Untold Dylan

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by Larry Fyffe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other articles you might enjoy in relation to this song…

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that here.

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

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

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

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

By Tony Attwood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

by Larry Fyffe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blakean and Swedenborgian, the metaphors of Gnosticism be:

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

Disturbing to orthodox Christianity, that’s for sure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that here.

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

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

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

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

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

by Larry Fyffe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that here.

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

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

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

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

By Tony Attwood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mama’s in the kitchen fixin’ the yeast

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

Drinkin’ home brew … makes you happy.

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

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

and then more irony

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

and some social concerns

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

and setting up another joke

So long, New York
Howdy, East Orange

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

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

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

It’s a bit more fun…

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Larry Fyffe

Part 1 of Dylan and Gnosticism appears here

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Likewise, does Bob Dylan in a song:

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

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

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

Dylan sings a similar hymn to sparks of light:

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

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

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

What else is on the site

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

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

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that here.

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

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

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

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

By Tony Attwood

This song is listed as a Bob Dylan composition, but I think this is a case of where there is a forerunner that is so close to Dylan’s in both music and lyrics that some acknowledgement (if not fulsome accreditation of a composer) should be given.

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

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

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

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

In Alabama Woman Blues you will find lines such as

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

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

and then later:

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

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

Here’s Bob’s version

And another variant…

and this includes the lyrics

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

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

Here’s the other version recorded by Bob

https://youtu.be/00MMGSobmgM

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

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

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

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

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

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

DYLAN AND IT TAKES A LOT TO LAUGH: the series

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

What else is on the site

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

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

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that here.

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

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

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

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

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

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

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

All’s well and good.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You strayed into my arms
And there you stayed
Temporarily lost at sea
The Madonna was yours for free
Yes the girl on the half-shell
Would keep you from harm
(Joan Baez: Diamonds And Rust)

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

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

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

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

The series continues…

What else is on the site

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

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

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that here.

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

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

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

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

by Tony Attwood

The Death of Emmett Till is a song by Bob Dylan that was written around the time of Talkin John Birch and Ramblin Gamblin Willie.  As with those songs Dylan uses an old established musical format, alongside an old lyrical theme to create a new piece.

Musically the song is “House of the Rising Sun” sung at full speed, using that song’s highly distinctive chord sequence.

“House” was one of the songs that back in those days every aspiring folk guitarist would learn because it gives the chance for all sorts of melodic invention above a chord sequence which is so easy for the guitar beginner to play and yet which actually sounds quite complex…

Am, C, D, F

Am, C, E

and so on.  If you don’t play an instrument yourself go out and find a pianist or guitarist and get him to play that sequence.  You’ll recognise it at once.

The song was originally recorded for Broadside and Dylan considered it the most important song he had written thus far.  The Spotify version from the “RTL and BD music album” has a nice commentary after.  It is also on the Bootleg volume 9.  There’s a link to the radio version at the end and to the Whitmark version.

“Emmett Till” retells the story of events in 1955 when a black man was murdered seemingly for whistling at a white woman.  Two white men were arrested for the crime, found not guilty by an all white jury, and then subsequently confessed knowing that they could not be tried again.

It is not a major piece in Dylan’s list of compositions at this time, but it has become noteworthy because of one singular use of language within the song, and the commentary made by Heylin in “Revolution in the Air”, which seems to misunderstand completely what is going on in the song.

Heylin began his review by complaining that Dylan was “hopelessly confused” about the facts of the case, seemingly not recognising that the whole folk music tradition is about taking incidents and then writing them larger to enhance the dramatic effect.  Indeed one only has to ponder what songs would be like if composers were forced only to tell everything exactly as in some sort of court report set to music.

It is patently obvious that folk songs are not newspaper reports, any more than newspaper reports are theatre.  Each has a restrictive form and for those which are entertainment they are set in a way that can be understood and recalled easily. They change details for dramatic effect.

But far worse (at least for me, and of course as always these commentaries are just my opinion), Heylin then suggests that the murderers “only intended to frighten the boy; that he had ample opportunity to escape; and that it was his continuing insolence and repeated claims to have had white girlfriends that finally drove the brothers to silence him for good.  Such motivations were simply disregarded by a Dylan bent on his own verbal execution.

“The couplet

Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up
They said they had a reason, but I can’t remember what

the only line in the song in which the narrator addresses the listener directly – is an open admission that the facts of the case held zero interest for this zealot.”

Now leaving aside the point I have just made – that folk songs are not exact detailed reporting of historical events, but retelling to make a moral point – when I first heard those two lines

Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up
They said they had a reason, but I can’t remember what

I was really knocked out by them.  To me they have a totally different meaning from that which Heylin found, one that says that the reasons the men gave as an excuse for murder were so trivial and so awful, that the mind can’t conceive that anyone could trivialise human life in such a way.

Heylin’s point appears to be that the behaviour of the young black man made the murder excusable, or at least should be grounds for a plea of what in the UK is called “diminished responsibility” for the crime.

But how can there ever possibly be diminished responsibility for the crime of a racist murder?  Dylan is quite right, the killers’ excuses should not be remembered because they are so appallingly trivial.

I think (and of course as in all the commentaries here, this is just my opinion) this review of the song by Heylin actually tells us infinitely more about the author of the review than about Bob Dylan.  What we can learn about Dylan at this time is that he was a young songwriter who was exploring every possible way of writing songs and that real and exciting talent was breaking through.

If we look at the songs written in this year, in the order they were written, this point is well made.  They cover the death of a friend, folk heroes, classic blues, opposition to the far right, social commentary, the notion that it is not the world that affects us but the way we see the world, lost love, leaving and finally one of the greatest songs of the last century expressing the notion that is very difficult to express in song, that everything is falling apart.

• Ballad for a friend
• Poor Boy Blues
• Rambling Gambling Willie
• Standing on the highway
• Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues
• Death of Emmett Till
• The Ballad of Donald White
• Let me die in my footsteps
• Blowing in the wind 
• Corrina Corrina
• Quit your Lowdown Ways
• Down the Highway
• Tomorrow is a long time 
• Hard Rain’s a gonna fall

Of course, as ever, all of this is my opinion, just as it is my personal opinion that the review of this song by Heylin is not just mistaken in its analysis, but quite awful for the way it criticises Dylan for using the medium of folk music as it has always been used – a shorthand to make a point.  And for seemingly to excuse a racist murder on the grounds that “he was asking for it”.

From an artistic point of view, it also shows (again just to me perhaps, but I still want to make the point) that Heylin hasn’t got a clue about the meanings that can be woven into poetic couplets.

Indeed the couplet I have quoted above gets a doubly powerful meaning when we consider it in relationship to the first verse which contains the phrase “I can still remember well” contrasting with “I can’t remember what” in the second verse…

Twas down in Mississippi not so long ago
When a young boy from Chicago town stepped through a Southern door
This boy’s dreadful tragedy I can still remember well
The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till

Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up
They said they had a reason, but I can’t remember what
They tortured him and did some things too evil to repeat
There were screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing sounds
out on the street

It may look incredibly simple on the screen, but it is hard to pull off in a song (believe me I have spent a lifetime trying) without it sounding simplistic.  Here is doesn’t because of the horror of the reason that the killers had.

It is a song in which Dylan doesn’t allow us any room for sentimentality

Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain
And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain
The reason that they killed him there, and I’m sure it ain’t no lie
Was just for the fun of killin’ him and to watch him slowly die

What makes the song complete, is that the penultimate verse seems to be addressed across the years to what Heylin and to those who think as he appears to think. (Although to be clear let me add that I am saying “what Heylin appears to think” from what we read in this review, for of course I cannot take this little piece to be representative of his broader opinion, shocking those these views are).

If you can’t speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that’s so unjust
Your eyes are filled with dead men’s dirt, your mind is filled with dust
Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood
it must refuse to flow
For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!

And maybe I am biased because that is exactly how I feel.  I don’t care one bit if details of the case are misrepresented in the song, the song makes the point so clear and simple.  How did we come to sink this low?

I’m not arguing that this is a great song to stand alongside “Ballad for a Friend” at the start of the year, or “Blowing in the Wind” or “Hard Rain” later in the year, but it shows elements of Dylan’s ability with words and ideas which already take him far beyond the norm of this type of folk song.

It also reminds us that there are still some out there who would excuse a racist murder on the grounds that “they were provoked”.  There is no provocation that excuses such acts.

Here’s the Whitmark version

And the radio version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVKTx9YlKls

What else is on the site

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

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

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that here.

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

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

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

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

Bob Dylan And The Allegory

by Larry Fyffe

It is always surprising to me when music critics and even many fans of Bob Dylan’s claim that particular song lyrics indicate a sudden change in his nonconformist philosophical position – his convertion to the Christian religion or a return to his Jewish roots.

Many, very many, of Dylan’s songs, contain double-edged images drawn from the Judeo-Christian Bible. The lyrics of these songs can be interpreted, albeit differently, as allegories.

An allegory is metaphorical (a metaphor being a word or phrase applied to an object or event, not literally applicable thereto – for example, a ‘stone’ comes to represent more than a stone). An allegory is a story, a poem, or song that contains a hidden political or moral message. Jesus, called the Christ, speaks in allegories called ‘parables’ in the Holy Bible.

There’s the biblical allegory of woman as a would-be bride who seeks supremacy over the groom – over the individual; over the every man; even over Jesus.

She can be considered, in a metaphorical sense, the wayward institutions of church and state, as in the lyrics below:

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

The lyrics above can be considered akin to a Blakean allegory: the female Tiger attracted to the idol of the Golden Calf rather than to the spiritual Lamb of God.

Likewise, in the song lyrics below – the singer/songwriter is the persona of the groom, the Christ who rejects the advances of the materialistic Claudette in a society of decayed morals; she’s no purified Mary Magdalene, that’s for sure:

Cities on fire, phones out of order
They’re killing nuns and soldiers
There’s fighting on the border
What can I say about Claudette
Ain’t seen her since January
She could be respectably married
Or running a whorehouse in Buenos Aires
(The Groom’s Still Waiting At The Altar)

The following double-edged lyrics can be considered an allegory wherein the male is upside down and on the bottom -in the position of a bride who has discarded her spiritual side, and submitted herself to the decadent materialism of a modern Babylon:

It was gravity which pulled us down
and destiny which broke us apart
You tamed the lion in my cage but it just
wasn’t enough to change my heart
Now every thing is a little upside down
as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped
What is good is bad, what’s bad is good
you’ll find out when you’re reach the top
You’re on the bottom
(Bob Dylan: Idiot Wind)

Such rather difficult-to-interpret allegories of mankind being both heavenly and earthly, Dylan draws from the Holy Bible; what the future of the Universe holds lies solely (maybe) in the hands of an anthropomorphic God.

If there is a clear answer blowin’ in the wind, God nor Dylan ain’t sayin’, but God alone is the One who certainly knows what’s a-gonna happen to each and everyone of us here on earth.

And to tangle up matters further, He’s presented in Bible as half-god and half-human Himself – God unites with His earth-born Son, Jesus:

Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward
And the spirit of the beast that goeth downward
to the earth?
Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better
than that a man should rejoice in his own works
For that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see
what shall be after him?
(The Book Of Ecclesiastes 3: 21-22)

The problem is that God’s human side, Jesus, speaks in parables that are not all that clear though theologians attempt to make them so. Dylan’s entangles his own song lyrics to reflect the ambiguity of the Bible. The lyrics of the singer/songwriter reveal that he finds the dogmatic answers given by religious leaders to riddles posed in the Bible are difficult to swallow:

Like singer Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan finds that he would grapple with such matters in his own way, and in the song below and other songs , he says to his listeners, ‘do it your way’:

Well, you’re on your own
You always were
In a land of wolves and thieves
Don’t put your hope in ungodly men
Or be the slave to what somebody’s else believes
(Bob Dylan: Trust Yourself)

Dylan, in his art, consistently promotes this nonconformist philosophy – from the get-go.

What else is on the site

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

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

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that here.

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

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

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

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

By Tony Attwood

If you have been reading through the reviews on this site, rather than dipping to read up on the songs you are thinking about (which is of course fair enough – every reader is very welcome) you’ll know that I rate “Ballad for a Friend” as one of the all time overwhelmingly great songs that Dylan has written.  The first absolute masterpiece.

As such this song totally swamps the song that emerged just about the same time: Poor Boy Blues.  Swamps it so much that I completely forgot to do a review of “Poor Boy Blues,” while raving over “Ballad”!

And although the songs seem to have been written within a week or so of each other, they are utterly different.  For whereas “Ballad for a Friend” tells us a story, “Poor Boy” simply sets the scene.

Thus in “Poor Boy”, nothing happens – it is instead a broad brush painting of the situation portrayed in the blues, a situation concerning a good boy and the railroad.  A run through all the standard blues scenarios and scenery one after the other; a set of lines that simply tell of the blues as the blues, with all the standard images that the blues carry; images of moving on and utter, total restlessness.

As such, for all that “Ballad” is a perfectly constructed complete piece, what we have here is just a set of standard images that go nowhere, and as an experiment, for me it doesn’t work.  It is a sketch in a notebook, not a song intended to be listened to and appreciated.  And maybe that’s another reason why I forgot it before.

From the very first verse we know the world has gone wrong

Mm, tell mama
Where’d ya sleep last night?
Cain’t ya hear me cryin’?
Hm, hm, hm

And the problems won’t go away

Hey, tell me baby
What’s the matter here?
Cain’t ya hear me cryin’?
Hm, hm, hm

What would rescue the song at this point however would be a sudden and unexpected move of the music to another pair of chords, maybe a fourth higher, to give us some contrast.  Yes, that might destroy the whole idea of the blues and the world going wrong, wrong and wrong again, but it sure would make the song much more listenable and I would suggest much more interesting.

As it is the song is hard going and I can’t imagine too many people will have played this song more than once or twice, unless they are in the habit of listening to the whole Bootleg 9 album all the way through.

And so we get the idea at the start, and the song plays the idea through, continuing to give us every option that the blues has to offer in the remaining verses

Hey, stop you ol’ train
Let a poor boy ride

Hey, Mister Bartender
I swear I’m not too young

Blow your whistle, policeman
My poor feet are trained to run

Long-distance operator
I hear this phone call is on the house

Ashes and diamonds
The diff’rence I cain’t see

Mister Judge and Jury
Cain’t you see the shape I’m in?

Mississippi River
You a-runnin’ too fast for me

Yes it could have worked, and indeed that is my point here, because it very much did work in Ballad for a Friend.  It was just that at this stage Dylan could indeed write a masterpiece, but as yet he could not write one masterpiece after another.

But the time when he could was really not that far away.

What else is on the site

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

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

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that here.

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

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

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

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

A New Dylan Christmas Song Uncovered

by Larry Fyffe

The unwavering detectives at the Untold Dylan offices have managed to lay their sleuth-hound paws on the lyrics of a yet-to-be-released new Christmas song by Bob Dylan.

For the pleasure of our readers only, we publish the song’s lyrics along with its title:

Hard Reindeer Are Gonna Fall

Oh where have you been, Rudolf?, my red-nosed son
Where have you been?, my sad young one
The other reindeer call me nasty names
I’ve been left out of all their reindeer games
I’ve been up early mornin’, lookin’ for a deer yard
And it’s hard, and it’s hard, and it’s hard
And hard reindeer a-gonna fall

Oh what have you seen?, my red-nosed son
What have you seen?, my sad-eyed one
I saw St. Nick’s throne with no body on it
I saw a red sleigh with grey fog all around it
I saw ten thousand children with stockings all empty
And it’s hard, and it’s hard, and it’s hard
And hard reindeer a-gonna fall

Oh what’ll we do now?, my red-nosed son
What’ll we do now?, my sad-eyed one
Well the weatherman, he ain’t so proud
I can lead Santa through the darkest cloud
With my red nose a-blinkin’, and my horns a-blowin’
The soles of those socks won’t be forgotten
I tell ya ol’ foggie, you ain’t hard
It’s not hard, it’s not hard, it ain’t hard

The eight other reindeer shouted
out with glee
And they all played games around the
Christmas tree
Everyone of them’ll go down in history
Rudolf, Dasher, Dancer, Donner, Vixen
Comet, Cupid, Prancer, Blitzen
The tree caught on fire and killed them all
Blazin’ reindeer meat’s a-gonna fall
And its hard, it’s hard, it’s hard, it’s very hard

Elsewhere in DYLAN: THE LIGHTER SIDE:  (For more info on this aspect of the site please click here)

• Bob Dylan And Omar Khayyam. Not to mention East Orange.
• Bob Dylan’s Efforts At Tourist Promotion: the Untold secret files
• Is Bob Dylan funny? Should we be funny about Bob Dylan? Does humour have a place in our society?
• Dear Babby: An advice column for the lovelorn

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What else is on the site

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

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

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.  A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that here.

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

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

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

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

By Larry Fyffe

No one twists and turns the still existing themes of past times to make them better suited to modern times, more than does Bob Dylan.

Contrary to what many music critics claim, Dylan chooses his double-edged diction with great care, and thus careful attention must be paid: as in, for example, “the long black cloud is comin’ down”.

In the Bible verse below, Mary Magdalene mistakes the revitalized Jesus for a gardener:

Jesus saith unto her, ‘Women,
why weepest thou; whom seekest thou?’
She supposing him to be the gardener,
saith unto him
Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell
me where thou hast laid him
And I will take him away
(Book Of St. John: 20:15)

In the song below, that old story is revised in the fragmented, disorderly style of Modernist writing:

As I walked out in the mystical garden
On a hot summer day, hot summer lawn
Excuse me, ma’am, I beg your pardon
There’s no one here, the gardener is gone
(Bob Dylan: Ain’t Talkin’)

Leaving the plausible interpretation that the narrator is comparing himself to the now ever-present figure of Jesus, the persona taken on by Dylan is not the gardener of the Old Testament, but, like Jesus, is the one who remains. The weed-destroying gardener is gone.

Poet Paul Verlaine springs to mind and with him the theme that great art endures much longer than the person who creates it – even when the focus of the art is on death and decay:

Opening the narrow rickety gate
I went for a walk in the little garden
All lit up with the gentle morning sun
(Paul Verlaine: After Three Years)

Bob Dylan is quite adept at tweaking classical myths, legends of the Old West, folk lore, biblical narratives, morality tales, and even nursery rhymes – sometimes turning them completely upside down – for the sake of making art that is original. ‘Art for art’s sake’, one might say – turning villains into good guys, and vice versa, for example:

John Wesley Harding
Was a friend to the poor
He travelled with a gun in every hand
All along this countryside
He opened many a door
But was never known
To hurt an honest man
(Bob Dylan: John Wesley Harding)

The initials ‘JWH’ resemble the written Hebrew ‘YHWH’, the un-utterable reference to ‘God’.

Whether personally a follower of some variety of Christianity and/or Judaism
– or not -, the lyrics of many Dylan songs rework Biblical narratives, ie, at times, interpretable as God being, if not Satanic, at least in league with the Devil. As the persona considers himself to be – at least in the following lyrics:

Shake the dust off your feet, don’t look back
Nothing now can hold you down, nothing that you lack
Temptation’s not an easy thing
Adam given the Devil reign
Because he sinned I got no choice
It run in my vein
(Bob Dylan: Pressing On)

Dylan reworks nursery rhymes.  For example below is a song that is interpretable as castigating God for turning a blind eye on mankind’s development of nuclear weapons capable of annihilating the human race. First the nursery rhyme:

There was a little boy and a little girl
Lived in an alley
Says the the little boy to the little girl
‘Shall I, oh, shall I?’
Says the little girl to the little boy
‘What shall we do?’
Says the little boy to the little girl
‘I will kiss you’
(Nursery Rhyme: There Was A Little Boy And A Little Girl)

Sings Dylan, as if he too turns a blind eye:

There was a little boy and a little girl
And they lived in an alley under the red sky ….
Let the wind blow low, let the wind blow high
One day the little boy and little girl were both baked in a pie
This is the key to the kingdom and this is the town
This is the blind horse that leads you around
(Bob Dylan: Under The Red Sky)

The following song lyrics, can be interpreted as saying that the singer takes on the a persona from one of the legends of the Old American West.

The dark vengeful God present in the Old Testament, whose wrath is relied upon by social authorities to justify the killing of fellow humans, gets rebuked by the sheriff. Instead, he turns to the light shining forth from the New Testament wherein the sheriff finds the peace-centred teachings of Jesus Christ:

Mama, take this badge off of me
I can’t use it anymore
It’s gettin’ dark, too dark for me to see
I feel like I’m knockin’ on Heaven’s door ….
Mama, put my guns in the ground
I can’t shoot them anymore
That long black cloud is comin’ down
I feel like I’m knockin’ on Heaven’s door
(Bob Dylan: Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door)

The lyrics above can be interpreted that ‘Mama’, as a representative of social norms, is the cause of her boy doing bad things. However, with “that long black cloud is comin’ down”- she’s being gotten rid of.

Bob Dylan is going to do things his way.

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 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 all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

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

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

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

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

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

by Larry Fyffe

It’s not at all surprising that Bob Dylan relates to Frank Sinatra whose songs often contain the fragmented ruins of the Transcendental school of poetry along with those of the Romantic school.

Applying labels usually reserved for literature, one detects in the song lyrics sung by Frank Sinatra an all-pervading consciousness of light mixed with the dark subconsciousness of the individual:

I’m a fool to want you
I’m a fool to want you
To want a love that can’t be true
A love that’s there for others too
(Frank Sinatra -co-writer: A Fool To Want You)

And in the song below, a pall of darkness drapes the throne of love:

One more time at midnight, near the wall
Take off your makeup and your shawl
Won’t you descend from the throne from
where you sit
Let me feel your love one more time before
I abandon it
(Bob Dylan: Abandoned Love)

Apparently, lessons learned from earthly experience temper the heavenly idealism of youth:

I could have told you
She’d hurt you
She’d love you a while
Then desert you
If only you’d asked
I could have told you so
I could have saved you
Some crying
(Frank Sinatra – co-writer: I Could Have Told You)

Below, an individual’s tears distort the comforting light rays that shine down upon everyone:

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

The spirit of vitality that shines through and manifests itself in organic Nature (represented by the Skylark) is addressed in the following song lyrics:

Skylark, have you anything to say to me
Won’t you tell me where my love can be?
Is there a meadow in the mist
Where someone’s waiting to be kissed?
Skylark, have you seen a valley green with spring
Where my heart can go a-journeying
Over the shadows and the rain
To a blossom-covered lane?
(Frank Sinatra – by Carmichael/Mercer: Skylark)

The above song is inspired by the images of ever-returning springtime in the following poem:

Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass
Rain-awakened flowers
All that ever was
Joyous and clear and fresh
Thy music doth surpass
(Percy Shelley: To A Skylark)

The Romantic Transcendentalist poet Percy Shelley may be a favorite of Bob Dylan, but the mood of the song below is one of dark alienation:

Has anyone seen my love?
I don’t know
Has anybody seen my love?
You want to talk to me
Go ahead and talk
What ever you got to say to me
Won’t come as any shock
(Bob Dylan: Has Anybody Seen My Love)

Too much darkness is spread by the kneeling bloodhounds of institutionalized religion as far as Frank Sinatra is concerned:

For what is a man, what has he got
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way
(Frank Sinatra – by Paul Anka et al: My Way)

Bobby agrees with Frankie, adding that sundrops of love aid in the healing of injuries received from the blows of darkened minds:

I love you pretty baby
You’re the only love I’ve ever known
Just as long as you stay with me
The whole world is my throne
Beyond here lies nothin’
That we can call our own
(Bob Dylan: Beyond Here Lies Nothing)

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 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 all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

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

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

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

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

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

By Tony Attwood

This fragment appears on “Biograph” and also appears on “Side Tracks” as a one verse piece with a sudden fade out, suggesting that there was more, but for some reason this is all we are offered.

It is listed as having been recorded during the Blonde on Blonde sessions and uses the structure and approach to the music of “On the road again” from “Bringing it all back home”.

You might recall the second verse of “On the road again” contains the line

The milkman comes in
He’s wearing a derby hat
Then you ask why I don’t live here
Honey, how come you have to ask me that?

In Jet Pilot the focus is on one person rather than a collection of odd balls

Well, she’s got Jet Pilot eyes from her hips on down.
All the bombardiers are trying to force her out of town.
She’s five feet nine and she carries a monkey wrench.
She weighs more by the foot than she does by the inch.
She got all the downtown boys, all at her command
But you’ve got to watch her closely ’cause she ain’t no woman
She’s a man.

As Heylin points out, there is a fair amount of Verlaine and Rimbaud in this song (to be made more explicit in 1974 with “You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go”:

Situations have ended sad
Relationships have all been bad
Mine’ve been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud
But there’s no way I can compare
All those scenes to this affair
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go

I’m not too sure that the songs relate that closely, just because of the overt mention of the two French poets, but we can perhaps make a little more out of what was going on by the fact that the next song recorded was “I wanna be your lover”

Indeed if we look at the whole sequence here we get

• Queen Jane Approximately
• Ballad of a thin man
• Jet Pilot
• I wanna be your lover
• Visions of Johanna

This is an era of writing songs about curious and unusual people – one of Dylan’s recurring themes, and one, now I come to think of it, I should have given more focus to when I started to try and work out categories for Dylan’s compositions.

It is a sort of off-shot of the songs of disdain, such as “Positively Fourth Street”, more fascination than outright dislike, although Thin Man is further inclined to the “disdain” side of things than the others in this immediately collection.

I wanna be your lover which was written next has the lines

Well, jumpin’ Judy can’t go no higher
She had bullets in her eyes, and they fire
Rasputin he’s so dignified
He touched the back of her head an’ he died

I think we can get the idea that Bob is fascinated by these unusual people, the strange crowd that turn up in so many of his songs at this time.  Did he really meet them or did they just pop up in his head?  Of course I don’t know but I suspect some of each, mostly the latter.

And it is interesting that these sessions also gave us the exquisite “It takes a lot of laugh”.  When Bob gets it spot on at this time, it really gives us beautiful songs that stay in the memory forever.

So I guess what we are hearing here are the attempts at songs from an incredibly fertile mind, and thus we can conclude that these scraps are necessary sketches along the road that had just given us “Phantom Engineer” which was morphing into “It takes a lot to laugh”.

Don’t the moon look good, mama
Shinin’ through the trees?
Don’t the brakeman look good, mama
Flagging down the “Double E?”
Don’t the sun look good
Goin’ down over the sea?
Don’t my gal look fine
When she’s comin’ after me?

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 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 all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

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

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

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

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

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

By Tony Attwood

Once again we have two versions recorded, but we seem to have got the same recording on both the original Basement Tapes double LP and the Volume 11 CD where the song is “restored” which apparently means without additional reverb and twiddles that were put into the LP version by an enthusiastic record company engineer upon its release.

The song is presumably making fun of the psychedelic mode of writing that was dominating the era when the song was written, and yes it does that.  But the trouble with nonsense words is that ultimately they remain nonsense unless they have a little something behind them.

Sometimes they can work, but generally only when there is some hint of some reality underneath, as with the classic English medieval folk song “Nottamun Town”.  If you consider that for a moment you’ll perhaps see what I mean…

Met the King and the Queen, and a company more
Come a-walking behind and a-riding before
Come a stark naked drummer a-beating the drum
With his hands on his bosom, come marching along.Sat down on a hard, hot cold frozen stone,
Ten thousand stood ’round me, yet I was alone
Took my hat in my hands for to keep my head warm,
Ten thousand got drowned that never was born.

Well, the comic book and me, just us, we caught the bus
The poor little chauffeur, though, she was back in bed
On the very next day, with a nose full of pus
Yea! Heavy and a bottle of bread

There simply isn’t anything to latch on to here in these lyrics – it is all just abstractly weird.  And that’s the problem; the totally abstract is very hard to take to one’s heart, what we need is some semblance of reality or obvious contradiction to hang on to when listening to a song.

A visual artist can of course do total abstract because one can look at the painting for as long as one likes, but with the song, it has its own time scale and progression, and it is that which seems to demand something that makes some sort of sense or absolute contradiction somewhere for us to hold on to.

Dylan however won’t give us any of that. He gave us plenty to try to hold on to in (for example) Subterranean Homesick Blues, but here, no, there’s nothing.

It’s a one-track town, just brown, and a breeze, too
Pack up the meat, sweet, we’re headin’ out
For Wichita in a pile of fruit
Get the loot, don’t be slow, we’re gonna catch a trout

and then

Now, pull that drummer out from behind that bottle
Bring me my pipe, we’re gonna shake it
Slap that drummer with a pie that smells
Take me down to California, baby

After that, with no variation at all we get the first verse again, for no reason that can be discerned, and there we are.

Interesting music that perhaps with different words it could have taken us on a different journey, but here there seems to be no journey at all.

What else is on the site

1: Over 450 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 all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

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

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

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

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

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

by Larry Fyffe

Though the line of demarcation is a fuzzy one, the images contained within Bob Dylan’s song lyrics, like those in the poems of William Blake, oscillate between those that are Romantic – ie, humans possess an inherently dark nature reflected in their social institutions -, and images that are Transcendental – ie, Nature is infused with a Spirit of light which every individual has the potential of getting in touch with.

In the song below, there’s an image of the all-pervading light that’s glimpsed at times:

If not for you
Babe, I’d lay awake all night
Wait for the mornin’ light
To shine in through
But it would not be new
If not for you
(Bob Dylan: If Not For You)

But not glimpsed all of the time:

Shadows are falling and I’ve been here all day
It’s too hot to sleep, time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I’ve got the scars that the sun didn’t heel
There’s not even room enough to be anywhere
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there
(Bob Dylan: Not Dark Yet)

In the following song, the face of the Blakean Universe – one side light and the other dark – serves as an oppressive image with eyes as black as coal:

Hot chili peppers in the blistering sun
Dust on my face and on my cape
Me and Magdalena on the run
I think this time we shall escape …..
The way is long and the end is near
Already the fiesta has begun
The face of God will appear
With his serpent eyes of obsidian
(Bob Dylan: Romance In Durango)

It’s an artistic recreation of another story that ends rather badly for a rebel:

And many women were there ….
Which followed Jesus from Galilee
Ministering unto him
Among them was Mary Magdalene
(Book Of Matthew 27: 55-56)

In the following song, the dark imagery of the Romantic poets and the light imagery of the Transcendentalist poets entangle, along with the Mary Magdalene archetype:

Scarlet Town in the month of May
Sweet William Holme on his death bed lay
Mistress Mary by the side of the bed
Kissing his his face, heaping prayers on his head ….
If love is a sin, then beauty is a crime
All things are beautiful in their time
The black and white, the yellow and brown
It’s all right there for ya in Scarlet Town
(Bob Dyan: Scarlet Town)

Lieutenant William Holmes, a subordinate of Miles Standish, leads the Plymouth Rock Pilgrims in a war against the Pequot Indians, essentially wiping them out. On one level of meaning in the above version of the song, Dylan shows how history is whitewashed by romantic legends of writers like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

On the other hand, there are writers more critical of past times. The setting of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel ‘The Scarlet Letter’ (1850)is the Massachusetts Bay Colony established by the Pilgrims. The story is about a woman who has a child by a Puritan minister and her punishment for this at the hands of the colonists; she refuses to tell them who the father is.

A theme not unlike that found in the following song:

They wished you’d accepted the blame for the farm
But with the sea at your feet and the phony false alarm
And the child of a hoodlum wrapped up in your arms
How could they ever have persuaded you?
(Bob Dylan: Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands)

The sunlight of from the poetry of the Romantic Transcendentalists, albeit dimmed by the dark clouds of the Modernists, still shines at times in the songs of Bob Dylan:

Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and
endures, and is patient
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength
of woman’s devotion
List to the mournful tradition, still sung by
pines of the forest
(Henry Longfellow: Evangeline)

You may also be interested in

• Bob Dylan And Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Desire (Part I)
• Bob Dylan And Henry Longfellow: Desire (Part II)

What else is on the site

1: Over 400 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 all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

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

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

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

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

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

By Tony Attwood

Last time I wrote about two versions of the same song appearing on different bootleg albums I got myself into a right old tangle and after readers had kindly put me out of my misery, had to go back and correct my ramblings.

So I approach this with uncertainty.  We have this song issued on the original Basement Tapes double LP and then again on Bootleg Vol 11 where it is called the “Restored Version”.   The lyrics on both appear to me NOT to be the lyrics on the official Bob Dylan site where the Volume 11 of the Bootleg series is listed twice, once as “Alternative Version” and once as “Alternative Take”.

There’s no point my reproducing the lyrics from the official website since they are not on either of the two versions I have got.

The version I have got on the double album and the Volume XI has got the lines that Heylin transcribes as

“Aloysius was sold at seven years old un-huh

Aloysius was sold at seven years old un-huh

If I die, bury me in the ground

I’ll catch you man by the hare and hound

…

or words to that effect.”

So I am thinking that the lyrics on the Bob.Dylan.com site come from what Heylin describes as “barely a run through” and what we have each time is the second take.  So quite why this is a restored version I don’t really know.  I guess that could mean that they have done a spot of engineering on it.

Or not – because there is also a debate as to who was the drummer and how good he is.  To me, and maybe I am getting past it in my old age, the drummer sounds ok, given that the piece is just running through with very little rehearsal.  So I am guessing that both times we have been given take two while the web site offers us the lyrics of take one.

If you can sort this out just write in and tell me, and let me admit before you do, I just don’t know.

What I do know is that the song came originally from the same sources as Baby wont you be my baby  which Bob probably wrote a few weeks earlier, and the sources of which through the last century I traced in the review of that song.  “Baby won’t you” takes the whole thing a lot slower, but “Apple Suckling” takes it back to the speed that we are used to hearing it at.

What I didn’t mention with that song is that the ultimate antecedent is “Froggie went a courting” which Bob himself recorded on “Good as I been to you” and which first appeared in the 16th century in Scotland.

Here is Tex Ritter singing it

Bob’s version of course is on Spotify.

What is on the site

1: Over 400 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 all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

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

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

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

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

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

by Larry Fyffe

He who knows not American history, knows not Bob Dylan. Or, to be more precise, he who knows not the Romantic myths surrounding American history, knows not Bob Dylan.

Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow shoots his myth-bearing arrow into the oak tree of American folklore.

On the way to Jamestown, Virginia, Captain Miles Standish is blown off course and lands at Plymouth Rock. Longfellow immortalizes the Indian-killer in ‘The Courtship Of Miles Standish’.

Taking her cue from Longfellow’s poem, another Romantic immortalizes Pocahontas, the Indian princess associated with the Jamestown settlement:

Knowest thou what thou hast done, thou, dark-haired child?
What great events on thy compassion hung?
What prowess lurks beneath your aspect mild
And in the accents of that foreign tongue? ……
But thou, O forests princess, true of heart
When o’er our fathers waved destruction’s dart
Shalt in their children’s loving hearts be shrined
Pure, lonely star, o’er dark oblivion wave
It is not meet thy name should moulder in the grave
(Lydia Sigourney: Pocahontas)

The singer/songwriter gets Star Trek’s Scotty to beam him back to the early English settlement at Jamestown:

I got a house on a hill, I got hogs out in the mud
I got a house on a hill, I got hogs out lying in the mud
Got a long-haired woman, she got royal Indian blood
(Bob Dylan: Summer Days)

Sir Walter Raleigh brings hogs to Jamestown in 1607.

The ‘Desire’ album pays tribute to poet Henry Longfellow, and his Romantic reworking of the history of the later settlement at Plymouth Rock:

…. Oh sister, when I fall into your spacey arms
Can not ya feel the weight of oblivion
And the songs of redemption on your backside
We surface alongside Miles Standish
And take the Rock
(Liner notes: Desire album)

The singer/songwriter lightens up with humour the transformation of ‘the American Dream’ of a new Eden into the reality of materalistic greed -Captain Standish becomes Captain Arab:

I was riding on the Mayflower
When I thought I spied some land ….
Captain Arab he started writing up some deeds
He said ‘Let’s set up a fort
And start buying this place with beads’
(Bob Dylan: 115th Dream)

In the ‘Desire’ song ‘Isis’, Bob Dylan humourously mixes together mythologies in the manner of Gothic Romantic poetry. Searched for, as expressed through various mythologies, is the Oneness of the Universe before it split apart. For example, in Christian mythology, Jesus is considered an integral part of Father Sky, and the Lord unites with Mary, the Earth Mother; the produce of Earth and Sky be Adam and Eve.

In Egyptian mythology, Isis, a Mary-like symbol of a devoted mother, is the product of the Sky goddess and Earth god. She is the wife to her brother Osirus. Set, the jealous brother of Osirus, locks him in a coffin, a tale akin to the Christian story of Cain stoning his brother Abel to death.

Bob Dylan recklessly satires these mythologies and plays with Longfellow’s poetic juxtaposition of material and spiritual values:

I was thinkin’ about turquoise
I was thinkin’ about gold
I was thinkin’ about diamonds
And the world’s biggest necklace
As we rode through the canyons
Through the devilish cold
I was thinkin’ about Isis
How she thought I was so reckless
(Bob Dylan: Isis)

What else is on the site

1: Over 400 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 all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

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

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

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

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

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