Untold Dylan

By Tony Attwood

The songs listed as being written and recorded after the work with Jacques Levy are of a very different style and approach from all that went before, and indeed it is not clear if this song is actually a Dylan original, or something he heard and re-worked.  Most likely it was just a song that popped into his head without him quite knowing where it came from.

But along with “Patty’s Gone to Laredo” this song came out of the period after working with Levy and turned up on Renaldo and Clara.  It appears at 1 minute 37 seconds on this recording.

Dylan said in the Rolling Stone interview about the movie that it is “as if the songs themselves were trying to communicate with each other, as if they were saying goodbye to each other,” and maybe that is the point – that at this point reviewing the songs as individual units starts to break down.

The writer Penelope Gilliatt said to  the film maker Buñuel in an interview, “Your films make one wonder what’s going on in people’s minds,” and he replied, “Dreams, and also the most everyday questions: ‘What time is it?’ ‘Do you want to eat?'” and that seems to be (to me at least) where we are in Renaldo and Clara and where we are in this song.

In the Rolling Stone interview Dylan also said, “The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for anyone but inspire them?”  Here I guess he is inspiring us to think about the unthinkable – the end of the world, the Second Coming, the descent into hell for us unbelievers.

Dylan also described the film, in the Rolling Stone interview, as being post-existentialist, and that notion has caused me to ponder for a while.  What exactly is post-existentialism?  I’m not 100% certain, but here’s where I have got to…

Existentialism posed the questions such as, “What is the meaning of living?  What is the point in carrying on existing?”

It asked these questions at a time when people had stopped automatically believing in God – and thus the questions needed to be asked because the old certainty of religious answers had vanished.

But that left the question how do we find meaning in a world like that we have now?  The answer seems to be, that maybe we don’t have to.  Just possibly, our postmodern culture has saved us from asking ourselves this question.  Chris Hughes in Blasting News suggested that the post-existentialist now experiences a life in which, “We need life to be occupied 24/7.  We need to worry about work, money etc, because these worries distract us from existential worry.  Only, if we find living difficult and troublesome, do we forget to ask, what is the point of living?  The awkwardness of living provides an escape from the awareness of the futility of it all.  The tedium of living needs to be horrible so that we don’t have to confront the horror that, in the end, it may all be pointless anyway.”

So when Jesus returns for the Second Coming there is every chance that we’ll be so busy with the mundane reality of life that we don’t even notice.

The Dylan interview in Rolling Stone does give a lot of insight into what is going on in the movie – a movie which we might remember had a very short life span in cinemas after the critics universally panned the piece as a mishmash.   And yet it is clear from this interview just how deeply Dylan and his fellow film makers were thinking about what they were creating.

It is interesting therefore that Heylin notes the song as quickly descending into “the shopping list school of poetry”.  Yet the interview with Dylan in RS suggests there is so much more going on in the film that it would seem impossible for the song not to have a deeper significance.

And in effect the movie makes reviewing the song as an individual element, rather than as part of the movie, quite impossible.  It was part of the total concept that the movie explored, rather than a film track.

The lyrics that Heylin so objects to

are exactly right as questions to be posed in a movie that moves beyond the point of asking questions about the point of living.   We do indeed avoid the questions by being too busy to worry.

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Larry Fyffe

The satirical essays that Mark Twin writes in regard to the Judeo-Christian Bible influence song lyrics of Bob Dylan.  Twain makes note of God’s all-too-human flaws – not unlike the Demiurge conjured up by the Gnostics – God’s selfish and vindictive; jealous with mood swings that often leads to anger. Sometimes He’s just downright nasty to his earthly creations as demonstrated in the way He sets them up for a Fall. Not only that, He’s still not satisfied and goes after them in the Great Beyond:

(Mark Twain: Letters From Earth)

Even beyond the grave,  Heaven or Hell, it’s a-gonna be.

The Almighty Deity starts out by kicking Adam and his partner out of earthly Paradise for their eating of the tree of good and evil:

(Bob Dylan: Talking World War III Blues)

The story comes from the Holy Bible:

(Genesis 3: 22, 24)

After being that unkind, God reveals that He still has a bit of a mean streak left in Him:

(Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited)

The story above Dylan also takes from the Bible:

(Genesis 22: 2)

The loveliest and the best

(Bob Dylan:Tempest)

(Matthew 27: 45, 46)

Covering an ironically and ambiguously worded song by Kris Kristofferson, who studied the poetry of mystic William Blake, Bob Dylan sings about a ‘Son of Man’ who is killed (as are Gandhi and King, Jr.) while God, as Almighty as He is supposed to be, just looks down – notwithstanding that some claim Jesus said He’s the Son of God while others claim that indeed He is.

In any event, nothing is delivered:

(Matthew 27: 41, 42, 43)

But Jesus never says that He is the Son Of God:

My God, they killed him

(Bob Dylan: They Killed Him – original by Kristofferson)

Neither Mark Twain nor Bob Dylan accept the dogma of orthodox religion. Simply put – because no matter what saith the Holy Bible, the story never ends:

(Bob Dylan: With God On Our Side)

by Tony Attwood

Apologies: I originally posted an early draft of this piece by mistake; here’s the correct version.  (That’s what comes of changing time zones by 11 hours).

Sometimes it seems to me that commentators – be they reporters of the work of sports teams or commentators on the creations of songwriters – expect every moment of the waking life of a genius, itself to be a work of genius.   But the Dylan/Levy partnership needed  the occasional break, and time to explore other ideas, as much as any other combination of writers.  And after writing “Black Diamond Bay” both men might well have been inclined to take a bit of time reflecting on what else was possible.

And this was certainly the case with their next composition was “Catfish”, and the one after that: “Mozambique”.  Catfish was not used on the album, but instead turned up on Bootleg 1-3, so can of course be found there. It is an exploration of what might be possible in a different way of doing things – rather as Mozambique is.

It is a slow atmospheric blues with a reverberating harmonica played throughout – while the blues band does its blues band thing.   If anything I think (and this is just my view) the individual instrumental parts – the harmonica and the various guitars – are overplayed and end up competing with each other, which rather spoils the effect that I feel Dylan was after: the turning of a sports event with all the wild cheering and appreciation that goes with it, into an aesthetic moment that speaks to us about the essence of human life, exactly as the blues can do.

However I do not wish to decry what has been tried by way of experiment.  Most people would have ended up with crowd cheering dubbed over the song.  Dylan, always the master of the alternative approach, went for atmosphere in a completely different way – a way that probably no one else would have ever contemplated.

But this means that there is ultimately so much going on that at times the song appears to be in danger of becoming a mishmash of sound rather than a piece of atmospheric writing which gives us an insight into deeper meaning.

I have also, on occasion, wondered a little if the two composers were deadly serious in what they were doing here; but of course you’ll have to decide.  It starts off fine, but … well maybe some of the accompaniment would probably have been edited down if the song had made it on to the cut of the album.

The theme of this extended 12 bar blues song is the pitcher Jim Hunter who was known as Catfish Hunter.  I will have to leave it to others to explain exactly what he did, since I know little of the sport myself.   Seen on their own, the lyrics don’t really inspire much in the way of deeper thought or meaning, and so they are, I guess, completely dependent on one’s cultural knowledge and on the emotion and feeling portrayed by the accompaniment.

Catfish, million-dollar-man
Nobody can throw the ball like Catfish can

Used to work on Mr. Finley’s farm
But the old man wouldn’t pay
So he packed his glove and took his arm
An’ one day he just ran away

up where the Yankees are
Dress up in a pinstripe suit
Smoke a custom-made cigar
Wear an alligator boot

Catfish, million-dollar-man
Nobody can throw the ball like Catfish can

Carolina born and bred
Love to hunt the little quail
Got a hundred-acre spread
Got some huntin’ dogs for sale

Catfish, million-dollar-man
Nobody can throw the ball like Catfish can

Reggie Jackson at the plate
Seein’ nothin’ but the curve
Swing too early or too late
Got to eat what Catfish serve

Catfish, million-dollar-man
Nobody can throw the ball like Catfish can

Even Billy Martin grins
When the Fish is in the game
Every season twenty wins
Gonna make the Hall of Fame

Catfish, million-dollar-man
Nobody can throw the ball like Catfish can

However I have seen the song described as a rare classic, so not for the first time I might be completely out of order in suggesting it is anything but.

As for Catfish himself, at his National Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Day Speech in 1987 he is reported to have said, “Winning isn’t everything. Wanting to win is.”  Although it is not a style of life that I aspire to, I can see his point.

The Joe Cocker version extends the deliberations of the blues even further and here I am not completely convinced that this isn’t something of a self-indulgence.  But I’m probably starting in the wrong place, and it is all very much a personal view determined by a cultural background.

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Larry Fyffe

Some listeners to Bob Dylan’s lyrics claim that ideas for his songs just pop into his head out of nowhere. Then again, some believe that most of his songs are about Jesus.

Apparently, many of the latter listeners also believe that the Old Testament of the Holy Bible refers to the not-yet-born Christian Messiah – His love for the Church faithful as allegorized in Song Of Solomon, for example.

The Jewish allegorical interpretation of the Song Of Solomon is that it’s about God’s enduring love for Israel, the rose of Sharon – Sharon being a plain in northern Palestine:

Thou hast ravished my heart my sister, my spouse
Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes
With one chain of thy neck
(Song Of Solomon 4: 9)

A Gnostic married brother and sister act – Isis and Osiris – reveals itself. And
there is no doubt what the rose of Saron’s garden represents in Freudian terms. There in the song too is Yahweh, a jealous God – no wonder, his spouse does not unreservedly commit herself to Him:

A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse
A spring shut up, a fountain sealed
(Song Of Solomon 4:12)

Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan recognizes a good source of image material when he finds one – as presented in the revised allegory in the song below:

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

It’s an allegory oft repeated by Dylan in other songs – a damsel lures the narrator into her ‘garden’ in order to trap the freedom-loving artist inside the walls of social and religious conformity.

Below the song with a thousand faces – in one version, Robert Zimmerman does not want to get stuck inside seven-hilled Rome with the Jerusalem blues again because of lust lost:

She was the rose of Sharon from paradise lost
From the city of seven hills near the place of the cross ….
She had bells in her braids and they hung to her toes
But I kept hearing my name and I had to be movin’ on
I saw the screws break loose, saw the devil pound tin
I saw a house in the country being torn from within
I heard my ancestors calling from the land far beyond
(Bob Dylan: Caribbean Wind)

A Dylanesque theme – trapped within the walls of Puritan John Milton’s sexless prison all hell’s bound to break loose; only in the rose garden exists a place where there are no lies:

At dawn my lover ones to me
And tells me of her dreams
With no attempts to shovel the glimpse
Into the ditch of what each one means
At times I think there are no words
But these to tell what’s true
And there are no truth’s outside the gates of Eden
(Bob Dylan: Gates Of Eden)

With a bit of ironic black humour, Dylan pens his own version of the Song Of Solomon about the Rose Of Sharon. He tells it as plain as day in the lyrics of the Rose Of Acapulco:

I’m going down to Rose-Marie’s
She never does me wrong
She puts it to me plain as day
And gives it to me for a song ….
Well, sometimes you know when
the well breaks down
I just go pump on it some
Rose-Marie, she likes to go to big places
And just set there waitin’ for me to come
(Bob Dylan: Going To Acapulco)

A spoof of the ‘Song Of Solomon’, featuring Father Yahweh’s jealousy at being treated like a stranger by the rose of Sharon, straight-faced Bob Dylan’s not capable of resisting:

Oh, sister, when I come to lie in your arms
You should not treat me as a stranger
Our Father would not like the way that you act
You must realize the danger
(Bob Dylan: Oh Sister)

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Tony Attwood

What a wonderful way to reach review number 500 on this site, a song that for me sums up Dylan across the years.  He knocks out a few lines and makes up a few more plus the accompaniment and melody on the spot, he does a very hard to understand rough recording, and then they don’t use the song in the film.   Except it gets picked up years later and becomes a monumental hit.

Yes, I know Dylan is “It’s alright ma” and “Desolation Row” and “It’s not dark yet” and “Tell Ol Bill” and on and on – but in terms of his the oft used rambling methodology of this overwhelmingly brilliant songwriter, this is the perfect example which is why I love the coincidence that it became review 500.

In this review I’m giving links to Dylan’s original improvised sketch of the song made during the “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” rehearsals but I’ve had such a jolly morning playing through the history of this song, I want to start with this version, not least because I love Old Crow Medicine Show (as I might have mentioned in connection with Visions of Johanna).

It has been written that the Dylan original is “not so much a song as a sketch, crudely recorded featuring most prominently a stomping boot, the candy-coated chorus and a mumbled verse that was hard to make out”.  That seems a bit heavy, but it is sort of right, and yet this is what Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show took and to which he added verses about hitchhiking home.

Secor himself was a Dylan fan as he stated in one interview:

“I listened to Bob Dylan and nothing else. Nothin’ but Bob for four years. It was like schooling. Every album and every outtake of every album and every live record I could get my hands on and every show I could go see live. I was a teenager who was really turned on to Bob.”

The original source of Bob Dylan’s sketch was noted as “Rock Me Mama” in 1973,  a phrase that Dylan had apparently taken from Arthur Crudup.

So Secor did the re-write and got Bob Dylan to agree to a co-writing copyright contract, apparently at 50/50.

And thus we have a song that deals with hitchhiking from north America.  The chord structure is a classic (A, E, F#m, D) and there it is: dead simple.  It’s popularity built up, it seems, by word of mouth rather than by hype or a big radio push, and not because it was released as a Bob Dylan original or anything like that.

And after 16 years it turned into a gold disc.

But it didn’t stop there because now it is often said that the song is not just Old Crow Medicine Show’s signature song, it is actually bigger in some ways bigger than the group itself”.

One report on Wiki says that “The group reportedly performed the song in Nashville in 2001, as part of a series of songs commemorating Bob Dylan’s 60th birthday long before they had a recording contract with a major label.  The song went platinum in April 2013 and of course the band still play it – although they have had time to do the complete re-run of Blonde on Blonde – from which their version of Johanna noted above is taken.

It is also (although being a sober upstanding member of the community in middle England I can’t confirm this), in the US, a “bar room staple that drunks love to loudly request, regardless of who the band is.”  And here’s one other snippet, “The New England Americana Festival sells a shirt with an image of a wagon wheel with a line through it—creating a “no ‘Wagon Wheel’ zone”.

The song has been covered many times and was finally certified triple Platinum in 2014.

Here’s where it all started.  Sorry about the poor balance and lack of everything else on this but it is, I think, the only version we have.

And here is what it became, with the complete set of lyrics.

Headed down south to the land of the pines
And I’m thumbin’ my way into North Caroline
Starin’ up the road
And pray to God I see headlights

I made it down the coast in seventeen hours
Pickin’ me a bouquet of dogwood flowers
And I’m a hopin’ for Raleigh
I can see my baby tonight

So rock me mama like a wagon wheel
Rock me mama anyway you feel
Hey mama rock me
Rock me mama like the wind and the rain
Rock me mama like a south-bound train
Hey mama rock me

Runnin’ from the cold up in New England
I was born to be a fiddler in an old-time stringband
My baby plays the guitar
I pick a banjo now

Oh, the North country winters keep a gettin’ me now
Lost my money playin’ poker so I had to up and leave
But I ain’t a turnin’ back
To livin’ that old life no more

So rock me mama like a wagon wheel
Rock me mama anyway you feel
Hey mama rock me
Rock me mama like the wind and the rain
Rock me mama like a south-bound train
Hey mama rock me

Walkin’ to the south out of Roanoke
I caught a trucker out of Philly
Had a nice long toke
But he’s a headed west from the Cumberland Gap
To Johnson City, Tennessee

And I gotta get a move on fit for the sun
I hear my baby callin’ my name
And I know that she’s the only one
And if I die in Raleigh
At least I will die free

So rock me mama like a wagon wheel
Rock me mama anyway you feel
Hey mama rock me
Rock me mama like the wind and the rain
Rock me mama like a south-bound train
Hey mama rock me

And here’s a version that I rather like…

So that is it.  The 500th review on this site.  Not all written by me – far from it, and including at least one song not written by Dylan at all, plus including a number of songs reviewed by different people.  I’m quite proud of this little moment – especially as it comes just as I am about to toddle off to the other side of the world (although I hope to be keeping the site running even so).

If you would like to join in the fun and write a review of a Dylan song – either one not yet covered here or one that has been reviewed but to which you think you can add a different angle, send me your contribution, and all being well I will publish it.

I’ve often said in these occasional look backs that I am so grateful to my great pal Pat who encouraged me over and over to come back to the site when I got a bit fed up with it in the early days, (because Wikipedia refused to link to it even when we were something completely new about a Dylan song).  But it was worth coming back to.  And when I return from the other side of the world I will start work on all those Basement Tapes songs that are still missing from the reviews.

If you have been, thanks for reading.

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Larry Fyffe

‘Red River Valley’ is a traditional folk song that dates back to the Red River Colony in Manitoba, Canada. The Red River flows from Minnesota, Bob Dylan’s home state, into the Great White North; it’s waters eventually end up in Hudson Bay where the Masked Marauders stayed.

American singers of country and western songs, riding the red horse of cultural imperialism, turn the ‘girl’ in that song into a ‘cowboy’, who oddly enough speaks French (‘adieu’). The original song features a half-French, half-native maiden who falls in love with a soldier sent with troops from Eastern Canada to put down the Red River Rebellion of 1870:

So come sit by my side if you love me
Do not hasten to bid me adieu
Just remember the Red River Valley
And the girl who loves you so true
(Red River Valley)

The original song lyrics take, not the point of view of a ‘cowboy who loves you so true’, but the point of view of the forsaken girl:

There could never be such a longing
In the heart of a white maiden’s breast
As dwells in the heart you are breaking
With love for the boy who came West
(Red River Valley)

Lyrics to a related song by Bob Dylan indicate that its writer is aware of the forsaken girl from the North country – whether it’s by a soldier or a cowboy that she’s been left behind on the Red River shore.

Dylan adds a twist to the love story:

Well, I sat by her side for a while
I tried to make that girl my wife
She gave me the best advice and she said
‘Go home and lead a quiet life’
Well, I been to the East and I been to the West
And I been out where the black winds roar
Somehow though I never did get that far
With the girl from the Red River shore
(Bob Dylan: Red River Shore)

The colour ‘black’ is characteristic of Baroque poetry; Dylan lightens things up a bit in a reference to Jesus Christ at the end of the song: “Well, I don’t know what kind of language that he used”. Perhaps on the cross Christ says ‘adieu’.

Christian analysts of Dylan’s lyrics, at least the ones on a narrow path through life, consider that the whole song is about Jesus, that even the Red River girl represents Christ. Seems they feel obliged to give Jesus a sex change operation in many a song that Dylan writes so they can marry Him or something. Tweeter, it’s weird, I tell you.

The Kingston Trio sing a traditional song from real cowboy country called ‘Red River Shore’ that features the river that flows into the the Gulf of Mexico. The bronco-riding cowboy in that song meets his doom on the way to meet the girl on the Red River shore, his chest pierced by flying angels from the pistols of her kinsmen.

Dylan’s certainly aware of that song’s Poe-like tragic ending, and mixes the two rivers – one North, one South – together down in his basement – note, we mustn’t forget Joe Two Rivers in the lonely log cabin up in Canada where Lenore is tapping at the window like a raven with a broken wing:

At the foot of yon mountain where the big river flows
There’s a fond creation and a soft wind that blows
There’s a fair maiden, she’s the one I adore
She’s the one I will marry on the Red River shore
She wrote me a letter; she wrote it so kind
And in that letter these words you will find
‘Come back to me darling, you’re the one I adore
You the one I will marry on the Red River shore’
(Red River Shore: Kingston Trio)

Bob Dylan, a professional artist, steals the written-letter-so-kind line from the song above and places it in ‘Not Dark Yet’. In his own ‘Red River Shore’, Dylan likewise rhymes ‘adore’ and ‘shore’. True to form, added is a Dylanesque twist:

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

Also mentioned is the lonely cabin in the Canadian woods:

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

And that Gnostic Mary Magdalene is always hanging around the gates of Eden:

Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How does your garden grow
With silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty maids all in a row
(Nursery rhyme)

In his ‘Red River Shore’, Dylan sings: ‘Well, I’m a stranger here in a strange land’
– he’s a Jew in mostly Christian America – which is a reference to a Bible story in which Moses seeks shelter on the Red Sea shore – from the Egyptian Pharoah. In exile, Moses marries, according to some interpretations of the Bible story, a black girl:

And Moses was content to dwell with the man
And he gave Moses Zipporah, his daughter
And she bore him a son, and he called his name Gershom
For he said, “I have been a stranger in a strange land”
(Exodus 2: 21,22)

Oh dear, maybe it was ‘Oprah’ that he married – I get all mixed up and confused sometimes – that’s for sure.

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Tony Attwood

My original aim in starting this blog was to undertake reviews of all the songs Dylan released on studio albums.  Then I started adding the songs from the bootleg series – and now as I approach the 500th review we’re onto some rather more obscure material, some of which turn out to be brilliant pieces, others are knock about ideas that didn’t make the grade.

“Goodbye Holly” is  a piece of film music Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid which was not used in the movie.

In 2010 the Daily Telegraph, a right wing national daily newspaper published in London, ran the article “The gems that Bob Dylan discarded” in which Clinton Heylin picked what the writer of the introduction to the piece called “25 of his finest unheard tracks.”   Goodbye Holly came in at number 9.

I am not sure it truly merits a listing as high as number 9, or indeed a listing on the “finest unheard tracks” list at all, but since the list includes a number of songs none of us has ever heard, I think we can take the introduction with a pinch of salt.

What I can say is that “Goodbye Holly” didn’t make the cut for, and still wouldn’t be part of, my list of The 20 Sometimes Forgotten Dylan Masters that you can still find online.  And speaking of online, if you fancy finding out about an online bonus that’s the link to follow.

And of course in gambling and in music we each have our own judgements.

This song was one of a whole range of songs Bob wrote for the Pat Garrett movie which were to be used to mourn the death of each member of the gang, but as with several other songs was set aside once “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” was composed a little later.

Here are the lyrics in full…

Goodbye Holly, Holly goodbye
Your wife’s a gonna miss you
Your baby’s gonna cry
Goodbye Holly, Holly so long

All your good times have passed now and gone.
Pat Garrett, he shot you with a Colt 44
He dropped you across a table
Now you’re gone forever more.

The recording sessions for the movie started on 20 January in Mexico City, with Billy 7, being recorded (along with lots of other “Billy” takes.   Also recorded in the session on that day were “Under Turkey”, “Billy Surrenders”, “And He’s Killed Me Too”, “Goodbye Holly” and “Pecos Blues”.

The rest of the songs were recorded in February, and that was that for the film, but the way was set for a return to a year of highly productive writing.

Here’s the list of songs taken from 1973 as we’ve listed them in the Dylan Songs of the 70s index.

1. Goodbye Holly
2. Rock me Mama
3. Knocking on heaven’s door
4. Never say goodbye
5. Nobody cept you
6. Going going gone
7. Hazel
8. Something there is about you
9. You Angel You
10. On a night like this
11. Tough Mama
12. Dirge 
13. Wedding Song

Rock me Mama will be reviewed next which will complete the review of the year, and take us to 500 review articles.

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Not So Narrow Road That Leads To Dylan’s Door

By Larry Fyffe

Woe unto analysts of the lyrics composed by Bob Dylan who are sure they can make his songs featuring biblical imagery fit the moral and theological messages contained in the pages of the Judeo-Christian Bible.

David Weir, for example, looking at Dylan’s ‘Narrow Way’ contends that the song is about Jesus, God, and humanity. In a manner somewhat Gnostic in tone, Weir claims that the song depicts the dark human side of Jesus as well as His divine side (by having faith in the light-emitting side of Jesus, humanity achieves peace through redemption, the grace of God, and the blood of the Lamb). Though no names are mentioned by Dylan in the song, Weir makes the case that there’s tension shown in ‘Narrow Way’ between two facets of Jesus – one divine and one human.

Weir presents the interesting idea that Dylan builds an analogy beside Jesus, and nails His human and divine sides to it – to the historical event known as the War of 1812:

Ever since the British burned the White House down
There’s a bleeding wound in the heart of town
(Bob Dylan: Narrow Way)

Wier states: “The implication is that the British need to ‘go back home’ so leaving the
Americans in peace” – the Americans represent the suffering of Christ on the cross while the British symbolize Man redeeming himself by taking responsibility for doing bad things and going home.

The problem is that the analogy flies in the face of historical accuracy – it is the Americans who declare war in 1812 with the intention of looting, plundering, and taking over Canada (British North America); the invading American armies burn York, and British forces respond by burning the White House. American ground forces are ousted from Canada by British troops with the help of Canadians.

Among the Canadian fighters are English, French, and ‘Indian’ characters akin to those portrayed in Dylan’s famous 1964 CBC-TV appearance from the city of Toronto (formerly, York).

So if any religious meaning for ‘Narrow Way’ is warrented better construed it be that God allows the British to set the White House on fire in order to punish the United States of America for its sinful ways. Mama, the country’s only bleeding because it worships the Golden Calf, the Almighty Dollar, and covets its neighbour, Canada – the burning of the White House analogous to the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem; God’s no longer on America’s side.

Such a theme Dylan presents in many of his lyrics – the United States he paints in a red colour as though it were the New Babylon; not the saviour of the world like many US politicians would have it. Furthermore, David Weir’s analysis requires listeners to the song accept, at least in metaphorical terms, that Jesus possesses a Gnostic-like sexual identity. In some verses, Christ appears in the form of a female, he claims:

I gonna have to take my head and bury it between your breasts
(Bob Dylan: Narrow Way)

No doubt the song by Dylan being about the trial and tribulations of relationships between men and women is easier to maintain; out on the D-train, Dylan plays ‘pin the tail on the allusion’.

Ironic Post Modern Art features the montage technique. A songwriter mixes fragmented pieces of the works of other writers, including pieces of his own previous creations, into his songs. The fragmented pieces are supposed to reflect that in modern times every thing is broken:

Look down angel from the stars
Help my weary soul to rise
I kissed her cheek, I dragged your plough
You broke my heart, I was your friend ’til now
(Bob Dylan: Narrow Way)

Bought to mind is the following poem:

Look homeward angel now and melt with ruth
And O ye dolphins waft the hapless youth
(John Milton: Lycidas)

And a song from Dylan himself:

Businessmen, they drink my wine
Ploughmen dig my earth
(Bob Dylan: All Along The Watchtower)

And another:

You’ve got a lot of nerve to say you are
my friend
When I was down you just stood there grinnin’
(Bob Dylan: Positively 4th Street)

In the ‘Narrow Way’, the listener trips over shadows of the Bible;

It’ s a long road, it’s a long and narrow way
(Bob Dylan: Narrow Way)

That being:

Because straight is the gate
And narrow is the way
Which leadeth unto life
And few there is that find it
(Matthew 7: 14)

And over the shades of the Beatles:

The long and winding road that leads to your door
Will never disappear
(Paul McCartney: The Long And Winding Road)

Even more as the moving finger writes, and moves on:

You went and lost your lovely head
For a drink of wine and a crust of bread
(Bob Dylan: Narrow Way)

Bringing it all back home to the drunken Persian:

A book of verses underneath the bough
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness
Oh, wilderness were Paradise enow
(Edward Fitzgerald: Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam)

Indeed, many an allusion there be:

If I had a thousand tongues, I couldn’t count them all
(Bob Dylan: Narrow Way)

And so it goes:

Give me a thousand kisses and a hundred more
(Catulus: To Lesbia)

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This turns up on Another Self Portrait.  I can’t find it on line, so you’ll have to get the album or else go to Spotify  – here’s a link in case you are not familiar with the service…

Wiki tells us that after work on Self Portrait was just about done and dusted a series of sessions were held in New York with George Harrison, Charlie Daniels and Russ Kunkel but nothing came from the sessions that was going to be used.

And the New Yorker in a review called it “a fun if inessential collaboration between Dylan and George Harrison”.

But what Mr Harrison – a man known to be rather interested in gurus – made of it all I am not quite sure.  He seems to be playing along quite happily, so presumably he was in on the joke.

It is in essence a standard 12 bar blues, which means all the musicians can follow Dylan at once without any rehearsal – because everyone who has ever played pop or rock knows how to play extended 12 bar blues.  Hence they can get this sort of result in the first recording without any rehearsals.  It also explains why Bob calls out, after the second verse “Hey one time” indicating the next verse is a guitar solo.  Bob is obviously playing rhythm guitar as normal, holding it all together.

I’m not sure if any lyrics were written down even though Bob clearly had some words in mind, because the repeat of verse two into verse three, and the repeat of verse one in verse four suggests he just had a smattering of an idea.

Anyway, as much because I don’t have anything else to add as for any other reason, here are the lyrics…

Rain all around, windshield wipers movin’
Water on the ground, sure don’t feel like groovin’
Working on a guru
Working on a guru
Working on a guru, before the sun goes down

Rain all around, I need me an umbrella
Water on the ground, I am that kind of fella
Looking for a guru
Working on a guru
Working on a guru, before the sun goes down

Walking on the street, I need me an umbrella
Just to keep it sweet, I am that kind of fella
Looking for a guru
Working on a guru
Working on a guru, before the sun goes down

Rain on the ground, windshield wipers movin’
Water all around, I sure don’t feel like groovin’
I’m working on a guru
Yes, I’m working on a guru
But I’m working on a guru, before the sun goes down

Working on a guru
Working on a guru
Well, it’s true, it could be you
I’m working on a guru

Now there is one area of all this that you might want to indulge in, and maybe even have the ability to disentangle, which is the Church of Bob, which appears in the Dylanchords site and which makes reference to this song.

I am not at all sure my understanding of what is going on there is adequate to bring any further meaning to this song, so I leave that one totally in your hands.  If you want to give a summary of what those pages are all about, please do write in.

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

La Mancha Is Blowing in The Wind:
Bob Dylan And Don Quixote (Part II)

By Larry Fyffe

There are those analysts of Bob Dylan’s songs lyrics who want to strap him into a straight jacket, stuff him in a box marked ‘Serious Hebrew’ or ‘Serious Christian’ or ‘Serious Hebrew-Christian’, and then nail the lid down tight and dump it down a hole in the ground.

Having had lots of funny things happen to him on the way to feed the lions at the Roman Coliseum, the master escapist isn’t that easy to pin down:

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape by society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole he’s in …..
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false goals, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?
(Bob Dylan: It’s alright ma (I’m Only Bleeding))

Then Bob jumps on a bicycle and rides it across a tight-rope while juggling Egyptian Mythology (it carries Sky Mother and Earth Father on its back) with Christian Theology that has its Commander-in-Chief standing on its shoulders (God the Father stretches all the way up to the cloud-strewn canopy of the circus tent).

Dressed as a clown, Dylan looks down and there’s Eve chained to the straw-covered floor by her angry Father. She’s caused Adam to fall off the wire with her when she fell while trying to balance an apple on her nose. It’s a dark and dreary place down there.

In the meantime, Dylan sprinkles Seth, the hyena-headed devil of Egyptian mythology, with star dust and the hairy hyena turns into the goodly father figure of Christian theology. Still on the tight-rope, our singer/songwriter, now attired in the long black cloak and a top hat, pulls back a curtain, taps a silver cane three times, and reveals Satan, surrounded by smoke and mirrors, as the new sparkling symbol of evil .

In short, using the Bible as a template, Bob Dylan, the imaginative artist, creates his own mini-mythologies like that of ‘John Wesley Harding‘, an outlaw of the Old West, who is changed into a saint right in front of our eyes.

The singing alchemist of whom we speak can certainly be described as a Gnostic seeking to perfect body and soul through the medium of a ‘magnum opus’. A strict Gnostic he’s not because Dylan mixes much of the ingrediants for his medicine show down in the burlesque basement with the help of someone called Johnny.

They label the medicine with instructions that say when followed carefully one can not help but smile when it’s consumed; a baloon over a picture of the face of Dale Carnegie is inscribed – ‘slowly pour this stuff into your ear’. And before you know it, visions and versions of Don Quixote and Sanzo Panza will suddenly appear dancing and swirling in your head – like the one below:

Well, John the Baptist, after torturing a thief
Looks at his hero, the Commander-in-Chief
Saying, ‘Tell me, great hero, but please make it brief
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?’
(Bob Dylan: Tombstone Blues)

Miguel de Cervantes might himself appear holding a stolen image of Satan surrounded by flags a-flying:

The banners of Hell’s monarch come towards us
‘Look to discern him’, spake my guide
As when breathes a cloud, heavy and dense
Or when the shades of night fall on our hemisphere
Viewed from afar seems like a windmill
Which the blast stirs briskly around
(Dante: The Divine Comedy -Canto 34)

Perhaps he’ll be accompanied by the Knight of La Mancha who’s saddled up and gargling in a rat-infested washroom of Babylon where he’s tilting at a windmill that looks a lot like an electric razor’:

This is hard country to stay alive in
Blades are everywhere and they’re breaking my skin
I’m armed to the hilt and I’m struggling hard
You won’t get out of here unscarred
It’s a long road, it’s a long and narrow way
If I can’t work up to you, you’ll surely
Have to work down to me some day
(Bob Dylan: Narrow Way)

He’s talking to Saint Paul.

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Tony Attwood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or then again, later still

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

That river has witnessed a lot.

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

and the Byrds

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Larry Fyffe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As pictured below in dark-framed Gnostic imagery:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You might also be interested in

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

.

By Tony Attwood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are the lyrics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

.

By Tony Attwood

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

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

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

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

The other version has a link further down the article.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not so quiet are Moses’ siblings:

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

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

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

She could well be the Queen of Sheba:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I and I: Bob Dylan: an alternative vision

The stranger in Bob Dylan’s “I and I”

Bob Dylan and Rastafarianism

Bob Dylan and the Bible: an Index.

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Tony Attwood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://youtu.be/Kz_w87sU_lg

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

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

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

It starts at around 5 minutes 30 seconds.   

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

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

Here are the lyrics…

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

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

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

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

(Bob Dylan: Oh Sister)

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

(Bob Dylan: She Belongs To Me)

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

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

(Psalm 68: 31)

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

(Revelation 20: 11)

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

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

(Bob Marley: One Cup Of Coffee)

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

(Bob Dylan: One More Cup Of Coffee)

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

(Bob Dylan: Caribbean Wind)

By Tony Attwood

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are the lyrics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Larry Fyffe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Below, the biblical allusion:

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Tony Attwood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By contrast, at one point in this recording Dylan plays

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

as the accompaniment to just one line.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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