Untold Dylan

Part one of this article is here…

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

By Larry Fyffe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Untold Dylan review of this song appears here

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Tony Attwood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Larry Fyffe

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

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

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

The biblical reference is:

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

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

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

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

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

The literary reference is:

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

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

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

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

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

By Tony Attwood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Tony Attwood

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

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

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

And the torment returned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But maybe that’s the point.

Oh Bob.  You certainly know how to torment us.

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Larry Fyffe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Tony Attwood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They’ve Got A Lotta Nerve

by Larry Fyffe

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

Some examples:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Tony Attwood

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

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

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

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

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

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

Starting at 30 seconds into the recording.

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Larry Fyffe

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

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

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

So says the American Romantic Tanscendentalist poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And another by the same Gothic Romantic poet:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paying tribute to a Romantic poet of times gone by:

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Tony Attwood

We’ve got four titles circulating for this song

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you to Lloyd Cox

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Tony Attwood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Larry Fyffe

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

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

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

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

Likewise, below:

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

And again, with a change of Cubic proportions:

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

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

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

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

Double meaning; double standards:

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

Mixed with a dash of black humour:

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

Now and then a switch of rhyming partners:

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

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

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

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

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

Seems Bob Dylan relies on John Henry quite a bit:

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

And everybody lives happy afterwards:

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

DYLAN AND IT TAKES A LOT TO LAUGH: the series

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Tony Attwood

There are three “Tell me” songs by Dylan all told

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

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

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

The first verse is however fairly clearly right

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

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

So we are asking what is he talking about?

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

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

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

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

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

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

But… I am still worried about the lines

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another stage direction and yet another poetic allusion:

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

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

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

A final poetic allusion … thank God:

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

Here the drama ends with Bob Dylan singing:

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

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

By Tony Attwood

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s the Band…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How does

connect with

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Tony Attwood

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

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

And here it is

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

1: Over 470 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Larry Fyffe

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

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

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

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

Well, they’re going to the country, they’re gonna retire
They’re taking a streetcar named desire …
Neither one gonna turn and run
They’re making a voyage to the sun
‘His Master’s Voice is calling me’
Says Tweedle-Dee Dum to Tweedle-Dee Dee
Tweedle-Dee Dee and Tweedle-Dee Dum
All that and more and then some
They walk among stately trees
They know the secrets of the breeze

(Bob Dylan: Tweedle Dee And Tweedle Dum)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

1: Over 470 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Tony Attwood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is Desolation Row.

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

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

What else is on the site

1: Over 470 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Larry Fyffe

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

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

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

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

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

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

Done in is the Modernist poet TS Eliot by Donne:

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

Likewise Bob Dylan:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As in the poem that follows:

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

A feature of Baroque poetry is the colour black:

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

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

What else is on the site

1: Over 470 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

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

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

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

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

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

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