Untold Dylan

By Tony Attwood

Let me say from the start, I utterly love this song and always have, and that makes it harder to give anything remotely like a balanced review.  But I shall try.

According to Heylin Abandoned Love was the last song Dylan wrote before meeting up with Jacques Levy, which is odd, because when we look at the songs of the year in chronological order of writing it was clearly written at this point …

• Money Blues
• One More Cup of Coffee
• Golden Loom
• Oh Sister
• Abandoned Love
• Isis

If Heylin is right then Levy did not have any involvement in those earlier songs.  Yet BobDylan.com shows Oh Sister as “WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN AND JACQUES LEVY” and Romance in Durango the same – as with Money Blues.

My order of the songwriting is identical to Heylin at this point so what is going on?  It is hard to say although in writing the reviews of those earlier songs I have suggested that if Levy is there, his influence is minimal.  Certainly Abandoned Love was recorded on 31 July 1975, although not released until Biograph, and we know it was earlier performed at The Bitter End cafe on Bleecker Street in on 3 July 1975, during a show with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott which was recorded illicitly.

Joe Kivak has written a piece about the show which I would highly recommend.  He concludes

It was an incredible feeling to be in that small club listening to Bob Dylan perform a new song. We all felt we were watching history in the making. After he finished, he returned to his seat near the back of the club and quietly watched the rest of the show. Jack appeared so speechless and overwhelmed by Dylan’s performance that he started his next song with Bob’s buzzing guitar.

There is a recording of this remarkable performance on YouTube and I do recommend it…

All Music doesn’t review the song but attempts to cover every aspect of the song’s meaning by simply listing the song as “Yearning”, “Feeling blue”, “In love”, “Grief”, “Reflection” which makes my currently stalled Classification file on this site look almost sensible.

Indeed I would argue that if you play the piece, especially the studio recording, it is hard to hear it as any of these.  This song is bouncing along, and no matter what the words say it is hard to find it “yearning” or full of “grief” with such a musical background.  It seems to owe more to some Irish folk songs in which the subject is death, doom, destruction, poverty etc, and yet the whole piece sounds rather jolly.

The opening line of the studio version (not included in the live version) tells us exactly what is going on….

My heart is telling me I love you still…

OK, that is yearning, but then we are off both in terms of the lyrics.

I can hear the turning of the key
I’ve been deceived by the clown inside of me
I thought that he was righteous but he’s vain
Oh, something’s telling me I wear the ball and chain

Right, that is clear – he has been fooling himself, in love with the notion of being in love, upset by the parting, not by the loss, tied to the past by his own false visions.

My patron saint is a-fighting with a ghost
He’s always off somewhere when I need him most
The Spanish moon is rising on the hill
But my heart is a-tellin’ me I love you still

The head rules by the heart brings sorrow, as the saying goes, and he’s been brought sorrow although you wouldn’t know this by the singing of the song.  But the truth is he can’t even bear to see her.  Yet he needs to see her one more time before he finally bids farewell (although something tells us that even if he did, he’d still try and get back to her, rather than bid a tragic farewell.)

I come back to the town from the flaming moon
I see you in the streets, I begin to swoon
I love to see you dress before the mirror
Won’t you let me in your room one time ’fore I finally disappear?

Now he admits that most people can cover up what they are, but he’s as open as a child who cries when a toy is taken away…

Everybody’s wearing a disguise
To hide what they’ve got left behind their eyes
But me, I can’t cover what I am
Wherever the children go I’ll follow them

He pretends to be free, he talks about the beauty of freedom, but he doesn’t want to be free.  OK even if he can’t spend one evening with her watching her in the mirror, can’t he just have one last smile?

I march in the parade of liberty
But as long as I love you I’m not free
How long must I suffer such abuse
Won’t you let me see you smile before I turn you loose?

But no, this is pointless, he is resolved.  If I go searching I will never find what I want.   Searching for the long gone past is hopeless…

I’ve given up the game, I’ve got to leave
The pot of gold is only make-believe
The treasure can’t be found by men who search
Whose gods are dead and whose queens are in the church

Actually that last line above is quite something.  I’ve pondered it time and time again, and can find a dozen meanings, but which one Dylan intended I have no idea.  I guess I’d settle for the Zen way of looking at things – if you search for someone or something to worship you won’t find it in venerating dead heroes and keeping women on a pedestal.

But maybe not.

Now at this point we have a split.  Here is the version sung on the original live recording…

We sat in an empty theatre and we kissed
So send out for St John the Evangelist
All my friends are drunk they can be dismissed
My head tells me it’s time to make a change
But my heart is telling me I love you but you’re strange

So why St John?  Maybe no reason, or maybe because he was the only one of the apostles who was not killed by his faith (that’s always struck me as quite a thought – but then I look at these things from outside as I am not a Christian).  St John’s the survivor, unlike the singer’s mates are useless.  And we are back to the heart being ruled by the head and bringing sorrow?

And so he concludes that she should put on her disguise, come down from on high and let him feel and live with her beauty and love before he walks away forever.

So step lightly darling near the wall
Put on your heavy make up wear your shawl
Wont you descend from the throne where you sit
Let me feel your love one more time before I abandon it.

By the time of the studio recording we have

We sat in an empty theatre and we kissed
I asked you please to cross me off your list
My head tells me it’s time to make a change
But my heart is telling me I love ya but you’re strange

Here his is just saying, she has the power, please just cross him off the list of men she influences so he can walk away.  He needs her to stop maintaining that power.

One more time at midnight, near the wall
Take off your heavy makeup and your shawl
Won’t you descend from the throne, from where you sit?
Let me feel your love one more time before I abandon it

So there it is.  Utterly superb in my humble opinion.  It is perhaps when we recognise that the next song Dylan wrote was Isis that we appreciate the power he is vesting in this woman.  Indeed we could say Isis is almost here in this song, on the throne, ruling, controlling.  She’s next on stage.

Musically, what makes the song feel so unusual is the fact that we have two extra bars at the end of the last line of each verse.  Combined with the unexpected chord structure in which the lines don’t end on the expected chord.  That combined with the lyrics which are such fun and so unexpected, makes this a tremendous composition.

The song is in G and the chords run

• G   D   Em
• C   G   D
• Bm      C
• G   D  C   G

If there is another song like it in chord sequence I don’t know it.  Added to this we have the total change of timing with the last few words of the final line sung twice as fast as the rest.

The excellent Dylanchords.info web site prefaces the notation of the two versions as

Bitter End Version

The (Vastly Inferior) Biograph Version

The trouble is that excellent though Dylanchords is, they tend not to give explanations for the occasional comments like this, and the writer/s is/are such fine musicians I’d love to know more about what they think.

The Biograph version is also on line (at least at the moment)

I hope you enjoy it all half as much as I do.  If you do, you’ll have a happy day.

What else is on the site?

We have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with over 3600 active members.  (Try imagining a place where it is always safe and warm).  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

You’ll find some notes about our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page of this site.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.

The index to all 602 Dylan compositions and co-compositions that we have found on the A to Z page.

If you are interested in Dylan’s work from a particular year or era, your best place to start is Bob Dylan year by year.

On the other hand if you would like to write for this website, or indeed have an idea for a series of articles that the regular writers might want to have a go at, please do drop a line with details of your idea, or if you prefer, a whole article to Tony@schools.co.uk

And please do note our friends at  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, plus links back to our reviews (which we do appreciate).

By Tony Attwood

If we leave Money Blues out of the equation for the moment (because everything about it is odd and difficult to equate with Jacques Levy) then Oh Sister is the first collaboration song between Levy and Bob Dylan, and yet once again we have problems.

We can hear the same sort of reflective moodiness that there is in One More Cup of Coffee written just before this song, and there seems to be little Levy in place here.

In addition, one wonders how on earth Levy would have become involved in the whole Joan Baez / Bob Dylan fighting through songs affair, which came along and which seems to incorporate

• Diamonds and Rust
• Oh Sister
• O Brother

I’m going to start with this interchange between the two because it seems to me not only of some considerable importance within the song, but also something of significance; after all what other folk / pop / rock musicians have had a duel through songs written to each other in such a public way.

Diamonds and Rust was written in 1974 and if you don’t know it or want to be reminded try this …

I’ve chosen this version because it was recorded soon after writing, and because it starts with the comment “by far the most talented crazy person I ever worked with” which appears to be a note to the effect that the song is about Dylan.

And it ends with this verse, which I really do think is a masterpiece within the folk pop genre…

Now you’re telling me you’re not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You who are so good with words
And at keeping things vague
Because I need some of that vagueness now
It’s all come back too clearly
Yes I loved you dearly
And if you’re offering me diamonds and rust
I’ve already paid

Skip forwards to Oh, Sister written in the first half of 1975 – so not too long after – and we have Dylan singing it at the John Hammond concert in September before a specially invited audience, including Joan Baez.

Dylan introduced the song (which you can hear on the video below) with the line “I want to dedicate this to someone out there watching tonight I know, she knows who she is”

Here’s the video

The song ends

Oh, sister, when I come to knock on your door
Don’t turn away, you’ll create sorrow
Time is an ocean but it ends at the shore
You may not see me tomorrow

Now that might be enough of an interchange for most people, but no, Baez came back with O Brother! on “Gulf Winds” the only album she created which was entirely written by herself.  She says in her autobiography, “And a voice to sing with” that for the most part the songs were written while on tour with the Rolling Thunder Revue with Bob Dylan.

The song is available here, but it is not a perfect recording.  Go and download the song to hear a proper version.

You’ve got eyes like Jesus
But you speak with a viper’s tongue
We were just sitting around on earth
Where the hell did you come from?
With your lady dressed in deerskin
And an amazing way about her
When are you going to realize
That you just can’t live without her?

Take it easy
Take it light
But take it

And just in case you are not convinced this is a repost to the earlier songs

Your lady gets her power
From the goddess and the stars
You get yours from the trees and the brooks
And a little from life on Mars
And I’ve known you for a good long while
And would you kindly tell me, mister
How in the name of the Father and the Son
Did I come to be your sister?

But this is not Baez being all nice and saying its all ok

You’ve done dirt to lifelong friends
With little or no excuses
Who endowed you with the crown
To hand out these abuses?
Your lady knows about these things
But they don’t put her under
Me, I know about them, too
And I react like thunder

I love this song, not just because it sounds good but because Baez gets into the meat of the fight between two artists in a way that rarely happens – and certainly never happens when a journalist toddles along and asks inane questions.  This is good, insightful stuff.

I know you are surrounded
By parasites and sycophants
When I come to see you
I dose up on coagulants
Because when you hurl that bowie knife
It’s going to be when my back is turned
Doing some little deed for you
And baby, will I get burned

I won’t go on and quote it all through to the end, but consider this as a reply to Dylan:

My love for you extends through life
And I don’t want to waste it
But honey, what you’ve been dishing out
You’d never want to taste it

This exchange and the seemingly endless exchange between fans on the website arguing about the meaning of Oh, Sister, are the two sides of understanding this song.   If 1000 people have written about the meaning of Dylan’s song, they have come up with 1000 different meanings, from incest, to a commentary on women in general, and of course a whole host of religious meanings (this is after all a Dylan song).

Dylan played the song in concert for a while (67 performances between October 1975 and July 1978) but then let it go, even though it got a good reception when played.

The copy of the lyrics supplied on the official Dylan web site has Father with the capital F, and His later, to suggest he is talking about God’s blessing on the relationship.

Oh, sister, am I not a brother to you
And one deserving of affection?
And is our purpose not the same on this earth
To love and follow His direction?

When we consider the direction of these lyrics, with the blessing of the Almighty on the relationship, and perhaps on their combined creative talents, the power of Baez’ reply is overwhelming.  For Dylan the truth is mystical…

We grew up together
From the cradle to the grave
We died and were reborn
And then mysteriously saved

Baez however wanted nothing to do with that…

My love for you extends through life
And I don’t want to waste it
But honey, what you’ve been dishing out
You’d never want to taste it

Dylan’s taunt is that that he might not be there in the future – a sort of “you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone” taken up to a spiritual level…

Oh, sister, when I come to knock on your door
Don’t turn away, you’ll create sorrow
Time is an ocean but it ends at the shore
You may not see me tomorrow

But if Baez knows anything she sure does know who she is.

The Rolling Stone review of the album suggested that “the bulk of the songs are nightmares, visions of a man on the run from something he can’t define, or else stories about the fear of having nowhere to turn (as in “Oh, Sister” and “One More Cup of Coffee”).”

But watching the performance of the song with Baez in the audience I don’t get the feel of that at all.

Instead I am, even at the end of a couple of days of studying the piece, very much with the commentator on line who said, “I can’t be sure, because, sadly, I wasn’t in the room with Bob Dylan and Jacques Levy when they wrote this song. But I have the distinct feeling that this is the one song on Desire where Levy’s contributions amounted to little more than exclaiming ‘Beautiful!'”

So do we have “a deceptively simple plea for human kindness from one person to another,” which is then rebuffed by those most cutting lines?

Well, yes, that is where I have ended up.

In this context

We grew up together
From the cradle to the grave
We died and were reborn
And then mysteriously saved

doesn’t have any religious context, but rather reflects on the lives of creative artists who, in the endlessly demanding world of popular arts today, have to create more and more and more of a higher and higher quality, or else instantly get subjected to talentless critics writing a year’s worth of work off with a “he’s lost it” one line throwaway.

When it comes down to it, Dylan is saying, “hey lady we were ok” and she’s saying “no man, you were awful, don’t kid yourself.”

As for the music “Oh, sister” Dylan uses a musical trick he developed on the last two albums of using the classic chord structure of non-blues popular song (in this case G, B minor, C, G) but then in the middle 8 using the much more blues orientated F, C, G combination, ending with the powerful held “saved” on D.

It is powerful stuff, but the meaning remains in shadows.  Which is most certainly not the case with either of Baez’ songs to Dylan.  It is as if he is trying to excuse himself by wrapping the song up in religious or symbolic suggestion without very clear meaning.

And he might have got away with it, if it had not been for those two Baez songs either side.

What else is on the site?

We have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with over 3600 active members.  (Try imagining a place where it is always safe and warm).  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

You’ll find some notes about our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page of this site.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.

The index to all 602 Dylan compositions and co-compositions that we have found on the A to Z page.

If you are interested in Dylan’s work from a particular year or era, your best place to start is Bob Dylan year by year.

On the other hand if you would like to write for this website, or indeed have an idea for a series of articles that the regular writers might want to have a go at, please do drop a line with details of your idea, or if you prefer, a whole article to Tony@schools.co.uk

And please do note our friends at  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, plus links back to our reviews (which we do appreciate).

By Tony Attwood

The writing of songs in 1975 started with Money Blues (as we have seen, which now I come to look back, maybe didn’t have much input from Jacques Levy), followed by One More Cup of Coffee, and Golden Loom, which were not related to Levy’s input.  Indeed, looking at those three songs now, they increasingly seem to me to be a prelude to the Levy songs – a prelude that caused the Dylan/Levy songs to be written as they were.

Both Golden Loom and One More Cup have a vision of a life that is outside the norm, most certainly outside the hurly-burly of life.  Golden Loom, written after One More Cup developed the “beyond this world” feel of One More Cup, which as Dylan himself pointed out, is Romany orientated.

Dylan told Robert Shelton that he had been in France with David Oppenheim, when his host suggested they visit a local gypsy festival in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in Provence, France, on Dylan’s birthday where he came across a Gypsy King in declining old age, abandoned by most of his wives and children.

But as it turns out that is only part of the story, for in June 1975 Dylan then met Scarlet Rivera  “wandering in the streets of the Village” according to Heylin.  Rivera was unknown at the time although has since made a dozen or more albums.  Her violin playing certainly had a profound influence on the way the song developed.

The song develops its “gypsy” feel through using the harmonic minor (very much a western classical concept, and itself nothing to do with Romany music) in which Dylan uses the chords that emerge from the descending version of the scale (A minor, G, F, E).  It is not a Romany scale in the true sense (such as the Hungarian Gypsy Scale or the Phrygian dominant scale).

There are many commentaries which suggest that the song is related to Dylan’s break up with his ex-wife, particularly because during this year Dylan also wrote Sara.

This of course might be true, but really would someone who wrote

Sara, Sara
You must forgive me my unworthiness

would also write and include on the same album

But I don’t sense affection
No gratitude or love

about the same person.  Of course he might, but I think the case is not proved – at least not proven for me.

The lady in this song is beautiful but remote and distant, and very much not one who gives her emotions to another…

Your breath is sweet
Your eyes are like two jewels in the sky
Your back is straight, your hair is smooth
On the pillow where you lie
But I don’t sense affection
No gratitude or love
Your loyalty is not to me
But to the stars above

And so the singer is on his way to the valley, after something as prosaic as a cup of coffee.  Whether the valley below is Hades or whether it is simply a case of popping off down the hillside… well that’s for each individual listener to decide.

For me, you don’t leave the great love of your life, or the guru you’ve just found, by saying, “I’ll just have one more cup of coffee.”  Rather, you might do that, having had a jolly afternoon or evening and so then you say…

One more cup of coffee for the road
One more cup of coffee ’fore I go
To the valley below

The influence of the visit to the gypsy camp, as per the story of the old king, now surrounded by the remains of his family, comes through strongly in the second verse, emphasised all the way through by the violin playing.

Your daddy he’s an outlaw
And a wanderer by trade
He’ll teach you how to pick and choose
And how to throw the blade
He oversees his kingdom
So no stranger does intrude
His voice it trembles as he calls out
For another plate of food

The whole Romany notion of fortune telling, mystery and illiteracy is explored in the third verse, particularly with its last two lines…

But your heart is like an ocean
Mysterious and dark

She is thus the unknown, and unknowable, remote woman.  An interesting experience for an afternoon, not the love of his life.

Emmylou Harris who sings the vocals told this story about making the album, which gives us a very good insight into the way Dylan has always liked to make recordings…

“There was a fellow at Columbia that was a fan, who was like an executive producer, and I think Dylan told him ‘I need a girl singer.’ Don DeVito was his name and I got a call that Dylan wants you to sing, but that wasn’t true because he just wanted a girl singer. I mean we basically shook hands and started recording. I didn’t know the songs, the lyrics were in front of me, and the band would start playing and he would kind of poke me when he wanted me to jump in. Somehow I watched his mouth with one eye and the lyrics with the other. You couldn’t fix anything. What happened in a moment was on the record.”

There is also the story that the introduction of the bass part, which has of course become part of the essence of the song.  This came about because violinist Scarlet Rivera wasn’t ready.

The bassist, Rob Stoner told Mojo magazine in October 2012: “The beginning of ‘One More Cup of Coffee’… that wasn’t arranged for me to do a bass solo. Scarlet wasn’t ready. Bob starts strumming his guitar – nothing’s happening. Somebody better play something, so I start playin’ a bass solo. Basically the run-throughs became the first takes.”

The song was performed 175 performances times between 1975 to 2009 by Bob and his Band.  There is a version with Emmylou Harris on the internet here.   Rather oddly it has a pic of Joan Baez, but I’m sure she’s not on the recording.

• Index of all the songs on the site
• Dylan’s opening lines: an index
• How Dylan writes songs, and other articles.
• Dylan’s songs in the order they were written.
• Bob Dylan open discussion group on Facebook.    Or go onto Facebook and search for “Untold Dylan”

By Tony Attwood

Update: we’ve found a recording that can be uploaded.  The Jacques Levy version seems to have gone from the internet but here is a tribute version.

1975 is the year Bob Dylan worked with Jacques Levy – so in coming to the first song that they wrote together it seems appropriate to say a few words about Levy.

Levy was born in New York 29 July 1935, died (of cancer) 30 September 2004 aged 69.

He studied for a doctorate in psychology from Michigan State University and later practised as a clinical psychologist, but always had an interest in the theatre and music.  In 1965 he directed Sam Shepherd’s play, Red Cross. Two years on he directed Jean-Claude van Italie’s America Hurrah.

Jacques Levy next came to fame as the director of  “Oh! Calcutta!” in 1969 (which ran until 1972), and the story goes that Roger McGuinn of the Byrds thought Levy could be a fine librettist for a project he was working on.  As a result they wrote Chestnut Mare, although the main project came to nothing.

So started the route to meeting and eventually working with Bob Dylan and seven tracks on Desire which were co-written by the two men.  It is also reported that in 1975, Levy stage-managed the Rolling Thunder Revue.

But his work with Dylan didn’t stop his theatrical work.  In 1983 he directed the musical comedy Doonesbury, and in 1988 he wrote the lyrics for the stage musical of the film Fame.  From 1993 he was English professor and director of theatre at New York’s Colgate University and during this time he also worked on Marat/Sade (1994), Bus Stop (1997) and Brecht On Brecht (2000).

In all Dylan and Levy are recorded as having written nine songs together listed (in alphabetical order) as

• Black Diamond Bay
• Catfish
• Hurricane
• Isis
• Joey
• Money Blues
• Mozambique
• Oh, sister
• Romance in Durango

The first to be written was Money Blues, which was recorded on 28 July 1975 in the second Desire session at the Columbia Recording Studios, New York.  It was the second song recorded on the day, and it was only run through once – a typical “warm up” song as the musicians get themselves together and the engineers start to get the balance and sound right.

According to Wikipedia’s “List of songs written by Bob Dylan” which has (as of May 2016) 522 songs listed, Money Blues is unreleased but with the “Lyrics printed in Lyrics: 1962–1985, under Desire.”

There is one recording I’ve found, by the band Chronicles – a Dylan tribute band.  You can see it here, but the video is somewhat odd with all the people passing in front.  In the end I just wanted to hear the music.  But maybe that is me.  What we don’t know is whether the band simply interpreted the music as a classic 12 bar, or whether they had some inside information as to how it sounds on that single unreleased take.

What I don’t get however is why two such able lyricists should get together and write this.  I can see why they might record it as a warm up, but to go on and bother to write the lyrics down… and assign them to the two songwriters, seems odd to me.

And in fact I’d say maybe this is not a Dylan/Levy composition at all, but a Dylan warm up piece.  But maybe Levy, having agreed that the two men could work together, just started to improvise some lyrics.  Maybe he sang them on that one recording – although that too seems odd.

Or was Dylan still having a swipe at Sara, especially in the first verse…

Sittin’ here thinkin’
Where does the money go
Sittin’ here thinkin’
Where does the money go
Well, I give it to my woman
She ain’t got it no more

After this it gets to sound like it is having fun at the expense of the blues format… the sort of thing you might find in a Broadway show about the blues…

Went out last night
Bought two eggs and a slice of ham
Went out last night
Bought two eggs and a slice of ham
Bill came to three dollars and ten cents
And I didn’t even get no jam

By verse three it’s all getting a bit ordinary, and very blues standard…

Man came around
Askin’ for the rent
Man came around
Askin’ for the rent
Well, I looked into the drawer
But the money’s all been spent

And quite honestly the next verse does not add too much to human understanding.

Well, well
Ain’t got no bank account
Well, well
Ain’t got no bank account
Went down to start one
But I didn’t have the right amount

Before it gets too silly for words.

Everything’s inflated
Like a tire on a car
Everything’s inflated
Like a tire on a car
Well, the man came and took my Chevy back
I’m glad I hid my old guitar

And then the sexual innuendo.  The song’s character is rather unpleasantly looking to become a pimp.

Come to me, mama
Ease my money crisis now
Come to me, mama
Ease my money crisis now
I need something to support me
And only you know how

Untold Dylan: who we are what we do

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

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

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By Tony Attwood

“Buckets of Rain” was the last but one song to be written for Blood on the Tracks and appears last on the album.  In a constructional sense I am reminded to John Wesley Harding which ends with Down Along the Cove and I’ll be your Baby Tonight, two songs which really don’t have too much (if anything) to do with the rest of the album).  Here on Blood on the Tracks, we get a plaintive reflective love song, and a 12 bar blues.

But there is more, for Dylan does like to throw in something different at the end, and this song certainly is different from what has gone before.  Indeed Dylan treats it as different.  He once played it as an opener at a concert on November 18 1990 but that was that – it was different enough to leave alone otherwise.

But maybe he became fully aware that the song’s music comes pretty much directly from Bottle of Wine by Tom Paxton, a very well known song in folk circles which opens…

Bottle of wine, fruit of the vine
When you gonna let me get sober?
Let me alone, let me go home
Let me go back to start over

Ramblin’ around this dirty old town
Singin’ for nickels and dimes
Times getting tough, I ain’t got enough
To buy a little bottle of wine

It is indeed possible to write a whole piece without realising that the song is lifted from elsewhere.  It is only when someone plucks up the courage to tell you…

“Bottle of Wine” is today treated as a rather quaint song which everyone can join in, the irony of the folk club (generally) where everyone sings along being held in a pub being lost despite verses like

Pain in my head and bugs in my bed
Pants are so old that they shine
Out on the street tell the people I meet
“Won’tcha buy me a bottle of wine?”

being completely lost on those who engage in such activity.   It is desperate stuff made to sound jolly.

Dylan of course took the music elsewhere with a lighter shade of lyric, with lines like

Like your smile and your fingertips

and then wakes us up suddenly with

Everything about you is bringing me misery.

Indeed the first verse spells out the contrast very clearly…

Buckets of rain
Buckets of tears
Got all them buckets comin’ out of my ears
Buckets of moonbeams in my hand
You got all the love
Honey baby, I can stand

So instead of the desperation of the alcoholic we have the man who sees the world passing by and accepts it, changing himself as each situation demands, and thus losing himself in the world around him.

I been meek
And hard like an oak
I seen pretty people disappear like smoke
Friends will arrive, friends will disappear
If you want me
Honey baby, I’ll be here

But always we have this two way affair of delight and anguish

I like your smile
And your fingertips
Like the way that you move your lips
I like the cool way you look at me
Everything about you is bringing me misery

Quite what the red wagon and bike have to do with anything I am not sure but the ending is upbeat.

I like the way you love me strong and slow
I’m takin’ you with me
Honey baby, when I go

In a sense it is a summation of much that has gone before – the two sides of a love affair, the love, the despair, the ups and downs and ultimately as it is all over, the determination to pick oneself up again and move on.   This time, unlike the time he thought about missing the new woman when she left, he’s taking charge.  It is HIM, the singer, who is taking the woman when HE leaves.  He’s back on track.  It’s a summing up.  Time to move on.

“Life is sad, life is a bust, all you can do is do what you must,” isn’t much to say but it is something after all the turmoil.  After all, not everyone makes it through such a dark night.

There is that plaintive last line though, “can’t you tell” as if after all this he still can’t read people aright.  But that too is how it goes.  Nothing shakes your faith in people like a divorce.

Musically, the song is another one which is recorded with opening tuning – which means the guitar is retuned away from the normal tuning of the strings.  It gives a different flavour to the sound, and a chance once more to play with those odd chords that we have noted on the way through the album.

As I say, Dylan was left with just one song to write for the album, “Meet me in the morning” and it is interesting to see that he wrote the complex and long songs first, ending with the two simple pieces – a song based on “Bottle of Wine” – a simple piece of folk if ever there was one – and the other a standard 12 bar blues.

By the end of his writing surge in 1974, all the large complex work had gone.  He was tidying up the bits and pieces in his head, and wrote music to fit.

So with this song, musically the year was almost over, and with one more composition the whole album could be considered done and dusted.  All that was left was to select the order of tracks on the LP.

Index of all the songs on the site

Dylan’s opening lines: an index

How Dylan writes songs, and other articles.

By Tony Attwood

The first aim of this site – to review all the important Bob Dylan songs – remains the same, but I have just had a few days off that because as always new things keep popping up.

We first got diverted into the notion that seeing the songs in the chronological order they were written in will help understand Dylan’s development as a composer – and it most certainly has.  We’ve reached 1973 in the index, with every single song reviewed, and very shortly I will put up the index to 1974 and then fill in the review gaps.

Dylan songs in Chronological Order

Then we moved on to thinking Dylan’s best opening lines.  That index of first lines in order has approach 100, most particularly with Dearbhla’s help, and that is continuing to grow.

Dylan’s opening lines, an index

Along the way the idea of doing a Dylan anniversary index cropped up, and a little bit on that was done, but it was so massive a task I’ve put it on hold, although I can see how it should be done, and I have most of the data.  It just needs writing up.  This one is going to have to wait.

And then along came Dylan’s best lines that are not first lines.

We have put a few on the Untold Dylan Facebook group (just search for Untold Dylan on Facebook or else go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/254617038225146/

Incidentally, if you are interested, we’ve had a discussion on the influence of Robert Johnson and Woody Guthrie on Dylan on the Facebook group too.  I do hope you can join us.

If you would like to help out on any of these projects please do write to me: TonyAttwoodofLondon@gmail.com

by Tony Attwood

OK in the great scheme of things 50 ain’t that many but even so, it is a great start.

Today we are debating whether it was Robert Johnson or Woody Guthrie who had the greatest influence on the early Dylan – and how we can tell.

Anyone can post, there is no moderator, so we can just go where the debate takes us.  And it really serves a purpose of allowing members to be able to direct the discussion to anywhere they want.

I do hope you will consider joining.   Just go to

https://www.facebook.com/groups/254617038225146/

or on Facebook you can try typing in Untold Dylan – although we have had reports that this does not always work.

Hope you find it interesting.

Tony

If you post a comment on this site (which of course you are always welcome to do) it will appear under one of the articles.   Which is fine, but then only those people who read that article will see your comment.

I want to try and broaden the discussion through setting up a Facebook open discussion group.

You can join it either by typing in “Untold Dylan” in Facebook or going to https://www.facebook.com/groups/254617038225146/ 

It’s just an experiment – just as this site started out as an experiment.  But now it has grown.

And grown.

Tony

By Tony Attwood

Oxford Dictionaries has a Dirge as a lament for the dead – especially one that is part of a funeral.  But it can also be just a mournful song – although the dictionary also casts it as “a  song or piece of music that is considered too slow, miserable, or boring” giving the example “after his ten-minute dirge, the audience booed.”

I think we might take the middle definition – a mournful song.  Rob Fraboni the recording session’s engineer suggests that Dirge was written during the recording sessions, unlike the other songs on Planet Waves which Dylan composed beforehand.

There is also the suggestion that Lou Kemp’s girlfriend Martha had the temerity to say to Dylan, on hearing “Forever Young,”  “Are you getting mushy in your old age?”  The tape log apparently has the song titled as “Dirge for Martha” but it became “Dirge” by the time the album was put together.

Whether anyone would have the temerity to say such a thing to Dylan is interesting.  If I found myself around the same recording studio I think I’d be hiding in the corner shaking, in case he realised I was there and threw me out.  But these youngsters eh?

Anyway, as I understand it, Lou Kemp has been a friend of Dylan’s from the Duluth boyhood days, and Kemp has been on tour with Dylan.  It is also said elsewhere the Lou Kemp managed a number of Dylan tours in the 1970s, so maybe this all makes sense.

If so, Dirge is not written for or about any particular woman – it was just a riposte to a throwaway comment of a close friend’s girlfriend and was put in, perhaps, because the number of songs available for Planet Waves was limited.  They needed one more so Dylan took the joke and turned it into a song. As I have noted elsewhere, with earlier albums Dylan could often put songs in, take them out, to get the balance of the album right.  But here there was no surfeit of songs – so in it went.

Notably, Dirge is one of the songs that has appeared on a mainsteam album but never been performed in public.   The official BobDylan.com site lists something like 629 Dylan songs in its index, of which 287 have never been performed live, not even once.

So it is not alone in this regard – we can think of “Down the highway” from Freewheelin, “Don’t fall apart on me tonight” from Infidels, and “Dirt Road Blues” from Time out of Mind – and I’ve just looked up the index for “D”!

I like the explanation that Dylan wrote the piece just to show he could be bleak and morbid, and it fits with the fact that musically there are similarities between this piece and “This Wheels on Fire” which uses the musical approach to come up with a completely different type of songs.

But to stay with the words for a moment, it is impossible to think of anything more depressing and end-of-worldish than the opening

I hate myself for loving you and the weakness that it showed
You were just a painted face on a trip down to suicide road
The stage was set, the lights went out all around the old hotel
I hate myself for loving you and I’m glad the curtain fell.

In the second verse I am guessing (in my usual naive English way) that Lower Broadway is Downtown Nashville, the one-time home of the honkytonk bars… now “a renowned entertainment district for country music.”

I hate that foolish game we played and the need that was expressed
And the mercy that you showed to me, whoever would have guessed
I went out on Lower Broadway and I felt that place within
That hollow place where martyrs weep and angels play with sin.

But after this there is an other world remoteness about the lyrics, which have the feeling of fiction.  None the worse for that of course, it is a very fine piece of writing – but it is the writing Dylan can do very quickly – the description of the down and out and life gone wrong.   The way of writing he learned from all those years with the blues.

This is the World Gone Wrong once more both in general terms about the world in which he lives…

Heard your songs of freedom and man forever stripped
Acting out his folly while his back is being whipped
Like a slave in orbit he’s beaten ’til he’s tame
All for a moment’s glory and it’s a dirty, rotten shame.

His own desperation with the world around him, rather than a particular person is played out in these verses,

There are those who worship loneliness, I’m not one of them
In this age of fibreglass I’m searching for a gem
The crystal ball upon the wall hasn’t shown me nothing yet
I’ve paid the price of solitude but at least I’m out of debt.

And then the personal antagonism…

I can’t recall a useful thing you ever did for me
‘Cept pat me on the back one time when I was on my knees
We stared into each other’s eyes ’till one of us would break
No use to apologize, what difference would it make ?

And I think that the final verse with its Doom Machine tells us most certainly that this is not a personal piece.  Dylan doesn’t use phrases like that, which sound more 60s protest than 70s personal, unless he is talking of the world at large.

So sing your praise of progress and of the Doom Machine
The naked truth is still taboo whenever it can be seen
Lady Luck who shines on me, will tell you where I’m at
I hate myself for loving you but I should get over that.

It has for a long while bothered me that there is nowhere on this site for issues that fall outside the boundaries of the songs reviewed or the specific topics that have been brought up by friends of the site.

Of course if you feel there should be an article or series on a specific topic you can email me as always, but I wanted to see if there was any benefit in having a broader forum.

So I have created an Untold Dylan discussion group on Facebook.

At this moment I am the only member but I am hoping others will find it (just search for Untold Dylan) and maybe bring up issues that are on their minds vis a vis Dylan but which do not get mentioned within the confines of discussions on what is already on the site.

If you do find the group and want to encourage others to join, please do tell people, and write something.

Tony Attwood

By Tony Attwood

Unlike some of his full-on years in the 1960s, 1973 for Dylan was a year primarily of writing, and then recording the songs that became Planet Waves.   Tough Mama was written after On a Night Like This – a song that has the same sort of upbeat, here it is, take it or leave it, charge-along and have-some-fun, approach to music and life.

It was recorded on November 6, along with  “Hazel,” and “Something There Is About You.”   Three songs about women and their mystery, although Tough Mama seems more confused about what’s going on and where the singer wants to be, than the other songs.

At the time of my writing this in 2016 Dylan has played it 44 times on stage.   So it didn’t get totally lost, but it is not a song to which Dylan is dedicated.

Musically it is very cleverly constructed, mixing two different styles in a way that runs smoothly but surprises.

It is in D and uses the sorts of chords you would expect, such as B minor and A.   But then at “His working days are through” Dylan sounds like he is modulating to another key, but isn’t only to hit us with a chord of C major resolving to G.

My point is that most of the song uses the normal chords of pop which derive from folk music.  The repeat of Tough Mama at the end uses the flattened seventh, taking us into a different style of music – more R&B than pop/folk.

This is indeed the way Dylan was writing at the time – song after song tricks us with its musical construction on this album – that, and the sound of the Band, are hallmarks of the style at this moment.

And what of the structure?  It is five straight verses.   No middle 8 to break it up, just five sung verses plus the instrumental verse.  Are they all about the same woman – the tough mama, dark beauty, sweet goddess, and silver angel?  Or is it all just a build up to the last verse where the opening changes to “I’m crestfallen” but returns at the very end to “Sweet Goddess.”

If I had to take a bet I’d say it’s a farewell song, the farewell coming completely in the fourth verse.  He’s addressed the woman in every way, and now marries her

Silver angel
With the badge of the lonesome road written on your sleeve
I’d be grateful if this golden ring you would receive

But then she goes away and nothing makes sense any more.

I’m crestfallen
The world of illusion is at my door

So he’s not going to perform to requirement, everything that held him in one place is gone – eternity stretches in front of him.   He’s had enough.  He’s not going to play any of his songs to the people who try and buy a piece of him.

I ain’t a-haulin’ any of my lambs to the marketplace anymore
The prison walls are crumbling, there is no end in sight

But what to do?   Everyone knows him, but he doesn’t want to do music any more

I’ve gained some recognition but I lost my appetite

But hey, here’s another woman – let’s just skip town and become anonymous.

Sweet beauty
Meet me at the border late tonight.

I’m sure that isn’t exactly right, because I think this is a song of Dylan’s in which the words come out without a necessary order and give us snapshots of the same situation from different perspectives without Dylan wanting to put all the lyrics into a single focus.  It is as much like the same situation seen from five different points of the compass as anything else.

There is no point on trying to work out exactly who “Sister” is and who the “steel driving crew” are or symbolically represent.  They are just symbols of a life gone by.

But we should not lose sight of the joyous, rebellious, challenging way Dylan sings the repeat of the first line in the penultimate line of each verse.  He’s punching the air with his fist – this is the sound of relief and release.

In a real sense the people sung about are shadows as the singer moves from place to place, moment to moment.  Who knows if they are real, invented, or memories?  And does it matter?  Not really.  He is just moving on.

One web site I read in preparing this little review suggested that “If you want to take things to more of an extreme, one might suggest that “Tough Mama” is the prologue to the epic that is “Isis”, where the narrator offers a golden ring and states that it’s his duty to take her to “the field where the flowers bloom” – that sounds like a meadow to me.”

I’m not sure on that one, I’m still hearing Tangled up in Blue, because in this song everything truly is tangled up – including all the different women, or all the different aspects of the same woman.

But I do take the point that the same reviewer made in saying. “Of course, the stuff of myth is one thing, but Dylan’s real life was already beginning to intrude on his songwriting, and it’s pretty tempting to read into a song like this and attempt to pick out elements that have to do with what was going on with Bob at this time in his life.

“Is he the Lone Wolf that “went out drinking – but that was over pretty fast”? (After all, once Bob hit the road again after his divorce, especially during both RTRs, the drinking would return with a vengeance.) What exactly does Dylan mean when he says he “stood alone upon the ridge, and all [he] did was watch”? Is he singing about himself when he says “I gained some recognition, but I lost my appetite” (surely a reference to his wilderness years)?”

Good questions all round.  Maybe someone has the answers.

All the songs reviewed on this site

The songs in chronological order

Articles about aspects of Dylan’s work

By Tony Attwood

The Edlis Cafe  Facebook group introduces “If I Was a King” from Disc 18 of “Cutting Edge” thus…

The true test of a Dylanista is to transcribe all the words to If I Was A King on Disc 18 of Cutting Edge.

Can you?

And no I can’t.  Mind you my attempts to transcribe several other songs on this site have met with a fair amount of criticism (I’d say it is because I’m English, not American, they would have it that I can’t listen straight), and this song is just impossible to decode with certainty, although I know that one Dutch singer has issued a version of the song, so he’s obviously had a go.

But I can tell you a bit about the music – and give something of an insight into where the indistinct words are coming from.

The essence of the music comes from Absolutely Sweet Marie although obviously at a much slower tempo, and without any reference to the middle 8 that so particularly distinguishes Sweet Marie with its extraordinary change of key.

Now we know that Sweet Marie was recorded on 7 March 1966, in a single session.  The song, according to Heylin, was pretty much written when Dylan got to the studio and had just a few odds and ends in the lyrics to move around.  Heylin also tells us that the middle 8 (which as I pointed out in my review – see the link above – was of particular importance in the song) was added during the session.

Moving on to the North British Station Hotel, Glasgow, (which Heylin demotes to “a Glasgow hotel room) he tells us of “What kind of friend is this”, “I can’t leave her behind”, and “On a rainy afternoon” all being recorded but has not a single word to say anywhere on “If I was a king”.

But he does tell us that it was second cameraman in Pennebaker’s film unit along with film editor Howard Alk that got the recordings of Dylan and Robbie Robertson working on three “song ideas” (Helin’s italics – I am not sure why).

Heylin suggests some have said “What kind of friend is this” was possibly based on “What kind of man is this” by Koko Taylor.  This song was transcribed and copyrighted in 1978 – as were the other two Heylin mentions.  He notes that Dylan slides “in and out of coherence” in all three songs, but also says of the latter two songs, “Copywriting them as two separate songs is a slight swindle.  They are two streams drawn from the same river, as a more complete tape of the session… makes clear.”

Clearly “If I was a king” fits into this scenario – the lyrics being invented, mumbled, changed as we go along, but it wasn’t copyrighted, which suggests that maybe Dylan was remembering an old folk song – one might thing, an old Scottish folk song since that is where he was.

There are many folk songs from the British Isles that use the theme, for example, the Magpie’s Nest from Norfolk in East Anglia,

For if I was a king I would make you a queen,
I would roll you in my arms where the meadows they are green;
I would roll you in my heart’s content and I’d lay you down to rest
Long side my Irish colleen in the magpie’s nest.

This also turns up in Ireland as “The Magpie’s Nest” and has been often used by blues singers.  Blind Willie McTell for example sang,

“I once loved a woman better ‘ere than I ever seen.
Treated me like I was king an’ she was a doggone queen.”

It also turns up in “The Bonny Brier Bush” re-written by Robert Burns – and since Dylan was sitting in a hotel in the country where Burns is the national poet, and symbol of the nation’s identity, maybe that turned his mind to the subject.

But the fact that it has so many musical elements of Sweet Marie in it, and the fact that that Sweet Marie was recorded on 7 March 1966, two months before the Glasgow hotel sessions, suggests either:

a) Dylan had indeed taken part of Sweet Marie from the “If I was a king” ballad in the first place and was just going back to it now that he was in Scotland, or

b) Having written Sweet Marie he was just having a bit of fun seeing where else it could go or

c) He was subconsciously drawing on past musical phrases he had composed and half remembered folk songs.

This last may seem a bit far fetched, but I think virtually every composer will admit to having had moments in which he feels “wow – this is going to be a great piece” only to find (or have it pointed out) a little later that it is “rather like that song you did last year…”

When writing a song, the song gets deeply inside your head, it becomes part of you, it is you, but then as you write other songs it becomes harder and harder to know if that is just an idea or an actual song you’ve already done.

I can’t tell you which of the three options is true, nor why Heylin failed to mention the song in Revolution in the Air when he has spent so long and been so assiduous in tracking down each and every song.  He knows about the session, indeed he spends three pages on it, and yet…

Dylan’s round of song writing in March 1966 was frenetic and included (in as close to order of composition as I can place it)

• Absolutely Sweet Marie
• Just like a woman
• Pledging my time
• Most likely you go your way and I’ll go mine
• Temporary Like Achilles
• Rainy Day Women
• Obviously Five Believers
• I want you

plus the songs heard in May in the Scottish hotel.

It was an extraordinary round of writing – not least because of the way in which Dylan was seeking to explore and stretch the form of the music he was writing for the double album.

And these were extraordinary times.   The Glasgow and Edinburgh concerts followed straight on from the Judas concert, but contemporary reports suggest that in Glasgow Dylan’s new style was welcomed.  However there is a report that quite a few members of the audience in Edinburgh brought along harmonicas to play as a protest when the electric set began.  (That might be just a story – I found it in the Daily Record – but it is very Edinburgh, no matter if it is true or false).

Billboard, in reporting “If I Was a King”, says it seems “a bit quaint and old-fashioned compared to the more electrifying material he was recording in this same time frame.”  But then Dylan has often moved back and forth – and the fact that he chose to sing this song twice at this moment must tell us something.

Dylan didn’t play Sweet Marie in Edinburgh – but then… I am not sure if that tells me anything or not.  Having looked it up, I thought I’d report it!

Musically “If I was a king” is hardly revolutionary – a nice rotating melody and chord combination – and if you don’t hear the link with Sweet Marie, just play them one after the other.  If only Dylan had written “If I was a king” first we’d know that was a sketch for Sweet Marie, but with Bob it’s never that simple.

• The alphabetical list of songs reviewed  – just scroll down the page.
• The list of songs in chronological order of composition (1962-1973) is here.
• How Dylan writes songs, the greatest Dylan opening lines and other articles

Continuing the experiment with finding things Dylan did each day of the year.  If you know of any not included do write in and say.

20 April 1961: Bob Dylan played at Gerde’s Folk City, New York.

20 April 1966: Bob Dylan played the Festival Hall in Melbourne, Australia, starting with “She Belongs to Me” and ending with “Just like Thom Thumb’s Blues”

20 April 1980: Bob Dylan played Toronto on the Gospel Tour

20 April 1985, The charity record ‘We Are The World’ by USA For Africa was at No.1 on the UK singles chart. The US artists’ answer to Band Aid included Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, Daryl Hall, Paul Simon, Huey Lewis, Ray Charles, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson.

20 April 2009: Bob Dylan performed Tough Mama live for the 44th and last time.

20 April 2009: The Cambridge Companion to Bob Dylan published by Cambridge University Press

20 April 2013: Bob Dylan released Wigwam / Thirsty Boots.  It was an unreleased demo of Wigwam, and the first Thirsty Boots recording to be released.

20 April 2016: Bob Dylan played Orchard Hall, Tokyo

Recent Posts

• All the things Dylan did on 19 April
• Something there is about you: Dylan’s 1973 renaissance and the journey Tangled Up.
• What Bob Dylan’s done on 18 April through the years.
• Bob Dylan on this day: 17 April
• Bob Dylan on this day: 16 April
• Hazel: understanding the song, and the live performance

————————————-

• The alphabetical list of songs reviewed is on the home page
• The list of songs in chronological order of composition (1962-1973) is here.
• Bob Dylan Day by Day (only recently started but all things start somewhere)
• How Dylan writes songs, the greatest Dylan opening lines and other articles

This is part of a continuing exploration to see if it is possible to create a Dylan Day by Day file.   We’re in the early days, but there is an index to the days covered so far.

I am certain I will have missed much of importance – please do help fill in the gaps, either by adding ideas for this page – or indeed any date in history.  Or if you have a book in which someone has already done this, let me know, and I’ll move to something more original.

19 April

• 19 April 1961: There are two contrasting entries for this day.   Either Bob Dylan ends his residency at Hibbing High School, Minnesota which he began on 11 April or Bob Dylan performed at Gerde’s Folk City, New York.
• 19 April 1966, Dylan played the Festival Hall Melbourne, Australia
• 19 April 1980, Dylan played Toronto on the Gospel Tour
• 19 April 1983, Dylan recorded in Studio A, at the Power Station, New York in a session produced by Mark Knopfler and Bob Dylan.  There were six versions of Neighbourhood Bully, plus a take of Green Onions and “Trees Hannibal Alps”
• 19 April 1991: First live performance of New Morning, which went on to be played 79 times between now and 2006.  This show as at Saenger Performing Arts Center, New Orleans
• 19 April 2005: Dylan performed at New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Newark
• 19April 2012, Levon Helm, died of throat cancer aged 71.    He performed with the Hawks and the Band and sang on ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,’ ‘Up on Cripple Creek,’ ‘Rag Mama Rag,’ and ‘The Weight.’
• 19 April 2015: Dylan performed at Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, Orlando, Florida
• 19 April 2016: Dylan performed at Orchard Hall, Tokyo, Japan.

• Bob Dylan on this day: 16 April
• Bob Dylan on this day: 17 April
• Bob Dylan on this day: 18 April

All the songs (over 250) reviewed on this site

The songs in chronological order

By Tony Attwood

“A lover out there; I recall.”

It could be the title for the collection of the 1973 songs in which Dylan deals with current love and past love.  It is of course the heartbeat of a billion songs throughout the history of popular music, but these songs were more than just delightful pieces by a great songwriter.

For these were the sketches and notebooks in which he worked towards the solution of how to write on the theme of past, present and future loves all at once, and at a level of utter perfection.

And here, in these songs we are seeing the opening steps, the initial thoughts, the first considerations, that finally led us to Tangled up in Blue the following year.   We had to wait while he made these notes and worked on these ideas, but oh wasn’t it worthwhile?

Thus we should not dismiss these sketches on the road to a masterpiece, for these 1973 songs are certainly worth a listen.  In order of composition they are…

• Never say goodbye
• Nobody cept you
• Going going gone
• Hazel
• Something there is about you

Of course they are not all dealing with the same subject precisely – but given a bit of time, and some relief from the roar of the world around, we can surely hear little bits and pieces that ultimately turned one year on into “Early one morning the sun was shining,” that ultimate, ultimate opening line repost to Robert Johnson’s “Well I work up this morning, blues falling down like hail.”  It took 36 years to get from Johnson’s bleak opener, to Dylan’s warm answer, but it sure was worth waiting for.

That these songs from the year before Tangled up in Blue were sketches comes not just from my own personal judgement (which of course can readily and easily be challenged any day of the week) but from the fact that none of these songs became key parts of Dylan shows.

Never say goodbye is shown as never being sung by Dylan on stage (my figures coming from BobDylan.com), Hazel seven times, Nobody cept you eight times, Something there is about you 26 and Going, going, gone, 79, but this latter total was, I am sure, down to the multiple re-writes of both music and lyric.  I have tried to give examples in my review of that particular song (see the link in the list above).

Something there is about you,  lasted as a tour song between Jan 74 and Feb 78, but even so, got few outings, and it does have one most interesting musical feature, in which the bassist plays around with the notion of the complete descending bass.

Step by step bass lines are something Dylan particularly likes, starting on the key note and slowly rising up (as in Rolling Stone) or declining (as in Is your love in vain).   But there are two things that really make this stand out – the bassist keeps varying what he does, and only on occasion does he deliver the whole eight note run.

In verse one for example we get a partial descending bass with gaps

Something there is about you that strikes a match in me
Is it the way your body moves or is it the way your hair blows free?
Or is it because you remind me of something that used to be
Somethin’ that crossed over from another century?

And the last line gives us the clue musically and lyrically of where we are going – not now from the descending bass but from the lyrics.  To my mind the lyrics are generally interesting, but not really spectacular.   But that “another century” instantly makes me think on to the “Italian poet from the thirteenth century.”   Dylan was indeed getting ready to paint his masterpiece, one year ahead.

In the second verse the bassist is playing with us again, and has jumps in the descent – until he gives in at the last

Thought I’d shaken the wonder and the phantoms of my youth
Rainy days on the Great Lakes, walkin’ the hills of old Duluth
There was me and Danny Lopez, cold eyes, black night and then there was Ruth
Something there is about you that brings back a long-forgotten truth

The descent of the bass is finally there, down to the recovery of the long-forgotten truth.

And that long-forgotten truth is….?

Maybe just lying there “Wond’ring if she’d changed it all”.  Maybe it was “standing on the side of the road, Rain falling on my shoes” paying the dues at the crossroads yet again.  Maybe it’s “”Jimmy, Don’t I know your name ?””

Or maybe it is just that book of poems Written by an Italian poet  From the thirteenth century.

But we also have to ask, in passing, who are these people referenced here?  Danny Lopez is another boxing reference from Dylan – the world champion featherweight, and apparently very popular in his day.

Plus here’s a nice extra: Danny is married to Bonnie Lopez and has three sons, Bronson, Jeremy, and… Dylan.

Moving on, in 1994 Ruth Tyrangiel served Bob Dylan him with a $5m law suit, claiming they had lived as husband and wife for 17 years. The case apparently was ultimately settled out of court.  I, obviously, can’t verify any of that.

And so from me that’s it.  The lyrics of this song don’t leap out and stick in my brain, the song has none of the amazing expression of the middle 8 of Going going gone.  Yep, that’s it – but it was, I am sure, part of the movement into Tangled.

As I say, that’s it.  Except that on 27 March 2008 Tara Brabazon, professor of media studies at the University of Brighton (wherein I spent three years) published an article in the Times Higher Education Supplement under the title “Something there is about you”.  It’s not about the song – it is about her husband, Bob Dylan, and (in particular) Scorsese.  Worth a read.  I thought I’d mention it since we’ve reached this song.

All the songs reviewed on this site

The songs in chronological order

The Dylan anniversary list – it has only just started, but it’s getting there

I am continuing the experiment of trying to build a little record of Bob’s activities (and related Dylan events) each day through the year.  This is the third date I’ve tried – 18 April

18 April 1961: Dylan played Gerde’s Folk City, New York.

18 April 1968: Staple singers include Hard Rain in their set at the Filmore Auditorium, San Francisco.

18 April 1976: First of 79 live performances of Going Going Gone, and the first performance of Idiot Wind and If you see her say hello, Seven Days and Shelter from the Storm. At Lakeland, FLorida.

18 April 1980 Toronto on the Gospel Tour

18 April 1983: Dylan recorded at the Studio A, Power Station, New York City, There were six takes and 12 false starts of Sweetheart like You, and two takes of Blind Willie McTell.

18 April 2003 Dylan performed the Granada Theater, Dallas.

18 April 2014, Dylan played Nagoya, Japan

18 April 2015: Dylan played St Augustine Amphitheatre, St Augustine, Florida.

18 April 2016, Dylan played Tokyo, Japan.

Recent Posts

• Bob Dylan on this day: 17 April
• Bob Dylan on this day: 16 April
• Hazel: understanding the song, and the live performance
• Going Going Gone: turning an ok song into one of the greatest moments in rock music

by Tony Attwood

Yesterday I started a little experiment to see if I could find a few anniversaries of events in Bob Dylan’s life just for that specific day.

It seemed quite an interesting thing to do, because it gave me a few perspectives that I hadn’t picked up on in writing the reviews, so I decided to continue a bit further.  Here is 17 April.

The 16 April listing is of course still on the site

• 17 April 1965.   The Freewheelin Bob Dylan entered the British charts on 23 May 1964 and reached number one on this day  
• 17 April 1980: Dylan played Toronto on the “Gospel Tour” and gave the first live performance of Ain’t gonna go to hell for anybody.
• 17 April 2002:  The 329th and final performance of “In the Garden”
• 17 April 2005: Final live performance of “It takes a lot to laugh it takes a train to cry.”  It was the 160th performance.
• 17 April 2015 – Bob Dylan Live at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center

If you have anything to add, please do send it in.  Tony.Attwood@aisa.org

• All the songs reviewed on this site.
• The Dylan songs in chronological order of writing
• All of Dylan’s music on  The Bob Dylan Project

Bob Dylan on this day: 16 April