Untold Dylan

By Larry Fyffe

From within the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s songs shine the golden arrows and silver spears of Willian Blake’s poetry.

Dylan’s main message is consistent throughout most of the songwriter’s works. Many of his song lyrics present the Blakean view that the forces of good and the forces of evil exist side by side. In life, those forces that are evil – lifelessness, and lack of spirit – forever threaten to tread down the forces of good.

People spirited with love must therefore keep an eternal vigil. All too often, would-be shepherds of the soul become corrupted themselves, and unwatched sheep wander astray with no spirit left to guide them.

A feature of Modern and Postmodern art is the intermixing of so-called “high” and “low” forms thereof.

Dylan sometimes employs adaptations to children’s nursery rhymes of yesterday to get the above-mentioned morality play message across to the listeners of today: i.e., the importance of having vitality in one’s own life.

One such nursery rhyme being:

“Little Boy Blue
Come blow your horn
The sheep’s in the meadow
The cow’s in the corn”
(Little Boy Blue)

The verse goes as far back as William Shakespeare’s plays:

“Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd?
Thy sheep be in the corn
And for one blast of thy minikin mouth
Thy sheep shall take no harm”
(King Lear, Act lll, sc.6)

Dylan updates the cry-out for a goodly horn-blasting a shepherd who is awake and able to warn his hometown, painted in the devil’s colour as it is, that complacent inertia has set in:

“So brave and true, so gentle is he
I’ll weep for him as he’d weep for me
Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn
In Scarlet Town, where I was born”
(Bob Dylan: Scarlet Town)

Wanted: a good trumpet player to raise the people of the town out of their spiritless lifelessness.

This lack of motivational music, Dylan deplores, and he expresses the need for an up-lift in the reworking of the following nursery rhyme:

“Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner
Eating a Christmas pie
He put in his thumb
And pulled out a plum
And said, ‘What a good boy am I’.
(Little Jack Horner)

Dylan jacks it up:

“Shake me up that old peach tree
Little Jack Horner’s got nothin’ on me
Oh me, oh my
Love that country pie”
(Bob Dylan: Country Pie)

As well, Dylan tosses a glowing spark onto the following children’s rhyme:

“Handy Spanky, Jack-A-Dandy
Loves plum cake and sugar candy
He bought some at the grocer’s shop
And out he came – hop, hop, hop”
(Handy Spanky)

Sings out an adult ‘work ethic’-filled morality tale:

“Handy Dandy, if every bone in his body was broken he would never admit it
He got an all-girl orchestra, and when he says:
‘Strike up the band”, they hit it ……
Handy Dandy, just like sugar and candy
Handy Dandy, pour him another brandy”
(Bob Dylan: Handy Dandy)

The sheep munch it up.

Nevertheless, all eyes must be on the alert for the big bad wolf, lest he eats somebody’s parents up:

From Shakespeare’s ‘Ariel’s Song’:

“Full fathom five thy father lies
Of his bones are coral made
These are pearls that were his eyes
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell”

“Ding-dong
Hark! now I hear them – Ding, dong, bell”
(The Tempest. Act I, sc. 2)

The modern nursery rhyme for children:

“Ding dong bell
Pussy’s in the well
Who put her in?
Little Johnny Flynn
Who pulled her out?
Little Tommy Stout
What a naughty boy was that
Try to drown poor pussy cat
Who never did any harm
But killed all the mice
In the Farmer’s barn.”
(Ding Dong Bell)

Dylan updates and reworks the song version:

The cat’s in the well, the wolf is looking down
He got his bushy tail dragging all over the ground ……
The cat’s in the well, and grief is showing its face
The world’s being slaughtered, and it’s such a bloody disgrace.”
(Bob Dylan: Cat’s In The Well)

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An index to every song reviewed on this site is on the home page – just scroll down.

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By Tony Attwood

Unbelievable is one of those songs which, if you don’t know it, and you read the words, you might just think, there isn’t much here.

Try this, if you can forget what the song sounds like

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
Now they say it’s the land of money
Who ever thought they could ever make that stick
It’s unbelievable you can get this rich this quick

Now a lesser musician than Dylan might try and compensate for words that are not particularly radical or different, by working on the melody or the chord sequence, but Dylan gives us what is in effect a two chord standard rock song with a third chord briefly added and not  that much of a melody.  In short a driving rock number.

And it works!

It was Dylan’s one single of the year and it even got into the charts, simply by the power of the delivery and the simplicity of the repeated title.

But at the same time we have to recognise it is also a song that apparently went through multiple re-writes with the quality of the re-writes (according to Heylin who it seems had access to them all) highly erratic, and (and this is a regular complaint of his) with the best lines often getting lost en route.

By way of example Heylin says that Dylan changes

“Too expensive to be built, too well-built to ever melt / Whoever thought you could make it stick,”

into

“They said it was the land of milk and honey now they say it’s the land of money / Whoever thought they could make that stick”.

Now I am not sure that is such a catastrophic change for the worse.  And indeed I am reminded, not for the first time, that as far as I know Heylin has never written a hit song in his life.  Indeed I am not sure he has ever written a song in his life.  And not for the first time I find myself asking, how can anyone who has never written music make such detailed judgements – and always without any justification?

Why is the “milk and honey” line worse  than the “melt” line (which incidentally is actually quite a lot harder to sing at the pace Dylan takes the song.)?

Anyway, Dylan took it where he wanted to take it, re-writes and all, and it then had a rather strange video added to it.  Later the song was also recorded by Bettye LaVette and there is a video of her version embedded into this article from Rolling Stone

And here is Dylan’s own video…

This dylan music video is Unbelievable!
byu/throe inbobdylan

Coming back to this piece after many years of not listening to it, some of this song really is a bit odd.  Take, for example,

Every head is so dignified
Every moon is so sanctified
Every urge is so satisfied as long as you’re with me
All the silver, all the gold
All the sweethearts you can hold
That don’t come back with stories untold
Are hanging on a tree

which is followed by

It’s unbelievable like a lead balloon
It’s so impossible to even learn the tune
Kill that beast and feed that swine
Scale that wall and smoke that vine
Feed that horse and saddle up the drum
It’s unbelievable, the day would finally come

and then please forgive me if I don’t make any attempt to explain exactly what is going on although this time around, as when I first heard the song all those years ago, I got the real impression that Bob was talking about his own life…

It’s unbelievable, it’s fancy-free
So interchangeable, so delightful to see
Turn your back, wash your hands
There’s always someone who understands
It don’t matter no more what you got to say
It’s unbelievable it would go down this way

Untold Dylan: who we are what we do

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

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

We also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with around 7000 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

You’ll find some notes about our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page of this site.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.  Not every index is complete but I do my best.   Tony Attwood

“Time Out Of Mind”:
Bob Dylan Paints His Masterpiece

By Larry Fyffe

Some music critics claim that the title ‘Time Out Of Mind’ is given to Bob Dylan by a play-writing ghost he encountered in a Mobile, Alabama, alleyway:

“Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coach-makers
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers’ brains, and then they
dream of love”
(William Shakespeare: Romeo And Juliet, Act 1, sc.4)

But the ghost of poet George Dillon, who’s always hanging around Greenwich Village with a feminist ghostess, has a different story – It’s he who hands Bob the following leaflet:

“So I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard
ground
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind”
(Edna St. Vincent  Millay: Dirge Without Music)

Bob Dylan’s lyrics and music within  ‘Time Out Of Mind’ support the contention of the latter above-mentioned ghost.

Neither in Millay’s poem nor Dylan’s song lyrics does the bard’s Queen Mab scatter fairie dust to transport  Millay and Dylan upward into a future dream world.

Instead, Edna writes of “loving hearts in the hard ground”, and Bob Dylan of  “my heart’s in the highlands” where the rest of his body doesn’t get to go:

“Well my heart’s in the Highlands at the break of day
Over the hills and far away
There’s a way to get there, and I’ll figure it out somehow
Well I’m already there in my mind, and that ‘s good enough for now”
(Bob Dylan: Highlands)

Only at “Untold” will Bob Dylan’s true inspirational source get to be known  because musicologists, even at ‘Rolling Stone’, aren’t that well-grounded in the history of literature.

The smudged finger-prints of a howling ghostess are all over the ‘Time Out Of Mine’ recording disc.

Dylan is not resigned, as Edna St. Vincent Mallay is not resigned, to the shutting out of the past. In ‘Time Out Of Mind’, Dylan mentions many songs he loves from times that are more or less  out of mind; he’s not letting them rest, and forgotten, buried deep in the vaults of the music industry.

Tossing in pieces of this and that song,
Bob Dylan cooks up a delicious witches’ brew: ‘Time Out Of Mind”:

“I can’t wait
Wait for you to change your mind
It’s late
I’m tryin’ to walk the line”
(Bob Dylan: Can’t Wait)

A dash of Cash he’s thrown in:

“Yes, I’ll admit I’m a fool for you
Because you’e mine, I walk the line”
(Johnny Cash: I Walk The Line)

With a fillet of Dylan:

“I wish I knew what it was that keeps me loving you so
I’m breathin’ hard standin’ at the gate
Oh, but I don’t know how much longer I can wait”
(Dylan: Can’t Wait)

A reference to:

“My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums
Should I put them by your gate
Or sad-eyed lady, should I wait?”
(Bob Dylan: Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands)

The chef mixes in more ingredients:

“I’m doomed  to love you
I been rollin’ through stormy weather
I’m thinkin’ of you”
(Dylan: Can’t Wait)

Into the broth, he pinches just a hint of Hoilday:

“Life is bare, gloomy, and misery everywhere
Stormy weather
And I just can’t get my poor self together”
(Billie Holiday: Stormy Weather)

Dylan pours in a few drops  of burgandy before he hits the harder stuff:

“I eat when I’m hungry, drink when I’m dry
And live my life on the square”
(Bob Dylan: Standing In The Doorway)

It has the whiff of Canadian Carter, and the bitter of American Ritter:

“I’ll eat when I’m hungry, I’ll drink when I’m dry
If hard times don’t kill me
I’ll lay down and die”
(Wilf Carter/Tex Ritter: Rye Whiskey)

So the cook tosses in some blue grass:

“Pacing round the room, hoping maybe she’d come back
Well, I been praying for salvation
Laying round in a one-room shack”
(Bob Dylan: Dirt Road Blues)

And the fingers of Flatt:

“Lay around the shack
Till the mail train comes back
And roll in my sweet baby’s arms”
(Lester Flatt: Rolling In My Sweet Baby’s Arms)

Bob laughs and heaves in a couple of locomotives:

“Some trains don’t pull no gamblers
No midlife ramblers like they did before”
(Bob Dylan: Trying To Get To Heaven)

But he gets tears in his eyes, when he throws Guthrie’s guts into the pot:

“This train don’t carry no gamblers
Liars, thieves, nor big shot ramblers
This train is bound for glory, this train”
(Woody Guthrie: This Train Is Bound For Glory)

And chucks in broken  pieces of a wooden door:

“I’ve been walking that lonesome valley
Trying to get to Heaven before they close the door”
(Bob Dylan: Trying To Get To Heaven)

A reference to:

“It’s gettin’ dark , too dark to see
I feel like I’m knockin’ on Heaven’s door”
(Bob Dylan: Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door)

And to:

“You gotta walk that lonesome valley
You gotta walk it by yourself
Nobody here can walk it for you
You gotta walk it by yourself”
(Woody Guthrie: Lonesome Valley)

Takes a taste of the smoldering soup:

“God, I’m waist deep, waist deep in the mist
It’s almost like, almost like I don’t exist”
(Cold Irons Bound)

Sprinkling into the hell-broth some scales of Seeger:

“Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says push on”
(Pete Seeger: Waist Deep In The Big Muddy)

Basement cook Dylan gives a final stir to the medicinal broth, and those bits and pieces of folk and blues songs all mix together into a single potent, word-painted musical masterpiece that goes down as smooth as a jug of moonshine whiskey.

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by Tony Attwood

God Knows is one of the songs Dylan played around with time and time again.  In the process it was re-written over and over although the central notion of the phrase “God Knows” is retained throughout, as is the very unusual (for Dylan) chord structure.

From all this reworking we have just two versions available, one on “Under the Red Sky” and the other the “Tell Tale Signs” version (this being the one originally recorded for Oh Mercy).

At the time that Dylan came to write this song he had most recently composed Tweeter and the monkey man (one of his gothic tales) for the Wilburys, and then Born in Time, a gentle love song.   The next song he wrote after “God Knows” was Disease of Conceit.

All of this makes “God Knows” something of an oddity since it is an openly religious song, more in keeping with his writing ten years earlier with songs such as Are you ready with that same phrase repeated over and over.

But what is so different with this song from those of a decade previously is that Dylan is no longer telling us that if we don’t accept God as our lord and master in all things, then no matter what good deeds we do along the way, we are going to burn in eternal torment when the Second Coming occurs.  The message in the earlier era was clear and simple: if we have not admitted that God is omnipotent, omnipresent and desiring of worship, then we’ve had it.

This song is different, and it is helpful that we have the two versions because (not for the first time) the one that Dylan chose for “Red Sky” is (in my humble opinion) much inferior to the version recorded for Oh Mercy and now available on “Tell Tale Signs”.

There are many differences between the two songs, not least the ending.  Red Sky’s version has a very odd fade out during the performance of the verse (I can’t grasp a single possible artistic reason for this – which indeed may be my failing, but I’ve read all around this subject and I can’t find anyone who can put forward any explanation other than the fact that the engineer thought it a good idea at the time).  The “Tell Tale” version is much better in every regard, in my view.

Also when it comes to the lyrics, these are quite different.   Red Sky has as an ending

God knows we can get all the way from here to there
Even if we’ve got to walk a million miles by candlelight

Tell Tale Signs tells us

God knows we can rise above the darkest hour
Under any circumstance

I think those both have something to say.  What a shame they couldn’t both have popped up on the same version!

As it is the “Red Sky” version has (and I say this with all humility since I am writing about the greatest songwriter of our age) just about the worst opening line Dylan ever wrote…  “God knows you ain’t pretty”.

Ok he does redeem himself a little with the verse itself,

God knows you ain’t pretty
God knows it’s true
God knows there ain’t anybody
Ever gonna take the place of you

but even so.  The Tell Tale Signs version is less offensive

God knows I need you
God knows I do
God knows there ain’t anybody
Ever gonna take the place of you

We also get an interesting comparison between God’s two demolitions of the world: the flood in which Noah survived and the Second Coming in which only the believers will survive…

God knows it’s a struggle
God knows it’s a crime
God knows there’s gonna be no more water
But fire next time

Some of the rest of it I can’t fully understand

God don’t call it treason
God don’t call it wrong
It was supposed to last a season
But it’s been so strong for so long

It is almost as if Dylan is saying that God is not in total control but is just letting mankind pull the world apart through his own folly, so it will all end whenever mankind just gets to the end of the line (rather than on the date God says):

God knows it’s fragile
God knows everything
God knows it could snap apart right now
Just like putting scissors to a string

In one sense I think Bob was just throwing lines down, without the song needing to have the sort of unified message that the earlier Christian works had…

God knows that when you see it
God knows you’ve got to weep
God knows the secrets of your heart
He’ll tell them to you when you’re asleep

Dylan obviously loved the song as he played it on stage no less than 188 times from 1991 to 2006, and of course that is in part what encouraged the re-writing of the lyrics.

I suspect one of things he always enjoyed about the song was the use of the chord known in musical circles as “G augmented” (it is written G+ on song sheets), which I can’t recall him using anywhere else at all.  It comes half way through the third line and gives the whole song a different feel – although in the last three verses he drops this unique structure and sits with the more conventional G / C chords.

If you play the song just listen to “God knows there ain’t anybody” and hear the accompaniment to “ain’t anybody”.  It sure is different.

This sudden use of a chord that Dylan has never (or to cover myself perhaps I should say “very rarely”) used before shows just how much Dylan was experimenting.  OK it is only one chord, but rock music composers rarely stray from their own favourite structures and approaches so suddenly to pop up with a chord that one has never used before, and which has such a different feel, really is something.

And at the same time Dylan is going back ten years to his Christian songs, but with a completely different feel.  The emphasis is on the omnipotence of God not the need to worship Him.

The fact that Dylan dedicated “Red Sky” to his daughter, then aged four, gives us quite a clue however, for the message that God knows everything is one that is often given to young children, especially when trying to teach them that telling lies is not the best way forwards in family life, and that admitting wrong doing and asking for forgiveness (from your parents and in prayers from God) is better.

One unexpected chord doesn’t a great song make, but at least we have the two versions to compare, and through that can get a better idea of where Dylan was taking us at this moment.

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Please note this is not an article about real events

The Libel Case  Of “Bob Dylan vs Bobbie Gentry” Settles Out Of Court
By Larry Fyffe

In this day and age of ‘Fake News’, now that the court documents have been unsealed, the truth and  details involved in Bob Dylan’s lawsuit against ‘Ode To Billy Joe’ singer Bobbie Gentry is revealed here for the first time.

The court papers show that Dylan, always concerned with his right to privacy, takes issue with Gentry’s intended title for the song, and with some of it’s content.

Gentry’s original manuscript of that song, presented as prime evidence at the trial, indicates the title is to be “Ode To Bobby Blue”, and that it contains what the plaintiff’s lawyers contend are libellous statements.

To wit: “She said Bobby Blue and Suzy Roe were throwing something off the Tallahassee Bridge”, and that “Today Bobby Blue jumped off the Tallahassee Bridge”.

Lawyers claim their client Bobby Dylan and Suze Rotolo were indeed in Florida at one time, but that the plaintiff’s injuries were sustained as a result of a motorcycle accident; not from  jumping off of a bridge.

The defendant’s lawyers counterclaim  that Dylan himself confirms the incident, and they produce the following documented evidence.

“Call your Ma in Tallahassee
Tell her baby’s on the line
Tell her not to worry
Everything is gonna be fine”
(Bob Dylan: Got My Mind Made Up)

And that there is reference, in another song to a ring, clear evidence as to what Suze and Bobby were throwing off the bridge that day. And the reason as to why: a love relationship gone sour.

“She wears an Egyptian ring
That sparkles before she speaks
She’s a hypnotist collector, you are a walking antique
Bow down to her on Sunday
Salute her when her birthday comes”
(Bob Dylan: She BelongTo Me)

The lawyers for the defence also present the following documented evidence.

“I must have been mad
I never knew what I had
Until I threw it all away”
(Bob Dylan: I Threw It All Away)

The unsealed court documents reveal that Bob Dylan’s lawyers insist that the red Egyptian ring was given to Joan Baez by their client, and not to Suze Rotolo, and that the defendant Bobbie Gentry should therefore be instructed by the judge to substitute the following words, submitted to the court by their client, that change the title, and the geographical location of Gentry’s song. To wit:

“Mama, of course, she said Hi
Have you heard the news, he said with a grin
The Vice President’s gone mad
Where? Downtown. When? Last night
Hmm, say, that’s too bad”
(Bob Dylan: Clothes Line Saga)

To cut a long story short, the two parties reach an out-of-court settlement, that places the story of one “Billy Joe”, not “Bobby Blue”, in the Mississippi county of Tellahatchie, and not in the State of Florida, as stated in the Gentry’s original song lyrics.

“And then she said, I got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge
Today, Billy Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge
….He  said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctow Ridge
And she and Billy Joe was throwing something off the Tallahatchie Bridge”
(Bobbie Gentry: Ode To Billy Joe)

At a news conference pertaining to the recently released court papers, Joan Baez swears that she and  Bob Dylan had never been to Tallahassee.

Elsewhere

Articles on Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan Year by Year, Decade by Decade

An index to every song reviewed on this site is on the home page – just scroll down.

The Discussion Group

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By Tony Attwood

Throughout 1989 Dylan regularly explored the world of contradictions and uncertainty, the notion that the world is not as we think.   Songs such as Everything is Broken, Series of Dreams,  Most of the Time and Man in a Long Black Coat from that year all have commentaries about the uncertainty of what on earth is going on around us.

In 1990 Dylan took this exploration into a new arena with references in his songs to nursery rhymes which also bend reality – in their case they bending the world so far that it becomes further and further disconnected from our own world.

My guess (and of course it can be no more than that) is that Dylan was taking his thinking that had caused the writing of the songs noted above, onto a stage and we get songs such as 10,000 men.

The most common point of origin that is cited for this song is the 17th century nursery rhyme, “The Grand old Duke of York”…

Oh, The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.

And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down.

But there can be others (and indeed some of these might be the origin of the nursery rhyme).   For example in the Bible there is 1 Samuel 18:7

As they danced, they sang: “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.”

On this topic the New American Bible says

David returned from killing the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with joy and with musical instruments.   The women sang as they played, and said, “Saul has slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands.”  Then Saul became very angry, for this saying displeased him; and he said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, but to me they have ascribed thousands. Now what more can he have but the kingdom?”

Any commentary I could add to that would undoubtedly be deemed sacrilegious so I shall move on to Barak’s troops fighting against Siserato in the defeat the Canaanites referred to in Judges 4:10-14…

 Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time.   She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramahand Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided.  She sent for Barak son of Abinoamfrom Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, “The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: ‘Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor.  I will lead Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.’”

Barak said to her, “If you go with me, I will go; but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go.”

 “Certainly I will go with you,” said Deborah. “But because of the course you are taking, the honour will not be yours, for the Lord will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman.” So Deborah went with Barak to Kedesh. There Barak summoned Zebulun and Naphtali, and ten thousand men went up under his command. Deborah also went up with him.

Dylan, as we have found often in these reviews, certainly knows his Bible, so any of these points could be a key reference.

However there are many other sources.  It has often been suggested that the song for “Masters of War” was built on the medieval English folk song “Nottamun Town” which has the lines in it…

Sat down on a hard, hot cold frozen stone
Ten thousand stood round me yet I’s alone
Took my hat in my hand, for to keep my head warm
Ten thousand got drowned that never was born

With all these antecedents for “10,000” I thought there might be a clue within the song itself to tell us which 10,000 was on Dylan’s mind, and I went searching for another reference point.  The most singular reference comes with the line about “Oxford Blue”, and the best I got was that the The King’s Own Calgary Regiment  wore a scarlet tunic with Oxford blue facings.   Not very definitive, I admit, although it does relate to the “gonna get killed” of the first verse.

Ten thousand men on a hill
Ten thousand men on a hill
Some of ’m goin’ down, some of ’m gonna get killed

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

A little later we get seven wives, which staying with the same approach, leads me to think of the 18th century nursery rhyme.  Dylan sings

Ten thousand men looking so lean and frail
Ten thousand men looking so lean and frail
Each one of ’m got seven wives, each one of ’m just out of jail

The nursery rhyme has it

As I was going to St. Ives I met a man with seven wives,
Each wife had seven sacks, each sack had seven cats,
Each cat had seven kits: kits, cats, sacks and wives,
How many were going to St. Ives?

Of course it is hard to decide exactly where Dylan was going with this, but overall my suspicion is that when he wrote it in 1990 he was taking his “all is not as it seems” concept from the previous year and had started to focus on the largest source of songs of this nature: the traditional nursery rhyme.  He had, after all, just composed Handy Dandy and Cat’s in the Well both of which have nursery rhyme connections.   Indeed, as I said in my review of Handy Dandy, confusion is everywhere and nothing is as it seems in these songs.

But there is one more point here: where was all this going?

I think one clue comes from the fact that the only time Bob played the song in concert was on November 12, 2000.   But from 1997 to 2011 he was playing the song that came out of 10,000 men, time and time again: Cold Irons Bound.

Play one song after the other and you can hear the similarity in musical styles and approach.   And the words too suggest to me that Dylan was certainly looking back to 10,000 men when he composed “Cold Irons Bound”.

Oh, the winds in Chicago have torn me to shreds
Reality has always had too many heads
Some things last longer than you think they will
There are some kind of things you can never kill

It’s you and you only I been thinking about
But you can’t see in and it’s hard lookin’ out
I’m twenty miles out of town in cold irons bound

Well the fat’s in the fire and the water’s in the tank
The whiskey’s in the jar and the money’s in the bank
I tried to love and protect you because I cared
I’m gonna remember forever the joy that we shared

Finally, it seems, the nursery rhyme meets the real world, and as always with such collisions, it is not necessarily very pleasant, but with Dylan it is always insightful

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The Ballad Of Frankly And Joni
By Larry Fyffe

Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell shows the influence of Bob Dylan’s writing style, and of the themes therein enclosed. She reworks the latter from a female perspective.

“Once I had mountains in the palm of my hand
And rivers that ran through every day
I must have been mad
I never knew what I had
Until I threw it all away”
(Bob Dylan: I Threw It All Away)

In the above lyrics, Dylan makes  comparison of the deliberate destruction of the beauty of Mother Nature with his carelessness in discarding a comforting one, and all the regret that it brings.

“Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
til it’s gone
They paved Paradise
And put up a parking lot
….I don’t want give it
Why you want give
Why you want give it all away?
Giving it all, giving it all away”
(Mitchell: Big Yellow Taxi)

In the above lyrics, Mitchell compares the exploitation of Mother Nature with her endeavour at love; it being exploited by another for selfish gain, rather than there existing an equitable relationship.

Capitalist societies exploit the non-exploitive endeavours of others, declares Dylan:

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

While with true love, Mitchell feels like she’s the one doing the exploiting; however, nobody’s gets hurt:

“Oh, you are in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter
But you taste so sweet
I could drink a case of you, I could drink a case of you
Still be on my feet
Still be on my feet”
(Mitchell: A Case Of You)

Under the influence of Enlightenment writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the preRomantic poet William Blake, Dylan symbolizes the ‘other’, the female, not so kindly. He depicts her as a threat to the macho individualism of the male. Especially, a threat to male artists, like himself, who are concerned about being chained to a kitchen table.

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

Joni turns the kitchen table around: the female needn’t conform to social norms either, she retorts; in general, women, being closer to Mother Nature than her male counterparts, are usually more capable of coping with the natural flow of life; it’s trials and tribulations.

“I stepped outside to breath the air
And stare up at the stars
Big dipper hanging there
….And I’m taming the tiger
(You can’t tame the tiger)
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
Here kitty, kitty
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forest of the night”
(Mitchell: Taming The Tiger)

Dylan, on the other hand, champions the independence of William Blake’s “Tiger”; even though it might end up getting shot by some trophy hunter.

“You burned so bright
Roll on, John
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
In the forests of the night
Cover him up and let him sleep”
(Dylan: Roll On, John)

Notwithstanding Ernest Hemingway, writer of the dark Existentialist novel “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, the title itself a quote from Metaphysicist poet John Donne. The last thing Hemingway shot was himself.

“For whom does the bell toll, love?
It tolls for you and me.”
(Bob Dylan: Moonlight)

But to Bob, more of a Romantic than an Existentialist, the words are just useful as a tool for a possible seduction. As his name suggests, Dylan leans towards the slightly sunnier poetry of the neoRomantics.

“Do not go gentle into that good night
…..Rage, rage against the dying of the light
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight”
(Dylan Thomas: Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night)

Brightened up even further by a British band.

“If you dance with me tonight
We’ll catch the dying of the light
And we’ll catch the sun”
(High Flying Birds: The Dying Of The Light)

At all this macho rhetoric, Joni Mitchell pokes fun (at Blake, at Thomas, at the Beatles, at hip-hop, at herself) as she puns on an aircraft manufacturing company.

“I watched the stars chuck down their spears
And a plane went blinking by
And I thought of Anna
Wild dear
Like fireworks in the sky
Fire works in the sky
I’m so sick of this game
It’s hip, it’s hot
Life’s too short, the while thing’s gotten
Boring!……

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
(You can’t tame the tiger)
Oh be a nice kitty, kitty
(Boring!)
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
Nice kitty, kitty
(Boring, boring!)
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
(Fight to the light, fight to the light)
In the forest of the night”
(Joni Mitchell: Taming The Tiger)

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By Tony Attwood

This article continues on from my previous reviews of the Wilburys first album, and wraps up the reviews of that first LP.  There is an index to all the relevant reviews from the album at the end of this piece.

Of the remaining songs from the LP (excluding the later bonus tracks) “Congratulations” is absolutely obviously a Dylan song and indeed in an interview George Harrison confirmed that “those are mostly Bob Dylan lyrics”, and I think that is fairly obvious.  The problem with the song is that it is Dylan on a bad day, for pretty miserable a piece it is too – although not so miserable that Bob couldn’t perform it three times at his own gigs in 1989/90.  But maybe he just wanted to annoy everyone there.

It is possible (as millions of songwriters have found), to write songs about lost love, and to make them sad but to make them elegant or beautiful or telling or….  “Weepies” they used to be called.   But there is a vindictiveness at the start of this song which takes it out of all those categories.  It is just plain nasty.

Congratulations for breaking my heart
Congratulations for tearing it all apart
Congratulations you finally did succeed
Congratulations for leaving me in need

The intervening verses are more in the general style of lost love songs

This morning I looked out my window and found
A bluebird singing but there was no one around
At night I lay alone in my bed
With an image of you goin’ around in my head

But then the vindictiveness comes back…

Congratulations for bringing me down
Congratulations now I’m sorrow bound
Congratulations you got a good deal
Congratulations how good you must feel

and for the last time…

Congratulations for making me wait
Congratulations now it’s too late
Congratulations you came out on top
Congratulations you never did know when to stop

Bob never seems to have the melody totally under control, and the rest of the band singing “Congratulations” all seems a bit naff to me.   Meanwhile the music is simple enough: chords C F G F C repeated in the “congratulations” part and a slightly more adventurous main verse section that adds a Dm and a G6.

But to what point?  To tell a woman that he is really annoyed with her?  I suspect she probably knew.  To make us feel wretched?  To create a memorable song?  If so, it failed.  To fill up a track on the album when the band was saying “We need one more from you Bob”.  More than likely

Of course I really don’t know for sure, and as must be obvious by now if you have read this far, I don’t want to know.  This song has no redeeming features for me.

Moving on to the rest of the tracks…

Although “Margarita” has Bob Dylan listed as a singer alongside Tom Petty this is a song from the first Wilburys album in which I can find little Dylan input.  The opening verse

It was in Pittsburgh, late one night
I lost my hat, got into a fight
I rolled and tumbled, till I saw the light
Went to the Big Apple, took a bite

could be Bob in a silly mood and when we get to the end verse, well who knows?  I just don’t think he wrote this…

I asked her what we’re gonna do tonight
She said “Cahuenga Langa-Langa-Shoe Box Soup”
We better keep tryin’ till we get it right
Tala mala sheela jaipur dhoop

She wrote a long letter on a short piece of paper

I do like that last line though.  I wish I’d thought of that.

“Not alone any more” is very much a Jeff Lynne piece written for Roy Orbison, in my estimation.  Maybe Bob is in there strumming a rhythm guitar, but probably not doing too much more.  And I suspect much the same can be said of “Rattled”, which is a variant 12 bar blues, which has a rhythmic break of the type that I’ve never come across Dylan using.

“End of the Line” is a song that again doesn’t have Bob featuring much at all, although everyone else is involved, so I rather suspect not only is it not a composition he was involved with, but also he might not even have been there.  Or if he was he is just strumming a rhythm guitar.  It certainly has some Tom Petty in it and there is a lovely holding back of the delivery of the lyrics when he is involved which is one of Tom’s tricks.

The closest we get to anything Bob-like is

Maybe somewhere down the road aways (end of the line)
You’ll think of me, wonder where I am these days (end of the line)
Maybe somewhere down the road when somebody plays (end of the line)
Purple haze

But would Bob have put “Purple haze” there?  Somehow I think not.

So what we now have for this first Wilburys LP is the following (with links to my reviews  of the songs considered previously)…

• Handle with care
• Dirty World
• Rattled (see above)
• Last night
• Not Alone Any More (see above)
• Congratulations (see above)
• Heading for the light
• Margarita (see above)
• Tweeter and the monkey man
• End of the Line (see above)

“Maxine” and “Like a Ship” were added separately as bonus tracks and I will deal with them anon.

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Billy, Mistress Mary, And The Queen Of Hues: The Mystery Of W.H., Solved!

By Larry Fyffe

Critics wonder, “Who the heck is William Holme?”:

“Scarlet Town in the month of May
Sweet William Holme on his death bed lay
Mistress Mary by the side of the bed
Kissin’ his face, heapin’ prayers on his head
So brave and true, so gentle is he
I’ll weep for him as he would weep for me”
(Bob Dylan: Scarlet Town)

But then these so-called ‘know-it-all’ critics miss that, in order to protect himself, Dylan changes the last name of “W.H”. when he refers to him in that song.

And, to compound their ineptitude, these very same critics dismiss out-of-hand, the songwriter’s claim that he’s hung around on the streets of America with a buddy, a writer of plays, by the name of ‘Billy’ Shakespeare:

“Well, Shakespeare, he’s in the alley
With his pointed shoes and his bells
Speaking with some French girl
Who says she knows me well”
(Dylan: Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again)

There’s credible evidence that Dylan’s telling the truth: the sonnets of the same William Shakespeare back up Bobby’s story.

In ‘Portrait Of W.H.’, the investigative reporter Oscar Wilde uncovers loads of evidence that “Mr. W.H.”, to whom the sonnets are dedicated, is actually  William (Willie) Hughes; not William Herbert, the poet and patron of the arts, as it’s conjectured to be by many critics.

Turns out that ‘Willie’, as he is known to his friends, happens to be an effeminate and flamboyant stage actor who plays the parts of both male and female characters; rather embarrassed that he finds himself infatuated with the androgynous youth, with this ‘girlie boy’, Billy disguises the actor’s name in the sonnets by punning on the words ‘Will’ and ‘Hues’.

“A man in hue, all Hues, in his controlling
Which steal man’s eyes and women’s
souls amazeth”
(Shakespeare: Sonnet 20)

And somewhat more revealing:

“One will of mine, to make thy large will more
Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill
Think all but one, and me in that one Will”
(Shakespeare: Sonnet 135)

And a close examination of song lyrics demonstrates that Dylan too resorts to puns when he talks about this ‘handsome young man’. Although the songwriter considers the actor to be “my friend”, he’s uncomfortable with “W.H.” hanging around the streets with Billy and himself. In one song, Bobby admits he’s against Willie being there:

“I was born here and I’ll die here against  my will
I know it looks like I’m movin’, but I’m standin’ still
Every nerve in my body is naked and numb”
(Not Dark Yet)

In another song, Dylan makes a cruel pun on ‘drag queens’ in reference to
the young actor:

“Yes, I wish for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is
To see you”
(Dylan: Positively Fourth Street)

Bobby gets his wish, and the whole messy truth is witnessed by another singer, Ricky Nelson:

“People came from miles around, everyone was there
Yoko brought her walrus, there was magic in the air
And over in the corner, much to my surprise
Mr. Hughes hid in Dylan’s shoes
Wearing his disguise”
(Ricky Nelson: Garden Party)

They all say  that it happened pretty quick……Dylan plugs in his electric guitar, and growls out, “It’s all over now, Baby Hue”.

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Updated 6 October 2017

By Tony Attwood

Tweeter and the Monkey Man comes from the Travelling Wilbury’s first album, and even if the song wasn’t officially published by Dylan’s Special Rider Music and even if he didn’t so obviously sing it, we’d all still know it was a Dylan composition.  It just is pure Dylan, where a large amount of the album is not.

The multiplicity of words, the story that sometimes makes sense and sometimes leaves you guessing, the repeated chord sequence; it’s all Dylan.

George Harrison is often quoted as saying that the writing was in part undertaken by Tom Petty, and that certainly is possible, but other sources suggest what Harrison meant was that the idea was discussed by the two men.  My money is firmly on that latter option – they discussed the idea but the essence of the song is Dylan not Petty.

And besides what the famous Harrison quote really says is that Tom and Bob were sitting in the kitchen talking about Americana, and the others recorded and then transcribed what was said.

But Harrison then went on to say that Bob subsequently changed the song – and indeed what we really have is a version of songwriting that Dylan often used, in which he would take lines from books, poems or movies and then start working on them to weave a text which sometimes almost makes sense – but also sometimes doesn’t.

Thus there are elements of a film noir in here, along with quite a bit of Bruce Springsteen and quite possibly even a bit of Hank Williams (Mansion on the Hill – a song by both composers.)

Staying with this last point, “Tweeter and The Monkey Man” is sometimes regarded as a playful homage to the songs of Bruce Springsteen, and certainly the song includes the titles of many Springsteen songs such as “Stolen Car”, “Mansion On The Hill”, “Thunder Road”, “State Trooper”, “Factory”, “The River”, “Lion’s Den”, “Lion’s Den” and “Paradise”.  Plus “Jersey Girl” (written by Tom Waits).

But there is a story within this accumulation of sources, the story of the two drug dealers – Tweeter and the Monkeyman who are being tracked by the unnamed Undercover Cop, with the complication that the cop’s sister is apparently transgender, and was romantically involved with Monkeyman.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performed a cover of the song several times in 2013.  There are several recordings by Tom Petty from different concerts – this one strikes me as the best by a long way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW9OgTUw4VA

In an interview with Rolling Stone in 2013, Tom Petty said in relation to Bruce Springsteen, “It was not meant to mock him at all.   It started with Bob Dylan saying, ‘I want to write a song about a guy named Tweeter. And it needs somebody else.’ I said, ‘The Monkey Man.’ And he says, ‘Perfect, ‘Tweeter and the Monkey Man.” And he said, ‘Okay, I want to write the story and I want to set it in New Jersey.’

“I was like, ‘OK, New Jersey.’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, we could use references to Bruce Springsteen titles.’ He clearly meant it as praise.”

The chord sequence is pure Dylan, it goes round and round… and round

Am   G   F   Am

While the chorus is built around the contrasting

Am   Em7   D   Am

It is quite remarkable to get this much of a song out of such a modest chordal base.  But what makes it work, I think, is the fact anything involving drugs and dealing has to be an endless rotation of darkness, and that is what the chord sequences paint – rather like the really Gothic elements of Gotham occasionally seen in parts of the Batman movies.  Indeed the opening verse paints true Gotham darkness, and it stays dark, somehow without ever being grim…

Tweeter and the Monkey Man were hard up for cash.
They stayed up all night selling cocaine and hash
to an undercover cop who had a sister named Jan.
For reasons unexplained, she loved the Monkey Man.

It is also remarkable how quickly and economically the characterisation and story line are traced out, with the two being intertwined

There are also some wonderful drops into unexpected detail out of the blue, which despite their dissonance from what has gone before, pull us back to the film noir elements

The undercover cop was left tied up to a tree
near the souvenir stand by the old abandoned factory.

So what we get here are generalisations,

Next day the undercover cop was hot in pursuit.

And specifics,

He was taking the whole thing personal, he didn’t care about the loot.

as well as the social commentary

In Jersey anything’s legal as long as you don’t get caught.”

as well as references to real places…

Someplace by Rahway Prison they ran out of gas.

and the surreal…

The TV set was blown up, every bit of it was gone
ever since the nightly news show that the Monkey Man was on.

A rare treat, and still great fun.

What is on the site

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Blake, Keats, And Spots Of Ink: Spinning Reels Of Rhyme
By LarryFyffe

An analysis of Bob Dylan’s writing style that is available here, and positively
nowhere else.

When Bob Dylan pays tribute to a poem or a song by mentioning it in one of his own songs, he usually reworks some of the original poem’s or song’s lines.

A characteristic of the Dylanesque technique is for the songwriter to leave in tact, or vary a bit, the end-rhymes, or end-words, that are in the original work.

Here, Dylan changes ‘pains’ to ‘pain’,
and ‘drains’ to ‘drain’, end-rhymes that exist in the poem sourced:

“It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there
Well my sense of humanity is going down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing, there’s
been some kind of pain”
(Dylan: It’s Not Dark Yet)

Dylan nods his head to one of the great English Romantic poets:

“My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains
My senses, as though of hemlock I had drunk
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk”
(John Keats: Ode To A Nightingale)

And here’s a source song that end-rhymes “fears/tears”, but Dylan changes to “fear/tears”:

“Go on back to see the Gypsy
He can move you from the rear
Drive you from your fear
Bring you through the mirror
He did it in Las Vegas
He can do it here
Outside the lights were shining
On the river of tears”
(Dylan: Went To See The Gypsy)

It’s a song made famous by the fabulous Ink Spots:

“There’s a lady they call the Gypsy
She can look in the future
And drive away all your fears
Everything will come right
If you only believe the Gypsy
She could tell at a glance
That my heart was full of tears”
(Steve Angello:The Gypsy)

End-rhymes can remain untouched, “fire/desire”:

“You’re the one that reaches me
You’re the one that I admire
Every time we meet together
My soul feels like it’s on fire
Nothing matters to me
And there’s nothing I desire”
(Dylan: Nobody ‘Cept You)

The poem source is by a pre-Romantic:

“Bring me my bow of burning gold
Bring me my arrows of desire
Bring me my spear; O clouds unfold
Bring me my chariot of fire”
(Willian Blake: Jerusalem)

Another of Dylan’s song lyrics contains as well “unfolds/old” in place of “unfold/gold”:

“As his youth unfolds
He is centuries old
Just to see him at play makes me smile
….He’s young and on fire
Full of hope and desire”
(Dylan: Lord Protect My Child)

Now an unaltered end- rhyme, “bright” with “night”:

“They walked along the old canal
A little confused, I remember well
And stopped into a strange hotel
With a neon burning bright
He felt the heat of the night”
(Dylan: Simple Twist Of Fate)

The original, a poem by the pre-Romantic:

“Did He smile His work to see
Did He who made the Lamb make thee?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night”
(William Blake: The Tyger)

Often Dylan creates the end-rhyme anew; here from “brow/x” to “brow/now”:

“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”
(Dylan: Tell Ol’ Bill)

It’s a song lyric sourced from a very famous poem by the melancholy
Romantic:

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

And this example sourced from the same sad poet with “enjoyed/cloyed” changed to “joyful/x”, and “young/tongue” to”young/ sung”.

“May your heart always be joyful
May your your songs always be sung
And may you stay forever young”
(Dylan: Forever Young)

This particular Dylan tribute to Keats alludes to:

“For ever warm and still to be enjoyed
For ever panting, and for ever young
All breathing human passion far above
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue”
(Keats: Ode On A Grecian Urn)

Forever the spinning wheels of rhyme.

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By Tony Attwood

You could create a whole treatise on the magical lines of Bob Dylan’s songwriting just by working through Street Legal.  In fact you could do just from “Where are you tonight?”  And then, if you had a mind to, you could find all sorts of links to that later masterpiece, “Not Dark Yet”.

Dylan wrote seven of the songs for this album in 1977 – although possibly with some preliminary work in 1976, and for all the people who are not convinced that this is one of the great masterworks from Dylan, there is little I can do but to say either listen to the power of Dylan’s singing on “Where are you tonight”, or look at the lyrics.

Here was a master of the art of songwriting with a million emotions powering around in his brain and trying to find ways to get them into songs that might express where he was at the time.

Lines like

The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure, to live it you have to explode.

And

She could feel my despair as I climbed up her hair and discovered her invisible self.

This is the man who has already invented so many new ways for rock and blues music to evolve suddenly popping up with something utterly new by way of insight and form.  Quite why so many Dylan fans don’t like this album is beyond me.

Maybe the problem for some critics is that Dylan is singing about his life and not the eternal verities – and yet for me that is the key to this work.   It is the eternal verities seen through personal conflict and experience.  Just think of

If you don’t believe there’s a price for this sweet paradise
Remind me to show you the scars

Had anyone in pop and rock ventured into that territory before?  This is the theme of the blues expanded and explored as never before.

And less you think I am reducing this whole album – this whole year – to one song, I would urge to consider the album itself.   It is not all perfection – “No time to think” has its problems with the form given to the song for example, but he still manages to cast an eye over his own past musings mixed up with his own divorce problems.

Judges will haunt you, the country priestess will want you
Her worst is better than best
I’ve seen all these decoys through a set of deep turquoise eyes
And I feel so depressed

And much of this is timeless.  Try this verse

Anger and jealousy’s all that he sells us
He’s content when you’re under his thumb
Madmen oppose him, but your kindness throws him
To survive it you play deaf and dumb

He could be talking about a teacher who tormented you at school or any contemporary idiot in power.  Anyone with power in fact.

And if I still haven’t convinced you yet, try “Changing of the Guards” – one of the very few Dylan songs where the Wikipedia article writes about Dylan’s musical composition, rather than just his lyrics or the production (and I promise, I didn’t write that).  Dylan said of the song “It means something different every time I sing it,” and maybe that is what people don’t like about the whole collection of songs from this year.  It really does change its meaning the more you listen to it.

And it is one hell of a recovery from the previous year when he wrote just one song.

Oh yes and we have Helena Springs popping up too.

1. Changing of the Guards
2. Is your love in vain?
3. Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)
4. No Time to Think
5. True Love Tends to Forget
6. We better Talk this Over
7. Where are you tonight?

It was dark, but not as dark as Dylan could ultimately imagine.

• Bob Dylan year by year; decade by decade
• Dylan songs of the 1970s
• Untold Dylan: “I’ll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours”

Macavity Was There: The Untold Dylan Tapes
By Larry Fyffe

The source of Bob Dylan’s “l’m Not There” lyrics is revealed!

That would be the taped “confession” of the mysterious street-wise, jive-talking cat burglar known as Macavity, as made by the “suspect” to the famous untouchable detective TS Eliot of Scotland Yard.

“It was all because of a dame”, Eliot tells his partner Sam Spade, as the untouchable head of the investigation locks the tape in a vault at Scotland Yard.

Supposedly unobserved, and peering in the window is master thief Bob Dylan.

The transcript of that tape (edited to protect the innocent) is presented here; note how closely the lyrics of Dylan’s song follow what Scotland Yard  labels the “suspect’s confession” (suggesting a link between TS Eliot and Bob Dylan).

(Beginning of the Scotland Yard tape)

Eliot:
Macavity’s a Mystery Cat, he’s called the Hidden Paw –
For he’s the master criminal who can defy the Law
He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard,
the Flying Squad’s despair
For when they reach the scene of the crime – Macavity’s not there

Suspect:
She came all right-toned and she’s all too tight in my neighbourhood
She cried both day and night
I know because it was there
It’s a milestone, but she’s down on her luck
And she daily salooning, but to me too
hot to book
I would then

Eliot:
You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air –
But I tell you once and once again,
Macavity’s not there

Suspect:
No I don’t belong to her I don’t belong to every choir
She’s my prize forsaken angel but she don’t hear me cry
She’s a long-hearted mystic and she
can’t carry on
When I there she’s alright but when she’s not when I’m gone
Heaven knows that the answers she don’t calling no one
She’s the way for sailing beautiful
She’s mine for the one
And I lost her attention by temptation as it runs
But she don’t bother me
But I’m not there I’m gone

Eliot:
You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in
His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly domed
His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed
He sways his head from side to side with movement like a snake
And when you think he’s half asleep he’s always wide awake

Suspect:
Now I’ve cried tonight like I cried the night before
And I’m leased on the high some
But I dream about the door
It’s so long she’s foresaken by a fate with the tale
It don’t hang approximation
She smiled “Fare Thee Well”

Eliot:
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity
For he’s a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity
You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square
But when a crime’s discovered, then
Macavity’s not there

Suspect:
But she knows the kingdom weighs so high above her
And I run but I wait
And it’s not too fast or slam
But I’ll not perceive her
I’m not there I’m gone

Eliot:
He’s outwardly respectable (they say he cheats at cards)
And his footprints are not found in any file at Scotland’s Yard
And when the larder’s empty, or the jewel case is rifled….
Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair
Ay, there’s the wonder of the thing! Macavity’s not there

Suspect:
Well it’s hard to stake in
And I don’t far believe
It’s a bag full it’s amusing
That she’s hard too hard to lead
It’s a load it’s a crime
The way she mauled me around

Eliot:
But it’s useless to investigate – Macavity’s not there
And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:
It must have been Macavity – but he’s a mile away
You’ll be sure to find him resting or
a-licking of his thumb
Or engaged in doing complicated long
division sums

Suspect:
Well it’s all about division
And I cry for a bail
I don’t need anybody now beside me to tell
And it’s all affirmation I received but it’s not
She’s a long haunting beauty
But she’s gone like a spark
And she’s gone

(End of Scotland Yard’s “confession” tape)

So what really happened at the scene of the  crime? Nobody really knows; a trial’s held, but because the tape was stolen, the jury is locked.

Oh, mama, can this really be the end?

You might also enjoy

I’m not there

MACAVITY, THE MYSTERY CAT

And for further reading: Untold Dylan – the site index

By Tony Attwood

This website is dedicated (as I am sure you know unless you just stumbled onto this page by chance) to the musical compositions of Bob Dylan.  Which, when it comes to the Wilburys, gives me a problem since the songs are credited to everyone in the band.

One or two of the Wilburys songs I am omitting from the site completely because there is evidence that Bob simply wasn’t there on the day that song was written and recorded.  But others are more problematic so I have resolved to give them a mention.

The complete track list for the first album is

• Handle with Care
• End of the Line (x)
• Dirty World*
• Rattled
• Last Night
• Not Alone any more
• Congratulations*
• Heading for the Light
• Margarita*
• Tweeter and the Monkey Man*
• End of the Line
• Maxine
• Like a Ship*

The last two songs were added in the 2007 re-issue of the album. The songs with the * have Dylan singing a main vocal part, which is probably a strong clue concerning authorship – although as the guys said in interviews, much of the time they sat around throwing lines at each other.

I have decided not to include “End of the Line” because not only has it got no feel for being a Dylan composition at all, but also I don’t think Dylan contributes anything to the vocals or instrumentation.  I guess he had a day off.

I’m including “Heading for the Light” really to put in a note to say yes, I know Bob was there, and maybe he contributed a line or two somewhere, but this really isn’t a Dylanesque composition at all – from the start it sounds like George Harrison, and (to me) a not particularly inspired George Harrison at that.  In short, what I hear is just a pop song – a thought backed up by the fact that Harrison’s publishing company claims the title.

One section here that stands out as non-Dylan is

Oh, I didn’t see that big black cloud hanging over me
And when the rain came down, I was nearly drowned
I didn’t know the mess I was in

Dylan, even on a bad day, wouldn’t really do “that big black cloud hanging over me” – at least not without a kick sideways in the next line.

As for “Last Night” this is clearly a Tom Petty song, and his publishing company claims it – but commentaries suggest the whole band had an involvement.

Although the lyrics have that elegant simplicity that Tom Petty can deliver so perfectly there is the occasional touch of Dylan in this.  If Petty wrote

She was there at the bar; she heard my guitar
She was long and tall; she was the queen of them all

Then I suspect Bob might have replied

She was dark and discreet; she was light on her feet
We went up to her room, and she lowered the boom

To which Tom came back with the riposte

Down below they danced and sang in the street
While up above the walls were steaming with heat

Certainly somewhere there is Dylan in that back and forth.  There is also an element of story-telling in the above which Dylan perfected in writing with Jacques Levy and carried forwards thereafter.

I was feeling no pain, feeling good in my brain
I looked in her eyes; they were full of surprise

I asked her to marry me, she smiled and pulled out a knife
“The party’s just beginning,” she said, “it’s your money or your life.”

That is a kick sideways, and Bob might have thrown that in to stop it all getting too sickly.   But I think the ending is pure Tom Petty.

Now I’m back at the bar; she went a little too far
She done me wrong, all I got is this song

It is the antithesis of

I’m gonna free fall out into nothin’
Gonna leave this world for awhile

Yes I certainly think Tom Petty could have done that.

Of course I am guessing here, but what else can one do?  I must admit I still play both the albums – although generally for certain specific tracks.   But there is a lot of warmth here, a lot of relaxed fun, and it is nice to come back to the whole album occasionslly.

——————

Dylan Year by Year, decade by decade

The Chronology Files: These files put Dylan’s work in the order written.  You can link to the files here

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

An index to every song reviewed on this site is on the home page – just scroll down.

The Discussion Group

We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase in, on your Facebook page or go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/254617038225146/  It is also a simple way of staying in touch with the latest reviews on this site and day to day news about Dylan.

By Tony Attwood

These short articles which aim to summarise what Dylan was up to in terms of songwriting have a particular problem in that sometimes in terms of new compositions Bob did very little indeed.  1976 is a year in point.

1975 was the year of a very productive collaboration which produced works of a totally different type from Dylan.   Looking ahead to 1977 we can see another productive period which gave us…

1. Changing of the Guards
2. Is your love in vain?
3. Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)
4. No Time to Think
5. True Love Tends to Forget
6. We better Talk this Over
7. Where are you tonight?

Now these are songs that are of a very different type, and so the simple answer to the question of why he wrote nothing in the year inbetween such productive periods is that Bob needed time to stop and refresh.

But also we know that Bob and Sara divorced in June 1977, which means 1976 has to be seen as a year of turmoil and uncertainty, during which Bob almost certainly didn’t feel in any way at ease and relaxed enough to compose.   Not that the compositions of 1977 are very relaxed – far from it in fact – but sometimes anger and tension can be channelled into composition as much as love and relaxation.

So 1976 gives us one song: Seven Days a song of lost love, and nothing more.  But at least we now know, in the year after we got Bob the composer back again.

Dylan Year by Year, decade by decade

The Chronology Files: These files put Dylan’s work in the order written.  You can link to the files here

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

An index to every song reviewed on this site is on the home page – just scroll down.

The Discussion Group

We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase in, on your Facebook page or go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/254617038225146/  It is also a simple way of staying in touch with the latest reviews on this site and day to day news about Dylan.

TS Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Bob Dylan Fighting In The Captain’s Tower

TS Eliot’s Wasteland turns Joseph Conrad on his head. While the novelist peers into the “Heart Of Darkness”, the poet finds himself even unable to peer into the heart of light:

“Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing
Looking into the heart of light
The silence”
(Eliot: The Wasteland)

Existential angst, the futility of human existence: a feeling of alienation, of lonliness, of emptiness; a sinking feeling that every thing is broken.

The anxiety echoed in the song lyrics of a British band:

“I tried to look, my eyes were blind
I tried to speak, but could not find
The words to say
They left me lying where I lay
I could not bear the light of day”
(Strawbs: Blue Angel)

Ezra Pound is not dismayed and declares: “Make it new.” The Modernist poet abvocates a new style, a concise imagistic one, to shake the dust off the shelves filled with books of didactic and abstractionist poems.

And Pound champions a fresh outlook to replace the nihilism that has set in upon the degenerate social milieu of the times.

Though he later recants, Pound’s support of fascism causes many in the artistic community to abandon him. Instead, they pick up on his innovative poetic style, called Vorticism: the presentation of an image through the written word that conveys to the listener’s or reader’s mind the sensation of stillness amid whirling momentum, a style that often employs the alliteration trope:

“And they took her out of Scios
And off her course …
And the boy came to, again, with the racket
And looked over the bows
and to eastward, and to the Naxos passage
God sleight then, god-sleight
Ship stock in sea-swirl”
(Erza Pound: Canto 2)

Later, rappers put in their fifty cents’ worth:

“It goes, thanks TS, but the world ends like this
Not a bang, not a whimper, but a sibilant hiss”
(Doomtree: No Home Owners)

Here’s another alliterative image whirling, and set to music:

“The dust blows forward and the dust blows back
And the wind blows black through the sky
And the smokestack blows up in the sun’s eye
What am I gonna die?”
(Captain Beefheart: The Dust Blows Forward, The Dust Blows Back)

Vortex  imagery from the song lyrics of Bob Dylan:

“Maggie comes fleet foot
Face full of black soot…..
Hang around the theatres
Girl by the whirl pool
Looking for a new fool”
(Bob Dylan: Subterranean Homesick Blues)

In some songs, Dylan will also comment on how he constructs his art even as he creates it: a swirling image, one of catastrophic proportions:

“Smokestack was  leaning sideways
Heavy feet began to pound
I walked into the whirlwind
Sky splitting all around”
(Dylan: Tempest)

Coincidence that he mentions ‘pound’ and poetic measure with the accompanying hissing s-sounds? Perhaps.

Hanging around movie theatres, Bob, the Romantic, searches for a way to escape the impending cataclysm, the Titantic’s sinking being a symbol for the Apocalypse Now; the title of a film based on Conrad’s “Heart Of Darkness”, by the way:

“The Titanic sails at dawn
Everybody’s shouting
Which side are you on?”
(Dylan: Desolation Row)

Which side is important because the Bible tells us: if you are good, then you shall be saved:

“As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more
But the righteous is an
everlasting foundation”
(Porverbs 10:22)

Apparently, however, it does not matter when you’re on the world’s biggest metaphor, and it’s sinking into the Atlantic Ocean:

“When the Reaper’s task had ended
Sixteen hundred had gone to rest
The good, the bad, the rich, the poor
The loveliest and the best”

Seems that Bob Dylan wonders, although the Deity be not dead, if God is nevertheless Himself a nihilistic Existentialist:

“They waited at the landing
And they tried to understand
But there is no understanding
For the judgement of God’s hand”
(Dylan: Tempest)

Sounds like God is a god that does not believe in Himself.

Articles on Bob Dylan

The Chronology Files: These files put Dylan’s work in the order written.  You can link to the files here

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

An index to every song reviewed on this site is on the home page – just scroll down.

The Discussion Group

We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase in, on your Facebook page or go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/254617038225146/  It is also a simple way of staying in touch with the latest reviews on this site and day to day news about Dylan.

by Tony Attwood

The key debating point about Bob Dylan and his compositions in 1975 relates to the issue of where and when Jacques Levy entered the scene.   We know he worked on Isis and apparently he worked on Money Blues as well, but there is little evidence that in the latter case he had much input into a song that Dylan could easily have written with his eyes closed and his hands tied behind his back.

Oh Sister is also credited to both of the men, and that is a little unexpected given that this is such a personal song about a woman Dylan knew so well – and surprising also given that several authorities suggest the collaboration between the two writers started quite a bit later in the year.

And most certainly the amazing Abandoned Love was composed by Dylan alone and is a song that shows Dylan’s compositional powers were most certainly still there.

So my guess is that the arrangements with Levy were a bit haphazard at first, and it was only with the later compositions that the two men really worked together as a team.  And indeed the results at the end of the year were remarkable.

But whenever it was, turn to working with Levy Bob did, and some of the work the men produced together is of enormous merit.  Apart from the blockbuster of Isis, at the start there are a few low points (Rita May most particularly is an awful low point not just because of the music but because one would just wish Dylan had not had anything to do with this attack on a fellow artist whose work is of merit – nor indeed on any woman just because of her sexuality) and as a counter to this, there is certainly some fun in Mozambique

But at the very end of the collaboration come what for me are that absolute and obvious highpoints of the venture: Romance in Durango and  Black Diamond Bay.

These last two are particularly important I believe because they do extend the notion of painting and story telling in songs – they each do as much scene setting as they do in relating the tale and really stand alone as representatives of a completely different way of approaching popular music.

I am sure that as soon as I say “who else has written songs like these to words like this?” I will be told in no uncertain terms, but while I still very much enjoy listening to Isis, “Romance” and the “Bay” never stop surprising me with the images that they paint and the way the music and lyrics are entwined around each other.

Looking back at the year I am not at all sure that Dylan needed Levy to create “Isis” and he certainly didn’t have him around for “Abandoned Love” which seems to hark back to another place and another time.   But I am sure that the last two songs of the year could never have been composed by Dylan alone at this time – his mind was simply not working on songs like this.

Where Dylan has painted us pictures like this in songs written on his own – as with “Caribbean Wind” for example – there is more emphasis on the atmosphere than the events.  Here we get both.

As for “Joey” and “Hurricane” as I mentioned in one of my reviews, Dylan’s love for the outlaw motif can on occasion overwhelm him.  There is no law saying that the two writers had to tell the story as it was any more than Shakespeare had to tell the truth about Richard III (which he most certainly didn’t).   But for me, those two songs are ok songs, but not that special, and most certainly as nothing compared to the monuments of this year.

So once again I find myself looking at a year and thinking, for almost anyone else, writing Abandoned Love and co-writing  Romance in Durango and  Black Diamond Bay would have been the absolute summits of their work.  For Bob it was just another year.  Another three amazing, amazing songs.  Another pushing back of the boundaries, as if to say, “hey guys, and we can also do songs like this…”

Articles on Bob Dylan

The Chronology Files: These files put Dylan’s work in the order written.  You can link to the files here

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

An index to every song reviewed on this site is on the home page – just scroll down.

The Discussion Group

We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase in, on your Facebook page or go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/254617038225146/  It is also a simple way of staying in touch with the latest reviews on this site and day to day news about Dylan.

by Tony Attwood

Does mucking around in a studio generate good music?  Well sometimes it does.   And as George Harrsison is reported as saying, “If you know Bob and his songs, he’s such a joker really.”   

So maybe taking odd moments out of the music from “Stuck inside of Mobile” where we get to “Oh mama can this really be the end” and mix it with some of Robert Johnson’s most unappealing lyrics such as

I’m goin’ heist your hood, mama
I’m bound to check your oil
I’m goin’ heist your hood, mama
I’m bound to check your oil
I got a woman that I’m lovin’
Way down in Arkansas

and we get something like,

He loves your sexy body, he loves your dirty mind
He loves when you hold him, grab him from behind
Oh baby, you’re such a pretty thing
I can’t wait to introduce you to the other members of my gang

Whether that is very amusing or not depends on your point of view.  

Musically it is a simple variation around the normal chords of a song played in the key of C.  The one thing that makes it stand out (musically) is that it has a coda – a long tailpiece that uses a different chord sequence. (Bb, F, C) over

He loves your electric dumplings

etc etc

Much of the album seems to be related to the members of the band throwing lines into the mix as they aim to write and record a song a day before Bob goes on tour again.   Ask anyone who works in the creative arts and she or he will tell you, yes it can happen, but most of the time when you are anxious for it to happen it certainly does not happen.  What you get is maybe amusing, maybe interesting, but not great art.

For me, there are some Wilbury songs that do work, and quite a few more that don’t.   And what we know about Bob is that quite often he throws out songs (often very good songs) as he works on an album.   But this whole notion of one song a day before Bob went on tour meant that there was precious little spare to pick and choose the best bits, and so we get it all – including songs which in another world might have been buried forever.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with the song to my mind, it is just there isn’t much right to it.

You don’t need no wax job, you’re smooth enough for me
If you need you oil changed I’ll do it for you free
Oh baby, the pleasure would be all mine
If you let me drive your pickup truck and park it where the sun don’t shine

OK maybe you chuckled, maybe not, but that’s not really the point: the point is would you want to hear it again, and again and again…  And I guess that yes there are some people out there who have played this track and indeed the whole album over and over and would happily play it again today and tomorrow.  It’s just that it doesn’t do anything for me.   

And that is the problem with lines like

Oh baby, turn around and say goodbye
You go to the airport now and I’m going home to cry

It comes as a surprise first time around, but then….

He loves your Trembling Wilbury

actually doesn’t.

Going back and listening to this piece for the first time in many years I found I had much more time for Robert Johnson

Now, you know the coils ain’t even buzzin’
Little generator won’t get the spark
Motor’s in a bad condition
You gotta have these batteries charged
But I’m cryin’, please, please don’t do me wrong
Who been drivin’ my Terraplane
Now for you since I been gone
Mr. Highway Man, please don’t block the road
Please, please don’t block the road

It’s very non-contemporary, but maybe that is what makes it work.

Does mucking around in a studio generate good music?  

Articles on Bob Dylan

The Chronology Files: These files put Dylan’s work in the order written.  You can link to the files here

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

An index to every song reviewed on this site is on the home page – just scroll down.

The Discussion Group

We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase in, on your Facebook page or go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/254617038225146/  It is also a simple way of staying in touch with the latest reviews on this site and day to day news about Dylan.

By Larry Fyffe

Dr Freud: Bob, go lie over there on the couch…..that is, unless you think you are a puppy….ha, ha, ha. And tell me all about your dreams.

(Dylan doesn’t laugh, and lies down on the couch)

Bob Dylan: O.K., Doc, here’s one of my dreams….I call it Absolutely Sweet Marie:

Well, your railroad gate, you know I
just can’t jump it
Sometimes it gets so hard, you see
I’m just sitting here beating on my trumpet
With all these promises you left for me

Dr Freud writes in his notebook: Patient doesn’t know the difference between a drum and a wind instrument.  Needs music instructor.

Bob Dylan: This one I call….Ballad Of A Thin Man..

Well, the sword swallower comes up to you
And then he kneels
He crosses himself
And he clicks his high heels
And without further notice
He asks you how it feels
And he says, Here is your throat back
Thanks for the loan

Dr Freud. writes: Patient likes to go to the circus. Apparently, he’s got bundles of cash; gives out loans.

Puts in the margin of his note pad: Still, it’s wise to ask for money from these whackos before giving them their psychoanalysis….not after.

Bob Dylan: And here’s another of my dreams…. called Country Pie:

Raspberry, strawberry, lemon and lime
What do I care
Blueberry, apple, cherry, pumpkin, and plum
Call me for dinner
Honey, I’ll be there

Freud adds to note pad: Patient has healthy appetite; enjoys desserts.

Writes in the margin again: Must get to the grocery store; my sweet daughter Anna tells me that she often thinks about eating bananas.

Bob Dylan: This one I call…. Please, Mrs. Henry:

Now I’m startin’ to drain
My stool’s gonna squeak
If I walk much farther
My crane’s gonna leak

Dr Freud writes Obviously, patient is not a very good carpenter.

Dr Freud: Well, Mr. Dylan, (The doctor looks at his watch) ….it seems a good time to end this session.  By the way, my daughter is waiting out in the hallway to get your autograph.

Bob Dylan: O.K., Doc….Mind if I ask her out for dinner?

Dr Freud: Not at all, Mr. Dylan….You sound like a very fine gentleman…..reminds me…..I have to go buy some bananas.

The Discussion Group

We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase in, on your Facebook page or go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/254617038225146/  It is also a simple way of staying in touch with the latest reviews on this site and day to day news about Dylan.

Other articles on Bob Dylan

The Chronology Files

These files put Dylan’s work in the order written.  You can link to the files here

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

An index to every song reviewed on this site is on the home page – just scroll down.

The Ghosts Of Electricity Howl In The Bones Of Her Face: Bob Dylan And Symbolism By LarryFyffe

Bob Dylan mentions a number of relatively recent writers in his song lyrics who are classified under the broad heading of Symbolist poets; I would call them Latter Day Romantics.

“Situations have ended sad
Relationships have all been bad
Mine’ve been like Verlaine’s and Rimbard”
(Bob Dylan: You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go)

And in this song as well:

“Then she opened up a book of poems
And she started quotin’ it to me
It was either written by Charles Baudelaire
Or some Italian poem from the thirteenth century
And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burning coal”
(Bob Dylan:Tangled up in blue: variation)

The last two lines, an image from the French poet himself:

“We often said imperishable things
The evenings lighted by the glow of coals”
(Charles Baudelaire: The Balcony)

And then there’s:

“”And Ezra Pound and TS Eliot fighting in the captain’s tower
While calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers”
(Bob Dylan: Desolation Row)

With the possible exception of Pound, the Symbolist poets have a profound effect on Dylan and his the song lyrics.

Symbolist poets express states of mind, irrational thoughts, emotional feelings, and subconsciousness through the utilization of physical objects, and sense perceptions such as smells, tastes, and sounds. Their poetry simulates musical rhythm.

Like the Transcendentalist Romantics, many of them under the influence of Swedenborg, these Symbolist poets and songwriters like Dylan search for the ultimate spiritual reality that supposedly lies behind the material world.

The dark spiritual world of the modern city, rather than the brightness of the natural environment, is what they often uncover: a cold, alienating, and impersonal presence.

“Teaming, swarming city
City full of dreams
Where ghosts in broad daylight
Accost the passer-by
Everywhere mysteries flow like sap
Through the narrow canals of the mighty giant”
(Charles Baudelaire: Seven Old Men)

The Modernist poet TS Eliot, likewise:

“Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many
I had not thought death had undone so many”
(Eliot: The Wasteland)

An influence on Allen Ginsberg, Imagist poet William Carlos Williams paints a very similar picture of the modern city in his ‘Paderson’ poem.

And now a Symbolist poem by Bob Dylan’s literary associate:

“I saw the best minds of my generation,
destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix
angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night”
(Allen Ginsberg: Howl)

Following the motto “No ideas but in things’ (William Carlos Williams), Dylan expresses in Symbolist song style the alienation wrought by a cold, dank city:

“He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drain pipes
And reciting the alphabet”
(Dylan: Desolation Row)

Arthur Rimbaud is Bob Dylan’s favorite Symbolist poet, and it shows. Though not mentioned by other examiners of his
songs, ‘Untold Dylan’ lets it be known for the first time that the lyrics of the narrative song ‘Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts’ have their roots in a poem by Rimbard:

“In short, is a single Flower
Lily or Rosemary, live or dead
Worth the excrement of a solitary sea-bird?”
(Rimbard: On The Subject Of Flowers)

The answer my friend is blowing in this song:

Lily had already taken all of the dye out of her hair
She was thinkin’ ’bout her father, who she very rarely saw
Thinkin’ ’bout Rosemary, and thinkin’ about the law
But most of all she was thinkin’ ’bout the Jack Of Hearts”
(Bob Dylan: Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts)

Clues:

Jack Of Hearts: a symbol of charm and charity
Lily: a symbol of devotion and death
Rosemary: a symbol of faithfulness and memory

The Discussion Group

We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase in, on your Facebook page or go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/254617038225146/  It is also a simple way of staying in touch with the latest reviews on this site and day to day news about Dylan.

The Chronology Files

These files put Dylan’s work in the order written.  You can link to the files here

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

An index to every song reviewed on this site is on the home page – just scroll down.