spokesperson for Untold says, “The news is bound to come out sooner or later, so why hold it back any longer?” There have already been some critics who suggest Dylan’s conversion be not sincere. So let’s examine the historical record – there are signs in Bob Dylan’s early song lyrics that he’s been thinking about converting from Judaism to Islamism for many years.

For instance, on reading that God orders Abraham to kill his ‘only’ son Isaac:

And (God) said, ‘Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac
Whom thou lovest, and get him into the land of Mariah
And offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains
(Genesis 22:2)

The singer/singwriter is clearly not happy about the little joke God plays on Isaac’s father:

Oh, God said to Abraham, ‘Kill me a son’
Abe said, ‘Man you must be putting me on’
(Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited)

Meanwhile, Abraham sees to it that his first-born son by his wife’s maid gets treated better than Isaac does:

And Abraham called his son’s name
Which Hager bare, ‘Ishmael.’
(Genesis16:15)

Ishmael as an adult goes off on his own to Arabia where he becomes an ancestor of the Islamic prophet Muhammad:

And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him
And will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly
Twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation
(Genesis 17:20)

Further evidence as to Dylan’s decision to convert there be. On referencing the namesake in Herman Melville’s novel ‘Mobey Dick’, Bob Dylan declares (in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech):

“Ishmael survives ….That theme and all that it implies would work its way into
more than a few of my songs.”

That Dylan expresses in his song lyrics that he admires Ishmael’s Arabic gumption, there is no doubt:

I think I’ll call it ‘America’, I said as we hit land
I took a deep breath, I fell down, I could not stand
Captain Arab, he started writing some deeds
He said, ‘Let’s set up a fort, and start buying the place with beads’
(Bob Dylan: 115th Dream)

A blue-eyed Arab, the singer/songwriter desires to be:

All that foreign oil controlling American soil
Look around you, it’s just bound to make you embarrassed
Sheiks walking around like kings
Wearing fancy jewellery and nose rings
(Bob Dylan: Slow Train)

Thoughts of lots of jewellery, money, and women of the oda, Dylan just can’t seem to get off his mind. Bigger is better ….better than being a server at a chicken shack, that’s for sure:

‘What’s the matter, Molly dear
What’s the matter with your mound?’
‘What’s it to you, Moby Dick?
This is chicken town’
(Bob Dylan: Lo And Behold)

So it’s not at all surprising, when it’s thought about a bit, that Bob Dylan converts to Islam in order to fit in with the Big Money crowd – that hobos can be damned!

As one might suspect, it looks like it all comes down to a veiled woman:

If you see her, say hello, she might be in Tangier
She left here last early spring, is livin’ there I here
Say for me that I’m all right though
Things get kind of slow
She might think that I’ve forgotten her
Don’t tell her it isn’t so
(Bob Dylan: If You See Her, Say Hello)

What else is on the site

1: Over 470 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

To put this song in context we have to look at what Dylan had written at the end of 1963 – this is an unedited list (by which I mean I haven’t taken out the lesser known pieces – as far as I can see this is the complete chronological list).

• With God on our Side
• Talking World War III Blues
• Only a pawn in their game
• Eternal Circle
• North Country Blues
• Gypsy Lou
• Troubled and I Don’t Know Why 
• When the ship comes in
• The Times they are a-Changing
• Percy’s Song
• The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
• Lay Down your Weary Tune
• One too many mornings
• Restless Farewell

And that is not a selection – that is all the songs we know about, in the best order we can put them in, in terms of writing.

Then came “Guess I’m doing fine”

After which came

• Chimes of Freedom
• Mr Tambourine Man
• I don’t believe you (She acts like we never have met)
• Spanish Harlem Incident
• Motorpsycho Nightmare
• It ain’t me babe
• Mama you’ve been on my mind

Again that is not a selected list.  It is the lot.

If you take a moment to listen to “Guess I’m doing fine” (available on Spotify – it is a and  on the Whitmark album) I suspect the question might be “What?”

As in, “What made Bob write this song in between all those works?”  Just to take the end of the first list and the start of the second list it looks very odd.

• One too many mornings
• Restless Farewell
• Guess I’m doing fine
• Chimes of Freedom
• Mr Tambourine Man

The songs around it (not just these two before and after but going back through the more complete earlier lists) are major works.  One after the other after the other.  Not a masterpiece and a few duds, but brilliant compositions showing Dylan at the height of his powers.  And in between, this song.

In a sense I could understand what was going on if “Guess I’m doing fine” was written and then forgotten – every composer like every author, artist, playwright etc has ideas that are quickly set aside.  But that it was kept and recorded… that bemuses me.  One can only presume that Bob really seriously did want to have a record of everything he did – although I can’t quite see why.

Particularly since a little while before he let all those Town Hall pieces just be played once in public and then vanish.

But record it he did.  And the only explanation I can muster is that since he broke up with his girlfriend at this time, he was trying the old folksy idea in which the song recounts all the many things that are wrong, but then says by way of stark contrast, but I suppose it is all ok somehow.

Or maybe he just wanted people to know he was hurting.

Well, I ain’t got my childhood
Or friends I once did know
No, I ain’t got my childhood
Or friends I once did know
But I still got my voice left
I can take it anywhere I go
Hey, hey, so I guess I’m doin’ fine

So in a sense he was perhaps just getting a feeling dealt with, and part of that “dealing with” involved writing and recording this song, before he could move on.

Certainly by verse three this is where he seems to be… my relationship has screwed up, but that is nothing compared to what is happening in the world at large.

Trouble, oh trouble
I’ve trouble on my mind
Trouble, oh trouble
Trouble on my mind
But the trouble in the world, Lord
Is much more bigger than mine
Hey, hey, so I guess I’m doin’ fine

And a little later he really is emphasising the way the music industry and his fans were treating him

I been kicked and whipped and trampled on
I been shot at just like you
I been kicked and whipped and trampled on
I been shot at just like you.
But as long as the world keeps a-turnin’
I just keep a-turnin’ too
Hey, hey, so I guess I’m doin’ fine

and really I find it rather hard to emphasise with this.  I am not saying break ups of love affairs are not tough – they most certainly can bring the whole world crumbling down, but this doesn’t seem to ring true to me.  Not one bit.

There isn’t even too much to rescue the song as a piece of music – the basis of the piece is three chords over and over (C, Dm7, F), but maybe that is just how Bob wanted to express himself, going over and over, round and around.  Thankfully he didn’t play it at any gigs.

I want to stress this is not a criticism of Bob for writing this – as I say all artists do sketches and have ideas that don’t go anywhere, it is, most certainly, much more a failing of mine.  I can’t understand why he recorded this, and why he wanted to keep it, when all around him were the masterpieces.

Unless it was just to say, “Look at me.  I’m hurting.”

What else is on the site

1: Over 470 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

In a vault at the Untold Dylan offices, gathering dust, we uncovered some sheet music with handwritten lyrics and notes by Bob Dylan.

The lyrics to one of the songs:

We were all just hangin’ around
Down at Ed’s Cafe
Everybody had too much beer
And nothin’ to say
Overlookin’ Hudson’s Bay
The dishes were piled up high
In the kitchen sink
The customers had all gone home
No-one had to think
About tomorrow or today
With our feet in the fireplace
Eatin’ mom’s home cookin’
Overlookin’ scenic Hudson’s Bay
(More Or Less Hudson’s Bay)

An accompanying tattered notebook contains handwritten scribbles that indicate the song above be written on a cold winter’s day in 1968 by Bob Dylan – staying in a log cabin at Gods River, a small community located in northern Manitoba, Canada.

Dylan scribbles down that the lyrics satirize a hit song by Bobbie Gentry:

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin’ cotton, and my brother was balin’ hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And Mama hollered out the backdoor, “Y’all remember to wipe your feet”
(Bobbie Gentry: Ode To Billy Joe)

In addition to the notes, there is a group-photograph of Bob Dylan with Elvis Presley, Mick Jagger, and Paul McCartney (who is wearing a sealskin jacket purchased at a local Hudson’s Bay Store). Taped to the back of the photo is a label that reads ‘Mid-Night Sun Marauders -1968’.

The song ‘More Or Less Hudson’s Bay’ is a track on ‘The ‘Masked Marauders’ album released in 1969. The album is said to have been produced in a small town close to the old Hudson’s Bay Colony in Canada. In the notebook from the vault, Dylan writes that Hudson Bay covers 470,000 square miles. Also, he tells us that on a visit to Canada a few years before, he had been asked by the Department of Northern Affairs to make a ‘Never-Ending-Midnight-Sun Tour’ across the Canadian Arctic.

It seems that the tour goes well. Bob Dylan mentions that Elvis Presley, the ‘King of RocknRoll’, and he, earmuffs and all, had a great time driving Elvis’ Cadillac around on the Hudson Bay mud flats.

An out-take from the musical mystery tour of the Arctic appears on Dylan’s ‘Love And Theft’ album:

Everybody get ready to lift up your glasses and sing
Well, I’m standin’ on the table, I’m proposing a toast to the king
Well, I’m drivin’ in the flats in a Cadillac car
(Bob Dylan: Summer Days)

Concerning the ‘Summer Days’ song, Tony Atwood points out that a number of music critics mistakenly think that the Dylan out-take is about the Southern United States when in fact it’s about the Canadian tundra tour:

Certainly, it is possible to tie in the issue about the flats.   Gods River flows into the Hayes River and the result is rapids, lakes, waterfalls, and as it nears Hudson Bay, tidal flats
(Tony Attwood: Review of ‘Summer Days’)

As well, the notes indicate that ‘Joe Two Rivers’, a wilderness guide and an expert at riding wild rapids, whom Dylan met on his earlier visit to Canada, is a valuable asset to the tour group on days off. Bob writes he’s glad that Canadian actor Michael Zenon lives up to his pseudonym.

Also noted is that Anthony Quinn, the American-Mexican actor, telegraphs Bob that ‘Inuk’ will be joining the musical troupe on stage in Nome, Alaska; a grateful Dylan makes a note that he’s a-gonna sing a special song to celebrate the occasion:

Well, everybody’s building big ships and boats
Some are building monuments
Others jotting down notes
Everybody’s in despair
Every girl and boy
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here
Everybody’s gonna jump for joy
(Bob Dylan: The Mighty Quinn)

We are also informed through the notes that Mick Jagger, due to assistance from a bilingual priest, is able to sing ‘I Can’ t Get No Satisfaction’ in what’s then known as ‘Eskimo’.

Jagger’s unique version of ‘Satisfaction’ appears on aforementioned ‘The Masked Marauders’ album:

Can’t get no nookie
Can’t get no nookie
Can’t get no nookie
How come – see my girl, oh yeah
Can’t get no nookie
Well, she’s the sweetest thing in this world
Oh yeah – can’t get no nookie
(Can’t Get No Nookie)

What else is on the site

1: Over 470 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