Untold Dylan

By Tony Attwood

As an atheist I make pronouncements on religious matters with enormous caution, normally just complaining that I live in one of only three countries where the religious authorities sit in Parliament and affect the laws of my country.

But of course with Dylan’s music I am often drawn into religious issues, and so today I find myself remembering a Jewish friend telling me some time ago that the attitude of Judaism to the afterlife is in essence “We aren’t really sure.”

This was backed up by my watching recently Woody Allen’s brilliant movie “Cafe Society” in which it is said several times over, (I think by Ken Stott’s character) that Jews don’t believe in life after death.

Reading around the subject I understand that is a simplification, but the thought came back to me in listening to one of my all time least favourite Dylan compositions “Death is not the end” and wondering quite what made him write this.

My favourite response to such a “why?” question these days is to look at the sequence of Dylan’s writing at the time and in this case we find a sequence of compositions that runs

• Someone’s got a hold of my heart 
• Neighbourhood Bully
• Tell Me
• Foot of Pride
• Julius and Ethel
• Lord Protect my Child
• Death is not the End.
• I once knew a man

Now this is one hell of a varied list from the sublime to the ludicrous (in my humble opinion) and in the ludicrous camp I would put both “Tell Me” and this song, “Death is not the end”.

We can see “Death” comes straight after “Lord Protect my Child”, so it is fairly clear where Dylan was going at this moment – but before “Lord Protect” we had “Julius and Ethel”, a right rollicking rocker, and a really good listen.  After we had that most sublime of blues variations “I once knew a man”.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

What’s more the last gospel song had come a year before, and looking at what else Dylan was writing at the time of that song (Thief on the Cross), it is clear that his mind had moved a long way from the period the hard core of Christian songs.

“Lord Protect My Child” and “Death is not the end” must of course be linked, but it is curious that Dylan would record “Death” and release it on an album (although somewhat later) when there were so many other songs of such merit lurking around waiting for him to release his definitive version of each.   I have tried to explain elsewhere why I think Dylan held back on “Blind Willie” for example, but I am completely unable to understand why “Caribbean Wind” (among others) was passed over in favour of this song.

I have heard it said by some fellow musicians that every song can be rescued no matter how bad it is, and so I have been trying to find a version of this song I can live with (if you will pardon the expression at this point).   This is about the best I can find….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59cA_Rj22lY

There was however ultimately redemption for me – but I’ll come back to that in a minute – I’ll try and finish my review of “Death” first.

The Dylan recording of Death Is Not the End was made in 1983 very soon after it was composed, as far as I can tell, and that means it came at the time of Infidels.  But it didn’t hit the streets until 1988 with “Down in the Groove” – and the recording most certainly is the same one as made originally in that it has Robbie Shakespeare and Mark Knopfler on it (although goodness knows what they thought was going on when they played it through.  At least they only had to play it once).

And that leads to the question – if Dylan could only bring himself to play it once with the band (the recording on the album was done in one take only), and he has never once played it in question, why did he put it on the record?

And while pondering this I also remembered the original cover to Down in the Groove (shown here).  Personally I think they should have used it – but that is another matter.

There are other cover versions around, but they don’t really do too much for me – but the fact that they exist by reputable artists shows that clearly there is something in the song that I am simply not getting.  Not for the first time I am sure.

For me Dylan as a lyricist is at his best when he drops us hints of where he is, and takes us on journeys through images and metaphors.  Not when he spells it all out as with

When you’re sad and when you’re lonely
And you haven’t got a friend
Just remember that death is not the end
And all that you’ve held sacred
Falls down and does not mend
Just remember that death is not the end

Worse, and of course this is just my view, when in this song Dylan does decide to give us some images, they are so everyday, so ordinary, that they take us nowhere new.

When you’re standing at the crossroads
That you cannot comprehend
Just remember that death is not the end
And all your dreams have vanished
And you don’t know what’s up the bend
Just remember that death is not the end

And just when we think it can’t get any more humdrum the next verse opens

When the storm clouds gather ’round you

Of course Bob can’t just deliver such everyday lines throughout so we do, at the end, get a little light relief (as it were) with

When the cities are on fire
With the burning flesh of men

But then that doesn’t link too well with all that has gone before.  As a piece of poetry it just falls flat on its face.  It’s as if Dylan ended “It’s all right ma” with the line “here’s a box of chocolates for Mother’s Day”.

Heylin suggested that “Dylan’s intent all along may have been to show the rich vein of music he listened to when growing up in Hibbing,” and that might be true.  But Heylin’s subsequent argument that a period of writer’s block was causing him difficulty is not held up by the quality of music that Dylan presented around this time.  The list of songs written before and after this one shows how much unused material Dylan had at his disposal at this time, any of which he could have put on the album.

The only other explanation that I have come up with as to why this song was ever written, let alone released, is that Dylan, at the time of the putting together of “Down in the Groove” was going through the musical equivalent of self harm.  As an explanation it is unusual, but possible. But then so is almost anything.

So not for me, as you will have gathered.  But doing the research for writing up this little note on this song, I did come across “Death is not the end” by Shut up and Dance which is also not to my taste, and nothing to do with Dylan but was a distraction.  And finally to rescue my sanity (and to distract from the fact that I shut my hand in my car door yesterday morning and I am now bandaged up and finding it hard to type, so I am not really having the best of times) I did indulge myself by playing my favourite Waterboys track.

Therefore, just in case you find “Death is not the end” as little to your taste as it is to mine, spare a few moments to enjoy something quite different.   (And in case this is the first review you’ve ever read on this site, I would assure you, it doesn’t normally get as negative, or as lateral, as this).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAyhSBaU4MU

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.

By Larry Fyffe

“Seen the arrow on the door post
Saying ‘This land is condemned
All the way from New Orleans to Jerusalem'”
(Dylan: Blind William McTell)

A Biblical Romantic vision by Bob Dylan  – a corrupted society, a New Babylon, whose inhabitants sit side-saddle on the Golden Calf, cast out of idealistic Eden, from the  land of milk and honey, and  into a Hell-on-Earth.

The arrow in the door presumably shot by the sharp-eyed Will Scarlet, a member of Robin Hood’s merry band. Will still hides out in Sherwood Forest  by himself. At one time, he lived with Little John Lennon before the big guy passed away:

“You burned so bright
Roll on, John
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
In the forest of the night”
(Bob Dylan: Roll On, John)

Reminding Robin of a message delivered to him years ago on the streets of Rome by Will Blake, who was driving a chariot.  Also an outlaw from the tiger-stalked forests of England, and brother to Will Scarlet, Blake warns the then Lord Robert of Zimmerman about declining English cuture.

“And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic Mills
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”
(William Blake: Jerusalem)

The Blake poem Zimmerman reworks. He passes the warning on to Friar Tuck, Robin’s friend, the jealous monk. The  hooded outlaw’s song lyric speaks about one of the holy man’s many sons:

“As his youth now unfolds
……He’s young and on fire
Full of hope and desire
In a world that’s been raped, raped and defiled”
(Dylan: Lord Protect My Child)

Then Robin Hood disguises himself as Bob Dylan, enters an archery contest to prove that he’s a really good archer, and not just the master thief that the Sheriff of Nottingham makes him out to be. Besides, there’s a $15.oo prize at stake.

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

With his well-aimed arrows, Bob Dylan captures the prize, and a trophy is handed to him by The Nobles of the Roundtable:

“Electric light still struck like arrows,
fired but for ones
Condemned to drift, or else be kept from drifting”
(Dylan: Chimes Of Freedom Flashing)

With the help of his merry band, the hooded bowman escapes down the courthouse steps. He bounds over the castle wall faster than Eroll Fynn.

And they’re off, over the hill, riding eight white horses, chasing after the King’s deer:

“With the twang of an arrow, and
snap of the bow
…… my heart’s in the Highlands at the break of day
Over the hills and far away”
(Dylan: Highlands)

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

By Tony Attwood

I have written several times about Bob Dylan looking around trying to find the next thing to explore.  He has been through so many forms – indeed he had invented quite a few of them himself – that year on year we could easily find ourselves asking “what next?”   There is in many creative artists a genuine reluctance to go back and re-work a form or style that has been used before, and so it is not surprising that at different moments in his life Bob seemed to be looking, looking and looking… seeking out the next inspiration.

In such cases the artist generally turns to certain existing forms and styles that he/she likes and has used before, to see where they might go next – and that is certainly the case that we see several times as we review Dylan’s chronology of compositions in the 1980s.

https://youtu.be/C-bcOpwnShg

Dylan had been exploring all sorts of approaches in his work in 1985, but now with the pressure on to write some film music he turned to music which I can really only describe as “the joint is jumping”.

As an introduction to this form, if you haven’t heard it already, I would urge you to listen to Rock em Dead – there is a link to a live rendition of the song in the article.  It was the first song of 1986 and although t is not a completely original Dylan piece and is not listed on BobDylan.com it contains a considerable reworking of a multitude of songs which are then shuffled enough to be what I would call an original piece of Dylan music.

And it is amazingly great fun which should be on the play list of everyone who enjoys this type of music.

After this came You wanna ramble which has never been played in public, but lurks very much in the same tradition, and after that Got my mind made up which was co-written with Tom Petty.

What we have there is rock music with further experimentation – just consider the “going off to Libya” line – who else would ever write that?

And then continuing with the experimentation was have “Had a dream about you baby” – which in essence is more re-working of this type of rock n roll.  Here are the lyrics from the official site – they are not exactly what’s on this track, but you get the idea…

I got to see you baby, I don’t care
It may be someplace, baby, you say where

I had a dream about you, baby
Had a dream about you, baby
Late last night you come a-rollin’ across my mind

You got the crazy rhythm when you walk
You make me nervous when you start to talk

I had a dream about you, baby
Had a dream about you, baby
Late last night you come a-rollin’ across my mind

Standin’ on the highway, you flag me down
Said, take me Daddy, to the nearest town

I had a dream about you, baby
Had a dream about you, baby
Late last night you come a-rollin’ across my mind

The joint is jumpin’
It’s really somethin’
The beat is pumpin’
My heart is thumpin’
Spent my money on you honey
My limbs are shakin’
My heart is breakin’

You kiss me, baby, in the coffee shop
You make me nervous, you gotta stop

I had a dream about you, baby
Had a dream about you, baby
Late last night you come a-rollin’ across my mind

You got a rag wrapped around your head
Wearing a long dress fire engine red

I had a dream about you, baby
Had a dream about you, baby
Late last night you come a-rollin’ across my mind

On first hearing you might be forgiven for thinking that this is just a rocking 12 bar piece.  But it isn’t.  The rhythms are quite different, and so it the chord sequence.  Trying to play these rhythms and come in with the vocals at the right moment – it is very difficult.  With that interview in which Dylan spoke about his band playing rhythms that no one else knows, Bob could well have been talking about this song.

Of course experimenting with rock to see where it goes is not to everyone’s taste – indeed it  brings us back to the age old problem of critics treating every song as if it were a finished masterpiece.  The great visual artist is known to have a sketch book and it is generally not seen until long after his death whereupon it is looked at as a sketchbook.  Dylan however is one of the few musicians who also has a sketch book – or at least a set of sketch recordings, and that is what we should see these songs as.

For those of us with ears to hear it is wonderful that we have all these sketches, but for people who have not got the first inkling of how the creative process works, there are simply responses such as “This is desperate stuff”.  You can probably guess who wrote that.   He also wrote about this song, “The runt of a very thin litter” and “the muse was getting lazy.”

But the whole point is that Dylan endlessly plays, experiments, listens, records.  This is not laziness – this is the opposite in fact.  It is a level of creativity that only a handful of people can aspire to.  The ability to explore, to see where it goes, to draw a line and wonder what happens next.

What happened in this case is that Dylan played the song four time in 1988 and then let it rest, but that was not because it was rubbish, but because by then it had served its purpose of leading him ever further forwards.

Yes the lyrics are indeed simple

I got to see you baby, I don’t care
It may be someplace, baby, you say where

I had a dream about you, baby
Had a dream about you, baby
Late last night you come a-rollin’ across my mind

But Dylan at least has fun with the format, and looks to see where he can take it next…

You got the crazy rhythm when you walk
You make me nervous when you start to talk

And he is also toying with us.  The “middle 8” tells us…

The joint is jumpin’
It’s really somethin’
The beat is pumpin’
My heart is thumpin’
Spent my money on you honey
My limbs are shakin’
My heart is breakin’

But then suddenly we change tack…

You kiss me, baby, in the coffee shop
You make me nervous, you gotta stop

So is it the coffee that is making him hyper or the woman…

We never find out.  But it is fun to imagine.

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

By Larry Fyffe

Bob Dylan references the Romantic poets, especially those outstanding in their field; like them, he depicts women as being closer to Mother Nature than the male since the female body synchronizes with the cycles of the moon.

“There was me and Danny Lopez, cold eyes, black night, and then there was Ruth
Something there is about you that brings back a long-forgotten truth
Suddenly I found you and the spirit in me sings
Don’t have to look no further, you’re the soul of many things”
(Something There Is About You)

Dylan read about Ruth and the corn in the Bible:

“And Ruth … said unto Naomi, Let me now go to the field,
and glean ears of corn after him in  whose sight I shall find grace”
(Ruth 2:2)

And the ghost of William Wordsworth, the worthy wordsmith of the Romantic transcendentalist poets, nods his head:

“Behold her single in the field
Yon solitary Highland Lass
Reaping and singing by herself
Stop here, or gently pass
Alone she cuts and binds the grain
And sings a melancholy strain
O listen, for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound”
(Wordsworth: The Solitary Reaper)

Dylan, whose song lyrics are often double-edged, contrasts the heavenly Worthworthian image of Ruth with her more down-to-earth wicked step-sister:

“When Ruthie says come see her
In her honkey-tonk lagoon
Where I can watch her waltz for free
‘Neath her Panamanian moon”
(Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again)

As with the writers of the Bible, for many Romantic poets a serpent in the Garden  of Eden is an irresistible image; but it’s not always a displacement symbol. Freud took great pains to explain this to his daughter: ‘sometimes a snake is just a snake.’

“The grass divides as with a comb
A spotted shaft is seen
….He likes a boggy acre
A floor too cool for corn”
(Emily Dickinson: A Narrow Fellow In The Grass)

Or it may simply represent evil:

“There came a wind like a bugle
It quivered through the grass
And a green chill upon the heat
So ominous did pass”
(Dickinson: There Came A Wind Like A Bugle)

A Dylan song that shows the influence of Dickinson:

“Struck by the sounds before the sun
I knew the night had gone
The morning breeze like a bugle blew
Against the drum of dawn”
(Lay Down Your Weary Tune)

A Dylan tribute to Mother Nature, but at the same time, a drum and a bugle serve as metonymy for the military.

And then there is melodious Ruth.

“The seasons they are turnin’ and my sad heart is yearnin’
To hear the song bird’s sweet melodious tone
Won’t you meet me out in the moonlight alone?”
(Bob Dylan: Moonlight)

Quite obviously Dylan is here once again inspired by  his favorite Romantic poet:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home
She stood in tears amid the alien corn”
(John Keats: Ode To A Nightingale)

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

By Tony Attwood

For me this is one of the few songs for which the definitive recording does not come from Bob himself.   If you know this song, you’ll know that I am referring to the Susan Tedeschi version.  If you don’t know it, do try it.

But first, here’s Bob, with the classic slow 12 bar blues.

Ms Tedeschi has been called a mix of Bonnie Raitt and Janis Joplin but if you get to hear her music you should also recognise her guitar style which seems to come from, well, everywhere at once.   The fact that everyone from John Mellencamp, to the Allman Brothers and then the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, invited her to open concerts tells you just how highly other musicians rate her.

Anyway, onto the song.  It is highly rated by those who have written about it – and so it should be, but that raises the issue of why it was not part of Infidels.  Two main reasons are given – one was Dylan was trying to avoid critics asking questions about which of his children this is about, and the other is because the song (not the lyrics) are highly derivative.

Now here I must admit failure.  I am not an aficionado of gospel music, but I do know this melody and chord sequence from elsewhere in the genre, and one day I will find it – or someone will point it out to me.  It is derivative, and I think this might be the real reason for leaving it off the album.

As for which of Bob’s children he’s talking about, it is unclear.

He’s young and he’s wild

but then also

As his youth now unfolds

And then again just a line or two later

Just to see him at play makes me smile

I think the run of the words is much more important to Bob that it being about one person, and I doubt that he was specifically talking about one of his children, but rather all his children. Or writing just about the feelings most parents have for all their children.  Interpreting individual lines as having an absolute meaning is a mug’s game with Dylan – and quite probably doubly so here.

But at the end Bob returns to quasi-religious themes, and that is the surprise really because of the context of what has just been written…

• Someone’s got a hold of my heart / Tight connection to my heart
• Neighbourhood Bully
• Tell Me
• Foot of Pride
• Julius and Ethel

So I find it interesting that after those previous songs Bob should write this – it is out of context of what has gone before.  Especially with

There’ll be a time I hear tell
When all will be well
When God and man will be reconciled
But until men lose their chains
And righteousness reigns
Lord, protect my child

It must have been a great sentimental evening.  The only trouble is the reconciliation will come after Armageddon, and not too many of us will be left by then.

But aside from that, then we come to something quite remarkable – “Lord Protect my Child” by Dave Brubeck with Derek Trucks, who is…. Susan Tedeschi’s husband.  There is no reason why as a Dylan fan you might enjoy this; it is just that when I was learning my way around the piano all those centuries ago Dave Brubeck was one of the influences and it was a pleasant surprise to find this while I was working on my review of this song.

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 who teach English literature.  If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a subject line saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.

We also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with approaching 6000 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.

But what is complete is our index to all the 604 Dylan compositions and co-compositions that we have found, on the A to Z page.  I’m proud of that; no one else has found that many songs with that much information.  Elsewhere the songs are indexed by theme and by the date of composition. See for example Bob Dylan year by year.

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

by Larry Fyffe

Clowns get away with criticizing the harmful  effects of accepted social norms by using exaggerated humour, i.e., Charlie Chaplin’s movie, ‘Modern Times.’

Bob Dylan is more serious in his condemnation of ‘society’s pliars’, but likewise offers little except a vicarious venting off of steam to his listeners: little is revealed concerning what to do about the existing problematic social, political, and economic conditions.

“They’re selling post cards of the hanging, they’re painting the passports
brown
The beauty parlour is filled with sailors,
the circus is in town”
(Desolation Row)

The military with its special passports, dressed-up sailors, and public executions are just part of one big circus.

Dylan sees himself as being part, albeit woefully, of the circus parade.

“Ah, you never turned around to see the frowns
On the jugglers and the clowns when they all did tricks for you”
(Like A Rolling Stone)

The songwriter pities the plight of both the poor poet, and the clown.

“Heard the song of the poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of the clown who died in the alley”
(Hard Rain)

But Dylan takes a rather Existentialist perspective of the situation. There’s really no running away from this circus, and so best to escape by finding what
comfort it has to offer.

“Now when all clowns that you have commissioned
Have died in battle or in vain
And you’re sick of all this repetition
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane”

(Queen Jane Approximately)

Come see the ‘song and dance’ man.

One can’t be too careful these days:
a feeling of resignation might overtake you.

“And if you feel vague traces of skipping
reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it’s just a ragged clown behind
I wouldn’t pay it any mind
It’s just a shadow you’re seeing that he’s chasing”
(Mr. Tambourine Man)

Perhaps religion is a way out, but no, to Dylan, it’s organisational structure is but a dark shadow of that same circus.

“Fifteen jugglers
Fifteen jugglers
Five believers
Five believers
All dressed like men
Tell your mama not to worry
They’re just my friends”
(Obviously Five Believers)

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

By Tony Attwood

Everyone knows about the motorcycle crash year, and I think that somehow a lot of people still think that at that point Dylan retreated and stopped writing songs.  This wasn’t the case.  Whatever the truth about the bike accident, Dylan kept writing – and writing with huge success.  It was later that his muse seemed to dry up completely.

But since we have now reached the year when it all happened again for Bob the Composer, I think it is worth looking at a bit of historical context.  The number of songs composed show the total that seem to me to songs of significance of which we have a recording.  If you feel I have missed any out, please do shout and I’ll do a review – unless you would like to do one for me.

1967: 22 songs ranging from the Basement songs written for others to record (I shall be released, This Wheel’s on Fire etc etc) plus all the John Wesley Harding songs.

1968: One song, written for a movie, delivered late so it wasn’t used.

1969: Eight songs, mostly country music, few of which can be said to be among Dylan’s greatest works.

1970: 13 songs including the New Morning pieces, which for many critics are modestly successful, but not among his greatest works.

1971: Three songs of which two are considered by some (like me) to be particularly fine

1972: One song (Forever Young) and incidental film music.

1973: 11 songs, including some that have become recognised as paticularly fine works, and perhaps most interestingly, a return to some of Dylan’s themes from the sixties.

Looking at this sequence we can send a wave pattern – a retreat from the world and the desire to write songs, and when songs are written they have none of the ground breaking revolutionary qualities of the work of the early 1960s.   But then, just at the end of 1973 a real sign that the old Dylan, as a composer, was awakening once again.

And awaken he did, by doing what he had done at the end of 1973 – returning to the old themes.

Dylan opened 1974 with a return to the old story telling songs that he had honed his composition skills in the 1960s on.  Tales of gamblers and travellers.  The down and outs, the guys who are outside the law but are good at heart.  We think back to Rambling Gambling Willie and Only a Hobo.   Dylan had experimented with taking this genre further in 1967 with Drifter’s Escape  and I am a lonesome hobo but that year he was minimising the songs, reducing them to a matter of a few enigmatic verses rather than giving us the full on tale.

But now he was back to theme and he gave it everything he had with Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts.

Where did that come from?  My view is it came out of the end of the previous year, with Dylan thinking – “what did I used to write about?  How did I used to do it?”  And he found out.   I know that sounds simplistic, but sometimes monumental events have simple starts.

And this was a monumental event and no mistake because monuments of true merit tend to bring forth further monuments and that is what we got next with Tangled up in blue.

When I first came across the song it took me a moment to realise what I was listening to – a song equal in merit (at the very least) to the ultimate classics of the 60s.  A song I would put alongside “Desolation Row”, “Rolling Stone”, “Johanna”, “One of us must know”, “Fourth Street” “When the Ship Comes In”….    A song, seemingly out of nowhere, taking us into totally new ground.

For me, “Tangled” really, really is that.  It has that quality of “Visions” in which you can’t quite get a grip on who is where and what is what or indeed (and this I think was the new element), When is when.   It really is an absolute ground-breaking event in the history of 20th century music.

Through this season of writing songs Dylan rarely let the level slip.  No matter which way he turned, he seemed to be able to deliver: Shelter from the storm for example is an utterly different song but again Dylan has found a new approach, a new way of exploring the vision.

And he most certainly wasn’t done yet, because we still had the almighty Idiot Wind waiting to burst forth.   I’ve made this sort of comment before but I can’t resist running it again: for anyone else a song like “Tangled” would be the ultimate highlight of a writing career.  For Dylan it was a return to his highest level of form.  But then, just to make sure we got the point, he did it again with another piece that for anyone else would be the all time great achievement: Idiot Wind.

I’m trying hard not to make this just a list of the songs – that’s covered on the Chronology series – but let me just throw in Up to Me.  It is one of those songs that still after all these years, sends shivers throw my body.   What an utterly amazing brilliant piece of music it is.

So go on, boys, and play your hands, life is a pantomime
The ringleaders from the county seat say you don’t have all that much time
And the girl with me behind the shades, she ain’t my property
One of us has got to hit the road, I guess it must be up to me

If you want to know where Bob was this year, if you want to know what was going on inside his head as he wrote these incredible pieces of music, in one verse the whole “songs of farewell” concept is summed up.

What an amazing song.  What an amazing year.  What an unbelievable talent.

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

asdf

It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry:

Figurative Language In ‘Blood On The Tracks’

byLarry Fyffe

In the captain’s tower, T.S. Eliot sings ‘Nearer My God To Thee’ as the world’s
biggest metaphor slips beneath the waves; the jester, in his pointed shoes and bells, tosses his guitar overboard, grabs Mary Magdalene, jumps, and says, “I can find another one”.

‘Blood On The Tracks’ is full of innovative  tropes by Dylan, a number grounded in recent technological inventions from the automotive, to the locomotive, to the jetplane, and the modern ship:

“We drove the car as far as we could
Abandoned it out West
Split up on a dark sad night
Both agreeing it was best”
(Tangled Up In Blue)

Over-heated love compared to an automobile that burns itself out.

“And stopped into a strange hotel
With a neon burning bright
He felt the heat of the night
Hit him like a freight train
Moving with a simple twist of fate”
(Simple Twist Of Fate)

This time, it’s compared to being run over by a heavy locomotive.

“Time is a jet plane, it moves too fast
Oh, but what a shame if all we shared can’t last”
(You’re A Big Girl Now)

Love, like time, disppears, quickly like a jet plane.

“I haven’t known peace and quiet for so long, I can’t remember what it’s like
There’s a lone soldier on the cross, smoke pourin’ out of a boxcar door”
(Idiot Wind)

Love burned out compares to a train wreck.

“Now there’s a wall between us, something’ there’s been lost/
I took too much for granted, got my signals crossed”
(Shelter From The Storm)

Love wrecked, caused by an engineer’s carelessness.

Dylan makes it back to the ship:

“Look at the sun sinking like a ship
Ain’t that just like my heart, babe
When you kiss my lips”
(Meet Me In The Morning)

But there is no shelter; again that uneasy feeling that an unsinkable love is slipping beneath the waves.

So necessary is a little humour; not a sad love story,  not a lot of modern technology; just a happy love toy:

“Little red wagon
Little red bike
I ain’t no monkey
But I know what I like
I like the way you love me
Strong or slow
I’m takin’ you with me
When I go.”
(Buckets Of Rain)

To forget that:

“Down the highway, down the tracks, down the road to estasy
I followed you beneath the stars
haunted by your memory”.
(Idiot Wind)

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

By Tony Attwood

Some of the most amusing moments in Clinton Heylin’s monumental two volume review of Bob Dylan’s recording sessions comes with his criticism that Dylan has got his facts wrong and that his lyrics are trite, when writing about contemporary characters.   George Jackson, Lenny Bruce, William Zanzinger, and in this case the Rosenburgs in “Julius and Ethel”.

What Heylin never seems to get is that poetry and songs are not there to tell historical facts and accurate tales.  They exist, when they deal with real life events, to portray what they see as the essence of the subject matter, within poetic form.   Complaining about the accuracy is rather like comparing a portrait painting with a photograph – just because the painting exaggerates the nose or distinguishes the chin, that doesn’t make it inferior to the photo or a bad picture.  It is a different art form, raised to make different points.

The historical ballads celebrating past events always exaggerated, that is what the form does.  This is how, for example, the legend of Robin Hood came about.  Yes of course there is a city called Nottingham, and yes it has a castle, and yes there is Sherwood Forest (they are all actually not too far from where I live) but if you are writing a song about the place or the people or the events, there really is no reason why it should be accurate.  If you want an accurate description of what happened you go and get a history book.

So it is with this tale of the Rosenburgs who were alleged to have given US atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.   To be offended because the story portrayed by Dylan is inaccurate misses the point that he is not trying to be accurate.

The song was recorded during the Infidels sessions, but for some reason it is not listed on the official Bob Dylan side.    Mark Knopfler plays the guitar and everyone seems to have a jolly time.   It even has a line that lots of people like to quote: “As long as you didn’t say nothing you could say anything”.

I’m not that au fait with American history, but I will try and do a very short summary of the Rosenburgs.  I believe they were members of the American Communist Party and perceived the Soviet Union as living up to its socialist ideals of equality.  Being accused of giving secrets to the enemy they were tried for treason and executed in 1953.   Arguments continue as to whether the information given by Julius Rosenberg to the Soviet Union was vital in allowing them to build an atomic bomb, although I think it is accepted that he gave some information.  The argument is over whether Ethel did the same, or was just at her husband’s side (rather than being active in the plot) and was used by the American state to encourage her husband to admit what had happened.

There appears to be a lot of people making the point about Ethel that she was simply guilty only by association.

The arrest of the Rosenbergs was part of the arrest pattern after British physicist Klaus Fuchs was picked up again for passing on secrets.   Other members of the circle of conspirators pleaded guilty, but Julius did not.  The couple were the first spies ever executed by order of the U.S. civil court.

As for the composition – it came at a strange time for Dylan if we look at the chronology

• Tell Me
• Foot of Pride
• Julius and Ethel

Three songs all set out as possible inclusions for the album, all rejected in different ways.  Tell Me, is (for me at least if no one else) a fairly trivial piece, and the indications are that Dylan wrote it, worked on it, recorded it and abandoned it all within the space of a day.   Foot of Pride is completely different, clearly phenomenally important to Dylan as he recorded it over and over again in many different ways trying to make it work to his satisfaction but without ever getting the version he wanted.  This one is a historical tale told as a piece of rollocking rock and roll.

What’s interesting in this sequence is just how different each song is.  Tell Me is a song worrying about whether love is lost or not; it just seems rather trivial to me.  Foot of Pride considers man’s inherent inhumanity and moves amidst very deep waters, while Julius and Ethel takes a historical event and gives Dylan’s own view on it.  Tell Me is fluff, Foot of Pride is deep, moving, and sounds like the end of an album to me – at least on the version we have on record.    Julius is a great rock and roll song, although Heylin is utterly and totally dismissive of it but he quite likes Tell Me.  Ah well.

Now that they are gone, you know, the truth it can be told;
They were sacrificial lambs in the market place sold —
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

Now that they are gone, you know, the truth it can come out;
They were never proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt —
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

The people said they were guilty at the time;
Some even said there hadn’t a-been any crime —
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

People look upon this couple with contempt and doubt,
But they loved each other right up to the time they checked out
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

Eisenhower was president, Senator Joe was king;
Long as you didn’t say nothing you could say anything —
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

Now some they blamed the system, some they blamed the man;
Now that it is over, no one knows how it began —
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

Every kingdom got to fall, even the Third Reich;
Man can do what he pleases but not for as long as he like —
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

Well, they say they gave the secrets of the atom bomb away;
Like no one else could think of it, it wouldn’t be here today —
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

Someone says the fifties was the age of great romance;
I say that’s just a lie, it was when fear had you in a trance —
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

As I say, I think it’s a great rollocking song, and a shame it didn’t get further than the demo.  And a shame that critics want to comment on the exactitude of the lyrics.  You can just imagine these people who complain about accuracy deciding that Shakespeare’s Richard III is actually a rubbish piece of writing because it turns out Richard III was not a hunchback – Shakespeare just made that up.

Thank goodness no publisher has ever let Heylin loose on the bard.

Someone says the fifties was the age of great romance;
I say that’s just a lie, it was when fear had you in a trance

Great lines.

By Tony Attwood

Forget, if you can, Planet Waves as an album, and look at this collection of songs composed in 1973 in the order they were written.  Once you have, I think you may well find the critics’ views of Planet Waves completely at variance with what you have heard.

Indeed if ever there is a year where the songs Dylan gave the world should be heard in the order they were written, it is this year.  If ever a year should be seen as a new beginning it is this year.

Here is what you would get in terms of the order of writing…

1. Knocking on heaven’s door
2. Never say goodbye
3. Nobody cept you
4. Going going gone
5. Hazel
6. Something there is about you
7. You Angel You
8. On a night like this
9. Tough Mama
10. Dirge
11. Wedding Song

(Just in case you’ve lost your copy, the track order from the album as released on LP format is at the end of this piece).

First I have to say I think this is a knock out set of songs on any account.  And when it is remembered that we have just had two years in which Dylan wrote very little, it is an extraordinary outpouring.  OK there is no utter masterpiece as along the lines of a handful  the songs of Dylan put out in 1963 to 1965, no “Johanna”, no “Desolation Row”, no “Rolling Stone” – but such productivity could never come out of nowhere.  A bit of a warm up was needed – and as a warm up for what was to come in the following year, this collection is incredible.

Especially as these songs came after such – a long hiatus, for even the year of the New Morning songs only had a limited number of highly memorable works.

Now take a look at the topics covered – and in this list I know I am simplifying the meanings of the songs for a moment, but I hope you will stay with me on this a moment longer.

1. Knocking on heaven’s door – love
2. Never say goodbye – love
3. Nobody cept you – love
4. Going going gone – self confessions, the end of self
5. Hazel – love
6. Something there is about you – love
7. You Angel You – love
8. On a night like this – love
9. Tough Mama – on being full of life
10. Dirge  – disdain and self hatred
11. Wedding Song – rejection of labelling, setting oneself free

If you have read my reviews of Dylan year by year through the 1960s you might recall that I mentioned how he would jump from writing a song about one of his favourite themes straight into another and another.   1965 took us through songs of farewell, beat poetry as rock, blues, love, disdain, surrealism, political protest… one after the other.  And that was what it was like all the way through from 1962 to 1967.   Then Bob stopped.

Taking the songs that were recorded by Bob or others, after around 20 songs that should be remembered, each and every year, we got

• 1968: one song
• 1969: eight songs (including the Nashville Skyline songs)
• 1970: thirteen songs (including the New Morning songs)
• 1971: three songs
• 1972: one song and instrumental music for Billy the Kid

Now we get the road back to the old days.  Dylan, I think, sets out to write, or perhaps by chance happens to write, a whole series of love songs and then after three songs becomes self-reflective with “Going”.   Then back to love, not just the love of a woman but the love of life itself.

Until later, suddenly everything changes and we have two extraordinarily different songs at the end of the year.

The point is that Dylan isn’t yet able to or willing to or wanting to jump from concept to concept, topic to topic, over and over again over and over again, as he did before.  But this jumping was at the very heart of his compositional skills.   He doesn’t do it through this year but he is finding himself able to do it to some extent as the year of writing comes to a close.  He is back to the Bob Dylan that we knew in the early days, before Self Portrait.

Also I would say that if we compare these 11 songs with the quality of songs from 1969 and 1970, the last two years in which he wrote more than a handful of songs, there is no comparison.  As works of art these songs really are at a so much higher level than the songs of 1969 and 1970 which although having moments that could readily be seen as the highlight in the writing of most composers of popular songs, really don’t match Dylan’s earlier output.

Of course we’ll all find interesting songs in 1969 and 1970, but these new songs of 1973 really do require a complete focus on where Dylan was going and what he was doing, whereas some of the songs of the 1969/70 vintage really can be appreciated from the first hearing, without any issue of deeper analysis.

That is not to say that songs have to be complex to be good, but the fact is that Dylan made his name by taking popular and folk music into dimensions that the forms had never been used for before.  Here he ends by taking us on another journey into previously unexplored arenas.

Thus I do think that analysing this year is of fundamental importance when looking at the progression of Dylan’s art, because of what comes next.  And indeed I can’t believe there are many Dylan fans who have studied such matters who do not see 1974 as one of the great highlight moments in Dylan’s compositional life.

My point is that Dylan is unlikely to have been able to produce the monuments of 1974 without the introductory year of 1973 and quite probably he wouldn’t have produced the music of 1973 without having the break we have noted in the years before.  This is not to diminish the works of 1973, but rather to say they were great works in themselves which also served as the preparation for Tangled up in Blue and the rest.

Seeing the songs in the order written over these few years shows us a man who had somewhat lost his way as a composer, taking time out, and then deliberately setting out to explore once more where else he could take the musical form in which he worked.

And that is what 1973 is.  A year of exploration producing some extraordinarily interesting, beautiful and challenging works, which are of great value in themselves, and which is followed by a year of writing masterpieces once again.

For those of us there at the time who thought “New Morning” was ok, and that it was nice to have another Dylan album, and then wondered if really, that was about it in terms of Dylan the great originator, the great lyricist, the creator of new forms within the genre, the emergence of the Planet Waves songs was a great relief.  The master could still turn it on.   And the amazing thing is, at the time we just didn’t realise how much he could turn it on, once again.

Planet Waves: how the songs were presented on the album

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

By Tony Attwood

There are three “Tell me” songs by Dylan all told

• Tell Me – which appeared on Bootleg 1-3 and has never been performed by Bob, which was written in 1983 – the subject of this article.
• Tell Me that it isn’t true – which appeared on Nashville Skyline and was performed live 76 times between 2000 and 2005.  This was written in 1969.
• Tell Me Momma – which appeared on Bootleg 4 and was played 15 times in 1966 as the introduction to the electric set on the tour but which has never been touched since by Dylan.

Tell Me Momma is a rambling surreal piece that is hard to make any sense out of.  However the emotional theme of this “Tell Me” is very similar to the Nashville Skyline song with lines such

All I would like you to do
Is tell me that it isn’t true

This time he’s asking her if she still loves him rather than is it true she has met someone else, but it is still the same sort of plaintive ballad: the exact opposite of the aggressive Tell Me Momma.

There is some interest in the way the third and fourth lines take off, on a melody of their own but the melody really needs some lyrics of fine distinction to hold the song together, and we don’t get them, in my opinion.

Lines from the second verse such as

Shall I hold you close or shall I let you go by

are fine if there are other lines around which can give a kick or a buzz, or if the melody or rhythm are absolutely attention grabbing, but I find none of these things in this song.  In short the lyrics are not quite lyrical enough, the melody is not quite melodious enough and the rhythm isn’t quite rhythmic enough for the song to work.

I think the clue to the songs problems come with the very first verse – recorded song openings need something to grab the listener (again either in the accompaniment, the lyrics of the melody) but I don’t feel we find any of that here…

Tell me–I’ve got to know
Tell me–tell me before I go
Does that flame still burn, Does that fire still glow
Or has it died out and melted like the snow
Tell me
Tell me

As a simple example of what I am trying to say here, if we take  the song “That’s All Right”  written by Arthur Crudup and performed by Elvis Presley on his first single, the accompaniment and the vocal delivery carry the song through and make many people want to hear it again and again, despite simplistic words

Well, that’s all right, mama
That’s all right for you
That’s all right mama, just anyway you do
Well, that’s all right, that’s all right.
That’s all right now mama, anyway you do 

My point simply is that there needs to be something to grab the listener – and it doesn’t have to be the lyrics.  But with Dylan’s “Tell me” I fear we have nothing to compensate for very ordinary words.  Verse 2 continues

Tell me–what are you focused upon
Tell me–will it come to me after you’re gone
Tell me quick with a glance on the side
Shall I hold you close or shall I let you go by
Tell me
Tell me

The “Shall I hold you” line sounds to me like the sort of thing that a 15 year old boy writes when composing his first attempts at a pop song.  And so the song continues…

Are you lookin’ at me and thinking of somebody else
Can you feel the heat and the beat of my pulse
Do you have any secrets
That will only come out in time
Do you lay in bed and stare at the stars
Is your main friend someone who’s an old acquaintance of ours
Tell me
Tell me

Tell me–what’s in back of them pretty brown eyes
Tell me–behind what door your treasure lies
Ever gone broke in a big way
Ever done the opposite of what the experts say
Tell me
Tell me

What really knocks the song down for me at the end however are the lines

Do you have any morals
Do you have any point of view

Such a bleak and pointed question as “Do you have any morals?” deserves to come from an all powerful song of disdain, a “Rolling Stone” or “Fourth Street” but not this gentle ballad in which the singer is begging the lady to say that she has been faithful.

Is it some kind of game that you’re playin’ with me
Am I imagining something that never can be
Do you have any morals
Do you have any point of view
Is that a smile I see on your face
Will it take you to glory or to disgrace
Tell me
Tell me

By this time, and as I have said so many times before, this is just my opinion, the selected accompaniment style of the sliding guitar has really got too much – it is going nowhere at at all.  Once again this individual element does not matter if there is some other distraction in the music, but here there is not.

Tell me–is my name in your book
Tell me–will you go back and take another look
Tell me the truth, tell me no lies
Are you someone whom anyone prays for or cries
Tell me
Tell me

In short I think the “Tell me” line” came while he was strumming the guitar, and he just filled the rest in with a quick lyric and it doesn’t come off.  Either he is in pain, in which case the lyrics need to be focusing on that pain, or he is blaming her as in the songs of disdain, and we need much more pointed anger.

So for me it doesn’t seem to work either way, and in my view Dylan was quite right never to play it in public nor to put it on a record.  I think it is just a sketch which happened to get recorded.

I’m not sure if Dylan had any control over what was put on the Bootleg album or whether the record company said, “Hey Bob how about we release some of your old recordings and call them the Bootleg series so you get some money from these songs instead of letting the kids rip you off with their own bootleg copies?” and Bob said, “Whatever,” or something like that.   Maybe he thought it was out there anyway, so it might as well be official – which is fair enough.

The fact that the song was written and tried out is no discredit to Dylan – as I have written many times here, all artists in all areas of the arts, have the equivalent to notebooks in which they try ideas out.  Great works don’t come fully formed.  The problem is that when something is put on a record is can imply that it was more than a sketch, and that the artist meant it to be heard and considered as worked through and finished.

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

By Tony Attwood

By 1972 we were getting used to Dylan’s stuttering output.

1967 was the last year of the mass production of music of amazing brilliance.

1968 was a year of retreat with a song for a film, delivered late.

1969 did bring eight songs but one was a hardly ever performed retro of a 1950s song, and two from the album were almost universally disliked.   It was not up to Dylan’s normal level.

1970 brought us what I have called a “stuttering return” – a phrase based on the fact that for many people New Morning is an uneven album with few moments of classic Dylan brilliance as a composer.  It is noticeable that Dylan used virtually everything he wrote in the album – there was no luxury of picking the best songs from a list of 20 compositions. This is all that he had.

1971 gave us two Dylan songs of magic and quality reflecting on the nature of art, and one political piece that seems to have been rushed.   But that was all.

Now add all that together and we have got fewer songs in four years than Dylan used to write in a single year.  Indeed in some of those years in the 60s, he wrote more classic songs than he wrote in total across these four years.

In short, Dylan’s “pause” (or as many have said, his “writer’s block”) had now lasted four whole years.   And for anyone who hoped for 1972 to be a year when he suddenly emerged again, they were to be disappointed.

What we got was a loving song to his son (Forever Young) which is, I think most would agree, a real beauty, no matter than some of us feel Bob could never make the best of it in performance.  And the theme music for Billy the Kid – which is largely forgotten but is really worth going back to if you have a copy.  You might be surprised.  It has some wonderful moments.

But that was it.   The fifth year of very limited output.   Five years in which he wrote in total fewer songs than he wrote in each of 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966 and 1967.

And remember this wasn’t anything to do with a motorbike crash – because he wrote a whole range of brilliant pieces after that incident, whatever it was.   This was Dylan, hiding away, and not writing either because he didn’t want to, didn’t need to, or had forgotten how to.

In a sense the quality of the instrumental pieces for Billy the Kid should have told us (if we had had the chance to hear them) that there was still musical magic inside Bob’s head.  But in reality it wasn’t until 1973 that the first signs of re-emergence occurred, and even then we had to wait for 1974 for the most amazing unexpected explosion of musical brilliance.

1972…

1. Forever Young – Tony’s review (Love and hope for a child)
2. Forever Young – Dearbhla’s thoughts
3. Billy 1, 4, and 7 and the Main title theme – Billy the Kid

————–

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

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

• Bob Dylan year by year; decade by decade

• All the Dylan songs reviewed on this site in alphabetical order 

By Tony Attwood

I reviewed Tight connection to my heart which appeared on Empire Burlesque quite a while back, but only now as I come to sweeping up all the songs in chronological order that I have not yet looked at, am I coming to the original version: “Someone’s got a hold of my heart” which was recorded by Dylan for Infidels, then dropped and then re-written as Tight connection.

I have come up with something like four reasons why Dylan did this re-write, so here we go:

Reason 1: the long shot

Now this is a very very long shot, and I know I am going to get some comments relating to my imagination if not my sanity, but I wonder if the reason Dylan cut the first song from the Infidels album was because an executive in the record company told him there was already a song called “Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart” which from a titular point of view is a little similar to “Someone’s got a hold of my heart”.  Of course I have no evidence but I can imagine our Bob getting into a huff and saying “ok if you think it is that is important, I’ll drop it.”

Now the original “Something’s gotten” song was written by Roger Greenaway and Roger Cook and was originally recorded by a band with the curious name David and Jonathan, (in point of fact Roger Greenaway and Roger Cook in disguise).

And maybe just maybe on hearing of this Bob was the one who thought, no I can’t do that, not just because he didn’t want his song confused with an English pop classic but maybe because Bob was fascinated in finding a pop band named after the heroic figures of the Kingdom of Israel, who formed a covenant as noted in the books of Samuel.

It was, after all, only 18 months or so since Bob stopped writing religious songs, and during the three years of that he had clearly done a significant amount of re-reading of the Old Testament he would have read as part of his Jewish upbringing.

Or maybe I am making all these connections up.  But extending this further there is

Reason 2: The Gene Pitney connection.

Anyway David and Jonathan (the English pop group, not your actual heroes of ancient Israel) had two top 20 hits in 1966, and that might not have bothered the executives of the record company had the song not then been a hit for Gene Pitney in 1967.  I have no idea if Bob had any interest in Gene Pitney but Gene was involved with the early Rolling Stones records as a pianist, and then later did some country music with George Jones.  Bob Dylan knows his music and has a widespread interest and reverence for all brands of popular music, so it is just possible.   Maybe not, but you never know.

The long and the short is that “Someone’s got a hold of my heart” resurfaced as  Tight connection to my heart two years later but there is a widespread feeling that many of the best lines of the original were cut in the re-working of the song.

Reason 3: Getting the religious stuff out of the way

One of the factors in the recycled version is that it removed the more obvious religious references and these are the lines that are replaced with lines from The Maltese Falcon and Serpico.  And again that made me think that there was some sort of outside factor that encouraged Dylan to act in this way.   I doubt that it might have been a rejection of his earlier religious period, because although “Someone’s” was re-written in 1985 I don’t get the impression he had rejected his Christianity as such – more than he had moved on.

Would he remove Biblical references for film references out of some odd form of spite?  Because he was angry at his past religious thoughts or those who had tried to use Dylan’s name to propagate their religious views?  But has certainly always hated being labelled from the days of “protest singer” onward.   Maybe that was it.

In 1981 (so at least a year before the original version of this song, and around two to three years before the revised version) Dylan stopped writing religious songs.  The last, as I have noted in the 1981 sequence, were the rather moderate,Jesus is the one an Thief on the Cross.

So time had moved on, and Dylan had already taken a step or three away from overtly religious songs by the time he wrote the piece.  He had taken many more steps by the time he re-wrote it.  Thus another perhaps simpler explanation is that having written the song in the first place he felt that he was just harking back to the religious themes he had dropped a year or two earlier, and he really didn’t want to do any more of that.

But I am still troubled by one point in all this, that when Dylan came to change the lines he didn’t really re-think the lines – he did, as others have said, lift the from films.  Now my argument here would be that if he felt that the original lines were artistically wrong he might well had then decided to re-write the whole song, taking time and care about the re-write   But if he was just annoyed, either because he felt he had wasted a good tune on yet another religious piece, or because he had been told about the similarity of the title with a Gene Pitney song, he might well have felt inclined to throw in songs from the movies he had been watching.

In short, I can’t quite make out what was going on.   And I’d also make the comment that none of the reviews I have read of this song delve into this issue of WHY.  Why did Bob change a perfectly good and working song at this point.   I am filling in a void here.  If someone can come up with an alternative reason which holds water all well and good.  But as far as I know, at the time I am writing this, no one has.

Someones got a hold of my heart starts

They say, “Eat, drink and be merry
Take the bull by the horns”
I keep seeing visions of you, a lily among thorns
Everything looks a little far away to me

The re-write

Well, I had to move fast
And I couldn’t with you around my neck
I said I’d send for you and I did
What did you expect?

Then from Someone’s

Gettin’ harder and harder to recognize the trap
Too much information about nothin’
Too much educated rap
It’s just like you told me, just like you said it would be

And the re-write

My hands are sweating
And we haven’t even started yet
I’ll go along with the charade
Until I can think my way out

Reason 4: The artist being too close to his own work

I’ll leave you to make sense of it all, but here is one other point.  Every artist is far closer to his/her work than the audience and the critics.   I don’t know how many times I have heard these songs, but whatever it is, it will only be a fraction of the number of times Dylan explored them as he wrote them.   Maybe he’d just got fed up with the original, and wanted to have a bit of fun doing a cut and paste job with lines from the movies.

That, in the end, could well be it.

“Someone’s Got A Hold On My Heart” was performed at New York’s Supper Club which you will know if you are a member of our Facebook discussion group.

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

By Tony Attwood.

Completely revised 27 May 2020

As far as I can see (and of course I could be wrong on this) “Thief on the Cross” was either the very last of the gospel and other religious songs that Dylan wrote and performed, or else in this song he is saying that the original message of Christianity has been stolen by the Christians.

One way or another this is the last of the religious songs – after which Dylan took a break from songwriting and recording.  So we could argue that he was still a Christian at this point, but then lost his Christianity in the coming months.  But this seems uncomfortable to me – this is such an upbeat song.  If you have Doubts do you really write a song like this?

The compositions of those three years were not made up entirely of solid religious songs, especially in the second and third years.  Other masterpieces of utter magnitude occur, such as Caribbean Wind but there were also, towards the end, one or two religious songs that really don’t seem to me to work at all, either as celebrations of Christianity or as valid pieces of music in their own right.

And we must also consider this: just before this song was written Bob wrote “Lenny Bruce is Dead”.  Does one really move from writing that to a fully religious song?

Added to which the year contained other songs that might be interpreted as religious, or might not – the case is arguable, and so I get the feeling as time passed Dylan was doing two things: trying to push himself to create further religious songs to show his faith was still there, but finding himself drawn to much more successful songs which were either non-religious or ambiguous on the subject.

These last two full-on Christian songs of Dylan from this period of high-intensity religious writing were not, to my mind, very successful.  It is as if his heart really wasn’t in it anymore, and it is interesting that neither of these final Christian songs from the period have lyrics that appear on the official website.

As for Thief on the Cross it got one live play on 10 November 1981, and that was that.  The urge to create new Christian songs had run its course.  Or that was a deliberate epilogue.

The song itself has a riff that runs through the song is basically the same as in Cover Down Break Through, which suggests either that Dylan had lost his creative drive in this form of writing, or he is deliberately wrapping the era up.   Here is the one and only recording of the song that exists recorded in New Orleans.  The band is Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Fred Tackett (guitar), Steve Ripley (guitar), Al Kooper (keyboards), Tim Drummond (bass), Jim Keltner (drums), Arthur Rosato (drums), Clydie King, Regina Havis, Madelyn Quebec (background vocals)

If you want the Christian interpretation, the song is intended to draw us towards thinking about good thief on the cross next to Jesus; a thief who had been brought low by despair.   There is perhaps a flashback to the Watchtower with the joker and the thief, and this is something I have been meaning to consider more for some time.

There were two thieves on crosses, in Luke 23 one of whom declares that there is no divine presence, everything is hopeless.   In Luke the good thief attempts to convert the bad thief while the Son of God is also being crucified.

There’s a thief on the cross his chances are slim
There’s a thief on the cross I wanna talk to him

So that makes it look like a straight Christian song.  Except, except, except, consider this line from Lenny Bruce

Maybe he had some problems, maybe some things that he couldn’t work out
But he sure was funny and he sure told the truth and he knew what he was talkin’ about
Never robbed any churches nor cut off any babies’ heads
He just took the folks in high places and he shined a light in their beds
He’s on some other shore, he didn’t wanna live anymore

How does that, in one song, relate to this in The Cross

Well everybody’s been diverted
Everybody’s looking the other way
Everybody’s attention is divided
Well they may not afford to wait
There’s a thief on the cross his chances are slim
There’s a thief on the cross I wanna talk to him

Back to Lenny Bruce

They said that he was sick ’cause he didn’t play by the rules
He just showed the wise men of his day to be nothing more than fools
They stamped him and they labeled him like they do with pants and shirts
He fought a war on a battlefield where every victory hurts
Lenny Bruce was bad, he was the brother that you never had

Wanna ask him ’bout his mother
Wanna ask him ’bout his ways
Wanna ask him ’bout to talk to himself
If it’s time it didn’t go too well
There’s a thief on the cross his chances are slim
There’s a thief on the cross I wanna talk to him

Now over the 10+ years of writing these reviews I have become more and more disdainful of commentaries that tell us Bob means exactly this or that and we can prove it.  So I am not going to try and prove anything, just raise some doubts.

Well, everybody’s not too excited
Don’t be too surprised
Head for the town and you can see it well
And it’s rising in his eyes
There’s a thief on the cross his chances are slim
There’s a thief on the cross I wanna talk to him

Now there’s winning, ruling and readin’
Everybody goes sinning by the rules
There’s a secret to excite you
Whether Iran or Mexico
There’s a thief on the cross his chances are slim
There’s a thief on the cross I wanna talk to him

And that was it – the end of the gospel era.

Except I really must offer you, dear reader, this recording and no matter what your view of Thief on the Cross, listen to this.  Is this a man who believes in the fundamentals of Christianity, Judaism or any other religion.

As a critic writing reviews of all the Dylan songs I find myself asking how can one move from Lenny Bruce to “Thief”?  I am not sure.  Listening to all these songs and trying my level best to write honest and informative reviews of them all I know I have not been converted, but maybe that was not the point.  I have been more entertained than I expected to be in going back across these songs, and I have been brought to an absolute masterpiece played perfectly with When He Returns but as a non-Christian I have found it often a struggle because sometimes I do feel, as in these last couple of songs, the music is not that good.

This is the last song I have listed for 1981, and after this it appears Dylan took a long break both from writing and from touring.  When he did return it was in a completely different mode with  Jokerman – which maybe tells us something.

And we are left with this thought

Maybe he had some problems, maybe some things that he couldn’t work out
But he sure was funny and he sure told the truth and he knew what he was talkin’ about
Never robbed any churches nor cut off any babies’ heads
He just took the folks in high places and he shined a light in their beds
He’s on some other shore, he didn’t wanna live anymore

That, in the end, is what moves me to say that Thief on the Cross is about the loss of the fundamental message of Christianity.  The validity, the truth, the real understanding, comes from people like Lenny Bruce, who challenge us to think again.

• 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 who teach English literature.  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.

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  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.

  But what is complete is our index to all the 604 Dylan compositions and co-compositions that we have found, on the A to Z page.  I’m proud of that; no one else has found that many songs with that much information.  Elsewhere the songs are indexed by theme and by the date of composition. See for example Bob Dylan year by year.

by Tony Attwood

According to reports on one web site Bob Dylan wrote this song in Oslo, Norway, while touring in 1981. He then performed it eight times while touring… and each time, he used entirely new lyrics. So there are eight different alternate sets of lyrics for this song.

None of them is definitive, none of them appears on the official Bob Dylan site, and quite frankly none of them appear to me to be worth remembering or noting.  Indeed if it were not for the fact that I set myself the task of working through all the Dylan songs I could find and doing a review of each one, I wouldn’t have bothered playing this through to the end.

The song is written around one chord – which of course restricts what one can do with the melody, and requires an exciting rhythm and above all, absolutely above all, interesting lyrics.  But this song has none of these.  It is as if by simply telling us something is so, it becomes so.   And indeed it does if one believes it, but not if one doesn’t.  Bob is therefore simply singing to the converted and making very little effort in the process.

I have found some of Dylan’s religious songs to be truly marvellous creations and reported as much here, and even noted that if I were of a mind to be converted there is a song of Bob’s that would convert me.   But this simply sends me screaming in the opposite direction.  For the song that has the opposite effect (if you are interested) see here.

Jesus is the one!
Jesus is the one!

It ain’t Mr. Truman
It ain’t Mr. Blue
It ain’t Mr. President
Mister Me or Mister You.

Jesus is the one!
Jesus is the one!

Well, you’re looking over yonder
But what do you see
That does not mean that
They’re comin’ for you, they’re comin’ for me.

Jesus is the one!
Jesus is the one!

Well, it ain’t Mr. Reagan
That can raise a bed
It ain’t Mr. Rockefeller
That can raise the dead.

Jesus is the one!
Jesus is the one!

It ain’t Mr. Vallee
It ain’t a fortune star
It ain’t Mr. Roosevelt
That can heal your broken heart.

Jesus is the one!

https://www.facebook.com/ShotOfLoveBobDylan/videos/522630467865652/

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 of all 350+ songs reviewed on this site can be found on the home page.

By Tony Attwood

This is part of a series of articles each of which summarises Bob’s compositional work during one year.  A list of the articles so far in this series is given at the end of the article.   To see all the songs Dylan wrote, in the order he wrote them, with links to the reviews on this site, follow one of these lines

• 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

After writing 13 songs that we now particularly remember in 1970, including the songs for the New Morning album, Bob took time out in 1971 and left us with just three new songs

1. When I paint my masterpiece
2. Watching the river flow
3. George Jackson

1971 was in fact part one of a two year break from songwriting and made many people (who took note of such things) think that we would never see the massive output of the years up to 1967 again.  In that year he had written 22 songs that were to be remembered, but since then the totals had been

• 1968: 1 song
• 1969: 8 songs
• 1970: 13 songs
• 1971: 3 songs

Worse, for those who were concerned about such things, there was considerable criticism of some of the songs on “New Morning” – a feeling that Dylan was recording all that he had, rather than (as in the past) the best of a very, very good bunch of new compositions.

What’s more, from the time of his first album in 1962 until the 1990s, this was the longest period that Dylan went without releasing an album of new material.

Of course the volume of composition is nothing without the brilliance of the content – but brilliance and volume was what we had before 1968, for six solid years.  If we thought that 1970, with the composition of “New Morning” was a return to the ceaseless writing, we were misled.

But there was another issue here, for even with the drying up of compositions in this period Dylan had still produced an album a year after the one year pause in 1968

• 1969: Nashville Skyline
• 1970: Self Portrait; New Morning
• 1971: Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits

But none of the albums were completely new.  The 1971 album included only one new composition “Watching the River Flow” – although the song only crept into the bottom of the top 40 charts and was backed by a song that was not a Dylan original (Spanish is the loving tongue).  As such “greatest hits” is (at least in this regard) a bit of a misnomer.

But let’s take these songs in order.   To my way of thinking When I paint my masterpieceis a masterpiece, a brilliantly inventive piece of music that shows Dylan on the top of his form as a lyricist.   I have tried to bring across some of this in my review of the song, for I do think some of the nuances and references are easily missed, and in this case that is a shame.

As I said at the time of writing the reviews “Masterpiece” pairs with Watching the River Flow, in terms of its consideration of artistic process and for me it really is worth the effort to go back and listen to both of them.

For me the same cannot be said for “George Jackson”  a song that was written quickly and then recorded and released rapidly following the death of Jackson.   Dylan was clearly highly motivated by the subject but even so… irrespective of the facts of the case, for it is just isn’t a very exciting song.

Dylan year by year – the series

Dylan in 1961: The Overview

Dylan in 1962: The Overview

Dylan in 1963: the overview – Dylan the storyteller part 1

Bob Dylan in 1964: the overview. Dylan the storyteller part 2.

Bob Dylan in 1965: the overview – the year Dylan invented two totally new forms of music.

Dylan in 1966 the overview: writing songs while the band patiently waits

Dylan in 1967: the overview.   A year of two, or maybe three halves.

Bob Dylan in 1968 – the overview.  As his country pulls itself apart, Dylan takes a year out.

Bob Dylan in 1969: everything is lovely

Dylan in 1970: a stuttering return to song writing.

by Tony Attwood

Although City of Gold hardly gets a mention anywhere in Dylan commentaries, and doesn’t even have its lyrics on the official Dylan site, Dylan still played it 19 times in concert in 1980/81, (it was an encore song at Birmingham in the UK in 1981), and of course it is part of the movie “Masked and Anonymous” by the Dixie Hummingbirds.   It wasn’t in the first edition of Lyrics, but turned up in a later edition.   I have no idea why.

Here are the original lyrics taken from the ever dependable Eyolf Østrem. (I’ve made the tiniest of changes from his original, but they are so tiny you won’t notice).

There is a city of gold
far from this rat-race with the bars that hold
far from the confusion, eats at your soul
There is a city of gold.

There is a country of light
Raised up in glory, angels wearing white
Never know sickness, never know night
There is a country of light.

There is a city of love
Way from this world, stuff dreams are made of
Fear of no darkness, stars high above
There is a city of love.

There is a city of hope
There ain't no doctor, don't need no dope
I'm ready and willing, throw down a rope
There is a city of hope.

There is a city of gold
Far from this rat race and these bars that hold
Rest for your spirit, peace for your soul
There is a city of gold

The movie version gives us some extra lines such as

There is a city of grace
You drink holy water in a sanctified's place
one's afraid to show their face
There is a city, a city of grace

The Dixie Hummingbirds chose to record it on their 2003 album Diamond Jubilation which is here and it is this recording that turns up on the album of the “Masked and Anonymous” soundtrack, replacing the actual final song from the movie itself.

Gospel music is, I must admit, outside of my circle of knowledge so for information on the Dixie Hummingbirds I am going to quote direct from Wikipedia…

“The Dixie Hummingbirds are an influential American gospel music group, spanning more than 80 years from the jubilee quartet style of the 1920s, through the “hard gospel” quartet style of gospel’s golden age in the 1940s and 1950s, to the eclectic pop-tinged songs of today. The Hummingbirds inspired a number of imitators, such as Jackie Wilson and James Brown, who adapted the shouting style and enthusiastic showmanship of hard gospel to secular themes to help create soul music in the 1960s.”

As for the song itself, it is very much in the gospel tradition, and the lyrics take from one of Dylan’s favourite books of the Bible (Revelations) the notion of the city of gold.  Here is the relevant section from Revelation 21:18-21 (New International Version).

The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst.   The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.”

Then in verse 23 we have

The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.

I won’t take you all the way through Revelations, but it is as clear as clear can be that Dylan had this final book of the Bible in his hand as he wrote this song.

It’s a fine piece of music but I am not too sure that the lyrics really are throughout worthy of Dylan – certainly not Dylan even on a poor day.  If we take for example

There is a city of hope
There ain't no doctor, don't need no dope
I'm ready and willing, throw down a rope
There is a city of hope.

I don’t really think this does justice to the music.  But of course that’s just me being difficult.

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 of all 350+ songs reviewed on this site can be found on the home page.

by Tony Attwood

This song about the prejudice that can arise from a mixed-race relationship was a central part of Dylan’s tour in the autumn of 1980 before being offered to Bonnie Raitt, who recorded it 1982.   

Thus the song comes from a very, very rich year of songwriting.   Dylan “only” wrote 11 songs that were finished in that year (11 would of course be amazing for most songwriters, for Dylan it was becoming more like the norm – just over half the average he established in the 1960s)   But the 11 was quite amazing, especially considering the range of styles and approaches he explored.

So this year we had already had

• Cover Down
• Ain’t gonna go to hell for anybody
• Property of Jesus
• Every grain of sand
• Caribbean Wind
• Groom’s still waiting at the alter
• Yonder comes sin

and now we have “Let’s keep it”.

It is by any measure a remarkable run of writing, and there surely can’t be many Dylan aficionados who don’t think “Let’s keep it” keeps up the quality.  OK it isn’t Caribbean Wind but that is a stunning masterpiece out on its own.  It is still very good indeed.

Two sets of lyrics for the song seem to exist on the internet, and we have a collection of videos.  Along with the Raitt version, we have some versions by Dylan from the shows, and also a bootleg album actually called “Let’s keep it between us” recorded with Dylan’s old mate Gerry Garcia (who Dylan several times complemented him with the thought that his recordings of Dylan’s own songs were superior, and a reference point for Bob when he thought of including a song on the set list.)  The title track is obviously included on the album – which itself is (at the time of writing) currently on line in full.

It should also be noted that Garcia sat in with Dylan on a couple of occasions for performances of this song (November 16, 1980 and May 5, 1992 are the dates quoted but I need to check these).

The piece is played with Bob at the piano in the key of Eb and I hope you will stay with me through the next couple of paragraphs, because whether you have a musical training or not, I am hoping you might this interesting.  I think it adds a little to understanding how Dylan creates the richness of this song.

The fact that  Eyolf Østrem comments that Dylan composed it in E flat “which isn’t very nice of him,” points to what is going on here.   Eb is generally speaking most guitarists least favourite key.  Østrem transposes the song into D to make it easier for guitarists but still comments that “The most distinctive chord here is the one I’ve called F6; it’s a huge chord, with something of F, something of Dm, quite a lot of D7-10 (x5456x) in it, but F6 is a fair approximation.

“The same would have to be said about some of the other “grand” chords (at “trust” and the last “keep”) – they are approximations.”

Although the way Dylan has performed the song makes it impossible for guitarists, through this process gav us a clue as to what he was doing here musically, when he spoke about his untutored approach to piano work – noting that he primarily played the black notes – real pianists, he said, started with the white notes.

Just playing the black notes is a common trick of pianists who have not had a formal musical education, and it immediately leads to a whole range of unexpected and unconventional chords which is what makes this song’s accompaniment so striking.

Plus the melodic range is much greater than is found in many Dylan songs as are some of the rhythmic changes – Bob was clearly on form in creating this piece.

There appear to be two versions of the lyrics, one of which has the majestic lines

Let’s just move to the back of the back of the bus
Oh, darlin’, can we keep it between us?

And one of which doesn’t, which is a shame.  Those lines seem to sum it all up.

There are also several recordings on the internet…

And the version that emerged later…

And the Bootleg album which contains the song part way through.

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 of all 350+ songs reviewed on this site can be found on the home page.