Untold Dylan

By Larry Fyffe

In today’s entertainment news:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so sings Dylan:

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Tony Attwood

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are the lyrics…

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

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

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

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

Also another verse written down but not recorded

And at that point I think I shall leave it.

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bob Dylan: Like Every Sparrow Falling

by Larry Fyffe

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

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

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

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

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

The coach taketh the advice:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Tony Attwood

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

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

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

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

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

But back to “Love is…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And another version with a rather famous guest

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

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

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

D, Em, D, Em, D, Em

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

C D

D7 G

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

Clever guy this Bob Dylan.

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bob Dylan’s Ol’ Time Incongruous Log Cabin

By Larry Fyffe

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dylan broadens the the song into a sociological theme:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More thoughts about Beauty lost:

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Tony Attwood

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

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

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

Bob goes with

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

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

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

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

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

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

and

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Concerning Dylan’s Conversion To Islam

by Larry Fyffe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Tony Attwood

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

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

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

Then came “Guess I’m doing fine”

After which came

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Larry Fyffe

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

The lyrics to one of the songs:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Tony Attwood

According to Heylin there is only one version of this song available, but I’ve found two, and I think they are different.  Not very different, but they are performed in different keys (one tone apart).  On the other hand maybe I am just hearing differences that are not there.  Yet on the other other hand that can’t be a digital recording so…

It’s one of those songs that is really enjoyable, but doesn’t quite make it (for me) as a lost gem worthy of inclusion in my 20 lost masterpieces.

So it is the novelty of hearing it for the first time, or the first time in a long old time, that makes it worth playing over and over, and hearing Bob make early disparaging remarks about the media – the verse about the TV station is particularly amusing, but then so is the one about the newspaper.

Being troubled is of course a part of the American folk tale of the 19th and 20th century, a reflection of the real life of the downtrodden working classes who were told that everything was fine because they would have their reward in heaven, so best not get up and fight a revolution.

Bob’s particular concern about the media and its ability to define its own reality however takes that notion of being troubled further, because if the media successfully get the population to look at the world in one way, and see activity x as normal and activity y as totally beyond then norm, then there is indeed total control.

Nothing changes, says Bob in this song, and it was a theme he has often returned to.  It is of course the absolute antithesis of his religious period where the fact that nothing changes doesn’t matter because this is what God has built and all will be solved in the Second Coming,.

But if that view of the future is false, then “nothing changes” in terms of power and greed and corruptible seed really is all that there is.

Which really is a rather depressing thought when it hits home.

Here are the lyrics

And the first of the two recordings with Joan Baez

And here is the second recording which I think is different from the first.

There is also a Joan Baez version that comes from her Rare Live and Classic album.  Every time I come back to her recordings I am still just utterly amazed at her voice.  She puts something quite different into this performance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnkZoNo6Uf4

A little while before this song Dylan wrote North Country Blues and after it he wrote When the Ship Comes In.  For the former I wrote the headline “There is no solution” and that was clearly what Bob thought some of the time.  But with “When the Ship” I suggested that never had Dylan been more certain that it would all work out.

It’s curious, he was swinging back and forth from one to the other, song by song.

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Larry Fyffe

After the privately-owned American Columbia Broadcasting System prohibits Bob Dylan from singing Woody Gruthie/Paul Robeson-inspired anti-fascist songs on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’, the young singer-songwriter ‘flees’ across the border to record a number of songs on Saturday, February 1, 1964, at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation TV studios in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

To avoid the out-of-doors, lip-synced method of producing music videos like those in CBC’s ‘Singalong Jubilee’ that feature Anne Murray, the Toronto studio constructs a set resembling a wood-heated lodge, supposedly isolated amidst trees – equipped with electric lights, table and chairs, playing cards, magazines to read, and bunks on which to lie – with pin-ups of gals on the walls.

Seemingly just for his fellow companions-in-exile (most of whom are plaid-shirted like working lumbermen or vacationing fishermen; in this particular video ‘silent movie’ stars be they all), Dylan plays acoustic guitar and sings:

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

The song above is a variation on a traditional English ballad (as we shall see, ‘rosemary’ gets around):

Are you going to Scarborough Fair
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine
(Scarborough Fair)

Sitting at the table, smoking a cigarette and writing in a notebook is Michael Zenon, a Canadian actor who plays a ‘half-breed’ guide – ‘Joe Two Rivers’ – in the CBC series “The Forest Rangers”. However, in reality, Ukraine-born is he. Another actor on the set – supposedly with a missing hand replaced by a hook – is a ‘Long John Silver’/’Captain Ahab’-like character.

Missing the dadaist/surrealist point of the video/movie, dylanologist Heylin Clinton calls the TV setting ‘incongruous’ with ‘workers pretending to pay attention’ (Clinton – Bob Dylan: Life In Stolen Moments).

In the CBC art piece, the young singer-songwriter performs – in the wake of the killing of civil rights advocate US President Kennedy – a serious song protesting racist violence in the US; on a secondary level it’s a veiled critique of Senator McCarthy’s anti-Communist / anti-Robeson hearings, and of the CBS with its ‘high office relations’ swinging their silver canes at free speech:

William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll
With a cane that he twirled around his diamond ring finger
(Bob Dylan: The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll)

A stock Dylanesque character is the man with the silver cane:

Big Jim was no one’s fool, he owned the town’s
only diamond mind
He made his usual entrance lookin’ so dandy
and so fine
With his body guards and silver cane, and every
hair in place
He took whatever he wanted, and he laid it all
to waste
(Bob Dylan: Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts)

In Toronto, with his faithful companion Tonto, the Lone Forest Ranger, Robert Zimmerman, sticks with his arrows:

But if the arrow is straight
And the point is slick
It can pierce through dust no matter how thick
So I’ll make my stand
And remain as I am
And bid farewell and not give damn
(Bob Dylan: Restless Farewell)

Humour, Dylan is not without:

Well, the Lone Ranger and Tonto
They are ridin’ down the line
Fixin’ everybody’s troubles
Everybody’s except mine
Somebody musta told them that I was doin’ fine
(Bob Dylan: Bob Dylan Blues)

During the theatrical performance of an anti-nuclear war song, Dylan turns to ironical black-humour:

Down the corner I seen another man
Turnin’ around at the hot dog stand
I said, ‘Howdy friend, I guess there’s just us two’
He screamed, down the road he flew
Scared – he thought I was a Communist
(Bob Dylan: Talkin’ World War III Blues)

Dylan, to this day, attempts to remain hopeful in spite of human nature that, looked as a whole, appears very slow to change:

Sometimes I feel so low-down and disgusted
Can’t help but wonder what’s happenin’ to my companions
Are they lost or are they found
Have they counted the cost it’ll take to bring down
All their earthly principles they are gonna have to abandon?
There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend
(Bob Dylan: Slow Train)

Words that can be taken as giving worldly advice or interpreted as strict religious doctrine if one is so inclined.

What else is on the site

1: Over 460 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

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

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

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

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

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

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

15: Abandoned Love 

My review says “do listen to both versions” and both have their fans.  I go for the one with the band (it is the second link on the review) but both count as being at masterpiece status.

16:  You’ve been hiding too long. 

This relates to “Ballad for a friend” so maybe it is just that I am hypnotised by the particular melody that Dylan uses, but this song grips me in the same way.  There is something within it that gets straight into my heart and my soul and actually changes my thought processes.

17: Too Much of Nothing

The version I love is take 2, the version that was used by Peter Paul and Mary.  Dylan’s version appeared on Volume 11 of the Bootleg Series, the “Basement Tapes Sampler” and it is on spotify.   The PPM version that I linked to in my review has gone but there is one here

It is one of those songs that I always feel that there could be a better version somehow, but it has never emerged.

18: When He returns; (live version)

I’ve raved about this so often, that you’ll probably be bored sick by now, but if you have never heard the live version (which is so utterly different from the album version) it really is a treat.   The guys who go around taking down videos are obviously protecting copyright, but we can only be thankful that this one is still up there.   You get two great songs (sorry about the ads) with When He Returns coming in just after five minutes.

19: This Wheel’s on Fire

Again you’ll probably know this, but have you heard this version recently?  If not you might well be surprised.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I37Utt01j7U

20:  Tell Ol’ Bill

And of course Tell Ol Bill.  My absolute favourite Dylan song for reasons I have bored you with so many times you probably don’t ever want me to mention it again.  But if you’ve missed it you can read the review.

I love this version

Hope there was something there you liked.  This article took so long to write (after all, I just had to listen to each song again.  Just to make sure), but for me it was a pleasure.

Tony

What else is on the site

1: Over 460 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

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

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

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

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

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

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

BY Larry Fyffe

A Christian theme is readily detected in the song lyrics of ‘Duquesne Whistle” by Bob Dylan:

I can hear a sweet voice steadily calling
Must be the mother of our Lord
(Bob Dylan: Duquesne Whistle)

Dylanologist Kees de Graaf detects the religious bent which is all well and good: it means, he says, that Dylan is ready to meet God (See: Bob Dylan’s ‘Duquesne Whistle’, a lyric analysis by Kees De Graaf ).

It would appear that Kees does not have ears that let him hear the double-tinged content within the lyrics of singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. Being an artist, Dylan does not merely repeat Biblical scripture, but draws upon his own creative talent. He adds a Gnostic-like tension between heavenly light and worldly darkness:

Listen to that Duquesne whistle blowing
Blowing like she never blowed before
Blue light blinking, red light glowing
Blowing like she’s at my chamber door
(Bob Dylan: Duquesne Whistle).

In the song above, the ‘blue light’ of toil is ‘blinking’ while the ‘red light’ of pleasure is ‘glowing’. As if to say, “What are you going to do when the devil comes knocking at your door in the guise of a sexy female?”

Priests in long black coats consider the sexual urge to be the work of the devil, writes William Blake, but the preRomantic poet notes that earthly sex and spiritual love are entangled.

The bust of a Gothic Romantic writer with a book of surrealistic poetry under his arm – a book containing poems about lost love – rests above Bob Dylan’s chamber door:

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door ….
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, ‘Lenore?’
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, ‘Lenore’
Merely this an nothing more
(Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven)

Broken-hearted men come and go:

And the stars never rise, but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee
And so, all the night-tide, I lay down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride
In her sepulchre there by the sea
In her tomb by the sounding sea
(Edgar Allan Poe: Annabel Lee)

And broken-hearted women too.

Mary in the Bible – Mary Magdalene – who, like a bird with a broken wing, enters the tomb of Jesus:

And as she wept, she stooped down
And looked down into the sepulcher ….
She turned back, and saw Jesus standing
And knew not that it was Jesus ….
Jesus saith unto her ‘Mary’
She turned herself, and saith unto Him ….’Master’
(John 11,14,16)

Poet Edgar Allan Poe draws from the creative well of the Bible, and songster Dylan draws from Poe:

The wind howls like a hammer
The night blows cold and rainy
My love’s like some raven
At my window with a broken wing
(Bob Dylan: Love Minus Zero)

The singer/songwriter does so again in the somewhat hopeful song below:

Beneath the thunder-blasted trees
The words are ringin’ off your tongue
((Bob Dylan: Tell Ol’ Bill)

A variation on the gloomy Gothic’s “dream too bright to last”:

No more – no more – no more ….
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree
(Edgar Allan Poe: To One In Paradise)

In the song following, Dylan draws from the poetry of mentioned William Blake. He who has ears, let him listen:

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn there’s someone there
Other times it’s only me
(Bob Dylan: Every Grain Of Sand)

As in:

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green
(William Blake: Jerusalem)

For one, Dylan hears the footsteps of a singer/songwriter of the blues:

When the train rolled up to the station
I looked her in the eye
Well, I was lonesome, I felt so lonesome
And I could not help but cry ….
When the train left the station
With two lights on behind
Well, the blue light was my blues
And the red light was my mind
All my love’s in vain
(Robert Johnson: Love In Vain)

Sure there is a Christian theme within Bob Dylan’s song, but there be also
lots of surrealistic Freudian imagery, of spiritualism and sexualism intertwined:

Listen to that Duquesne whistle blowing
Blowin’ like she never blowed before …..
Listen to that Duquesne whistle blowing
Blowin’ like my woman’s on board
(Bob Dylan: Duquesne Whistle)

In many folk tunes, wishful spiritualism and physical mortality get mixed in together with a heaping spoonful of skepticism, and a good dose of ambiguity.

I thought I heard that steamboat whistle blowin’
I thought I heard that steamboat whistle blowin’
And she blowed like she never blowed before

I’m afraid my little lover’s on that boat
I’m afraid my little lover’s on that boat
And it will take her to the Lord knows where

I’m gonna have a dollar some ol’ day
I’m gonna have a dollar some ol’ day
And I’ m going to the Lord knows where

I’m gonna where I won’t have to work no more
I’m gonna where I won’t have to work no more
And I’m going to the Lord knows where

I hate see that evening sun go down
I hate see that evening sun go down
For I know I’m on my last go-round

(Shirkey and Harper: Steamboat Man)

Bob Dylan doesn’t saddle up a one-trick pony.

By Tony Attwood

This post edited slightly on 7 Jan 2018 after a further thought suddenly struck me while I was playing the song over and over in my head

This is one of the utterly, absolutely brilliant pieces of Dylan’s early work that was performed in the Town Hall concert and then abandoned.  If you have never heard it, you really should scoot down to the foot of this little review and play the one and only recording there is.  It is a masterpiece.  An absolute masterpiece.

The song is a cross between the lyrics of “With God on our side” and the melody of “Ballad for a Friend”. Indeed the melody was also used in part in “Oxford Town”,  although obviously at a very different speed and to different effect.

That reuse of melodies in totally different ways of course is the sort of thing Dylan can do, but if anyone else had written this it could be one of their crowning glories.  It says its message and its eats right into your heart and soul, and leaves you standing there wondering what on earth to do next.  Or at least, that is what happened to me.

And if you are coming to this song for the first time in the Donald Trump era, I suspect it might actually ring a few more very very shrill bells in your head.  Of course I am not an American citizen, so I have no say in the matter, but from where I live it seems that what Dylan was crying out against back in 1963 still needs protesting against with as much vigour as he created for this song and its extraordinary final line.

It is also a remarkable cross-over song when it comes to form and format. While “With God on our side” is straight folk and “Ballad for a Friend” is straight blues, this is somehow both, and that is quite a remarkable achievement.  All the more remarkable in that it is in 12/8 – the time signature of Times they are a changing.  Put another way its in triple time, and the 1,2,3   1,2,3   1,2,3   pulse rings out through the whole piece, and yet still gives it that feeling of being the blues.

What’s even more interesting is the way the guitar is played, which seems to have chord and note clashes throughout.  I like to think I’m a fairly competent musician whose been around the block a few times, but I listened and listened to the recording of this song trying to work out what Dylan was doing musically.  I could hear it but was struggling to explain it.

In the end (and not for the first time) the wonderful Eyolf Østrem helped me out via his dylanchords.info site.  If you want the musical explanation of what makes this song sounds so spooky and extraordinary here it is.  I am quoting from  https://dylanchords.info/00_misc/hiding_too_long.htm

“Both in the guitar and in the singing, the tone Bb is prominent, which of course clashes with the B in the G major chord of the guitar — which of course is how it’s intended. In the guitar this is accomplished either with the high Bb (as in the second measure of the intro) or the low Bb on the fifth string (I’ve indicated this in the tab by using “bb” for the high and “Bb” for the low Bb), which is frequently hammered-on from the open string, as in the third verse.”

I don’t know how he worked that out; clearly his ears are better than mine.

This is another song that appears on “The 50th Anniversary Collection 1963,”  one of the two albums put out by Sony with the express purpose of extending the copyright on this otherwise unreleased songs.  And so thankfully it has been preserved.

It is hard to imagine what it must have been like to have been at the Town Hall for this session and to have heard this still mostly unknown talent explode onto the scene with songs like this.  Just listen to the crowd’s reaction at the end.

And indeed just look at the first verse…

Come you phoney super patriotic people that say
That hatin’ and fearing is my only way
That this here country has got to be
You’re thinkin’ of yourselves, you ain’t thinkin’ of me.

You can’t actually tell it any straighter than that, but just in case there is any misunderstanding Dylan makes it even clearer

You’re not thinkin’ of any George Washington
You’re not thinkin’ of any Thomas Jefferson
But you say that you are and you lie and mislead
You use their names for aims, for your selfish greed.

So it rolls on, and just in case we think that well, yes, we’ve got the message the final fifth verse just reminds us of where we really were in 1963, and perhaps where we still are

Get out in the open, stop standin’ afar
Let the whole world see what a hypocrite you are
I ain’t jokin’ and it ain’t no gag
You bin hidin’ too long behind the American flag.

An utter absolute masterpiece in my humble opinion.  Here it is.

What else is on the site

1: Over 460 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Larry Fyffe

That the Bible is selectively quoted by modern-day metaphorical ‘Assyrians’ and ‘Babylonians’ – those who idol worship coffers filled with gold and silver – is a theme found in a number of song lyrics by Bob Dylan.

In the Book of Isaiah, Yahweh (God) warns that the invaders of (northern) Israel will advance on Judea for the wealth that is hoarded by its rulers. God’s not sure how much help He’s going to give the Judeans because they themselves embrace Lucifer who has been cast down to earth.

The prophet Isaiah admonishes Judean leaders in ‘The Song Of The Vineyard’:

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil
That put darkness for light and light for darkness
That put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter
(Isaiah 5:20)

In a song filled with the eternal recurrence visions of Frderich Nietzsche and William Yeats, Dylan, in the manner of the angry prophet Isaiah, castigates the modern-day evangelistic Vineyard Movement:

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

As well as the Branch Davidians:

Well, I’m leaving in the morning as soon as the dark clouds lift
Yes, I’ m leaving in the morning just as soon as the dark clouds lift
Gonna break in the roof, set fire to the place as a parting gift
(Bob Dylan: Summer Days)

Ìn a vision akin to that of the Gnostics, light turns into darkness on earth – morals reversed:

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer
Son of the morning
How are you cut down to the ground
Which didst weaken the nations
For thou hast said in thine heart
I will ascend to heaven
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God
(Isaiah 14:12, 13)

Figuratively speaking, wealth and power be worshipped as worth more than Creation, than Mother Nature Herself:

Well, the devil’s in the alley, mule’s in the stall
Say anything you want to, I heard it all
I was thinkin’ about the things that Rosie said
I was dreaming I was sleeping in Rosie’s bed
Walking through the leaves, falling from the trees
Feeling like a stranger nobody needs
So many things that we never will undo
I know that you’re sorry, I’m sorry too
(Bob Dylan: Mississippi)

Double-edged as usual are the lyrics of the singer/songwriter:

Somewhere Mama’s weeping for her blue-eyed boy
She’s holding them little white shoes and that little broken toy
And he’s following the same star that them three men followed
from the East
I hear that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace
(Bob Dylan: Man Of Peace)

The morning star called Lucifer is a trickster like mythological Venus. He’s the Great Deceiver, who steals the wits of the wise. Jesus turns out to be a false messiah, at least according to orthodox Judaism, in as much that He brings no peace.

Interpreted it might that Dylan depicts his persona as the Devil:

Somebody seen him hangin’ around
At the old dance hall on the outskirts of town
He looked into her eyes when she stopped him to ask
If he wanted to dance, he had a face like a mask
Somebody said from the Bible he’d quote
There was dust on the man in the long black coat
(Bob Dylan: The Man In The Long Black Coat)

Dylanologist Kees de Graaf’s interpretation of the song below gets it crooked.

Dylan’s upset at Christian preachers who are into it for the money:

How I made it back home nobody know
Or how I survived so many blows
I been through through hell what good did it do
My conscience is clear, how about you?
I’ll give you justice, I’ll fatten your purse
Show me your moral virtues first
Hear me holler, hear me moan
I’ll pay in blood, but not my own
(Bob Dylan: Pay In Blood)

In other words, Bob Dylan is not going to let himself be nailed onto a cross in the vineyard.

What else is on the site

1: Over 460 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Orleans Rag

Between “Bob Dylan’s Dream” and “With God on our side” Dylan wrote a number of songs that ultimately, in most cases, were not used on any of the albums.  Songs such as

• Farewell
• Talkin Devil 
• All over you
• Going back to Rome
• Only a Hobo
• Ramblin Down Thru the World
• Who killed Davey Moore?
• Walls of Red Wing
• Seven Curses

The range of topics was widespread, for in addition to the inevitable songs about leaving and travelling on, there were other topics slightly more unexpected topics explored – including New Orleans Rag (although this too does a rapid departure at the end).

New Orleans Rag is about a man who feels depressed and who is then told by a passer-by that he knows a woman who can sort the singer out.  The singer goes to the door of the woman’s house, but the men she sees coming out are in such a state he takes fright and runs away.

It appears to have been performed in a concert in April 1963 and then subsequently with eight takes across three separate recording sessions which Wiki has identified as the Times The Are A Changin’ sessions in August 1963 and a separate session in October that year.  It was also played again in concert in July of 1963.

The live versions used the guitar and one at least of the studio recordings used the piano.  I’ve found a live version and a studio piano version – presumably there are copies of the others around, but seemingly not free to listen to on the internet.

Here is the piano version of the song, which I hope you might agree, is a great piece of fun.

https://secondhandsongs.com/work/162903

Inevitably the lyrics changed as they went along, and the recordings don’t quite match the lyrics on the official Bob Dylan site.

The first verse gives a feeling of where this is going…

I was sittin’ on a stump down in New Orleans
I was feelin’ kinda low down dirty and mean
Along came a fella and he didn’t even ask
He says, “I know of a woman that can fix you up fast”
I didn’t think twice I said like I should
“Let’s go find this lady that can do me some good”
We walked across the river on a sailin’ spree
And we came to a door called one-oh-three

Then we have the story of the men who emerge from behind the door

There comes another man he wiggled and he wobbled
He couldn’t hardly stand he had this frightened look in his eyes
Like he just fought a bear he was ready to die

and then there

Was a long-legged man who couldn’t hardly crawl
He muttered and he uttered in broken French
And he looked like he’d been through a monkey wrench

So the singer tries to get out of there quick, and he does that natural traveller thing of jumping a freight train.

And thus we hit the moral…

So, if you’re travelin’ down Louisiana way
And you feel kinda lonesome and you need a place to stay
Man, you’re better off in your misery
Than to tackle that lady at one-oh-three

What is so interesting is that in the midst of these various songs of leaving and larking around, Dylan then wrote “Who killed Davy Moore” and “Seven Curses.”

There really is no telling how Bob worked and what took him from one theme to another during these periods of energetic writing but jump around he certainly did.

Dylan has rarely written about the world of prostitution, and we can’t really know why he suddenly decided to do a song about it now, but it is interesting to listen to his introduction to the live recording.

In one way however this was a clear forerunner of the Basement era songs about the strangest people one could ever meet.  Yet it is not so much about the lady, but the look of the men who leave her house that fascinates Dylan. And it continued to be that way for several years.

What else is on the site

1: Over 460 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Larry Fyffe

Bob Dylan covers a song that bespeaks the biblical Book of Job:

There was a man in the land of Uz
Whose name was Job
A that man was perfect and upright
And one that feared God
And eschewed evil
(Job 1:1)

The Devil figures that Job is upright just because he has lots of sheep and stuff, and a large family to boot, so he challenges God to put up or shut up:

But put forth thine hand now
And touch all he hath
And he will curse thee to thy face
(Job 1: 11)

Now God is no cowardly lion, and tweaks the Devil’s nose, and says ‘Go ahead, punk, make my day – see to it that Job suffers, and we’ll find out what happens’.

Bob Dylan draws upon the biblical allegory:

How many times have you heard someone say
If I had his money I’d do things my way
Hmm, but little they know
Hmm, it is so hard to find
One man in ten with a satisfied mind
(Bob Dylan: A Satisfied Mine – Hayes; Rhodes)

The Devil puts his best hoof forward – gets his gang of bad guys to steal Job’s sheep; a storm to kill most of his family; and, for good measure, Job gets boils:

Hmm, once I was wading in fortune and fame
Everything I dreamed of to get a start in life’s game
But suddenly it happened
Hmm, I lost every dime
But I’m richer by far with a satisfied mind
(Bob Dylan: A Satisfied Mind)

In real life, Dylan goes through a tough time, and finds comfort by flirting with religious fundamentalists, writing and singing gospel songs, and listening to his friend Frankie:

I’ve lived a life that’s full
I’ve travelled each and every highway
But more, much more than this
I did it my way
Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again too few to mention
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption
(Frank Sinatra: My Way – Paul Anka)

Job’s friends tell him that he must have done something wrong. Job wonders if his children have. His wife thinks his faith is over-the-top.

Job comes to the realization that he’s been too self-assured in his belief that he knows the ways of God:

Wherefore, I abhor myself
And repent in dust and ashes
(Job 42:6)

God did it His way, and wins the bet made with the Devil – Job is forgiven and the scarecrow regains his earthly Paradise:

Hmm, when my life is over, and the time has run out
My friends and my loved ones I’ll leave, there ain’t no doubt
When it comes my time
I’ll leave this old world with a satisfied mind
(Bob Dylan: A Satisfied Mind)

A precondition to God’s betting be that the Devil is not to kill Job, but only make him suffer:

After this lived Job an hundred and forty years
And saw his sons, and his sons, even four generations
(Job: 42: 16)

In the allegory, death was not to be Job’s end until God made that decision. Job’s spirit for life pulls him through the ordeal, and his life continues on. But much more than this, he realizes that life will go on without him.

Mistaken it is that Bob Dylan is apocalyptic in his vision – though, like Job, he wavers at times, i.e., Job wishes, during his suffering, that he had not been born, but he reconsiders and does not give up hope:

When the storm clouds gather ’round you
And the heavy rains descend
Just remember that death is not the end
And there’s no one there to comfort you
With a helping hand to lend
Just remember that death is not the end
(Bob Dylan: Death Is Not The End)

Bob Dylan has read the poetry of the Romantic Transcendentalists, and live on in his song lyrics they do.

• Bob Dylan and the Bible, an index

What else is on the site

1: Over 460 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Tony Attwood

The 50th Anniversary Collection 1963 was the second Bob Dylan collection of songs that  Sony Music published with the idea of stopping recordings of Bob’s early songs from entering the public domain in Europe – which under EU law happens 50 years after the song is written – if there is no recording in place to extend its copyright control.

To achieve their aim of restricting circulation, the music has to be “published” in the fullest extent and so to do this Sony produced a six LP set (only LPs, not available on CD) of all the songs they wanted to protect and made 100 copies of it.  I’ve no idea who got them or how much the LPs changed hands for – if any were ever released to the public.  If you know more do say.

As far as I know this song was performed just the once on 12 April 1963 at the Town Hall concert in New York, and was just about the closest Bob got to an instrumental until he started writing film music.

The song however was very much part of Dylan’s experimental mood at the time as we can see with the list of songs that Dylan wrote immediately prior to this little piece.

• Boots of Spanish Leather
• Bob Dylan’s Dream
• Farewell
• Talkin Devil 
• All over you
• Going back to Rome
• Only a Hobo

These are primarily songs about travelling on, travelling because one just has to travel, and being on the outside of society looking in.  This song is the least substantial of the whole list and pretty soon after this Dylan seems to have got the notion out of his system – at least for a while.

Haiku 61 gives us

I’m just a rambler.
Ramble happy, ramble sad.
Ramble good or bad.

which is an excellent summary of the little song, but the writer also suggests Dylan’s work comes from Woody Guthrie’s “Ramblin Round”.   Certainly the concept of the lyrics (such as they are) is very similar, but in musical terms the Guthrie song doesn’t have anything much to do with Dylan’s version.

Here are the lyrics

And here is the performance…

And beyond that I’m not sure there is too much to say.

What else is on the site

1: Over 460 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Larry Fyffe

You can’t say that singer/songwriter Bob Dylan doesn’t warn his listeners that the train’ll get lost – referencing himself and a cover song by the Beatles, he writes:

Look down your drain pipe
What colour do you see?
It’s got to be yellow
Don’t try to fool me
And don’t it make you wanna twist and shout
When your outsides in (inside out)
And your downsides up (upside down)
Yeah, your upsides right (right side up)
Yeah, don’t it make you wanna twist and shout
When you’re inside out
(Dylan; Lynn: Inside Out)

The chicken Monkeyman is dancing with the brave Godman on a Post-Modern tight-rope that stretches across the Nietzschean abyss. Bacchus – Dionysus is better.

There’s no doubt that in some of his song lyrics, Bob Dylan stands up for the teachings of Jesus, with no sympathy for the devil.

Or is there?

He’s the property of Jesus
Resent him to the bone
You got something better
You got a heart of stone
(Bob Dylan: Property Of Jesus)

Alluding to the Devil himself, Mick Jagger:

There’s been so many girls that I’ve known
I’ve made so many cry, and still I wonder why
Here comes a little girl, l see her walking down the street
She’s all by herself, I try to knock her off her feet
‘Cause you’ll never break, never break, never break, never break
This heart of stone, oh no, no, this heart of stone
(Rolling Stones: Heart Of Stone)

Dylan does not write, ‘I’m the property of Jesus’, but uses the third person instead, and suggests that the Devil gets the best lines, has got something better – a heart of stone. In the above lyrics, Jagger puts on the mask of Frederich Nietzsche’s son of man with a will to power- he’s certainly no son of God.

In the Bible, Jesus Christ claims He’s the ‘Son of Man’, and never calls Himself the ‘Son of God’.

The high priests of the established montheistic order contend otherwise:

Then said they all, ‘Art thou then the Son of God?’
And He said unto them, ‘Ye say that I am’
And they said, ‘What need we any further witness?
For we have ourselves have heard of his own mouth’
(Lukes 22: 70, 71)

Most leaders of Christianity side with the dubious interpretation given by the high priests to those words uttered by Jesus.

Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan offers up a bit of humourous ‘low burlesque’ concerning the matter:

I rapped upon a house with a U.S. flag upon display
I said, ‘Can you please help me out, I got some friends down the way’
The man said, ‘Get out of here, I’ll tear you limb from limb’
I said, ‘You know they refused Jesus, too’; he said, ‘You’re not him
Get outta here before I break your bones
I ain’t your pop’
(Bob Dylan: 115th Dream)

Most of the time, but not all of the time, Dylan is rather cheeky. With his lyrics of double-meaning, in songs that seem at first to be purely religious, Dylan stirs in a fair amount of the Son of Man’s sexuality:

I got a God-fearing woman
One I can easily afford
She can do the Georgia crawl
She can walk in the spirit of the Lord
Jesus said, ‘Be ready
For you know not the hour in which I come’
He said, ‘He who is not for me is against me’
Just so you know where He’s coming from
(Bob Dylan: Gonna Change My Way Of Thinkin’)

For listeners of Dylan’s music and lyrics who insist that his songs are autobiographical, there’s lots of room for a humourous interpretation.

What the ‘Georgian crawl’ involves is likely in Ovid’s book series entitled ‘The Art of Love’ that’s mentioned in ‘Thunder On The Mountain’ – no doubt the art is demonstrated by Mary Magdalene; and while Allen Ginsberg isn’t the type for Dylan, the Beat poet attempts to place himself against the young singer; Dylan makes it clear to him where he’s coming from.

Easily missed in Dylan’s lyrics is a lot of irony and humour:

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

Another case in point – In the following song, to many listeners it appears that Dylan panders to right-wing conservativism. On careful listening, one can’t be sure if the song expresses thoughts like those of the ‘backwoods girl’ or the actual thoughts of Dylan (or at least his persona). He’s a trickster:

I had a woman down in Alabama
She was a backwoods girl, but
She sure was realistic
she said, ‘Boy, without a doubt
Have to quit your mess and straighten out” ….
All that foreign oil controlling American soil
Look around it’s just bound to make you embarrassed
Shieks walking around like kings
Wearing fancy jewels and nose rings
(Bob Dylan: Slow Train)

There’s a slow train of thought coming around the bend – Dylan is not going to be tied to a cross – be a cross tie:

But it do bother me to see my loved ones
turning into puppets
There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up
Around the bend

Don’t forget the Drano – it takes a lot to laugh, it takes a drain to cry.

What else is on the site

1: Over 460 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Tony Attwood

Oh how Bob Dylan loves Italy.  From his reworking of “House Carpenter” (a traditional English balled known this side of the pond as “The Daemon Lover”)…

Forsake, forsake your house carpenter
And come away with me
I’ll take you where the green grass grows
On the shores of sunny Italy

all the way on to the blues and in to Down the Highway

Yes, the ocean took my baby
My baby took my heart from me
She packed it all up in a suitcase
Lord, she took it away to Italy, Italy

And of course there is that mention in Idiot Wind

They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy
She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me
I can’t help it if I’m lucky

So we have the image of Italy; the sunshine, the place of escape, the art, even if

the streets of Rome are filled with rubble
Ancient footprints are everywhere

But still those ancient footprints tell us a thing or two about the world, as in Tangled Up

Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
From the thirteenth century

Indeed as the writer of Haiku 61 put it

You can have New York.
I’ll take the Coliseum
As I’ll be in Rome.

This song was played at The Basement of Gerde’s Folk City in New York on 8 February 1963, and that was it, and yet somehow a recording of the event survived.  However although we had it listed here for a while, it has now vanished into the wilderness, and I can’t find another.

But I can tell you it’s a straightforward 12 bar blues with an unbelievably variable changeable chord sequence, at time, which at a couple of points takes on the exact form of “She Belongs to Me”.  Here are the lyrics…

Well you know I’m lying 
But don’t look at me with scorn.
Well you know I’m lying 
But don’t look at me with scorn.
I’m going back to Rome
That’s where I was born.

Buy me a ?? I can carry
Keep it for my friends.
Buy me a ?? I can carry
Keep it for my friends.
Don’t go to Italy
All around the bend.

You can keep Madison Square Garden
Give me the Coliseum.
You can keep Madison Square Garden
Give me the Coliseum.
So I want to see the gladiators,
Man I can always see ’em.

And that was all we had until in 1971 “When I paint my masterpiece” came along when a little trace of this song returned…

Oh, the hours I’ve spent inside the Coliseum
Dodging lions and wastin’ time
Oh, those mighty kings of the jungle, I could hardly stand to see ’em
Yes, it sure has been a long, hard climb

And I suppose it was a long hard climb from larking about in 1963 to being a full-on world famous superstar up on the stage  (the 20th century Coliseum) facing the critics (I could hardly stand to see em).

Yes it sure was a long hard climb, but as always Bob, thank you for taking the time to do it, and to record what happened.  Every step of the way.

What else is on the site

1: Over 460 reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

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

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

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

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

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

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