Untold Dylan

By Larry Fyffe

Well, I got the fever down in my pockets
The Persian drunkard, he follows me
(Bob Dylan: Absolutely Sweet Marie)

The poetic quatrains of Omar Khayyam, a Persian skeptic, and no stranger to hedonism, be influenced by Zarathustra’s pantheistic religion, closely related to Gnosticism, that views the Universe as pervaded by a single mysterious Consciousness that allows a dualistic conflict between truth and falsity, order and chaos, light and darkness, day and night, life and death, soul and body, happiness and sadness.

Nature, made up of the elements of Earth, Air, Water, and Fire, emanates from this Consciousness as the material manifestation thereof, and therefore is to be protected by Mankind.

It’s not difficult for the Victorian poet Edward Fitzgerald to translate Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat in accordance with the outlook of the English Romantic poets, and of latter-day Romantic poets who are affected by Darwin’s theory of evolution. Nor is it difficult for Bob Dylan to draw upon Fitzgerald’s translation as a source of inspiration for his song lyrics:

A book of verse underneath the bough
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread – and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness –
Oh, wilderness were Paradise enow
(Khayyam: The Rubaiyat)

Whether it’s himself or his persona that refers to a female Muse, or to G-d, songster Bob Dylan takes Khayyam’s view into consideration – wine, and women are both an escape from man’s existential reality, and an inspiration to an artist’s creative imagination:

In the courtyard of the golden sun
You stand and fight, or you break and run
You went and lost your lovely head
For a drink of wine, and a crust of bread
It’s a long road, it’s a long and narrow way
If I can’t work up to you, you’ll surely have to work
down to me someday
(Dylan: Narrow Way)

An artist’s chest is pierced, and it’s blood reddened, by arrows shot by the mythological sun-god Apollo:

The moving finger writes, and, having writ
Moves on; nor all thy piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it
(Khayyam: The Rubaiyat)

And the body warmed by the pleasures of its senses and by earthy materials;

Some for the glories of this world; and some
Sigh for the prophet’s Paradise to come
(Khayyam: The Rubaiyat)

Finding the balance between the spiritual soul and the physical body be the aim of the true artist:

Been dark all night but now it’s dawn
The moving finger is moving on
You can guard me while I sleep
Kiss away the tears I weep
(Dylan: Narrow Way)

To put the vision in a half-shell upon which Venus, the mythological goddess of sex and laughter, rides:

Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when
you’re tryin’ to be so quiet? ….
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once flowed
(Dylan: Visions Of Johanna)

Frederich Nietzsche calls upon Zarathustra to talk about Christianity being a ‘slave morality” that sighs for a Paradise to come:

I beseech you, my brothers
Remain faithful to the Earth
And do not belive those who speak of
otherworldly hopes
(Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra)

The key that opens the door of Truth for Bob Dylan apparently lies somewhere between Man as a distant relative of the demi-god Christ, and the monkey:

There must be some way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief
Business, they drink my wine
Ploughmen dig my Earth
None of them along the line
Know what any of it is worth
(Dylan: All Along The Watch Tower)

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.  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

by Tony Attwood

Forgetful Heart by Bob Dylan and Robert Hunter is clearly a favourite of Bob’s – he’s played 234 times (as of August 2017) on stage.

It is a 12 bar blues in the minor key with some variant chords added, and without the repeated first line of the lyrics that many traditional blues songs have.

In terms of the lyrics I’ve read a commentary that one line comes from “The Summoner’s Tale” in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the first great work of English Literature, but I can’t see it myself, either in terms of the line quoted in modern translation, nor anything in the song that seems to lift the line.  Maybe I’m just not looking in the right place.  If you spot it, do say.

Anyway, that should not detract from what I feel is one of the great enigmatic Dylan couplets right at the end:

I lay awake and listen to the sound of pain
The door has closed forevermore
If indeed there ever was a door

It is as if we are halfway between the Visions of Johanna and Not Dark Yet.  Now there’s a thought and a half.

The notion of the woman having loved the man, expressed all her love, and then being very close to acting “like we never have met” is self-evidently a theme that Dylan has utilised through his career.

Compare

Though we kissed through the wild blazing nighttime
She said she would never forget
But now mornin’ is clear
It’s like I ain’t here
She just acts like we never have met

With

Forgetful heart
We loved with all the love that life can give
What can I say
Without you it’s so hard to live
Can’t take much more
Why can’t we love like we did before

The energy of youth in the former written in 1964 and the wistfulness of old age in the latter in 2008 or 2009 is so clearly expressed in the lyrics – and then backed up totally in the music.  The former has lots of youthful bounce, the latter really is the blue blues of the old man.

And we also have bits of Not Dark Yet, not least with that extraordinary ending, which is worth quoting again…

I lay awake and listen to the sound of pain
The door has closed forevermore
If indeed there ever was a door

If we want to be absolutely clear about this, just compare with

I was born here and I’ll die here against my will
I know it looks like I’m moving, but I’m standing still
Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don’t even hear a murmur of a prayer
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

So just how dark is this?  Actually it is very dark because “I’ve lost my greatest love” is not nearly so deep and dark as “maybe I never had her”.  In the latter case one loses track of oneself, a far more frightening concept than simple loss of what one remembers.

There is, as others have noted before me, a touch of Hamlet about all this, as when “Let the doors be shut upon him that he may play the fool nowhere but in’s own house.”  Hamlet was talking literally, wanting to stop Polonius from spying on Ophelia, but it makes a good line within Dylan’s context too.

Unless, unless…

It is however also possible to see this not as a conventional song to a lover who has moved on in the style of “I don’t believe you,” but rather a remonstration by the singer against his own heart, against his own inability to feel any more.  If that is the case then we really, really are in the land of Not Dark Yet.

This then turns

I lay awake and listen to the sound of pain
The door has closed forevermore
If indeed there ever was a door

into a questioning of whether he, not her, actually was ever capable of love.  He can’t open the doorway to love now that he is this old.  But could he ever?  Did he ever really find and understand the notion of true, absolute, all-consuming, all-powerful love?

I’m drawn to the notion of the two composers criticising themselves as old men, and not a past lover, in this song because that ending couplet

The door has closed forevermore
If indeed there ever was a door

rings so utterly in line with the opening song of the album: Beyond here lies nothing– that extraordinary phrase of Ovid which suggests that this is not just the edge of the world, but also the end of all things.

And that it really, really is getting dark.

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.  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

by Larry Fyffe

Down in his basement, Bob Dylan mixes up his medicine. He pours into his bucket of songs the search for emancipation expressed by Judaism, the forgoing of vengence advocated by Christianity, and mixes them together along with the survival of the fittest Theory of Evolution (or rather it’s misapplication to the human world of economic competition, political struggles, and warfare – ‘Social Darwinism’).

Rudyard Kipling latches on to Social Darwinism because it sanctifies the technological innovations and the militaristic imperialism of Queen Victoria’s England:

Now this is the law of the jungle
As old and as true as the sky
And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper
But the wolf that shall break it must die
(Rudyard Kipling: The Law Of The Jungle)

Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan does not share Kipling’s creed, but contends that the contents of religion and science books get twisted to serve the greedy interests of authorities, who portray themselves as horse-mounted lovers of babies and dogs:

Well, the Book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy
The law of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers
In the smoke of the twilight on a milk-white steed
Michaelangelo indeed could’ve carved out your features
Resting in the fields, far from the turbulent space
Half asleep near the stars with a small dog licking your face
(Bob Dylan: Jokerman)

According to Kipling, it takes the courage of a real man, not a ‘gentlemen-ranker’, to withstand the physical and mental torture inflicted by war:

We have done with hope and honour, we are lost to love and truth
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth
God help us, for we knew the worst too young
(Rudyard Kipling: Gentlemen-Rankers)

On the other hand, the Romantically-inclined singer/songwriter, a believer in an individualistic and independent spirituality, breaks with the law of the jungle; denounces war and its sacrifice of young men who have been turned into bloodhounds that kneel:

May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young
(Bob Dylan: Forever Young)

That the singer follows the poet’s rhyme of ‘rung’ with ‘young’ confirms that Dylan is specifically aiming at Kipling’s unquestioning poetic loyality to God, Queen and Country.

There’s intolerance everwhere, whether by men of so-called ‘science’ or by men of so-called ‘religion’, and Dylan howls at them.

Because many art critics do not take into account the singer/songwriter’s work as a whole, some conclude that Dylan is standing up for organized and dogmatic religion even as he mocks it:

Well, George Lewis told the Englishman, the Italian, and the Jew
‘You can’t open your mind, boys
To every conceivable point of view’
They got Charles Darwin trapped out there on Highway Five
Judge says to the High Sheriff, ‘I want him dead or alive
Either one, I don’t care’
High water, everywhere
(Bob Dylan: High Water)

Metaphorically, the ‘High Sheriff’ represents a God filled with vengeance; the historical scientific-minded George Lewes (Lewis), the non-spiritual:

Kipling glorifies the cold iron weapons of war as though they be the iconic nails driven through the hands of Christ, symbols of a compassionate Lord (supposedly not unlike the the Great White Christian Iron Lady herself), capable, not only of self-sacrifice to deliver all mankind from bondage, but of forgiving any reluctance to accept the endeavour:

Crowns are for the valiant, sceptres for the bold
Thrones and power for the mighty men who dare to take and hold
‘Nay’, said the Baron, kneeling in his hall
‘But cold iron is master of men all
Iron out of Calvary is master of men all’
(Rudyard Kipling: Cold Iron)

Not being such a high-minded leader, Dylan escapes from being sacrificed on an altar. The live-to-fight-another-day gunfighter runs away in search of a new life. And he’s quite willing, unlike the reluctant Baron mentioned above, to accept forgiveness:

I’m gonna remember forever the joy that we shared
Looking at you, and I’m on my bended knee
You have no idea what you do to me
I’m twenty miles out of town in cold irons bound
Twenty miles out of town in cold irons bound
(Bob Dylan: Cold Irons Bound)

A Puritan writer criticizes those sinners who wait until the last minute to change their lives:

Some are not over wise
That man would have been loath
Might he have had a week to run twenty miles in for his life
To have deferred that journey till the last hour of that week
(John Bunyan: Pilgrim’s Progress)

Some pilgrims do not want to be considered over wise:

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

Best not to end up like Jesus Christ or Jimmy Ringo.

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.  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 Joost Nillissen

These are ominous times, darling. If it keeps on raining, the levee gonna break. Look out your window and see the day as only the Lord could make. Shouldn’t we be moving on?

I’ve been working there, both night and day and now I’m done, I’ve done my time. Even if they’d want me, I wouldn’t go back. They can strip you of everything you have.

Come on now, we’ve gotta move, there’s riches and salvation, just around the corner from you. You want me to leave you here? Is that the thanks I get? Don’t forget it was me who picked you up from the gutter.

There were times that we would look into each others eyes ’til one of us would break, but now I only see myself and all that I am and hope to be. The rain keeps pouring down and the levee might break any minute. Look outside and see the turmoil, all these people running, not knowing which road to take.

Come on now, we will be okay. When we’re together we can never be blue. You give meaning to my life and everything I do. Look, the waters are rising, and all the women and men on the run, carrying everything they own, the rich and the poor, some of them got barely enough skin to cover their bones.

Storm clouds are raging on our love, darling, something’s gotta give. Outside the levee might break. You can’t stay inside and keep warm. We’ve gotta move on.

How can I seduce you? You look so pretty in your evening dress. Or put on your cat suit. Don’t worry, I can still find work, plenty of stuff out there for you and me to take. Only a few more years and then there will be a thousand years of happiness.

Come on now, I’m ready, get ready. Okay, have it your way, we’ll leave tomorrow. It’s still raining though, the levee might break. We might not make it through the night, something might snap.

I said I won’t repeat the mistake of trying to make her love me, but as the sun comes up, I find there’s butter and eggs in my bed. She’s still asleep. I’m wide awake and I whisper: come back baby, say we never more will part. Don’t be a stranger without a brain or heart.

You might also enjoy: “The Levee’s Gonna Break – the music and the meaning”

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.  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

For me, Bob’s move songs are either utterly brilliant (Lay Lady Lay, Things have changed, Tell Ol Bill) or really not up to standard.  Sadly “Life is Hard is for me (and of course this is a very personal view) in the latter group.

Indeed trying to find a word or phrase to describe “Life is Hard” is hard – for the word that comes to my mind is not exactly complimentary: it is plodding.

The movie director Olivier Dahan apparently asked Bob Dylan to write for the soundtrack of his upcoming film, My Own Love Song and what he got was, to my ears, not that exciting, for he got “Life is Hard.”

It is said that this unlocked the creative juices for Bob and from here he moved on to writing the rest of Together Through Life in the following year.  And that is great, but that still doesn’t mean that this song had to be on the album.  After all many of the earlier movie songs were never on an album.

Since its composition Bob has never played the song in public – which might be an indication of what Bob thought of it after it had been handed over.    But he had the song, and it is of course traditional to play a ballad as the second track on an album after the rollicking first song – (although when has Bob ever done things because they were traditional?)  And maybe after composing the rest of the album, the muse had passed him by – he was one track short, so he used this.  It was, after all, already there.

Life is hard is a straight strophic song – verse, verse, verse, verse, verse, and for me there is no uplift here, nothing that makes me want to think it about, or come to that nothing that persuades me to want to hear it again.  And even allowing for the traditional of the second track ballad, it still feels very odd to have this song stuck between two solid blues: “Beyond Here Lies Nothing” and “My Wife’s Home Town.”

What’s more both those have a particularly raw feel with the accordion added to give a New Orleans feel through both pieces.   And without any connection with the rest of the album this song feels out of place.  It feels as if the storyline of the album is “Beyond here lies nothing”, “My wife’s home town”, “If you ever go to Houston” and so on.   It really doesn’t feel to me like it belongs.

Add to this the fact that the voice that Bob employs is consistent through these other opening songs – except on this second track.   It really does sound like a song written out of phase with the rest of the album – which of course it was.

None of this would matter too much if the lyrics grabbed us in the way that Bob has done so often in his writing career so that we would set aside the song change of feel in order to focus on what was being said.   But somehow even in this regard there is nothing here to make me care…

The evening winds are still
I’ve lost the way and will
Can’t tell you where they went
I just know what they meant
I’m always on my guard
Admitting life is hard
Without you near me

The problem (for me – and this is a totally personal review) is that after that first verse we’ve got it, and there’s nothing in the accompaniment, the melody or the lyrics to keep us coming back for me.  So there is nothing more to say.

The friend you used to be
So near and dear to me
You slipped so far away
Where did we go a-stray
I pass the old schoolyard
Admitting life is hard
Without you near me

My point here is that Bob has told us this, and now we know.  There are no arresting images, no interesting instrumentation, no uncertainties to keep us guessing.

Compare this with the wonderful phrase behind the opening song “Beyond here lies nothing” or that Creole style accordion in “My wife’s home town”, and the chorus line that announces what the singer thinks of that place.

That song is anguish and frustration, this song is just… well… nothing much.

Consider (if you are still with me here) the next verse.

Ever since the day
The day you went away
I felt that emptiness so wide
I don’t know what’s wrong or right
I just know I need strength to fight
Strength to fight that world outside

The trouble is Bob doesn’t sound like he means it.  In fact to me he sounds like he’s doing another one of these re-writes of a 1930s or 1940s classic – except if he is, it is one that escapes me for the moment.   Maybe he felt he’d done enough of these derivative songs to know how to write a 30s ballad of his own.

Sadly I don’t think he did know enough and long before the last two verses I’ve lost interest, even in the very unusual chordal accompaniment to this song – for even there we don’t seem to be given anything to hang onto.  Whereas in “Jolene”, a standard 12 bar blues, the guitar hook, repeated time and again, gives us something very clear to stay with.  Here we can’t do that.   Here we have nothing save the oddity of the chord sequence.

Even if you don’t know anything of music just have a look at this sequence.

Ebmaj7
The evening winds are still
Dm7 E7
I’ve lost the way and will
Am D7
Can’t tell you where they went
Gm C7
I just know what they meant
Am Ammaj7
I’m always on my guard
Am7/g Am6/
Admitting life is hard
Gm C7 F
Without you near me

I doubt that you will have seen that written anywhere else on this website!  Or come to that anywhere else.  It truly is odd.

As for the film, My Own Love Song was released in 2010 road movie directed and written by Olivier Dahan and starring Renée Zellweger, Forest Whitaker, Madeline Zima and Nick Nolte.

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.  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.

Tell Ol’ Bill

by Larry Fyffe

Bob Dylan’s song ‘Tell Ol’ Bill’ has roots in a blues ballad:

“Tell old Bill when he comes home this morning ….”
(Traditional: Tell Old Bill)

Applying the ‘Rhyme Twist Test’ (see: Listen To The Dylanesque Whistle Blowing) reveals Ol’ Bill’s poetic roots, ie., Bob Dylan, often with a bit of variance, transfers end-rhymes or end-words of a poem to the lyrics of a song which is influenced by that particular poem.

A Romantic Transcendentalist at heart, Dylan faces the gloomy aspects of reality in his song lyrics, but still clings to hope of better days to come.

More so than does the melancholic Romanic poet John Keats:

I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever-dew
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too
(John Keats: La Belle Dame Sans Merci)

The ‘lily’ and ‘fading rose’ in the poem are symbolic of death and decay.

The Keats’ poem inspires some of the lyrics of ‘Tell Ol’ Bill’ by Bob Dylan:

You trampled on me as you passed
Left the coldest kiss upon my brow
All of my doubts and fears have gone at last
I’ve nothing more to tell you now
(Bob Dylan: Tell Ol’ Bill)

Thematically, Dylan gathers a bit of light from the darkness; structurally, the singer/songwriter removes the poem’s ‘brow’ to the second line of the song, and provides a rhyme for it: ‘now’.

Follows be another poem by John Keats, again with its rather depressing mood finding its way into Dylan’s ‘Tell Ol’ Bill’:

For ever panting, and for ever young
All breathing human passion from above
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue
(John Keats: Ode To A Grecian Urn)

The English Romantic poet rhymes: ‘young’ and ‘tongue’.

Below, the verse from the Dylan song:

Beneath the thunder-blasted tree
The words are ringin’ off your tongue
The ground’s hard in times like these
Stars are cold, the night is young
(Bob Dylan: Tell Ol’ Bill)

The American songster rhymes: ‘tongue’ and ‘young’.

Now, a verse from a poem by a Victorian Romantic:

There’s not to make reply
There’s not to reason why
There’s but to do and die
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred
(Lord Tennyson: The Charge Of The Light Brigade)

The poet rhymes: ‘reply’, ‘why’, and ‘die’.

Influencing a verse from the song:

Tell ol’ Bill when he comes home
Anything is worth a try
Tell him that I’m not alone
That the hour has come to do or die
(Bob Dylan: Tell Ol’ Bill)

The singer/songwriter, speaking not of a doomed past event but of a possible successful one in the future, rhymes: ‘try’ with ‘die’.

Darker even than John Keats, Edgar Allen Poe, referenced in ‘Tell Ol’ Bill’ by ‘the thunder-blasted tree’, avoids the light of the sun-god Apollo, in which the Transcendentalists bathe. Lost in darkness, the Gothic Romantic American poet depicts Nature as sickly and decayed:

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

The Victorian poet Tennyson, alluded to in ‘Tell Ol’ Bill’, faced with Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory with its ‘tooth and claw’ dynamics, transforms Poe’s ‘stricken eagle’ into a Romantic Transcendentalist symbol of Nature’s strength and beauty, comparing the bird to the thunder-god Zeus:

The wringled sea beneath him crawls
He watches from the mountain walls
And like a thunder bolt he falls
(Lord Tennyson: The Eagle)

Another Romantic nature poet if he only had the time, Robert Frost is referenced by Dylan in ”Tell Ol’ Bill’:

Whose woods these are I think I know
His house is in the village through
He will not see me stopping here
To watch the woods fill up with snow
(Robert Frost: Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening)

Rhymed are: ‘know’, ‘though’, and ‘snow’.

Another verse of the song lyrics:

The evening sun is sinkin’ low
The woods are dark, the town isn’t new
They’ll drag you down, they’ll run the show
Ain’t no telling what they’ll do
(Bob Dylan: Tell Ol’ Bill)

Rhymed are: ‘low’, and ‘show’.

Frost’s poem contains the line: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep”; Dylan’s song: “The woods are dark, the town isn’t new”.

So there you have it: John Keats, Lord Tennyson, Edgar Allen Poe, and Robert Frost are just some of the Romantic poets who influence the song lyrics of Bob Dylan’s ‘Tell Ol’ Bill’.

You might also enjoy  

Tell Ol’ Bill: Dylan digs deep into the song’s origins to create a brilliant film song

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.  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.

Riding on the bus

by Joost Nillissen

Spirit on the water
Darkness on the face of the deep
I keep thinking about you baby
I can’t hardly sleep

After a gig I get on my 1,5 million dollar bus – so I am told – and now I am on my way to the next. There’s darkness on the face of the deep as I am traveling by land and I must admit: you’re always on my mind. I’d forgotten about you and now here you are. I’m thinking about you again. We had some good times together, a long time ago. I could write a love song about you. Maybe I will; can’t get any sleep tonight.

When you are near – but only when you are near – I’m wild about you and you ought to be a fool about me. That’s a line from somebody else, I could use it right here. But you are not near, you’ve gone away, leaving me to trample through the mud, blood in my face and a burning pain in my heart, you took the key to my brain. When I see your lovely face, it begs for love, but I’ll throw it in the deep blue sea, if you are not with me. Life without you doesn’t mean a thing to me.

I cannot understand why you can’t treat me right, why are you so distant? When we were together I was a thousand times happier, and I didn’t care about the heavy price I had to pay. I fought for you without regret or shame. But we parted and now I hear everybody bragging about you, all over town. Why can’t I have some of that sugar?

I think maybe I’d better lie down. I don’t feel well. Can you see me, pale as a ghost, empty handed but for the flower on a stem. You don’t believe in ghosts, but you are afraid of them. The sun comes up and I am blinded by the colors. Your name is ringing in my ears and I am telling you plain that our ties are strong, even after all these years. I must have slept. I take good care of myself and all that belongs to me.

Ah, that sweet voice, I can hear you call me as if from that old familiar shrine. How could I have let you fade from my mind? I believe we could live together forever, you wouldn’t have to worry about me anymore. I would take you with me from East to West, I want to be with you any way I can. It hasn’t been easy for me, I’m up against the wall. You gotta come with me, because I’m going away for some time. It’s my work you see, I do it for pay. Besides I made that deal, remember? I am keeping up my part. I won’t be back till fall.

You’re not coming? Go up that hill then, Calvary or the Beautiful Mount, so all can see you. Think about me. How you numbed me, made me struggle, made my life a brawl. This love could tear me in two. We’re passing through a place called Paradise, could be Texas, could be Nevada, could be anywhere. Wouldn’t it be wonderful for you and me to be in paradise? I can’t go back there no more. They say I killed a man back there.

Don’t think I am over the hill, don’t think I’m past my prime. I am still keeping up my part of the bargain, the deal we made. I just wrote you a song, so now let me see what you’ve got. We can have a whopping good time.  

You think I’m over the hill
You think I’m past my prime
Let me see what you got
We can have a whoppin’ good time

You might also enjoy  Spirit on the water: Dylan borrows from God, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Ovid.

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.  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

The ‘Dylanesque Rhyme Twist’ applied to the song lyrics of Bob Dylan’s ‘Open The Door, Homer’, indicates that the lyrics have more to do with Omar Khayyam’s ‘Rubaiyat’ than with Count Basie’s ‘Open The Door, Richard.’

My Dylanesque Whistle hypothesis states that the the singer/songwriter often takes rhyme sets (or very close variations thereof) from a poem and transfers them on to the lyrics of a song that’s inspired by that poem:

And, as the cock crew, those who stood before
The tavern shouted – Open the door –
You know how little while we have to stay
And, once departed, may return no more
(Khayyam: The Rubaiyat)

The above poem concerns itself with the confinement of time, and features the rhymes: ‘before’, ‘door’, ‘more’.

Akin to the theme presented in the song below that has for rhymes: ‘door’, ‘before’, ‘more’:

Open the door
Richard
I’ve heard it all before
Open the door
Richard
I’ve heard it said before
But I ain’t gonna hear it said no more
(Dylan: Open The Door, Homer)

The Dylanesque Rhyme Twist hypothesis is further confirmed by the following examples:

There was a door to which I found no key
There was a veil past which I could not see
Some little talk awhile of me and thee
There was – and then no more of thee and me
(Khayyam: The Rubaiyat)

The rhymes in the above poem about being mostly locked out of ever knowing another’s mind are: ‘key’, ‘see’, ‘me’.

In the similarly-themed song below the rhymes are: ‘me’, ‘see’, ‘key’:

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

Observe the Dylanesque Twist in the poem/song lyrics beneath, both presenting a sense of sadness, of despair:

My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains
My senses as though of hemlock I had drunk
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
(John Keats: Ode To A Nightingale)

Rhymes in the above poem: ‘pains’, ‘drains’.

In the following song: ‘drain’, ‘pain’:

Well, my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there’s some kind of pain
(Dylan: Not Dark Yet)

And ‘young’ with ‘tongue’ rhyme in the poem below, a poem about the loss of the beauty and innocence of youth lamented by the preRomantic William Blake, and by later Romantic poets:

And, happy melodist, unwearied ….
For ever panting, and for ever young
All breathing human passion far above
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue
(John Keats: Ode To A Grecian Urn)

But ‘young’ with ‘rung’ varies the rhyme a bit in the following song lyrics:

May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
(Dylan: Forever Young)

Romantic poet and songster despair as each tries to hang on to the transcendental ideal that truth and beauty (represented by the Greek God of Music and Light, Apollo, and by the female Muses)be more than just figments of the artist’s subjective imagination; ‘skies’ rhymes with ‘rise’ in the poem:

Pointing with inconstant motion
From the altar of dark ocean
To the sapphire-tinted skies
As the flames of sacrifice
From the marble shrines did rise
As to pierce the dome of gold
Where Apollo spoke of old
(Percy Shelley: Euganean Fields)

And ‘skies’ with ‘eyes’ in the song lyric:

There’s a woman on my lap and
she’s drinking champaign
Got white skin, got assassin’s eyes
I’m looking up into sapphire-tinted skies
I’m well-dressed, waiting on the last train
(Dylan: Things Have Changed)

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.  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

By Tony Attwood

All great writers seem to have the ability to come up with comments that are both simple in their execution but profound in their deeper meaning.   Lines, the meaning of which are so much deeper than their own surface meaning or even their immediate context.  Lines which can therefore become a shorthand for something else – that something else being what we choose.  And as such they can be lines that will thus stay with us forever.

Such lines might not seem to everyone to be the most profound of statements.  And indeed taken out of context they might seem to mean little – and probably not mean what they meant within the context of the book, the poem, the song…  Indeed taken out of context they might not mean anything at all.   But nonetheless such lines have a power which means they can stay with some people for much of their lives.

It is possible to think of thousands of these “magic lines” and I suspect (although I have never done a survey to prove my point) that I am far from being the only Dylan fan to carry around such lines in his head.

Indeed the line, “To live outside the law you must be honest” from Absolutely Sweet Marie is so often quoted that it has, I suspect, taken on a life of its own.  It has a meaning of course, but the rate at which it is quoted suggests other meanings have been attached that goes far beyond the obvious interpretation.

In terms of its implied (although often unspecified) significance that one seems to be right up there along with TS Eliot’s famous lines from The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock

In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo.

Shakespeare offered goodness knows how many thousands of such phrases, some of which like “To be or not to be that is the question” are repeated so often and so universally known that it is hard now to get back to the deeper meaning. “All the world’s a stage” is probably as universally well known, and yet remains the most powerful metaphor of all time, if we have time to ponder its full meaning, or go back to the play and take in the context.

Other lines which exist outside of their context, however, although popular, are ones that I don’t expect even my friends with whom I exchange thoughts on literature and life, to know.   Thomas Pynchon’s ““If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers,” is with me every day as I have for many years held the view that because the news media both chooses what is the news and then chooses how to comment upon it, that point is of prime importance in reminding us that just because something is in a headline, it doesn’t mean it is important, relevant or even true.

My one example from Dylan that I want to give here is like those examples above, a line that is always there with me, a shorthand route into my perception of how the world works.  I don’t go round saying it to people (that would be a sure way to reduce the number of friends I like to think I have) but it is there in my head, and can be summoned up at any moment.  Like an app on the phone – a quick and simple way into an extremely complex world.

It runs…

Some people will offer you their hand and some won’t.

And I deliberately take that line on its own, without any more of Mississippi, although I am sure you’ll know what follows…

Some people will offer you their hand and some won’t
Last night I knew you, tonight I don’t
I need somethin’ strong to distract my mind
I’m gonna look at you ’til my eyes go blind

They are all vibrant and telling lines, each memorable in its own way, although I am never quite sure of the exact way in which they hang together.  But I only need the first of those lines to give me my entry into a way of seeing the world.  Indeed…

Some people will offer you their hand and some won’t

… seems to me to be a perfect expression of the way of the world in just ten words.  There are indeed people who will genuinely go out of their way to help, while there are so many others who might seem to be friends but on whom you can’t rely.   They might claim always to be there for you, but so often their protestations belie the fact that this is mere make-believe in their own heads.  They are there for themselves, not primarily for those supposedly closest to them.

Sadly (in my experience – and maybe this is just a reflection on the people I know, rather than people in general) most people seem to be too self-centred genuinely to be there when they are really needed.

Of course they don’t admit to it – there is always the excuse that they are too busy; they have concerns of their own to look after.   But sometimes a bluntness slips out with the shout, “What’s it got to do with me?” or less aggressively, “I’d love to help you but…”

Obviously the importance of “Some people will offer you their hand and some won’t” to me reveals as much about my view of the world as it tells us about Bob, but given the context of the song, I think it does give an insight into one of Dylan’s concerns about the world.

Yet whether it does or not, in one sense that hardly matters.   What I’m really trying to get at is the fact that Bob has managed through his career to write lines which on their own resonate with me, and become a shorthand route into my way of signifying the complex issues that I contemplate from time to time as I ramble my way through life.

And that’s why the line becomes memorable and significant to me.  It is not that Bob Dylan convinced me that the issue of being there for your friends is a fundamental part of being a good guy, but that he has given me a simple hook to hang a complex notion upon.

Which leads to a secondary point: I’m not a guy who simply believes that my way of seeing the world is the only way of looking upon reality – indeed for me it is patently obvious that this is not so.   For many other people however I really do get the feeling that they inhabit a world in which they feel their perception of reality is the only sensible, common sense perception that there is.  If you don’t see the world the way they see the world you are, self-evidently, an idiot.

So in that one simple line, Some people will offer you their hand and some won’t, Dylan reminds me of that observation in general, and a specific element of it in particular.  A complex issue all tied up in just ten words.

To have the ability to create such a line is a rare gift – one reserved for our greatest poets, playwrights and novelists, and it is a gift Dylan has used on multiple occasions.  Not just for me, I think, but for many, many tens of thousands of us, who quite enjoy his music.

Perhaps if there is an interest I might explore one or two other such short significant lines that Bob Dylan has, on occasion, thrown our way.

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.  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

It’s a cruel world today

by Joost Nillissen

I’ve been worried before and I’m worried now. I used to worry about a hard rain gonna fall, about the state of this union, about a lot of things. Today it’s this cruel world that’s got me occupied. In my mind’s eye I see ceremonies of horsemen, I hear riders approaching my watchtower. I tell myself I will not go down under the ground, because, then as now, I want to die in my footsteps.

All my life there’s been trouble all around, but today there’s thunder on the mountain, fires on the moon and ruckus in the alley. As soon as the sun is up I’ll go out and play music, lighten the mood.

My head is full of music and its history. Saw a young singer once and she made me think of Mimi Memphis singing about Ma Rainey, how she looked for her clear through old Tennessee. I could look for Alicia Keys, too, although she wasn’t born in Georgia, but in Hell’s Kitchen, when I was already living down the line.

Music can do that to you, make your soul expand, make you grow. If only my friends and followers could look into my heart, they just might come to understand. I am doing the best I can, but we all got to hear the thunder on the mountain and see the writing on the wall. Come closer, see for yourself. It’s a cruel world today.

The thunder on the mountain is beating like a drum, it’s a call to arms and music to my ears. I think it’s time for me to go there now. No, don’t bother, I know the way, I do not need a guide. It’s time I’d stop thinking about myself and go out to see what others need. You do realize I’m doing it for you?

On the other hand, the North wind is picking up speed and the sun could burn my brain right out, so I’ll pick up Ovid again and read a bit about the Art of Love, that book that got him exiled to the ends of the earth. I know how he must have felt. I’ve sort of lived my life in exile myself. It’s hard to find a real good woman and though Love is greater than Faith and Hope, all I can hear now are shots ringing out in the street. The power is down. It’s hopeless. I’m too far from town to do anything about it and I still sit here wondering what the matter is with this cruel world today.

Thunder on the mountain. I really need to get up and get on my way. It’s a hard road to travel and I may need an army of orphans by my side, youngsters who’ll have no parents to mourn them. This is a sacred mission so I should say my religious vows in St Hermans church. I might be gone for a long, long time, there will be a great number of obstacles on the way, but remember: I will not betray your love or any other thing. It’s just that I want to be ready to meet my king. I don’t expect you to understand.

You eat your pie, while I chew on pork chops. I know you’re not the sweet angel everybody thinks you are, but neither am I. It doesn’t matter. I need to get away from here, for I can no longer stand  this greed, all these wicked schemes in this cruel world. I know you had different plans and dreams, but you know I do not give a damn about anybody’s dreams.

The thunder on the mountain is increasing, a hurricane is blowing. It’s really bad out here, as I make my way up north. Evil reports reach me about all the ladies leaving town, airplanes coming down. Everybody is in despair, every boy and girl. I’ve done all I could and tried my best, believe me. I even confessed and I won’t confess again. There’s nothing more that I can do for you.

So I think I’ll go up North, get rich, live of the land with a hammer on the table and a pitchfork on the shelf. I’ll think of you from time to time and hope that for the love of God you all take pity on yourselves.

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.  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

By Larry Fyffe

There’s information here provided by Untold for our readers concerning Bob Dylan song lyrics that will be found nowhere else.

For example:

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

The ‘Persian drunkard’ alludes to the Persian poet Omar Khayyam (translated by Edward FitzGerald) who writes:

There was a door to which I found no key
There was a veil past which I could not see
(Omar Khayyam: The Rubaiyat)

A Dylanesque technique, discovered by this writer, which is demonstrated in a number of Untold articles, tips off the alert listener who the poet is that Dylan pays tribute to, ie, the rhyming of ‘key’ and ‘see’ in the song as also in the translated poem.

Known is that Woody Guthie, a mentor of Bob Dylan, sings ‘The Rubaiyat’, a song in which Guthie extensively borrows from Khayyam’s poem, and that the poem is also quoted in a western movie, ‘Duel In The Sun’, starring Gregor Peck, an actor admired by Dylan (listen to: Brownsville Girl).

The Grateful Dead, a band associated with Dylan, shows Khayyam’s influence:

I came like the water
And like the wind I go
(Khayyam: The Rubaiyat, trans: Fitzerald)

Thusly:

Like the morning sun you come
And like the wind you go
(Grateful Dead: Uncle John’s Band)

Chessplayer John De Soyres came to Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, from England to minister for the Church of England; his father was married to the Edward FitzGerald’s sister:

But helpless pieces of the games he plays
Upon the checkerboard of nights and days
Hither and thither moves and checks, and slays
And one by one back in the closet lays
(Khayyam: The Rubaiyat, trans: FitzGerald)

TS Eliot, a poetic influence on Dylan, uses Khayyam’s game of chess analogy for life’s trials and tribulations:
.
And if it rains, a closed car at four
And we shall play a game of chess
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a
Knock upon the door
(TS Eliot: The Wasteland)

Likewise, singer Bob Dylan makes use of Khayyam’s analogy for the passing of time:

As easy it was to tell black from white
It was all that easy to tell wrong from right
And our choices they were few and the thought never hit
That the one road we travelled would ever shatter and split
(Dylan: Bob Dylan’s Dream)

And here below in another of Dylan’s songs about the passing of love and life:

And so it did happen, like it could have been foreseen
The timeless explosion of fantasy’s dream
At the peak of the night, the king and the queen
Tumbled all down into pieces
(Dylan: Ballad In Plain D)

Even in this song of political protest:

That the laws are with him to protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
‘Bout the shape that he’s in
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
(Dylan: Only A Pawn In Their Game)

Because women are not well-known for playing the crushing game, it seems they be not as gloomy:

In the ceremonies of the horsemen
Even the pawn must hold a grudge
Statues made of matchsticks
Crumble into one another
My love winks, she does not bother
She knows too much to argue or to judge
(Dylan: Love Minus Zero)

Fair damsels who seldom come face-to-face with the Dragon Variation of the Sicilian Defence likewise need to be seldom rescued by white knights in shining armour:

Ding doing daddy
You’re coming up short
Gonna put you on trial
In a Sicilian court
(Dylan: Early Roman Kings)

Indeed, the game, like the American Dream, is enough to drive Bob Dylan to drink:

I say, ‘Can I have a pint’
He asks me for the money
I give him my king and queen
I’ll be damned, he took the king and queen
Threw it under the counter
And brought me out four pawns
Two bishops and a rook for change
(Bob Dylan: The Story Of East Orange)

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.  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

by Tony Attwood

Ever since 1968 we’ve had the idea that Bob can and will stop composing from time to time, either because he wants a break or because he has run out of ideas.  But we’ve also had the clear view that after such a pause he’ll be back in full writing mode, and ultimately a new album of original songs will emerge.

So, for example, in 1968, after an incredibly productive run of seven solid years of composing, he wrote one song.  It was a hell of a song (Lay Lady Lay) – but still it was just one song – and it was delivered too late for the movie it was supposed to be in.

Now that particular dead stop was a bit of a shock given the productivity Bob had shown in the previous years – between 15 and 21 songs in each of the years from 1962 onwards, plus that massive outpouring of over 70 more or less completed songs in the Basement Tape year of 1967.

And indeed Dylan then got back to composing regularly with his country songs and the rural idyll that was “New Morning.”   But in 1971/2 he had another slow down, writing four songs and some background music for Billy the Kid over a two year period.  It was our first hint that occasional cessations of the creative flow could be expected.

In 1976 there was another pause and again just one song came forth – while in all the years in between one pause and the next we got the regular output of anything between seven and 18 songs a year.

Through the 1980s and into 1990 it was generally full steam ahead for Bob the Songwriter, but then in 1991/5 it was another stop period.  (There are some songs that are occasionally credited to this era, but as I explain in the chronology files these songs were co-written ventures, with Dylan’s contribution having been written some years before).

Then he was off again until the next slow down which came in 1998-2000 we got just one song.  It was a great song, (Things have changed) but it was just the one.

Of course we have to be realistic here: for anyone else “Things have changed” would be a masterpiece to base one’s entire reputation on, but Bob Dylan the songwriter is not anyone else.  He is that rarity – the person who can write incredibly popular music through almost every decade of this life.

2002/5 was another lean period with just three songs, but then the writing picked up again until 2010, when we had another dead stop.  The final collection of Dylan originals we know about were written in 2011/12, and since then nothing.

Of course we don’t know what’s he’s writing at home or in the hotel room these days, so maybe something more is about to emerge, but four years without any new material is the longest spell there has been with absolutely nothing new emerging.   (Although let me add here, I might have missed a film song or two – if you know of anything written since the Tempest songs of 2012, please do let me have the details.  And if it is totally obvious and I really should have known, be gentle with me in pointing out my ignorance).

But there’s another factor to put into the mix – from 2005, a number of Dylan’s compositions have been highly derivative, taking as their source anything from old blues numbers to romantic Bing Crosby songs.   Of course not all are like this, but there are a few.

So the last album of original material was Together Through Life and it is said that when Bob was asked why he recorded this album at this time when perhaps another album was not really expected he said, “Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.”

Of course Bob is notorious for not telling us the whole truth or even any of the truth, but combined with the lack of subsequent releases of new material, this growing time span since the last album of originals, and the persistence of his record company in releasing albums of concert recordings from days long past, and the bootleg series, I think this was a telling phrase.

To me, “Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it,” is as clear an indication as we have ever had that not too much is on the horizon.

Thus unless Bob is working in utter secrecy on a new set of songs we are living in the longest period of non-productivity we’ve ever had in a songwriting career that has stretched back around 56 years – and that is not counting those early years before he came to New York.

But I think we have to admit there is no reason why Bob should write any more.  He’s given us all more than enough to be going on with, and just within this little venture we’ve still got around 50 songs from the Basement Tapes era to review, along with four songs from the 2008/2012 era.  And surely for a genius like Bob Dylan it is better to finish on a high rather than bring out an album of songs written by Bob but which are generally thought to be not of his best.

Indeed Bob needn’t worry about Untold Dylan and our venture to review all of his songs because even when we’ve reviewed the remaining four 21st century songs and the rest of the Basement Tapes materials, even then we won’t have finished, because there are those recordings of very early songs around, some of which Bob maybe composed – and I need to check that everything from those CDs and ensure everything from the original Bootleg triple album has been covered.

Plus I think we have to say, for a man who has given us so much pleasure through his creative work, when I write negatively of “a period of writing some songs based around other people’s lyrics and melodies plus a period of nothing much at all, makes it seem like things are running down a bit” – that is just me being greedy.  I’d love there to be more original work, but that is just me, and the excitement I can feel each time a new Dylan CD arrives through the post.

In some ways this current situation is not all bad; what I don’t think any of us want is for Bob to release a collection of songs newly written, but which really are not at his normal level.  For anyone who has ploughed through the whole collection of reives mentioned on this site must surely have noted that aside from the works of genius there are a few songs which leave one wondering why the sketch on the back of a napkin scribbled in a hotel bar actually turned into a recording.

Of course one might hope that someone close to Bob might one day persuade him to listen again to the recording of “To Fall in Love with You”.  Maybe they can slip him a note that says that in the past year on this site the review of that song is the second most accessed article on the entire site.  Only “Hard Rain” has had more page views in the 12 months to 18 August 2017.

And as a side issue, in case you are interested, here is the list of the most read song reviews in the past 12 months – and I would add that there is a huge gap in readership between the top two and the rest.  “To Fall in Love with You” has had twice as many reads as “Tangled.”

• Hard Rain’s a gonna fall
• To fall in love with you
• Tangled up in blue.
• The times they are a changin
• Make you feel my love
• Jokerman
• Visions of Johanna
• I shall be released
• Farewell Angelina

So maybe Bob could go back to “To fall in love with you” and complete the lyrics – it would be a sure fire hit.  (And of course then I could claim that he’d read the notion here and that would keep us going for a bit longer, arguing that one through.

But looking at the gap this time around between today and the last time Bob released an album of his original compositions, and looking at how things have worked in the past, I have a feeling matters have indeed come to an end.

However I can’t be 100% sure, and if we are to get one or more new Dylan songs in the months or years ahead I think this is most likely to happen in one of these ways:

1: Bob does some more taking of ideas from novels, film scripts and other people’s songs, weaving the ideas into something new – although with the danger that Bob himself has highlighted of just coming up with a set of random lines.

2: Another film request comes along which Bob finds interesting.  After all, films have produced some remarkable Dylan work over the years, not least “Things have changed” and “Tell Ol Bill”.

3: Bob finds another song writer he can work with and the power and energy to write more songs comes from the two co-writers each keeping the other on track.

It has to be one or more of those three I suspect.  If not, I really do think the list of Bob Dylan compositions that we have is most likely to be more or less complete.

You can see the list of Dylan compositions in the order in which they were written through these five indexes:

• Dylan songs of the 1960s
• Dylan songs of the 1970s
• Dylan songs of the 1980s
• Dylan songs of the 1990s
• Dylan songs of the 21st century

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.  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

by Larry Fyffe

Because of the importance of providing information to our readers, Untold made the decision a few years ago that cost would be no object in launching a law suit against the US Federal Government to obtain a report through the Freedom of Information Act.

Though many paragraphs are blacked out, the report centres on the work of a certain Mr. B– D—– engaged by the National Tourist Office to write and sing ‘jingles’ on the radio about the wonders of tourist travel in the United States of America.

Below, the Untold investigative team summarizes the information gleaned from that report as to why ‘B.D.’ no longer works for the National Tourist Office.

For example, the report mentions that persons with seats on the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, city council were a bit upset when this promotional ditty aired across America and much of the world:

I come into Pittsburgh at six-thirty flat
I found myself a vacant seat and put down my hat
What’s the matter, Molly dear, what’s the matter
with your mound?
‘What’s it to ya, Mobey Dick, this is chicken town’

Though sex talk, like the above, is supposed to sell, the members on the city council of San Francisco, California, weren’t very delighted with this tourist ad when it played on radio:

Now every boy and girl’s gonna get their bang
‘Cause Tiny Montgomery’s gonna shake that thing
Tell everybody down in ol’ Frisco
That Tiny Montgomery’s coming down to say ‘hello’

The mayor of New York City complains about a jingle he heard that encourages winter tourists to vacation in his city:

Wintertime in New York town
The wind blowing snow around
Walk around with nowhere to go
Somebody could freeze right to the bone
I froze right to the bone

Apparently, the mayor of Detroit, Michigan, didn’t like this jingle:

I was on black mountain
The day Detroit fell
They killed’em all off
And they sent them to hell

The citizens of the State of Alabama were upset when this tourist promo for Mobile was broadcast:

But deep in my heart
I know I can’t escape
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again

And the city of Oxford, Mississippi, the report says, had tried to get this little ditty taken off the air waves:

He went down to Oxford town
Guns and clubs followed him down
All because his face was brown
Better get away from Oxford town

More complaints surface over the following jingle that was supposed to celebrate the State of Mississippi:

Well, the emptiness is endless, cold as clay
You can always come back, but you can’t come
back all the way
Only one thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

Nor did Texas lawmen like this promotion of Houston:

If you ever go to Houston, better walk right
Keep your hands in your pockets and your gunbelts tight
If you’re asking for trouble, if you’re lookin’ for a fight
If you ever go to Houston, boy, you better walk right

Many of our readers probably do not know this same ‘Mr. B.D.’ tries to sell his tourist wares to the Mexican government.
For examle, the following jingle-jangle song, footnoted in the report, encourages people to spend their Easter vacation in Jaurez, Mexico:

When you’re lost in the rain in Juarez
And it’s Eastertime too
And your gravity fails and negativity don’t
pull you through
Don’t put on any airs when you’re down
on Rue Morgue Avenue
They got some hungry women there
And they really make a mess out of you

Phone messages pertaining to this matter left by Untold for ‘B.D’.s agent were not returned.

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.  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

By Joost Nillissen

Sweetheart, listen, wherever you are, it’s for myself and my friends that my stories are sung, but now that the violet hour approaches, I’ve written a song just for you. I admit I’ve never been too impressed by the hour of our death, but now the heart weakens. We’re not dead yet, but we’re getting there, moving slowly on the stony road that leads us out of this existence. Freud said that. And Bernard Shaw quipped: ‘Don’t try to live forever, you will not succeed. Go tell that to my friends and fans.’

Even though I have been eloquently celebrating life, unfazed by death, I’ll concede that nowadays I sometimes let death affect my attitude toward life. Freud said that. When the hour comes, it doesn’t matter what you do, you’ll die. I said that.

I can’t believe we’ve lived so long and are still so far apart. You know I’m not too good at conversation, girl. We’re hopeless here in this place, at this time, but Beyond the Horizon, that’s where the future lies for us. In this earthly domain we’ve only known disappointment and pain. It’s behind the sun, at the end of the rainbow, where it will be easy to love. We’re not there yet.

I am wretched.

An angel’s kiss may cause my memories to drown in a bliss that – like us – can’t last forever. But beyond the horizon love will await us and we’ll get there in spring or fall, daytime or nighttime, because someone across that divide has prayed for your soul.

I’m touched with desire. There is not a thing I wouldn’t do for you in this world, I’d keep you warm, throw logs on the fire and build my world around you. We are on our way and even though we’re apart, you should know that we are on the same road, taking the same steps, to that same place where the night winds carry the sweet sound of bells. Remember that movie we’ve seen one time?

Where the treacherous sea beckons I know I will find you just in time at the end of this earthly game. But for now life is dark and dreary, I am weary and weak, I’ve sinned and I’m sorry.

I can’t believe you don’t love me anymore.

In the soft light of morning my eyes will follow you all day, through countries and kingdoms, wherever you go, towards the crimson skies beyond the horizon, down to the bone.

It’s late, I know. I had no idea, nor did I care, but now I know that for whatever reason my life’s been spared.

Beyond the horizon I’ve got more than a life time of loving you.

You might also enjoy: Beyond the Horizon: the sources and the meanings of Dylan’s song

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.  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

By Tony Attwood

Writing about Bob Dylan can be contentious – not in the sense of readers responding by saying “you’ve got this wrong – consider this evidence” but rather from people who either simply write, “If you think that you are an idiot” and leave out any notion of evidence, and those who feel one should not write x or y about Bob Dylan.

Sometimes the objection is simple: reading this article was a waste of my time, and of course to that the obvious answer is, “if it was that bad why didn’t you stop after the first five seconds?”

And if you did stop after the first five seconds why did you then waste more time by writing to tell me what an appalling waste of time it was?

Sometimes the correspondent tries to find a deeper problem – by suggesting for example that writing about Dylan in this way is directly responsible for Dylan’s lack of new compositions in recent years.  The argument seeming to be that Bob takes notice of his critics and is now so dispirited he can’t be bothered to carry on.

That last point would be awful if it were true, but I can’t for a moment find any evidence that the man who has defied his critics so often in his life by going electric, by going country, by returning to his roots and recording old folk and blues songs, by going religious, by using children’s songs as a source, etc etc, would ever be influenced by his critics.  If ever an artist was his own man, surely it has always been Bob Dylan.

My view is that most articles and books on Bob Dylan are self-opinionated, presenting opinion as fact and demanding that the reader goes along with whatever the fundamental proposition of the article is, totally through trust.

Which is why the issue of Dylan and humour becomes so problematic.   And that happens because when a spot of humour comes into an article, everything is down to the personality of the reader.   For of all aspects of life, humour is just about the least able to be analysed in any logical form.  If you don’t like a joke, or a humorous style, then you don’t.  Analysis and logic doesn’t help too much.  Indeed analysing humour seems to be one of the most boring topics in psychology.

Which I suppose is why I have left dealing with the issue of humour and Bob Dylan for quite a long time.  It’s a tough topic.

That and the fact that it is quite hard to find very much written about Bob Dylan and humour, in order to be able to gauge other people’s views.  Heylin, for example, in 1200 pages of analysis of Dylan’s songs didn’t think to have an index entry for humour despite offering us over 20 pages of index entries.

True there are about half a dozen sites on the internet listing “Dylan’s 10 funniest lyrics” and “Dylan’s Funniest Songs” and “Humorous quotes from Bob Dylan” but not much of an analysis except from one notable piece on the long running Psychobabble web site.

They have this view of Dylan’s humour: “Dylan’s key line is this probing profundity from “Tombstone Blues”:

The sun’s not yellow
It’s chicken.

“There’s your voice of a generation right there, beatniks. There’s your “modern Shakespeare” (another writer who inspires much boring solemnity but was never above cracking a good fart joke). Dylan pulled off his most brilliant prank when he ditched the overt preachiness of his early acoustic work in favor of surrealism and a good beat. The punch line wasn’t just all of the former fans outraged by his embracing of Rock & Roll electricity but those who continued to search for the meaning of existence in his outrageous comedy. Of course, there was still profundity in a lot of this stuff: the socialist tirade of “Maggie’s Farm”, the sneering swipe at gaudy materialism in “Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat”, and even the slanted perspective of poverty in “Tombstone Blues”. But the righteousness of these tracks is inebriated with sheer nonsense…

“So, what does the above pun on “yellow” and “chicken” have to do with the overall message of “Tombstone Blues”? Not a goddamn thing. Does this lowest form of humor detract from the song’s message? Your call. Does it make Dylan analysts look goofy when they try to decode its meaning? It sure does (observe how goofy I come off in the proceeding paragraphs). That may be the line’s purpose after all: it exposes the fatuousness of those who missed Dylan’s point that sometimes there is no point. It’s also keen proof that in reaction to those who demanded he be their generation’s social conscience (such pressure!), he was not going to alter his path for anyone. If he had something to say about society, he’d say it. And if he wanted to interrupt that message with a really dumb joke, he was gonna do that too. Dylan was not about to allow his decisions be dictated by his critics or his followers. His own abundant and gloriously absurd imagination would forever call the shots….”

And later

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, “Master of War” and “It’s Alright, Ma, I’m Only Bleeding” get my self-righteous juices flowing just like everyone else’s. Yeah, I agree that “Like a Rolling Stone” is a brilliant, poetic portrait of disillusion and generational waywardness or whatever insufferable label we might slap on that great Rock & Roll song. But nothing moves me like the above quote from “Tombstone Blues”, or when Bob imagines making love to Elizabeth Taylor and catching hell from Richard Burton in “I Shall Be Free”, or when he completely cracks up at the beginning of “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream” before launching into a six and half-minute tall tale about how he discovered America. Dylan moves me the most when he’s making me laugh.”

But there is nothing in the rule book of writing reviews and commentaries that says everything should be deadly serious.   In fact there is no rule book.  It is just that most reviewers like to take the stance of being serious, and indeed that’s how I’ve been much of the time on this site, because I have, after all, just spent half a day listening to a song, looking up references, considering my thoughts and trying to make sense of it all.

In the early days Bob used to make the odd joke in interviews.  When asked how he saw his songs he said something along the lines that some of them are five minutes long and some of them are three minutes long.   When asked if he saw himself as a protest singer he said he felt he was more of a Song and Dance Man.

And indeed he was funny in a whole range of songs.  Just consider these…

• Talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues.
• Talkin Hava Negeilah blues
• Talking World War III Blues
• Gypsy Lou – although in this piece I am not quite sure where the humour ends and viciousness begins.
• Motorpsycho Nightmare
• I shall be free number 10
• Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream
• Subterranean Homesick Blues
• I’m Your Teenage Prayer
• Quinn the Eskimo – The Mighty Quinn
• Clothes line saga
• TV Talking Song

It’s a fair range, and I think opens the door to undertaking some humorous writing about Bob.  So it is not surprising that there are those few websites that list Dylan’s humorous quips like “Being noticed can be a burden. Jesus got himself crucified because he got himself noticed. So I disappear a lot.”

Or on being told that some American folk singers like Carolyn Hester, had said that his “folk rock,” is liberating them.) “Did Carolyn say that? You tell her she can come around and see me any time now that she’s liberated.”

Then there was his definition of peace, “The moment when you reload your rifle.”

And “If I wasn’t Bob Dylan, I’d probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.”

And these…

• There doesn’t seem to be any tomorrow. Every time I wake up, no matter in what position, it’s always been today.

• WWF (World Wildlife Fund) is a good cause, I support them, and am proud to lend my music to this effort. Early on, animals were the only ones who liked my music. Now it’s pay back time.

• What good are fans? You can’t eat applause for breakfast. You can’t sleep with it.

If he’s gone off humour of late, well, he’s come and gone through most things so that’s not really a surprise.  And it gives us a chance to take a more relaxed view of Dylan through a few articles.

Of course the problem with humour is that for many people, if the humour isn’t their humour then it’s either sacrilege or just plain dull.  Try and have a laugh about someone else’s prophet or messiah and just see what happens.  All my friends and I loved the movie “The Life of Brian” and we still crack the jokes to each other (we can be very tedious people sometimes).  But there are an awful lot of people (at least in England) who found the movie profoundly insulting.

So it goes.

We didn’t set out to do a series of humorous pieces about Bob – they sort of emerged along the way, which is one of the joys of this type of writing.  I was composing my reviews of Dylan’s songs from my own perspective, and Larry comes along and writes his pieces on Dylan and poetic influences, and that then takes a turn and some humour turns up.

There is an index of these more lighthearted pieces on the site: The Lighter Side. Like all the indexes you can find them listed under the picture at the top of each page.  And we also have a category now on the home page – so if you don’t want anything we consider amusing, you know which bits to miss.

But this leads me in a meandering sort of way, to one last point.

I have mentioned on occasion that I also write a football (soccer) blog, which in contrast to most such ventures about the team I choose to go and watch (Arsenal), is by and large fairly positive even when the club is not winning and not playing well.  My journeys to London to watch the matches are taken with friends, and often include a lot of laughter.  I have a season ticket so I always sit in the same seat and the guys either side of me (whom I only know because they sit either side of me) and myself share a lot of fun, as well as the anguish when the team loses.

However most of the thousands of blogs that exist commenting on the issues concerning Arsenal are resolutely critical and negative.  I guess that just reflects the writers’ personalities.

And that seems to me to be similar to the point I made at the start about the occasional person just writing to this blog to say the writing is rubbish, the commentary is nonsense, and the approach should not be used.

Some people will offer you their hand and some won’t.

At least I smile more than they do – and I suspect by and large I have a much more enjoyable life.

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.  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

by Joost Nillissen

Not many people, not even Dylan, know this song is about me, way back when.

And if it isn’t about me, then it’s about a man, who, down on his luck, sits on his porch after a long day at the steel mill and watches the evenin’ haze settle over town. His body aches, his buying power has gone down, but what do you expect: low wages are a reality.

He’s said it before, a long time ago, that in a South American town the miners work almost for nothing. The place he loves best is now a memory, it’s in the past. She is gone. She has wounded him and he is in exile, reading Ovid’s exile poetry.

He’d wish she would come and sit on his knee as she is dearer to him than himself. Come see the starlight by the end of the creek. “Only if you put your cruel weapons on the shelf”, he imagines her saying, but as the steel rails hum and the hunger gets into his gut, the warrior inside of him awakens.

Meet me at the bottom, don’t lag behind. We’ll fight our best on the front line.

The injustice done to him creates visions of a long haul, through wind and seas, to get to the bastards, to drag ’em down to hell. He fantasizes how he”ll stand them at the wall or sell them to their enemies. But these pugnacious thoughts don’t feed him, so maybe it’s better to sleep off the rest of the day.

Sometimes it feels like he’s surrounded by a multitude of foes, none of them too bright. Anything might happen and nobody can say when sorrow will strike, even though he’s sitting here quietly listening to the call of night birds and a lover’s sigh. When you’re sleeping, it’s almost as if you are in the sanctity of death.

Sweetheart, you’re long gone, but listen. You know they tried to ruin me by burning down my barn, stealing my horse. I’m penniless and may have to resort to crime. I’ll try not to and instead enjoy the splendor of the sun going down. If only you were here with me to see. Like Ovid I am wondering if I am wrong in thinking you have forgotten me?

At work, you know, the bosses they worry and hurry, they fuss and they fret, while I spend my nights tossing and turning in bed, but don’t worry: them, I will, eventually, forget.

Memories of you will be with me always, even though you have wounded me. I think you should reconsider what you’ve said and yes, the stories you’ve heard about me, they’re all true.

If only you could look into my eyes and find no blame. I never took up arms against you. But listen to what I say, it’s true, they will hunt a man down and lay him low and slash him with steel all across that peaceful field.

I may be down and black and blue, but never mind, I’m right here and expect you to lead me off in a cheerful dance. I will wear a brand new suit and you will be my brand new wife. You know that there are people who’ve never worked a day in their lives and don’t even know what work means?

Not me, I’ll earn my rice and beans.

• See also Working Man’s Blues #2 the meaning of the music and the lyrics

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.  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

Dear Babby:

I have a girlfriend who likes to dance which is fine, but I need advice on how to saddle her:

Dear New Pony:

by Tony Attwood

In 2001 Bob had given us 12 new songs.  The following year we got one, and then nothing until the masterpiece of Tell Ol’ Bill in 2005.  And then in the months covering the end of the year and into 2006 we got the next album.

I’m merging these songs at the end of 2005 and into 2006 into one group because I simply can’t find reliable dates as to when the songs were written but I do get the impression anything written in 2005 from this set was written at the end of the year and more than likely re-worked in the studio in 2006.

Also I don’t really have a clear idea of the order in which the songs were written, so I can do nothing but list them in terms of the order they appear on the album.  This won’t be right, but there’s no other order to take.

What we have here primarily is a set of songs based on other people’s work, some successfully amended, others rather forced.  “Thunder on the Mountain”, “Rollin’ and Tumblin”, “When the Deal Goes Down”, “Working Man’s Blues No 2”, “Beyond the Horizon” “Levee’s Gonna Break”  – they all come from elsewhere.   Even “Nettie Moore”. is taken from a song from the Carter Family, but here something quite different emerges.

There’s also a fair sprinkling of Ovid in the songs and as with Thunder on the Mountain  a notion that the world is incomprehensible but hey lets have a great time singing and playing – a feeling that seems to be behind quite a few of the songs.

The styles change: Spirit on the water   contains elements of Sony Boy Williamson turned into a gentle and relaxed dance hall ballad while Rollin and Tumblin has Bob sitting down studying “The Art of Love.”  It’s all a bit mixed – like an old man picking books off the shelves in his library at random, each one bringing a totally different message and memory which he dips into for a while before moving on.

But where it goes wrong for me is in places like When the deal goes down  because here the original is better.   That doesn’t matter with Someday Baby but for me, in the “Deal” its a struggle.

As for Working Man’s Blues #2  as I said in the review “Some find Working Man’s Blues of overwhelming import in the Dylan canon, others such as Heylin don’t.”  I don’t either and nor do I with Beyond the Horizon  which is just a lifted song – and for me not a very successful one    But then out of nowhere pops Nettie Moore.

We are still with Dylan taking lines from old traditional songs, but as he himself said, this time they are not “Not just a bunch of random verses.”   It is one of his classics.  If he’d written it straight after the “Man in the Long Black Cloak” it wouldn’t have sounded out of place.

This “borrowing” that goes on through the album is sometimes quite freaky – as when we find Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie  plus Ovid putting together what is a set of random verses.  And maybe that was the point as Ain’t talkin’ ends with the statement that “There’s no one here.”  That’s how it seems.

I can agree with others that Huck’s Tune would have fitted into the album, and could have improved it overall, but Dylan decided otherwise.  And he’s the boss.

So Nettie Moore does stand out for me as the song of the year, and I’m grateful to Bob for his “random verses” comment, because I’ve felt the same about many of his songs over the decades.  Not that there is anything wrong in that – the hallway of my house is dominated by a giant Jackson Pollock print which is itself a collection of random lines.  Being random is ok.  Mixing Ovid and the blues is ok.  But still the lines have to talk to us, and these don’t always do that – at least (as I keep saying) not for me.

Thus yes, the song of the year must be Nettie Moore, but I can always spare a moment for Thunder on the Mountain, not least because quite often that is how the world seems to be as I get older: utterly incomprehensible.

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.  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

Secret Tape Received At The Untold Offices: said to be from the yet to be released Bob Dylan CD ‘Christmas In The Heart Vol. II’

(A special to our readers, lyrics transcribed by Larry Fyffe)

On the first day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
A white dove a-sailin’ upon the sea

On the second day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
A pair of boots made from Spanish leather
And a white dove a-sailin’ upon the sea

On the third day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
Three washed-out horns
A pair of boots made from Spanish leather
And a white dove a-sailin’ upon the sea

On the fourth day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
Four robins that I can’t hear
Three washed-out horns
A pair of boots made from Spanish leather
And a white dove a-sailin’ upon the sea

On the fifth day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
Five Egyptian rings that sparkle before she speaks
Four robins that I can’t hear
Three washed-out horns
A pair of boots made from Spanish leather
And a white dove a-sailin’ upon the sea

On the sixth day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
Six white geese to saddle up
Five Egyptian rings that sparkle before she speaks
Four robins that I can’t hear
Three washed-out horns
A pair of boots made from Spanish leather
And a white dove a-sailin’ upon the sea

On the seventh day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
Seven swans glidin’ on the river
Six white geese to saddle up
Five Egyptian rings that sparkle before she speaks
Four robins that I can’t hear
Three washed-out horns
A pair of boots made from Spanish leather
And a white dove a-sailin’ upon the sea

On the eighth day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
Eight fair maids a-dwellin’
Seven swans glidin’ on the river
Six white geese to saddle up
Five Egyptian rings that sparkle before she speaks
Four robins that I can’t hear
Three washed-out horns
A pair of boots made from Spanish leather
And a white dove a-sailin’ upon the sea

On the ninth day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
Nine sad-eyed ladies of the lowlands
Eight fair maids a-dwellin’
Seven swans glidin’ on the river
Six white geese to saddle up
Five Egyptian rings that sparkle before she speaks
Four robins that I can’t hear
Three washed-out horns
A pair of boots made from Spanish leather
And a white dove a-sailin’ upon the sea

On the tenth day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
Ten lords to protect my children
Nine sad-eyed ladies of the lowlands
Eight fair maids a-dwellin’
Seven swans glidin’ on the river
Six white geese to saddle up
Five Egyptian rings that sparkle before she speaks
Four robins that I can’t hear
Three washed-out horns
A pair of boots made from Spanish leather
And a white dove a-sailin’ upon the sea

On the eleventh day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
Eleven drain pipes a-smellin’
Ten lords to protect my children
Nine sad-eyed ladies of the lowlands
Eight fair maids a-dwellin’
Seven swans glidin’ on the river
Six white geese to saddle up
Five Egyptian rings that sparkle before she speaks
Four robins that I can’t hear
Three washed-out horns
A pair of boots made from Spanish leather
And a white dove a-sailin’ upon the sea

On the twelfth day of Christmas
I’m speaking strictly for me
Right now, I don’t feel so good
Don’t send me no more presents – no
Oh, I’m sailin’ away, my own true love
I’m sailin’ away in the morning
Is there something I can send you from across the sea
From the place I’ll be landing?

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.  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

by Joost Nillissen

There is a man sitting on the railroad track. They never called him Lost John before, but now they do, because he’s in trouble deep. He’s about to leave the stage. The blues hit him like a hammer hits the nail. Something is out of whack.

He could travel the world, he thinks, but it would only be to return to the arms of Nettie Moore. So what’s the point? It is all struggle and strife and anything might go wrong. He might not even make it back home alive.

But what do you expect from the oldest son of a crazy man? Time is running out for him. While on the road he has done a lot of bad things and hiding in a cowboy band is no longer an option. The countdown has begun, there will be a prize to pay, but even as the net is closing in on him, he’ll still  walk through a blazing fire for his Nettie Moore.

Looking back on a long life he can tell the world has gone berserk. Like everybody else he was brought up in one religion or another, never paid any attention, but now that he is reaching the end of his trail, he’s beginning to believe what the scriptures tell.

He’d like to go back one more time to the loneliest place on earth with that huge cross in the empty fields, the place where the Southern crosses the Yellow Dog, just to get away from people’s opinions and orders from the D.A.

All the time that Nettie’s not with him, bad luck women follow him around, nagging him to be careful in this dance and to lay of the booze. How he misses his Nettie Moore. There is no none left here to tell.

He wonders why his baby never looked so good before, then realizes he has to wonder no more. He is going to need all night to eat all that food she prepared for his last meal. Earlier he faced his  judge who said “rise” and he rose and he said: “Whatever you have to say won’t come as any surprise to me. Just don’t call me any names.”

Shivering in his cell he can tell it’s getting light outside, temperature is down. Vengeance was on his mind all night, plotting a different ending, to make the powers that be come to grips with fate. He’d like to teach them how to keep their business straight.

But in the meantime it is Nettie Moore who rules his heart. You couldn’t cut their love apart and when he is with her, all his grief gives way. He could live with her forever and it would be like a heavenly day. But the world has gone black before his eyes.

Now that he is about to meet his maker at the end of winter, when the river is on the rise, he’ll raise a voice of praise. He is standing in the light, wishing to God it were night. Then the world goes black before his eyes.

Today I’ll stand in faith and raise
The voice of praise
The sun is strong, I’m standing in the light
I wish to God that it were night

Oh, I miss you Nettie Moore
And my happiness is o’er
Winter’s gone, the river’s on the rise
I loved you then and ever shall
But there’s no one here that’s left to tell
The world has gone black before my eyes

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.  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