Dogmatic true believers notwithstanding, Bob Dyan keeps to his individualistic
visions of the trials and tribulations of human existence in a very mysterious Universe.
He finds the inspiration to try to be good in the teachings of Jesus Christ:
Jesus said ‘Be ready For you know not the hour in which I come He said, “He who is not for me is against me” Just so you know where He’s coming from”
(Bob Dylan : Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking)
The biblical allusion is to:
He that is not with me is against me
And he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad
Wherefore I say unto you
All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be
forgiven unto men
But blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be
forgiven unto men
(Matthew 12: 30-31)
That is to say that there are those who say they follow the altruistic-centered teachings of Jesus, but their selfish behaviour proves otherwise, and there are those of questionable behavior who actually follow the ‘spirit’ of his teachings since they do no harm to the harmless:
John Wesley Harding Was a friend to the poor He travelled with a gun in every hand All along the countryside He opened many a door But he was never known To hurt an honest man
(Bob Dylan: John Wesley Harding)
Thus spake poet Vachel Lindsay:
This is the sin against the Holy Ghost
To speak of bloody power as right divine
And call on God to guard each vile chief’s house
And for such chiefs, turn men to wolves and swine
(Vachel Lindsay: The Unpardonable Sin)
But woe to those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit:
How I made it back home, nobody knows I’ve been through hell, what good did it do? You bastard: I suppose to respect you?
(Bob Dylan: Pay In Blood)
In typical Dylanesque style, there’s enough room for more than one way to interpret these lyrics. The words can been taken to mean the song condemns religious leaders that use religion to advance their own personal agendas, be they political or monetary.
And even that there’s bewilderment, on the part of the the singer, as to why God and Jesus choose to forsake him; organized religion has let him down though he was willing to give it a chance, with its very inspirational gospel songs.
The answer that is blowing in the wind, in the false ‘Holy Spirit’ of Modern Times, howls out, “God doesn’t care”. The ‘blood’ that flows through the heart of the sanguine man, according to the ‘four humours’ theory of earlier times, makes the singer of the song a man of action, determined to follow what he believes is good, and he is not going to spill his own blood, his own spirituality, for the sake of the material objectives of others. He’s won’t allow himself to be nailed to a cross by unworthy leaders with corrupted faith. He’s not going to pay in his own blood. The drifter escapes.
Dylan’s lyrics are indeed double edged; enough that true believers can find what they want to find as long as they do not examine his words in the context of all that he has written; as long as they consider he has suddenly ceased to think like a Romantic individualist with the creative imagination of an artist.
Bob Dylan, as such an artist, is not afraid to express quite a bit of religious skepticism. For instance, that biblical writers ignore the roll of the dice, the role played in life by luck, good or bad:
When the Reaper’s task had ended Sixteen hundred had gone to rest The good, the bad, the rich, the poor The loveliest and the best
(Bob Dylan: Tempest)
Thus spake poet Edna St. Vincent Malley:
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned
(Edna Malley: Dirge Without Music)
Referencing the Roman God of the Sea, symbolic of the forces of disinterested Nature, in lyrics that express a view not unlike that held by Existentialist writers, Bob Dylan sings:
Praise be to Nero’s Neptune, the Titanic sails at dawn Everybody’s shouting, ‘Which side are you on?’ And Ezra Pound and TS Eliot fighting in the captain’s tower While calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers
(Bob Dylan: Desolation Row )
A true artist thinks in metaphorical terms and takes into consideration different points of view. All things are not either black or white when looked at under the light of “Noah’s great rain bow”:
There’s a kingdom called Heaven A place where there is no pain or birth Well the Lord created it, mister About the same time He created Earth
(Bob Dylan: I’m Going To Change My Way Of Thinking)
What is on the site
1: Over 400 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order below on this page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here. A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
The world can look ok, because we see it like this every day, but peel back the curtains and you find something completely different. Something awful lurks outside, but we see it every day and so pretend its not so bad really. We know it’s chaos, we pretend it is order. We know it is awful, we pretend it is all right.
And that’s how I have come to see Dylan’s “Scarlet Town”. But the images are so convoluted I could be completely wrong. Maybe that’s the point.
Bob has played this song 272 times at the time of writing (September 2017), so he obviously rates it, and by and large we know quite a bit about its origins. With a spot of luck, some insight and (as so often with Bob) a bit of (hopefully inspired) guesswork, we can work out many versions of what is going on. Here’s just one…
The approach of the original song – Barbara Allen – is classic iambic pentameter which is also known as the rising duple giving us a beat of one-two, one-two
In Scarlet Town where I was born
There was a fair maid dwelling [pause]
And every youth cried well away
For her name was Barbara Allen [pause]
What Bob does is take that structure and give us a mix of iambic pentameter and trochaic pentameter, the latter being also known as falling duple: one-two, one-two.
An example of this comes from A.E. Housman’s ‘Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now’ (1896):
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide.
Bob gives us
Scarlet Town in the month of May Sweet William on his deathbed lay Mistress Mary by the side of the bed Kissing his face, heaping prayers on his head
The difference being Bob gives us falling / rising / falling / falling.
Now if you’ve read my rambling reviews before you’ll know I don’t normally bother with meter, because in a song the music allows you to play with the meter in all sorts of ways that you can’t get away with in a poem (as there is nothing to fill the bits with no words). But I have read a couple of commentaries that suggest Bob took a 19th century poem and based the meter on this, but I don’t think this is at all right. He’s using classic elements from poetry and combining them as many have done before – it is not just one poem that influenced him.
What Bob does however is turn the original song of Barbara Allen all upside down in the lyrics so we don’t get a fair maid dwelling we get a “flat-chested junky whore.” “Scarlet Town” has been replaced, if not by Desolation Row, then Juarez at Easter in the rain.
In the original tale Barabara’s lover, William, is lying on his death bed, and sends a message to Barbara to come to him. But she is slow in getting there, and by the time she arrives he’s dead. So mortified by her awful behaviour is she, that she ups and dies the next day. A typical tale from the medieval period onwards.
And of course there is a twist…
And from his grave grew a red red rose From her grave a green briar
And the two entwine as one so the lovers are together in eternity. Within its medieval context this is an utterly moving tale of two young lovers reminding the audience that chance, mistakes and bad times on earth do happen, but can be redeemed in the afterlife where happiness prevails for those who believe.
The 21st century version of Scarlet Town created by Bob Dylan however is now a much more ramshackle affair, with only the slightest echoes of the original.
Scarlet Town in the month of May Sweet William on his deathbed lay Mistress Mary by the side of the bed Kissing his face, heaping prayers on his head
So brave, so true, so gentle is he I’ll weep for him as he’d weep for me Little Boy Blue come blow your horn In Scarlet Town where I was born
And the first question is, what on earth is Little Boy Blue doing in there?
“Little Boy Blue” in this incarnation is not from the poem by Eugene Field about the death of a child which appeared in 1888 in the Chicago weekly literary journal, America. Rather it is from the rhyme in Tommy Thumb’s Little Song Book (published in the mid 18th century although probably much older. There are suggestions that there is a reference to it in King Lear (III, vi) when Edgar, masquerading as Mad Tom, say “Thy sheepe be in the corne”. The nursery rhyme runs…
Little Boy Blue, Come blow your horn,
The sheep’s in the meadow, The cow’s in the corn;
But where is the boy Who looks after the sheep?
He’s under a haystack, He’s fast asleep.
Will you wake him? No, not I,
For if I do, He’s sure to cry.
For me, Bob’s use of the phrase is just a reference back to the simple days of the past. Is he really talking about the town where he was born (in contrast to his wife’s home town which is hell, apparently)? I doubt it, but I guess it could be a reference to Gabriel’s horn in here, blown to announce Judgement Day. This ain’t judgement day however, this is just life, so instead of Gabriel we get little boy blue.
Thus we have lost the simple life of our childhood, nothing is right any more; we have emotions, we can feel sadness and pity, but we haven’t really learned any lessons at all because as soon as we look beyond the dying man and the grieving lover we find…
Beggars crouching at the gate Help comes but it comes too late
In our brave new world yes, you can ask for help from your lover but really there is no telling if you are going to get that help – he might well be fast asleep like Little Boy Blue, or just tarrying along the way like Barbara Allen. Even touching Christ’s cloak doesn’t guarantee a cure from your afflictions; not in the modern world it don’t.
On marble slabs and in fields of stone You make your humble wishes known I touched the garment but the hem was torn In Scarlet Town where I was born
So presumably even the miracles don’t work no more (as in Matthew 9:20 where the woman touches Christ’s cloak and is healed). In fact this is the end – or one of the versions of the end of all time
In Scarlet Town the end is near The seven wonders of the world are here The evil and the good living side by side All human forms seem glorified
So maybe Battle of Armageddon isn’t an actual war – it is just the life that we have now. We are, in fact, at the end of all times.
And as a result we are still suffering for the sins of our fathers, trying to hard to forget all that has gone before in the name of God, in the name of Progress, and maybe all that we have done just to survive.
In Scarlet Town you fight your father’s foes Up on the hill a chilly wind blows You fight ‘em on high and you fight ‘em down in You fight ‘em with whisky, morphine and gin
So here I am, in the bar, listening to music trying to pass the time, maybe truing to make things right, waiting for the end
Set ‘em up Joe, play Walking The Floor Play it for my flat chested junky whore I’m staying up late and I’m making amends While the smile of heaven descends
I’ve done it all, and I don’t regret anything, in fact I just wish I’d done more, when I had the time. But there is no “better judgement”. In fact it is getting pretty uncertain whether there is even any judgement at all. The only thing to learn is that life goes around and around – the setting might have changed but really, the rest is just how it goes. Best make the best of it, for this is all we have…
If love is a sin than beauty is a crime All things are beautiful in their time The black and the white, the yellow and the brown It’s all right there for ya in Scarlet Town
Indeed this setting – the cards that fate deals out are what affects your life – you can’t fight the fate you are dealt.
This is of course a message totally contrary to the Christianity that Dylan preached for a number of years. Which is not to say he’s given up on the Christian message, because there is nothing to say he believes this vision, any more than any novelist believes in the story lines he evolves. It’s just the story he’s telling today. Maybe
As to the references, they are, I suspect, significant only as illustrations, rather like a poet had employed a cartoonist to sketch a few drawings as part of the story. They are not, in my view, insightful definitions. Here’s Set em up Joe from 1988.
“Set ‘Em Up Joe” was a tribute song to Ernest Tubb (ET in the lyrics). Tubb was the Texas Troubadour, an American singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music. His biggest career hit song, “Walking the Floor Over You” which although not a massive hit as first was later seen as the first honky tonk song that launched the musical genre. And here it is…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWmbFXJDHrM
You left me and you went away You said that you’d be back in just a day That day has come and gone but you’re still away from home I’m walking the floor over you
Meanwhile back in Scarlet Town à la Bob…
You may of course completely disagree but I see this as an impressionist piece, giving us hints and pictures that fade in and out, rather than a whole story or any sort of complete exposition of a situation. The references to Set Em Up Joe and Walking the Floor are not so much a specific references to specific songs as hints and impressions of the worlds we travel through within Scarlet Town – the town contains all these different elements all at the same time, just as any town might include a folk club, a bar for heavy drinkers, a dance hall playing 1950s rock n roll, a junky whore and so on. A set of competing images, just like Visions of Johanna, and a set of varying time perspective just as with Tangled up in Blue.
And into those images we have characters: quite a bunch of characters. Just as Visions of Johanna has Johanna, Louise and Little Boy Lost now we have Little Boy Blue, Vern Gosdin, Ernest Tubb, and Uncle Tom – taken from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. A man who accepts and actually believes in his lower-class status because of his race.
Plus Uncle Bill (a reference I didn’t know, at least I have never heard it in English English) which the urban dictionary tells me is a “creepy family member most likely to molest anyone he can. The funny Uncle nobody trusts. The uncle who volunteers to play Santa.
Which suggests everything is concocted from the personalities we’ve been dealt through out genes and our upbringing. A world that looks to be one thing from the front but which behind the screens is something else. Just like in a movie, nothing is quite what it appears to be.
And repeatedly we realise that in this world there really is no escape. For even if there were to be it would certainly come too late. Good and bad exist side by side; that’s just how it is. We can’t do anything about it. That’s just how it goes.
So nothing changes, we are still fighting the same wars as our parents fought, and for all the signs of progress there is no progress
In Scarlet Town you fight your father’s foes Up on the hill a chilly wind blows You fight ‘em on high and you fight ‘em down in You fight ‘em with whisky, morphine and gin
But still out of all this, the narrator (be it Bob or a fictional character) believes that if he repents and tries to do better, even at this late stage all will be ok. He only needs to sort out issues where he is now, because you don’t have to travel to put things right.
Set ‘em up Joe, play Walking The Floor Play it for my flat chested junky whore I’m staying up late and I’m making amends While the smile of heaven descends
If love is a sin then beauty is a crime All things are beautiful in their time The black and the white, the yellow and the brown It’s all right there for ya in Scarlet Town
Just accept it all. It is all here, everything is fine. It’s all good.
What is on the site
1: Over 400 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order below on this page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here. A second index lists the articles under the poets and poetic themes cited – you can find that here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
The ancient Greeks for one consider the physical world of nature to be composed of four basic elements: earth, air, water, and fire. From this primitive ‘science’ develops the Elizabethan ‘psychology’ of the four ‘humours’. In an ideal state, fire is balanced by water.
Used in tropes, symbols, and allegories by Elizabethan artists, these elements remain in the poetry to this very day. And very conveniently indeed, ‘fire’ rhymes with ‘desire’; the two words blaze in many a lyricist’s head:
Alcilia’s eyes have set my heart on fire
The pleasing object that pain does feed
Yet still to see those eyes I do desire
(Philoparthen: Alciĺia’s Eyes)
The element of fire represents not only the emotion of love, and the sorrow and joy that comes with it, but the sexual urge that causes the heart to beat faster:
My love is like ice, and I to fire
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire
(Edmund Spenser: My Love Is Like Ice)
In modern times, singers still associate fire with love and sexual desire. It is said that June Carter read from a book of Elizabethan poetry:
Love Is a burning thing
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire
I fell into a ring of fire
(Johnny Cash: Ring Of Fire)
Bob Dylan most likely recalls the rhyme from the pre-Romantic poet William Blake who uses the ‘element’ to represent creative as well as sexual energy:
Bring me my arrows of desire Bring me my spear, O clouds unfold Bring me my chariot of fire
(William Blake: Jerusalem)
The singer/songwriter Dylan describes sexual encounters as though the female were a fiery Muse that sparks his creative drive:
You are as whorish as ever Baby, you could start a fire I must be losing my mind You’re the object of my desire
(Bob Dylan: I Feel A Change Comin’ On)
The ‘Gothic’ band Black Sabbath plays with the religious idea that sex is sinful:
Big black shape with eyes of fire
Telling people their desire
Satan’s sitting there, he’s smiling
Watches the flames get higher and higher
(Black Sabbath: Black Sabbath)
The part-time Romantic poet Robert Frost takes the geological path and plays down the religious and sexual connotations of the word ‘fire’:
Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in ice
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire
(Robert Frost: Fire And Ice)
At least in the following song, for singer Billy Joel, both he and Dylan being readers of William Blake, fire is a metaphor for sexual attraction:
Though you dream in good intentions
You will never quench the fire
You’ll give in to you desire
When the stranger comes along
(Billy Joel: The Stranger)
Bob Dylan goes further and uses fire in both a sexual, and spiritual context:
My soul feels like it’s on fire Nothing matters to me And there’s nothing I desire ‘Cept you, yeah you
(Bob Dylan: ‘Cept You)
Likewise, the band U2:
I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in my finger tips
It burned like fire
This burning desire
(U2: I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For)
Below, Dylan employs the trope of fire in the Blakean sense as representing the innocent spirit of youth, oft despoiled by the experiences of adulthood:
He’s young and he’s on fire Full of hope and desire In a world that’s been raped and defiled
(Bob Dylan: Lord Protect My Child)
What is on the site
1: Over 400 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here. 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.
Before James Joyce reacts against the idealized love expressed in Elizabethan poetry and prose , as well as against the prudishness of Victorian writers, he first pays a young man’s tribute to Romantic love poetry, with its themes focused on Nature, with its elements of earth, air, fire, and water.
Joyce makes the old new again by utilizing modern English. He gets to know traditional literature well before he starts writing in the many-layered meaning and ironic tone of the literary period known as Modernism:
Strings in the earth and air
Make music sweet
Strings by the river where
The willows meet
Love can bring dark sorrow as well as bright joy is the message:
There’s music along the river
For Love wanders there
Pale flowers on his mantle
Dark leaves on his hair
(James Joyce: Strings In The Earth And Air)
Likewise, Bob Dylan makes sure he knows well the traditional forms and themes of poetry and song before he starts singing:
Lay down your weary tune, lay down Lay down the song you strum And rest yourself ‘neath the strength of strings No voice can hope to hum
Alliterative sound abounds, sadness surrounds:
The last of leaves fell from the trees And clung to a new love’s breast The branches bare like a banjo moan To the winds that listen the best
(Bob Dylan: Lay Down Your Weary Tune)
The Elizabethan Bard expresses the theme of how difficult it is to describe feelings elicited by love in mere words:
The throttle with his note so true
The wren with little quill
The finch, the sparrow, and the lark
The plain-song cuckoo gray
Whose note many a man does mark
And dares not answer, nay
(Shakespeare: Midsummer Night’s Dream)
Wording that sounds musical along with a creative imagination that reaches out into the external world for an objective correlative assist the artist in the endeavour:
Hear yourself amid the drowsy even
One who is singing by your gate
His song is softer than the dew
And he has come to visit you
(James Joyce: Hear Yourself Amid The Drowsy Even)
As with Joyce, so with Dylan:
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums Should I put them by your gate Or, sad-eyed lady should I wait?
(Bob Dylan: Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands)
William Shakespeare, Joyce and Dylan’s master:
Make me a willow cabin at your gate
And call upon my soul within the house
Write loyal cantons of contemned love
And sing them loud even in the dead of night
(Shakespeare: Twelf0th Night)
James Joyce reacts to these idealized depictions of love, often unrequited, by mixing together romantic and very sexually explicit language (not repeated here) at the ending of his Modernist novel:
I was the flower of the mountain …yes, when I put a rose
in my hair ……. and I thought …well … as well him as another
and then I asked him, with my eyes, to ask again … yes …and
then he asked me, would I.. .yes… to say, yes, my mountain
flower…
(James Joyce: Ulysses)
We know Joyce was by Dylan read, and we know for sure that Robert Hunter, the co-author of the following song, that even mentions the Modernist writer by name, be a James Joyce fanatic:
You are as whorish as ever Baby, you could start a fire I must be losing my mind You’re the object of my desire
The lyrics mix together the language of unrequited romantic love with the diction of pent up physical lust:
Everyone got all the flowers I don’t have one single rose
(Bob Dylan: I Feel A Change Coming On)
The singer Billy Joel, a reader of William Blake’s preRomantic poetry, as be Bob Dylan himself, expresses a similar theme while also using the poet’s famous ‘arrows of desire” and ” chariot of fire” rhyme:
You will never quench the fire
You’ll give in to your desire
(Billy Joel: The Stranger)
Dylan goes one step further and mixes James Joyce’s words from the end of “Ulysses” with the vocabulary of a religious preacher:
You can mislead a man You can take a hold of his heart with your eyes But there’s only one authority And that’s the authority on high
(Bob Dylan: Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking)
What is on the site
1: Over 400 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here. 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.
If you have ever taken a quick glance at the Chronology Files on this site (see for example Dylan in the 60s) what may well strike you are two things.
First Bob Dylan has had periods of huge output, song after song pouring out of him, but with occasional periods where he has stopped writing. And second that those periods of non-writing have become more frequent, and longer.
Now I have written on this topic before, and outlined those “non-writing” periods in my little piece “Has Bob Dylan now stopped writing songs for good?” but I want to try and add a little more to that commentary by delving further into the world of creativity itself.
And for most people who do delve in such a way, “creativity” is a very troublesome area to examine because few can agree on a definition. Simply defining “creativity” as “doing something new” is generally thought to be insufficient. For although novelty is obviously part of creativity, there are aesthetic and moral judgements involved too. Mankind has been expert at inventing new ways of hurting humans seemingly since the dawn of the species, and yet most of us don’t call each new approach to torture, “creative”.
And likewise a child’s scream when it can’t have an ice cream might be novel, but most parents don’t consider that novelty and proclaim that their child is a creative wonder. There might be sixteen different ways of getting from one side of a swimming pool to another but again, finding them is mostly considered trivial, rather than creative.
Thus creativity is combined with value judgements and so when people call Bob Dylan, JS Bach, Mozart, Beethoven Leonardo, Einstein, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marie Curie, Jackson Pollock, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, Jane Austen, Ada Lovelace etc etc creative geniuses, they do so from within a set of value judgements rather than anything that can be measured as simply as “novelty” or “originality,” although each of these is part of the overall show.
The creative genius is also generally measured by his/her greatest achievements, not by everything produced, although in the case of Shakespeare (excluding the co-written works), Beethoven and Bach, pretty much everything is considered to be works of creative genius. But even here, looking at these individuals and their work does not help us tie down a definition of creativity. An artist like Picasso on the other hand is considered to have reached his highest point of creativity with “Guernica” and slipped back.
Some of these people however, with what seems to be almost an “other worldly” talent, have kept their creative genius going throughout their lives, and I don’t know enough about each field of creative endeavour to draw an absolute conclusion about whether the norm in each field is to keep going producing works of genius, or whether stopping is commonplace. Shakespeare we know just stopped writing, left London and went home to the Midlands for a spot of family life. Dickens was still writing masterfully when he died.
So there are few generalisations to gather, and even fewer to be found about where these extraordinary and rare people get their ideas from. Indeed the notions just seem to be there in their heads.
Now if this is true, if all there is, is ideas in their heads, there is little we can do to understand the process more fully – meaning it is hard to know why the creative genius stops creating.
However I do believe we can go further than this, because in looking through Dylan’s entire output of songs, as I have been trying to do on this website over the last few years, we can see that elements of his creative inspiration have as often as not come from his own interests in the world around him, and the literature that he reads (as well as a few movies along the way).
This is not so much to say that Dylan just writes about people he knows, or takes elements from books he reads, the films he sees and the situations around him, but rather he draws his inspiration from these on occasion. This is the inspiration upon which the creativity is built.
Thus the invective within “Positively Fourth Street” and “Like a Rolling Stone” might well have been brought to his mind by his reflections on some people he knew but really, really didn’t like, but that doesn’t mean that Dylan was simply composing a piece of music about that person. Yes he was doing that, but he was also allowing us to generalise out to think of the people we have met who have behaved just as badly or just as stupidly and who we dislike just as much as Dylan disliked the target of his outpourings.
The creativity at this point came from seeing the person he did not like, and wanting to express his view very personally in a song – and make that a song that other people wanted to hear. And indeed not only hear once but over and over again. The genius was that he managed to do it.
So in this consideration of Dylan’s creativity, I am heading towards his ability to head into new forms of expression within popular music. I have written before of the simple statement given to me by my tutor Professor Keith Swanwick at London University in the early days of my working on my research degree on popular music. He said words to the effect that pop music was virtually always about love, lost love and dance.
Of course one can immediately find exceptions, but his generalisation holds up very well – or at least held up very well back in the 1970s when I was studying. But even at that moment Dylan had torn down the edifice of the three towers of what pop could be about by adding these songs of disdain. And I would argue that this move took a fundamental step of creative genius to achieve. Redrawing the notion of what is possible is rare and to be prized, in my view.
But Dylan did this more than once. He also wrote songs about the way in which the past was being torn up and people destroyed by the process, putting it first in the form of contemporary folk music based on old folk traditions (one thinks of Hollis Brown as a prime example) but then later putting into pop music itself. Whereas, when pop music had had a political message, it was one which in essence was an evolution of the thoughts within “Times they are a changing”. Curiously, maybe perversely, Dylan named the album after the one song that looked forward. The rest of the album looked mostly to the past.
Thinking of these songs it is clear that Dylan’s creativity was stimulated by a combination of the songs that he had heard from his interest in earlier folk music, and contemporary events. This was true right from the start with compositions such as Talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues in which Dylan took an established form of music and intermingled it with a contemporary event.
So from this very quick look at Dylan’s early compositions we can see the creative urge comes out of three sources: people he came across and contemporary events, and the music that he had experienced in the past. In short Dylan’s creativity was stimulated by the world around him and the music he loved.
And this has continued through his life, from Ballad for a friend through to the reflections of the world gone mad in It’s all right ma and the political commentary of Desolation Row This form of creative writing has continued with Dylan through most of his career right up to a song like It’s all good. It’s his concerns, expressed in a unique way, reworking the musical forms of the past.
Of course along the way he has found many new formulations to work on – the religious period for example is not one within which I can relate to the lyrics personally, any more than I can personally relate to the B Minor Mass as a religious work, but in both cases I can appreciate the work as music of the highest order. Take “When He Returns” for example – not the album version but the astonishing live versions Bob produced. An extraordinarily brilliant and original work. Creativity at its highest. Exactly as was “Love Minus Zero” many years before.
However such a form of stimulus for creative thought is more than likely to become less powerful as time passes, simply because as we get older most of us become more reflective and less revolutionary in our thinking. Fewer new thoughts are allowed to hit the brain and send us in new directions. Imagine a world in which you had written “Jokerman” and “Tambourine Man” and “Tangled up in Blue”. Really, where do you go now?
Tangled itself was a radical evolution of the way in which a popular song could be written, transforming the time line, and re-writing the lyrics, but after that… how on earth do you reach those heights again? Probably not by writing “Mixed up in green” but rather by having to make another leap into another musical and literary form. And for this one needs another major burst of creative insight.
But of course these are not the only song types Dylan has written, for he has indulged in love and lost love songs – two of the staples of popular music that Professor Swanwick noted (the third was dance, which isn’t to Bob’s taste at all it seems). But just as the observations of the world gone wrong, the political commentary, and the song written about a friend in the band all do get a little dulled by advancing age, so does the imperative to write more love and lost love songs. After one’s done it a few times, what more is there to say?
However Bob Dylan also gave us, as well as love, lost love, protest against the way change leaves the poor behind, protest against the madness of government, and the religious songs, something else that was completely new: impressionist songs.
For me, two works of utter genius “Visions of Johanna” and “Tell Ol Bill” fit into this category. (One can argue that “Tangled up in blue” is part of it as well. Each give us glimpses of another world, without ever fully reconciling where it is and what is going on. They are masterpieces of being tantalising – the half glimpsed world that we can appreciate but never grasp. Impressionist paintings in song.
But these works are few and far between – works of sublime inspiration and insight which come to even the genius, seemingly but occasionally. Besides who else has ever successfully attempted such songs?
Which brings me meanderingly to my point: Love and lost love are less likely to be the source of inspiration to the creative genius as he gets older. The notion that the world has gone wrong in every sense is there still, but it provides fewer opportunities for expression, and the impressionist works are seemingly much rarer in the Dylan canon, because, I suspect, they are so hard to write.
In short what is he to write at this stage of his life? The blues pretty much dominated Dylan in 2008/9, whereas Tempest did not seem to have so much of a central theme to me – it was more a collection of individual ideas and reflective stories. That doesn’t make the songs less meaningful or lesser works but when there are no themes, it is harder to put together a whole collection of songs for an album. Probably not something one can do once a year.
You can, after all, only write one “Roll on John”, one story of Tempest, and a limited number of Shakespearean musings such as “Soon after midnight”.
And thus I reach an understanding of the creative problem for Bob, as I perceive it. What is the source of his creative inspiration now? On the last album of his own compositions, he tries storytelling, but I am not sure it is 100% successful, and besides each story needs a new theme; the storytelling is not like “the blues” or “lost love” or “weird characters” or “tales from America’s past” (as in JWH) because each story needs to start again from scratch, rather than have a template in which it can exist.
I suspect that Bob can’t revisit these past themes because anything newly written would feel to him like a re-hash of the past. If a new inspiration came to him, or if he could find the door that opened onto Visions of Johnanna or Tell Ol Bill then he could fly once more into new musical creations, without relying on a re-working of songs from past eras, and artificially created chord sequences.
Which is not to say that his later work is not of the highest merit – it certainly is. But I think through this little meander it is possible to see what Bob was saying when he stated, “Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.”
It was as clear an indication as we have ever had that he has not too much is on the horizon. He doesn’t want to do more of what he’s done before, and he most certainly doesn’t want to produce anything that is second rate. It’s just that the themes that interest him have been explored, and anyway, who am I to suggest to almighty Bob that he might be able to find some new arenas within that field of musical impressionism?
Maybe it is now Bob’s time to sit here stranded, at least in terms of another great creative leap forward. And why not? He’s given us more than we have any right to deserve out of one lifetime.
But I asked, “What could kick start it?” “Johanna” and “Tell ol Bill” focused at the outset on locations, and then the people within them. Maybe that’s the trick Bob. A person, a place, and not much happening…
What is on the site
1: Over 400 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here. 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.
Bob had written nothing since the collection of songs of 2005/6 when he started up again with Life is Hard in 2008; a slow movie song that had no connection with the rest of the songs that were to follow.
And normally such a song (even if it were a masterpiece like Tell Ol Bill) would be left to be picked up in the Bootleg series, but these were not normal times, and I suspect Bob had a lack of songs to offer up for his next album. If there was to be a next album.
Indeed in this period of writing, the first two songs were quite separate from the rest because they were written by Dylan alone. The rest were co-compositions, and I think one can tell the difference straight away.
Indeed for me, (and this as always is a totally personal view) the first two songs we find written over this timespan are much inferior to what follows. Bob really did need a co-writer, to get going.
The first song of the new year – This Dream of You – has an accompaniment that sounds as if it is in keeping with the rest of the songs on the album, and it does make use of the accordion, which is such a feature of what happens thereafter, but it is a slow piece without the distinctive blues that was the hallmark of the rest of 2006. For me it really doesn’t work, and actually shouldn’t be on the album – but I suspect a lack of alternatives meant that this song and “Life is Hard” had to be there to make up the number.
And then, suddenly with the two composers working together, we get an explosion of songwriting in its own particular style.
Indeed if you ever have an inclination so to do, play the songs of this period in the order of composition, and you’ll see how those first two are quite separate, but the rest truly are connected.
Thus we start out the main roll out of music with Beyond here lies nothing – and suddenly we have a complex instrumentation with the blues – even the first line “Oh I love you pretty baby,” tells us exactly what sort of music we are going to be hearing.
Then My wife’s home town offers us a slow blues “I just want to say that hell’s my wife’s home town” Just how low down do you want to get?
But it picks up again, with If you ever go to Houston a swinging blues which plays a little trick at the opening so we are not sure what key we are in to begin – but the message is clear – if you ever go to Houston, keep your hands in your pockets. (I’ve never been so I can’t say).
Forgetful Heart is the closest to Life is Hard in this part of the collection but it has infinitely more power, and then Jolene – with its classic bouncy blues riff. Indeed throughout these songs you really do know where you are. I mean if a song starts, “I got the blues for you baby when I look at the sun,” you just know.
And then something odd happened. In I feel a change coming on Bob and the guys changed it, we move away from the 12 bars and it almost feels like an attempt to try to reclaim the land of This Dream of You only faster. It’s almost as if Bob said, “come on we cant have another 12 bar blues here. We must be able to do something else for the last two songs.”
And if that was so he stuck to his word for It’s all good – only has one chord, as if to show old guy can still rock. This is how Bo Diddley would have sounded if he had been able to write songs like Bob Dylan.
I love this last song – I love lots of the album, but this last song I really, really do love. Bob has only played it three times, maybe because it absolutely needs that accordion player and his brilliant inter-relation with Bob and the guys. It deserves more outings.
This really is the world gone wrong but with a beat.
Cold-blooded killer, stalking the town Cop cars blinking, something bad going down Buildings are crumbling in the neighborhood But there’s nothing to worry about, ’cause it’s all good It’s all good They say it’s all good
Right on Bob. You could have ended your song writing career on that note, and we’d have had nothing to complain about.
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.
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 others.
This is a Bob Dylan puzzle in the purest form of puzzles. It’s either something or nothing or both or neither. No, hang on, that last one isn’t possible. It’s something or nothing or both something AND nothing.
Because this song is one of those written with Robert Hunter we don’t really know who wrote what parts of the lyrics. But it does make it more likely that the song isn’t really about anything much – just two guys reminiscing about the old times and making use of old rhymes (if you see what I mean), just playing with images that are not necessarily connected.
Musically it is all Dylan, I suspect, and it is one of those pieces he has enjoyed in more recent times where he makes the musical accompaniment complex wheres the melody itself actually sounds very simple. After all, he’d found all these funny chords, and he liked to use them.
The song opens with
Well I’m looking the world over Looking far off into the East And I see my baby coming She’s walking with the village priest I feel a change coming on And the last part of the day is already gone
which is really fairly simple except we wonder why she is with the priest – are they about to be married? Is he dating a Catholic? Has he been reading the Father Brown novels of G. K. Chesterton? Or are they showing the BBC TV series about the character in the US?
The complexity of course might be false – is “priest” there just to rhyme with “East”? Did the guys think of the two repeating chorus lines
I feel a change coming on And the last part of the day is already gone
And then just throw down whatever they came up with?
The complexity in the music is harder to pick up from the recording, but believe me it is there. Even if you don’t know about chord sequences I am hoping you might agree that in these reviews you haven’t seen too many that look like this:
A, F#m
Bm, E11, A, F#m, Bm, E11
A, F#m
Bm, E11, A, F#m, Bm, E11
A, F#m
E7, A
What makes this all the more curious is that the middle 8 (the section where the music changes from the verse, verse, verse sequence – over to a different passage often called “The Bridge”, or more formally “B”) is so utterly ordinary.
Two things are odd in fact. First we have three verses, not the normal two, before the “middle 8” passage. This means first time through we are getting to thinking it is a song that just goes verse – verse – verse. Then it unexpectedly changes.
And second this “B” passage is absolutely classic standard pop – no complex chords, the sort of thing that you could hear on many popular music songs from the late 1950s onwards.
D Well now, what’s the use in dreamin’,
A you got better things to do.
D Dreams never did work for me anyway,
B7 E7 even when they did come true
It is so commonplace it feels out of place and almost corny. And I can’t help wondering why?
Trying to make sense of this I tried two approaches – the lyrics as they stand and the references that may, or may not, be a clue.
Verse 1 as I have mentioned has the unexpected priest, verse 2 however suggests that “my baby” isn’t in the conventional “my baby” relationship with the singer as we might have suspected because
We got so much in common We strive for the same old ends And I just can’t wait Wait for us to become friends I feel a change coming on And the fourth part of the day is already gone
Now she was “my baby” in the first verse, and now he’s waiting for her to be his friend. So is the “change” actually a move from a relationship to a friendship?
Plus the last part of the day has become (and remains in the rest of the song), the “fourth part” of the day. Could that be the Fourth Age of man as the “All the world’s a stage” speech has it
Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth.
So he’s done that bit of going out and telling us what’s wrong with the world and trying to put it right, and now just drinks too much? A nice idea, and a clever one, if that meaning is right. I fancy that was Mr Hunter. It doesn’t seem like Bob to me.
Then another change it seems (which fits with the song’s title) for this time the singer is asking the woman to live with him, stay with him forever and all that…
Life is for love And they say that love is blind If you want to live easy Baby pack your clothes with mine
But it seems she’s not up for it, as the middle 8 tells us
Well now what’s the use in dreamin’ You got better things to do Dreams never did work for me anyway Even when they did come true
But it doesn’t stop him desiring her
You are as whorish as ever Baby you could start a fire I must be losing my mind You’re the object of my desire
And then – well yes indeed, and then….
I’m listening to Billy Joe Shaver And I’m reading James Joyce Some people they tell me I got the blood of the land in my voice
OK up to this point, I get the notion that in each verse the woman changes to something else. But now?
I think we can all get the final line, and a clever one it is, true enough, with that gravel voice that he has had in recent years, and his battles with the world, his religion and his lovers through his 450+ songs. And/or that he’s got the same religious/rebellious nature that many Irish people are reflected as having.
But really we have to ask more about Billy Joe Shaver and James Joyce. Does that mean – hey look I like country music and the complexities of Irish literature, and it’s cool ‘cos I can do both at once. Or something more than that?
Let’s try Billy Joe. One of his most famous works is “Ain’t no God in Mexico” which starts
Down the road a ways I have heard say a new day’s comin’ on Where the woman folks are friendly And the law leaves you alone Well, I’ll believe it when I see it But I haven’t seen it yet Don’t mind me just keep on talkin’ I am just looking for my hat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFR6RZYAq_M
Or perhaps Dylan was more inclined to think of another of Billy Joe’s most famous (although I find, less typical) songs “I’m gonna live forever”. There is a desperate tragedy within this song, in that it was written with his son, who later died of a heroin overdose just around the time both Billy Joe Shaver’s mother and his wife died of cancer.
I’m gonna live forever I’m gonna cross that river I’m gonna catch tomorrow now You’re gonna wanna hold me Just like I always told you You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone Nobody here will ever find me But I always be around Just like the songs I leave behind me I’m gonna live forever now
If you do have a moment spare, do have a listen …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeJ4kp1AwY4
Here’s another bit of oddness. “I feel a change coming on” was written just a couple of years after the most extraordinary part of Shaver’s extraordinary life. In March 2007, at Papa Joe’s Texas Saloon in Lorena Shaver shot Billy Bryant Coker in the face with a handgun.
Witnesses said they heard Shaver say “where do you want it?” and then, having shot the man in the face. “Tell me you are sorry” and “No one tells me to shut up.”
In evidence Coker said the attack was unprovoked although Shaver’s attorney argued in court that Coker had attacked Shaver with a knife and Shaver had shot Coker in self-defence. Shaver subsequently handed himself in and was released on $50,000 bail. He was acquitted in a Waco court on April 9, 2010 after testifying that he acted in self-defence.
Now we can move on to James Joyce: a fundamental part of the avant-garde – novelist, short story writer, and poet. A central character in 20th century modernist literature.
My guess is that Dylan has read at least part of Ulysses (I’m not sure too many people have read it all), and I think this given Dylan’s interest in Homer’s Odyssey, and Dylan’s occasional use of stream of consciousness style writing – indeed one could argue Dylan is the man who took stream of consciousness into popular music – he’s recognising his debt to Joyce.
If you want to experience Joyce for the first time it might be a good idea to avoid Ulysses as a starter. “A portrait of the artist as a young man” might be better. And after that maybe “Portrait of the artist as a young dog” by Dylan Thomas… well these things always go around and around. (The Times Literary Supplement – said of Dylan Thomas’ version, “”the atmosphere of schoolboy smut and practical jokes and poetry is evoked with lingering accuracy but with nothing more.”
But back to our song. Here’s a live version.
Everybody got all the money Everybody got all the beautiful clothes Everybody got all the flowers I don’t have one single rose I feel a change coming on And the fourth part of the day is already gone
And so there we are. In short, I’m not sure. But no real change there.
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.
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 others.
Long before Frederich Nietzsche said that ‘God is dead’, and that Christianity killed Him by its ordaining Man to suffer in the here-and-now while waiting for happiness in the afterlife, the poet Geoffrey Chaucer complains that Pity – the feeling of sorrow for the misfortunes of others – is dead.
Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan keeps Chaucer alive by paying tribute to The Canterbury Tales:
One the deadman’s shield to bear
Another with his spear high in the air
His Turkish bow the third one proud to hold
With quiver and with trim of burnished gold
(Chaucer: The Knight’s Tale)
Dylan carries the dead poet’s shield:
Ain’t talkin’, just walkin’ Carryin’ a deadman’s shield Heart burnin’, still yearnin’ Walkin’ with a toothache in my heel
(Dylan: Ain’t Talkin’)
Chaucer mourned the departure of Pity:
I am so hungry that I cannot sleep
I wish God had buried me deep
Then hunger would not creep into my gut
There’s nothing but bread I would rather cut
(Chaucer: The Monk’s Tale)
Bob Dylan hopes that Pity will return:
I’m listenin’ to the steel rails hum Got both my eyes shut Just sitting here trying to keep the hunger from Creeping into my gut
(Dylan: Workingman’s Blues)
Geoffrey Chaucer believed Pity’s gone forever:
I’m pretty sure she’ll make me kill someone
Then I will be on the run
For I am a dangerous man
When I have a knife in my hand
(Chaucer: The Monk’s Tale)
Dylan likewise doubts that Eden and Pity can be restored after what Eve has done:
One of these days I’ll end up on the run I’m pretty sure she’ll make me kill someone I’m going inside, roll the shutter’s down I just wanna say, ‘Hell’s my wife’s home town’
(Dylan: My Wife’s Home Town)
Adam has been drained of his vitality. But take the rag away from your face, now ain’t the time for your tears.
His socks were the same
No one called her anything but ‘Madam’
None hardy enough along the way
Who dared flirt with her, or play
(Chaucer: The Reeves Tale)
The times they are a-changing. Mercury, the God of Commerce, replaces Venus, the Goddess of Love:
It’s the first new day of a grand and glorious Autumn The Queen of Love is comin’ across the grass None dare call her anything but ‘Madam’ No one flirts with her or even makes a pass
(Dylan: Ain’t Talkin’ – alternate)
The Corrupt as usual regulate the Corrupt:
‘I’ve been’, the Friar said, ‘so insulted today
Down in your village. There’s no one of poorest pay
Who would put up with my treatment in your town
But nothing shocks me more than that old clown’
(Chaucer: The Summoners Tale)
And a new economic order is shaped by the Law:
Down by the river, Judge Simpson walkin’ around Down by the river, Judge Simpson walkin’ around Nothing shocks me more than that that old clown
(Dylan: Shake Shake Mama)
Time is taken over by Wealth, and by those who have it:
A fourth part of the day’s already gone
Now for the love of God, and of St. John
Let’s lose as little time now as we may
My lords, it’s time that wastes both night and day
(Chaucer: Sergeant-At-Law’s Tale)
Hope slips away for those who don’t:
Everybody got all the flowers I don’t have one single rose I feel a change comin’ on And the fourth part of the day’s already gone
(Dylan: I Feel A Change Comin’ On)
So bury the rag deep in your face; now’s the time for your Pity:
I pity the poor immigrant ….
Who eats but is not satisfied
Who hears but does not see
Who falls in love with wealth itself
And turns his back on me
(Dylan: I Pity The Poor Immigrant)
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.
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 others.
Bob Dylan And Geoffrey Chaucer: Thunder On The Mountain
By Larry Fyffe
Though it has roots in blues music, Bob Dylan’s song ‘Thunder On The Mountain” tells the story of the singer/songwriter’s pilgrimage through life. The mythological God of Thunder is looking down, and Dylan knows he has to serve someone, and that is Zeus’ sun-son Apollo. To the mythological God of Music, with the aid of female Muses from Mount Ida, Dylan is a servant both night and day:
Thunder on the mountain, rolling like a drum Gonna sleep over there, that’s where the music coming from I don’t need any guide, I already know the way Remember this, I’m your servant both night and day’
((Bob Dyan: Thunder On The Mountain)
As Scott Warmuth has pointed out in regard to this particular song , Dylan takes inspiration from the words of Geoffrey Chaucer’s narrative poem, The Canterbury Tales, which speaks, in one of its tales, about a messenger:
‘My lady, the Queen, has borne a child
The whole kingdom will rejoice
See here is a sealed letter containing the news
Which I bear to my King, as fast as possible
If you wish to send anything to the King
I’m your servant both day a night’
(Geoffrey Chaucer: The Sergeant-At-Law Tale)
As far as the pilgrim Dylan is concerned, God has commanded that his King be Art, and as a Knight he has sworn an oath of allegiance to stand by his calling:
Thunder on the mountain, rolling on the ground Gonna get up in the morning, walk the hard road down Some sweet day, I’ll stand beside my King I wouldn’t betray your love or any other thing
(Bob Dylan: Thunder On The Mountain)
That ‘s not always easy as Chaucer notes. Venus on the half-shell, the sexy daughter of Zeus, can be a threat to blood-sworn oaths:
Sworn full deep, as thou to me, that never
Though we die under torture, either of us
Should hinder the other in love, or in any other course
Dear brother, till death shall part us two
(Geoffrey Chaucer: The Knight’s Tale)
Because of Bob Dylan’s Romantic ideals, the singer/songwriter finds organized religion to be another threat to his true calling. Of structured religion Dylan, as expressed through his persona, is skeptical, although, in real life, he’s given it a try:
Everybody’s going and I want to go too Don’t wanna take a chance with some one new I did all I could and I did it right there and then I’ve already confessed – no need to confess again
(Bob Dylan: Thunder On The Mountain)
The hypocrisy of organized religion, with leaders just in it for money, Chaucer condemns:
‘But show me your complete confession’
‘No’, said the sick man, ‘By St. Simon
I have been shivered today by my curate
I have told him of my condition
There is no further need to speak of it’
(Geoffrey Chaucer: The Summoners Tale)
A modern-day matured chivalrous Knight, singer Bob Dylan, again through his persona, though it be a tough haul, prefers not to rely on the mercy of others:
Gonna make a lot of money, gonna go up north I’ll plant and I’ll harvest what the earth brings forth The hammers on the table, the pitchforks on the shelf For the love of God, you ought to take pity on yourself
(Bob Dylan: Thunder On The Mountain)
In The Canterbury Tales, the young son of the Knight envisions women as speaking to him like a goddess with a heart filled with pity for those in physical or mental discomfort:
For the love of God, show yourself some mercy
Or what may advantage you?
For never ere now saw I in this world
Beast or bird that fared himself so piteously
To sooth, ye slay me with your sorrow
I have such pity for you
(Geoffrey Chaucer: The Squire’s Tale)
The listener can hear that Dylan is inspired by Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in his antiwar songs:
I saw a new-born baby with wild wolves all around it I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it I saw a branch with blood that kept drippin’ I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’ I saw a white ladder all covered with water I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
(Bob Dylan: Hard Rain Gonna Fall)
Dylan’s somewhat modernized images of the horrors of war are similar to those of Chaucer:
There saw I first the dark imaginings of felony ….
The stables burning in black smoke
The treachery of the murder in the bed
Open war with wounds all bleeding
Strife with bloody blade and sharp threat ….
Men slain in the thousands
The tyrant with his prey reft by force
The town destroyed
Yet again I saw the burned speedy ships
The hunter strangled by the wild bears
The sow devouring her child even in the cradle
(Geoffrey Chaucer: The Knight’s Tale)
In Dylan’s lyrics, we find grand Mother Earth with her Chaucer-like pity and mercy towards men. Dylan juxtaposes her offspring with the Whore of Babylon, a biblical symbol that blames the woes of the world on the female sex, including Eve’s curiosity in the Garden of Eden:
Now you stand with your thief, you’re on his parole With your holy medallion which your fingertips fold And your saint-like face and your ghost-like soul Oh, who among them do you think could destroy you
(Bob Dylan: Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands)
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.
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 others.
The first part of Modern Times revisited: Bob Dylan and Shmuel Hanagid can be found here
Dylan and Shmuel Hanagid (993-1056) had the same Jewish upbringing, they shared the same minority, celebrated the same holidays, were taught by the same rabbi’s the same religion, the same norms and values. You could say they shared the same code.
Dylan did not lift any lines from Hanagid like he did from Ovid, but there are similarities and chains of thought that cannot be overlooked. This does not mean that Dylan has read anything by Shmuel Hanagid, although he definitely might have, as the Spanish Hebrew poet is part of the Jewish curriculum, especially when you are into poetry.
As a Jew it wasn’t easy for Hanagid (The Prince, Leader) to govern over Muslims, Christian and Jews alike. His enemies conspired against him. Dylan may not be a Talmudic scholar, but he’s obviously a leader who studies and reads a lot and uses his knowledge to write his songs. Like Hanagid did. When I read Hanagid poems I can’t help thinking: Dylan could have written that.
Modern Times starts with a Thunder on the mountain and the singer can’t help but noticing it’s a cruel world today. He’s worried, but still upbeat about it. His soul expands and he want’s to go out into the world and see what others need. He considers raising an army of some tough sons of bitches, but in the end he retires in the North to live off the land.
In darkness on the face of the deep he starts to write four chapters to a long lament. In a sweet voice and lovely melody he sings about the Spirit on the water and tries to woo back the one he loves so dearly. But he fails. He promises to be back by fall and to be with her When the deal goes down.
As he travels through the darkness of the pathways of life, full of disappointment and pain, he assures the Almighty or the equally elusive Muse that he will keep up his end of the bargain. No answer is forthcoming. He may have to wait till he reaches the end of the rainbow. In the long hours of twilight ‘neath the stardust above he tells himself that Beyond the horizon it is easy to love, but he is really lost now, pinning his hope on something so unattainable.
He goes out for a walk in the garden. He Ain’t talkin’. His heart is burning, he is still yearning, but there is no mercy once you’ve lost. He will slaughter his enemies where they lie, lest they jump on his misfortune.
Hanagid puts it like this: (the translations are either by Peter Cole [PC] from his books Selected poems of Shmuel Hanagid and The Dream of the Poem or by Hillel Halkin [HH] from his book Great things to write a poem about).
With all that bellowing overhead,
will I, scion of musicians in the Temple, not be heard?
(From: The thunderstorm – HH)
Soul opens inside you on beauty
then tells you to seek in the world
and ignore its flaws
Heart says: you’ll live forever-
and death as it speaks
grasps you with claws
(From: Soul opens inside you – PC)
and if they could lift their heads and emerge
they’d take our lives and pleasure.
(From: I quartered the troops for the night – PC)
When the lord is with you, sit at home
You can hunt your beasts and birds from here
The wretched will labor but never be full
Then vomit their meals and choke on their words.
(From: When the lord is with you – PC)
My spirit on which, after God, I lean,
and care for with all my labor-
after these fifty long years together,
why would you turn and run
(My spirit – PC)
Earth to man is a prison forever
These tidbits then for fools:
run where you will.
Heaven surrounds you
Get out if you can
(Earth to man – PC)
A different nest and rest from flight,
each day, each night
no evening lays me down to sleep
so I wander weary, I could weep
where mocking morning found me
…
Wrapped in the wild waste’s cloak
the naked stars over my head…
(From: The Wanderer’s Lament – HH)
I apprehended him, dragged him in chains to prison…
I saw to it he died a villain’s death
on the eve of the Rejoicing of the Law.
(From: The Battle of EL Fuente – HH)
In Workingman’s Blues # 2 Dylan sings about a man who after a long day at work sits and watches the evening haze. He is longing for his woman, knowing they will break his horns and slash him with steel.
Hanagid:
Gazing through the night and its stars
or the grass and its bugs
I know in my heart these swarms
are the craft of surpassing wisdom
a whither cloud, a girl, in her garden, tending her shrubs
and the dew coming down is her sister shaking water
from her hair unto the path
as we settle in our lives
like beasts in their ample stalls.
though we’ll lie in the end like a plate hammered into dust and shards.
(From: Gazing through the night – PC)
Nettie Moore is about a man with a pile of sins to pay for. Life is struggle and strife.
Hanagid:
Your loved ones depress you with debt and transgression
And your friends remind you of all your flaws
so think of the sins you hold within you
as each one destroys your worthiest cause
I blame my sins, for which God took
and exiled you from me; and as a flock
of locusts strike a crop and wanders on
and leaves it devastated, you were gone
(From: The vanished lover – HH)
The levee is gonna break or in Hanagid’s words:
Suffer the world you’re trapped in
and your soul which is trapped in your flesh,
through fertile thinking, barren cunning,
and intrigue’s impotent mesh
(Suffer the world – PC)
I am greatly indebted to Peter Cole and Hillel Halkin who made the Golden Age of Hebrew Poetry accessible to me. I have read and read again their books and learned a lot. Look them up.
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.
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 others.
As I was writing my retellings of the songs on Modern Times, I found myself studying the Art of Poetry, more or less, I imagine, as Dylan took time out to study the Art of Love while writing the songs for this album.
I discovered the Golden Age of Hebrew Poetry (Spain 950-1492) a couple years ago and immersed myself in it. When studying Modern Times I found some amazing similarities between Dylan, the greatest poet of our times and the greatest poet of the Golden Age of Hebrew poetry: Shmuel Hanagid.
Shmuel Hanagid (993-1056) was a merchant, Talmudic scholar, poet and became the leader or Prince (Hanagid) of the city state of Granada. His real name was Shmuel Ben Josef or in Arabic sources Isma’il Ibn Nagrila. He fought many battles against other city states for his Arab overlord who resided across the sea in present-day Morocco. These were the Dark Ages, but the Muslims brought light to Spain with their poetry, architecture and science. For some of the time the Muslims, Christians and Jews coexisted more or less peacefully under Muslim rule.
These were very religious times, everybody prayed and everybody knew the Book by heart, whether that be the Bible, the Koran or the Torah. And everybody wrote poems on a daily basis. Invitations to parties, weddings, funerals, thank-you notes, apologies, love, grief and disagreements often came in the form of a poem. Arab poetry flourished with elegance and clarity while Hebrew poetry up to that time had been wooden and liturgical, to be read during services in the synagogue.
Shmuel Hanagid changed all that, just like Shakespeare four hundered years later changed the art of play writing and Dylan a thousand years later changed the art of song writing, (for which he was awarded the Nobel prize for literature).
Like Shakespeare and Dylan, Hanagid had many followers. He wrote secular poetry about almost everything: autobiographical, love, drink, parties, battles, loss, old age, wisdom. He was the great innovator of his day, just like Shakespeare and Dylan.
The first characteristic of Hanagid’s poetry is that almost every line he wrote refers to the Torah, Talmud or Greek philosophy. As I said, these were very religious times. One example: when he used the word “slime-filled pits” everybody knew he was referring to Genesis 14:10 where the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah are fleeing and fall into the slime-filled pits in the vale of Siddim near the Dead Sea. These two words add a new layer to the poem Hanagid wrote on the death of his brother.
Take this as an example:
He’ll bring you trouble with talk like dreams,
invoking song and verse to cheat you;
but dreams, my son, aren’t what they seem:
not all the poet says is true
(Translation by Peter Cole from “Selected poems of Shmuel Hanagid”)
In the above poem line 1 refers to 2 Kings 9:11 and Judges 5:12; line 2 to: Psalms 137:3; line 3 to: Zachariah 10:2 and Ecclesiastes 5:6 and line 4 to Aristotle.
And so on and on. Those for whom the poems were written – Jews obviously – recognized the links and praised the poet for his brilliance and inventiveness.
The words or expressions Hanagid lifted straight from the Hebrew Bible or other sources are called ‘inlays’ and they present a deeper meaning; the source of the lines also come to play a role in the poem. Hanagid, like Dylan, uses these inlays to make to widen the scope and change the perspective of the poem. They are connections the readers do not expect. It’s like a jeweller taking precious stones of an antique artefact and puts them into the filigree of a new crown, thus adding unexpected shine and lustre to the poem. Bringing a beauty from the past into a modern work is paying tribute to the source and let the echo of the past ring through, while at the same time adding additional layers to the song, making it mysterious with hidden meanings.
One of the characteristics of Dylan’s Modern Times is this use of inlays. A lot has been said and written about the lines and music Dylan has taken from others. On Modern Times there’s quite a lot from Ovid, the Latin poet who died this year exactly 2000 years ago. When Dylan sings ‘every nook and granny has its tears’ and you have read Ovid’s exile book Tristia, Dylan’s nook and cranny get an additional meaning. You can picture yourself the old man in exile in an empty house, surrounded by strangers speaking a strange language, eating strange food. Longing for his wife.
I’m quite sure Dylan did not lift any lines from Shmuel Hanagid, at least I couldn’t find any. But there is an amazing similarity in mood, ambience, flavor, symbolism. They share the same credentials and for a part the same background. That becomes evident in the songs on Modern Times.
(This is part one of Modern Times revisited – Dylan Hanagid – Part Two is soon to follow)
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.
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 others.
Music is my business and women get in the way. Blues is about men blaming women, while at the same time loving them.
Since time immemorial men have been singing about their hardships, so why shouldn’t I? I have hardships. I worry a lot. So I’ll pay tribute, pick up a tune and make it mine. But don’t make the mistake thinking the song is about me. It’s about hardship and self-doubt. How hard it is to love a woman. I keep recycling the same old thoughts and tunes. I don’t care.
She can do what she likes, say what she likes, he don’t care, she spends his money, drives him hard. He doesn’t have to take that crap from her, he’s got self respect. So many good things that he never noticed and it’s true, she’s got him hooked. But she’s driving him insane and he’s not bragging when he says he could wring her neck. Or maybe just one day he might get up and go. She won’t have to worry about him anymore.
You’re gonna me leave now? Pack up your bags and tent, go down the road, but don’t think you can ever come back. Hasn’t he been friendly, hasn’t he been kind? He’s done all he could, but now he’s gonna drive her from her home. He was driven from his.
Wait. Living this way isn’t normal. Why was he born to love her?
He can’t sleep at night, he cries and rolls and tumbles the whole night long. When he wakes up he knows he’s bet his money wrong.
As a lazy slut she charmed away his brain and now he’s got troubles. At dawn in the golden light of day he sees the land and lays in the shade, because he can’t stand the strain. He paid and he paid, did everything he could to keep her of his mind. This woman is driving him to tears, he’s tired and he doesn’t wanna be her houseboy or well trained maid. He’s a man and he’s never ever gonna touch another woman again.
The sun is rising and the weather is warm and it’s depressing to sit here all day thinking of ways to satisfy his wife. Night falls with shadows and doom. Nothing to do but conjuring up old dead men and their music. Play an old tune. There’s nothing new under sun. It’s all been said and sung before. So let’s forgive each other and put old matters to en end.
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.
Bob Dylan has a really impressive career behind him. He is one of the very few who have won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe (both for “Things Have Changed” from Wonder Boys in 2000), along with numerous Grammys and a Nobel prize in literature (there are just a handful of famous personalities who have won both a Grammy and a Nobel prize, most of them for speeches, not musical pieces – like Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama). A few weeks ago, Dylan has released a new album – his first three-disc set called “Triplicate”. As with his previous two studio albums, Fallen Angels and Shadows in the Night, this one also contains covers of classic American songs – 10 songs on each disc, arranged in a sequence, exploring the roots of the big band culture from where they emerged. The arrangement of the songs is not random at all, after all, they are not real money online casino games – they share a common theme, making them interconnected.
As Dylan said in a rare interview given to Billboard, all the songs are “thematically they are interconnected, one is a sequel to the other and each resolves the previous one”. Besides, they are also strategically chosen for each disc to total 32 minutes of playtime.
Although Bob Dylan has won a literary Nobel prize for the way his use lyrics expanded the world of music, songs have always represented more for him than just music and lyrics. After all, the music itself carries as much meaning as the words spoken – sung – along with it, and the lyrics themselves lose a lot of their meaning without a melody. And he repeatedly proves this on Triplicate.
While some of the songs are almost upbeat and lighthearted, like “That Old Feeling” and “The Best is Yet to Come”, the majority of the tunes included on the three-disc recording are downbeat pieces reflecting on a loss. The choice for the musical score is also unique – Dylan uses no strings, no big band, yet still, manages to give all songs the fullness and impressive nature of the original.
This is not the first time Dylan sings Sinatra. At first, the idea seemed a bit far-fetched – after all, the two have very different tonalities. But he delivers different – yet very impressive – renditions of these classics in his “weather worn” voice, leaving all the mannerisms of the 1950s and 1960s aside and reaching into their blues core. The result is a material that’s almost “spooky”, bittersweet, or, as New York Times critic Jon Pareles writes, “suspended between an inconsolable present and all the regrets of the past”.
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.
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.
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.
Forgetful heart Like a walking shadow in my brain All night long I lay awake and listen to the sound of pain The door has closed forevermore If indeed there ever was a door
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
Bob Dylan’s 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’.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
