Sure it be that Julius Caesar has no pocket watch, but he likely travels a lot by “painted wagon”, not on a stallion as romanticized by poets, and painters.
Placing his faith on the power of the sword, not on the what the entrails of a bull might foretell, he’s about to cross the Rubicon:
Born from a modest spring
It is parched by the heat of summer
But then it's volume was increased by winter ...
(Lucan: Pharsalia ~ translated)
So too Julius Zimmerman romanticizes his persona:
I crossed the Rubicon on the fourteenth day
Of the most dangerous month of the year
At the worst time, and the worst place
That's all I seem to hear
(Bob Dylan: Crossing The Rubicon)
The city of Rome corrupted by greed is envisioned by Caesar as in distress; the city personified as female, wants him to be tolerant, and hold her hand.
However, Julius, as a son of Jove, finds no peaceful option available; certainly it’s not his fault, but civil war it will be.
Like a lion, he leads his legions across the Rubicon, and onward to Rome:
His shall hold the guilt who forces me
To act as your enemy
Then he let loose the bonds of war
And led his standards swiftly over the swollen stream
(Lucan: Pharsalia ~ translated)
In the song lyrics below, it might be said that corrupted America, figuratively speaking, replaces Rome as the New Babylon.
Hyperbole abounds in the lyrics beneath – the Almighty is not left unscathed since He allows the New Promised Land to be lost.
Eden’s gone again:
Well, you defiled the most beautiful flower in all of womanhood
Others can be tolerant, others can be good
I'll cut you up with a crooked knife, Lord
And I'll miss you when you're gone
I stood between heaven and earth
And I crossed the Rubicon
(Bob Dylan: Crossing The Rubicon)
A Scottish Romantic poet called upon in the following song lyrics.
The low road represents the path for the dead:
Oh, ye'll take the high road
And I'll take the low road
And I'll be in Scotland afore ye
(Robbie Burns: The Bonnie Banks Of Loch Lomond)
Taking the cue from the ballad above, the Caesar in the following song lyrics be not as confident of success as the one in Lucan’s epic poem:
Take the high road, take the low road
Take any one you're on
I poured the cup, I passed it on
And I crossed the Rubicon
(Bob Dylan: Crossing The Rubicon)
Apparently, only Mona, the Moon Goddness, keeps him hanging on.
Folk music, which for many, many centuries never written down, was constantly changed either because the performer forgot exactly how the song went, or because he/she changed the song deliberately. This deliberate change could be because the performer couldn’t manage the original version, or because she/he wanted to add an update or local reference. Or because a new idea occurred. So different versions of the same song appeared in different parts of the country.
To overcome this to some degree musical notation was invented – and across the centuries became more and more sophisticated. In earlier times the speed at which a piece was to be played might be indicated on the musical score by the vague word “Allegro” or “Andante” (performance indications always being written in Italian in the era of classical-romantic compositions) but once the wind-up metronome was invented in 1815 a more accurate representation of the composer’s wishes for the speed of the piece could be given.
The implication of this increasing exactitude in terms of how the composer wanted the piece to be played was that the music should NOT be changed. Rather like the author of a book expects the published version to include all the chapters in the order she/he lays down, not at random, or with bits taken out (although Readers’ Digest used to do this). The author, like the composer, dictates how the work of art should be received. It is the same of course in all the arts.
Matters became even more fixed when mechanical recording devices (the phonograph, the gramophone, the tape recorder…) became available – and thus at last a definitive version of the music could become fixed for all time.
But it is important to realise just how recent this notion of a fixed, definitive version of music is. In the 18th century JS Bach gave no indication on the page as to how (for example) the 48 Preludes and Fugues were to be played. All we have is the notes. There are no speed and no volume indications (the latter because initially the pieces were played on the clavier not the piano, and thus volume changes were impossible.
So because of what the instruments could do, the evolution of recording techniques, and the response of composers who wanted (as time went by) to indicate exactly how they expected the music to be performed) we moved from compositions as a base from which possibilities could be explored, to a fixed grid which said, “My piece should be performed like this.”
The arrival of the gramophone in the late 19th century allowed all music to become fixed in terms of how it should be performed. However, we really should remember that saying “it should be played like this” is no more of a correct response to a composer’s creation, than taking a piece and changing the instrumentation, the speed, and indeed the entire way in which is it performed.
Of course, if the music has a clear meaning, either through the sound created, or the lyrics added to a song, or indeed both, then changing the music can change the meaning. But quite often changes to instrumentation and speed simply give us a different version, and one can then argue about which version works best. After all, music doesn’t have to have a meaning and most instrumental music has no discernable meaning at all.
However when we are talking of songs, the issue of the meaning of the lyrics arises. Because the music most of us in the west hear as babies is associated with happiness and sung in a major key we associate music in a major key as happy, and music in a minor key is perceived as sad – there is no inherent reason why music written in a minor key should be felt to be sad – but that is just the tradition we have evolved. Listen to a song with the lyrics “Oh how much I love you” performed in a minor key and the immediate implication is that the love affair is over and the singer is desperate.
So if a composer wants to write a happy song the composer will normally write in a major key. If a performer wants then to make the piece ambiguous and strange the simplest thing she or he can do is turn it into a piece in the minor key. However, most people will find the result really odd.
Thus the number of changes one can make is limited, where the meaning of the song is overt. However, where the meaning of the song is more difficult to ascertain, perhaps because of the abstract notion of the lyrics, more and more changes can be affected.
These changes can be to instrumentation, the introduction, an instrumental break, the ending, the melody, the rhythm…. and they can be added for musical effect, or to change the meaning of the song.
But the key point is that even with the most inventive of composers and musicians, the most obvious changes will be discovered first. And the danger is that after a while one starts looking for change for the sake of change, and although great new arrangements can be discovered, sometimes they sound exactly what they are: change for the sake of it.
But sometimes it really can work. Perhaps because of the music, or perhaps of the occasion, changes to the music just works so wonderfully…
I am restricting myself to just two covers of this song, because these two cover versions are so utterly sublime, that I really don’t want to go on and listen to any other versions. And indeed I’m not sure I could take it – not least because once I have written this I am off to see my youngest grandchild for the first time.
This is a song of desperation, and such songs need to be handled with enormous care by the performers as otherwise the emotion can get too overplayed and starts to sound like exploitation rather than a description – and in this case a description played out with sensitivity is really all that is needed.
Also, a significant level of talent both as a guitarist and a singer is needed to carry the song through – both because we know it so well, and because one false step could make the whole thing sound mawkish.
These two artists take the song in different ways, including of course the way the guitar part is performed. But both are stunningly effective. People of a sensitive disposition (a bit like me) might want to go and do something else in between playing each version. Fortunately for me, I can now go and see the youngest member of my family.
There are no mistakes in life some people say
And it’s true sometimes you can see it that way
People don’t live or die, people just float
She went with the man
In the long black coat
American landscape painter Bob Ross dies in 1993, at the age of 52, far too young. His television series The Joy Of Painting, broadcast all over the world at the time, was then as popular as ever. And is popular still: reruns on communication channels like Twitch and YouTube resuscitate Ross’ popularity and posthumously bring him new generations of fans. A regular episode like “Island In The Woods”, for example, is viewed 41 million times in five years. Meanwhile, Ross’ iconic presence, his manner of speaking and his unique personality have long since been incorporated by popular culture; documentaries, merchandising, board games, video games and bumper stickers provide, decades after his death, a constant revenue stream for the Bob Ross Inc., which carefully guards his legacy.
The artistic value of his landscapes can be debated, but that’s not the secret of the success anyway; that’s the man himself, his gentle, good-natured, hypnotic instructional videos, consistently embellished with casual, off-the-cuff aphorisms with a high feel-good content. Like “Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb, because that’s where the fruit is.” And the most popular bumper sticker is probably the one with the most beloved Bob Ross quote: “We don’t make mistakes – we just have happy accidents.”
It is a charming thought that in the late 1980s, when Bob Ross is at a first peak of fame, the ambitious amateur painter Bob Dylan is enchanted by the painting positivity guru with the afro hairdo. Perhaps Dylan became aware of the phenomenon in 1987, when his hero Hank Snow invited the painter to the stage of the Grand Ole Opry (after which Snow got a private painting lesson from Ross), but Ross could not be avoided anyway: on television in those years, he was hardly to be missed. In the United States alone, his instructional videos were broadcast on 95 per cent of all public television stations. Also in the motel room in Napoleonville in late March ’89, where the inspiration for “Man In The Long Black Coat” trickles down on Dylan. “We don’t make mistakes,” hears Dylan on Louisiana Public Television, lying on his bed, as Ross spills a few paint splatters, “let’s make them birds. Yeah, they’re birds now.”
Balm on the restless soul of the inspiration-seeking Dylan. “There are no mistakes in life some people say – and it’s true sometimes you can see it that way,” he might think. Hippie-like philosophies with the depth of the Bayou Lafourche, but inspiring nonetheless. At least: the step to the next, equally rosy key phrase, the Buddhist-anchored People don’t live or die, people just float is not that big anymore. Apparently, Ross’ soothing voice and placid aphorisms lead Dylan’s stream-of-consciousness, on this evening in the interior of Louisiana, while the crickets chirp outside, to Herman Hesse’s Siddharta, the gentle master narrative from 1922 by a Nobel laureate that sooner or later touches us all;
“Yet none died, each was merely transformed, kept being reborn, kept receiving a new face, with no time between one face and the other-and all these shapes and faces rested, flowed, produced themselves and one another, floated away and poured into one another.”
… the vision that old Govinda receives when old Siddharta invites him to kiss his forehead, the vision in which Govinda recognises that no one lives or dies, but that each soul just floats from the one into the other. From the key chapter Govinda, the chapter in which old Siddharta articulates his enlightenment with one insight after another that we also encounter in Dylan’s oeuvre – especially those relating to Truth (“The opposite of every truth is just as true”), and wholeheartedly those relating to Time;
“But time is not real, Govinda; I have experienced this time and time again. And if time is not real, then the span that seems to lie between world and eternity, between sorrow and bliss, between evil and good is also an illusion.”
… the same philosophy as in Dylan’s oeuvre from the earliest years to his latest works – in which we sometimes hear echoes of Siddharta almost one-on-one. In “I Contain Multitudes”, for instance, the opening song that sets the tone right from the opening line (“Today and tomorrow and yesterday too”), and in which we hear two-and-a-half minutes later, “Everything’s flowing all at the same time.” A near-literal crystallisation of the insight bestowed on Siddharta, the river’s secret, that there is no such thing as time;
“… that the river is everywhere at once, at its source and at its mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains, everywhere at once, and only the present exists for it, and not the shadow of the future.”
In any case, a scenario in which Dylan’s meandering spirit flows via Bob Ross to Hermann Hesse’s Siddharta and his reflections on life, death, time and truth also goes quite nicely with Dylan’s lyric intervention. After all, he changes, officially in Lyrics even, this beautifully poetic People don’t live or die, people just float into the less floaty but equally powerful I went down to the river but I just missed the boat. Just like Siddharta. Who returns to the river twenty years later, but does not take the boat, just misses it, to stay with the ferryman Vasudeva – for the rest of his life. He becomes the river man himself, reaches his enlightenment thanks to the river, and here is where he says goodbye to his worldly lover Kamala, who is bitten by a black snake and dies in his arms – she leaves Siddharta to go with The Man In The Long Black Coat, so to speak.
Well, it is a possibility. And if not, this bridge from “The Man In The Long Black Coat” at least illustrates: great Nobel Prize winners think alike. And if then not to a great Dylan song, Siddharta can always take a pride in the merit that it led to one of the most perfect songs of the 20th century, to Nick Drake’s “River Man”;
Going to see the river man
Going to tell him all I can
About the ban
On feeling free
To be continued. Next up Man In The Long Black Coat part 6: Some stupid with a flare gun
Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:
The online gambling industry has grown at a rapid rate over the past decade or so, and now accounts for a staggering amount of business. Altogether, online gambling crossed the $50 billion threshold back in 2017, and it’s only continued to skyrocket since –– with the pandemic, in some cases, accelerating activity. By some estimates, the internet gambling industry was worth over $60 billion by 2021.
These enormous sums account for all gambling activity, which means that online sports betting is included. Alongside categories like betting and poker however, internet casino gaming – slots, jackpots, bingo, and the like – plays a significant role as well. And it’s in this category that, believe it or not, the introduction of a game with a Bob Dylan theme would make a great deal of sense.
This is the case first and foremost because online casino developers and host sites have already begun to embrace a great deal of licensed content in recent years.
Perhaps most noticeably, this has meant the creation of internet casino games based on other video games, or large video game franchises known for adaptation and evolution. Consider the likes of Street Fighter and Tetris, for instance. The Street Fighter series has put out well over a dozen games in the last 30 years or so, all with slight twists on the original concept and gameplay. And just last year, GameRant explored the best Tetris titles and came up with 13 of them – from Super Nintendo’s Tetris Battle Garden, to Tetris Effect on PlayStation 4, to the old-school NES version. Today, both of these legendary franchises have licensed material to slot developers; Street Fighter and Tetris slot games may not make lists of the respective franchises’ best, but they do capture the spirit of the originals, and they certainly appeal to fans.
We’ve also seen more and more licensed material when it comes to films and TV shows. There have long been internet slot arcades based on films (from The Mummy to The Matrix). And more recently, the entire category of arcade Slingo games (which cross bingo with slots) has been built, in part, on licensed television content. Foxy Bingo’s collection of Slingo titles showcases the most popular options on the internet, and includes games based on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, The Chase, X-Factor, and even the beloved American sitcom Friends.
Finally – and most directly relevant to the notion of a Dylan casino game – development companies have also crafted games that revolve around licensed material from bands. Though it wasn’t the actual origin of band-based slot games, the Guns N’ Roses reunion tour brought attention to this category on casino sites. The tour was announced in April of 2016, and would end up spanning a sprawling, years-long revival. Right around when Axl Rose and Co. were leaping back into the spotlight though, slot machine games based on Guns N’ Roses and a handful of other classic rock and metal bands and artists were being featured front and centre on gaming sites. The games effectively tapped into the real-world revitalisation of this era of music, and for a little while, slots based on the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Ozzy Osbourne, and Megadeth were all the rage.
Given all of these games – slots, slingo, and more, based on everything from Tetris to Hendrix – it’s easy to ask, why not Dylan? Indeed, beyond simply being another fitting pop culture figure upon whom to base a casino game, there are three reasons a Dylan casino game makes particularly good sense:
First is raw popularity. Bob Dylan has millions of fans around the world, and that could only be good news for casino developers and the sites that host the games. The very point of themes in slots and slingo games is to attract fans, and where Dylan is concerned there’s certainly a large audience to tap into.
The second reason is Dylan’s unique quality. While these things are difficult to measure, it’s a fairly safe bet that there’s significant overlap between, say, Megadeth and Guns N’ Roses fans, or people who watched Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and X-Factor. Dylan, however, is more unique – a singular presence, and almost a genre unto himself. Thus, in addition to a large audience, a Dylan game might just attract a distinct one that wouldn’t otherwise be attached to casino sites.
The third reason is that Dylan’s actual content matches casino gaming quite nicely. As fans are well aware, Bob Dylan has numerous songs that touch on gambling. The most famous is probably the Rambling Gambling Willie masterpiece, which we’ve dug into before. But other tracks like Huck’s Tune and Lilly Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts have gambling themes as well. Granted, the gambling content in these tracks relates more closely to cards than slots or arcade games; it is also at least somewhat metaphorical. Nevertheless, one can certainly begin to imagine a Dylan-themed casino arcade game with these specific songs playing in the background.
It’s a slightly strange idea, we grant you. Bob Dylan fans certainly don’t need a casino game, let alone expect one. But given the existing material referenced above, and the potential for a Dylan game to attract its own audience, it’s certainly an intriguing concept.
And when I hear the whistle of an old steamboat
Down the Mississippi River
Again I'm going to float
(Leon Redbone: Mississippi River Blues ~ McWilliams/Rodgers)
Leon Redbone might be described as a nonphilosophical Hegelian who savours old songs from the days of steam.
Singer/songwriter/musician Bob Dylan mixes the old with the new. As in the song lyrics below:
Guess I hop on a train to ride ...
Comes a ways down by the river side
Bob Dylan: Let Me Come Baby)
Alluding to the following song:
She's got a ticket to ride
But she don't care
(Beatles: Ticket To Ride ~ Lennon/McCartney)
Again in the lyrics beneath:
I love seeing you, hold my hand
What I need is a loving plan
(Bob Dylan: Let Me Come Baby)
Mixed with:
You'll let me be your man ...
You'll let me hold your hand
(Beatles: I Want To Hold Your Hand ~ Lennon/McCartney)
Then we have:
There she comes baby all around ...
I'm leaving that thieving town
(Bob Dylan: Let Me Come Baby)
Reminding of the song quoted beneath:
Oh I hate to see that evening sun go down
For I know I'm on my last go round
(Shirkey & Harper: Steamboat Man)
The train steams along the track:
Over by the river side
Oh there's no God knows where
(Bob Dylan: Let Me Come Baby)
The steamboat along the river:
I'm gonna where I won't have to work no more
And I'm going to the Lord's knows where
(Shirkey & Harper: Steamboat Man)
Mistress Death always comes along for the ride:
The dying sun was going down
And the night was coming on
(Bob Dylan: Crossing The Rubicon ~ variant)
And so it ends:
I might-a pulled a plug
And she blessed my soul
(Bob Dylan: Let Me Come Baby)
Aaron:Looking back through previous entries in the series. I realized there was one more track from Down in the groove left to discuss, that being Let’s stick together
Let’s stick together was written and released as a single in 1962 by Wilbert Harrison. it was then rewritten in 1969 as Let’s Work Together.
Tony: I am not sure I ever heard this original version, so I must have got to know the song once it was re-written, but what really did ring a bell with me was the opening instrumental line – which makes me contradict myself and think I did hear the original.
There is a trumpet, or maybe two trumpets, or maybe its a saxophone (the recording quality is so awful it hard to tell) that plays one note in the instrumental verse. As it gets to the end of the verse, instead playing one held note, it plays a more rapid rhythm of four quavers and a minim (which might also be expressed as dah dah dah dah dah……… all on the same note.
What’s interesting with this one little musical event is that the note that is played is A, which fits perfectly with the opening chord (A) and the variant chord (D) (this being a 12 bar blues), but is a total clash with the last chord used with the dah dah dah bit which is E.
And across all these decades I remember this – it is such a strange, and in many way horrible, clash. In fact I have a vague memory of my father (who was a pianist and saxophonist in a touring dance band) complaining how horrible that is. It goes all the way through the song.
Aaron:The song has been a major hit twice, first in 1970 by Canned Heat.
Tony: So now there is none of that blaring repeated trumpet because, well, this is Canned Heat. It is interesting that this is such a simple 12 bar blues – I mean it is hard to imagine anything much simpler. And indeed the lyrics follow suit…
Oh well now, make someone happy, make someone smile, Let's all work together and make life worthwhile Let's work together, come on, come on Let's work together, now now people Because together we will we stand, every boy, girl, woman and a man
Who needs complex lyrics?
Aaron:Then again in 1976 by Bryan ferry
Tony:And this version I most certainly do remember. It’s quite hypnotic isn’t it? The band here keep the notion of the repeated note but drop the clash between the final chord and the repeated note which I think is a great idea. Not sure I fully appreciate the appearance of the young lady in the lady stages of the video, but maybe that is a sign of the times. The sounds she makes don’t seem to be related to the smoothness of Bryan Ferry – but I’m being picky.
However, the main point is that we have now got to the different set of lyrics.
And now the marriage vow is very sacred
The man has put us together now
You ought to make it stick together
Come on, come on, let's stick together
You know we made a vow not to leave one another never
Aaron: Bob’s version appeared as the opening track on down in the groove in 1988
Tony: Bob makes a change with the rhythm of the opening lines of each verse. It is very subtle, and really only stand out in the first verse. And Dylan uses the alternate lyrics….
Well, a marriage vow, you know, it's very sacred
The man put us together, now, you wanna make it
Stick together
Come on, come on, stick together
You know, you made a vow, not to leave one another, never
Well, ya never miss your water 'til your well runs dry
Now, come on, baby, give our love a try, let's stick together
Come on, come on, stick together
We made a vow, not to leave one another, never
Well, ya never miss your water 'til your well runs dry
Come one, baby, give our love a try, let's stick together
Come on, come on and stick together
You know, we made a vow, not to leave one another, never
It might be tough for a while, but consider the child
Cannot be happy without his mom and his papi
Let's stick together
Come on, come on, stick together
You know, we made a vow, not to leave one another, never
So how did this change of lyrics come about? Well, I’m not the absolute expert on this but as far as I know (and various articles do back this version up) the original version was “Let’s Stick Together” came out in 1962. Then the song was re-written and released again in 1969 as “Let’s Work Together”, probably for no reason other than the songwriter was thinking – “we ought to be able to get more out of that song – let’s change the lyrics a bit”.
Both are 12 bar blues and the music is virtually identical, it is just the lyrics that have completely changed. And it is all the work of the one man: Wilbert Harrison. He wrote it, and re-wrote it. Here’s the quick summary of the change…
“Let’s Stick Together”
Well now the marriage vow is very sacred
The man put us together now you want to make it
Stick together, come on, come on let's stick together
You know we made a vow not to leave one another never
“Let’s Work Together”
Together we will stand divided we'll fall
Come on now people let's get on the ball
And work together, come on, come on let's work together, now people
Say now together we will stand, every boy, girl, woman, and man
So there we are. Aaron, as ever, I am indebted to you.
There are two fundamental traditions in western music.
One is the classical-romantic tradition in which music was written down, and then played as the notation dictated. There were and are of course differences between performances, for example at the behest of the orchestral conductor, not least because some of the instructions as to performance were vague. The time (in terms of number of beats per minute) for example was not always indicated, and the volume marks (ranging from ppp for very soft up to fff for very loud) were to say the best, vague.
The other tradition was folk music which was normally only written down by collectors such as Cecil Sharpe who travelled the country writing down the songs he heard. That writing down solidified the songs to a degree, but even so variations in terms of speed, volume, emphasis etc continued. And indeed the whole tradition of folk music was that the songs would change according to the singer, which is why the same song would turn up in so many different variations across the country.
So two traditions. One more precise than the other, but both subject to variations.
Then along came recording technology and gradually the notion that what was on the record was how it was meant to be – at least for popular music. And that notion took on a stranglehold, in all sorts of ways.
For example, on TV shows (in the UK it was “Top of the Pops”, and I think from looking at old film recordings there were similar programmes in the USA) artists would mime to their recordings. Sometimes they were forced to perform live, because of agreements between the BBC and the Musicians Union in the UK, but in so doing the performers would endeavour (with greater or lesser success) to perform the song as it was heard on the record. The record in short became the definitive statement of what the music should sound like. It was agreed, “Rock Around the Clock” should sound like the Bill Hayley version on the 78 rpm record. Most artists attempted to perform it as the Comets laid it down.
But Bob Dylan’s interests and the tradition of music that he followed were not those of popular music dominated by record companies. He was interested in the music as music, and knew perfectly well that songs changed over time. And indeed that songs would often exist in various forms. And although a recording was seen by most people as the “definitive” version which laid down the sound for everyone, Bob’s view has been that this is now how it has to be. Nor in fact how it should be.
So in my view, Bob came to music with the concept of variation inside him, and the track that he laid down when making an album was simply how each song sounded that day.
Initially of course he did sing the songs he recorded in the way he recorded them, not least because there is a limit to the ways in which a song can be changed when all you have is an acoustic guitar, a harmonica and your voice. But when a band is added, the possibilities open up.
Of course, we should be very careful of considering what Bob did in changing his own songs as a revolutionary step. Bands would often try out their songs in different ways before settling on a version that would become the record. But what Bob did was to carry on making the changes AFTER he had made the recording. And in doing this he was just continuing the tradition of the blues and folk singers he so admired.
However, this vision was completely at odds with the pop music industry which at its heart had the top 20, or top 40, depending on where you lived. The charts were lists of recordings that were fixed. “Please Please Me” by the Beatles was heard multiple times day after day on the radio, record players and juke boxes and it always sounded the same. If a cover artist wanted to perform the song, he would perform it as the Beatles did it.
So what made Bob want to merge part of the tradition of a thousand years of folk music and the more recent tradition of the record being the definitive fixed version of the music. As I have suggested, the folk tradition with its endless changes, and different versions by different performers influenced him, of course. And I suspect so did his personality – he comes across to me as a man who loves change, who doesn’t want the same routine. He wants to record, he wants to tour, he wants to paint, he wants to create art in other forms… of course a personality like this would never just want to play the same song in the same way over and over again.
Which raises the question: what can be changed?
Dylan could of course change the lyrics, the chord progression, the melody, the tempo. And later he could change the instrumentation as well. And in turn this meant changing the musicians on tour with him. And when Hendrix turned “All along the watchtower” upside down, Bob realised and indeed admitted that just because he, Bob Dylan, did a version first, that didn’t make it definitive.
But to do all this changing, three things were needed. One was a staggering level of creative inventiveness. The second was the stamina and desire to be out there, performing these variations. And the third was a desire and willingness to take the most almighty risks.
The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him
And saith, "Behold the Lamb of God
Which taketh away the sin of the world"
(John 1:29)
Somehow getting crucified saves everybody.
But more importantly, the New Testament verse explains how Dylanologist David Weir knows that every song (well many of them anyway) written by Bob Dylan refers to the Lamb of God – even if the songwriter does not come right and say so in the lyrics.
It’s Weir’s task to find the hidden Passover meal so his readers can eat it up.
All fine and good if the lyrics of the song analyzed by Weir were not twisted and turned to such an extent that they become Weir’s own words instead of those of the songwriter – the songwriter who’s seldom accused of being unequivocal.
Take Weir’s analysis of Dylan’s “Crossing The Rubicon”, a song that might be interpreted as an angry fellow on the trail of a woman abuser.
We are informed instead that the guy is really a rapist, symbolically the raper of Jesus Himself for Christ’s sake, and the sinner is hoping for forgiveness because he feels guilty about the dastardly deed he’s done!
The sinner imagines that the Lamb of God shape-shifts to Mona, ie, the Holy Ghost, who tells him not to worry about the rape … it’s okay:
“He wants it to be the case that he’s forgiven, and he imagines his victim forgiving him. By way of the song’s river, blood, and flowery imagery, we’re able to identify his victim with Christ, and as such she represents the route to his redemption – the forgiveness he imagines her bestowing on him.”
The Christian template is applied yet again to the song “My Own Version Of You” by Bob Dylan, based on Mary Shelley’s book in which the Dr. Frankenstein creation turns against his creator; it’s understandable why the monster does; he looks hideous, and consequently, he’s not loved.
Dylan turns the theme around: and presents a spooky, dark-humoured story in song; the narrator imagines himself saved by the creation of a perfect performer of music and song by combining the talents of a number of deceased actors, artists, and adventurers, like Caesar.
Weir claims that the unworthy every-man/narrator holds himself responsible for somebody’s death though it appears that no rape’s involved.
However since Christ gets no mention in the Dylan song, the sacrificial Lamb of God must be hiding somewhere.
Weir’s solution is to transubstantiate the Frankenstein monster into Christ.
Presto, out of the blue, Dylanologist Weir concludes:
“Successful redemption will only be achieved by following the ways of Christ and Caesar”
At the end of the sixties, British record labels experimented with samplers: double albums with an eclectic selection of songs by artists from their range. Because the whole thing is offered at a low price, the compilations prove to be very popular – especially with teenagers on a budget. For the record company, it’s an interesting way to introduce the listener to a large number of their artists. Of course, the cover should not cost too much.
While visiting a poster shop in London’s Kings Road, Chris Blackwell of Island Records finds a solution. He sees a poster on which the same pair of sports shoes is depicted nine times, each time in a different colour. The screen print is the work of a 19-year-old: Tony Wright. Blackwell pays Wright £200 for the rights, and buys all available copies of the poster.
The shoes on the poster are called Bumpers and that naturally becomes the name of the album.
In addition, Blackwell offers the young man a job: design record covers for Island Records. His first major cover is one for Traffic (The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys), followed by Bob Marley (Natty Dread) and numerous reggae records, such as Police and Thieves (Junior Murvin), Super Ape (Lee Perry) and War Ina Babylon (Max Romeo).
At the end of 1979 Wright was allowed to move to New York to become head of the American branch of the record company. The job includes an apartment on the 47th floor of a building on 57th Street, with a “view like a God of Central Park and New York,” as he puts it. “On a stormy day, the clouds passed under my window. I was in the middle of New York, but I wasn’t exactly ‘in’ New York.”
In the last days of February 1980, Wright is barely in New York for a few months, when he unexpectedly receives a call from Jerry Wexler. Wright has met the producer a few times and the man knows his job. Wexler asks him about his religious beliefs and states that he can expect a phone call from someone. That’s all he wants to say.
What follows is based on the story as Tony Wright noted it for David Eckstrom in January 2016. Eckstrom is the owner of forever young records in Texas, and prides himself on owning the largest collection of Dylan material. In 2016, he bought the original design of the cover and asked Wright to explain how it was created. Wright gave me permission to display his story here and also to use the images.
“A few minutes later, Bob Dylan was on the line. Wexler had just finished the record [Saved] and Bob was looking in vain for an artist who could visualize his dream, a vision he had experienced, for the cover.
Dylan told me that he had seen my work and knew that I had the technical expertise, but that he needed someone who understood him. I could only say: Tell me what you want.
That was a vision, a kind of whole apparently, including all the songs from the record. The image was the hand of God/Christ reaching down to the hands of men. I asked: Rich from heaven? “No, not from heaven. Through it, like through oil.’
No problem: I understand. That same day, I sent him a sketch.
He called me again, completely over the moon. “How did you do that? It’s exactly what I wanted. That’s him. That’s the cover. It will certainly win an award.’
I replied: No, that’s a sketch. You can’t use that. I’ll take the plane and come and discuss the final version with you. “Oh, okay.”
The next day I arrived in LA, with a box full of pastels and paper. I took a taxi to Santa Monica, where he had a rehearsal room with office. As I walked up the stairs from the front desk, I saw him. He stood on the lookout in a small back room, to see what kind of person was coming. In the classroom there was a refrigerator, a small, much too fat dog – a Basset dog, I think – and a blackboard. It quickly became clear to me why the dog was overweight, when I noticed how Bob regularly went into the fridge to get some treats for him.
He gave me a tour and explained that the band was rehearsing here and that he was the singer. It seems like an absurd addition, but it proves that Bob Dylan doesn’t take it for granted that everyone knows who he is.
We sat down, talked a bit and it clicked. He wanted to add some blood to the hand on the sketch, so I took my pastel and drew some blood smoothly over the hand. “Wow, Tony. I’ve never seen an artist at work before.’
When we were done, we agreed that I would go on tour to take some pictures and finish the corner drawing. It was an absurd dream for a Bob Dylan fan. I had first seen him at the Royal Albert Hall in 1965 – I was truant from school before – and the last time was at Earls Court in London (June 1978). Then you only saw a speck of light in the distance, in which you could suspect Bob Dylan. Now, however, I had a backstage pass and could go wherever I wanted: in the audience, backstage or even, at Bob’s own request, on stage to take pictures.
I travelled back and forth to NY over and over again, for each gig, and then arrived sometime in the late afternoon, just in time for the soundcheck. Imagine standing on an empty stage, while Bob Dylan sings ‘Pressing On’ on his own at the piano. The morning [after the performance] we discussed the progress in his hotel room. Bob is very talkative, as long as you don’t talk about the subject of ‘Bob Dylan’. I instinctively sensed that and we even talked about Bob Dylan in the third person. He is interested in art. We talked about it a lot. Ordinary conversations with an ordinary guy, who happens to be a genius when he practices his profession.”
In addition to the pastel with the hands, Wright submits two pastel drawings for the inner cover: both are based on photos he took during live performances of the gospel tour.
Also, there are also two photos of Arthur Rosato, taken during the same tour.However, the record company is not happy with the new direction that Dylan has taken. The attitude is downright hostile. “When the record was finished, they were so rude, so mean about Bob Dylan…
They said they wouldn’t do any promotion for this record – another religious record. […]
I heard how those people, the seniors at CBS, talked about him as if… ‘He can go up the tree’. Something like that.”
They also didn’t like the proposed cover. “I think it goes heavily against Jewish sensibilities.”
Alternative artwork
As soon as the record company gets the chance, they replace the cover with one of Wright’s other pastels, on which Dylan plays harmonica on stage.
That happens sometime in 1985, for the covers of the vinyl records in the United States and Spain. “They’ve always hated it,” Tony Wright said. “Really hated. They were waiting for it.”
Even when Saved is later released on CD, the distinction remains: while in the rest of the world the original cover is usually retained, in the United States the modified version is used. Only in November 2013, with the box set The Complete Album Collection Vol. One, the CD appears for the first time with the original cover.
Here are the articles so far in this series. All are by Patrick Roefflaer.
Now when I was just a bawling runt
I saw what I wanted to be
And it's all for the sake
Of that I should be
(Bob Dylan: Sign On The Cross)
Right from the get-go, singer/songwriter/musician Bob Dylan refers to the mythology of the ancient Greeks and Romans; sometimes directly, sometimes obliquely.
Sun-God Apollo encourages the Trojan hero Hector to attack the Greek ships; said it is that the Greek princess Helen possesses the face that sinks a thousand ships:
So spake he, and bade Terror and Rout
To harness his horses
And himself did don his shining armour
(Homer: Illiad, chapter xv ~ translated)
In the song lyrics below, Caesar, a follower of the chief God Jupiter from whose head Athena bursts, is on his way to conquer Rome:
I can feel the Holy Spirit inside
And see the light that freedom gives
I believe it's within the reach of every man who lives
And the dying sun was going down
And the night was coming along
(Bob Dylan: Crossing The Rubicon ~ variant)
The theme that history, whether on the micro-, or on the macro-level, depends upon individuals seizing the right moment to act before Hegel’s Athena asserts that it’s too late:
Because later on you might find the door
You might want to enter
But of course the door might be closed
(Bob Dylan: Sign On The Cross)
So it is with modern Disco dancers ~ they have the Goddess of Love to thank; the Dionysian dancers become like Mars, the God of War, the mythological lover of Venus.
As in the following song lyrics:
Your gaze got a hold on me
My god this feeling just won't quit
I'm in the right, just get out of my face
And I'll tear the roof straight down to the floor
(Mikael Johansson: Hot Nights)
Indeed there are those among us who insist that Disco will return yet again because the sign on the cross says so.
The preacher was a-talkin’, there’s a sermon he gave
He said, “Every man’s conscience is vile and depraved
You cannot depend on it to be your guide
When it’s you who must keep it satisfied.”
It ain’t easy to swallow, it sticks in the throat
She gave her heart to the man
In the long black coat
“Their consciences, God help them, were vile and depraved.”
(Sun Pie in Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, 2004)
The conscience sermon seems to be, not only literally, the centre of Dylan’s lyrics. Of course, we do not know when Dylan wrote that entertaining Sun Pie Interlude in the “Oh Mercy” chapter of his autobiography Chronicles (2004), but it is very plausible that Dylan put it down on paper well after the song’s creation (March 1989, 15 years before the book’s publication). And that “Man In The Long Black Coat” gave him the inspiration for the Sun Pie Interlude (rather than the other way around).
In itself quite unique, by the way – Dylan building a myth around the creation of a song. We’ve seen it before with “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”, of which Dylan declares that the nuclear threat of the Cuba crisis inspired him to write the song, which is demonstrably untrue (the song’s first performance was September ’62, over a month before the Cuba crisis). But otherwise, Dylan hardly ever expresses himself too clearly about leads, inspirations or triggers; he usually sticks to generalities like “Those kinds of songs for me just come out of the blue” (about “Roll On, John”) or “magic” (about “It’s Alright, Ma”) or “It’s like I saw the song up in front of me and overtook it” (about “Dignity”).
The myth-making around Hard Rain seems mainly motivated by youthful self-aggrandizing. That motivation will obviously not have played a role in the fairy tale Dylan composes around the creation of “Man In The Long Black Coat”; the man is sixty plus, doesn’t have to prove anything anymore and he hasn’t been asked about it either (as about Hard Rain, in the liner notes of The Freewheelin’). No, Sun Pie’s genesis seems to originate in a lust for storytelling, and then especially the lust to tell suggestive, insinuating stories, stories like Kafka writes them, like John Wesley Harding‘s songs are, like a song like “Tangled Up In Blue” is; stories that suggest more than tell, that give the illusion of factuality, that
„… das Leben in seiner realistischen, unverzerrten Wirklichkeit schildern, aber gleichzeitig als einen schwebenden, deutlich gesehenen Traum, also als eine realistisch gesehene Irrealität.
… portray life in its realistic, undistorted actuality, but at the same time as a floating, clearly seen dream, i.e. as a realistically perceived irreality.”
(Kafka‘s so-called “Petřín Hill Experience”, in his Reflections From The Year 1920)
The Sun Pie Interlude complies ceaselessly with Kafka’s ideal image of literature. It is realistic and undistorted, and at the same time dreamlike and unreal. The realistically perceived irreality is already set up by the exposition; Dylan sees from a petrol station an “obscure roadside place” across the road, “across a vacant field”, accessible only by a cow path. The name is slightly hysterical (“King Tut’s Museum”) and “the dust hung like a red cloud in the air”. Located, Dylan divulges suspiciously accurately, “off Route 90 near Raceland.”
This exhibition alone has exactly that misleading touch of reality to meet Kafka’s requirements. Just outside Raceland, which is some fifty miles from Dylan’s studio on Soniat Street in New Orleans, really is a gas station (Chevron) off Route 90, and indeed, across the road is a vacant field. In the 1930s, somewhere around there was located “Cheramie’s King Tut Saloon”… an old dance hall. In the outskirts of the town Raceland. Apparently, Dylan did some research to give the setting of his Sun Pie Interlude that semblance of reality.
A similar realistic unreality has his protagonist’s description, of the man with the unreal name Sun Pie. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, New Orleans musician Bruce Sunpie Barnes has more than local fame in Louisiana with his Louisiana Sunspots (which will grow; in 2015, Sunpie is a member of the Paul Simon band) – it is an option that the autobiographer Dylan knows and chooses that name for his protagonist. And that the associatively meandering stream-of-consciousness comes via the name of the Chinese warlord Sun Tzu (The Art Of War, roughly 5th century BC) to that alienating monologue about Chinese territorial drift, and the theory that the American Natives, the Indians, are actually Chinese. Belligerent Chinese, ancestors of Sun Tzu;
“Trouble was that they split up into parties and tribes and started wearing feathers and forgot they were Chinese. They started wars with each other for no reason, one tribe against another.”
Another one of those untruthful-looking stories that nevertheless has a touch of reality; recent DNA research on a 14,000-year-old human skull indeed confirms an older theory that wandering Asians reached America via a land connection that is now the Bering Strait and are the ancestors of native Americans.
A nice touch, but the most interesting detail is Sun Pie’s occupation: carpenter. By which Dylan, deliberately, we may assume, seems to be revealing an inspiration for “Man In The Long Black Coat”: the old folk song “House Carpenter”, the song Dylan recorded in 1962 and released on The Bootleg Series 1-3 in 1991.
The folk song from probably the 17th century, also known as “The Daemon Lover”, “James Harris”, “The Carpenter’s Wife” and more names, tells the story of the woman who leaves her husband the carpenter and children to go with a strange man. In some variants the ghost of her first love, in others simply a mortal man, in still others the devil himself. In Dylan’s version, the latter:
Oh what are those hills yonder, my love
They look as dark as night
Those are the hills of hell-fire my love
Where you and I will unite
We also know that the song is no one-hit wonder in Dylan’s inner jukebox; in March 1970, during the fifth Self Portrait recording session, he records another “House Carpenter” (with partly different lyrics; released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait in 2013). But in almost all variants, including the ones Dylan chooses, the carpenter’s wife takes the boat – the boat that the first-person from “Man In The Long Black Coat”, in the bridge, is still trying to catch (“I went down to the river but I just missed the boat”).
They are, all in all, enough hints to understand the song as an answer song, a song like the answer to “He’ll Have To Go”, Jeanne Black’s “He’ll Have To Stay” (which in turn was answered by Johnny Scoggins with “I’m Gonna Stay” – it has a happier ending than Dylan’s song) or the witty “Slip-In Mules (No High Heel Sneakers)” by Sugar Pie DeSanto, the irresistible answer to Tommy Tucker’s “Hi-Heel Sneakers” (also 1964). Songs in which usually a lady replies, either melodramatically or humorously, to a usually somewhat macho-talking man.
Dylan’s “Man In The Long Black Coat” is then – in that scenario – a reversal of the cliché: the cheated and abandoned husband from “House Carpenter” now gets the spotlight and the microphone, and gets to lament the injustice done to him.
The autobiographer closes the Sun Pie Interlude in style. In farewell, Dylan is presented with a bumper sticker, and not, as one might hope from King Tut’s Museum, an Egyptian ring that sparkles, and travels back via what should be perceived as an unreal realistic route:
“We stopped only once more, and that was at Jesuit Bend, but before nightfall we were back on St. Charles Avenue. I’d gotten back to New Orleans with a clear head.”
It is impossible to drive from Raceland to New Orleans via Jesuit Bend; the separating bayou, with Lake Salvador, Bayou Perot and Bayou Rigolettes, has no roads and is impassable for a motorbike. Well, maybe it is, but at most in a floating, clearly seen dream.
To be continued. Next up Man In The Long Black Coat part 5: Happy Little Accidents
——————-
Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:
It was the best of years, it was the worst of years. It was the year of both superlative and abysmal performances. It was the year of contradictions, the year of astonishment and disillusionment, at least for followers of the NET.
What was happening to Bob Dylan? His voice sounded like it was on the verge of giving out, his arrangements were strange and staccato, his organ playing rinky-dink and oddly obsessive, his harp playing sharp, rich and high flying. His instrumental backing was often minimal, highlighting that hoarse voice.
In my last post, I featured some pretty abysmal performances, so I thought I’d start here with a superlative one – Po Boy from the Rothbury concert. This is a best ever, folks. Usually I use the term ‘best ever’ with a tongue in my cheek as one best-ever performance will be superseded by another. Not in this case, at least for me; this has remained my favourite.
Dylan hones the lyrics by leaving out the ‘Othello to Desdemona’ verse, which doesn’t fit into the rest of the song, but otherwise, it’s all there.
I have suggested that, despite the wry humour, this is a protest song dealing with the life of a poor black man living under the Jim Crow laws that crept in after the civil war to keep black people subjugated. But it is nothing like the protest songs of the 1960s, being oblique and impressionistic.
Po’ boy, dressed in black
police at your back
The tempo is slow but jazzy, pure 1930s, the harmonica sharp and jagged. Despite the vamping organ, it escapes the dumpty-dum by its syncopation. Dylan’s vocal is superb, as is the recording. Readers may not be surprised to learn that this is another Crystal Cat bootleg; bootlegs that are famous for their sharpness and clarity. Enjoy, and then enjoy again.
Po Boy
We have another best ever with this beaty, ominous performance of ‘Cold Irons Bound.’ (Fairfax, 11th November). The shrieking guitar intro has long gone, the instrumentals minimal, the pace relentless, the atmosphere threatening, and is completed by a slashing harp. Again, this is a genuine best ever… although when we come to 2010 we might find its rival. It’s a fraught, intense performance by Dylan.
It might also be seen as a protest song if the anguished expression of alienation can be a considered protest.
Cold Irons Bound (A)
We can’t leave it there, however, as Dylan performed the song in Chicago. It’s worth listening to if just to hear the audience responding to the lines ‘the winds of Chicago have torn me to shreds.’ Those Chicago folks know what he’s talking about. I don’t think it’s quite as good as the Fairfax performance, although that may be because the recording is a bit more echoey. I don’t find the harp break not quite as slashing or the instrumental sound that wraps up the song quite as frenetic. But I’m sure not complaining.
Cold Irons Bound (B)
Just to show how problematic the 2009 performances can be, we have to now jump from the sublime to the ridiculous, from the superlative to the abysmal, from the best ever to the worst ever.
Compare the sinuous and insinuating ‘Mobile’ on Blonde on Blonde with this jerky travesty. If you can hack it, listen to how Dylan mangles the magnificent last verse by emphasizing the jerkiness rather than singing across it. It’s another Rothbury performance, and so, unfortunately, is brilliantly recorded. I could have tiptoed around it and left it out, but, well hell, it was the best of years and the worst of years…
Mobile
‘To Ramona’ might be seen as another kind of protest song, a protest against the devastating effect of propaganda and self-delusion:
I can see that your head
Has been twisted and fed
With worthless foam from the mouth
I can tell you are torn
Between stayin' and returnin'
Back to the South
You've been fooled into thinking
That the finishin' end is at hand
Yet there's no one to beat you
No one t' defeat you
'Cept the thoughts of yourself feeling bad
This performance turns the dumpty-dum into a waltz, the song being carried by Dylan’s rich voice and equally rich organ chords, if you can cope with the rinky-dink and the vocal sometimes falling too emphatically into the 123/123 time signature. (31st Oct, Chicago)
To Ramona
While looking at 2008, I outlined how Dylan would sometimes get out from behind his keyboard and move centre stage, alone with harp or guitar. This added a bit of movement and interest to what was otherwise a static stage scene, and often provided something of a refreshing change. It also brought Dylan out of the comparative anonymity into the limelight. The Fairfax version of ‘Cold Irons Bound’ was a center-stage performance.
The performances too, being free of that omnipresent organ, were of special interest. This performance of ‘Shooting Star’ from Los Angels, 14th Oct, certainly is. Dylan has always been able to generate a lot of intensity with this song; its slow, quiet beat should not be taken for a laid-back sound. It’s the lyrics that generate that intensity, as it’s not just human love that may be lost, but our chances for spiritual salvation. It’s the bridge verse that’s the key to this lift from a love song to a song of spiritual yearning.
Google usefully describes a bridge in a song this way: ‘A bridge in songwriting is a section that differs melodically, rhythmically, and lyrically from the rest of the song. As a structural transition between choruses, a bridge breaks up the repetition of verse/chorus/verse and offers new information or a different perspective. It can also serve as an emotional shift.’
Dylan uses it in ‘Shooting Star’ to up the emotional and thematic ante, to push the song to a new level:
Listen for the engine
Listen for the bell
As the last fire-truck from hell
Goes rollin' by
All good people are prayin'
It's the last temptation
The last account
Last time you might hear
The sermon on the mount
Last Radio is playin'
I wouldn’t list this as a best-ever performance, the song has always been performed well, and at different tempos, and this one is no exception. Dylan as circus barker is in good form and the enthusiasm of the audience when he produces his harp is amply rewarded.
Shooting Star
That obsessive organ vamping of Dylan’s does not always turn the song rinky-dink. In this performance of ‘Lovesick’ from Florence (18th April), the organ, made a little ghostly by being in the background rather than the foreground, is used to great effect. That walking beat that drives the song has its own obsessive aspect. The organ here seems to add a touch of the fantastic to the singer’s midnight walk. It’s a raw and powerful performance.
Lovesick
Similarly, the churchy chords Dylan uses in ‘Every Grain of Sand’ are apposite, and help bring out the grandeur of the song, although they may get too rigid and staccato towards the end. It’s a song in which the contending forces are doubt and faith; we hang in that balance. From the album version on, the song has been used as a showcase for Dylan’s harp, and here it adds a lonely, bluesy edge. Another raw and powerful vocal, even when his voice falls too emphatically into the dumpty-dum. (14th Nov, Boston)
Every grain of sand
‘Tough Mama’ (Amsterdam, 12th April) is notable, not just for the new lyrics but the slow, dramatic ending. The slow, deliberate, loud organ chords give this song a less bouncy ending. It’s more clearly a hymn to the eternal female. With regard to those new lyrics, maybe a reader could decipher them and post them into the comments section; my ear can’t pick them all up, and they sound fascinating, well worth deciphering.
Tough Mama
‘I believe in you’ is another song that can sit comfortably with a churchy organ. After reintroducing the song to his setlists in 2004, having not played it since 1981, Dylan has done some powerful performances of this devotional/love song. It’s all the more powerful for the minimal arrangement in this performance from Stockholm (22nd March). As far as I know, Dylan did not perform this song after 2009.
I believe in you
Perhaps it was Dylan’s sense of humour to play this song immediately after singing ‘I Don’t Believe You,’ one of Dylan’s old acoustic songs from the early sixties that Dylan transformed into a rock song in the mid-sixties. Here it is a mid-tempo foot-tapper. He polishes it off with nice touch of harp.
I don’t believe you
The official Dylan website doesn’t list this performance of ‘To Make You Feel My Love’ from Florence (18th April) but attributes it to Stockholm. As with 2008, Dylan’s broken-voiced performance perfectly suits the song, surely one of Dylan’s saddest love songs. To my knowledge, Dylan has not performed the song since 2009.
To make you feel my love
Staying in Florence, we catch this performance of ‘Mr Tambourine Man.’ Dylan’s powerful, circus barker vocal makes up for the rigidity of the beat. The audience loves this one despite the missed verse and lines. This one has to be the best he did in this style. All it’s lacking is the touch of the harp.
Mr Tambourine Man
We do get a touch of the harp however in ‘The Times They Are A-Changing,’ another song that’s been through a lot of changes over the years. This one’s from London (25th April). This anthem never seems to age, as its message around the inevitability of changing time never changes. The triumphant harp break before and after the last verse is a fitting end to the song and to this post.
Times they are a-changing
In the next post I’ll be turning to the album Dylan released in 2009, Together Through Life, and considering a tranche of new and exciting songs that Dylan wrote with Robert Hunter.
I should explain as a prelude that these articles are written as I search for and listen to the cover versions – at the start I am quite often not sure where the trail leads or whether I’ll find something interesting. That is certainly the case here, and I almost didn’t develop this piece, because I didn’t think much of the original. But… have I been surprised by what has turned up.
So I am presenting the recordings in the order that I found them, starting of course with Bob’s own version.
Nobody Cept You was planned as the final song for Planet Waves and then dropped from the album. It was played eight times in concert in January 1974 and then also dropped from the rosta, so we can take it that after a bit of initial enthusiasm, Dylan didn’t really like the song anymore.
I did a rather uninspired review of the song back in 2016 when the site consisted entirely of me plodding through all the Dylan compositions I could find and writing a review of each one.
But over the years since then eight readers have kindly taken the time to comment on my review, and several showed themselves to be very fond of a song that many of us have long since forgotten.
So I was wondering if I could find some cover versions of this obscure piece, or see if there was anything interesting to say about the song that hasn’t been said. And by pure luck I did find such a recording. (I’d love to say that it was the result of hours of dedicated research, but in truth searching out Dylan covers in the way I do it is as much chance as it is the dedicated research). Therefore I would beg you to stay with this particular ramble because there is something rather super at the end.
But because it is a rather obscure song and because it was a bit of a fun journey this morning, here’s the original, in case you’ve not heard it or forgotten it.
The wah-wah background guitar is, for me, utterly horrible, and detracts enormously from the song. Indeed the whole accompaniment seems wrong for the song – and maybe that is why Bob dropped the piece.
The Waterboys seemed to feel this too as they made the accompaniment fit the lyrics in a much more acceptable way. It’s now a nice, jolly love song. Not Dylan at his best as a composer, but still very listenable.
The next version is a bit of a cover in that it says that the cover is by “16 Horsepower” and I think this is David Eugene Edward who wrote the lyrics for the band. But if I have got that wrong, or you can fill in more please do write in.
What I really love about this performance is not only that the singer feels every word but he makes the performance sound as if it really is the way this song was meant to sound in the first place.
And I thought that was that, until just as I was about to wrap this up and publish this little ramble, I stumbled on this performance by chance. It is a recording David Eugene Edward’s band 16 Horsepower playing the song. I don’t know if this version came first or the solo version, but my goodness they are different.
Here, amazingly, all the promise and possibilities that flitted through my head while listening to the performance above came to total fruition in this song.
Suddenly the phrase “lost work of utter brilliance” springs to mind – although of course it could well be just me that has lived these years in ignorance.
But for me, this is now a song rewritten and reborn, and for me at this moment, I have just discovered a wonderful new Dylan song. New, because although I heard it when the Rare and Unreleased bootleg came out, I thought nothing much of the song, couldn’t really see the possibilities and have hardly played it since.
Of course, that is not to say that everyone felt this way, but certainly Bob appears not to have seen any way forward for the piece. But thank goodness 16 Horsepower did.
And I will give unto thee the keys to the kingdom
(Matthew 16:19)
The monopolization by structured and dogmatic religion of what is the true purpose and meaning of mankind’s existence be the focus of “Sign On The Cross”.
Rendered it be through the ‘stream of consciousness’ technique; the narrator in the song lyrics beneath, is worried:
Well, it's that old key to the kingdom
Well, it's that old sign on the cross
Like it used to be
(Bob Dylan: Sign On The Cross)
The belief in an Afterlife so earnestly emoted in gospel tunes, the singer/songwriter/musician Bob Dylan trifles with – turns to travesty.
He’s very like a whale, a wail of sarcasm that lowers it’s head, and charges:
You might think you're weak
But I mean to say you're strong
Yes you are
If that sign on the cross begins to worry you
That's all right, you just give me a song
And all your troubles will pass right on through
(Bob Dylan: Sign On The Cross)
Though not humorously expressed as above, similar to the motif are the lyrics below:
Play another one, and 'Another One Bites The Dust'
Play 'The Old Rugged Cross', and 'In God We Trust"
Ride the pink horse down the long lonesome rode
Stand there and wait for his head to explod
(Bob Dylan: Murder Most Foul)
Odd indeed that neither Jochen Markhorst nor Tony Attwood, both adherents of the Sound School of Dylanology, can’t make any sense of “Sign On The Cross” by Rorbert Zimmerman.
You see, it’s no longer Pilate’s message that used to be ‘laying’ there – rather it’s Paul’s message that’s ‘lying’ there now:
Well, it's just a sign on the cross
Every day, every night
The sign on the cross
Is laying up on top of the hill
Yes, one thought it might-a disappeared long ago
But I'm here to tell you, friends
That I'm afraid it's lying their still
(Bob Dylan: Sign On The Cross)
Burlesque at its best.
Bob Dylan And The Sign On The Cross (Part IV)
Reverend Bobby stirs up associative medicine lyrics in his Travelling Salvation Show.
Mixes in verses of dark and light:
Every morn, and every night
Some are born to sweet delight
William Blake: Auguries Of Innocence)
With:
Every day, every night ...
Yes, we thought it might
(Bob Dylan; Sign On The Cross)
And this too:
Realms of bliss, realms of light
Some are born to sweet delight
Some are born to sweet delight
Some are born to the endless night
End of night, end of night
(Jim Morrison: End Of Night ~ The Doors)
There're more doors thrown into the pot:
Trying to make it to heaven in due time
Before those heaven doors close
(Blues Project: Wake Me Shake Me ~ traditional gospel)
Swirled around with:
Because later on you might find the door
You might want to enter
But of course the door might be closed
(Bob Dylan: Sign On The Cross)
Not a mostly pink murdered foal in the big pink house, but there are white horses.
The Southern Baptist preacher raves on about the unworthy, and the need for repentance, and salvation:
Well, six white horses that you did promise
Were finally delivered down to the penitenitary
(Bob Dylan: Absolutely Sweet Marie)
Stirred up with:
Well, there are some in, men in prison
And there are some in a penitentiary too
(Bob Dylan: Sign On The Cross)
If you buy a Bob Dylan Secret Decoder Ring, you’ll be able to uncover more clues.
Somebody seen him hanging around
At the old dance hall on the outskirts of town
He looked into her eyes when she stopped him to ask
If he wanted to dance, he had a face like a mask
Somebody said from the Bible he’d quote
There was dust on the man
In the long black coat
“A lot of people say his songs are full of images that don’t mean anything. It’s like abstract painting. Some people don’t have the imagination to appreciate something a bit vague,” says Ramblin’ Jack Elliott about his mate Dylan back in the 1960s (Melody Maker, 29 May 1965).
A decade later, another expert says pretty much the same: “You who are so good with words and at keeping things vague,” sings Baez in her heartbreakingly melancholic reflection song about her relationship with Dylan, “Diamonds And Rust” (1975).
It is an aptly formulated stylistic feature of Dylan’s poetry, and in 1989, twenty-four years after Elliott’s analysis and fourteen years after Baez’s reflection, it has lost none of its sharpness. The poet has just opened “Man In The Long Black Coat” cinematically, with the cricket soundtrack and a classic wide-shot, promising a “normal” narrative. In a traditional narrative, the exposition, the development of the catastrophe and finally the catastrophe now follow. But Dylan skips the exposition, as well as the development of the catastrophe, and immediately gives away an ending: “Not a word of goodbye, not even a note / She gone with the man in the long black coat.”
Not necessarily unusual, as we know plenty of stories that start with the end. Every Columbo episode, like most detectives for that matter, starts with the murder – and we only then learn about the circumstances, the story beforehand and the main characters. Something like that now promises Dylan’s abrupt spoiler, the disappearance of “she”: we will surely now be presented with a flashback, the advance story that will reveal who “she” is, and who or what the man in the long black coat is.
That, of course, is not going to happen. Dylan does suggest, right from the opening line of the second verse, an illuminating flashback – but he is and remains good at keeping things vague: “Somebody seen him hanging around at the old dance hall on the outskirts of town.” Very good, even. “Somebody” is another “ordinary” vagueness, which Dylan has preferred to use throughout his career (there are 89 somebodies and 86 someones in the official Lyrics alone), but the old dance hall on the outskirts of town is a particularly subtle, layered vagueness. The use of “the” rather than “an” insinuates that we are, in fact, introduced, that we know which dance hall in which town, but of course we don’t, and the lyrics do not reveal any of that at all. “Dance hall” is a term we haven’t used since the early 1960s, so we situate the story in, say, the 1950s, but no, it’s the old dance hall – suggesting that the dance hall is now out of use, supplanted by nightclubs, dancings and discotheques. So that one word “old” alone blurs the picture again; this story could be set in the 1920s, or in the 1960s, or yesterday.
Something similar applies to “the outskirts of town”. Again, not necessarily unusual in songwriting, but surely the first association is the old blues classic “I’m Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town”, recorded by everyone and everything, and Dylan can undoubtedly play in his inner jukebox the versions by Josh White, Ray Charles, Louis Jordan, The Allman Brothers and B.B. King. And at the very front, of course, is Jimmy Reed,
… which gently pushes the décor back towards the 1950s. And Dylan’s second association only confirms this likely time frame;
Well on the outskirts of town, there's a little night spot
Dan dropped in about five o'clock
Pulled off his coat, said "The night is short."
He reached in his pocket and he flashed a quart
… not just the outskirts of town, but in a dance venue as well: “Dixie Fried” by Carl Perkins, one of those Sun Records giants, the men Dylan thinks of when he tells about the run-up to “Man In The Long Black Coat” in Chronicles, the men who
“… were singing for their lives and sounded like they were coming from the most mysterious place on the planet. No justice for them. They were so strong, can send you up a wall. If you were walking away and looked back at them, you could be turned into stone.”
And the third indication that we are indeed in the 1950s Dylan’s fourth line gives: “she” asks the stranger in the long black coat to dance, so the old dance hall, though old, is still in use.
Via the same diversions, we get a vague geographical notion; “outskirts of town” Dylan seems to associate with “Southern” anyway – at least that seems to be the setting in the two other songs in which he uses this very geolocation (“Something’s Burning” and “Floater”), and ís the backdrop in such landmarks as Bobbie Gentry’s “Fancy” (We lived in a one room, rundown shack on the outskirts of New Orleans), truckers’ smartlaps like Ferlin Huskey’s “Teddy Bear” (I was on the outskirts of a little southern town) and Warren Zevon’s “Carmelita”. And the mystery man has dust on his coat – so it’s probably hot and dry. Thin, but near-by enough to simultaneously keep things vague and still hint: we are somewhere in the South, presumably in the 1950s.
A same anonymous “somebody” then, agonisingly, hints that the stranger is quoting from the Bible. But, of course, does not reveal what he is quoting. Frustrating, but on the other hand… it opens the gate to see Blind Willie Johnson (and hear “In My Time Of Dyin’” or “John The Revelator”), or even more intriguingly: Leonard Cohen (“Story Of Isaac”, to name just one of the all-time great songs in which he quotes the Bible), or one of the dozens of songs with biblical references by the Man In Black himself, of course, Johnny Cash. “He Turned The Water Into Wine”, for instance, or “Belshazzar”. And all the vagueness even invites to argue that Dylan, like a Rembrandt, smuggles in a self-portrait. After all, like from Blind Willie, Cohen and Cash, we also know of some Dylan photographs showing him wearing a long black coat.
But in the end, the most attractive scenario is an inverse scenario; that “Man In The Long Black Coat” inspires Johnny Cash, just before his death, to “The Man Comes Around” – the Man In Black, in his long black coat, quoting from the Bible, with his face like a mask, hanging out at the dance hall. And he decides who to free…
Probably comin’ ’round in the outskirts too, this man.
To be continued. Next up Man In The Long Black Coat part 4: Those are the hills of hell-fire my love
———-
Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:
From the Gnostic point-of-view of the Cosmos, both big and small, the material part thereof is a world of darkness ~ either through ignorance, or, worse still, through the presence of evil.
Earth is no paradise for sure; Doctor Death carries his sword.
Furthermore, only a few people are able to ignite some of the spiritual light that lies within the material darkness.
But for the most part, darkness remains.
As indicated in the following song lyrics.:
The evening sun is sinking low
The woods are dark, the town is too
(Bob Dylan: Tell Old Bill)
Though the poet mother’s be a believer in Christian Gnosticism, the poem quoted beneath declines to follow the dark path:
Rather, the modernist writer is influenced by the Romantic Transcendentalists, albeit only to a degree:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
(Robert Frost: Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening)
One big problem, according to some forms of Gnosticism anyway, is that the authorities of structured politics and religion are determined to impose particular views across the board as to what the means of escape is from the dark material world.
On the other hand, the Gnostic view is that the door is locked to most, but individual self-enlightenment is considered to be the key to freedom.
Demonstrated in the song lyrics below by the narrator thereof in reference to Jesus on the cross.
If thought a ‘King’ Jesus be a threat to the Roman Empire:
And Pilate wrote a title
And put it on the cross
And the writing was
"Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews"
(John 19:19)
Nevertheless, it’s the Judeans who bear the brunt thereafter; they are the ones labelled by most Christians as the murderers of Jesus Christ.
The lyrics below, performed as a burlesque of a long-drawn-out Christian gospel tune that tells everybody that Jesus loves them:
Yes, but I know in my head
That we're all so misled
And it's that old sign on the cross
That worries me
(Bob Dylan: Sign On The Cross)
Being from a Jewish background, Robert Zimmerman’s well aware of the false accusation spread by adherents of Christianity throughout history.
Paradise lost, the gates of Eden closed:
But I was lost on the land
As I heard that front door slam
And that old sign on the cross
Worries me
(Bob Dylan: Sign On The Cross)
A masterful satire; a masterpiece beyond compare.
Bob Dylan And The Sign On The Cross (Part ll)
In the biblical verse below, Jesus is called the “Lamb of God”, a Jewish Passeover meal, so to speak:
The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him
And saith, "Behold the Lamb of God
Which taketh away the sin of the world"
(John 1: 28)
So referred to in the following gospel song
Oh, that old rugged cross, so despised by the world
Has a wondrous attraction for me
For the dear Lamb of God left His glory above
To bear it to dark Calvary
(Elvis Presley: The Old Rugged Cross ~ Bernard)
For the narrator in the song below, the cross is not a wonder but a worry:
Oh when I hold my head so high
As I see my old friends go by
And it's still that sign on the cross
That worries me
(Bob Dylan: Sign On The Cross)
No wonder ~ Christian apostle Paul blames the death of Jesus on the Jews:
Who both killed the Lord Jesus
And their own prophets
And have presecuted us
And they please not God
And are contrary to all men
(I Thessalonians 2:15)
However, Governor Pilate condemns Christ to death because He’s considered a threat to the political authority of the Roman Empire.
No mention is made of how the Governor knows that Jesus has supposedly been anointed the “King of the Judeans”.
Franz Kafka told’im, maybe:
And Pilate wrote a title
And put it on the cross
And the writing was
"Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews"
(John 19:19)
The narrator in the Dylan song howls to his Paulinist friends that it was not he, or his people, who put Jesus Christ out to death.
In short, before they die, what his friends need the mostest is a little Blake-light “gnosis”:
And I just would like to tell you one time
If I don't see you again
That the thing is
That the sign on the cross
Is the thing that you need the most
(Bob Dylan: Sign On The Cross)
In this series Aaron in the US selects versions of a song which Dylan did not write, but has recorded, and Tony in the UK writes a personal commentary as the song is playing. It does, on occasion, take us down unexpected pathways, as is most certainly the case here…
Aaron:The song was a number one country music single for The Davis Sisters in 1953. It was the first hit for the duo of Skeeter Davis and Betty Jack Davis, and also their only one, as Betty Jack was killed in an automobile accident the week the record was released.
Tony:I find it impossible to say anything positive about this recording. The singers obviously can sing and the not-so-good acoustics of the recording are due to the technology of the time. But the accompaniment with the slide guitar is just about bearable until the instrumental break just after the two-minute mark, when it was all I could do to force myself to listen to the rest of the recording. OK it is from a different time and in a different style of music from that which I like, but ohhhhhh, it really hurts.
Aaron:Here is Skeeter Davis performing it solo in 1961
Tony: This version (I take it the performance is mimed) has removed much of the mawkishness, and it just becomes a piece of background music. Goodness me, if these are the recordings that Bob knew, I just cannot understand what he saw in the song. The only thing I can imagine is that in his youth the family had a copy of a 78rpm record and played it quite often, and Bob associates this with happy early memories. (The truth or otherwise of that supposition is probably revealed in a book somewhere, but I can’t remember).
Aaron:And here is Bob’s version from Self Portrait
Tony:Anyone coming to this for the first time now would surely never guess this is Dylan. And certainly, he does a good job of turning it into a rather likeable lost love song. There are elements of the accompaniment of the song which are similar, but the changes from the early versions (such as the piano part) really do make much more sense of the song.
There’s a way in which Bob plays a little with the rhythm of the lyrics that gives it an extra something, and which stops it plodding along. I’m not 100% sure what it is, but I do think that the production here in Bob’s version is perfect. They’ve got his voice sounding exactly right for the song, and the accompaniment seems to veer away from that mawkish approach in the earlier versions. It’s not a song I want to play over and over again, but it is now something I might well play again.
Aaron: Subsequent versions include this one by Bryan Ferry from 2002
Tony:Now that is a surprise. I don’t recall ever hearing this before, and I really do like it. Nice bouncy fun. Mind you I always liked Brian Ferry, and I wonder who came up with the idea of the speed and bounce. From what I know of Mr Ferry it could well be him. Suddenly this is not an emotion-wrenching piece but a jolly bit of fun. The singer is now boasting that he really knew her and you don’t, whereas in the early versions it is all sadness, sadness, sadness. This time the singer has won.
Aaron: Holly Golightly and The Brokeoffs from 2012
Tony: And now I think for the first time in this series I am defeated. The video below was selected by Aaron, who as I have oft mentioned is in the USA, and this video won’t play in the UK. We’ve had that before and previously I have been able to find a version that will play in my country, but this time not. Even more curiously, I can’t find a recording on Spotify’s paid-for service. So I am at a loss, but I will leave this in, as we have more readers in the US than in the UK.
Thus my instruction if you can hear this is: make up your own commentary. If it just says “video unavailable”, carry on for there is more below.
So I have just been searching, and of course, the song has been covered by loads of artists. I’ve not had the time to go through every cover version, but here’s a couple that I thought were interesting.
First, taking the accompaniment at speed…
https://youtu.be/e9SrwHpQOyQ
And a totally unconventional bit of playing around with the whole concept of the piece, while remaining true to the original – which sounds like a total contradiction, and of course is.
And finally, this version which is by Sonny James – and I noted that it was arranged and conducted by Hub Atwood. OK I only included it because of the name of the musical arranger, and hearing what he did for the violins in the middle 8 I can say there is no link in our musical tastes!
Of course there is also no connection beyond the sounding of our surnames, mine is with double t, and his with a single t. In the UK we have both spellings of the surname, and the double t version is less common (or as I would put it, the aristocratic branch of the ancient family).
But having written that little bit of nonsense I have been brought down to earth by doing a little research into Hub Atwood. Secondhand songs tells me that Hub Atwood born June 14, 1918, died September 21, 1988 was a “Staff writer for Capitol Records, composer and arranger. In the 1960s, he became a jingle writer in Memphis. Atwood died by suicide, as his father before him.”
I am completely overcome by the awfulness of that simple statement, not least because we started this piece with a singer who died in a car crash the week the record was released. Hub Atwood’s desperately awful end to his life, as his father before him, has got nothing to do with the theme of this article, nor, as I have just said, with my family, but it utterly brings me down to earth. And it makes me thankful, that although I’ve had some significant ups and downs in my life, I’m still here, and by and large these days, still enjoying myself.
Mike Johnson opened the section of his magnificent “Never Ending Tour” series on 2009 with the comment, “We now arrive at what must be the most frustratingly brilliant, difficult, disastrous and contentious year of the NET – 2009.”
Many of the comments within the article refer to the re-writing of Dylan’s own songs – as indeed has been a theme through the series. And if you are a regular reader of Untold Dylan you may have realised that I’ve also got a particular fascination with the way other people change Dylan songs – some for the better some for the worse. (See for example, the index at the end of each episode of Dylan Cover a Day).
And it got me to thinking: why is all this re-writing and re-arranging happening, and what does it tell us about the songs, and about Dylan?
Of course, one answer is fairly obvious. Most artists in the field of pop and rock, go on tour and play their songs pretty much as they are to be found on the records. Over the years I’ve been to see a number of bands whose work I enjoyed in younger days, and in these gigs there are three near certainties.
First, they will play their best-known tracks, and that is indeed what much of the audience wants. And they will play them pretty much in the original form. If there is to be a bit of re-arranging it will be by adding longer and different instrumental breaks.
Second, one or two members of the original band will be missing, sadly either because they are no longer with us, or because although they are still on the planet they’ve no longer any idea of how to hold a guitar, let alone how to play it.
Third, not all of those who have survived and made it onto the stage will be in good health either mentally, physically or financially.
Dylan breaks all these rules. He doesn’t always play his best-known songs. The nearest he’s ever got to that is the playing of the Hendrix re-arrangement of “Watchtower” – which even then isn’t fitting in with the classic view of ending with a copy of the BIG HIT exactly as it sounds on the record. He’s playing another guy’s total re-write of his own song.
Second, there is no original band as such, although third, those who do accompany Bob on stage are among the very best in their fields.
So from the very start, Bob is breaking all the rules of touring – and that is before we even try and count the number of concerts he has done. (The fact that the latest edition of the Never Ending Tour series is issue number 98, and each episode relates to multiple concerts, gives an idea of how many gigs there has been. Someone must know how many there are: if it is you, please write in and tell me. In 2013 it was said to be 2500.)
So let’s consider the reality for Bob. First he’s a man who has been interested in the way music changes, from the very start, realising that the songs we know from the great folk traditions of the UK and America are themselves simply versions of songs that have changed time and again across the years.
Second, when Bob decided to “go electric” as the phrase has it, that in itself changed the songs – just adding an accompaniment beyond the acoustic guitar changes the nature of the song, and when a whole rock band is put in, that again takes the music to another place entirely.
Third, Bob himself is interested in change. That is self-evident from the way he has reworked his own songs in rehearsal and through the different versions of the songs on stage. The CD made up of the various recordings of “Tell Ol Bill” shows this interest, and indeed this astounding talent that Dylan has of seeing all the possibilities within the songs.
So what is emerging here is the fact that Bob’s interest in the folk music origins of the type of music he creates, reveals to him that in the early days, the songs changed over and over again. What we know as the definitive version of classic English folk songs, for example, are simply versions that happen to have been written down, usually by collectors such as Cecil Sharp in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who were notating the songs often hundreds of years after they were created. And what Sharp found of course was that a song sung to him in one town, would sound very different when he noted it down in another town, 40 miles along the road.
Thus Bob’s entire vision of songs is one in which they can change, and so he does indeed change them.
And for Bob there is a benefit in this, because I can’t imagine how the Never Ending Tour could have survived, even with 600+ compositions of his own to choose from, if Bob’s vision had been to play each song as he had originally recorded it.
Thus the concept of changing the songs comes to us from all directions: from the traditions of folk music which obviously fascinate Bob so much, from his desire to keep on touring year after year (and the need to avoid the boredom of playing the same songs, in the same way, year after year), from his obvious deep-rooted creativity which allows him to invent more and more versions of each song, and from his interest in regularly changing members of the band. It is after all, Bob Dylan & His Band, not Bob Dylan and the Bobbies (or whatever other ghastly word might have been invented if Bob’s Band had been given a permanent name).
So the reason for endlessly changing the songs comes at us from multiple directions, and when looked at like this, seems fairly obvious. But why did the changes that Mike Johnson heard in the 2009 concerts sound so off-colour (if you see what I mean)?
For that question, I think I’ll have to start another article (not least because I need to stop and have one more cup of coffee). Hopefully I’ll have it ready in a day or two.
Not a word of goodbye, not even a note
She gone with the man
In the long black coat
It is not some local rag, the venerable Nouvel Observateur (or L’Obs, as it has been called since 2014), and a reputation the French weekly does have to uphold. So the Dylan article that is published in Edition no. 2710, 13-19 October 2016, on the occasion of the Nobel Prize, “25 chansons de Bob Dylan qui méritaient bien un Nobel”, is definitely worth reading. It is an intelligent, respectful and loving tribute in the form of 25 short pieces about 25 Dylan songs, “particulièrement beaux, ou écrits, ou importants, ou touchants,” also trying to do justice to his versatility and “the improbable longevity of his talent”.
Of course, the magazine, which has recruited Dylan fans from its own editorial offices for this tribute, cannot ignore all of the usual suspects. So the spotlight is once again shone on everyone’s friends like “Masters Of War”, “Hard Rain”, “I Want You” and “Don’t Think Twice”. Albeit with French pathos and poetry, obviously. “Ce n’est pas une chanson, c’est une énigme, un cauchemar sous hypnose dont «vous» êtes l’anti-héros – this is not a song, it’s an enigma, a nightmare under hypnosis in which ‘you’ are the anti-hero,” on Thin Man, for example. Maggie’s Farm “recounts the pain of a farm worker at the mercy of grotesque masters,” and Dylan’s voice on “Love Sick” inspires the biggest fan on the editorial staff (David Caviglioli writes 11 of the 25 beatitudes) to “Il revient comme un cadavre qui sort de terre – he returns like a corpse leaving the ground.”
However: about half of the 25 songs selected fall far beyond expectations. “Moonshiner”, “Alberta #1”, “Wigwam”, “Scarlet Town”… there won’t be many magazine editors on the planet where, for all their beauty and all the respect they deserve, these songs will achieve a top listing. And according to L’Obs, which claims to have chosen from 492 Dylan songs, “Man In The Long Black Coat” is also among the elite.
Defensible, especially if you want to do justice to the longévité de son talent: it is, after all, one of the best Dylan songs of the 1980s, “un chef d’œuvre absolu – an absolute masterpiece,” as the commentator on duty, Sylvain Courage, writes. But ironically, Courage hangs his eulogy on a quite special verse from the bridge, with which he also opens his article: “Les gens ne vivent pas plus qu’ils ne meurent, ils ne font que passer – People don’t live or die, people just float”… the very verse that Dylan deleted in 2004, and never sang again afterwards. Officially deleted even, in Lyrics and on his own site, where the line has been changed to “I went down to the river but I just missed the boat”.
Sylvain Courage, and presumably every Dylan fan with him, is quite fond of the philosophical brilliance of that deleted line, which may even flare a degree more in French. And, as with all of Dylan’s lyric interventions, it is anyone’s guess as to why it was deleted. But the importance Dylan attaches to it is obvious; we know of hundreds of lyric reworkings by the master, but only a very small minority of them are officially endorsed in Lyrics and on the site; apparently, somewhere between the recording (29 March 1989, during the last Oh Mercy session) and the compilation of Lyrics 1962-2001 in 2004, he developed an insurmountable and definitive objection to People don’t live or die, people just float.
Perhaps the loss of ambiguity bothers. “The man in the long black coat” is ambiguous enough on its own, but that one line about the futility of mortality does push the associations very compellingly towards: Death. We have seen corrections like this one before with Dylan. Most notably with “Going, Going, Gone”, in the 1970s. The consensus among reviewers and fans at the time was: bleak, dreary, a narrator about to end his life. A view that is indeed obvious. The images from all four verses of “Going, Going, Gone” are sooner associated with an end of life rather than an end of love: “the willow does not bend”, “the book is closed”, “I hang on a thread” and “I am standing on a ledge” … and then there’s also the chorus with that ambiguous gone, which, after all, can also mean “passed away, died”.
Apparently, that was not the intention. As early as the first live performances (Rolling Thunder Revue II, from 18 April 1976), Dylan has been scraping away considerably. A you is introduced, that scary ledge is scrapped and the completely rewritten last verse makes the whole song lean a lot more strongly towards heartbreak:
I'm in love with you baby
but you got to understand
that you got to be free
so let go of my hand
And for the Far East Tour performances, February and March 1978, Dylan then definitively removes any doubts about the source of the man’s misery – it really is love suffering, not life suffering. The opening couplet sets the record straight right away:
Well, I've just reached a place
where I can't stay awake
I got to leave you baby
before my heart will break
I'm going, I'm going, I'm gone
Poetically not exactly an improvement, quite the contrary, but for some reason it seems to be of importance to Dylan that the song should not be seen as a swan song, that “Going, Going, Gone” is not a Chronicle of a Death Foretold.
A similar scenario intrudes on this puzzling intervention in “Man In The Long Black Coat”. “I went down to the river but I just missed the boat” is a fine song line, undeniably less unambiguous than the slightly Buddhist “People don’t live or die, people just float” – and at the very least it again dilutes the identity of the man in long black coat. Besides, I went down to the river is more familiar, more dylanesque, whatever that may be. We know the line from enough songs in Dylan’s record collection (“Trouble In Mind”, “Proud Mary”, “Banks Of The Ohio”, “Catfish Blues”, “Handsome Molly”, just to name a few that are somewhere up front), from Dylan’s own “Don’t Ya Tell Henry”, and a nod to Hank Williams is always welcome in a Dylan song;
I went down to the river to watch the fish swim by
But I got to the river so lonesome I wanted to die, Oh Lord!
And then I jumped in the river, but the doggone river was dry
She's long gone, and now I'm lonesome blue
… although that would be nod to a suicidal song again (“Long Gone Lonesome Blues”, 1950). No, maybe we should indeed be looking at THE Man in Black, at “Big River” or something. After all, in Chronicles, Dylan claims that, in some kind of weird way, he considers “Man in the Long Black Coat” to be his own “I Walk the Line”, followed by a granite declaration of love to Johnny Cash. The artists on Sun Records “sounded like they were coming from the most mysterious place on the planet” anyway, but Johnny Cash stands out;
“Ten thousand years of culture fell from him. He could have been a cave dweller. He sounds like he’s at the edge of the fire, or in the deep snow, or in a ghostly forest, the coolness of conscious obvious strength, full tilt and vibrant with danger.”
… tone, choice of words and breathless admiration with which Sylvain Courage expresses his love for “Man In The Long Black Coat” in L’Obs:
Toute la poésie prophétique du Zim est contenue dans cette ballade ternaire: la puissance de la légende, l’omniprésence du mal, l’errance éternelle.
All the prophetic poetry of Zim is contained in this ternary ballad: the power of legend, the omnipresence of evil, eternal wandering.
Sung, says Sylvain, d’une voix d’outre-tombe, in a voice from beyond the grave.
To be continued. Next up Man In The Long Black Coat part 3
———-
Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:
