1985 was a strange year for Bob. He seemed to be struggling to find songs to put on his albums, and wrote some strange pieces with Gerry Goffin, but in the midst of it all he came up with four staggeringly wonderful songs.
Maybe Someday really is a stand out piece, not least because of its combination of energy and unusual rhythm effect from the percussion (something we also get with “Something’s burning baby” written in the previous year) which is simply not doing what you might expect it to be doing. I don’t think the recorded version we have is perfect as there is a bit too much do-wop from the female singers, but it is still a fabulous song.
Then there is the much more obscure co-written Well well well. As I go back to look at some of the reviews I have written I am always afraid that links I have offered to recordings placed on the internet might have broken, but at least for the moment (April 2017) both links to “Well, well, well” are still there.
If you don’t know the song, I would strongly urge you to play both versions – although with the first version by the co-writer, you might care to omit his opening remarks which last a minute or two.
Next on my list of great compositions for the year comes When the night comes falling from the sky – one of Dylan’s epic recordings about the end of time which appeared on Empire Burlesque. It is the song that contains the epic line
I don’t want to drown in someone else’s wine
It’s one of those lines that can keep a person pushing forward and searching forever – and that is exactly what the music gives us. That eternal search for personal answers. And quite a line to write after a year of working with others to try and find a new direction.
And then of course, Dark Eyes Utterly, utterly remarkable.
So four masterful songs all from a period that some describe as one in which Dylan was searching and not finding a new direction. Four songs that for anyone else would be the absolute pinnacle of a writing career.
Maybe Someday
Well well well
When the night comes falling
Dark Eyes
Not such a bad year after all.
Highlight of the year… I’m endlessly torn between “Well well well” and “Dark Eyes”. I guess it is “Dark Eyes” as “Well well well” is a co-composition. But really, both are worth a very serious consideration.
I live in another world where life and death are memorized Where the earth is strung with lovers’ pearls and all I see are dark eyes
Oh my. Every time I hear those lines I just have to stop and look out of the window at the trees blowing in the wind and take time out to recover.
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
A major theme in Bob Dylan’s song lyrics is the employment of religion by authority figures to cover up serreptitious behaviour:
“Big time negotiators, false healers, and women haters Masters of the bluff, and masters of the proposition But the enemy I see Wears a cloak of decency All nonbelievers and men stealers talkin’ in the name of religion”
(Slow Train)
He points out how the words of the Bible have been twisted over time to transform a world under Noah’s great rainbow into one painted solely in the white and black of good and evil:
“And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness….
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them”
(Genesis 1: 26, 27)
The many male writers of the Holy Book, to sanctify masculine dominance, quickly shove this Hermaphrodite God(dess) shrouded in the white mist (see: Robert Graves) and fog into the background, and have female Eve instead carved out of the side of male Adam, and then later the male Jesus mysteriously becomes one and the same with God in some other-worldly existence – a template for how human life ought to be structured on Earth.
That religion is employed to shore up any changing of the guard, Dylan has little doubt:
“Through many a dark hour I’ve been thinking ’bout this That Jesus Christ Was betrayed by a kiss But I can’t think for you You’ll to decide Whether Jesus Iscariot Had God on his side”
(Bob Dylan: With God On Our Sude)
And as a questioner himself of the status quo (Judaism’s High Priests challenged by upstart Christianity), Dylan is not surprised to find the presence of an androgynous spirit still hanging on in spite of the changing of the guard.
“Well, the hobo jumped up He came down naturally After he stole my baby Then he tried to steal me But I’m pledging my time to you Hopin’ you’ll come through too”
(Bob Dylan: Pledging My Time)
Dylan has friends thusly oriented, so it seems in lyrics that are somewhat double-edged:
“Queen Mary, she’s my friend Yes, I believe I’ll go see her again Nobody has to guess That Baby can’t be blessed Till she sees finds that she’s like all the rest With her fog, her amphetamines, and her perils”
(Bob Dylan: Just Like A Woman)
More song lyrics; this time not too fogged-up:
“Well, the sword-swallower, he comes up to you, and then he kneels He crosses himself and then he clicks his high heels And without further notice, he asks you how it feels And he says, ‘Here is your throat back, thanks for the loan’ “
(Bob Dyan: Ballad Of A Thin Man)
From such topics, Dylan does not shy:
“Tweeter was a Boy Scout ‘fore he went to Vietnam And found out the hard way, nobody gives a damn They knew that they found freedom just across the Jersey line So they hopped into a stolen car, took Highway 99″
(Bob Dylan: Tweeter And The Monkey Man)
Perhaps suggesting Tweeter suffered a war injury.
Concerning women infused with the spirit of Hermaphrodite, Dylan’s appears somewhat frustrated:
“Rita May, Rita May How’d you ever get that way? When do you ever see the light? Don’t you ever feel a fright? You got me burnin’, and I’m turnin’ But I know I must be learnin’ Rita May”
(Bob Dylan: Rita May)
“When do you ever see the light?”: This is where the mystical Gnosticism of Swedenborg comes into play: a Godhead far from the Universe has spread out light so far that some sparks of its complete nature are able to light up within materialized individuals on Earth who are lucky enough to have this happen; there is no sin, no evil, only ignorance of the Godhead; blocked off mostly, but sometimes assisted, by the different types of fragments floating around.
1: Over 450 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
I guess the people who like to write or talk about contemporary music but have never listened to Nottamun Town…
They laughed and they smiled, not a soul did look gay They talked all the while, not a word they did say I bought me a quart to drive gladness away And to stifle the dust, for it rained the whole day
In short, songs have been not making sense since the Middle Ages. And indeed in 1984 Talking Heads made the point incredibly clearly with their film “Stop Making Sense”.
In fact no one ever said that a song had to make sense, any more than the world had to make sense. Indeed not making sense is an art form in its own right, often (but not always) pointing out that the sense of the world is only there because we impose our view of the way things should be upon the world we experience.
But on the other hand anyone can string together a whole load of nonsense and it remains nonsense. It take some musical and literary ability to turn it into something more than that. And so, long before Talking Heads considered the issue, Bob Dylan toyed with it. Indeed “Lo and Behold” was just one of a number of songs in which he considered the issue.
There are elements of Nottamun in “Lo and Behold” although it is by no means a direct copy of the song. More “Lo and Behold” is a set of words that maybe means something somewhere, sometime, and may mean more in the local dialect, (but gets a bit lost when crossing the Atlantic – which is probably what happens the other way around with Nottamun Town”
I bought my girl A herd of moose One she could call her own Well, she came out the very next day To see where they had flown I’m goin’ down to Tennessee Get me a truck ‘r somethin’ Gonna save my money and rip it up! Lo and behold! Lo and behold! Lookin’ for my lo and behold Get me outa here, my dear man!
Indeed some of the song is completely incomprehensible to my English ears
Now, I come in on a Ferris wheel An’ boys, I sure was slick I come in like a ton of bricks Laid a few tricks on ’em Goin’ back to Pittsburgh Count up to thirty Round that horn and ride that herd Gonna thread up! Lo and behold! Lo and behold! Lookin’ for my lo and behold Get me outa here, my dear man!
Dylan of course was experimenting with both nonsense and humour through much of the 1960s. The very first two songs that we currently have listed on this site (Talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues and Talkin Hava Negeilah blues) are humorous pieces – although each is very different from the other and each looks at nonsense in its own way.
But to take nonsense as the sole element within “Lo and Behold” is to miss one important issue.
“Lo and Behold Ye” is a volume of considerable importance by the Irish writer Seumas MacManus (1867 to 1960) whose writings appeared in newspapers in the United States. whose first wife was the daughter of the founder of the original feminist nationalist movement in Ireland.
After she died Seumas moved to the USA and married Catalina Violante Paez, granddaughter of a former Venezuelan president, General José Antonio Páez, which when you consider it is quite something: to have been married to the daughter of the founder of the feminist nationalist movement in Ireland, and the granddaughter of a President of Venezuela.
But leaving aside his wives, the point about Seamus MacManus is that he is seen as the last seanchaí, the storytellers of the ancient Irish oral tradition who wrote down and interpreted traditional stories so that they would not be lost to future generations.
His work involved encouraging readers to tell the stories preserved in his own writings, as well as other stories, and then to pass them on to everyone they met, so that industrialisation would not destroy the Irish nation’s heritage.
As he said, “These tales were made … for telling. They were made and told for the passing of long nights, for the shortening of weary journeys, for entertaining of traveller-guests, for brightening of cabin hearths. Be not content with reading them… And grateful be to the seanchaís who passed these tales to me, for you.”
If we then think of Dylan’s interest in the world of storytelling – for example in using the melody of “Nottamun Town” in “With God on our side”, and writing about forever moving on to another location, in songs as varied as “One too many mornings”, “Restless Farewell” and “Drifters Escape,” we can see the link. Indeed that last song – “Drifters Escape” (written in the same year as Lo and Behold) gives us a link not just to the songs of moving on, but also to the nonsense songs like “Nottamun Town”, for in essence none of the Drifter’s world makes any sense at all.
Dylan in looking for his own “Lo and Behold”, his own message of great importance to pass on to the generations that come after him, is laughing at his own situation, where he is seen already to be a person with a great message to give to the world. It is a bit like Monty Python’s Life of Brian. People were calling him the Messiah, but in essence he was at heart just a naughty boy having fun. He’s still looking for the message that everyone tells him he already has.
The phrase “Lo and behold” has been used in literature in England since the 19th century, but I think it is also worth mentioning that 50 years on it gained a new impetus in 2016 with the release of a most moving film by Werner Herzog, “Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World”, which looks at the impact of the internet on our lives. If that sounds a bit like a thousand other documentaries, believe me it isn’t. It is, most particularly in one part, utterly shocking and full of revelations and really worth watching if you are interested in the whole nature of sudden change and dramatic revelations.
The question remains, did Bob ever find his Lo and behold moment? Did he find the messages he needed to pass on as Seumas MacManus did?
That’s not for me to answer, but I think in this song, he is amusing himself by reflecting on the difficulty that anyone has when he/she seeks to find key issues to point at and say, “that is of profound importance to us all.”
Maybe, as Talking Heads said, sometimes the best way forwards is to stop making sense.
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
The fuzzy-categorized, overlapping writings in the Judeo-Christian Bible, in Romantic Transcendentalist poetry, in Romantic Gothic poetry, in Symbolist poetry, in Neo-Romantic and AntiRomantic Modern poetry, and in Post-Modern poetry, all have influences to varying degrees on Bob Dylan song lyrics and on his music.
But not so great an influence as the PreRomantic Swedenborg-tinged poetry of the mystic William Blake with his poetic quest to find a suitable balance amongst the Classic entangled elements of Earth, Air, Water, and Fire, that represent man’s Imagination, his Spirit, his Power, and his Desire.
A world-view which evolves from time out of mind, when the female-component of the God Hermaphrodite dominates the Cosmos:
“Then the lips that you have kissed Turn to frost and fire And a white-steaming mist Obsures desire So back to the birth Fade water, air, earth And the First Power moves Over void and dearth”
(Robert Graves: The Kiss)
The symbol of the Female, the all-powerful Mother Goddess, the white mist, that gives birth to the male, feeds him, holds him, has sex with him, serves as a Muse to his poetic and musical ambitions, and, in the end, envolopes him.
The omnipotent presence of the Great White Wonder Goddess shedding her kisses and her tears, Bob Dylan often depicts in his song lyrics:
“My love she speaks like silence Without ideals or violence She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful Yet she’s true like ice, like fire”
(Bob Dylan: Love Minus Zero/No Limit)
In the words of a poet that Bob Dylan admires:
“Green sap of Spring in the young world a-stir Will celebrate the Mountain Mother And every song-bird start awhile for her But I am gifted, even in November Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of her nakely worn magnificence I forget cruelty and past betrayal Careless of where the next bright bolt may fall”
(Robert Graves: The White Goddess)
Again the lyrics of the singer/songwriter:
“You’re the one that reaches me You’re the one that I admire Every time we meet together My soul feels like it’s on fire Nothing matters to me And there’s nothing I desire ‘Cept you, yeah, you”
(Bob Dylan: Nobody ‘Cept You)
A mysticism found also in the songs and music of a band Dylan associates with:
“You know the rules by now And the fire from the ice Will you come with me? Won’t you come with me?”
(Grateful Dead: Uncle John’s Band)
And in the verses of a Medieval poet:
“The dark thought, the shame, the malice Greet them at the door laughing And invite them in”
(Mawlana Rumi: The Guest House)
A final word from the Dylan on the matter:
“Can’t help looking at you You made love with god-knows-who Never found a gal to match you I can’t escape from you”
(Bob Dylan: Can’t Escape From You)
An Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood, Bob Dylan reaches out for a Unified Field Theory.
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
The original title of “Clothes Line Saga” was “Answer to ‘Ode’,” which helps us confirm what is fairly obvious, that just as Bob parodied “Norwegian Wood” in “Fourth Time Around” so he was doing the same here.
But I get the impression that some people feel that Dylan was laughing at “Ode to Billie Joe”, and I am sure that is not the case at all.
This sort of story goes back to Hank Williams (singing as Luke the Drifter) with songs like “Be careful of the stones that you throw”, and the whole issue of the way that people in isolated country communities live. (Dylan said in Chronicles that he virtually wore out his copy of the Luke the Drifter album because he played it so often).
“Be careful” has the chorus
A tongue can accuse and carry bad news The seeds of distrust, it will sow But unless you’ve made no mistakes in your life Be careful of stones that you throw.
That’s one side of country living. Different people see things in different ways. People have prejudices which arise because of their isolation, and then these can suddenly be challenged. The isolation of communities can cause thought patterns to make everyday local life the centre of everything. It’s inevitable.
This is also the heart of Ode to Billie Joe in which the girl and her parents have no real way of coming together. We get that right at the start
And mama hollered out the back door, y’all, remember to wipe your feet And then she said, I got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge Today, Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge
And papa said to mama, as he passed around the blackeyed peas Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense; pass the biscuits, please
Dylan goes down the same route in ClothesLine
“Have you heard the news?” he said, with a grin “The Vice-President’s gone mad!” “Where?” “Downtown.” “When?” “Last night” “Hmm, say, that’s too bad!” “Well, there’s nothin’ we can do about it,” said the neighbor “It’s just somethin’ we’re gonna have to forget” “Yes, I guess so,” said Ma Then she asked me if the clothes was still wet
It’s that inevitable contradiction between coping with the everyday, just to get along, and the issues going on around one about which one can do nothing.
In this regard the accompaniment – and obviously being a Basement Tape song it was knocked out very quickly without a lot of preparation – works well because it gives a sort of background feeling that just suggests the unchanging rural scene in which the events in Washington are going to have no impact. As in…
“They’ve declared war on North Korea!”
“Really? Still none of our business. Are the clothes dry?”
So, when I read a review of the song which reads, “Sure, there’s that wacky revelation in the middle, but it might as well have been a revelation about the sky being blue for all the attention that’s paid to it,” I not only think, the writer didn’t get the underlying issue, I also think, he hasn’t understood the musical context.
As Bob himself has commented, folk music was a way of ordinary people dealing with the mundane reality of everyday life, and the huge events that go around them – sudden weather changes spoiling the crops, the decline in prices because of cheap labour in far off countries, or in the middle ages, a long running war they know nothing about suddenly overriding their land…
That is what Bobby Gentry updated, and what Bob, tucked away in the basement, was ruminating upon, in my view.
I think we need to remember that these songs were a mix of try-outs, passing-the-time playfulness and serious efforts to create songs that other people could record (and in that regard a lot of them were incredibly successful).
Within such a creative process, all sorts of things can happen – and suddenly in thinking about this process I was reminded of a totally different song, “Music is Love” by David Crosby, (from “If only I could remember my name”) which must have been composed by Crosby just by strumming the guitar and singing that one phrase over and over, and the guys simply joining in.
“Music is Love” is a superb song, and there is nothing wrong with music that is just created out of thoughts and events, without huge amounts of artistry going into it at the start – its final outcome evolves from the starting point, not through any long dedicated artistic process.
That to me is the way we always need to listen to the Basement Tapes – as ways of reflecting on the musical heritage delivered through the multiplicity of forms that have evolved across the centuries – combined with the concerns of every day life and Dylan’s own long term issues and thoughts.
Indeed the opening point of Clothesline Saga really makes this point
After a while we took in the clothes Nobody said very much
There is no introduction, no scene setting, no background. We don’t know where we are, who the people are or anything. The world just is – and with that assessment we know this is how it has been for a long time. Life goes on and nothing changes.
If Bob had started it with a sort of “If was back in 1951, down Oklahoma way…” the story would have been lost, because we would have had a context that would have mislead us. As it is, the situation simply is. We are there. That’s it.
Ode to Billie Joe works in the same way
It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day I was out choppin’ cotton, and my brother was balin’ hay And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
Yes we get the date, and the fact that we are on the Delta, but that is such a vague positioning that it really doesn’t tell us much. Life goes on. That’s how it goes.
That is the essence of this song. It is just a bit of fun, but Dylan’s underlying thoughts and concerns shine through nonetheless. I don’t think in any way he was making fun of “Ode to Billie Joe”, he was sitting with friends, adding his own thoughts.
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
In many respects I find 1984 a year in which Dylan was once more casting around for a new vision, a new idea. Part blues, part religion, part love songs, part experiment… that was the sort of year it turned out to be.
But there was one absolute total triumph: the song that started the year I once knew a man. Aside from the fact that this is obviously a variant blues, I have no idea where this came from; it doesn’t appear on the official site, and it is absolutely not a new version of the song of the same name, written by Charles Manson.
We have a video of the single performance of the song, but nothing else. But at least we do have the video, otherwise another masterpiece would have been lost.
However we are clearly in a world of uncertainty for Bob. Who loves you more is a sketchbook idea of a blues, which for me is never resolved (although others claim it is). Likewise Almost done is another sketchbook piece which sadly is not really going anywhere. Two sketches and a blues piece only played once – this starts to tell us the tale of the year.
Then we have the curious case of Dirty lie which seems to me to be like a direct copy from “Stray Cat Strut” (which I’ve linked to on the review so you can hear for yourself).
After that Go way little boy is a great bit of bouncy fun written for Lone Justice, but it is not a great song in itself, and at the risk of making myself a lot of enemies I would argue that Drifting too far from shore is again an experiment that doesn’t work, from a writer struggling for inspiration.
New Danville Girl is of course a most interesting piece because of what Bob did to it over time – something that I have tried to explore in my review. But what fascinates me most of all, coming back to this song again is the line, “Nothing happens on purpose, it’s an accident if it happens at all.” As I noted at the time, “With that simple line all of civilisation, all human progress, the whole Christian message, everything that makes us human rather than just animals, is blown away.” We really are once again just blowing in the wind.
After that all we have is Something’s Burning Baby. This is so dark I can’t really buy into the notion that it is about his religious feelings; it seems to me to be another lost love song, saying as it does, “Whereas we once knew, now we don’t.”
You’ve been avoiding the main streets for a long, long while The truth that I’m seeking is in your missing file What’s your position, baby, what’s going on? Why is the light in your eyes nearly gone?
In a way that sums up Bob in this year. He’s lost. He knows he once had found the way, but now that is long since gone. He can’t go back; he doesn’t want to go back to the religious certainties. The lines that come out tell him this, and he struggles to make sense of the music.
Only once, at the beginning of the writing process for the year, did he find Brilliant Bob at his Best, and that was with a sensational blues piece. How very Bob to have that, and then put it away, unremembered for ever more. Except by those of us who go around looking.
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
God having cast Adam and Eve from Eden, the Deists returned the favour by
casting God out of the Universe.
With God uninvolved, two major wars occurring, ending with the dropping of the atomic bomb, existence is seen by some social thinkers and artists as having no purpose; meaningless with no direction; amoral, with a nobody cares attitude.
Life’s purpose, in the end, is then what you choose to make of it: individual freedom of choice is now completely unencumbered …. unless, of course, you have the misfortune of being under the control of people stronger than you are:
“Princess on a steeple and all the pretty people They’re drinking, thinking that they got it made Exchanging all precious gifts But you’d better take your diamond ring, you’d better pawn it babe You used to be so amused At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used Go to him, he calls you, you can’t refuse When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose You’re invisible now, you’ve got no secrets to conceal”
(Bob Dylan: Like A Rolling Stone)
It takes grace under pressure, but a non-altruistic existentialism is a view of the world that singer Bob Dylan resists:
“I’m a-goin” back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’ I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest Where the people are many and their hands are all empty Where the pellets of poison are flooding their water Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison And the execution’s face is always well hidden Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten Where black is the colour, where none is the number And I’ll tell it and speak it and think it and breathe it And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it”
(Bob Dylan: A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall)
Love and hope can get you through tough times:
“If not for you Winter would have no spring Couldn’t hear the robin sing I just wouldn’t have a clue Anyway it wouldn’t ring true If not for you”
(Bob Dylan: If Not For You)
Death being inevitable, it ain’t easy, but happy times are for fond remembering:
“She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind She put down in writing what was in her mind I just don’t see why I should even care It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.”
(Bob Dylan: Not Dark Yet)
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
Heylin, in his commentary on Dylan’s works across the years, is particularly disparaging about the Wilburys and the way Bob’s work was treated therein. His view is that the real talent was Dylan’s, the rest of the gang were fairly bereft of ideas, and so because the resultant rough mixes ended up being dominated by Bob’s work (as they had little to contribute) they then set about removing a lot of Dylan’s contributions after Dylan had left to go on tour.
Heylin is particularly disparaging about the treatment of “Like a Ship” which was available for inclusion on the first Wilbury album but then not used. He argues that it was removed from the first LP because it was “one too many Dylan songs. It can’t have been removed because of any concern about its merit, considering that dregs like ‘Wilbury Twist’ and ‘New Blue Moon’ made the 35 minute album.”
Here is how it sounded at that time
And yes, one can see his point; this preliminary mix is rough at the edges but the quality of the song is certainty there.
We did get the song in the end however on the 2007 Wilburys Deluxe set, but again according to Heylin, it had been mauled about in post-production. You can judge for yourself
My prime concern however is with the treatment of the song song itself and certainly there is something rather remarkable about the images created by such a simple set of lyrics
Like a ship on the sea, her love rose over me Go ‘way, go ‘way, let me be.
changed to
Like a weepin’ willow tree, her love grows over me Go ‘way, go ‘way, let me be.
And finally
Like a leaf on a tree, her love is shakin’ me Go ‘way, go ‘way, let me be
What adds to this is the rolling Em / D / G chord sequence which starts before the vocals and resonates all the way through. A rare approach for Dylan to use, building the song around a chord sequence that is established before the singing, while making his way through the well-trodden road of the 12 bar blues which subsequently fits in around it.
What’s more we have the additional line “Hauntin’ me like a ship on the sea” which adds to the mysticism and the rolling nature of the sea. (Can you imagine how naff it would have been if an idiot producer had added the sound of the sea breaking on the shore? Fortunately there is none of that).
Then suddenly, as it were, the weather changes and he’s on dry land, in a totally different key, (B flat / F / G / D) another musical construction unique to the Dylan cannon.
But for me where it all goes so very wrong is after the Bridge with the instrumental passage
Standin’ on the white cliffs of Dover Lookin’ out into space Another channel to cross over Another dream to chase.
really creates an atmosphere, which the raucous guitar just kicks to death. How can anyone think that the best thing to do after “Another dream to chase” is to play that sort of instrumental break.
It then means that the instrumentation has to be upped for
The night is dark and dreary The wind is howling down Your heart is hanging heavy When your sweet love ain’t around.
and it all seems so inappropriate, and makes it even harder for
Like a leaf on a tree, her love is shakin’ me Like a leaf on a tree, her love is shakin’ me Go ‘way, go ‘way, let me be
to make any impact at all. (But really, if you have a moment, just listen to what is happening to the accompaniment around “dark and dreary”. Accompaniments don’t have to reflect the lyrics, but they do have to be in sympathy with them, in my view.)
For me it is a highly atmospheric song which those producing the version we finally got on the CD felt needed stock responses. “Hey lets put in some strong guitar work here” was probably the response as they produced it in Dylan’s absence, not realising that we already had all the atmosphere we needed from the way Bob sings the song and the unique way he created the chord sequence.
What is there about
Go ‘way, go ‘way, let me be.
that is so hard to understand? The change in melody for the middle 8 (the bridge) is enough to give us a contrast, we really don’t need any more.
Just consider what lines we actually have in the verses:
Like a ship on the sea, her love rose over me
Like a weepin’ willow tree, her love grows over me
Like a leaf on a tree, her love is shakin’ me
Go ‘way, go ‘way, let me be
That is it. What is there in that which makes anyone think heavy rock guitar material is needed here? What does it add to the notion that “It is all too much, I just can’t take this”.
So this song perfectly makes the point about Bob’s ceaseless travelling…
Another channel to cross over Another dream to chase.
and how it can interfere with what most of us would call normal life.
This isn’t one of Bob’s all time greatest compositions, but it is, or was, a fine piece of work, and it is a shame that seemingly we’ll never hear it from Bob on stage. (Unless one of his entourage spots this little review and sneaks up to Bob and says, “That English guy who does those reviews says you ought to do “Like a ship” on stage, as it should have been performed – not how it was done on the album,” and Dylan nods and gets up and plays it. They rehearse it once and then perform it. Just for me.
Ah, one can but dream.
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
The poets of the Transcendental Romantic movement react to the stand-offish examination of the natural world by a science that casts “God” off to the outside of the Universe.
Influenced, like William Blake, by Emanuel Swedenborg’s mysticism, these Romantic poets consider it possible, through intuition, to communicate with Nature by getting in touch with its beauty without the distractions of the hustle and bustle of modern urban living.
What can be felt, they say, is a Oneness, the Unifying Spirit that pervades all the external world of Nature, and the internal mind of Man: this Universe of ours exists to comfort its creations.
Even the Darwinian-tempered Victorian poets find it difficult to resist the powerful eagle-like grasp of the writings of the Romantic Transcendentalist imagination:
“Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk… The firefly wakens; waken thou with me”
(Lord Tennyson: The Princess)
This Romantic ideal in a nutshell:
“Flower in the crannied wall I pluck you out of the crannies I hold you here, root and all, in my hand Little flower — but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all and all I should know what God and man is”
(Tennyson: Flower In A Crannied Wall)
Such thoughts and feelings linger yet in modern poems and songs:
“I’ve been thinking things all over All the moments full of grace The primrose and the clover Your ever changing face”
(Bob Dylan: Can’t Escape From You)
That women are associated with the phases of the moon; men with the light of the sun – an idea words still whisper in the wind:
“Let them say that I walked In fair nature’s light And that I was loyal To truth and to right”
(Bob Dylan: ‘Cross The Green Mountain)
Harmony in Nature, the music of the spheres, be the hallmark of these poets:
“The ocean wild like an organ played The seaweed wove it strands The crashing waves like cymbals clashed Against the rocks and the sand”
(Bob Dylan: Lay Down Your Weary Tune)
Say they, Nature possesses a restorative spirit to enlighten Man that is far superior to the dogma of established religion:
“Through the mad mystic hammering of the the wild ripping hail The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind”
(Bob Dylan: Chimes Of Freedom)
One has only to listen:
“Can’t you hear the rooster crowin’ Rabbit runnin’ down across the road Underneath the bridge where the water flowed through So happy just to see you smile Underneath the sky of blue”
(Bob Dylan: New Morning)
The natural world, though it changes and time passes, shows one that they should have love and compassion for others:
“If you go when the snowflakes storm When the rivers freeze and the summer ends Please see if she’s wearing a coat so warm To keep her from the howlin winds”
(Bob Dylan: Girl From The North Country)
To many of the Transcendentalist Romantic movement, the religious figure known as Jesus, a fellow human being, is for them a poet, and an advocate of Nature’s love and compassion:
“When the whip that keeps you in line doesn’t make him jump Say he’s hard-of-hearing, say that he’s a chump Say he’s out of step with reality as you try to test his nerve Because he doesn’t pay tribute to the king that you serve”
(Bob Dylan: Property Of Jesus)
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
This article comes from the series “Bob Dylan: Year by Year”. You can see all the articles in the series by following the link.
by Tony Attwood
Much of the dating of when Dylan wrote songs comes from his touring, in which newly produced songs are recorded in hotel rooms or tried out during the sound checks before a concert. But during 1982 Dylan stopped touring, and as far as I can read the situation, stopped writing.
My best guess is that the first few songs on the list below were written in 1982, but it is hard to tell how many, hence 1982 and 1983 are loaded together in this chronological series.
By 1982/3 Bob had set aside the notion of writing songs about Jesus and his understanding of the Biblical texts, as his prime source for inspiration. And indeed by now he had already had a period of exploring other themes for his writing. This notion of exploration and commentary across a wide range of areas continued through this two year period.
However it is also clear that his explorations of a new direction in the past year or two were still with him, for Jokerman has the feel in part of Caribbean Wind – and indeed Dylan has said it was again written in the Caribbean. Although we might well feel that this is another song about the end of all things, the message is more about the futility of mankind’s ways than it is about the utter certainty of how it will all pan out in the end.
So Biblical input was still there in his songs but it is combined with a style of writing that leads to an uncertainty of meaning. And when one thinks about it, these two notions are poles apart. With a religion such as Christianity, everything is certain. We know what happened in the past with Jesus Christ, and we know what will happen in the future with Armageddon and the Second Coming.
But the Caribbean Wind style of writing removes the certainty of meaning and seems to take us to the opposite end of the spectrum. Which is why I and I (again seemingly written in the Caribbean period) is interesting: it appears at one level to be trying to balance the two – the religious feel and the uncertainty. But then maybe uncertainty won and Dylan travelled in other directions indeed.
Clean Cut Kid (written at this time, but held back in terms of an album release) and Union Sundown take on other directions – the latter returning to Dylan’s earlier concerns about America’s poor, expressed so often across the years.
But then were the pause in songwriting and then the mixed bag of compositions noted thus far, all by way of preparation for the next song: Blind Willie McTell? It is hard to make that case, because McTell sounds like nothing written in the months before or after it emerged. Indeed it most certainly doesn’t have any relationship with the next song Don’t fall apart on me tonight – nor indeed with very much else around this time. It just stands out alone, an absolute monument looking down on everything else that Dylan composed across these two years.
As we know McTell came out in two versions – the acoustic and the electric – and each tells a different tale, although neither really has that much to do with the real blues singer who reached far greater fame through this song than he ever achieved as a composer and singer. We get no sense of McTell as the great 12 string slide guitarist, of the man with so many different names it is hard to keep track of them. What we get is the man whose music was rediscovered many years after his passing (he died in 1959 aged 61).
The arrival of this song with no clear build up beforehand that we can hear in Dylan’s music, and no references back to it after, is one of the great mysteries for anyone who wants to understand Dylan’s method of writing, although maybe it is just possible to see Jokerman as the opposite of Willie McTell – the Jokerman telling us what isn’t true, Willie McTell telling it really as it is. But…
I fear I am stretching the point here for if I am going down this route then Man of Peace like Jokerman is a false prophet song. Blind Willie is the only one who tells it true, the other’s don’t. But I’m not sure if that adds much to our understanding.
My own view, for what it is worth, is that Dylan was once more finding he could write, and write all sorts of things, and that is what he was doing – enjoying the feeling that once more he could sit down and out came a song about… well anything. Sweetheart like you goes one way Someone’s got a hold of my heart goes another, then there is Neighbourhood Bully off doing its own thing again, and then Tell Me is utterly different again.
And then Bob was back with his notion of the “Caribbean Wind” style of writing where every line takes us in a different direction. But then again Foot of Pride clearly caused him some concerns, and like Willie McTell is was left behind, leaving the composer to travel off in yet another direction with a political rock n roll drama in Julius and Ethel.
In short this is a year in which everything is tried out, and perversely when it came to leaving songs behind, it was as often as not, the wrong songs were left behind. But with Bob it seems to have been ever thus. The year ended on what is for me a very poor note Death is not the end – but then again, that is what Dylan does. He tries everything out, and because it is all tried out in the recording studio, we can hear what happened.
Was this the most varied year ever in terms of Bob’s writing? Quite possibly, although I’d like to think about that question a bit more. But what I don’t have to think about is what was the highlight of the year: Blind Willie McTell, of course. I still don’t think it has anything much to do with Blind Willie, but as a song in its own right, it is right up there with the best of them.
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
In 2005 Bob Dylan wrote but two songs – both (so it is said) for movies. First came the utterly sublime Tell Ol’ Bill and then came “Can’t escape from you.” I have, I think, spent more time writing and re-writing the review of Tel Ol’ Bill, (a song that I put at the pinnacle of Bob’s compositional achievements) than any other song on this site. Which makes “Can’t escape from you” all the stranger.
The first thing to notice about “Can’t escape” is that the alleged film was not made – and that in itself is odd. Six years after “Things have changed” was composed, four years after Bob had gained the songwriting Oscar, and someone (we know not who) asks Bob to write a piece of music for a film, which at this time doesn’t even have the financing in place.
This is quite a contrast with the time when Bob was commissioned to write a song for Midnight Cowboy, and delivered it so late it couldn’t be used. Now he is writing a song for a movie that doesn’t even have the finances sorted!
No one seems quite sure what the film was, so I have a certain doubt about this – a doubt which is amplified when I listen to the music itself and indeed when I come to study the lyrics – particularly at the end. And in fact, so unlikely do I think it is that there ever was a film, I rather believe that when Bob Dylan mentioned it, he was actually suggesting that he was writing a song that could be the song of a movie – if anyone wanted to make it. No one did, it seems.
Now I must say that my doubts about the quality of this song are not shared by everyone. For example the web site “The 25 Greatest Dylan Songs of The Past 20 Years” not only has this song listed – but lists it above “Things have changed” in its run down of the best 25 songs. Unfortunately they did not get round to telling us why it is considered so good. Here’s the full entry
#16. Can’t Escape From You
Another gem – this one from 2005 – left unreleased until late-2008, when it finally appeared on Tell Tale Signs.
I really, really, don’t share this view. For one thing musically the piece is very simple, using uses arpeggios (notes 1, 3 and 5 of the scale) both in the accompaniment and in the melody. It is the sort of thing that dates back to 1955, but at least there people wrote a separate melody to go around the accompanying arpeggios.
But of course Bob has often shown us that sometimes you don’t so much need a melody, if the lyrics are themselves of great interest, but here I fear this is not the case. This song opens with:
Oh the evening train is rolling All along the homeward way All my hopes are over the horizon All my dreams have gone away
which is pleasant enough but after the second verse we are still waiting for something more than a statement that this is a song about lost love.
The hillside darkly shaded Stars fall from above All the joys of earth have faded The night’s untouched my love
and it continues in way – we are still with the “I’m lonesome, you’ve gone” approach with verse three.
I’ll be here ’til tomorrow Beneath a shroud of grey I pretend I’m free of sorrow My heart is miles away
There really is nothing to lift the song out of this feeling that everything has gone wrong. Of course you can write a song about the world’s gone wrong, or my baby left me, but it needs something to make us want to share the pain, but all we get here, in my opinion, is just random lines of lost love.
Bob even throws in the most famous metaphor in the language, but because we all know it, it has no power or meaning left, and seems oddly out of place this far into the song without any context.
The path is ever winding The stars they never age The morning light is blinding All the world’s a stage
And just in case you would like a reminder of your actual Shakespeare the opening of Act 2 Scene VII of “As you like it” runs
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
Now that is interesting, even when taken in splendid isolation. But here… no, it doesn’t work for me.
The problem is amplified by the fact that even when we do get an unexpected interesting line we have no explanation, and no other lines to hold onto. Consider this verse from late on in the piece
All our days were splendid They were simple, they were plain It never should have ended I should have kissed you in the rain
That last line does make me sit up and wonder. First time I played this through in preparing to write this review I thought, wow, I missed something, and went back to find a context – that turned out not to be there.
But then as we enter the next two verses (the last two verses of the piece) I had my thoughts confirmed that this was not a song to be considered much further. The final verses run….
I’ve been thinking things all over All the moments full of grace The primrose and the clover Your ever changing face
Can’t help looking at you You made love with god-knows-who Never found a gal to match you I can’t escape from you
Now for me, the line “You made love with god-knows-who” is a shock and a half. Not, I would hasten to add, because of any ethical purity but because of artistic integrity. Bob is telling us all the way through the song how wonderful the girl is, as the penultimate verse tells us with the “full of grace” line stresses, but then we find she sleeps around.
Fair enough, that’s her choice, and I make no moral judgement. Some people have lots of sexual partners, some don’t, that’s how it goes. But normally if this is a relevant fact to be mentioned earlier in the song, it might get mentioned earlier, not in verse 15. Or if verse 15 really is the place to reveal this fact, then it needs to be dealt with thereafter. Just throwing in the unexpected and leaving us to work it out, doesn’t work for me at all.
Was Bob perhaps trying to paint the story of a lady who he loves and adores from afar, mentioning in passing that she has slept with many different people, because it doesn’t affect his vision of her? Maybe, but for me this most certainly does not work.
What particularly makes this fail is the fact that all 15 verses are based around not only the plodding melody, but also just three chords – the three major chords of A major – heard over and over. Nothing relieves what becomes a plodding repetition.
It really doesn’t work for me, and if we did not have the story about the movie, I’d say, here’s another notebook experiment which Bob was right to throw away. Which leads me to my final point. Maybe the movie story simply isn’t true. Maybe it is a confusion with the other song this year – the magnificent “Tell Ol Bill.” Maybe.
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
Eden Is Where You Find It:
Frederich Nietzsche, William Blake,
And Bob Dylan
By Larry Fyffe
William Blake admonishes organized Christianity for its black-and-white portrayal of morality, its defining of human behaviour as either ‘good’ (of God) or ‘evil’ (of the Devil).
Poet Blake envisions Man as a Being possessed of a Devilish desire for individual freedom that rebels against overly-harsh authoritanian rule. With their over-emphasis on Reason, Blake considers that the thinkers of the Age Of Enlightenment, with their ‘deistic’ God, justify a new social order, but that they, while doing so, freeze in place injustices, like the institution of slavery, that take away liberty.
In the words of an anti-Blakean Modernist poet, social change is not necessarily a good thing:
“Tell her that sheds Such treasure in the air Recking naught else but her graces give Life to the moment I would bid them live As roses might, in magic amber laid Red, overwrought with orange and all made One substance and one colour Braving time”
(Ezra Pound: Envoi)
Frederich Nietzsche too criticizes the Christian establishment, but because it, in his view, sticks the label of ‘evil’ upon the energetic morality that allows capable individuals to exercise their ‘will to power’, and rise above others in the social hierarchy; who achieve their desires in the here and now because of their enterprising daring.
The underdogs’ resentment of success expresses itself through a ‘slave morality’, and results in the expansion of the altruistic-centred religion known as Christianity. The religion prepares the road to bring everyone down to an equalitarian level, based on its belief of a Paradise in the afterlife.
The ideas associated with the likes of William Blake lend themselves to supporting the establishment of an altruistic socialist economic system in the actual world; those associated with the likes of Nietzsche to the support of an ongoing capitalist system based on greed.
Then along comes various Fascist forms of capitalism, and various Soviet forms of socialism. That’s more than enough to make a crippled cynic out of the most sure-footed Romantic.
In the aftermath of the debasement of Nietzsche’s ideas by the Nazis (and also by Ezra Pound above), and the corruption of the ideas of Karl Marx by the Soviets, Bob Dylan hangs on to Blake’s imaginative vision of an ideal balance amongst spirit, power, and desire, elements contained within each individual. This even as the songwriter expresses the cynicism of a disenchanted Romantic. At the very least, there is the possibility of a chance meeting with kindred spirits who are able to shed their treasures in the air.
The idea of Nietsche’s ‘slave morality’ not forgotten:
“With a time-rusted compass blade Aladdin and his lamp Sits with Utopian hermit monks Sidesaddle on the Golden Calf And on their promises of Paradise You will not hear a laugh All except inside thd Gates of Eden”
(Bob Dylan: Gates Of Eden)
This be the sham promise of a Paradise for those exploited; at worst they’ll find it in the hereafter, so say the High Priests of the capitalist elite, who worship the Golden Calf of capital accumulation.
Paradise Lost of childhood Innocence to the adult world of Experience, according to William Blake:
“The kingdoms of experience
In the precious wind they rot
While paupers change possessions
Each wishing for what the other has got
And the princess and the prince
Discuss what is real and what is not”
(Bob Dylan: Gates Of Eden)
In the words of the pre-Romantic poet himself:
“Blind in fire, with shield and spear Two horned Reasoning, cloven fiction In doubt, which is self-condradiction A dark hermaphrodite we stood – Rational truth, root of evil and good Round me flew the flaming sword Round her snowy whirlwinds roared Freezing her veil, the shell mundane ….One dies! Alas!, the living and the dead One is slain and one is fled”
(William Blake: The Keys Of Ths Gate)
Words like those from an Elizabethan poet:
“My love is like ice, and I to fire How comes it then that this her cold so great Is not dissolved through my So hot desire”
(Edmund Spenser: Ice And Fire)
Bob Dylan brings it all back home:
There are no truths outside the gates of Eden. The black-robed priests have planted briars around the locked gates.
But, sings Bob Dylan, where you find truth is Eden; you’ll know it when you are there; Eve awaits, under the tree of knowledge:
“At dawn my lover comes to me And tells me of her dreams With no attempt to shovel the glimpse In to the ditch of which each one means At times I think there are no words But these to tell what’s true And there are no words outside the Gates of Eden”
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
This article is one of a series that reviews Bob Dylan’s writing in regards to the songs he wrote, and the order he wrote them in, rather than what Bob chose to put on each album. The index to the series can be found here.
1981 is a singularly difficult year to analyse with many songs being mentioned, seemingly recorded, and then quite a few being lost. Obviously to be able to review the songs I need to be able to find a copy and so I may subsequently be able to expand this list, but for the moment I’ve reviewed all the ones I can find.
In 1980 Bob had simultaneously explored where else his interest in religious songs could take him and had also returned to non-religious themes. In 1981 he wrote what appears to be his last gospel songs Jesus is the one and Thief on the Cross while continuing to explore the non-religious themes, and at the end (perhaps) a link between the non-religious world and the religion he had been following these last few years.
Dylan opened the year by writing Shot of Love a song that (he proclaimed) told everyone where he was at the moment, but which (which one comes down to analysing it line by line) is extraordinarily confusing, and doesn’t necessarily tell us much at all.
What we have here is, I believe, Dylan in a mood where he is wanting to explore, to be different, and so he is trying things out – and these “things” are songs that with many other composers might have been put away and never heard again. Bob however is in the mood to see just where each might lead.
And so we hear every experiment, every idea, whether it works or not. The great lengths he goes to, to create rhymes in Angelina and the curious mix up with Heart of Mine (a true song of doubts) in which he put completely the wrong version of the song on the album, are two examples.
Indeed it was only on Biograph that we found out what “Heart of Mine” really could do, as he tried to explain to himself (if not to us) his move away from Christianity as his key guiding force, to issues surrounding love.
So throughout this year we have Bob edging himself away from Christian themes – as he had done a little the year before, but not being quite sure where he is going to go if the dominant theme are dropped. Indeed it is when Dylan’s songwriting progress is seen in this light that the extraordinary changes made to “Caribbean Wind” last year can be seen. Bob really didn’t know where he was going.
By the time we get to Dead Man Dead Man we have a song which fades out with the repeated line, “Ooh I can’t stand it I can’t stand it” and although I think that statement is an over exaggeration of where Bob is, I think I can nevertheless understand where Bob had got to.
Certainly there are strong signs that by this moment Bob was unsure where to go next – I described Don’t ever take yourself away in the review as “Romance in Durango” with the good bits taken out. And that surely is a sign of artistic uncertainty.
But the year did indeed have some very good songs such as Watered down love and Lenny Bruce The latter, a song which Heylin describes as trite and simplistic is one that Dylan clearly had an affection for, and it is one that highlights the contradictions that were entering Bob’s world. Lenny Bruce, the man who loved to make fun of organised religion, the man who when alive found it hard to get work because of the nature of his approach to comedy, and who was revered after his death. And (perhaps) Jesus, who denounced the state organised religion had got to by the time of His life and was crucified for what he said, and was then revered after death.
Certainly “Lenny Bruce” is the highlight of the year for me, although the lowlight of the year for some critics. Bob wasn’t finished with the writing however, for he had two more songs to deliver -as it turns out the last two religious works: Jesus is the one and Thief on the Cross. Neither are now remembered very much, the power of Dylan’s writing had now and moved we were heading into completely new and different territories.
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
Bob Dylan often uses Biblical stories as a template for his own narrative songs, with women characters patterned after the three Mary’s of the New Testament:
“Hot chillie peppers in the blistering sun Dust on my face and my cape Me and Magdalena on the run I think this time we shall escape”
(Romance In Durango)
In the Bible, Mary Magdalene is a ‘worldly’ woman who travels with Jesus, and the Apostles:
“Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week He appeared first to Mary Magdalene Out of whom he had cast seven devils”
(Mark 16:9)
Not so much so, another Mary from the Bible:
“In Scarlet Town in the month of May Sweet William Holme on his death bed lay Mistress Mary by the side of the bed Kissin’ his face and heapin’ prayers on his head”
(Bob Dylan: Scarlet Town)
In the Bible, Mary of Bethany is a sympathetic friend to Jesus:
“It was Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick”
(St. John 11:2)
And then there’s Mary, the mother of Jesus, along with Joseph, in a modern- day version of ‘John Wesley Harding’:
“Sister Jacqueline and Camila and mother Mary all did weep I heard his best friend Frankie say, “He ain’t dead, he’s just asleep’ Then I saw his old man’s limousine head back to the grave I guess he had to say one last word to the son he couldn’t save”
(Bob Dylan: Joey)
Mary is devoted to her son as much as she can be:
“….Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb
….And Mary said, ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord’ ”
(Luke 1: 42, 46)
But neither she nor sweet Mary Magdalene is able to be around all the time:
“Well, your railroad gate You know I just can’t jump it Sometimes it gets so hard, you see I’m just sitting here beating on my trumpet With all the promises you left for me But where are you tonight, Sweet Marie”
(Absolutely Sweet Marie)
Fortunately, there’s always Mary Jane Bethany’s joint to call upon when need be:
“There were three sailors, brave and true With cargo they did carry They sailed away on the ocean blue For the love of Spanish Mary”
(Spanish Mary)
Or, if so inclined, a dressed-up facsimile of Mary Magdalene with ‘her’ amphetamines and pearls:
“Queen Mary she’s my friend Yes, I believe I’ll go see her again ……But when we meet again Introduced as friends Please don’t let on that you knew me when I was hungry and it was your world”
(Just Like A Woman)
Finally, there is always the possibility of a long-term male-female commitment:
“And when he saw her loyalty and Mary so true-hearted He said, ‘My darling, married we’ll be and nothin’ but death will part us”
(Mary And The Soldier)
Yes, death will do that:
“The next day was hangin’ day, the sky was overcast and black Big Jim lay covered up, killed by a penknife in the back And Rosemary on the gallows, she didn’t even blink”
(Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts)
Bob Dylan certainly has all kinds of historical female characters to choose from, but apparently the songwriter prefers their first name to be a derivation thereof or simply ‘Mary’.
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order below on this page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
It is said that the second Wilbury’s volume was originally mostly a Bob Dylan creation and that after he had slipped away for his touring duties those left in charge of the editing set about removing quite a bit of his work.
But Bob is loud and clear on this song, expressing his concerns about the decline of the environment. I am not sure Bob had expressed this concern much before – and certainly in his last album (Under the Red Sky) there was not much sense of it. Although I guess it might be possible to consider the title song as having a concern with the environment – with a stretch of the imagination.
But I get the impression that at the time Bob was looking around for new themes – for a new subject area to lend his muse to, and I think this is a better explanation of this exploration of ecological and environmental issues.
The song itself is very enjoyable for me – not something I would play over and over but still a good piece of work that I am more than happy to come back to for the writing of this review. However it had one odd stand out event within it. The song is in E, but the bridge section, “Be careful where you’re walking” suddenly jumps to G without any warning at all.
This sudden movement from one key to another gives a real sense of a jerk. It is deployed in pop occasionally, but when Bob has changed key in the past he has normally sought to do it by utilising a chord sequence that gets him from one key to the next via a chord that appears in both keys. The problem here is that there is no chord that appears in both the keys of G and E. So one would have to travel from E major to A major to D major to G major – and then you are there – quite a bit of a journey. But instead we just go bang, from E major to G major
When you’re inside out (E major)
Be careful where you’re walking (G major)
The band could have written the movement of chords as an instrumental change, but that would have destroyed the movement of the piece as a whole. So why persist with the notion of changing keys?
I suspect to get the bridge section into a key that George Harrison could sing. Normally if this were not an ensemble song there’d be no need for another singer to pop in at this point, but this is supposed to be the Wilbury’s not Dylan and Friends, so something had to be done to give the rest of the gang a chance.
Bob sets out the message clearly from the off….
Look out your window That grass ain’t green It’s kinda yellow See what I mean? Look up your chimney The sky ain’t blue It’s kinda yellow You know it’s true It’s so hard to figure what it’s all about
When your outsides in (inside out) And your downsides up (upside down) Yeah, your upsides right (rightside up) Yeah, don’t it make you wanna twist & shout When you’re inside out
So the message is clear. We’re all pouring muck into the environment whenever we can
Look down your drain pipe What color do you see? It’s got to be yellow Don’t try to fool me And don’t it make you wanna twist and shout
But why “twist and shout”? Shout seems a pretty good response, but “Twist and Shout”? One might guess that Bob was poking fun at the Beatles recording of “Twist and Shout”. I’m personally not sure it is ever worth poking fun at that recording since it is such a poor piece of music, but maybe there was a joke in the band at the time.
The message continues through the bridge passage Harrison sings and it becomes not just a warning, but a suggestion that there is something more sinister and underhand going on as well.
Be careful where you’re walking You might step in something rough Be careful where you’re talking And saying all that stuff Take care when you are breathing Something’s funny in the air And somethings I’m not saying Bout what’s happening out there It’s inside out
And indeed things do get darker, because now we are told that rather than the future looking bleak, it might not be a future at all. A few years earlier in a Dylan song this would have been because of Armageddon, the great war that precedes the Second Coming, but now it seems to precede just, well, the end.
Look into the future With your mystic crystal ball See if it ain’t yellow See if it’s there at all Ain’t no shadow of doubt Don’t it make you wanna twist and shout
Here’s the video…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPAwrtm-JK8
It’s a good song – not earth shattering, but very listenable, and suggests that “Under the Red Sky” involved an experiment in trying to find a new form. With the Wilburys Bob was showing us he could still deliver some very good songs without having to find that new form or direction. But he knew that new form was out there.
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order below on this page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
The Line Forms From the Right: Bobby’s Back In Town
By Larry Fyffe
A number of Bob Dylan’s story-telling songs are wonderful reworkings of the Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s 1928 burlesque musical, with its sexual puns abounding, called ‘The Threepenny Opera’ (Die Dreigroschenoper).
In that play, the daughter of a corrupt ‘businessman’, who makes his money off beggars (Filch being on of them). marries a womanizing gang leader by the name of Macheath, a satirical reference to Shakespeare’s Macbeth. She, with the aid of a corrupt police chief, warns the gang leader of her father’s intention to have him arrested.
Jenny Diver, a prostitute, a former lover of ‘Mack The Knife’, provides information that he still visits the brothel. The police chief’s daughter, also involved with Macheath, argues with the gangster’s wife, and ‘Macky’ takes the opportunity to escape.
Summarized in the song, ‘Mack The Knife:
“Now, Jenny Diver, ho, ho, Yeah, Sukey Tawdry O oh, Miss Lotte Lenya and old Lucy Brown Oh, that line forms on the right, babe Now that Macky’s back in town” (Mack The Knife)
The prostitute, in the musical play, sings “Pirate Jenny”:
“You people can watch while I’m scrubbing these floors… No, you couldn’t ever guess to who you’re talkin’ Then one night, there’s a scream in the night And you’ll wonder who could that have been And you see me grinin’ while I’m scrubbing”
Bob Dylan, master thief that he is, burlesquing the burlesquer, turns Brecht’s prostitute into Cinderella:
“And the only sound that’s left After the ambulances go Is Cinderella sweeping up On Desolation Row”
And beggar Filch into a jock-strapped Victorian Freudian:
“Dr. Filth, he keeps his world Inside of a leather cup But all his sexless patients They’re trying to blow it up” (Bob Dylan: Desolation Row)
As well, there’s Lily, Big Jim’s wife; Rosemary, his girlfriend, and the charming robber, The Jack Of Hearts:
“Rosemary started drinkin’ hard and seein’ her reflection in the knife She was tired of the attention, of playing the role of Big Jim’s wife She had done a lot of bad things, even once tried suicide Was lookin’ to do just one good deed before she died” (Bob Dylan: Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts)
And then there’s The Monkey Man, who sells drugs; Tweeter, his deadly ‘girl’ friend; and Jan, the gun-carrying sister of the undercover cop; she too, of course, loves the Monkey Man:
“The undercover cop was found face down in the field The Monkey Man was on the river bridge using Tweeter as a shield Jan said to the Monkey Man, ‘I’m not fooled by Tweeter’s curls I knew him before he ever became a Jersey girl’.” (Bob Dylan: Tweeter And The Monkey Man)
Bob Dylan, retells the stories of the down-trodden characters taken from ‘The Threepenny Opera’, but he re-arranges their faces, and gives them all a new name.
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
Dylan had spent the whole of 1979 writing primarily Christian songs and continued this theme into 1980.
All of the early songs of the year were clearly Christian in message and Property of Jesus was perhaps the most overt, but then in that contrary and intriguing way that Dylan has, he suddenly produced Every grain of sand which could easily be interpreted not a religious song at all, but a song of despair about religion.
The problem with the song is we never know who the Master is: is it the Christian God or the Taoist master such as the mystical Lao Tsu, to give one other example.
What makes this so interesting is that this is a song of convoluted and obscure imagery and messages straight after “Property of Jesus” (which in terms of the year’s history) is as clear as it gets.
The second verse of “Every grain” contains some of Dylan’s most elegant poetry within one of his most elegant of melodies…
Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay I gaze into the doorway of temptation’s angry flame And every time I pass that way I always hear my name Then onward in my journey I come to understand That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand
As I said in my review of the song, William Blake (who was clearly a major influence here) wrote “We are led to believe a lie” and I think this beautiful reflective song has this notion at its heart. Just consider the lines.
Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, other times it’s only me I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
My task in reviewing the song was just that, to review the song, and not specifically think what else Dylan was doing in that year. Thus in response to the lyrics of this exquisite piece of music I wrote “To me these are not Christian questions, but questions from a man who is interested in a much deeper philosophy that asks questions relating to the very nature of man without having the God-given certainty of the answers….. Dylan is gazing into the doorway, not just of temptation, but of his own future.”
As I say, I wrote that little comment without at the time having a clear list of the order in which Dylan wrote songs this year,but I think it is incredibly interesting to note that Every Grain was then followed by the majestically confused and confusing Caribbean Wind – the review of which I have just reworked. The lines of this song have been changed so many times that nothing makes sense any more. Maybe that was the point.
But the confusion theme does help us understand that Bob himself at this time was confused, and he keeps the confusion going with Groom’s still waiting at the alter. Indeed lines such as
Prayed in the ghetto with my face in the cement, Heard the last moan of a boxer, seen the massacre of the innocent Felt around for the light switch, became nauseated. She was walking down the hallway while the walls deteriorated.
could just has easily been written into one of the many re-writes of Caribbean Wind as destined for the Groom.
And we get more of it with the next song Yonder comes sin (also one that was seemingly abandoned). It is extraordinary that Bob could devise these extraordinary pieces of music one after the other, and then abandon them all. The Year of Abandoned Masterpieces indeed – and he keeps going with at least a couple of versions of Let’s keep it between us.
But Bob is never anything if not contrary, so he ended the year with … a piece of gospel. City of Gold. Make of that sudden change what you will.
I don’t know what to make of it, nor do I know what to make my song of the year from this amazing collection. Caribbean Wind is the automatic reaction, but if there was an LP that had that track, followed by the Groom, Yonder Comes Sin and Every Grain I’d just let it go through auto-repeat until the neighbours called the police to tell me to stop.
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
Bob Dylan And Walt Whitman: Writing In The Captain’s Tower
By Larry Fyffe
Bob Dylan draws water from the poetic well of the American Romantic writer Walt Whitman, a transcendentalist inspired by the regenerative powers of Nature.
“With music strong I come with my cornets and my drums I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquered and slain persons”
(Walt Whitman: Song Of Myself)
Bob Dylan’s in the parade, ringing the bells:
“Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale And each unharmful, gentle soul, misplaced inside a jail And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Starry-eyed and laughing ….”
(Bob Dylan: Chimes Of Freedom)
An African-American poet from Harlem aids the songwriter hauling on the bell ropes like all tough sailors do when they’re away at sea:
“I, too, sing for America I am the darker brother They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes But I laugh And eat well And grow strong Tomorrow I’ll be at the table When company comes”
(Langston Hughes: I, Too)
Sometimes the struggle is rather bloody, but it’s worth the trouble:
“Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring But O heart! heart! heart! 0 the bleeding drops of red Where on the deck my Captain lies Fallen cold and dead”
(Walt Whitman: O Captain! My Captain!)
For Dylan, often the struggle is not capable of being understood in terms of the Nature Guide Book issued by Walt Whitman and his crew on board the Romantic ship known as ‘The Transcendentalist’.”
“The bells of evening have rung There’s blasphemy on every tongue Let’em say that I walked in fair nature’s light And that I was loyal to truth and to right”
However, something’s amiss:
“Close the eyes of our captain, peace may he know His long night is done, the great leader is laid low He was ready to fall, he was quick to defend Killed outright he was by his own men”
(Bob Dylan: ‘Cross The Green Mountain)
Bob Dylan, the song writer, does not merely ‘cover’ old poems; he lifts them out of their graves, and breathes new life into them.
He agrees with Walt Whitman on one thing, however – the captain, he dead:
“Sentences broken, ‘gunshot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to hospital. At present low, but will be soon better’ …….. While they stand at home at the door, he is dead already The only son is dead”
(Walt Whitman: Come Up From The Field Father)
In the case of Dylan’s brave soldier, on which side of the Civil War he fought is of little consequence:
“A letter to mother came today Gunshot wound to the breast is what it say But he’ll be better soon, he’s in a hosipital bed But he’ll never be better – he’s already dead”
(Bob Dylan: ‘Cross The Green Mountain)
And the Titanic’s sailing on the morning tide.
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
This is one of the Wilbury Volume 3 songs that is very obviously a Dylan piece from beginning to end, a sort of reversal of “She to Belongs to Me.” But I must admit that both these titles have always made me feel somewhat awkward in terms of their possessiveness. However maybe I was just brought up differently from Dylan when it comes to the question of “owning” a woman. It’s just not something I would want to say or sing about.
A woman – just like any man – might be making bad choices, and of course the duty of friends is to offer support and help, and indeed to offer an alternative future, but in the end we all make our own worlds. Or at least that is how it seems to me. Traditional rock ‘n’ roll has it otherwise though. That’s always been its problem.
But perhaps my problem with the song is that it is just too trite, and too obvious. Except of course where we do get the occasional amusing line such as, “You say let’s go to the rodeo to see some cowboy fall.”
The trouble with such fun and games as that though, is that we then get hit by,
The guy your with is a ruthless pimp Everybody knows Every cent he takes from you Goes straight up his nose.
It doesn’t quite fit with the rodeo comment. In fact the song is more like a set of disconnected snapshots, rather than a coherent story, and somehow comes across to me as a song written very much in a hurry.
The other link we find here
You’re saying that you’re all washed up Got nothing else to give. Seems like you would’ve figured out How long you have to live
is a sort of mirror image of Positively 4th Street
You say you lost your faith But that’s not where it’s at You had no faith to lose And you know it
except that in “Belonged to me” the singer wants her, although he is berating her behaviour. In “4th Street” he’s showing total disdain, and the disdain is so much more powerful, the song so much more focused than in this later effort.
My unhappiness about “If you belonged to me” thus comes from the feeling (and it is nothing more than that, just a feeling) that Dylan was coming up with some good lines and then rushing in with the rest of the lyrics to complete the song, adding lyrics whether they particularly fit or not. For example with
Waltzing round the room tonight In someone else’s clothes. You’re always coming out of things Smelling like a rose.
the last two line neither follow from the first two, nor have the power of the image of the first two. “Smelling like a rose” has all the sign of being quickly thrown in to make the rhyme. Which is a shame, because within the context of pop and rock, I can’t think of anything else that has the image of waltzing in someone else’s clothes. It deserved a better second couplet than it got, in my view.
In the end
Waltzing round the room tonight In someone else’s clothes.
and
You say let’s go to the rodeo And see some cowboy fall.
are the stand out couplets, and the rest of the song seems rather ordinary – a reflection I am sure of the short amount of time Bob had to write the song while a) no one else in the Wilburys seemed to have very many ideas at all and b) he was also producing “Under the Red Sky”, and c) getting ready to go on tour.
Here’s a link to the song, in case you don’t have the album.
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
A reason for Bob Dylan’s winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, not recognized by most ‘pure poets’, is his masterful transforming of the literary technique, known as the ‘dramatic monologue’, popularized by the Victorian poet Robert Browning, to song lyrics (with accompanying music): a narrative sung by a persona that indirectly reveals the character of the persons involved therein.
“In one year they sent a million fighters forth South and North And they built their gods a brazen pillar high As the sky Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force – Gold of course O heart! oh, blood that freezes, blood thar burns”
(Robert Browning: Love Among The Ruins)
Transformed to song:
“Altars are burning with flames far and wide The foe has crossed over from the other side They tip their caps from the top of the hill You can feel them come, more brave blood to spill …….. Stars fell over Alabama, I saw each star You’re walking in dreams, whoever you are Chilled are the skies, keen as the frost The ground’s froze hard, and the morning is lost”
(Bob Dylan: ‘Cross The Green Mountain)
Floating behind the theatre of war in Browning’s poem is the spectre of poet William Blake.
And also behind Dylan’s song; including it’s title:
“And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England’s mountains green And was the holy Lamb of God On England’s pleasant pastures seen”
(William Blake: Jerusalem)
Blake’s poems, flavoured by Emanuel Swedenborg’s mystic visions, depict
earth-bound humans as half-demon, half-god, composed of basic elements: air (spirit), water (power), and fire (emotion). When out of balance these elements result in historical eras of icy reason, and inflamed emotion.
A view presented in earlier Elizabethan poetry regarding the personal level:
“My love is like ice, and I to fire How comes it then that this her cold so great Is not dussolved through my So hot desire”
(Edmund Spenser: Ice And Fire)
Still used as trope in songs of these modern times:
“Bound by wild desire I fell into a ring of fire”
(Johnny Cash: Ring Of Fire)
“You know all the rules by now And the fire from the ice”
(Grateful Dead: Uncle John’s Band)
“You will never quench the fire You’ll give into your desire”
(Billy Joel: The Stranger)
“It burned like fire This burning desire”
(U2: I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For)
“I’ve seen fire, and I’ve seen rain I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end”
(James Taylor: Fire And Rain)
What is on the site
1: Over 360 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order below on this page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.
2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here.
3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.
4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.
