Untold Dylan

By Tony Attwood

I’ve never come across anyone asking the question in this article’s title (although of course I am sure many have), but it popped into my head when I first read Joost’s article on Neighbourhood Bully.

Now, please don’t shut this page down thinking I am going to be utterly tedious and reply to Joost’s reply to my article.  Or that am I going to write another article about Neighbourhood Bully.  Two reviews are enough I think.

But I have often wondered why Bob wrote that song – just as I have wondered why he wrote many specific songs.  And each time I feel this is a valid question because it then allows me in part to answer the question, “Is this a successful song?” in the sense – “does it work?”

To me this is a much more valid enquiry than the more commonplace “what does it mean?”  Meaning can be a difficult concept to capture, and often involves taking the art form out of its context, but “does it work” sees the song as a work of art, and then asks about what it is and what it means to be.  These are the interesting questions I think.

Now I want to begin by explaining where I come from on this, not because I want to talk endlessly about me and suggest that there but for a simple twist of fate would go I, with my songs, but because I think it valid in such an exploration to consider the critic’s position and bias.  If you’ve read bit about me before, or you know me, just fast forward a bit.

For most of my working life I have earned my living via the arts: first in music, then in the theatre, finally as a writer.  Like many who were not born with talent enough to find the world beating a path to one’s personal creative door, I supplemented my income in the early days by teaching and lecturing.

Also, I know something about the concept of creativity, because I studied the subject as part of my undergrad and postgrad degrees, and because I have lived by utilising my creativity (such as it is) to write things that people want to read.  Writing adverts, lots of non-fiction books, and a small number of novels.

As a result of this background and I feel moderately able to take on this challenge and answer the questions that follow.  Thus, I ask what I take to be the four key questions below, and finally, like all good academics, draw my conclusion.

1: Why does anyone create artistic works?

1.1  Money.  It’s not that easy – witness the millions of painters, actors, song writers, rock n roll musicians, playwrights, designers, poets, sculptors, novelists… who struggle to make a living from their art.

But if you get it right, it works.   And then over time the market changes – either for your benefit or to kick you when you are already down.    When I started out, in any TV production the writers of the script were pretty much at the bottom of the financial pile.  Now the best writers are the top earners on TV dramas.  Being there are the right time helps and Bob was certainly there at the right time for his type of music.

1.2  Drive.   Many artists continue to work without any reward, financial or otherwise.  None of the songs I have written have had any success.  But I still write songs, and once every year or two gather up the 20 or so best songs from recent times and hire a studio for a few hours and record them.  I just do it for myself and for my daughters to have a record of what their dad did when on his own.  I am, I guess one could say, driven to write songs in the same way that some people are driven to gamble.

From what I understand many creative people are likewise simply driven to create.  Certainly my friends in the arts, one or two of whom have had commercial success, find it hard to stop, even when age makes it tough to keep going.

1.3  It’s fun.  Well it is for me.  Writing books, blogs, songs and dance routines is enjoyable.  I like the research, I enjoy the act of creation and I enjoy the performance.  Writing is part of my life.  Not all of my life, because I also watch football matches etc, but it is a big part of what I am.

1.4  Love of fame.  I never got fame, but occasionally because of my writing people come up and say, (usually because of something I have written about football) “Hey you’re that ****ing Tony Attwood”.   I’ve had the death threats too, which are not pleasant, but mostly people are very nice, and yes I like it.  Can you imagine what it is to have this times 10 billion?  That is what Bob has.

And I think he likes it – or at least the recognition that is shows he has.  Consider the way the Oscar has been displayed at concerts.  Nothing wrong with that – I’d most certainly have done it.  But it shows he likes the recognition.

But then again he was very slow to respond to the Nobel prize and did not want to go and give his lecture in person.  Maybe there is a point beyond which the fame is too much.  Just as on occasion Bob has locked himself away with his family.

1.5  To change the world.   I wrote the music for a musical in my early years as a composer, and the writer of the lyrics, who was much more famous than I, told me, “the only reason for writing is to change the world.”

Did Bob think this when he wrote “Masters of War”?   Did he think that he would help solve the problem of the rural poor by writing “Hollis Brown”? And the Christian songs; were they written for this reason – to save the souls of non-believers like me?

Incidentally this was a reason for writing this piece – I was taken back to my original thoughts on Neighbourhood Bully – why was it written?

1.6  To celebrate an occasion or honour the memory.  And continuing that theme, was this why Bob wrote “Hurricane” or “George Jackson”?

I wrote organ pieces for the weddings of my two eldest daughters and played it as part of the church service; it was one of the best things I have ever done in my life.  Not to show off, but to say “this is the best gift I can give you, because this is truly part of me.”  Art as a celebration is probably the most extraordinary art that can be created.

2: Why Bob and songs?

I guess this one is easy – he is a songwriter not a painter, because he is a better songwriter than painter.  And also because in his early days in New York it was easier to get an audience as a singer songwriter.  He was there just at the moment when the audience for what he was doing was ready for what he had to offer.

In other words, part of the success of Bob Dylan, and what led him to continue writing, was not just that he was very good at his art, but also there was an immediate and growing audience for his art.

That doesn’t mean that artists who don’t find an early audience give up.  Many clearly don’t and so live on handouts and scraps.  Bob however had the right talent at the right time which meant he kept on keeping on.

3: So what drives Bob, the songwriter?

I think the answer to question two is a fundamental.  Songwriting is his natural art form and he was in the right place at the right time too.  That combined with great talent is the perfect combination.   But is there more?

3.1  Money

The fact that Dylan has licensed his songs to appear in adverts suggests that he is willing to maximise his income from various means.  It doesn’t mean that he’ll do anything for money, but rather that he’s not averse to maximising his income from his creative work – and of course many artists who have this opportunity also seek to protect their work.  Indeed working on a much smaller scale I have occasionally moved to protect my copyrights.  With me every penny counts.

3.2  It’s something to do; it shows he can do it.

Bob is obviously exceptionally good at writing, and in earlier times he used to write songs in hotel suites while touring.  Many of the recordings of such songs that were never put on albums come from the sound checks on tours.

But in later life the touring continued when the writing stopped, so clearly writing itself was not driven by touring.   In the end, for Bob Dylan the touring is a much greater driver than the writing.

Linked to this is the notion that Bob sometimes wants to change and explore other approaches.  The sudden switch to the JWH style – with almost all the songs following a similar three verse format, with the same accompaniment style and similar (although sometimes hard to comprehend) themes – was clearly a deliberate choice.  A way of exploring and saying “let’s see how it goes”.

“New Morning” was another album that went out on its own limb, exploring rural themes.  And when we go back to a song like “Peggy Day” it is almost as if Bob is saying “look I can be trivial too”.

But also have a listen to “Caribbean Wind,” apparently written in the part of the world to which it links in the title, but then not liked by Dylan enough to go on playing it more than once.  For many of us that is one of the great songs, but clearly not to Bob.  He could do it, so he did it, but that doesn’t mean he has to play it.

3.3  Anger, love and other emotions.

Bob Dylan has written songs on so many different subjects and incorporating so many emotional variations it is very tempting to see this as a major reason why he has written so many songs.

“Masters of War” sounds like the song of an angry young man.  “Love minus zero” the song of a man in love.  “Sara” a song of love and asking for forgiveness.  “Sad eyed lady” a song of adoration.  “Idiot Wind” a song of vengeance and disgust.  “Only a pawn” a song of despair at the way society works.

But it is not just an exploration of emotions.  One can go on and on with these songs and find more and more themes – some of them being songs which explore something as esoteric as the formulation of time.  “Tangled up in blue” is the ultimate perfect example, and clearly a song that Bob loves given the number of times he has re-written parts of it.

3.4  Religion

As I have mentioned several times (and I keep writing it because I find is so fascinating) Dylan rarely explains the meanings of his song.  But when he came to write and perform the Christian songs – the songs that are among the easiest of his works to understand – he suddenly began to spell out the meaning – including the occasional seven minute monologue at the gigs.

Just how perverse can a songwriter be?  Well, in Bob’s case, very.  When an explanation might have been helpful, we don’t get it.  When it’s all as clear as day and night, we get a lecture.

Yes for a while Bob was driven to write by his religious conviction, but only for a while.

4: So why did he stop?

Stop Bob most certainly has.  In 1967 he wrote, amended or utilised 77 songs.  Then in 1968 he wrote one – and that was delivered late. In 1971 and 1972 we were picking up gems but so few of them it seemed that Bob had had enough.  And by 1976/7 he just about had stopped – offering half written songs to others to complete.

Religion got him back into song writing mode and kept him going through part of the 1980s, but then after the Wilbury’s again he stopped, this time for five years.  1991-5 another time without writing (songs dated from within this period by some authorities were actually written in the 1980s), some more activity in 1996/7 and then another stop.  As for this century, the output has been erratic.

So why did Bob stop when he did?   Many a writer of literature and music has spoken of writer’s block – that period where the creativity just won’t happen, and I know from my conversations with other people who live by their art, and my friends with non-art jobs, it can be a very difficult time.

The best way to describe and explain it is through a comparison with another job.  A job where you turn up and work.  One could be working for a local council, or lecturing in a university.  One might be tending gardens or working on a farm.  Whatever it is, it is possible to do the job with drive and enthusiasm, or simply to do it.  And I suspect most people will find in their jobs that this is what happens – sometimes they have drive and energy and sometimes they don’t.  But all the time they keep working.

But for an artist working in any of the arts life is not the same, because one is not only doing the work, but also judging it against one’s own standards, which on occasion might be quite different from everyone else’s standards.

Think again of Caribbean Wind.  Something in that song is just not right for Bob, so he won’t perform it or cut it for a mainstream album. He has that choice.  But most of us don’t have such a choice.  We have to do the work or else we don’t get paid.

Conclusion: Why does Dylan write songs?

Well, actually he doesn’t any more.  After the Tempest collection in 2011/12 he’s not been writing songs as far as I know.   Maybe he can’t be bothered.  Maybe he’s too tired.  Maybe he just doesn’t have anything he wants to write about.  Maybe he’s fed up with us saying, “hey this melody comes from a Fred Astaire hit and this line comes from that civil war poet.”

Maybe he just got bored with the whole thing.

But when he was writing, I think many of the ideas I’ve tried to sketch out above have come into play.  And when it came to Neighbourhood Bully I suspect he was just angry with the way he perceived Israel to be portrayed on the news.  So he wrote a song, simple as that.

And quite possibly that is what happened much of the time.  Something came to mind and he wrote a song about it, and because he has been so supremely blessed with songwriting talent, a lot of the songs have been highly memorable, some to the extent that they are works of genius.

This however doesn’t mean he has to keep writing.  If he wants to stop, he can stop, which is the flip side of the question in the title.   Why does Bob Dylan not write songs any more?

The answer I guess is that he doesn’t feel he has anything he wants to write about at the moment.   And that’s his decision.  After all, who could possibly tell Bob Dylan what to do?

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.

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

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

By Joost Nillissen

Approximately nine years ago Tony Attwood wrote a distasteful commentary on Neighborhood Bully.

I use the word ‘distasteful’ partly in jest, of course, as Mr Attwood claimed there was something distasteful about this song. Everybody is entitled to his or her opinion. “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” (Somebody said that, I forgot who). Mr Attwood’s article elicited 21 comments, all in different colors and shapes, but none to the point.

Being a Jew, Bob Dylan has a bond with Israel. He once considered settling in a kibbutz, he celebrated his sons Bar Mitzvah there. He has visited often. So he felt the need to stand up for Israel and write a song. Any song on Israel is going to be controversial, depending on where you stand, so Dylan knows he has to stick to the facts. And he does. He is not pointing any fingers, not blaming anyone, he is just telling us what Israel is up against.

Nobody can disagree with the facts Dylan states:

His enemies say he is on their land, they’ve got him outnumbered, he’s got no place to run, he just tries to survive, he’s supposed to lay down, not to fight back.

There is a lot to say about ‘being on their land.’ It could be the Westbank that Israel conquered during the Six-day War, but it is really all of present day Israel. It’s no secret that its enemies want Israel to be wiped from the face of the earth. What we in the West cannot possibly understand is how it feels to be outnumbered ‘a million to one’. Israel is a tiny country and could be wiped out in no time. It could and the enemies are working on it. That’s a fact.

He’s been driven out of every land, he’s wandered the earth, seen his family scattered, hounded and torn, always on trial for just being born.

The history of the Jews. For two thousand years, after the total defeat at the hands of the Romans and the destruction of their temple in Jerusalem, they have wandered the earth. Always on the run, never welcome in any golf club or University in any country. That’s a fact.

Israel takes preventive measures, knocks out a lynch mob (The PLO in Lebanon) and        destroys a bomb factory (in Syria). What would you do if your neighbor is planning to wipe you out? Really. You can approve or disapprove. But it’s a fact.

Dylan points out that the chances the bully will make it are slim, if he lives by the rules the world makes for him. We are so full of ideas of how Israel should behave and act, while nobody sees or understands that the bully has his head in the noose, a gun at his back and that a license to kill him has been given out to every maniac. Even today, as then, politicians and imams are on record calling for Jewish blood. That’s a fact.

‘The rules the world makes for him’ refer to the United Nations with their silly resolutions. Let me quote Abba Eban, ambassador to the United Nations from 1949 till 1959:

“If Algeria introduced a resolution claiming the earth is flat and that Israel flattened it, it   would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.”

Now we come to part that rattled Mr Attwood’s cage, the part he says is untrue. He’s wrong.

Well, he got no allies to really speak of
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side

If you live in Israel (like I have for 30 years) you will know that Israel has ‘no allies to really speak of’. Europe is disinterested, uninformed and often simply hostile. In Israel today they shrug their shoulders. The European Union, a messy collection of opinions and hollow phrases, has become irrelevant.

As for the United States… Well. Dylan wrote this song in 1982-83, when Israel was involved in Lebanon ‘wiping out the lynch mob’ (Yasser Arafats PLO). It was ten years after the last war, the Yom Kippur War, when the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria attacked together on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. That war was in its fifth day and Israel was losing ground. It was about to be wiped of the face of the earth. Heavy casualties. Nixon was unavailable, incapacitated by the Watergate scandal and Vietnam. It took a phone call from the Saudi’s to Henry Kissinger telling the US to get involved because the conflict was about to get totally out of hand and they feared it might turn global, maybe even nuclear. The Saudi’s threatened with an embargo on oil to the USA. Only then did Nixon send help. It was in the nick of time. That’s a fact.

Next Dylan points his arrows at the hypocrites and pacifists who pray and themselves would not hurt a fly. The bloodshed must cease. They wait for the bully to be butchered in his sleep. But don’t forget, Dylan says, every empire that ever enslaved the bully is gone. The Pharaoh’s, the Roman Emperors, the Babylonians, they’re all gone. The Jews and their religion survived.

Not only that, they made the desert flourish, they took the crumbs of the world and created wealth, and they used that wealth to make the world a better place, with their countless inventions in numerous fields, such as health, agriculture, intelligence, technology, to name but a few. That, too, is a fact.

So to summarize, Dylan is talking facts and takes Israel’s side, which is his right. It doesn’t mean Israel has not made some terrible mistakes, but that goes for everybody in this conflict. That’s not what this song is about. It’s about the facts that Israels enemies and its so called allies seem to forget.

===============

The original review of “Neighborhood Bully” is available here.  The original title of the review was simply the name of the song.  I’ve changed the title (as I have done for many of the reviews on the site over the years) having reading Joost’s article in the hope that it might make the view that I was trying to express in the original a little clear.  The article itself has not been changed.

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.

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

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

Bob Dylan And Aeneas: The Greatest Troy Ever Sold

By Larry Fyffe

Wily Ulysses, on the winning Greek side, after many adventures, makes it back home to his wife and son. Sorrowful Aeneas, on the losing side in the Trojan War, loses his wife. The Trojan hero gets a chance to redeem himself when the chief-god Zeus commands him to take along other survivors, and establish a city in Italy.

All does not go smoothly on the sea voyage. Aeneus’ mother Venus is on her son’s side, but Zeus’ wife hates Trojans because their prince Paris has previously awarded a beauty prize to Venus, not her (in exchange for the affections of Helen, the beautiful wife of the Greek king).

Before he gets to Italy, Aeneas is shipwrecked on the shores of Carthage where Queen Dido dotes on him. Zeus intervenes so that Aeneas will continue on his journey.

Soon after his arrival in Italy, a battle erupts, and Aeneas kills without mercy a jealous rival. The Trojan wins the daughter of the Italian king, but she dies in the war.

Aeneas does found the city, however.

In a number of his song lyrics, Bob Dylan depicts himself as the reincarnation of the rather pious Aeneas:

Oh, the hours, I’ve spent inside the Coliseum
Dodgin’ lions and wastin’ time
Oh, the mighty kings of the jungle
I could hardly stand to see’em
Yes, it sure has been a long hard climb
Train wheels runnin’ through the back of my mind
When I ran on the hilltop following a pact of wild geese
(Bob Dylan: When I Paint My Masterpiece)

Pointed out by other sources than me (though not the particular line), Dylan references the designs on the shield given to Aeneas by his mother:

And there the silvery goose flying through the gilded
Colonnades, cackled that the Gauls were at the gate
(Virgil: The Aeneid)

Modern day Bob Aeneas, like the one of ancient lore, remembers some fatherly advice:

I’m gonna spare the defeated, boys I’m going to speak to the crowd
I’m ģoin’ to teach to the conquered
I’m gonna tame the proud
(Dylan: Lonesome Days Blues)

Pointed out by others, the songwriter pays another tribute to the Roman poet of old:

To teach the ways of peace to those you conquer
To spare defeated people, tame the proud
(Virgil: The Aeneid)

Aeneas observes that the Greeks and Ulysses showed no pity to the Trojans, and that Zeus hadn’t intervened:

Here the Trojans treasures are gathered from every part
Ripped from the blazing shrines, tables of the gods
Solid gold bowls and plundered robes
(Virgil: The Aeneid)

Well, they burned my barn, they stole my horse
I can’t save a dime
I got to be careful, I don’t want to be forced
Into a life of continual crime
I can see for myself that the sun is sinking
How I wish you were here to see
Tell me now, am I wrong in thinking
That you have forgotten me
(Dylan: Workingman’s Blues)

The Band, associated with Bob Dylan, mentions the poet Virgil in their song about the defeat of the Confederate States:

Back with my wife in Tennessee
When one day she called to me
Virgil, quick come see
There goes the Robert E. Lee
Now I don’t mind choppin’ wood
And I don’t care if the money’s no good
Ya take what you need and ya leave the rest
But they should never have taken the very best
(The Band: The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down)

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.

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

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

By Tony Attwood

Songs, like stories, have long been a central part of western society, and although the absolute history of songs goes beyond my knowledge limits, I think that every society that we know anything about has songs as one of its earliest art forms.   We know that in western society they go back as far as the first century AD – and that is just the date of the oldest song of which we have information.  Songs are probably as old as civilisation itself.

And what I want to do here is try and see where Bob Dylan fits into this ancient tradition.

For many years Dylan has divided people in terms of his artistic merit and his ability to entertain more than most songwriters – and I guess this is primarily because of his longevity in the world of popular music, and his gigantic range of compositions and styles, from the downright silly to the utterly profound, from the lyrics that border on incomprehensibility to the simplistic, from the deep to the songs for children.

And just as his lyrics have varied so his musical style has varied too, from folk to country from blues to the classics of the 1930s, from rock to … well anywhere else you want to go.

So is that it?  Can we just say Bob is the greatest songwriter of them all because of these factors?

No.  I think that we do have first to say that we are looking only at popular songs, rather than what we might call art songs; the songs from the classical romantic tradition that have appealed to a much smaller audience.   So I’m not thinking of the songs of Brahms or Hugo Wolf, or Schubert.    I’m thinking of songs that have been immediately attractive to a wider ranging audience.  Songs with the broadest of appeals.

And if we exclude the art songs of the Romantic era, the question arises who might we put up against Bob as a rival to the title of the greatest songwriter in the popular genre?  There have been other great songwriters of course, and in terms of popular songs in the last 100 years we might consider Paul McCartney as one such.  But although he has written very many songs that have become extremely popular in western society, the number he has written can’t be above 200.   And although he has innovated – Eleanor Rigby for example was indeed an innovative piece of music, as was Hey Jude, it is hard to think of too many songs that have had a profound influence on people’s way of thinking, or become national anthems.   Everyone knows the final section of Hey Jude, and it is sung in many situations (we sing it at Arsenal when Giroud scores) but that isn’t really the level I am thinking of.  I am looking for composers who have taken the whole genre into new dimensions.

In fact in terms of sheer volume of production, popularity becoming central to a nation’s way of thought, the only comparison I can think of to Bob Dylan in terms of western music  is Irving Berlin.   And if you think there is someone else who could challenge in this list of elite of elites songwriters, please do write an article for this site about the composer.  I’d love to see the argument.

Of course if you are not familiar with “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” the extraordinary impact that Berlin had on popular music can be hard to fathom, but if you have an interest in popular song surely you will know not just that song but also at least some of, “What’ll I do?” along with “Always”, “Blue Skies”, “Putting on the Ritz”, “God bless America”, “There’s no business like show business”, and above all “White Christmas”.  In all he wrote Berlin around 1250 songs – so well over twice as many as Bob.

Now here’s an interesting thought along the way.  “God Bless America” was meant originally to be a peace song, but became a patriotic anthem.  Woodie Guthrie is said to have disliked it so much he wrote This Land Is Your Land,” in 1940 and indeed this became popular as an alternative to “God bless America”.

And while we are on oddities, Berlin was very controlling of the use of his songs, although he did allow the American Society of Composers and Publishers which he helped found in order to ensure that songwriters benefited financially from their work, to create a televised tribute to him on his 100th birthday.  However it is said that he demanded that all of the orchestrations be destroyed immediately after the performance!

So we can be fairly happy with the notion that Dylan has gone further than Berlin in terms of expanding where popular song can go and what it can do.   But while Dylan has been very varied in his genres, he has rarely if ever done what Berlin did in writing for the popular taste and has not worked to help the patriotic mood of his country.  Dylan’s anthems might be nominated as “Blowing in the Wind” and “Times they are a changing”.

On the other hand Dylan has written a number of songs that promote Christianity.  Which leads me to another thought.  Both Dylan and Berlin were born into Jewish families and brought up in the Jewish tradition.  And although Berlin didn’t write Christian songs as Dylan did, he did write two songs that are deeply rooted that are not only rooted in the Christian tradition: “White Christmas” and “Easter Parade” both of which have become fundamental parts of western cultural traditions.

Berlin thus was most certainly much more mainstream than Bob.  Which leads me to think of songs like “What’ll I do” – an overwhelmingly powerful romantic ballad with an instant appeal to huge parts of the American population.  The song that can instantly bring tears to the eyes of millions.  Goodness knows how many marriages it has saved!  That is not a world that Dylan has entered any more than Berlin thought of writing about the arms industry or songs which turned time upside down.

And maybe that is the difference.  Two American popular songwriters that stand out above all the rest, but with utterly different focus points.   Dylan has never been very interested in celebrating the modern world, when he does celebrate modern times it is often in relation to an imagined rural lifestyle; otherwise his approach has been to challenge us, either directly by writing about people he clearly dislikes (what I’ve called “the songs of disdain”) or by challenging us by his sudden turns into types of music we would never normally associate with him (I think at once of “Country Pie” – a song which I personally would never choose to play, because I find it both alien and mundane at the same time.)

So in my understanding of American popular music (and remember I am English, not American, so my understandings will certainly be far from complete) Dylan stands at the top of the songwriting tree with Berlin, but without writing to the popular mood (as Berlin did unrelentingly,) often instead taking the music into all sorts of different dimensions.  The mood that says, “this is wrong”, and “this needs challenging”.  The exact opposite of “White Christmas” in fact.

Put simply, Berlin wrote feel good, Dylan wrote challenges and enigmas.

And this brings me to another point; all the arts appeal to different people – and there are many who have no close engagement in any art form.  It seems to me a constant indictment of the education system in my country that such a tiny minority of people end up in adult life with any serious engagement in any art form beyond cheaply made TV series and everyday top 40 pop.   They don’t read books, don’t go to the theatre, don’t spend time looking a visual art presentations, and their engagement with music is often little more than as a constant background to the day.

So for such people anyone who is so serious about any art form that he/she makes it part of daily life is going to see strange.  And that certainly means that anyone who is interested in Dylan, is going to seem odd.

Indeed in my country we seem to have lost any sense of the value of becoming engrossed in something deeply.  Because the whole notion of life has become one in which we can understand everything in a second, and that theory is irrelevant, considering a musician and his work in depth seems ludicrous, and thus any in depth analysis of anything is irrelevant and pointless.

Why should I bother to understand opera when I can tell from five seconds listening that it is garbled rubbish?

At one level none of this matters; each to his own, of course.   However there is another point that arises here, because we live in a world in which people do (to utilise the phrase Bob made famous) criticise what they can’t understand, and also what they have never tried to understand.  Only now it is not the mothers and fathers who do this, but their children who rebelled against such a lack of understanding.

This resultant “analysis” (I use the word lightly) that everything not instantly understood is rubbish, comes about because we have moved into a society in which everyone not only has an opinion (it has always been thus) but can express that opinion and have it taken seriously.  Whether spouting on the radio phone ins or in response to blogs, anyone can be heard, and each now demands to be taken as a valid point of view no matter how lacking in detail, analysis, evidence and theory it is.

To put this in the context of artistic movements, we have moved on from modernism in which the new was particularly valued and there was a huge faith in progress and development.   After modernism we had post-modernism, in which it was seen that art from the past could be of great merit in itself and worthy of interest, re-evaluation and reinterpretation (as with Bob’s use of melodies from the 1930s and 1940, and lyrics from all eras).

Now we have pseudo-modernism in which every opinion is supposedly of equal merit.  And this is where I step aside from the the progression because I don’t think this is true.  While I fully appreciate that there are many developments in the arts I can’t comprehend (opera is one, ballet another and a lot of contemporary visual art another) I see the movement towards everything being of equal value, so that everyone can have an opinion of equal merit, is not only silly, but also dangerous.

But for me it is only when one starts to look to see what makes Dylan’s music of particular interest that one begins to understand it a little more: hence my few thoughts on whether Dylan might be the greatest songwriter of the last 100 years.

That doesn’t mean you can’t love an art form without such analysis, but to understand why Dylan is appreciated by so many people one needs to get deeply involved in the music and appreciate it emotionally, historically and analytically – and that means not just analysing the songs but also looking at the history of popular music and considering Dylan’s place therein.

And through such a review we may notice that Dylan’s music is immensely varied in the way most other composers of songs have never achieved.  Variation by itself of course is of little interest – but when combined with quality and depth, then it is something to take into account.   This is not to put down Irving Berlin, but to suggest that this attribute puts Dylan right up there with Berlin when the greatest songwriters of the last 100 plus years are being considered.

And in addition to variation of style and approach we also have volume of work.  Again writing a lot of stuff is of no significance if it is all tripe, but when across a whole lifetime one can find works that quite a few people will consider masterpieces of the genre then one must surely begin to take notice.  Again Dylan and Berlin come to the fore.

Seeing Dylan within the context of popular music seems to me to be as important as comprehending what it is that makes Dylan special within his own right.

And the answer to the question posed as the title of this little piece thus becomes irrelevant.  It is the asking of the question that is important because it takes us into issues that are themselves of interest to anyone seriously concerned with popular culture, and its place in our society.

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.

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

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

By Larry Fyffe

In the ancient tale of adventure, the Greeks warriors who were victorious over the Trojans take credit for what the gods have done. As a consequence, Ulysses faces the wrath of the Sea God as the island king sails back home to his faithful wife and son; he alone of all the crew survives after he escapes from monsters, bewitches a witch, and gets shelter from a nymph who overwhelms him with kindness.

In a number of his lyrics, singer/songwriter Bob Dylan presents himself as the reincarnation of the Greek wanderer:

It ain’t the leavin’
That a-grievin’ me
But my true love who’s bound
to stay behind
(Dylan: Fare Thee Well)

In his travels, the modern Ulysses (this time as aka, Tiny Montgomery) deals with, among other things, creatures with three legs:

Three-legged man
And a hot-lipped hoe
Tell’em all
Montgomery says, ‘hello’
(Dylan: Tiny Montgomery)

And with creatures having three eyes:

With his businesslike anger
and his bloodhounds that kneel
If he needs a third eye, he just grows one
(Dylan: Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window)

And with one-eyed creatures, as well:

Now you see this one-eyed midget
shouting the word ‘Now’
And you say ‘For what reason?’
And he says ‘How’
(Dylan: Ballad Of A Thin Man)

From certain death, the Ulysses of yore is saved more than once – by the chief god – by lesser ones (some who are overly protective) – and by his own wits. So too is Bob Ulysses:

And the one-eyed undertaker, he blows
a futile horn
‘Come in,’ she said, ‘I’ll give you shelter
from the storm’
(Dylan: Shelter From The Storm)

Ulysses, back in the favour of Zeus manages to keep going, and gets by seductive Sirens who do not have his best interests in mind:

Well, I sailed through the storm
Strapped to the mast
Oh, but our time has come
And I’m seeing the real you at last
(Dylan: Seeing The Real You At Last)

Meanwhile, Ulysses’ own true love, now sought after by her guests, waits back home, not believing rumours that her wanderer is dead:

The kings of Tyrus with their convict list
Are waiting in line for their geranium kiss
And you wouldn’t know it would happen like this
But who among them really wants just to kiss you
(Dylan: Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands)

Upon reaching home, Ulysses identifies himself to an old nurse by showing her a scar:

Shadows are falling and I’ve been home all day
It’s too hot to sleep, time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I’ve got the scars that the sun didn’t heal
(Dylan: Not Dark Yet)

Modern Ulysses Bob, like the Ulysses of Greek lore, disguises himself in order to check out the-unwanted-guests situation:

He moved across the mirrored room; ‘Set it
up for everyone’, he said
Then everyone commenced to do what
they were doin’ before he turned their heads
Then he walked up to a stranger and asked
him with a grin
‘Could you kindly tell me, friend, what time
the show begins?’
Then he moved into the corner face down like
the Jack of Hearts
(Dylan: Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts)

The reincarnated Ulysses (this time, aka, Jack Of Hearts; aka, Mack The Knife), suffers not ungracious fools gladly; they are no match for his sharp-penned wit – as Penelope’s suitors were not for Ulysses’ strong bow:

And the dust of rumours covers me
But if the arrow is straight
And the point is slick
It can pierce through the dust
No matter how thick
(Dylan: Restless Farewell)

Diamond Jim, with a penknife in the back, found that out.

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.

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

by Joost Nillissen

When the deal goes down (Modern Times) is a pretty sombre, but straightforward song, except for the last line of each verse:

I’ll be with you when the deal goes down.

And it is that line that has so many people scrambling for their copy of the Old and New Testament. What deal? In this context I should mention something that Tony Attwood referred to in his commentary on this song. In the famous CBS 60 Minutes interview, which is on YouTube, although you might have to subscribe to CBS’ service to see it.

Dylan is asked why he is still touring so much.

Dylan: ‘it’s a destiny thing, I made a bargain with it, a long time ago. I’m holding up my end.

The interviewer: ‘With whom?’

Dylan: (half smiling, evasively, maybe a little embarrassed): ‘the chief commander.’

The interviewer: ‘In this world?’

Dylan: ‘In this world and the world we cannot see.’

So who is the ‘you’? His wife, lover, friend, child? The chief commander? God? Jesus?

Good Lord.

Most of the lines in this song are thoughts we ourselves could have thought at one time or another, especially if you have passed middle age and, scarred and all, you realize it’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.

There is nothing new here, it is just incredibly well put and sung. He is weary, but wise.

The singer, still weary, still wise, is trying to define a deeper meaning to all this aggravation. For now all he can do is keep on keeping on, because… that’s the deal.

The singer needs a vision in the sky, a sign from above, to remind him of the deal.

It’s the deal we’re practically born with, you have to keep on keeping on, no matter how hard it might get sometimes, because if you don’t, you’re dead. Some people may sometimes think they’re better off dead and some people may feel the need to reaffirm the deal, solemnly, even religiously or poetically in order to survive. No matter with whom you make the deal – God, Jesus, the commander in chief – you are really only making a deal with yourself.

Those that can’t abide by the deal can go hang themselves, like merry little elves.

And that brings us to Huck’s Tune. (The bootleg series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs)

While in When the deal goes down Dylan is hanging on to this deal by his fingernails, in Huck’s Tune he is tired of his faith. I have to put you down for a while. It’s the same ‘you’ that he promised to be with when the deal goes down. The deal has become a (temporary) burden.

He is wandering through a cold world, where life is a version of death, alone, dreaming of his future wife. He is master of his own fate, but only as second in command. The Commander in Chief – a woman, no doubt, his Muse maybe – commands all, but at this particular moment it’s a heavy load.

Everything is fine, really, her kisses cause honey to drip, children hand out roses, even though they might poke through his clothes. They meet everyday and everyday there is a ball they can go to.

Life is full of surprises. Would could possibly be wrong?

Well… the problem is, he tried her twice and she’s not nice. That’s what’s wrong. It’s too hard, he’s gonna have to put her down for a while. He wants to get away from it all, lay in the sand, get himself a sunshine tan, and then he’ll be moving along, riding in style, while she tries to knock him dead.

He’s counting the years now, not shedding any tears. She has blinded him with what he could have been, but now he’d rather rejoice in Nature’s voice and listen to the wild song of the wind.

He remembers they sometimes had hopeless love in the room above and when he tells her she was fine as wine he’ wasn’t handing her some line. It was true.

But not anymore, not now. All her merry little elves can go hang themselves, his faith is as cold as can be. He did all he could, there’s proof he can show her, ‘if you don’t believe me, come see.’

And yes, he agrees with her, maybe he’s blue, maybe it’s a temporary thing, maybe he’ll get over it, but, let’s be candid with each other now, the game’s gotten old, the stack is gone cold. I’m gonna have to put you down for a while.

The deal is a great burden, poetically speaking.

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.

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

.

By Larry Fyffe

As I often have noted, Bob Dylan’s song lyrics are rather consistently double-edged. Many of his song lyrics show a side of life bathed in bright light, akin to the poems of the Romantic Transcendentalists who rescue God by revamping the religious possibility of a renewed life in order to counter what many of these poets consider to be the rather dark discoveries of the rational and scientific method that placed God outside of the Universe.

Bob Dylan, of the time present, leans more towards the views of pre-Romantic poet William Blake and the romantic-offshoot Gothicists and Surrealists than the Transcendentalists. He updates, intertwines, and tangles up both dark and light visions of the human condition.

The desolate side of the economic and social climes of modern times require that the honest artist do so. The subjective Romantic emotionalists have to grapple with the objective, empirically-based discoveries made by modern science, including those found by studying Earth’s geological and biological past.

The Victorian poet Lord Tennyson finds himself face to face with the newfound discoveries of Charles Darwin that leads the scientist to construct a materialistic (environmentally and biologically based) deterministic theory. The poet links the Theory of Evolution to the Judeo-Christian influenced Romantic movement.

Bob Dylan’s song lyrics reveal the influence of Tennyson’s creative imagination.

Neither the Pantheist faith in a ‘spirit’ of love emanating from an unknowable Creator that puts man at the head of the line, nor the scientific view of Evolution is dismissed by the Victorian poet:

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law –
Though Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shrieked against His creed

The spiritualistic Emanuel Swedenborg pops up his head yet again:

Our little systems have their day
They have their day and cease to be
They are but broken lights of Thee
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they
(Tennyson: In Memorian)

Charles Darwin treads heavily upon the stage – all creatures, great and small, must adapt to environmental change or perish; in this struggle, there are creatures that survive through natural selection, and pass on their genes.

However, the imaginative Victorian artist pens the script with crooked hands, and, rather than to a Greek god, compares himself to a mighty eagle:

He clasps the crag with crooked hands ….
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls
He watches from his mountain walls
And like a thunderbolt he falls
(Tennyson: The Eagle)

Similarly, taking Darwin into account, and with a nod to Jack London’s ‘Call Of The Wild’, the adaptive and imaginative singer/songwriter, envisions himself able to survive by stealing poetic scrapes that drop from beak of the Tennysonian eagle:

Well, the nature of man
Is to beg and to steal
I do it myself
It’s not so unreal
The call of the wild is
Forever at my door
Wants me to fly like an eagle
While being chained to the floor
(Bob Dylan: You Changed My Life)

Bob Dylan gives Charles Darwin’s roulette wheel a spin; luck has a lot to do with success. The Romantic theme that Man is born free but finds himself everywhere in chains, the songster looks at through the lens of Evolutionary Theory that shows wild animals are well-adapted to their environments. Karl Marx notwithstanding, Bob Dylan concludes that most urbanized people, especially those living in present city-centre environs, are like wild animals caged; tormented – since they don’t adapt well to confined places:

Time’s pilin’ up, we struggle and we scrape
We’re all boxed in, nowhere to escape
City’s just a jungle, more games to play
Trapped in the heart of it trying to escape
(Dylan: Mississippi)

Worse still, Man is a species that uniquely goes the way of waging wars; as the cockroach scurries along its merry old way, only time will tell which one will survive, and which one will be left behind:

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
(Tennyson: The Charge Of The Light Brigade)

That’s the way it is. Even when a human has enough room to make his or her own decisions, biological make-up and vitality, along with social, economic, and political conditions, are all factors that affect whether or not an individual fulfils his or her potential:

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
(Dylan: Tell Ol’ Bill)

Thus spake Tennyson:

‘Tis not too late to seek a new world
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die ….
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield
(Tennyson: Ulysses)

To go where no man has gone before!

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.

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

Angelina / Bob Dylan – A deep sense of regret

by Joost Nillissen

Tony Attwood struggled with this song in his commentary and Len hit the nail on the head with his comment of November 20, 2016. It’s about an ugly divorce.

When I first heard the song I was still happily married to a well endowed woman and the lyrics almost immediately inspired me to paint three large canvasses with images from the song: The pale white horse, the angel with four faces and the well endowed woman .

The paintings are now in another country, gathering dust underneath my ex wife’s bed that she shares with a stranger. I wish her a long and happy life and him an erectile dysfunction ’till the end of his days.

I guess Dylan was in a similar mood when he wrote “Angelina”. Dylan can bite and kick, charm and seduce in his love songs and then say truly terrible things such as “you just kind of wasted my precious time”. He can bear a grudge for a long time, just as he can pine for his lost lover for almost forever.

So this is Dylan, sitting on a bench, looking back, talkin’ to himself.

Let me first admit that I took chances, maybe I didn’t treat you right, cheated on you even. But what did you expect of your song and dance man, always on tour with his band, his concertina?

I’ve been travelling, performing from shore to shore, standing in the spotlight, my hair looking like it’s on fire. Ah, it’s been a long time and in my mind I am knocking on your door. What shall I say? Will you still know me, Angelina?

I am seeing myself, my eyes are like slits, but I have a powerful face that painters would want to paint (and the rest of the crowd would want to film or photograph). I am good looking and your body was well endowed. But your true nature was in your head. The head of a scavenger, a hyena.

If I knock on your door, what will I say? “Okay, I’ve been wrong, I’ve made mistakes, you want me to turn the other cheek?” “You know it all, why must I explain? And no, I cannot change, I know nothing about the man you want me to be, Angelina.”

There is no point in going back. Things were well once, when we lived in the land of milk and honey, a long time ago, almost as as in Biblical times when giants roamed the earth, but it all came to an epic end. Everything exploded. I couldn’t help it, you wanted the divorce, the subpoena.

You are no longer my wife, you cease to exist and who do you think is to blame? I did the best I could, but the game is over and you know why? I am both the best and the worst, good and bad, loyal and falsehearted, both husband and artist. I cannot play this game, Angelina.

I remember the divorce lawyers arriving in their black Mercedes, the scene turned ugly, a combat zone. But, boy, was I ready. I was going to slay them, they were already half dead, and you, my lady, were down to the bone. I planned to hunt them to the ends of the earth and overthrow them. Very generously I let them choose the place of their demise. It could be anywhere, Mexico or Tibet, Jerusalem or Argentina.

Now I’m thinking how it all could go so wrong. We married young, of course, she was only a child when I stole her from her mother, and now she’s got her revenge, but had to sell all of her possessions. And look at me, standing tall with God on my side and four angels around me. You cannot see me, you’re stumbling in the dark, Angelina.

So I have won the battle, but I can also sense the apocalypse, the end of time. One last attempt to reconcile what cannot be reconciled: “Tell me what you want and you’ll have it of course.” Come out and discuss it. In the arena.

But it’s too late, she won’t come out, so everything is lost. It’s now truly over and full of regret I retreat, up the spiral staircase into unknown territory, I see trees of smoke and angels with four faces and I must find a place to weep and beg for mercy.

Angelina appears on the Bootleg 1-3 collection

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.

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

By Tony Attwood

The journal “Psychology Today” has a long history of commenting on Bob Dylan so it was not too surprising to find it making the comment that “The attitude of dwelling in the pain of human finitude is captured poetically in Bob Dylan’s mournful song, When the Deal Goes Down.”

As the magazine pointed out, Bob can do “love songs dark” and to illustrate the point they mention

Sky is gray
life is short and I think of her a lot
I can’t say
if I want the pain to end or not

And yes the point is valid.  The song can most certainly be considered to be about death, although it is interesting to note that Bob certainly didn’t sound as if he was deep in morbidity when writing the three songs that came immediately before this:

• Thunder on the Mountain
• Spirit on the water
• Rollin and Tumblin

after which we get

But on the other hand, this was Dylan’s first return to writing in 2005/6 after just three songs in the last four years.   So perhaps running into trouble when it came to new ideas.  Even the master might find the new concepts to put into verse a little hard to come by after some 500 works.

But it is certainly a song Bob clearly finds amenable, as he is reported to have played it 148 times on stage since 2006.

The sources are well known, and covered by other writers:   Bob’s seemingly favourite poet Timrod and the songwriters Roy Turk and Fred E. Ahlert who wrote the Bing Crosby classic “Where the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day.”

Those are the bits that are easy to discover, and I’m happy to start there, because I was brought up watching Bing Crosby films on TV (along of course with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLROKnw8660

But Bob is never going to get carried away into Bing Country.  Indeed as Larry Fyffe pointed out in his essay on this site Bob Dylan And Henry Timrod: The Country Coleridge Rambles Dylan did not want to be known as a guy who was affected by the moon.

The moon gives light, and it shines by night
Well, I scarcely feel the glow
We learn to live, and then we forgive
O’er the road, we’re bound to go
More frail than the flower, these precious hours

Larry continues, Bob is “Sampling once more the Coleridge-influenced male poet, who feels the power of the sun:

These happy stars, and yonder setting moon
Have seen me speed, unreckoned and untasked
A round of precious hours
Oh! here in that summer noon I basked
And strove, with logic frailer than the flowers
(Henry Timrod: A Rhopsody Of A Southern Winter Night)

But I have wandered from my first thoughts, and I’d like to go back to “finitude” as Psychology Today put it – the state of having limits.  And limits there certainly are in this piece…

My bewildering brain, toils in vain
Through the darkness on the pathways of life
Each invisible prayer is like a cloud in the air
Tomorrow keeps turning around
We live and we die, we know not why
But I’ll be with you when the deal goes down

And thus we toil, we work, we try to sort it all out, but in the end we can’t – or at least today we find that Bob can’t.  But also, Bob is back to the old days remembering Robert Johnson, the man from whom so much of the music that meant so much to Bob (at least before he discovered Bing Crosby) was to flow…

In fact if I may divert from the song in hand, if you are not wholly familiar with Robert Johnson’s work do spend a moment with “Last Fair Deal Gone Down” even if you are a person who feels that all of Johnson’s songs sound the same and the blues are so depressing.  And do stay with it – and just listen how it grows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QazkS_pI-ig

and if you are particularly interested, this was adapted from Charley Patton’s record, “You’re Gonna Need Somebody When You Die.”  And because I rather like Charley Patton and we know that Bob does too, here’s the link to that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BrmnnCpQoo

It may not feel it to everyone but I feel a link in the lyrics

We eat and we drink, we feel and we think
Far down the street we stray
I laugh and I cry and I’m haunted by
Things I never meant nor wished to say

with

I’m workin’ my way back home,
I’m workin’ my way back home,
I’m workin’ my way back home, good lord,
On this Gulfport Island Road.

The music is completely different, but there is something about this particular Johnson song that I keep coming back to.  It is the inevitability of needing just to keep on keeping on that binds the two together.

And if you have played the Charlie Patten song, and listened to the unaccompanied section you might just feel a relationship between what happens there and

The moon gives light and shines by night
I scarcely feel the glow
We learn to live and then we forgive
O’er the road we’re bound to go

But musically Bob has left the blues far behind, and he is now most firmly in the world of Crosby et al as the opening chord sequence shows:

C,  E7,  F6, Dm7-5

C,  G11,  C,  G

The old bluesmen wouldn’t know what we were talking about.

Of course we don’t know who it is Dylan plans to be with as the deal goes down, any more than we know who the bluesmen are singing to.  Nor do we know how strongly Bob wants us to link his deal to anyone else’s deal from the past.

Psychology Today’s article titled “I’ll Be With You When the Deal Goes Down” is about emotional pain, although the original meaning of “when the deal goes down” is death – it means the final hand of cards after which you meet your maker or burn in eternal torment in hell.

In an article on the internet one writer puts it, “To sum this up, I think that if you wish to understand what Dylan means when he says in this song: ‘When the deal goes down’ , you simply cannot ignore what Dylan said in the 60 minutes CBS Television interview in 2004 about destiny and about the bargain ,the deal,  he said he made with the Commander in Chief, God.”

Maybe so, as there are the lines

The midnight rain follows the train
We all wear the same thorny crown
Soul to soul, our shadows roll
And I’ll be with you when the deal goes down

And the conclusion

I owe my heart to you, and that’s sayin’ it true
And I’ll be with you when the deal goes down

So is it a latter day religious piece?  Possibly yes, but Bob is as always enigmatic – which of course in his time of preaching he most certainly was not.

Indeed I am always drawn back to that old conundrum.  For all the songs that could mean any one of 100 things, Bob never gives us explanations.  For the songs that were utterly obvious during the “Saved” period, he would give us a ten minute lecture.

I never really got that.  But then with my views upon religion, I guess that’s not surprising.

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.

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

by Larry Fyffe

The ghostly poetry of Gothic Romanticist Edgar Allan Poe howls in the songs of Bob Dylan, in songs that depict psychological forces demonic and dark in conflict with those godly and light. In the poems of Edgar Allan Poe, there’s often a male individual tormented by memories of a young and innocent female companion gone.

Like Annabella Lee in her sepulchre by the sea, a personal paradise lost that is so traumatic it leads to dreams filled with images of hell:

Ah, dream too bright to last
Ah, starry hope!; that didst arise
But to be overcast ….
And all my days are trances
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy gray eye glances
And where thy footstep gleams –
In what ethereal dances
By what eternal stream
(Poe: To One In Paradise)

Never more hope for a green and pleasant land. Poe’s personal poetic nightmare artistically reconstructed to one political by the singer/songwriter:

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

Poe’s dream of the lovely, lost Lenore is black for sure:

Open here I flung the shutter
When , with many a flirt and flutter
In there stepped a stately raven
Of the saintly days of yore ….
Perched, and sat, and nothing more
(Poe: The Raven)

Dylan has dark dream-songs too, ie, of youthful innocence broken:

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

The theme again expounded in the poem below:

For, alas! alas! with me
The light of life is o’er
No more – no more – no more ….
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree
Or the stricken eagle soar
(Poe: To One In Paradise)

The alliterative poet couples the dark with the bright, the former usually
overwhelming the latter:

Hear the mellow wedding bells –
Golden bells ….
Hear the tolling of the bells
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their
monody compels
In the silence of the night
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone
(Poe: The Bells)

A melancholy theme likewise of the singer:

As the echo of the wedding bells
before the blowin’ rain
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned
and forsakened
Tolling for the outcast, burnin’ constantly
at stake
(Dylan: Chimes Of Freedom)

But fear not – there’s always one dream that comes true – do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee:

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand –
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep
While I weep – while I weep
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
(Poe: A Dream Within A Dream)

The theme of death sounded as well by poets John Donne, and William Blake:

I hear the ancient footsteps like
the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn there’s someone
there, other times it’s only me
I am hanging in the balance of the
reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain
of sand
(Dylan: Every Grain Of Sand)

Comes as a surprise that singer/songwriter Bob Dylan wins the Nobel Prize In Literature it should not!

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.

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

by Joost Nillissen

The song starts with one of the greatest riddles in the Hebrew Bible. I and I is one of the possible translations of “ehyeh asher ehyeh” (Ex. 3:14). Other translations are: “I am who I am”, “I am I”, “I am who I shall be”.

God speaks to Moses from the burning bush and Moses asks him how he should call him. His people will want to know. And God’s answer is: ehyeh asher ehyeh. The trouble lies in the word ‘asher’ which can mean any number of things depending on the context, but God does not provide a context. A great number of books and essays have been written on this mysterious introduction.

Well, what can I say, this is God talking. He created heaven and earth, man and beast, honouring no one, for there is no one above him, and forgiving no one, for that’s the kind of God he is. It’s a jealous God. An invisible God.  “For there shall no man see me, and live” (Ex. 33:20).

So we can fairly assume that Dylan was in a Biblical mood when he wrote the song.

He sets the stage with a strange woman in his bed, who might have been faithfully wed once to a righteous king who wrote psalms beside moonlit streams. The image this evokes is of King David, who traditionally, but not historically, is credited with writing most of the psalms, but there is a problem:

David was hardly a righteous king. He was a warrior who sent Uriah the Hittite into death on the battlefield so he could marry Bathsheba, Uriah’s beautiful wife. The righteous king must be King Solomon who, like his father David, slept with any number of women and wrote songs.

Slowly Dylan lands on earth, but not quite. He recalls the woman in his bed and doesn’t feel like talking. He’s got nothing to say, especially about the past. That’s God again who hasn’t said a word since his thundering speech from the whirlwind (Job 38-41). From then on it’s prophets only, true or false.

Dylan is on solid ground now and recalls the days when he studied the Bible (an untrodden path) and brought out his last three, very Christian, albums (Slow train coming, Saved, Shot of love). He went looking for some deeper meaning and found a stranger to show him the beautiful face of justice. One of the earliest formulations of justice is the next line, the well known ‘eye for eye’. Again it is from the book of Exodus and it is truly a beautiful concept: one should be punished with measure and in relation to the crime committed.

.

As Dylan continues his walk, a haunting image of two men waiting for a train, or spring, tells him life goes on no matter what, we’re all waiting for something to happen and he realizes that the world could end right now, right here, and there is nothing you can do about it. It’s not in his hands. And if somehow, sometime he does return, she will still be there sleeping. It’s okay.

.

He’s been walking all day and now reaches the darkest part, the narrow lanes. Perhaps he is thinking of the evangelist who warns us: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction” (Matthew 7:13), and maybe he remembers Proverbs 4:12 “When you go, your steps shall not be impeded; and when you run, you shall not stumble.”

He realizes that no matter what he sings or says, people will put words in his mouth (exactly what I am doing now), but that’s alright, he’ll only listen to his heart. He doesn’t mind making shoes for everyone, but he chooses to go barefoot, because it is written: … put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. (Ex. 3:5).

Our first review of this song appears here:  I and I: God finds out Dylan thinks He maybe isn’t almighty after all.

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.

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

By Tony Attwood

When it was suggested that Dylan had lifted descriptions of three novels from summaries available on the internet when making his Nobel speech there were quite a few people who made a bit of a fuss about this.

But of course Dylan and copyright issues are no strangers to each other.  Indeed Dylan has been accused of lifting melodies and lyrics from other people’s work for years and on this site we have often pointed to similarities between Bob’s work and those of others.

I don’t want to run the argument by giving examples about lifting lyrics, chord sequences or melodies; I’m happy to accept it happens.  Indeed I think that for anyone getting involved in the blues, it is inevitable.  The sequence of chords in what we know as the 12 bar blues is used in hundreds of thousands of songs, and no one calls is plagiarism or copying.

If you don’t believe me get someone with a guitar or keyboard to play this sequence:

E, E, E, E

A, A, E, E

B7, A, E, B7

There it is: the classic 12 bar blues.  Bob uses it lots of times.  So I want to ask the question, does such copying of chord sequences, lyrics or melodies matter?

In fact no sooner have I written that question, than I realise that it sub-divides into two questions: does it matter artistically, and does it matter legally?  And as soon as I start plotting my answers I find I need to go down two different routes: that of plagiarism, and that of copyright.

So already I am onto complicated ground, and that is never a clever place to be when talking about one of the creative arts – because in the creative arts there are no absolute judgements to be made.

Bob has explained himself several times with comments along the lines that if a member of his audience had been as much integrated into the music of his youth as Dylan was “You’d have written them [the songs] too. There’s nothing secret about it. You just do it subliminally and unconsciously, because that’s all enough, and that’s all I sang. That was all that was dear to me. They were the only kinds of songs that made sense.”

We also know that Bob entered the world of music in the 1960s having studied earlier folk music, which itself was taken from person to person – one composer re-using and modifying the work of someone who had come before him.  Indeed although I am no Woodie Guthrie expert I believe he too did the same.

So in this sense by being a re-user of old songs is just a continuation of a tradition.  “Masters of War” is based on Nottamun Town – there’s no denying it.  Those of us who have bothered to follow and study Dylan’s career as a composer know it and can see it time and again.

Thinking on this I found myself facing a number of questions.  You might have other questions to ask – and if so, if you have the time and inclination, please do write them down, ask them, and then answer them, and I’ll publish your commentary here.   But meanwhile let me try my approach.

Does it matter artistically if one uses earlier works?

It’s a personal judgement.  I recall when studying art, seeing works by various artists who had clearly copied the works of those who had gone before – but had then added something new.  And I remember the comparison with science – each new scientific discovery adds something new to the science of the past.  Occasionally there is someone or something utterly new, but it is rare.  Newton and Einstein in science.  Michelangelo in so many of the arts.

If art is seen in the same way as science, then the judgement is plain – if you are adding something new, then no, it doesn’t matter what you use to build your new masterpiece.

Let’s try an idea.

Supposing I write a piece of which the first line is “You’ve got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend” but which then travels off to a different conclusion and ends

I wish that for just one time I could stand inside your shoes
And just for that one moment you’d have my views
Yes, I wish that for just one time I could stand inside your shoes
I’d know why it is you always sing the blues

I’m trying (in a very trivial way because I haven’t worked on such a piece) to turn the work upside and reverse the proposition – that the singer wants to know what it is like to be the other person, rather than wishing the “other” could see himself through other people’s eyes.

Is that plagiarism?  It’s a trivial notion but it shows the problems we have.  In most arts, taking one artist’s vision and moving it on a step is not plagiarism.  And I think much of the time this is exactly what Dylan has done.  Nottamun Town is about a world not making sense.  Masters of War also has a world not making sense, but this time we know why it doesn’t make sense.  Because the munitions corporations have been allowed to flourish.

But all that is artistic flim flam.  It is still illegal.

This is where the plagiarism comes in, because plagiarism has nothing to do with illegality, but everything to do with being dishonest.  Normally the people who get worked up about it are academics; it is passing someone else’s work off as your own.

So Bob claims “Masters of War” is his, and doesn’t add “Music: traditional”.  There’s nothing illegal about using a very old English folk tune, but if Bob had wanted to exclude any plagiarism claim he’d have made himself clearer.

If I were to write a doctorate on Bob Dylan and wrote up an idea about how Dylan composed, which I had seen in a book on Dylan, and added no acknowledgement that the idea had come from another person’s book then yes, that would be plagiarism.

But it would not be copyright infringement because with just a few exceptions in most countries you can’t copyright ideas.   However there is still an element of dishonesty here – if one let’s people assume that this is one’s own idea when it is anything but.  

The trouble is, having been involved in writing approaching 500 articles on Bob Dylan I can’t actually remember where a lot of the ideas came from.  In fact I recently read a note about a Dylan song in Wikipedia and thought, “that’s worth quoting” and then looked at the source and found it was… me.  I’d forgotten I’d said it.  But at least I didn’t think it was rubbish when I read it again.

Copyright is different

Plagiarism is generally a matter for academics – especially when it comes to marking essays and theses.   Copyright is a matter for the courts.  Each country has its own copyright law, and often it is quite convoluted.   Because I have written a lot I know a fair bit about the copyright laws of the UK, and of the European Union, and have actually been to court to protect my copyright.  All sorts of things can be protected by copyright law – all the way from headlines on a website, and a database of names and addresses.

A five note jingle could be copyright.  So can a catch phrase. So can a radio programme.  But what we have to remember is that copyright has nothing to do with ideas – it covers the actual words used.  If it is ideas you want to protect then maybe you need a patent.  Or you need to return to the issue of plagiarism.

Breach of musical copyright

One of the most famous examples of a song found to be breaking a copyright was, “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison in 1970 which sounded rather like “He’s So Fine,” recorded in 1963 by the Chiffons.  The owners of “He’s so fine” sued citing multiple similarities.

The judge said, “it is perfectly obvious to the listener that in musical terms, the two songs are virtually identical.”  Now I didn’t find that comment by looking up the legal judgement – I copied it from another site that commented on the trial.  Breach of copyright?  I suspect not because it was a report of an actual event.

In its article on plagiarism Wikipedia says, “In 2012, when Bob Dylan was questioned over his alleged plagiarism of others music he responded, “It’s an old thing – it’s part of the tradition. It goes way back”.    Princeton University professor of American history Sean Wilentz defended Dylan’s appropriation of music stating “crediting bits and pieces of another’s work is scholarly tradition, not an artistic tradition”.  In 1998, B.B. King stated on the issue vis a vis music, “I don’t think anybody steals anything; all of us borrow.”

But there is another side to this.  I found this story when doing research for this piece.

In the early ’90s, he [Dylan] sued Hootie and the Blowfish because of lyrics used in their hit song ‘Only Wanna Be With You.’

“Rucker admits that it’s doubtful Dylan knew anything about the lawsuit. During an interview with the Dan Patrick Show, he said the singer’s management was aware of their use of lyrics from ‘Idiot Wind’ and had no problem with it. Once the song became a hit, they objected, and Hootie was forced to pay up handsomely.”

The lyrics in question were: “Said I shot a man named Gray / Took his wife to Italy / She inherited a million bucks / And when she died it came to me / I can’t help it if I’m lucky.”

There was also a claim made against Dylan’s work, “Dignity” which apparently was lost.  Brief details of that and other cases can be found here.

So let’s come back to the opening question: supposing Bob did use a precis of the famous novels that he says influenced his work through the years, quoting someone else’s work that he found on the internet – what then?

Here are the questions I am left with, and the very personal answers I find.

1:  Was Bob morally wrong to do it?   For me, I don’t really see it as a moral issue – but it would have been polite to have mentioned the sources.   Supposing one of those story summaries had been written by me – I would have been so honoured to have had Bob say, “here’s a summary from some English guy I’ve never heard of called Tony Attwood.”  I wouldn’t want any money – I’d dine off that for the rest of my life.

2: Was Bob breaking the law?   I can’t speak for US law, but if it were a work created in the UK then probably he was breaking the UK Copyright Act 1988.

3: So how much could be he sued for?   I am not a lawyer, but when I have protected my copyrights over the years the question for the court has always been, “what is your loss?”  So there is not some arbitrary punishment, but instead there is the question of how much I could have made from that copyright if the guilty party had actually paid.  It’s fairly easy to work out.  So I claim that, and all the court costs.

4: If he’d quoted me, would I have sued?  No, I think not.  Instead I would have given interviews and built a web site that said, “It was me that Bob quoted when he did his Nobel Prize speech.”  I would hopefully have got a few nice meals and a couple of free drinks at after dinner speeches out of that.  And I’d have changed the front page of this web site so that it said, “As quoted by Bob himself in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech,” in very large letters.

5: What about the lyrics we quote when reviewing songs on this site?     Regarding the lyrics, mostly we quote extracts from songs rather than the whole songs, and any full length quotes from songs that are on the site I am going back and removing.  If you spot one that is left, tell me and I’ll change it.  Extracts are normally allowable and since BobDylan.com has all the lyrics on line, that suggests they are recognising reality, that song lyrics are effectively freely exchanged.

6:  What about the links we put up to videos of Dylan performing live?   As far as I can see there is nothing in law prohibiting the filming of a performance.  The management of the theatre might say the sale of the ticket does not allow for this, but that is their rule, not a legal requirement.  Recordings of songs released on CD or LP are different – they are protected.  I try to remove any of these which are on the site.   But if the recording has not been released I don’t think it is a copyright infringement as long as we are not charging anyone to hear or watch.

So there we are: I’m trying to be consistent, although probably failing.  And Bob?  Well, as Hootie and the Blowfish found, Bob’s management will protect his copyright, as they are entitled to do in law.  But I doubt Bob even knew it was 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.

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

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Bob Dylan And Samuel Coleridge (Part ll) (or maybe III)

(Part one appears as The Land Of Milk And Honey: Bob Dylan And Samuel Coleridge   while part II (ish) is published under  Bob Dylan And Henry Timrod: The Country Coleridge Rambles)

By Larry Fyffe

In many of his songs, Bob Dylan expresses the theme put forth by the Romantic Transcendentalist poets, ie, that Nature provides comfort and solace to mankind. But he holds on to that creed only by his fingertips. A go-between be necessary for Dylan, a female Muse to show him the way to Nature’s pleasant bower whatever the season:

If not for you
Winter would have no spring
Couldn’t hear the robin sing
I just wouldn’t have a clue
Anyway it wouldn’t ring true
If not for you
(Bob Dylan: If Not For You)

The blissful Transcendentalist view, presented in the verse below, that is preached by Romantic poet Samuel Coleridge, Dylan modifies to an extent:

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greeness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree
(Samuel Coleridge: Frost At Midnight)

Joyous as the apples of summer seems every season only if accompanied by a loving and lovely female, sings Dylan:

Winterlude, Winterlude, my little apple
Winterlude by the corn in the field
Winterlude let’s go down to the chapel
Then come back and cook up a meal
We’ll come out when the skating rink glistens
By the sun near the old crossroads sign
(Bob Dylan: Winterlude)

Beware, beware, Nature is transcendental; it’s above and beyond Man; certainly, it’s more than just a mirror that reflects one’s emotional state. So says the Christian poet Samuel Coleridge who is filled with the thought that all of Nature is God’s creation, referencing the authority of the Holy Bible:

For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise
(Coleridge: Kubla Khan)

Bob Dylan, referring to the Bible too, feels spiritually malnourished due to the materialistic greed exhibited in American society, and the depression that it brings:

It’s undeniable what they’d have you to think
It’s indescribable, it can drive you to drink
They said it was the land of milk and honey
(Dylan: Unbelievable)

Coleridge will have none of it:

A melancholy bird? Oh, idle thought
In Nature there is nothing melancholy
(Coleridge: The Nightingale)

Bob Dylan chides the Transcendentalist poet for being too happy, given the
sad state of modern society:

Well, my sense of humanity is going down the drain
Behind everything, there’s some kind of pain
(Dylan: Not Dark Yet)

Another Romantic poet, though inclined to melancholia himself, sides with Coleridge:

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
…. thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless
Singest of summer in full-throated ease
(John Keats: Ode To A Nightingale)

Perhaps due to drug-induced dreams, Coleridge turns somewhat away from the Romantic theme of joyful Nature to images more gloomy that suggest emotions dark and demonic:

Sir Leoline, the Baron rich
Hath a toothless mastiff bitch
From her kennel beneath the rock
She maketh answer to the clock …….
His heart was cleft with pain and rage
His cheeks they quivered, his eyes were wild
(Coleridge: Christabel)

Coleridge’s difficult-to-interpret narrative Gothic poems appeal more to Dylan, given his attitude toward human nature, ie, that it has, like the moon, a dark side:

He looks so truthful, is this how he feels?
Trying to peel the moon and expose it
With his businesslike anger and bloodhounds that kneel
If he needs a third eye, he just grows it
(Dylan: Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window)

Dylan turns down the overly bright light of the Transcendentalist outlook as Coleridge himself does, ie in the poem ‘The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner’ one of Nature’s spirited and beautiful creatures is thoughtlessly dispensed with.

Yes, Dylan clings on to Romantic sentiment, but has no intention of wearing an albatross around his neck:

Well, if you go when the snowflakes storm
When the rivers freeze and summer ends
Please see for me if she’s wearing a coat so warm
To keep her from the howlin’ winds
(Dylan: Girl From The North Country)

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.

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

By Joost Nillissen

Now that I am about to enter a new phase of my life, I look for a song to ease the passage into retirement. Rather morbidly I thought Tombstone Blues might be appropriate

I wish I could write you a melody so plain

that could hold you, dear lady, from going insane,

that could ease and cool you and ease the pain

of you useless and pointless knowledge

Then I heard a beautiful rendering of My Back Pages of his 1964 album, aptly titled Another side of Bob Dylan. Dylan was 23 years old at the time, this was his fourth album and he had already written Blowing in the wind, A hard rain is gonna fall, Don’t think twice it’s alright and The times they are a changing. One year later he would write Like a rolling stone.

The hardest or least accessible song on this album is My back pages. Most Dylan songs make sense to me in a poetic way, even though they may be enigmatic and hard to follow, but this one is almost beyond grasp. The refrain is almost a gimmick, a brilliant thought: I was so much older then, I am younger than that now. On the album he released eight months earlier he had the audacity to warn the Masters of War that he would “Stand over their grave to make sure that you’re dead”. He was much older then than the rest of his contemporaries. How young could he have been, writing My Back Pages in 1964? At the age of 23.

There is heat in the first verse when he tells of the crimson flames tied through his ears. Is it the fever of youth? He is setting out for more discoveries of what life is all about, learning on the way, avoiding traps on flaming roads and using his own ideas as a map.

Hot and sweaty, but proud, he meets someone and says: we’ll meet on edges soon. As so often in his songs, Dylan is leaving, changing direction, following another path. But he was so much older then. He’s younger then that now.

In the second verse prejudice leaps forth and causes him to scream: “Rip down all hate”, and a voice in his skull tells a lie: in life everything is black and white. He’d rather dream romantic dreams of musketeers. He was so much older then…

The path forward in so many young men’s lives are often demarcated by faces of pretty girls. But rejections and regret lead you to think useless thoughts and you find yourself memorizing politics of ancient history. He was so much older then…

On the move he listens to self-ordained professors who foolishly claim that liberty is just a quality in school. At first he is impressed and solemnly says the word “Equality” as if a wedding vow. But he was so much older then…

He is still on the road, learning as he goes. It’s a struggle and like a soldier he aims his hand at mongrel dogs who teach. He is not afraid to contradict himself when he starts speaking. On his travels he even follows boats who confuse him because there is mutiny from stern to bow. He was so much older then…

And then at last he makes his stand when abstract threats deceived him into thinking he had something to protect. He finally realizes it all comes down to good and bad, quite clear, no doubt somehow. But then again… he was so much older then, he is younger then that now.

So as I step into third age I can hear the echo of these lines, I recognize the road travelled, the wisdom gained, the useless and pointless knowledge. I am younger then that now, even though I am much older then I once was.

There are a few memorable performances by Dylan of My Back Pages. They’re all different, have all a different urgency. At his 30th-anniversary-concert in 1992 he joins Roger McQuinn, Neil Young, Tom Petty, Eric Clapton and George Harrison on stage to perform this incredible song. Dylan stands back, strumming his guitar, aloof, unsmiling, focused, may be insecure. There are eight guitar players on stage. It is awesome. Each one of them sings one verse and Roger, Tom, Eric and even George are in awe of the lyrics. Only Neil has tremendous, electrifying fun. https://www.theguardian.com/music/video/2014/feb/12/bob-dylan-performs-my-back-pages-30th-anniversary-concert-video

The are plenty of performances easily found on YouTube if you’re interested, but this is one of my favorites. Wait for 5:00 when he picks up his harp and does a heartbreaking duet with the violinist.

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

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.

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

Untold’s Exclusive Interview With Bob Dylan

Interview conducted by Larry Fyffe

Location: The ‘Untold Office’ on the roof of the 12-storey Saint James Hotel in New York City

Untold: Thanks for coming up to visit us, Bob….You sound a bit winded……Anyway, we know you’re a busy man …so let’s get right on with the interview….Here’s what our reader survey tells us that they want from you:

You must provide some answers
For what you sell has not been delivered
And as soon as you come up with them
The sooner you can leave

Untold: So the first question to you, Bob is …

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you can call him a man?

Dylan: Well, in my case, it was just one …

Oh, Howard just pointed with his gun
And said, that way down on Highway 61

Untold: Yes, and how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?

Dylan: You’ll have to ask the white dove that one …

If I had wings like Noah’s dove
I’d fly the river to the one I love

Untold: Yes, and how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they’re forever banned?

Dylan: It doesn’t really matter. Cannon balls are not used that much anymore ….

But now we got weapons of the chemical dust
If fire them we’re forced to, then fire them we must

Untold: Yes, and how many years can a mountain exist
Before it is washed to the sea?

Dylan: Beats me …

Beyond here lies nothin’
But the mountains of the past

Untold: Yes, and how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?

Dylan: If they’re lucky, maybe a hundred …

And I answer them most mysteriously
Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?

Untold: Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see?

Dylan: Sometimes you don’t have to pretend …

I’m gazing out the window of the St. James Hotel
And I know no one can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell

Untold: Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?

Dylan: Just once on a cloudless day ….

I’m looking up into the sapphire-tinted skies
I’m well dressed, waiting for the last train

Untold: Yes, and how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?

Dylan: One good one, I should think …

You know, I know, the sun will always shine
So baby please stop crying ’cause it’s tearing up my mind

Untold: Yes, and how many deaths will it take ’til he knows
That too many people have died?

Dylan: In your particular case, just one:

Ten thousand men dressed in oxford blue
Drummin’ in the morning, in the evening they’ll be coming for you

Untold: Oh ……… thanks, Mr. Dylan ….. for clearing things up….Be careful climbing down that ladder on the side of the hotel when you leave …. You have a train to catch!

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.

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

Bob Dylan And Allen Ginsberg

By Larry Fyffe

Poets who influence Beat Poet Allen Ginsberg include Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and William Carlos Williams, and, especially, the pre-Romantic poet William Blake who exalts physical sex as an integral part of the spiritual aspect of love given to humankind by the Creator; thereby the poet challenges the conventional teachings of church and state:

A Sunflower! weary of time
Who countest the steps of the sun
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller’s journey is done
(William Blake: Sunflower)

Called the ‘slave morality’ by Frederich Nietzsche, William Blake, in the poem above, chides those waiting for happiness after death rather than searching for it on God’s green and pleasant Earth (Allen Ginsberg speaks from a homosexual perspective; Dylan Thomas is another poet much influenced by Blake).

When I heard Bob Dylan in New Brunswick, 1997, the singer/songwriter paid a heart-felt tribute to Ginsberg.

The pseudo-Darwinism of William Carlos Williams, picked up by Ginsberg, unfolds into the poetic imagination, as revealed by the following verse:

Now I’ll record my secret vision, impossible
sight of the face of God ….
Lo and behold! I was thoughtless and turned a page
and gazed on the living
Sunflower ….
The great brain unfolding and brooding in the wilderness
Now speaking and with Blake’s voice
Love! thou patient presence and bone of the body ….
Time howled in anguish in my ear
(Allen Ginsberg: Psalm IV)

The Blake/Ginsberg symbols of Tiger and Sunflower, male/female, with eyes of fire, from the wilderness, speak out. And, in Dylan song lyrics, too:

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl
(Bob Dylan: All Along The Watchtower)

And in the next song lyrics, the anguish of Ginsberg is heard once again:

Louise she’s all right, she’s just near
She’s delicate and seems like a mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna’s not here
The ghosts of electricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place
(Bob Dylan: Visions Of Johanna)

Bob Dylan’s not going to wait until he dies, but he contrasts Louise’s singular physical presence with the prospect of both a physical and a spiritual union with Johanna; hope springs eternal in the Shelleyian mind.

Poet Allan Ginsberg, depicts present day society (Moloch) as one that displaces the spiritual and sexual desires of human existence with a secular materialistic dogma that commands all to kneel before the image of the Golden Calf and beneath that of the Hydrogen Bomb:

Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! ….
Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone
Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks
Moloch whose poverty is the spectre of genius
Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen
(Allen Ginsberg: Howl)

The same troubled sentiment, but coupled with a somewhat more hopeful double-edged meaning, in the song lyrics that follow:

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They’re trying to blow it up
(Bob Dylan: Desolation Row)

The message sent through the howls of Ginsberg’s black-dog is rather depressing, to say the least:

I saw the best minds of my generation
destroyed by madness ….
Who bared their brains to heaven under the El and saw
Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated
Who passed through universities with
radiant coloured eyes
Hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy
among the scholars of war
(Allan Ginsberg: Howl)

In the song following, there be coals of optimism still burning in the darkness:

I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl who gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded with hatred
(Bob Dylan: A Hard Rain A-Gonna Fall)

Dylan, perhaps with second thoughts, was not above taking a humorous shot at Ginsberg:

Crocagator, see you later, crocagator
After a while, smock-a-while, see you later Allen Ginsberg
See you later, alligator, see you later, crocagator
After awhile, crocodile, in a while Allen Ginsberg
(Bob Dylan: You See Later, Allen Ginsberg)

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.

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

By Tony Attwood

After writing and recording “Love and Theft” Bob Dylan entered another sparse period of song writing, and indeed much of the 21st century can be characterised in terms of a far less active period of composition than earlier in Bob’s life.

But then he was getting a little bit older by now.  And Bob did not give up composing completely at this time, as four movie songs were written in this period: Waitin’ for You composed after Love and Theft in 2001, Cross the Green Mountain in 2002 and then after a pause in 2005 we had Tell Ol’ Bill and Can’t escape from you

The two best known of these are “Cross the Green Mountain” for “Gods and Generals” while “Tell Ol Bill” was written for North Country.

Opinions about these two songs from the middle of the sequence differ considerable; or maybe I should say everyone else rates “Cross the Green Mountain” as a minor masterpiece, while I simply don’t get that song at all but think Tell Ol Bill is one of the greatest songs Dylan ever created.

In terms of the movies for which the songs were created, none of the films was a great success – in fact “Gods and Generals” was a multi-million dollar disaster.

But movie songs, although needing to have a reference point in the film, also need to be magical performances in their own right, to heard alongside the movie, and listened to subsequently as a reminder of the film.

And this is what we get with “Tell Ol Bill.”  It has line after line each of which is utterly memorable and it works for me both as a stand alone song and the song of the movie.

On the other hand I described “Waiting for You” written for “The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood” as “seriously odd” and I stick with that view, coming back to the piece again now.   As For “Can’t escape from you”, this was written for a movie that seemingly was either never made, or at least made but not released.

Maybe it was the realisation that having gained the Oscar for “Things have changed” but then failed to reach such heights again, that convinced Bob that this writing for the movies lark was not as simple as he had first thought.   For after “Can’t escape from you” Bob gave up on the movies and went back to the albums, composing next the music for “Modern Times”.

The film years were an interesting diversion.  There wasn’t another Oscar, but there was “Tell Ol Bill”.   An absolute total masterpiece in my humble opinion   A revised version of the review has now been placed on this site.

Song of the period: of course, “Tell Ol Bill”.  At the very top of Bob’s creative work.

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.

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

By Larry Fyffe

If you have been following Untold Themes, you will know I have pointed out previously that when the singer Bob Dylan pays tribute to a poet by referencing a poem, the songwriter may take direct quotes from that poem, and/or he may employ what I have coined the literary technique of the ‘Dylanesque Twist’:

Self-explanatory be the following two examples:

(1)The goat-and-daisy dingles
(Dylan Thomas: Under Milkwood)

The cloak and dagger dangles
(Bob Dylan: Love Minus Zero)

(2)That distant peak which on our vale looks down
And wears the star of evening for a crown
(Henry Timrod: A Vision Of Poesy)

My pretty baby, she’s lookin’ around
She wears a multi-thousand dollar gown
(Bob Dylan: Tweedle-Dum And Tweedle-Dee)

Noted too is that not all Romantic poets are dyed-in-the-wool Wordsworthian Transcendentalists who are able to feel the spirit of a loving and caring Creator that pervades through every tree in the forest and all the stars in the sky, uniting everything and everybody into One.

The aforementioned Henry Timrod is among the unworthy; to him, Eden’s forever sealed. Like John Keats and Samuel Coleridge, with their nightingales protected by a hidden bower, and Robert Frost, with his dividing wall, Timrod, though blessed with the imagination of a poet and armed to the hilt with words, confesses that he cannot unravel the unknowable mystery of how and why the Universe exists; indeed, as time passes, the Civil War poet contends that, like a Swedenborgian Creator, God is falling farther and farther back into the vast emptiness of space.

Apparently, the Deistic God of the Enlightenment is not dead; He’s simply missing.

Meanwhile, man’s more powerful technologies, the dogs of war, that are capable of destroying not only mankind himself, but the Earth as we know it, come closer and closer to being slipped.

Depressing are the lyrics of the white songster walking his black dog; war is utter hell for both sides though to each the cause is thought just. So asserts a Dylan song about the American Civil War:

All along the dim Atlantic line
The ravaged land lies miles behind
The light’s coming forward, and the streets are broad
All must yield to the avenging God
(Bob Dylan: Cross The Green Mountain)

The singer samples the Romantic Southern poet who concludes that, frankly Scarlet, neither Nature, be it ever so joyous and beautiful, nor its Creator, gives a damn which side wins or which side loses; doesn’t care whether or not the southern city is destroyed:

But still along yon dim Atlantic line
The only hostile smoke
Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine
From some frail, floating oak …..
God has inscribed her doom
And all untroubled in her faith, she waits
The triumph or the tomb
(Henry Timrod: Charleston)

Nonetheless, Timrod refuses to profane the critical thinking of his alliterative English Romantic predecessor:

We may not thus profane
Nature’s sweet voices, always full of love
And joyance! ‘Tis the merry nightingale
(Samuel Coleridge: The Nightingale)

And all should cry ‘Beware, beware!’ Neither does the Creator construct the imaginative and unconscious dreams that Tweedle- Dum, and Tweedle-Dee have about setting up their own separate ‘Kubla Khans’:

Well, a childish dream is a deathless need
And a noble truth is a sacred creed
(Bob Dylan: Tweedle-Dum And Tweedle-Dee)

Sampling once again the poet:

A childish dream is now a deathless need
Which drives him to far hills, and distant wilds
The solemn faith and fervour of his creed
Bold as a martyr’s, simple as a child’s
(Henry Timrod: A Vision Of Poesy)

You’re basically on your own, sings Dylan existentially; he, unlike the female who laughs like the flowers, is scarcely affected by the moon:

The moon gives light, and it shines by night
Well, I scarcely feel the glow
We learn to live, and then we forgive
O’er the road, we’re bound to go
More frail than the flower, these precious hours
(Bob Dylan: When The Deal Goes Down)

Sampling once more the Coleridge-influenced male poet, who
feels the power of the sun:

These happy stars, and yonder setting moon
Have seen me speed, unreckoned and untasked
A round of precious hours
Oh! here in that summer noon I basked
And strove, with logic frailer than the flowers
(Henry Timrod: A Rhopsody Of A Southern Winter Night)

As mentioned above, both John Keats and Coleridge influence Henry Timrod:

My task hath been, beneath a mightier Power
To keep the world forever fresh and young
(Henry Timrod: A Vision Of Posey)

Which samples:

More happy love! More happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoyed
For ever panting, and for ever young
(John Keats: Ode To A Grecian Urn)

And that brings us all back home to the William Blake’s innocence of childhood:

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

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.

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

by Tony Attwood

This little article took me much longer than usual to write – for reasons that I think are quite apparent in the article itself.   But because I got so tangled up with the issues I faced I managed to forget to say that matters might be further explained with reference to Bob Dylan And Walt Whitman: Writing In The Captain’s Tower and to The Browning Of The Green Mountain

To take matters further forward we have now published  “Bob Dylan And Henry Timrod: The Country Coleridge Rambles” – which helps clarify things for me.  I hope it does for you.

Tony

Dylan is reported to have undertaken quite a bit of research into the American civil war across the years, and as a result when he came to write the song for the movie “Gods and Generals” he clearly was immersed into the subject, as I guess most US citizens are anyway from their studies of the war at school.

As you might imagine, it isn’t a subject studied in UK schools, unless you happen to get it as a specialist in-depth topic for A Level History (A Level being an academic course mostly taken by 16 to 18 year olds thinking of going to university – most of whom would take three such subjects: I took history, music and English literature.)

My problem is that not only am I English, but that although I took A Level History my specialist topic was not the American Civil War but the French Revolution of 1789 – a subject on which Dylan has been unaccountably quiet.  And that is unfortunate because if he had ventured into the world of Danton, Robespierre and Louis XVI, I’d had been well prepared.

I mention this, not to say that I can’t review this song, but rather to make the fairly obvious point that background knowledge can be important.  Could one understand Times They Are A-Changin’ without knowing about the dramatic change in values and visions among young people in the late 1950s and early 1960s?   I doubt it.

But here, Dylan, and the movie maker Ted Turner, are squarely facing an American audience who know and who are interested in, their own country’s history, and its myths and mystique.

Perhaps for you (if you are American) to understand my floundering at this point, we might imagine you as a guest in my country happening to be around on November 5 and wonder why there are bonfires being lit all over the place – and then on getting a quick explanation, thinking that we are all preparing to blow up Parliament and kick out our elected representatives, plus the bishops and nobles that sit in the Lords.

Or to give another example from my life it is like me going to a Burns Night Supper on 25 January and expecting to understand a single word.

So in a similar way if I try and reach conclusions about the historical basis of the song, I will be lost.

But even so some strands and themes arise.   The song quotes Henry Timrod – a poet of whom I had never heard before I started writing these reviews, but have now mentioned quite a few times.  But even having got used to Timrod popping up in Dylan, here again the quotes don’t mean to much to me.   Bob used lines from the poet in When The Deal Goes Down“, “Rollin and Tumblin” and “Spirit On The Water” and I sort of got where each was going, but here… no, not really.

Thus because the lyrics and subject matter don’t make a direct connection to my knowledge, my background or my heart or my soul, I find the song hard going.  What I could have done with was a line or two of stand out Dylan – the sort of lines that I mentioned in my little piece “One line to carry with you: why Dylan’s lyrics are so important for so many people” or failing that some stand out music.

Yet I find the music with its plodding ascending and descending bass line uninspiring.  Dylan has of course many times made something very profound out of using the step by step bass line – one starts with Like a Rolling Stone and moves on.  But the slow plodding nature of this piece (and I really can find no other word but plodding) reminds me of “Sad Eyed Lady,” and there again I failed to make the connection.

And as that happens again I know I am in deep trouble because few, if any, shared my view about that song.

So the conclusion must be, it is just me.  My Englishness, and my dislike of the bass line at a slow speed.  But I must admit that given the subject matter of the song this slow speed is of course highly appropriate.  Yet if we compare this to the great movie song triumph of “Things have changed” I simply don’t find lines that come into my life and live with me.  There is no “next sixty seconds could be like an eternity”.

But Larry Sloman finds the lyrics impressive, and singles out

A letter to mother came today
Gun shot wound to the breast is what it did say
But he’ll be better soon, he’s in a hospital bed
But he’ll never be better, he’s already dead

And for me… nothing.  And maybe the Timrod problem is that Timrod was not a great poet, and therefore the buzz one gets from his lines must be entirely tied up into the context – and as I am trying to explain, I have no context.

I can of course grasp the power of the closing line “We loved each other more than we ever dared to tell” but somehow the power there is not translated into the music or the overall meaning.  And this is really the point of a strophic song that continues unchanging for 12 verses.  You need to engage, and sorry, but I’m not.

There are lines from Melville in here as well, but still, I am lost.  And so more than anything else I would like someone else – someone well versed in the history and background of this song – to write the review to appear in Untold Dylan that I am struggling with.

For 12 repeating verses and the repeating ascending and descending bass line, and a not particularly memorable melody, and no stand out lines to carry away from hearing the music, I have nothing.  But if I had the history, maybe I’d make something of it all, and that’s what I am hoping you, dear reader, will do.

Interestingly the next song Dylan wrote was “Tell Ol Bill” a song which for me, sits alongside Visions of Johanna as a perfect example of Dylan at his very best.

And realising this I immediately thought of

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

There’s nothing clever in those lines, no deep rooted meaning or historical context, and yet they shout out to me through a thousand different levels of image and suggestion in the way that I can find no single line of “Cross the Green Mountain” doing.

The fault of course is all mine, I’m in the wrong country listening at the wrong time.

So if you would like to correct my failings at this point, please write a review of this song, send it to Tony@schools.co.uk, ideally as a Word file, and I will happily publish it here as an antidote to my undoubtedly mistaken view that really, there isn’t very much here.

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.

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

Bob Dylan And Lawrence Ferlinghetti

By Larry Fyffe

Under the influence of poet William Carlos Williams, Lawrence Ferlinghetti writes sardonic poems in plain language about the American vision of a Promised Land shattered by the material greed of New Babylon, a theme that singer Bob Dylan picks up on:

And I am waiting
For a reconstructed May Flower
To reach America
With its picture story and TV rights
Sold in advance to the natives
(Ferlinghetti: I Am Waiting)

The poem inspires a Dylan song filled with black humour::

I was riding on the May Flower
When I thought I spied some land …
I think I’ ll call it America ….
Captain Arab he started
Writing up some deeds
He said, Let’s set up a fort
And start buying the place with beads
(Bob Dylan: 115th Dream)

Another pointed poem by the poet who associates with the ‘Beats’ like Allen Ginsberg:

I have read the Reader’s Digest
From cover to cover
And noted the close identification
Of the United States with the Promised Land
Where every coin is marked
In God We Trust
But the dollar bills do not have it
Being gods unto themselves
(Ferlinghetti: Autobiography)

And a song, momentum and humour added, inspired thereby:

He said he’s going to kill me
If I don’t get out the door
In two seconds flat
‘You unpatriotic
Rotten Commie rat’
Well, he threw a Reader’s Digest
At my head and I did run
I did a somersault
As I seen him get his gun
(Bob Dylan: Motorcycle Nightmare)

Lawrence Ferlinghetti introduces ‘academic’ poems and works of art to the streets by quoting poetic fragments, and referencing paintings in his own work – a rhetorical device Bob Dylan goes on to use, alluding to poems and paintings in his song lyrics:

In Goya’s great scenes we seem to see
The people of the world
Exactly at the moment when
They first attained the title
‘Suffering Humanity’
(Ferlinghetti: In Goya’s Great Scenes)

One famous painting by Francisco Goya is ‘The Third Of May’. Modern poet William Carlos Williams uses the literary technique, referring to painter Peter Breughel, the Elder:

In Breughel’s great picture, The Kermess,
The dances go round, they go round and
Around, the squeal, and the blare and the
Tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles
Tipping their bellies
(William Carlos Williams: The Dance)

And so does singer Bob Dylan as he comments, in his song lyrics, on the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci:

Inside the museum, infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after awhile
But Mona Lisa musta had the highways blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
(Bob Dylan: Visions Of Johanna)

Ferlinghetti, in his poems, makes allusions to other poets, especially to those Romantically-inclined:

Do not go naked into that good night
And in the meantime
Keep calm and warm and dry
No use stirring ourselves up prematurely
‘Over Nothing’
Move forward with dignity
Hand in vest
Don’t get emotional
And death shall have no dominion
There’s plenty of time, my darling
And we are not still young and easy
Don’t shout
(Ferlinghetti: Under Wear)

Poking a bit of fun at Dylan Thomas’ lack of political action while referencing Fern Hill (Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs); Death Shall Have No Dominion (And death shall have no dominion/ Dead men they shall be one); and Do Not Go Gentle (Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight/And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way/Do not go gentle into that good night).

Bob Dylan, wary to some degree of being taken in by organized political activists, relates to Dylan Thomas’ sympathy for the plight of the individual facing demands to conform:

One by one, they followed the sun
One by one, until there were none
Two by two, to their lovers they flew
Two by two, into the foggy dew
Three by three, they danced on the sea
Three by three, they danced on the shore
(Bob Dylan: Two By Two)

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.

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