Untold Dylan

By Tony Attwood

I was reading an article in the New Yorker about individual lines from Dylan’s songs, and how they don’t so much become part of who and what you are, but are just there within you. Lyrics that don’t necessarily have a direct meaning but which can be transplanted into our own lives.  Lines that can exist in my head forever but for which I have no idea what direction they lead in nor from when they come.

So I thought of

All the world I would defy

What does that mean, if anything?  Well, actually I can make it mean anything I want.  It is that “would” that trips me up; such an ambiguous word in this context.  And how can I defy the world?  After all it is gravity which pulls us down all the time and destiny that drives us apart.  I defy other critics, and the mainstream views of reality with my original thoughts (or so I like to think) but do I really have a total defiance of “all the world”.  Can anyone?

This is a constant issue with me and Dylan.  I am not sure what some of the lines actually mean or if they mean anything at all – it is just that they seem to mean something, although not always the same thing as they meant yesterday.  Maybe it is just that they sound like they ought to mean something.  By which I mean, when Bob sings

I can’t believe it, I can’t believe I’m alive

we know exactly what he is thinking, and if we are lucky we’ve shared that feeling of buoyancy and vitality too, despite all that the world throws at us.  Likewise at the other end of the spectrum when he says

I can’t even touch the books you’ve read,

maybe we know that pain, that anger, that bitterness, after the loss of a loved one.

OK all that I get, but when we have

He took dead-center aim but he missed just the same
She was waiting, putting flowers on the shelf
She could feel my despair as I climbed up her hair
And discovered her invisible self

then I have a mixed sort of image of what is going on, but I can’t translate it into any other words.  It is in fact the world of the Untranslatably Inexpiable Dylan.  UI-Dylan for short.  And I love it.

Often I can half appreciate the notion, as with

Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet

But when we have

All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they’re quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name

that really turned my head over when I heard it for the first time – the notion that one might have such a strong negative opinion of people that one could then go a step further and change their actual beings.  Not giving them nicknames or put down names, no, something much further down the road than that.  Something that says I can actually change them, because reality is not the world, but the way I see the world.

Change of the fundamental reality is the eternal constant of Dylan’s songs…

And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin

But he expresses it in so many different, alluring, unforgettable ways.  Here’s another line it is hard to forget once you have heard it…

But there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off

And why is that?  Well, because all the world (which “I would defy”) that we perceive is not real…  There really is nothing out there, apart from what I have created.

We’re idiots, babe,

Of course one of things we are always doing with Bob is moving on, because we’ve just gotta keep moving as Robert Johnson instructed now that the blues are falling down like hail.   And we can move on because the trains are everywhere in Dylan whether he has

Got white skin, got assassin’s eyes
I’m looking up into the sapphire-tinted skies
I’m well dressed, waiting on the last train

or whether he is on the bottom looking up, riding the mail train with so little left that he can’t even buy a thrill.   And maybe that contrast is the key to a lot of Dylan’s more obscure lines.  That change of place between the person at the top and the person at the bottom.

I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment
I could be you
Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is
To see you

And who are these people?  Often we just don’t know, for they are the shadow people, the people in the street, on the train, in the club.   She might be real to Bob, but she is not real to us.  For when you see her…

The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face.

More than anything Bob uses his lyrics to open up this secondary world that lies in the shadows of what we choose to call reality, but which in essence is just another construct of our minds.

Bring down my fiddle
Tune up my strings
I’m gonna break it wide open
Like the early Roman kings

There are always alternative realities available, and it is simply our fault if we don’t recognise this and start to consider the possibilities…

I fought with my twin, that enemy within
Till both of us fell by the way
Horseplay and disease is killing me by degrees
While the law looks the other way.

I am two people, with two realities, looking out into the unknown.  Of course we can’t reply on the law, because we can’t even rely on the world being as we think it is through our everyday common sense notions of reality.

Somehow there is a need to get away from all this, so that we can see the world as it really is, rather than the world that we see through common expediency.

Time and again with Dylan we get to see that there is no one single real world we face, but a multiplicity of worlds, all existing together, all pointing in different directions.

There’s a babe in the arms of a woman in a rage
And a longtime golden-haired stripper onstage
And she winds back the clock and she turns back the page
Of a book that no one can write
Oh, where are you tonight?

All these notions exist at once and have always existed at once

Having so much nothingness there is ultimately…

Now, too much of nothing
Can make a man feel ill at ease
One man’s temper might rise
While another man’s temper might freeze
In the day of confession
We cannot mock a soul
Oh, when there’s too much of nothing
No one has control

My point is simple.  Sometimes these lines have a coherence, but sometimes they are a reflection of those random thoughts that flock into our minds (if we let them in) and which lead in all directions and no direction, at once.  These are the thoughts that lead us to the palace of wisdom.   We might start from an image (“Louise and her lover so entwined”) or within the journey itself (“There’s a long-distance train rolling through the rain, tears on the letter I write,”) but wherever we start, and whatever side of Dylan we are looking at, we are so often on the outside looking in.

And quite probably so is Untranslatably Inexpiable Bob.

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order at the foot of 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 all 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 recently started to produce 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.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that 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 please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.

The Gospel Of Bob Dylan

by Larry Fyffe

Bob Dylan has always been critical of orthodox thinking by anyone including those who religiously follow folk, or blues, or rocknroll, as being the ultimate in terms of music. That gospel music with it’s lyrics has the ability to emotionally affect listeners cannot be denied.

What escapes many listeners is that Dylan, unlike say Elvis, intentionally throws in double-edged lyrics with the evangelistic gospel sound. He warns individuals not to take lyrics as unquestioningly imparting the Truth, the Whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth:

(Bob Dylan: When He returns)

Though orthodox believers would not agree, the lyrics above as Dylan sings them – in view of Lord Buckley’s (‘The Nazz’) influence on the singer – can even be construed as burlesque.

In any event, there’s more interpretations – whether literal or metaphorical – in the quoted lyrics above than a listener can shake a stick at!

One being rather Existentialistic – individuals have a duty to carry on regardless of God’s commands since the Lord is completely disinterested – apparently unaffected by one’s behaviour: ‘He is unconcerned’.

A strong dyed-in-the-blood orthodox interpretation can also be offered:

(Book Of Proverbs: 16:4)

One might also place these Dylan’s lyrics in the context of his works as a whole, and contend that Dylan ribs various religions -Judaism, Puritanism, Calvinism, and Wesleyanism – for fiddling with such contentious issues as ‘predestination’, ‘original sin’, ‘faith alone’, and ‘good works’.

Wesleyanism:

(Bob Dylan: John Wesley Harding)

Judaism:

Oh, God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”

(Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited)

As either song writer or interpreter thereof, one needn’t go down well-trodden paths.

Not a gospel in the traditional sense, Dylan presents a parable in the following lyrics:

(Bob Dylan: Soon After Midnight)

There be an allusion to:

Iron Maiden’s Charotte is not the materialistic and selfish Whore of Babylon of the Bible, but a Christ-like woman who sacrifices herself for the love of mankind. In terms of Gnosticism, Alchemy, and the Humour elements of earth, air, fire, and water, she’s associated with air, hot and moist. And also with blood, and the heart; with spring and youth; with the Thunder God Zeus.

On the other hand, Bob Dylan dresses Mary Magdalene in green, the colour of earth in summertime; she’s a reformed prostitute – matured, yet still youthful in spirit, dedicated to her man. According to Gnostic Christianity, Jesus said to her:

In short, it’s up to others to carry on the teachings of Jesus, to enliven His Spirit. That’s because the physical life of Jesus is gone – for Him, it’s midnight. And Mary Magadelene now too is dead; it’s after midnight, and she’s a ‘fairy queen’:

Saith Bob Dylan:

That is, there’ll soon be a changing of the guard.

Jesus will return, but in what way is the question – He’s got plans of his own to set up His throne.

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order at the foot of 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 all 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 recently started to produce 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.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that 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 please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.

Bob Dylan And Christian Gnosticism

by Larry Fyffe

Gnosticism seeks to understand the purpose of mankind’s existence through the study of magic, alchemy, mythology, and astrology: ie, according to some practitioners, to create an awareness of the Oneness of the Universe, physical intercourse between the two sexes is a method of connecting the individual body to the spirituality that exists within the mind, and in the external world of nature. Another method is to magically mix, down in the basement, musical medicine with metaphorical lyrics..

Like an injured wolf unable to chase down a deer or a raven unable to land, most Earth-bound human beings are incapable of comprehending the future of the Universe that has been mapped out by the mysterious Spirit. Encased in a physical body, mankind, he got no wings – a Gnostic view that remains in segments of the Judeo-Christian Bible:

But it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard
Neither have entered into the heart of man
The things which God hath prepared
For them that that love him.
(Corinthians I, 2:9)

According to the Christian form of Gnosticism, Jesus cannot be physically injured because he is an emanation from that Spirit, symbolized by the Morning Star and the Sun. Individual humans can kindle the spiritual spark that’s lies dormant within their dark hearts by getting in touch with Jesus; they are ‘reborn’ when the hidden meanings within the parables spoken by Jesus dawn upon them:

Night after night, day after day
They strip your useless hopes away
The more I take, the more I give
The more I die, the more I live
(Bob Dylan: Pay In Blood)

In short, for human beings to have an awareness of light, there must be darkness also:

And Jesus said, ‘Who ever finds the interpretation
Of these sayings, will not experience death’
(The Gospel Of Thomas 1)

The High Priests of orthodox religion do not like those who fear not death.

Thinkers with a anti-establishment bent, like Saint Paul, Emanual Swedenborg, poet William Blake, Joseph Smith, and singer/songwriter Bob Dylan lay claim to at least one epithany or spiritual vision of Christ.

Orthodox Christian churches have omitted most Gnostic writings from their canon. Specifically omitted are the writings that through parables indicate that all earthly humans, including the female of the species, to one extent or another, be fragmented emanations from the One Spirit of Light:

Jesus said, ‘Recognize what is in your sight
And that which is hidden will become plain to you
For there is nothing hidden which will not become manifest’
(The Gospel Of Thomas 5)

At times, but not all the time, Bob Dylan writes male-oriented parables that suggest the ‘other’ within himself, and without, has less potential for a spiritual awakening – the Moon-guided female:

Stay, lady stay, stay with your man for awhile
Why wait any longer for the world to begin
You can have your cake and eat it too
Why wait any longer for the one you love
When he’s standing in front of you?
(Bob Dylan: Lay, Lady, Lay)

Mary Magdalene is a Gnostic Christian symbol of a ‘fallen’ spirit that gets redeemed, gets in touch with the Spiritual Oneness of the Universe, through her role as a reflector of the male Sun.

Speaking to disciples:

Jesus said, ‘I myself shall lead her
In order to make her male so that she too
May become a living spirit resembling you males
For every woman who will make herself male
Will enter the kingdom of heaven’
(The Gospel Of Thomas 114)

Birds too, like the dark raven and the white swan, are Gnostic symbols of man’s attempt to free his imagination from the confines of what political and social authorites in modern society consider to be the rational right way to live:

Let the bird sing, let the bird fly
One day the man in the moon went home
And the river went dry
(Bob Dylan: Under The Red Sky)

Bringing it all back home to Bob Dylan’s namesake, a Gnostic-influenced poet:

Children of darkness got no wings
This we know, we got no wings
Stay in a circle chalked upon the floor
Waiting all vainly this we know
(Dylan Thomas: Children Of Darkness)

According to Christian Gnostics, such is the paradox, the enigma, the mystery of human existence:

Jesus said, ‘If the flesh came into being because of the spirit
It is a wonder
But if the spirit came into being because of the body
It is a wonder of wonders’
(The Gospel Of Thomas 29)

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order at the foot of 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 all 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 recently started to produce 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.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that 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 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 Bev

Bob Dylan performed in Boston on November. 16 at the Agganis Arena beginning at about 8:45 pm.

He was preceded by Mavis Staples, whose affection, energy and spirit were uplifting. She spoke of “Bobby, indeed” without a lot of words but at the start expressed how honored she was to open for him and loved his music. Dylan had his Oscar on the amplifier as usual – and something else gold and fancy. There was also the usual bust of a pretty young woman in a James Whistler-style. As I write, I am listening to Dylan sing “Early mornin’ rain” on a Boston local public radio station. Is there anything this lyricist-singer can’t do?

The performance was spectacular because Dylan’s voice was deep and clear – I even heard a vibrato occasionally. It was just about 90 mins. The lights turned off – and then back on – between songs, no speaking to the audience. I understand this because previously, if he simply says “hello” or “thank you” the audience yells – demands new songs, asks questions, is rather annoying and I have seen some jump on to the stage with him. No cell phone on were permitted; not binoculars in the first rows, no picture-taking.

He rearranged many songs – some hardly recognizable at first (except to fans like me) – he wore no hat so his long curly, now grey, hair was easily seen.

His re-do of Desolation Row was questionable – but if he likes it this way is good enough for me. As I think about this performance, it was a greeting from an ageing Dylan who is still musically-inspired by what emanates from inside him. His joy is palpable, and it spread around the arena. This is a Dylan who is taking us into the future – and is celebrating the present with his endless touring – and is not grooving in the past. A Washington Post article by Joe Heim, Nov. 15, says the show at the Anthem was “riveting and oddly removed.” I would argue that is about us – not Bob Dylan.

The night after Dylan’s performance, I attended a performance at the first benefits-coffee house in the Boston area, and heard a band and a duo sing songs that originated in the Dylan era or which were influenced by him: Tom Wait’s O1’ 55, “Now the sun’s coming up, I’m riding with Lady Luck”, and Starry Starry Night (Don McLean), and Tall Pines by Laurie Larson.

While listening, all I could think about were those who have passed and who influenced Dylan: Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie particularly, and those he adored: Levon Helm and Tom Petty. This Friday night coffee house is not the Café Wha?” in Greenwich Village but its history begins there. And with Johnny Cash, Harry Belafonte, Peter Yarrow and so many others who appeared in the Village.

Singing about how he feels, and writing about things that had not been done previously – Bob Dylan knew at age 21 he was bringing something new to writing and singing in the early 60s, and of course first in Greenwich Village.  So those of us who follow him closely value his archive, his gifts to us – and thus a show that re-orders his hits, and includes covers of the classic American songs can be confusing.

Yet, I feel his current work displays some gratitude for his influences, his acknowledged freedom to be who he is, and to bring truth to our world. His new bootleg, “Trouble No More, Volume 13,” and the extensive liner notes by Rob Bowman (a co-producer of Grammy-award winning “Soulsville USA: The Story of Stax Records”) speak of its relevance to today.  And our own acceptance or rejection of Dylan’s works is about us – not him.

His passion for his songs continues, unabated. We can all learn from this. His Christian period was short-lived as we know: his Jewish heritage continued to figure into his personal reflections and story-telling, as documented by Seth Rogovoy, his Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet.

During the performance, I watched Dylan sit and bend over his piano – and when standing – cautiously swing from side to side during the set; he wore his dark pants with white stripes and his usual white boots. At the mic by himself, he sang Autumn Leaves and Melancholy Mood – these tell us about growing older, and valuing relationships and potential romance.

Is this the Dylan we’ve always known? Yes, and he is older and appreciating the meditative value of such songs and their longevity.  Love Sick was the ending but not before he came back for an encore of Blowin’ in the Wind and Ballad of a Thin Man; the last is a favorite of mine. While re-arrangements lack the defiance and anger one could suppose in the original songs, the lyrics-messages still ring loud and clear and there are still the provocations he creates through his more mysterious allegories and assertions.

I felt his band had more than a rock and roll energy – and I am not sure how one would describe it. Occasionally, it overwhelmed the Dylan vocals. This was not because the audio was poor, but the band simply dominated from time to time. I would have liked if they were a bit more background, not the “star.” But obviously what they did is exactly what Dylan wanted. It was 90 min. exactly and then featured the two encores. Lots of people standing and dancing – an affectionate crowd of all ages in a really nice venue at Boston University.

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order at the foot of 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 all 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 recently started to produce 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.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that 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 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

Picking the best Dylan songs is a strange game – and not one I am particularly good at playing.  I can put a list together, but then think – oh no, I’ve missed this or that one out and so the list never ends.  Also I can get fed up with certain songs I have heard too often – I am sure that is a failing in me, but that’s how it goes.  So I leave them alone for a while, and then come back and realise just how good they are.

Anyway, lots of magazines and newspapers have played the game of the top 10 or top 20 or (in one case I found, top 350) Dylan songs.  I have just chosen a few and compared them (below).

And then just for fun did something else: I compared them with the 10 songs, the reviews of which on this site, have been looked at the most, in the past year.  There’s an interesting difference.  I don’t know what it tells us, but somehow it does seem interesting.

So here we go.  Dylan’s 10 best compositions according to…

Rolling Stone

1. Like a rolling stone
2. Hard rain’s a gonna fall
3. Tangled up in blue
4. Just like a woman
5. All along the watch tower
6. I shall be released
7. It’s alright ma
8. Mr Tambourine Man
9. Visions of Johanna
10. Every grain of sand

Billboard

1. Blowing in the wind
2. Like a rolling stone
3. It’s alright ma
4. Tangled up in Blue
5. Hard Rain’s a gonna fall
6. Visions of Johanna
7. Subterranean Homesick Blues
8. All along the watch tower
9. Every grain of sand
10. Not dark yet

Now already we can see certain patterns emerging, so I thought for the next one I would try an English (rather than American) publication, and found a listing in the Daily Telegraph.  This is a right wing newspaper, but which does make more of a serious attempt to stay with the facts than many, and is not averse to doing some valuable investigative journalism.  Its readership tends to be aged 50 plus.

Daily Telegraph

1. Tangled up in blue
2. Blowing in the Wind
3. A hard rain’s a gonna fall
4. Jokerman
5. Simple twist of Fate
6. Like a rolling stone
7. Visions of Johanna
8. Hurricane
9. Ballad of a Thin man
10. Knockin on heaven’s door

So some songs not included in either of the first two selections.  “Jokerman”, “Simple Twist of Fate” I can understand, but the last three – I wouldn’t have them in the top ten.

Having seen that list I then went for an American newspaper…

USA Today

1. Mississippi
2. Visions of Johanna
3. Like a Rolling Stone
4. Abandoned Love
5. Not dark yet
6. Times they are a changing
7. Shelter from the storm
8. Desolation Row
9. Just like a woman
10. Tangled up in blue

Interesting that USA Today put in a song at number one that no one else listed – and again at number four.  I put in a link just in case you’d forgotten “Abandoned Love”.  Anyway those were the four lists I found – there are of course thousands more – and then I made a list of the songs that appeared in more than one of the four lists, noting the number of listings each got.  Not special reason – it just seemed fun.

Total number of listings in the publications excluding those with just one vote.

1. Like a Rolling Stone: 4
2. Tangled up in blue: 4
3. Visions of Johanna: 4
4. Hard Rain: 3
5. Blowing in the wind: 2
6. Just like a woman: 2
7. It’s alright ma: 2
8. All along the watchtower: 2
9. Every grain of sand: 2

I am not sure any of these is particularly unexpected.  But then I thought I would have a look at the ten songs whose reviews have been accessed the most number of times in the past year on this site…

Readership of Untold Dylan reviews

1. Hard Rain’s a gonna fall (3 magazine votes)
2. To fall in love with you
3. Make you feel my love
4. Tangled up in blue (4 magazine votes)
5. Times they are a changing (1 magazine vote)
6. Jokerman (1 magazine vote)
7. Visions of Johanna (4 magazine votes)
8. Blowing in the wind (2 magazine votes)
9. I shall be released (1 magazine vote)
10. Only a pawn in their game

So three of the songs on our list of most accessed posts don’t make it at all into the magazine lists.  “Make you feel my love” is interesting, in that Rolling Stone called it “a spare ballad undermined by greetingcard lyrics”.  I personally love the song – but then I like all types of songs – and was surprised by the negativity it got.  And then surprised that so many people want to read our review of it.

“To fall in love with you” is perhaps a little more understandable in that my review called it “The greatest of all the lost Dylan masterpieces” and we’re helped by the fact that if you type the title of the song, we come top of the list on page one of Google (apart from a link to a recording of the song, which they generally put top when there is one).

“Only a pawn” is the other song on our most accessed list that doesn’t feature in the four top tens.  Not sure why that song is so popular with our readers, but the readers are always right.

I can’t really finish this little ramble without my personal list.  It includes a few like Tell Ol Bill that no one else rates at all.  I’ve put a couple of links in to those oddball selections, just in case you wonder why I rate them so highly.

1. Tell Ol’ Bill
2. Visions of Johanna
3. When He returns (live version)
4. Ballad for a friend
5. Mississippi
6. To fall in love with you
7. Things have changed
8. Desolation Row
9. Tangled up in blue
10. Not Dark Yet

You can find an alphabetical index of all the songs on this site on the home page – just scroll down.

Bob Dylan: Songs Of Alchemy

by Larry Fyffe

Many symbols in the song lyrics of Bob Dylan come from the proto-science, psychology included, that undertaken by the Alchemists. The remnants of Alchemist thought remain scattered throughout the Judeo-Christian Bible.

Dylan often uses symbols -concise images with contextual meaning – that appear in ancient Greek/Roman mythology and cosmology. For instance, Mercury is the quick-moving son of Zeus, the god of Thunder; Apollo is the golden Sun-god who burns the white raven black for not preventing his earth woman from straying; Diana is the silver Moon-goddess, Apollo’s twin sister, both the offspring of Zeus; Jupiter(Zeus) is the rebellious son of Saturn who overthrows his father; Leda is an earth woman, impregnated by a swan(Zeus in disguise) – she gives birth to Helen of Troy; Venus, daughter of Zeus, rides a half-shell upon water – one of the four basic elements, according to the the science of the times, along with fire, air, and earth – the balance of these elements in body fluids determines the overall character of an individual.

Named after the fastest-moving god-planet, the Alchemists believe ‘mercury’ transforms base metals into precious silver and gold. The Alchemists develop an analogical cosmology around the physical process used – a Gnostic belief system that considers the sexual union between a man and woman to be analogous to merging these two precious metals into an ethereal awareness of an untouchable God; emanations from the far-away Godhead include Mercury, the Moon, and the Morning Star.

Below, a Christian hymn, Gnostic in style and content under the influence of the ‘Song of Solomon’:

He’s the the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star
He’s the face of ten thousand to my soul
(Charles Fry: The Lily Of The Valley)

Intermediary spirits, like the Morning Star, intuitively receive messenges from the far-off and unknowable Absolute Spirit, and convey them to the material beings trapped on Earth.

The doubled-edged song lyrics below can easily be interpreted in the terms of Gnostic Alchemy:

But you changed my life
Came along in a time of strife
From silver and gold to what man cannot hold
You changed my life
(Bob Dylan:You changed my life)

Explicit sexuality, artistically expressed in Holy Bible (ie, Song Of Solomon), is euphemistically expunged by orthodox Christian leaders; interpreted instead as a utopian union between the Bride of Christ (His Church) and the Bridegroom, Jesus.

The Biblical canon in the modern times of Christian missionaries attempts to bury Gnostic imagery, but the imagery survives – the following double-edged song lyrics interpreted as a recognition of this:

With your mercury mouth in the missionary times
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes
And your silver cross and your voice like chimes
Oh, who among them do they think could bury you?
(Bob Dylan: Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands)

A prose-poem depicting overwhelming female love, by a Canadian writer, springs to mind – it’s banned in her home and native land:

It says, I remain, I am, I shall never cease to be
Your memory will grow a deathly glaze
You will forget, you will fade out, but I can’t be undone
(Elizabeth Smart: By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept)

The ‘humour theory” hypothesizes that ‘black bile’, composed from the element earth, causes individuals to be ‘melancholic’, to be sorrowful – a psychological disturbance that is associated with mythology’s elderly Saturn. In the Gnostic system of the Alchemists, the raven, a bird of prey, because it’s able to fly up into the air for awhile, symbolizes the soul’s unsuccessful bid to escape from the physical body – nor can the raven of the Bible get any satisfaction, any peace, any rest:

And he sent forth a raven which went forth, to and fro
Until the waters were dried up from off the earth
(Book Of Genesis 8:7)

In a song by Dylan, the alchemy symbol is rendered even less capable of ignoring bodily urges:

My love she’s like some raven
At my window with a broken wing
(Bob Dylan:Love Minus Zero )

The vengeful God of the Old Testament is represented as a sunlit star in the Judeo-Christian Bible:

The Lord bless and keep thee
The Lord make His face shine upon thee
And be gracious unto thee
The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee
And give thee peace
( Book Of Numbers 6:24-26)

Some of the time, but not all of the time, so expressed by Dylan as well:

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
(Bob Dylan: Forever Young )

The white swan of Gnostic Alchemy, like Greek mythology, represents earthly sexual union with the God of Thunder as being a rather dark experience:

A sudden blow: The great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By dark webs, her nape caught in his bill
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast
(William Yeats: Leda And The Swan)

A somewhat modified image of God – one of light, rather than of darkness – is found in the Holy Bible:

A bundle of myrrh, is my well-beloved unto me
He shall lie all night betwixt my breasts
(Song Of Solomon 1:13)

Bob Dylan offers up a parody:

Saddle me up my big white goose
Tie me on’er and turn her loose
Oh me, oh my
Love that country pie
(Bob Dylan: Country Pie)

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order at the foot of 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 all 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 recently started to produce 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.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that 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 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 Ann Alenjandro

The story had to take place in Colorado or Wyoming, the only states that had diamond mines at the time except for Arkansas, and this is not an Arkansas song.

Rosemary, Big Jim and the Jack of Hearts had no love lost between them because of Lily, who was Big Jim’s mistress, but the Jack of Hearts was her true love. She had come from a broken home and traveled many places where she had lots of strange affairs, but only the outlaw Jack of Hearts had taken her heart before leaving her.

Now she had fancy dresses and plenty of baubles from her sugar daddy, Big Jim, whom she did not love but by whom she was loved, perhaps possessed more than loved. Big Jim wasn’t going to have the object of his affection have her own long lost object of love.

Big Jim had seen the picture of the Jack of Heats somewhere – a picture on Lily’s shelf? A picture on Rosemary’s shelf? Rosemary came in late determined to get revenge on Big Jim who cheated on her with his mistress the showgirl Lily. This haze of memory from Big Jim’s seeing the real Jack of Hearts made him realize that the Jack was Lily’s true love.

Rosemary contemplating her reflection in the knife is determined to put an end to the misery of the life she knows. And she does not care about her fate—only that it not be chained to the powerful man who is her husband but does not love her. The back stage manager sensed some of the many funny things that were going on—the drilling and the two murders being planned.  The fact that the leading actor was hooded, in the costume of a monk, only adds to the sense of an impending death.

When he made his usual entrance, both  big Jim and Jack were staring at Lily who had just drawn the card of her outlaw & vanished lover, the Jack of Hearts who was back,  to avenge both Lily and Big Jim for betraying a love the Jack had already abandoned & betrayed.

Jack probably didn’t care whether he left town with Lily or Jim’s fortune; either one would be a proper revenge on Big Jim, and Jack did not participate in his gang’s robbery. He wanted to set eyes on Lily. The frenetic pace of the music shows that a lost love quadrangle is playing out & not going to end well.. What better way for Jack of Hearts to have his revenge on Big Jim than to break into the bank and clean out both Big Jim’s money and his diamonds, and if Lily decided to come along and meet the thieves later, Big Jim would be ruined financially, as well as by losing Lily’s love, which, recalling the photograph, he realized he had never had quite placed—on Lily’s shelf, or less likely  on Rosemary’s.

This enraged Big Jim-how dare either of his “objects”  love another man? Lily, left long ago by The Jack whom she loved, felt bitter toward the lover who had just come back into her life, “Don’t Touch the Wall, there’s a brand-new coat of paint; I’m glad to see you still alive, you looking like a Saint” by implication means Lily knew Jack was NOT.

Big Jim came into Lily’s room and was prepared to kill the Jack; his Colt revolver was chambered and cocked (“clicked”) and ready to fire on Jack. Following her cheating husband into his mistress’s room, Rosemary really has a choice about how to end the despair of her loveless life in a role (another actor in the piece, really) she did not want to play any longer in a life she did not want to live any longer.

In one last dramatic act, Rosemary could rob Jim of his fortune, his mistress, and his desire to murder a rival. Rosemary, the only true innocent in the set piece, sacrifices her own life by taking Big Jim’s, and perhaps freeing Lily too, to be with her true love. By the next morning, the Jack of Hearts had escaped with his gang & Big Jim’s money and diamonds. Lily had already buried her fancy dress away as easily as she had buried the memory of Big Jim, and taken all of the dye out of her hair; whatever happened, she was never going to be a role for an audience, a possession of a man again. She could either leave town, leave the state, begin a new life freed, or she could meet up with the Jack of Hearts which does not seem likely, since he had failed her too.

Rosemary was content on the gallows because life identity-less and  loveless was not worth living, she had destroyed the man who had destroyed her and perhaps in a feeling of “So much the better” stoicism / indifference to her own being as well, she had given Lily her freedom even as the gallows were freeing her from a life so hurt, yet at least she could feel she done “one good deed” before she died.

Lily, back to her natural self, was free to go live whatever life she chose. At some point in her life, perhaps Rosemary  too had loved the Jack of Hearts. Lily’s hand, after all, contained two queens and the Jack of Hearts, who was perhaps the true love of both women.

Lily’s last thoughts were “most of all” on the Jack of Hearts: both women had lost a man they didn’t love and don’t the Bad Boys like the Jack of Hearts ( a nave, a ne’er do well) ALWAYS betray and make their getaway?

Rosemary sentenced herself to death by preventing the Jack of Heart’s death. The redemptive resignation to Rosemary’s death by hanging was that she had taken revenge on the husband who did not love her, and “freed” herself and two others, two (or three, if she had once loved the Jack also)  other un-innocent people who had hurt her deeply, betrayed her, and caused her to make an end of the life of which she despaired—three cards, three love triangles “buried away” just like Lily’s dress and the life she would never live again.

Other articles you might enjoy in relation to this song…

• Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts: the meanings behind Dylan’s song
• Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts: revealing the source of this and other Dylan songs (Part 1)
• Bob Dylan and Damon Runyon: Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts and other songs (Part II)
• Source Of Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts (Part III)

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order at the foot of 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 all 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 recently started to produce 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.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that 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 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

Writings on the subject of ‘Gnosticism’ are an entangled mixed-up mess , even more confusing than writings about religious beliefs considered to be orthodox.

Fragments from the ruins of the Gnostic balcony remain in the Judeo-Christian Bible:

So God created man in his own image
In the image of God created he him
Male and female created he them
(Genesis 1:27).

Interpreted by some readers that the essentially unknowable God be an Hermaphrodite; by others that from man (Adam), whom God created, woman (Eve) is cleaved. The first interpretation is the Gnostic view, whether of the Jewish or Christian variety.

The orthodox biblical understanding that mankind’s disobedience of the Almighty God is responsible for the existence of evil contrasts with the Gnostic view, or at least some variations thereof, that man is trapped in a corrupt physical world created by a God lesser (said by some Gnostic writers to be the Jehovah of the Old Testament) than the Absolute Spirit of Goodness.

In relatively recent times, Emanuel Swedenborg came up with a scientific theory that develops into the modern “nubular hypothesis” – that planets surrounding a sun result from the re-solidification of gases thrown off by the explosion of a huge star.

Swendenborg transforms this scienitific theory into a modern version of Gnosticism – the corruptrd physical world of Earth that heretofore has above it spirits akin to Apollo, the sun-God, and Diana, the moon-goddess, is now enveloped by the ever-present loving spirit of Jesus, committed to the reformation of his wayward Bride.

Swedenborgian mysticism is detected in the dark Romantic (not sunny Transcendental) poem below that depicts mankind as forged in the image of a Deistic God, more masculine than feminine:

Cruelty has a human heart
And jealously a human face
Terror the human form divine
And secrecy, the human dress
The human dress is forged iron
The human form, a fiery forge
The human face, a furnace sealed
The human heart, its hungry gorge
(William Blake: A Divine Image)

Rather like the image presented in the following song about a man who seeks to rise above above his corrupt material body that has been forged; a song that references ‘To see the world in a grain of sand’ (Blake), and ‘And I hold within my hand/Grains of golden sand’ (Poe):

Don’t have the inclination to look back on any mistake
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break …..
I gaze into the doorway of 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)

According to Gnosticism, from this world corrupted by material values, an individual’s physical body may find relief with earthly death:

Swooning swim to less and less
Aspirant to nothingness
Sobs of the world, and dole of kinds
That dumb endurers be –
Nirvana! absorb us in your skies
Annul us into thee
(Herman Melville: Buddah)

As indicated by the pun in the title of the story of ‘Billy Budd’, Melville speaks not of nihilism, but of nothingness – ie, the unknowable God of the Gnostics:

Standing next to me in this lonely crowd
Is a man who swears he’s not to blame
All day long I hear him shout so loud
Crying out that he was framed
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east
Any day now, any day now
I shall be released
(Bob Dylan: I Shall Be Released)

It’s a view long expressed in the double-edged song lyrics written by Bob Dylan, lyrics that are so often interpreted (twisted and turned by Kees de Graaf, for example) as simply following orthodox Christian thought – the ‘Madonna And Child’ painted yet again, as it were.

Then along comes Edgar Allan Poe, whose symbolism is often alluded to by Bob Dylan, ie in ‘Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts:’

The rosemary nods upon the grave
The lily lolls upon the wave
Wrapping the fog about its breast
The ruins moulders into rest
(Poe: The Sleeper)

Poe, the poet, transforms the Gnostic-like mysticism expressed in his poetry into ‘scientific creationism’ in a long prose poem of his – like a Swedenborg-in-reverse who turns science into mystic spiritualism. The modern scientice -backed ‘Big Bang’ of a ‘singularity’ that reverses into a ‘Big Crunch’, is clearly suggested:

From the one Particle, as a centre, let us suppose
to be irradiated spherically – in all directions –
to immeasurable but still to definite distances
in the previously vacant space – a certain inexpressibly great
yet limited number of unimaginably yet not infinitely minute atoms
(Poe: Eureka)

And so it is sung:

It was gravity which pulled us down
And destiny which broke us apart
You tamed the lion in my cage
But it just wasn’t enough to change my heart
(Bob Dylan: Idiot Wind)

Johnny has mixed-up the medicine:

Well, my head’s full of questions
My temperature’s risin’ fast
Well, I’m lookin’ for some answers
But don’t know who to ask
(Mixed-up Confusion)

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order at the foot of 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 all 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 recently started to produce 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.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that 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 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 song is given an added level of curiosity since as far as I can see although it is listed in Heylin’s “Revolution in the Air” and mentioned four times, there is no commentary upon it – and Heylin seems to comment on everything, including songs that no one has ever heard.  I’m not sure why he missed the commentary on this one out – although maybe it was added in a later edition. Still, early on, did he forget, or did he really think the song was not worthy of comment?

The song appears on both Freewheelin’ and on the Whitmark Demos with variant words (where it is a pony not a sports car for example) and this Whitmark edition it is very much an early version.  The Freewheelin version is much more polished, more lively and more fun.

There’s one other version I have found which is worth hearing, and a link to Syd Barrett, which is always worth mentioning; I’ll come to those later.

But back to the start…

The official Dylan site says the song was never sung in public although elsewhere I have found a reference to it being performed on WBAI FM, New York, in a three song setlist.  So not in front of a public audience – but to the public via radio.

What we do know is that the song on the album was recorded on July 9, 1962, at the same time as Blowing in the Wind (which was written shortly before), Down the Highway and Honey just allow me. 

Indeed Blowing in the Wind gets a sort of mention in passing…

Well, the wind keeps a-blowin’ me
Up and down the street
With my hat in my hand
And my boots on my feet
Watch out so you don’t step on me

And Dylan is mostly having fun, which means (at this time) he is full of the contradictions and nonsense that he seemed to like so much…

Well, lookit here buddy
You want to be like me
Pull out your six-shooter
And rob every bank you can see
Tell the judge I said it was all right
Yes!

Basically the song is a simple variation on the 12 bar blues with a further variant in the instrumental break.  It’s just a fun piece – but none the worse for that.  As with…

Well, the Lone Ranger and Tonto
They are ridin’ down the line
Fixin’ ev’rybody’s troubles
Ev’rybody’s ’cept mine
Somebody musta tol’ ’em
That I was doin’ fine

And we also get a little look ahead to “It Ain’t Me Babe” with the “go away from my door” line

Oh you five and ten cent women
With nothin’ in your heads
I got a real gal I’m lovin’
And Lord I’ll love her till I’m dead
Go away from my door and my window too
Right now

As I mentioned I’ve just found one cover version on line which is quite interesting to hear as we know the Dylan version so well.  I’m not too sure about the choice of accompanying film, but I can see what the person who made the piece was heading towards.  But Dylan as a hobo, and Chaplain as a hobo… to me it is stretching it a bit.

But what I really would like to introduce you to, if you don’t know it is the Syd Barrett song “Bob Dylan Blues”  written in 1965.

I am not sure how much the fame of Syd and his extraordinary compositions lives on beyond people of my generation in my country, but if you really don’t know about Syd you might care to investigate further.  He was (to my mind) the driving force (certainly in terms of compositions) behind Pink Floyd at the start, and the rambling solo albums he made after leaving Floyd contains such gems and promise – a promise that tragically we were never able to to hear fulfilled.

This is of course a very early song and not representative of what Syd could achieve.  But then we never did find out what Syd Barrett could achieve.  Roger Waters, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” was sung for Syd.

From what I have read Syd Barrett and Dave Gilmour did apparently see a Bob Dylan show in London in 1963, and so the guess is that “Bob Dylan Blues” was written just after that.  It is certainly very early in his writing career.  This recording was made in 1970.

I saw Pink Floyd once with Syd Barrett in the band, at an end of year ball at Sussex University.  Jimi Hendrix was on the bill too.  Ah, memories…

Syd Barrett’s eventually health problems took him back to live in his family home after the release of his albums and as far as I know he remained there living as a recluse until his death aged 60 in 2006.  But his songs are still remembered, at least by some of us.

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order at the foot of 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 all 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 recently started to produce 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.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that 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 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

What Bob Dylan’s personal spiritual or religious beliefs are, be his own business. He ain’t sayin’.

Their examination of Dylan’s songs, some writers declare, reveals his personal beliefs. Others, like myself, are more interested in what the lyrics mean, in and of themselves – regardless of what beliefs the song writer may or may not hold.

Into his breakfast bowl that contains hillbilly, blues, and rock ‘n’ roll music, Dylan mixes words from the Judeo-Christian Bible. He then throws in a good helping of Greek and Roman mythology.

Numerous writers agree with me on that. However, I find in Dylan’s lyrics a blended consistency that many writers do not.

I tie his lyrics up in a tangled bow that reflects a Gnostic-mystic outlook. Whether Dylan himself is a Gnostic is anybody’s guess – he doesn’t like to be labelled.

Writers involved in Dylan’s lyrics have demostrated the influence of ancient Roman poets Virgil and Ovid, and the influence of Catullus whose poetry expresses a ‘modernistic’ concern for emotional self-expression; especially in wry humour, concerning sexual desire and romantic love.

The examples below are mine:

Suns may set, and suns may rise again
But when our brief life has set
Night is one long everlasting sleep
Give me a thousand kisses, a hundred more
(Catullus: Let’s Live And Love)

In Dylan’s double-edged song lyrics, the physical pleasure of sex available in life, represented by the light of the morning, is no more with the descending of the darkness of death:

Lay, lady, lay, across my big brass bed
Stay lady stay while the night is still ahead
I long to see you in the morning light
Stay lady stay, stay while the night is still ahead
(Bob Dylan: Lay, Lady, Lay)

The ‘carpe deim’ theme – seize the day – oft times tinged with the irony of vulgar humour:

You’re in love with some feverish little whore
You’re ashamed to confess it
Pointlessly silent, you don’t seem to be idle at night
It’s proclaimed by your bed
Garlanded and fragmented with Syrian perfume
(Catullus: Flavius Has A Girl)

And mixed with music:

I woke up this morning with butter and eggs in my bed
I woke up this morning with butter and eggs in my bed
I ain’t got enough room to even raise my head
(Bob Dylan: The Levee’s Gonna Break)

A rather male-oriented theme: get a lot of sexual pleasure any way that you can because your date with death is coming all too soon:

Charlotte’s a harlot
Dresses in scarlet
Mary dresses in green
It’s soon after midnight
And I’ve got a date with the fairy queen
(Bob Dylan: Soon After Midnight)

The selfish pride of the male ego doesn’t go uncriticized, however:

Once bright days shone for you
When you’ve been drawn to a girl
Loved like no other, she will be loved by you ….
And now that she no longer wants you
You, weak man, are unwilling to chase after the deer that flees
Nor willing to live in misery – be strong-minded, and stand firm ….
Who’ll be next to submit to you; who’ll see your beauty?
(Catullus: Advice To Oneself)

The singer/songwriter, or at least his persona, is not beyond taking a critical look at his own behaviour – unselfish love that’s true can teach something new:

You turn the tide on me each day
And teach my eyes to see
Just being next to you
It’s a natural thing for me
And I could never let you go
No matter what goes on
‘Cause I love you more than ever
Now that the past is gone
(Bob Dylan: Wedding Song)

Love and/or sex given in exchange for material comfort is a reality:

Return my cloak you pounced on
And the napkins given to me by the Spanish
And the painting ware from Bithynia
Absurd man – that you ‘own’ openly like heirlooms
Unhook them now from your talons, and return them to me
(Catullus: Return My Things)

A trade that may be considered fair, by one or both parties involved:

The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes everything’s been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
(Bob Dylan: Visions Of Johanna)

And also, but nuanced:

So take heed, take heed of the western wind
Take heed of the stormy weather
And yes, there’s something ya can send back to me
Spanish boots of Spanish leather
(Bob Dylan: Boots Of Spanish Leather)

References there be to the half-human Greek gods, and the later more distant Roman gods – to Diana, the moon-goddess, twin to Apollo, the sun-God, the offspring of the Supreme God, Jupiter (Zeus):

O, daughter of Leto, and greatest child of great Jupiter
Whose mother gave birth near the olive trees of Delos
Mistress of the mountains and the geen groves
Of the secret gardens and the sounding streams ….
Your monthly passage measures the course of the year
(Catullus: Hymn To Diana)

Of Diana, the Moon, the songwriter sings – she clothed in modernist Romantic Symbolism as seen in Johnanine visions from the Freudian rungs of the Gnostic ladder:

They shaved her head
She was torn between Jupiter and Apollo
A messenger arrived with a black nightingale
I seen her on the stairs and I couldn’t help but follow
Follow her down pass the fountain where they lifted her veil
(Bob Dylan: Changing Of The Guards)

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order at the foot of 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 all 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 recently started to produce 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.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that 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 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

If we take a look at the songs Dylan wrote around the time of “Baby I’m in the mood for you” we can see, as I have mentioned before, this incredible variety of musical forms and styles – as if everything within popular, folk, and blues music was in his head and all tumbling over each other to get out and be recorded.

And it is not just the musical forms but also the subject matter that is varied too from a philosophy of how we see the world to basic desire, from a protest about everything being wrong with the world to a song of leaving, from lost love to… well it goes on and on.

Here’s the list

• Blowing in the wind 
• Corrina Corrina
• Honey just allow me one more chance
• Rocks and Gravel
• Quit your Lowdown Ways
• Baby I’m in the mood for you
• Down the Highway
• Tomorrow is a long time
• Hard Rain’s a gonna fall

Curiously with this knockabout song we have a number of versions available, but none of them correspond that much to the lyrics on the official Bob Dylan site, but then the lyrics are just part of the exuberance, not in anyway the sort of meaningful and informative lyrics that Dylan could write in other songs on the list.

The inspiration was said by Dylan at one time to come from Jesse Fuller, and here’s an example of his work – not especially the influence that led to this Dylan song, but just a Jesse Fuller song that I like and which is available on line.

According to reports there is a letter from Bob which to Suze Rotolo in which he says the song is dedicated to her.

The versions that Dylan recorded for Freewheelin have been removed from the internet, but we do have this

https://youtu.be/ysK2oltJNUA

There are verses in the song that that seems to express just where Dylan is at this time perfectly, jumping from thought to thought and feeling to feeling…   This for example turns up as the third verse on the Biograph version but the last verse according to the official site

Sometimes I’m in the mood, I wanna change my house around
Sometimes I’m in the mood, I’m gonna make a change in this here town
Sometimes I’m in the mood, I’m gonna change the world around
But then again, but then again, I said oh, I said oh, I said
Oh babe, I’m in the mood for you.

Here’s another take…

What brought this song back to life was the recording of the song by Miley Cyrus, which if you have never heard it, I really do recommend.  I enjoy it enormously but even if you don’t it is an absolute lesson in how music can be utterly rearranged to become something else, even while keeping the original notion (if you see what I mean).

And if you have a moment I would ask that you start with the version below and hear it all the way through, and then just think about the origins of this piece in terms of the Dylan recording.  It is quite a journey.

And here is one more giving another insight into the possibilities

Of course it is possible to re-work all sorts of songs, but I think there is so much within the lyrics of most Dylan songs that endless possibilities emerge when one starts playing with them.

It’s quite a journey.  I wonder what Bob thinks of it all.

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order at the foot of 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 all 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 recently started to produce 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.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that 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 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

There are details of the other articles on the site relating to this song at the end of this article.

Jesus as the bridegroom, and his church followers, as the bride is a prominent
metaphor in the Holy Bible – with the promise of a wedding night in the offing, a time of sexual union.

Many gospel songs compare a faithful follower of Christ to a bride who is more than willing to sexually submit herself to Him:

All to Jesus I surrender
Make me, Lord, I give myself to thou
Fill me with thy love and power
Let your blessing fall on me
(I Surrender All)

The “song of songs” of the Bible is the fountain from which this sexual metaphor springs:

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys
As the lily among the thorns
So is my love among the daughters
As the apple tree among the trees of the wood
So is my beloved among the sons
I sat down under his shadow with great delight
And his fruit was sweet to my taste
(Song Of Solomon 2: 1-3)

Sermons that admonish church followers for even thinking about lustful sex, leads to the biblical metaphor being parodied by writers closer in touch with the realities of human existence:

Under the apple suckling tree
Oh yeah
Underneath that tree
There’s just gonna be you and me
Underneath that apple suckling tree
Oh yeah
(Bob Dylan: Apple Suckling Tree)

Good luck to those who are sure they can explain both verses quoted above
in nonsexual terms, ie, that both innocently refer to Eve sucking on the fruit that the serpent offered to her from the tree growing in the midst of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3).

In a fiery ring of Freudian ‘displaced’ words, the ”Song Of Solomon’-influenced gospel song – below – relies on the metaphor of complete sexual unification, akin to the Gnostic vision of a hermaphroditic God/Goddess:

I have found a friend in Jesus, He’s everything to me
He the fairest of ten thousand to my soul
The Lily of the Valley, in Him alone I see
All my needs to cleanse and make me fully whole ….
He will never, never leave me, nor yet forsake me here
While I live by faith and do His blessed will
A wall of fire about me, I have nothing now to fear
From his manna He my hungry soul shall fill
(Lily Of The Valley)

The following is a covered ballad in which the would-be bride is sexually unfaithful, yet the prospective bridegroom, comparable to Jesus, loves her still:

I had to stand my trail, I had to make my plea
They placed me in the witness box, and then commenced on me
Although she swore my life away, deprived me of my rest
Still l love my faithless Flora, the Lily of the West
(Bob Dylan: Lily of The West)

The ballad just quoted brings to mind a Symbolist poem in which the focus is on images that are not sweet-smelling:

In short, is a Flower, Rosemary
Or Lily, dead or alive, worth
The excrement of one sea-bird
Is it worth a solitary candle drip?
(Arthur Rimbaud: On The Subject Of Flowers)

The threatrical narrative below, with its Alice-in-wonderland-through-the-looking-glass-playing-card characters, tangles up the themes from all the works cited above:

The cabaret was empty now, a sign said ‘Closed for repair’
Lily had already taken all of the dye out of her hair
She was thinkin’ ’bout her father, who she very rarely saw
She was thinkin’ ’bout Rosemary, and thinkin’ ’bout the law
But most of all, she was thinkin’ ’bout the Jack of Hearts
(Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts)

‘Three Queens’ wins the game – Lily, the future ‘bride’ of the two-timing diamond-suited Jim, makes herself up to look like his wife Rosemary, stabs him to death, and his appreciative wife takes the blame, sacrificing herself on the cross(gallows) so that Lily is free to make the Jack of Hearts her bridegroom.

Taking into account the other works presented here, it’s an interpretation, the worth of which is as good as any. The song is a mystical tale – it’s unclear:

Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear
Did you ever go clear?
(Leonardo Cohen: Famous Blue Raincoat)

Other articles you might enjoy in relation to this song…

Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts: the meanings behind Dylan’s song

Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts: revealing the source of this and other Dylan songs (Part 1)

Bob Dylan and Damon Runyon: Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts and other songs (Part II)

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order at the foot of 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 all 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 recently started to produce 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.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that 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 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

According to the official Bob Dylan site this song was written by H. Thomas and Bob Dylan – which is interesting, because as we have noted, a lot of Bob’s songs take elements of other people’s work and re-imagines the song without crediting the original.

But in this case I suspect that if you heard the original you wouldn’t link it to Dylan’s song, at least not until you hear the phrase “Honey just allow me one more chance.”

The earliest use of the song goes right back to Harry Thomas in 1927 (or Henry “Ragtime Texas” Thomas as I have seen him referred to).   Fortunately we still have that recording available – the quality is rather poor but that is not surprising given the date of the recording.  Also, for reasons I will explain below, I do hope you will persevere with playing this, rather than thinking that I have put up the wrong link (which I am perfectly capable of doing).

If you have just played the link immediately above you probably did spend the first minute thinking I had put up the wrong link, despite my protestations above.   But the phrase is there in the chorus and the rhyming structure is the same, as is the rhythm, but otherwise it turns into a completely new song.

I understand there is also a Flatt and Scruggs version of the song recorded in 1970 – unfortunately I can’t find a copy on line.

According to the official site, Dylan performed the song three times across 1962 and 1963 and that was that.

The lyrics do give an early look at Bob’s interest in trains

Honey, just allow me one more chance
To ride your aeroplane
Honey, just allow me one more chance
To ride your passenger train
Well, I’ve been lookin’ all over
For a gal like you
I can’t find nobody
So you’ll have to do
Just-a one kind favor I ask you
’Low me just-a one more chance

And that brings us up to date except for this this from 1970…

Musically the song changes a little but in essence remains pretty much the same as a number of “folk” songs in terms of its structure.  What’s noticeable is that although the song is clearly in G, in the second phrase it modulates to D, but then directly returns to to G.

G C G
G A7 D
G G7 C A7
G D G C G D G

Even if you don’t know anything at all about chord structures if you hear these chords together you’ll recognise just how many songs are based around this type of structure.

The song appeared as the penultimate track on Freewheelin.  It was followed by the jokey “I shall be free” with the album being released in May 1963.  As such it is a fine way of reminding us of Dylan’s interest in and knowledge of folk music from around the world.  On an album that contains such classics as Blowin’ in the Wind and such polemics as Masters of War along with the classic blues in Down the Highway  and the utterly contemporary concerns of A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall and Oxford Town, it is a reminder of Dylan’s wider interests in the music of the past.

Indeed it has also always struck me as fascinating that it comes one track after Corrina Corrina, a love song of such a totally different type.   He really was showing us all he could do, and would yet come to do.

What else is on the site

Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan.  It is simply a forum for those interested in the work of the most famous, influential and recognised popular musician and poet of our era, to read about, listen to and express their thoughts on, his lyrics and music.

We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers.  Sadly no one gets paid, but if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics.  If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.

We also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with around 8000 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link    And because we don’t do political debates on our Facebook group there is a separate group for debating Bob Dylan’s politics – Icicles Hanging Down

Lily O’Valley, Mary Magdalena, And The Jehovah Of Hearts:
Bob Dylan Mixes Up The Medicine

by Larry Fyffe

Bob Dylan finds gospel music to be very inspirational; the Vineyard Evangelist Movement relies on the impact of such music to emotionally bond its followers.

Vineyard Evangelism is a loosely organized branch of the Christian religion based on charismatic authority, with the New Age Saint Augustinian slogan called ‘the genius of generosity’ that asserts that faith all by itself is not sufficient for salvation: good works count. Adherents are expected to keep what they need for a decent family life, and provide money and assistance to the local church in order to help the less fortunate improve their spiritual outlook and economic situation.

How the leaders and adherents of this branch of Christianity behave in accordance with its religious values is a point of contention.

In some of his song lyrics, singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, in a round-about way, warns Vineyard members about being hypocritically used for the selfish benefit of the already well-off :

Politician got on his jogging shoes
He must be running for office, got no time to lose
He been suckin’ the blood out of the genius of generosity
You have been rolling your eyes, you been teasing me
(Bob Dylan: Summer Days)

The anti-establishment poetry of William Blake comes to mind – the poet searches for the Garden of Love:

And the gates of the Chapel were shut
And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore
And I saw that it was filled with graves
And tombstones where flowers should be
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds
And binding my joys and desires
(William Blake: The Garden Of Love)

Per usual, Dylan’s Blake-influenced song lyrics are quite doubled-edged in meaning:

Jesus is calling, He’s coming to gather up his jewels
We living by the golden rule, whoever got the gold rules
(Bob Dylan: Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking)

That is, what does the Christian religion stand up for – gold and jewels – symbolizing wealth and power or, alternatively, precious souls?

In other song lyrics, Dylan notes that this community-based religion, backed up by gospel music, brings a feeling of joyful comfort to its followers:

But you changed my life
Came along in a time of strife
From silver and gold to what man cannot hold
You changed my life
(Bob Dylan: You Changed My Life)

Again doubled meaning.  The lyrics above can be interpreted as meaning that the garden of love can be found but it doesn’t last – ‘what man cannot hold’. Even in Dylan’s gospel songs, Gnostic mysticism lurks in the background – every silver cloud is dark inside from where the howls of the ghosts of electricity can be heard:

For all those who have eyes and all those who have ears
It is only He that can reduce me to tears
Don’t you cry, don’t you die, and don’t you burn
For like a thief in the night, He’ll replace wrong with right
When He returns
(Bob Dylan: When He Returns)

Note that Jesus replaces ‘wrong’ with ‘right’; not ‘evil’ with ‘good’.

Gnostic mystics seek to ascend a misty metaphorical ladder in order to raise themselves above worldly woes – such as desire, wrath, and ignorance
(ie, to rid themseves of ‘ignorance’, not ‘sin’ – it’s not a matter of ‘evil’ versus ‘good’):

He who has ears to hear, let him hear
Peter said to Him, since you have explained everything to us
Tell us this also: What is the sin of the world?
The Saviour said, There is no sin, but it is you who make sin
You do the things that are like the nature of adultery, which is called ‘sin’
(Gospel Of Mary Magdalene, 4:24-26)

Blakean and Swedenborgian, the metaphors of Gnosticism be:

He who has a mind to understand, let him understand
Matter gave birth to a passion that has no equal
Which preceeded from something contrary to nature
Then there arises a disturbance in its whole body
(Gospel Of Mary Magdalene 4:30)

Disturbing to orthodox Christianity, that’s for sure.

The following lyrics are from the Gnostic “song of song’s’, found in the Holy Bible:

Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels
Thy neck with chains of gold
We make thee borders of gold with studs of silver
While the King sitters at his table
My spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof
A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me
He shall lie all night between my breasts
My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire
In the Vineyards of Engedi
(The Song Of Solomon)

‘Engedi’ means ‘Fountain of Goats’. The standard Christian interpretation is that the maiden is the bride (church followers) of the bridegroom Jesus…on their wedding night, I presume.

That the maiden describes herself as ‘the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the valleys’ brings it all back home to ‘Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts’, and what allegories might lie within that song:

The cabaret was empty now, a sign said, ‘Closed for repair’
Lily had already taken all of the dye out of her hair
She was thinkin’ ’bout her Father, who she very rarely saw
Thinkin’ about Rosemary, and thinkin’ ’bout the law
But most of all, she was thinkin’ ’bout the Jack Of Hearts
(Bob Dylan: Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts)

Bob Dylan did not get the Nobel Prize In Literature for fiddling while Rome is burning.

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order at the foot of 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 all 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 recently started to produce 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.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that 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 please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.

• Part 1 of Dylan and Gnosticism
• Bob Dylan And Gnosticism (Part II): Johnannine Visions

by Larry Fyffe

Untold it is by Dylanologists that the singer/song writer makes quite a few references to Gnostic writings:

Hot chili peppers in the blistering sun
Dust on my face and my cape
Me and Magdalena on the run
I think this time we shall escape
(Bob Dylan: Romance In Durango)

Gnostic writers express, in their metaphorical and allegorical style, the search for Goodness that is to be found by getting in touch with the light of the One Spirit, the united God/Goddess, by escaping from the darkness of the physical world:

And God saw the light, that it was good
And God divided the light from the darkness
(The Book Of Genesis 1:4)

The mythological Apollo, the God of the Sun; his sister, Diana, the Goddess of the Moon; and Jesus, and his faithful follower Mary Magdalene of the Christian Bible, serve as symbols in these writings:

The soul answered and said, I saw you.
You did not see me nor recognize me
I served you as a garment and you did not know me
(The Gospel Of Mary Magdalene 8)

That Mary Magalene does not recognize Jesus, who is about to escape from the dark tomb of material existence, is present in the canon of the Holy Bible as well:

Jesus saith unto her, Women, why weepest thou
Whom seekest thou?
She supposing him to be the gardener
Saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence
Tell me where thou laid him, and I will take him away
(Book Of St. John 20:15)

God is depicted as the father of Jesus while his mother is human, in the Judeo-Christian Bible:

Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended
But go to my brethren, and say unto them
I will ascend unto my Father
And to my God, and your God
(Book Of St. John 20:17)

Gnostic authors write in a mystical manner that leaves it up to the reader to untangle meaning; so does Bob Dylan:

As I walked out tonight in the mystic garden
The wounded flowers were dangling from the vines
I was passing by yon cold and crystal fountain
Someone hit me from behind ….
As I walked out in the mystic garden
On a hot summer day, hot summer lawn
Excuse me ma’am I beg your pardon
There’s no one here, the gardener is gone
(Bob Dylan: Ain’t Talkin’)

A plausible interpretation of the above lyrics: On her second trip to the tomb, this time during the day, the person that Mary Magdalene had thought to be the gardener, has now completely escaped from his material body – an imaginative and creative reworking of a biblical story, typical of the singer/songwriter.

In the Gnostic piece, Mary Magdalene tells the disciples what the “Savior” reveals to her:

From this time on will I attain
To the rest of the time
Of the season
Of the eon
In silence
(The Gospel Of Mary Magdalene 8)

As for the physical Jesus, He ain’t talkin’ anymore:

And the disciples come to respect Mary Madalene because Jesus trusted her and confides in her:

My love she speaks like silence
Without ideals or violence
She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful
Yet she’s true like ice, like fire
(Bob Dylan: Love Minus Zero)

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order below on this page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken all 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 recently started to produce 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.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that 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 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

Apparently Talkin New York came out of an uncompleted Dylan song “NYC Blues”, and it is the first Dylan talking blues to make it onto an album.  It was written, I think, just after “Song to Woodie” the other Dylan composition on the first album, composed probably after he had left New York following his first attempt to get work there.

I’m not at all sure that this is the complete list of Bob’s talking blues, but a quick review suggests to me these are the songs in this format that got recorded:

1. Talkin New York
2. Talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues.
3. Talkin Hava Negeilah blues
4. Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues
5. Talking World War III Blues
6. I shall be free number 10

Those six span 1961 to 1964 but I have a feeling I have missed something – just as I missed New York until now.  If you could fill in any others I’d be grateful.

Coming back to it after many years of not listening to Talkin New York, it feels fresh, funny, interesting… but still feels to me much more of a song that would be great in performance rather than being something I want to hear each time when I play the LP all the way through (and yes, I still have that original LP.)  And for me that is the main point about the talking blues – it is still good fun in live performance, but once you know it off by heart it lacks something to pull me back in.    And that something of course is a melody.

Talking blues goes way back to the mid 1920s when music was almost totally live performance, although oddly (given what I have just said about it being a form of music suitable for live performance) there is a recording of Chris Bouchillon’s talking blues available – probably the first (or at least one of the first) talking blues of all.  The quality is very poor – but then it comes from the earliest days of these sorts of recording.  But even if you can only take a few seconds of listening it is worth it just for the historical context.

Over the years the format didn’t change too much.  Woody Guthrie’s Talking Blues ends

Mama’s in the kitchen fixin’ the yeast

Papa’s in the bedroom greasin’ his feets
Sister’s in the cellar squeezin’ up the hops
Brother’s at the window just a-watchin’ for the cops

Drinkin’ home brew … makes you happy.

and the fact that Guthrie recorded so many talking blues must have attracted Dylan to the form.  And it gives him a chance to explore the notion of expressing a spot of irony:

“Man there said, “Come back some other day
You sound like a hillbilly
We want folk singers here”

and then more irony

He was ravin’ about how he loved m’ sound
Dollar a day’s worth

and some social concerns

A lot of people don’t have much food on their table
But they got a lot of forks ’n’ knives
And they gotta cut somethin’

and setting up another joke

So long, New York
Howdy, East Orange

which leads neatly into the East Orange discourse, which fortunately we still have available…

So yes, I do still find Bob’s “Talkin New York” entertaining, witty and fun, and when I first heard it as a youngster I was completely taken by it, having no idea that it came from a rich tradition.  So once more a million thanks to Bob to introducing me to that tradition (I don’t think we ever really had it in England).

But that’s not quite the end.   For after Loudon Wainwright III was called the ‘new Bob Dylan’ he recorded ‘Talkin’ New Bob Dylan’ in 1992, at the time of Bob turning 50.

It’s a bit more fun…

But to return to Bob.  “Talkin New York” is funny and clever and very mature for a young song writer.  And that is not the first time I have thought that in reviewing Dylan’s early songs.  “Ballad for a Friend” which turned up the following year is, for me, an absolutely incredible piece of writing, and I have often wondered where such maturity came from.

Now being reminded that I had not included Talkin New York in the chronology of Dylan songs, I once more can see an incredible maturity of writing – although of a very different kind – in this talking blues.

It really does show a very natural talent just bursting to get out – and as we quickly found – travelling in every direction at once.

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Larry Fyffe

Part 1 of Dylan and Gnosticism appears here

Many of the lyrics in Bob Dylan’s song lyrics are doubled-edged, laced with images both dark (devilish) and light (godly) – simply because the existence of very troubling conditions on earth belies the the dreamy idealism expressed by writers like the Romantic Transcendentalist poets

The visions of these Transcendentalists failed to overcome the darker Judeo-Christian position, ie, that humans lose their utopian Paradise on Earth because they (represented by Adam and Eve) unwisely decide to disobey the commands of God and think for themselves.

The vision of an earthy utopia foreseen by the Romantic poets could not be taken seriously in a world clouded by darkness, especially in modern times with the threat of thermonuclear bombs exploding everywhere:

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

Hence, dualistic images of foreboding darkness and divine light in the songs of Bob Dylan. Influenced by the pre-Romantic poet William Blake, Dylan seeks the deeper Spirit that lies beyond the God of the Judeo-Christian Bible.

According to the Gnosticism, the likes of Apollo, the bow-carrying son of the Sky God of Thunder in Greek mythology, and Jesus, the son of the Sky God of the Old Testament, mediate between their fathers in the heavens and the people inhabiting solid Earth.

The sons, closer to Earth than their fathers, possess within themselves diamond sparks from the light of the far-away Spirit God. The physical inhabitants of Earth are not so fortunate. Angelic these sons be, and beyond their sky fathers they see. Jehovah and Zeus, penetrated by too many sparks of anger, alienate themselves from Mankind.

Their spirits sparkling, fueled by artistic imaginations, the likes of Apollo and Jesus intuitively keep in touch with the ultimate Spirit of Goodness.

With their assistance of such intermediairies, earthly inhabitants try to kindle any faded sparks they happen to possess.

In the Holy Bible, there is John The Gnostic’s vision of a city of light:

And he carried me away in the spirit
To a great and high mountain
And shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem
Descending out of Heaven from God
Having the glory of God
And her light was like unto stone most precious
Even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal
(Book Of Revelation 21: 10-11)

Under the influence of Swedenborg’s updated Gnosticism, poet William Blake pens a tribute to the Gnostic author of the Book Of Revelation, the aforementioned John, who slings sparkling light into the darkness on Earth:

And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic Mills
Bring me my bow of burning gold
Bring me my arrows of desire
(William Blake: Jerusalem)

Likewise, does Bob Dylan in a song:

You burned so bright
Roll on, John
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
(Bob Dylan: Roll on, John)

Other ancient writings by John The Gnostic that go further and imagine Jesus likened to mythological Apollo – a song-and-dance man, so to speak – are not allowed into the official Judeo-Christian Bible; most are burned:

Glory to thee, Word; glory to thee, Grace
Glory to thee, Spirit; glory to thee, Holy One
Glory to thy glory, we praise thee, O Father
We give thanks to thee, O Light
Wherein darkness dwellers not …..
The Whole on high hath part in our dancing
Who danceth not, knoweth not what cometh to pass
I would flee and I would stay
I would adorn and I would be adorned
I would be united and I would unite
(The Acts Of John)

Dylan sings a similar hymn to sparks of light:

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky
With one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea
Circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate
Drowned driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget today
Until tomorrow
(Bob Dylan: Mr. Tambourine Man)

Perhaps lamenting the disposal of Gnostic writings by those who use the sign of the fish, Bob Dylan sings a Gnostic-like song about Johanna who now is not here:

And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape on the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes everything’s been returned which was owed
On the he back of a fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are all that remain
(Bob Dylan: Visions Of Johanna)

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order below on this page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken all 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 recently started to produce 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.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that 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 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 song is listed as a Bob Dylan composition, but I think this is a case of where there is a forerunner that is so close to Dylan’s in both music and lyrics that some acknowledgement (if not fulsome accreditation of a composer) should be given.

In this case Mance Lipscombe looks like being the main source, although there are others that some commentators have cited and I am not enough of a historian of the blues to say who got there first.

But even though the song was clearly a copy of another composer’s work it was most seriously considered for Freewheelin’ and was recorded both in the April and November sessions for that album.  It was even incorporated into the initial pressing of the album which was put out as a promotional foretaste of the final edition, but then removed when it came to the making of Freewheelin’.  So maybe someone complained about the copyright issue.  Or maybe they just decided it didn’t quite fit.

But back to the start, Mance Lipscombe recorded Rocks and Gravel Makes a Solid Road and it is on the still available album Trouble in Mind.

Also some of the lyrics come from Alabama Woman Blues by Scrapper Blackwell and Leroy Carr…

In Alabama Woman Blues you will find lines such as

Have you ever been down on that Mobil and K. C. line,
Have you ever been down on that Mobil and K. C. line?

Well I just wanna ask you,
If you seen that gal of mine.

and then later:

Don’t the clouds look lonesome across the deep blue sea,
Don’t the clouds look lonesome cross the deep blue sea,
Don’t my gal look good,
When she’s comin’ after me?

And of course this takes us onto “It takes a lot to laugh” a little later.

Here’s Bob’s version

And another variant…

and this includes the lyrics

Have you ever been down on that Mobil and K. C. line,
Have you ever been down on that Mobil and K. C. line?

Well I just wanna ask you,
If you seen that gal of mine,
Don’t the clouds look lonesome shining across the sea,
Don’t the clouds look lonesome shining across the sea,
Don’t my gal look good,
When she’s comin’ after me?

Here’s the other version recorded by Bob

https://youtu.be/00MMGSobmgM

Personally I adore this version (“Alternate Take”), and think it would have made a superb addition to Freewheelin’ although the correct citation of the composer would have been welcome.  And of course I am not having to think about what could have been dropped from that album to make way for this.

And just in case you are interested in Mance Lipscombe here is a film of him.  I can’t find an on line recording of him singing Rocks and Gravel, but it is on Spotify.

Dylan’s guitar playing, singing and absolute grasp of the blues as a form is astounding on these recordings, to the extent that in the end, (and particularly since the song was not included on the album), the issue of who wrote the song doesn’t matter.

But it is particularly interesting to consider the fact that at this stage Dylan had two overwhelming and rather contradictory influences on his writing: the folk tradition of Woody Guthrie and the folk songs all the way back to their Scottish and Irish origins, and the wide tradition of the blues.

These two traditions are incredibly, utterly, totally different, and yet here was the young Dylan mastering both to such a degree that he could play, sing, evolve and create songs in both traditions that are still very much worth hearing today.

The recordings of Rocks and Gravel really are something, and we can only be grateful that they survived.

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 450 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order below on this page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken all 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 recently started to produce 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.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that 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 please do note   The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.

Part one of this series of articles by Larry Fyffe is available here:  Bob Dylan and The Allegory

In considering a Bob Dylan song, Kees de Graaf notes that the biblical bride/bridegroom allegory in made use of by the singer/songwriter:

God(Jesus) is the groom and his people (the church) are the bride. The Bible reveals over and over again, God’s chosen people were disloyal to Him and acted like harlots ….But in spite of this continuous adultery, God’s burning love keeps on searching the bride’s heart, till in the end He finds her and makes her ready for the eternal marriage …..
(Kees de Graff: Soon After Midnight)

All’s well and good.

In the song ‘Thunder On The Mountain’, Bob Dylan makes use of the Christian bride/bridegroom allegory, but this time the reference is one involving irony,
ie, is contrary to what the reader or listener expects:

I’ve been sitting down studying the art of love
I think it will fit me like a glove
I want some real good woman to do just what I say
Everybody got to wonder what’s the matter with the cruel world today
(Bob Dylan: Thunder On The Mountain)

In the lyrics above, the allegory is bemusedly mocked for serving the selfish interests of a rather boorish and unChristian bridegroom.

In my biographical analysis of that song I refer instead to Greek and Roman mythology: to Zeus, the God of the Sky, the womanizing commander-in-chief and the wielder of thunder bolts; to Apollo, the god of music and player of the golden lyre; to Venus, the goddess of the art of love and seduction, and rider of the half-shell, and dispenser of bemused mockery (Larry Fyffe: Geoffrey Chaucer And Thunder On The Mountain).

Seemly unaware of Dylan’s relationship with Joan Baez, Kees de Graaf responds:

In my opinion, the essence of this does not
make sense, no matter how many references
to Chaucer you may find in it
(Comments: Geoffrey Chaucer And Thunder On The Mountain)

Perhaps de Graaf is unaware of the song quoted below, written many years before ‘Thunder On The Mountain’:

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)

Biographical references by Dylan in ‘Thunder On The Mountain’, I note are augmented by allusions to Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’, and by allusions interpreted by me to be ancient Greek and Roman mythological ones:

The mythological God of Thunder is looking down and Dylan knows he has to serves someone and that is Zeus’ sun-god Apollo ……Venus, on the half-shell, the sexy daughter of Zeus, can be a threat to blood-sworn oaths …
(Larry Fyffe: Geoffrey Chaucer And Thunder On The Mountain)

My analysis is completely coherent though it omits the ironical reference to the Christian bride/bridegroom analogy. It is certainly not one that ‘makes no sense’ – if one is fully aware of biographical information on Bob Dylan.

The Christian references in ‘Thunder On The Mountain’, are indeed overt, and I should have included them. But the mythological ones are suggested by the song’s lyrics, and so I stand by the analysis.

The series continues…

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order below on this page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken all 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 recently started to produce 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.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that 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 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.