Untold Dylan

See also: Bob Dylan, Jack of Diamonds and Robert Browning

by Larry Fyffe

There are analysts of song lyrics by Bob Dylan who walk the plank of the Auto/Biographical School of Dylanology, fall off the end of it, and nearly drown; and there are those who turn around only to fall off the other end, and nearly drown in the Sound School of Dylanology.

However, the singer/songwriter often refers to artistic works of others, to traditional songs or pieces of literature, containing meaningful themes which Dylan sometimes follows quite closely, and at other times turns the meaning therein around in one aspect or another.

As noted previously, Robert Browning is one source Dylan chooses from the world of literature; Browning’s a poet known for employing the literary device known as the ‘dramatic monologue’ – akin to the “talking blues”, the speaker in the poem addresses an implied audience; tells a story, often humorous, that reveals the narrator’s own character when doing so.

Below, an example of a dramatic monologue concerning life in the busy city versus that in the quiet countryside. It’s rather clear that the Romantic Transcendentalist theme of life being better in the countryside is mocked by the Victorian poet:

Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks 
    with cowl and sandals
And penitents dressed in white shirts a-holding the yellow candles
One he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles
And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, 
    for the better prevention of scandals
(Robert Browning: Up At The Villa, Down In The City)

The source of the song lyrics quoted beneath given away by ‘Dylanesque rhyme twists’

~’sandals’/’sandals’;~ ‘scandals’/’scandals’;~’candles’/’candle’; ~’handles’/’handle’/’vandals’ –

The meaning thereof, trapped in words claimed to be subconsciously chosen, abounds with irony – the established norms of society, of straight people, scorn ‘unacceptable’ lifestyles like that of pot-smoking, supposedly nature-loving hippies:

Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don't wear sandals
Try to avoid scandals
Don't wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handle
(Bob Dylan: Subterranean  Homesick Blues)

In the bouncing music and song lyrics below, the narrator is stuck for a little while in the countryside, away from the hustle and bustle of big city life; he expresses not a romantic sentiment concerning the countryside, but a realistic one – practical, he makes the best of a lonesome situation:

Wish I was back in the city
Instead of this old bank of sand
Withe the sun beating down on the chimney tops
And the one I love so close at hand ...
But right now I'll just sit here contentedly
And watch the river flow
(Bob Dylan: Watching The River Flow)

As previously noted, the Christian School of Dylanology attempts to bind many of Bob Dylan’s songs with the established dogmas of organized religious theology; or at least tries to transform them into “morality tales” based thereon.

by Jochen Markhorst

I           The closer I get, the farther away I feel

 “I knew I should have taken that left toin at Albukoykee,” Bugs Bunny usually says, when he has gone a million miles off course again and consults the map. Which tells us that Bugs certainly didn’t intend to follow Route 66 – that one goes straight through Albuquerque and on to Los Angeles. A second claim to fame is the exceptionally successful TV series Breaking Bad, the saga about chemistry teacher Walter White who, in order to pay his hospital bills, becomes the most powerful drug dealer in the US Southwest. The success of the series seems to have given tourism to the city an enormous boost. And in Dylan circles, the city gets a third tick because of Scott Warmuth.

Goon Talk is the name of the wonderful blogspot of the admirable Scott Warmuth from Albuquerque. The site publishes results with academic quality of Warmuth’s search for sources of Dylan’s work and sparks for Dylan’s inspiration, and describes those results in clear prose, always down to earth, avoiding sensationalism. Beyond this site, the New Mexican continues his work on Twitter; to this day Warmuth finds and publishes sources of verse fragments, of passages from Dylan’s autobiography Chronicles, and templates of Dylan’s paintings (almost always film stills). These sources are as colourful as Dylan’s oeuvre: a 1961 Time magazine, Baudelaire, revue texts from the nineteenth century, Coen Brothers films, Jack London, non-fiction travel guides and historical studies, Doc Pomus and Willie Dixon.

Warmuth’s groundbreaking work is not everywhere received with the same enthusiasm. There is a whole cohort of devout fans for whom it is intolerable that Dylan is not a divine genius who steadily manages to create something out of nothing. And then post unintelligent reactions to give vent to their indignation. With ‘counter-arguments’ like “C’mon!” and “This is all a bit silly” and “idiotic”, and for some reason these displeased fans also have a tendency to write in capitals. Fortunately, it does not deter Warmuth.

A special chapter in Goon Talk‘s fascinating series of articles concerns the remarkable multi-talent Henry Rollins. The all-round workaholic Rollins became famous as a punk rock singer, he is a successful and good actor, a regular columnist for Rolling Stone Australia and LA Weekly, wins a Grammy Award for his autobiographical Get in the Van (1994) and publishes remarkable collections of poems or diary-like short stories. In these, in books such as Black Coffee Blues and See a Grown Man Cry: Collected Work, Warmuth finds a wealth of paraphrases, whole and half quotes, and sparks of inspiration for Dylan songs, mainly from the period 1997-2001, as well as for Chronicles.

Especially for Time Out Of Mind, Rollins seems to be a purveyor, as Warmuth demonstrates quite convincingly. Rollins traces can be found in no less than eight of the eleven songs, as well as in the outtakes “Mississippi” and “Dreamin’ Of You”. The only songs that seem to be Rollins-free (as far as we know) are “Love Sick”, “Not Dark Yet” and “Make You Feel My Love”. All other songs contain similarities that transcend coincidence. Copied fragments of verse like You can’t come back, not all the way and I have nothing for you, I don’t even have a self for myself anymore (transferred almost unchanged to “Mississippi”), or “I think what I need might be a full-length leather coat / Somebody just asked me if I registered to vote” from “Highlands”, a sum of two parts found by Warmuth in two Rollins books. Or the sentences Now if you think you lost it all, you’re wrong. You can always lose a little more, which Dylan slightly reworks for “Tryin’ to Get To Heaven”. I hear voices when no one is around that becomes the opening line for “Cold Irons Bound”…

These are just a few examples. There are dozens, which is too many to be attributed to coincidence anyway, but usually also so idiosyncratic that any doubt about Rollin’s significance as a source of inspiration can be ruled out. This also applies to the fragments Warmuth recognises from “Million Miles”. In Black Coffee Blues, he first ticks off I love dreamless sleep. Dreams tell me too much, which takes him to the opening of the third verse:

I’m drifting in and out of dreamless sleep
Throwing all my memories in a ditch so deep

… which in itself is not too specific. But on the same page we also read: Slowly I am forgetting them and their mind polluting words. And that is quite specific;

Well, there’s voices in the night trying to be heard
I’m sitting here listening to every mind-polluting word,

… far too specific, in any case, to ignore the connection with the opening of Dylan’s last stanza – which, in retrospect, also elevates that dreamless sleep on the same page to “borrowing”.

Fascinating, but ultimately these are merely idiomatic details. More serious is Warmuth’s more daring observation. In that same Black Coffee Blues, he finds, twenty pages before that dreamless sleep and the mind-polluting words:

“The next song I wrote was about the distance I felt when I thought about that girl. The song centered around the lines, “The closer I get, the farther away I feel.” I was thinking that all the time I was with her, I worked hard to put that out of my mind. Romance passes the time.”

Warmuth goes searching and does indeed find the song whose genesis Rollins describes here: “Down And Away”, a trashy, riff-driven metal song on the Rollins Band’s second album, Hard Volume from 1989. Rollins does indeed incorporate those key lines, in the second verse:

There's an ego followin' the way I feel
The closer I get, the farther away I feel
I can't get in and I can't get out
Why don't you touch me so I can feel it

Further on, that one line The closer I get, the farther away I feel, like a refrain, is repeated four times, then the band switches back to half-speed, and heavy and droning, mantra-like, Rollins shouts the line four more times. He is, apparently, quite content with its dramatic power. And Dylan might be too, Warmuth speculates. After all, the chorus line of “Million Miles”, I’m tryin’ to get closer but I’m still a million miles from you, expresses exactly the same thing in a similar idiom. Dylan chooses a poetic exaggeration (farther away becomes a million miles), but still: the sentiment is the same.

“I suspect,” Warmuth writes, “that Dylan read that passage and considered that to be a good theme for a song, and that that passage very well may have been one of the sparks that led to Million Miles”. And that is a proposition more exciting than all the paraphrases, quotations and borrowings put together; the proposition that one single sentence in Rollins’ work can be the spark for an entire Dylan song suggests that we can see the workings of the creative mind of a Nobel Prize-winning poet. Which may actually lead us to hope for the answer to the Mother of All Questions: What’s up, Doc?

To be continued. Next up Million Miles part 2: They kind of write themselves

———-

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:

• Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
• Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
• Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
• Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
• Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
• Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
• Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits
• John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville
• Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s lookin’ for the fuse
• Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978
• Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2^nd Big Bang

By Aaron Galbraith and Tony Attwood

Aaron: The idea for this series is to take a listen to the tracks Bob has covered on record over the years and compare his versions with those of other artists versions and decide: Who did it best?

I’ll provide the song and the different versions whilst Tony provides the commentary, with the normal rule that we have (just to stop Tony from rambling on for too long) that he has to write the commentary while listening to the track, and then stop.

First up, let’s reacquaint ourselves with Bob’s version of Shenandoah from Down in the Groove.

Tony: When I write my reviews of cover versions of Dylan’s work I often find myself asking what the cover does to enhance my enjoyment of and indeed understanding of the original.  So I don’t go much for covers that perform large amounts of the song exactly the same as has been done before.  Or those which use some utterly obvious musical device to make the arrangement sound different.

So changing the rhythm, accompaniment, chords and indeed the whole feel of the song, but still keeping enough of the song to refer us back to the original takes a lot of musical ability and insight.

And my goodness doesn’t Bob show that here!   Much of the melody has gone, and the rhythm has been modified all over the place, but this is still  “Shenandoah” – and just as I think I’ve got the hang of where Bob is going he does something like re-work the final line totally.

In fact, the way he rearranges the lines

We're bound away
'Cross the wide Missouri

is utterly remarkable.  I don’t know other versions of the song well enough to say this is a totally original version, but whether it is or not, it is superb.   The rhythm is hypnotic and completely unexpected as the instrumentation plays against the vocals, and the Dylan vocal cuts across the chorus.  I absolutely need to play this again.

Aaron:   Now here are some versions I found in my own collection. Over to you Tony…are any of these better than Bob?

Bruce Springsteen 

Tony: Now this is more in keeping with how I am used to hearing Shenandoah, and because of this perhaps I became a little impatient to see where it was going.   And once the vocals started I knew.   That is not to say I am a better orchestrator than those involved here, of course not, but they have laid out their cards on the table and we know exactly what will happen.  And unlike Bob’s version where it is going is completely obvious – everything can be understood and anticipated from the off.

By the instrumental break I’m ready for it to end – so that I can go back to Bob’s version again.

Aaron: Tom Waits (Feat Keith Richards)

Tony: I love the cover artwork and I love the gruff lead vocal which they manage to fit perfectly with the chorus.  This is one of those recordings that I can enjoy, and I’m glad I’ve heard it, but I’m not sure I’ll want to play it again.  It’s one of those versions that it is fun and enjoyable once, but there’s not enough there to make me want to play it again and again.

And I am not sure the arrangement works with the second voice joining in the verse before the instrumental break.   By this stage I am thinking, this is a piece where the arranger has had one idea, but then the producer says “we need something else” and it all gets a bit artificial.

But in case, like me, you had lost touch with Bob’s version, I want to play that again so I can see if I have anything else to say

Tony: It is the energy throughout, and that final line of each verse that really does it for me.  It is impossible to catch it in my head so I can sing it back to myself because of the way the rhythm extends itself into the extra bar.

Surely I must have heard this and recognised its brilliance before now.  But seemingly not.  Not for the first time I owe you Aaron.

An index to the whole series on the Never Ending Tour can be found here.     Below are the episodes for 2004.

• NET, 2004, Part 1 – The best singing audience
• NET 2004 part 2: The Jazz Connection
• Never Ending Tour, 2004, part 3, Harping On
• Never Ending Tour, 2004, Part 4 More jazz, regulars and rarities
• NET 2004 Part 5: Rocking on
• Never Ending Tour 2004 part 6: Stone you and then come back again
• NET, 2004, part 7 Epilogue: Sing me back home

By Mike Johnson (Kiwipoet)

Discussions of Dylan’s performances in 2005 have been dominated by the extraordinary five-day residency at the Brixton Academy, London, at the end of the year – November 20^th to the 25^th. Compiler CS at A Thousand Highways dedicates his fourteen-song selection from that year entirely to the London residency as if the rest of the year did not exist.

That residency casts a long shadow, not just over 2005, but the whole NET, with some commentators suggesting that these are Dylan’s best-ever performances. That shadow stretches all the way back to the three-day Prague residency of 1995, and the Supper Club residency of 1993.

There are good reasons for the pre-eminence of the London shows, not least the quality of the recordings. In the shadow kingdom of Dylan bootlegging, the outfit known as Crystal Cat are famous for the sharp clarity of their recordings. I’m no techie, but I suspect that recording technology was taking some big leaps around this time with the rise of compact, hand-held devices. Studio techies started complaining that the bootleggers were making better recordings than they could!

But Dylan also revitalises his lineup for 2005, bringing in Stu Kimball on lead guitar with Denny Freeman on backup guitar, as well as multi-instrumentalist Donnie Herron who will remain with Dylan until 2019. The eternal Tony Garnier stays on bass with the accomplished George Recile on drums. This lineup leads to richness and fullness of sound we haven’t heard before.

Dylan is also in wonderful voice in 2005, throaty but powerful, and his harmonica playing reaches new heights of sublimity.

It is not, however, all sweetness and light. Some NET followers find the Crystal Cat recordings too sharp, too trebly, too abrasive, too brash, and in need of some filtering. And then there is Dylan’s persistent upsinging to deal with. I’ll have more to say about this as we go along, but this salmon leap of the voice at the end of the line has been an issue now for several years and, for my ear, mars some otherwise magnificent performances.

And while we might admire the richness of the recordings, not everybody is going to like some of the arrangements for some of the songs. I detect a movement towards less flexibility, or free-flowing rhythms. Some of these arrangements become dogmatic and thumpy and might seem to run counter to the spirit of the songs. This heralds a move away from the looser, innovative, club-jazz sounds of 2003, towards the more rigid, bluesy tempos that will mark the post-2005 years.

What we can say about the London residency is that it is the triumphant fruition of the sound that Dylan has been developing since he shifted to the piano in October 2002. This is where it’s all been leading. It’s a fascinating exercise to go back to those rather thin, tentative beginnings in 2002 and compare them to the full-bodied, confident sounds of 2005. We have a rising curve here that starts in 2002, is developed during the innovative and free-spirited 2003, consolidated and enriched in 2004 and brought to a head in 2005, particularly at the London residency.

But I have another, albeit playful, argument to make here. While the London residency is rightly famous, it casts its shadow over two, to my mind equally remarkable concerts Dylan did in Dublin, after just one night’s break from London – 26^th and 27^th November. The recordings from the Dublin concerts are not by Crystal Cat, and tend to be more muted and softer. I tend to push the volume up to hear them better. They don’t sound as dramatic as the London concerts, and the sound of each instrument does not come across so clearly, but to my mind, it’s not just the sound that’s different, it’s that Dylan’s approach to the songs is subtly different, warmer and more intimate. Less brash and more sensitive. In some cases I’m going to suggest that the Dublin performances are a cut above the more famous London ones.

So, it’s time to come to grips with what I’m talking about. I’m starting with ‘Shelter From The Storm’ (London, 4^th night) as it must surely be one of the most choice of these choice cuts and a wonderful way in to the London shows. Spoiler alert, a best-ever performance coming up.

Shelter from the storm (A)

How well that jaunty, somewhat countrified sound suits the song!

The best Dylan songs never wear out, which is the case with this love song, this celebration of the universal female principle (and archetypal hippy chick).

Now let’s compare that performance with this one from Dublin (1^st night).

Shelter from the storm (B)

You can see the fun we’re going to have trying to decide which performance is ‘the best.’ And there’s no wrong answer. I detect a gentler spirit at work in this Dublin performance. A refinement of feeling which brings out the nuances of the song. Which is what the harmonica does.

Let’s try another comparison. Another of the choicest cuts from London would have to be this ‘High Water (For Charley Patton)’. This is from the 3^rd night and really cooks up a storm. Note how a cool little sequence of piano notes around 4.54 minutes in is picked up by the guitar and worked into the musical fabric. Donnie Herron comes to the fore with his banjo. It’s a grim song, yet somehow celebrates life with that infectious beat.

High Water (A)

The Dublin performance is not quite so effusive, yet sounds more pointed to me, and I can make out the lyrics better. It’s fascinating that around 5.40 mins the band goes quiet and Dylan has the chance to do some fancy piano work, as in a jazz break, if he wants to. He doesn’t. He sticks to that cool little piano riff and just lets the song ride on the rhythm section for a few bars.

High Water (B)

Time for a change of pace, and another comparison. We turn to ‘Cry Awhile’ and start with the London 4^th night performance. Another ‘best ever’ coming up, folks. At this stage Dylan is still singing all the verses to this complex song with its exciting shift in tempo when it drops from upbeat into a slow blues. Superb work by Garnier here.

There’s a gangster feel to this song, not surprising as when he wrote the song Dylan was reading, and filching a few lines from, Confessions of a Yakuza, an obscure 1989 biography of a gangster by Japanese writer Junichi Saga.

The first three lines are a compact piece of vindictiveness:

Well, I had to go down and see a guy named Mr. Goldsmith
Nasty, dirty, double-crossing, backstabbing phony
I didn't have to wanna have to deal with

There are subsequent mentions of lawyers, horses that run the wrong way, and funerals, but behind the tough guy, there’s a broken heart at the heart of the song.

I'm on the fringes of the night, fighting back tears 
                                   that I can't control
Some people they ain't human, they got no heart or soul

Cry Awhile (A)

Again, the Dublin performance is not as strident, or perhaps striking, but Dylan’s vocal is every bit a match for the London performance. In fact, although the Dublin recordings are softer, Dylan’s voice is clearer in the mix.

Cry Awhile (B)

Coming to ‘It’s All Right Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)’ I’d make a firmer claim for the superiority of the Dublin performance. This song is probably first equal with ‘Hard Rain’ as Dylan’s finest protest song, a song very much directed at the ‘unlived meaningless life’ he excoriates in ‘False Prophet.’ He’s still using what to me is the rather clunky Sonny Boy Williamson riff from ‘Help Me,’ but Dylan swings it along in this London (2^nd night) performance. Whereas Dylan once understated the vocal, it now lurches along with a fine swagger.

It’s all right ma (A)

We have the same swagger with the Dublin version (2^nd night), but am I mistaken in finding it more nuanced, with Dylan’s voice soaring through the verses which come across with their full dramatic weight?

It’s all right Ma (B)

There is a certain grandeur to ‘Every Grain of Sand’ that makes it hypnotic listening. It is a song about faith as much as it is an expression of faith. There is a little upsinging in this London (4^th night) performance, but it is well integrated into the vocal performance. And there is a beautiful, troubled harp break at the end.

Every Grain of Sand (A)

If anything, the Dublin performance (2^nd night) is quieter and more contemplative than London. I would certainly prefer this performance if it weren’t for the upsinging, which becomes an issue here. Properly used, upsinging can lift the mood of a song momentarily, bring a little light into the darkness. But when repeatedly used in one verse, it draws attention to itself in an unwelcome way. Hear the way he slips into it during the Baudelairean ‘flowers of indulgence’ verse, starting at 2.42 mins, going through to 3.38 mins. A magnificent performance magnificently ruined? This song can only take so much mood lift. It is a sombre song.

Every Grain of Sand (B)

I’ll finish this post with a pair of performances I hope will establish beyond all doubt the superiority of at least some of the Dublin performances. ‘Visions of Johanna,’ perhaps the most ambitious of all Dylan songs (with the exception perhaps of ‘Tell Ol’ Bill’), an hallucinatory mood song that somehow never seemed to make it out of the 1960s in performance terms. (That’s a purely personal judgement.) Damnation and salvation swirl about in this after-midnight trippy-trip through the underworld.

It contains the famous line, which both the London and Dublin audience recognize, ‘the ghost of ‘lectricity howls in the bones of her face’ but there’s lots more trippy stuff.

Inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial
Voice echo this is what salvation must be like after a while

The London performance (2^nd night) gives it a good go, but to my ear it is the Dublin performance that nails it. It needs that quieter, more subdued if not spooky atmosphere, which is maybe why Dylan didn’t follow up on his fast versions during the Blonde on Blonde recording sessions.

The Dublin performance is sweetly melancholic, as is the thoughtful guitar break by Stu Kimball.

But first the London performance.

Visions of Johanna (A)

And now for the Dublin ace:

Visions of Johanna (B)

That’s all I have room for, although I have not finished this comparison of choice cuts from these shows. I’m about halfway through, so I hope you’ll join me soon for more choice cuts.

Kia Ora

• Mixing-Up The Fluids: Red Crimson And Yellow Dylan
• King Crimson And Yellow Dylan (Part II)
• The Crimson King And The Yellow Jester (Part III)
• King Crimson and the Yellow Jester (Part IV)
• King Crimson And BeelzeBob (Part V)
• The Crimson King And Serpent Lilith (Part VI)
• Beelzebub And Lilith (Part VII)

By Larry Fyffe

According to the New Testament, there’s no doubt of a final battle being fought between the forces of ‘good’ led by the three-fold Christian God, and the forces of ‘evil’ led by the Devil,  sometimes referred to as Beelzebub.

The Lord’s Judgement Day will follow as to who’s in and who’s out of luck in so far as the Edenic return to eternal life is concerned:

To execute judgment upon all
And to convince all that are ungodly among them
Of all their ungodly deeds
Which they have ungodly committed
And of all their hard speeches
Which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him
(Jude 1:15)

An apocalytic vision that’s supposedly repeated in the following song lyrics:

If the Bible is right, the world will explode
I've been trying to get as far away from myself as I can
Some things are too hot to touch
The human mind can only stand so much
(Bob Dylan: Things Have Changed)

It’s a dark vision and a true one, or so it’s claimed by Dylanologists such as Kees de Graaf. However, to claim so, avoided must be the biggest word in the song verse above – “If”. That is, should one suppose the Bible to be literally true.

Another problem – what exactly comprises ‘godly’ behaviour versus ‘ungodly’ behaviour is left up to particular religious organizations to figure out.

Examining the works of Bob Dylan as a whole demonstrates that the singer / songwriter / musician is not a fire-and- brimstone-breathing ‘final days’ apocalyptic – there’s hope, even though a small one, that such a religious prophecy will not come to fruition; instead, the song above is a warning that such a terrible event could indeed happen, especially now with the invention of the hydrogen bomb.

A warning that's given in the following song as well:
I'm going back out 'fore the rain starts a-falling
I'll walk to the depth of deepest black forest ....
And I'll tell it, and speak it, and think it, and breathe it
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it
(Bob Dylan: A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall)

The elaborate biblical-like lyrics above inspired by the rather simplistic folk song quoted beneath, first sung by the blacklisted “Weavers”; the hammer and sickle symbolic of the then-idealized Communist Party; at the insistence of activist Libby Frank “and sisters” added to the lyrics:

If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening, all over this land
I'd hammer out danger, I'd hammer out a warning
I'd hammer out love between my brothers and sisters
All over this land
(Peter, Paul, And Mary: If I Had A Hammer ~ Seeger/Hays)

Certainly, the next quoted is not a dogmatic religious song; there’s that big word “if” again:

The confusion I'm feeling
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
That if God's on our side
He'll stop the next war
(Bob Dylan: With God On Our Side)

By Tony Attwood

To me, Dylan’s performance of “It Ain’t Me Babe” is angry, but it is also possible to perform it plaintively and with a deep regret that is not in Dylan’s original.  And rarely does a performer get this more than Sandra McCracken.

The simplicity of the guitar accompaniment and the elegance of the harmonies make this an exquisite piece of writing.

And just in case you don’t know this lady’s work (and she is prolific) try this as another example of just how she can get inside a song and fine where it starts and where it goes.

And for my other choice I am going to cheat and quote an earlier article by Jochen, as he put across the point better than I can.

Here’s what he said…

Quite indestructible, the combination of these lyrics with this magnetic melody. Thus, almost all covers are fun, at the very least – you have to dress it up very, very corny to compromise the power of the song. The downside is: it is apparently difficult to add something. All those nice covers are actually quite interchangeable. Only radically different arrangements stand out. Not necessarily better than the original, but some of them do surprise, at any rate.

At the top of that category: the old-fashioned, glowing soul approach by Bedford Incident, a completely unknown band with a completely unknown single from May 1969 – with a magnificent harmony-intermezzo and an overflowing, irresistible arrangement. Horns, violins, four male vocalists and a complete band – fortunately, Bedford Incident completely fails in Henry Miller’s function-requirement to inoculate the world with disillusionment. Although… Bedford Incident’s single never got any further than “Best Leftfield Pick” on Radio KIBH in the remote village of Sewald, Alaska, August 1969.
Which, with all due respect for Sewald and Radio KIBH, is a bit of a disillusionment, obviously.

Here’s a list of most of the articles from this series…

• The song with numbers in the title.
• Ain’t Talkin
• All I really want to do
•  Angelina
•  Apple Suckling and Are you Ready.
• As I went out one morning
•  Ballad for a Friend
• Ballad in Plain D
• Ballad of a thin man
•  Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
• The ballad of Hollis Brown
• Beyond here lies nothing
• Blind Willie McTell
•  Black Crow Blues (more fun than you might recall)
• An unexpected cover of “Black Diamond Bay”
• Blowin in the wind as never before
• Bob Dylan’s Dream
• You will not believe this… 115th Dream revisited
• Boots of Spanish leather
• Born in Time
• Buckets of Rain
• Can you please crawl out your window
• Can’t wait
• Changing of the Guard
• Chimes of Freedom
• Country Pie
•  Crash on the Levee
• Dark Eyes
• Dear Landlord
• Desolation Row as never ever before (twice)
• Dignity.
• Dirge
• Don’t fall apart on me tonight.
• Don’t think twice
•  Down along the cove
• Drifter’s Escape
• Duquesne Whistle
• Farewell Angelina
• Foot of Pride and Forever Young
• Fourth Time Around
• From a Buick 6
• Gates of Eden
• Gotta Serve Somebody
• Hard Rain’s a-gonna Fall.
• 42 Heart of Mine
• 43: High Water
•  44: Highway 61.5
• 45: Hurricane
• 46: I am a lonesome hobo
• 47: I believe in you
• 48: I contain multitudes
• 49: I don’t believe you.
• 50: I love you too much
• 51: I pity the poor immigrent. 
•  52: I shall be released
• 53: I threw it all away
• 54: I want you
• 55: I was young when I left home
• 56: I’ll remember you
• 57: Idiot Wind and  More idiot wind
• 58: If not for you, and a rant against prosody
• 59: A Dylan cover a Day: If you Gotta Go, please go and do something different
• 60: If you see her say hello
• 61: Dylan cover a day: I’ll be your baby tonight
• 62: I’m not there.
• 63: In the Summertime, Is your love and an amazing Isis
• 64: It ain’t me babe

• Red River Shore (1997) part 1: She wrote me a letter
• Red River Shore (1997) part 2: The importance of capturing spontaneity
• Red River Shore part 3: Pretty angels all flying in a row
• Red River Shore (1997) part 4: I got a gal named Sue
• Red River Shore (1997) part 5: Mom says the pills must be working
• Red River Shore (1997): part 6;  Misery is but the shadow of happiness
• Red River Shore (1997) part 7: Please try to make it rhyme
• Red River Shore (1997) part 8:  He is no one
• Red River Shore (1997) part 9: A floating nothing
• Red River Shore (1997) part 10: Send it to Lulu
• Red River Shore (1997) part 11: It’s complicated
• Red River Shore (1997) part 12: I see dead people

by Jochen Markhorst

’Twas in the merry month of June

“Girl From The Red River Shore I personally felt was the best thing we recorded. But as we walked in to hear the playback, Dylan was in front of me, and he said, ‘Well, we’ve done everything on that one except call the symphony orchestra.’ Which indicated to me they’d tried to cut it before. If it had been my session, I would have got on the phone at that point and called the fucking symphony orchestra. But the cut was amazing. You couldn’t even identify what instruments were playing what parts.”
– Jim Dickinson (keyboards on Red River Shore) in Uncut

So, there should be four versions, according to engineer Chris Shaw, who together with manager Jeff Rosen is ploughing his way through the tapes to come to a selection for Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 (2008). “Dreamin’ Of You”, the unreleased song they want to put on the website as a teaser, is easily found, Shaw says, but

“… there were others that took forever to find, like “Red River Shore”, there were four versions of that, that we had to go looking for. It’s an archival process, and it’s fun digging through that stuff, especially all the banter you hear between tracks and stuff.”
– Chris Shaw (engineer Red River Shore) in Uncut

Those closely involved, like Dickinson and Shaw, have no idea why the song was rejected. Neither do drummer Jim Keltner or producer Daniel Lanois. Guitarist Duke Robillard seems to have at least indirectly a clue, and is either remarkably well informed, or he can read the tell-tale signs remarkably well:

There was one song that I’m not sure will make the cut, that when I first heard Bob do it, right away I thought it was a Jimmie Rodgers thing circa 1929, it was that genuine. I was mesmerized by it, completely blown away . . . Lanois and Dylan talked about [how the album] was all designed to create a mood. The record is set in another time . . . it’s steamboat, civil war, very Mark Twain.
– Duke Robillard (electric guitar on Red River Shore) in Isis #73

Number 73 of the fanzine Isis is published in June 1997, so the interview with Robillard has taken place months before the release of Time Out Of Mind (30 September 1997). And at that time Robillard apparently already realises that “Red River Shore” will be dropped. Notable are the last words from the Isis quote, about the mood: “The record is set in another time . . . it’s steamboat, civil war, very Mark Twain.” Words that, apart from “Red River Shore”, fit just as seamlessly on that other legendary dropout, on “Mississippi”. Fitting with what Dylan himself says about “Mississippi”, and his disagreement about it with producer Lanois: “I tried to explain that the song had more to do with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights than witch doctors.” And especially fitting for the next record, the one on which “Mississippi” will eventually make its glorious debut, four years later, on “Love And Theft” (2001).

Now, that is an album where you can justifiably say: steamboat, civil war, very Mark Twain. “Mississippi”, “Summer Days”, “Bye And Bye”, “Floater”… songs that all share the same nineteenth century mood as “Red River Shore” – a mood that, strangely enough, wouldn’t characterise Time Out Of Mind that much. Despite the fact that Lanois and Dylan, if we are to believe Robillard, seem to seek it out so explicitly. But then: “Love Sick”, a highway of regret, the Scottish Highlands, a jukebox playing low, from London to gay Paree… no, on large parts of Time Out Of Mind the poet definitely has discarded the steamboats and the Civil War. To pass it on to his next project.

“Mississippi” is then, thankfully, rescued from oblivion. Thanks to an outside intervention as well, as drummer David Kemper reveals:

“I know of two versions of Mississippi. We thought we were done with “Love And Theft”, and then a friend of Bob’s passed him a note, and he said, oh, yeah, I forgot about this: Mississippi.”

… manager Jeff Rosen would be an educated guess if we had to guess the identity of “a friend of Bob’s”. But no such luck for “Red River Shore”; the song really only surfaces more than ten years after its conception, on Tell Tale Signs from 2008. Again, on Jeff Rosen’s instruction, praised be his name.

And further on, we find “The Girl from the Greenbriar Shore”, one of several candidates that can be considered as a template for the song. Although both chord progression and melody are actually too generic to attribute to one “mother song”, of course. And we know the combination girl + shore, as well as the vague topographic location “Red River”, from dozens of songs too. No, “Greenbriar Shore” seems to be an isolated burp that we owe to the rather prosaic fact that Dylan has the obvious association with “green shore” and the song that begins with the words “’Twas in the year of ’92, in the merry month of June” when he is on the Côte d’Opale near Dunkerque in June 1992.

Two performances are given to Greenbriar Shore (both in the merry month of June ’92). Two more than “Red River Shore”, which otherwise does not make waves either. In fan circles, it is celebrated as a lost masterpiece of a similar category as “She’s Your Lover Now” and “Blind Willie McTell”, but neither the master himself nor his colleagues seem to agree.

In fact, only a few usual suspects, artists who have already made a name for themselves with Dylan interpretations, put the song on the repertoire. In the Netherlands, one of the most successful musicians of the 80s, Ernst Jansz of the million-selling band Doe Maar, has distinguished himself with translated Dylan songs, a successful Dylan tribute album (Dromen Van Johanna – “Dreaming Of Johanna”, 2010) and a theatre tour. The album and the set list include “Het Meisje Van De Rode Rivier”. And when he performs with his old pals from the folk group CCC Inc., he occasionally manages to coax them into an English “Red River Shore”. Acoustic, with a lot of guitars, harmonica and accordion bag, as it should be. Just like the Austrian phenomenon Ernst Molden does, a shorter version in a smaller line-up, sung in unintelligible Viennese dialect, but with the same magic as Dylan. And we understand, at least, that with Molden she is a Madl aus der Lobau – a girl from the Lobau, the Vienna floodplain on the northern side of the Danube, loved by nudists.

More international allure is given by the only celebrity to record the song in its original English: the late, great Jimmy LaFave, the Texan with the high pitched voice and unique phrasing. On the wonderful 2012 album Depending On The Distance, which features the equally successful Dylan interpretations “I’ll Remember You” and “Tomorrow Is A Long Time”.

Over nine and a half minutes, and every second is wonderful. It’s steamboat, civil war, and very Mark Twain.

—————–

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:

• Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
• Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
• Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
• Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
• Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
• Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
• Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits
• John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville
• Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s lookin’ for the fuse
• Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978
• Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2^nd Big Bang

—————-

About Untold

Untold is written by people who want to write for Untold. They don’t get paid; they just like to do it.

If you’d like to write for Untold, or if you would like to suggest an article or a series of articles we could cover, even if you can’t write it yourself, please do write in to Tony@schools.co.uk

We also have a very active Facebook group with over 14,000 members – if you would like to join please go on Facebook and search for Untold Dylan.

There are indexes to some of our series at the very top of the page just below the picture, and some more on the (not always up to date) home page.

If you have been, thank you for reading.

Tony Attwood

By Mike Johnson (Kiwipoet)

An index to the whole series on the Never Ending Tour can be found here.     Below are the previous episodes for 2004.

• NET, 2004, Part 1 – The best singing audience
• NET 2004 part 2: The Jazz Connection
• Never Ending Tour, 2004, part 3, Harping On
• Never Ending Tour, 2004, Part 4 More jazz, regulars and rarities
• NET 2004 Part 5: Rocking on
• Never Ending Tour 2004 part 6: Stone you and then come back again

Every year Dylan sprinkles a few non-Dylan songs through his concerts.  In 2004, during the second leg of his US tour, up the east coast from 4^th June to 11^th June, he double billed with Willie Nelson, although they didn’t often appear on stage together.

Curiously, in one of these concerts, at Manchester (11^th June, Tennessee), Dylan performed four cover songs. This was not typical. The concerts we have been roughly following up to now, Glasgow, Rochester and Toronto, among others, had no non-Dylan songs. What was going on at Manchester, I’m not sure, but as far as I know some of these songs were firsts for the NET. And, what makes them of interest to us is that they are high-quality performances, not just fillers. Although there are not enough songs to make a full post, these Manchester performances are too interesting to leave behind.

Let’s start with the Merle Haggard song, ‘Sing Me Back Home.’ The song was released in 1968, was covered by Dylan’s old mates The Grateful Dead in 1971 and Flying Burrito Brothers in 1973, so Dylan would have been aware of it back then. Dylan likes prison songs, and this song is about someone about to be executed who wants to hear one last guitar song before he dies. It’s not too difficult to be a sucker for this kind of sentimentality:

I recall last Sunday morning a choir from 'cross the street
Came to sing a few old gospel songs
And I heard him tell the singers
There's a song my mama sang
Can I hear once before we move along?

The Merle Haggard original came in at under three minutes, but Dylan gives it a slow, loving treatment, stretching it to just under five minutes.

Sing Me Back Home

Hank Williams ‘You Win Again’ gets similar treatment. It was released in 1952, and again covered by the Grateful Dead. The Hank Williams version was only two and half minutes, but again, Dylan stretches it to five minutes. It is interesting that when Dylan does covers, he mostly returns to the songs of a previous generation, with a liking for cowboy tear-jerkers like this one:

You Win Again

‘Pancho & Lefty’ is country singer Townes Van Zandt’s best-known song, released in 1972 and widely covered by other artists including Guy Clarke and Steve Earle. Van Zandt and Willie Nelson made the song famous in 1983 with their duet.

The song ‘tells of a Mexican bandit named Pancho and his friendship with Lefty, the man who ultimately betrays him. Many of the details in the lyrics mirror the life of Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, who was killed by unknown assassins in 1923. Villa’s dying words? “Don’t let it end like this, tell them I said something great.”’ The fascinating story behind the writing of the song is told here:

Lefty, he can't sing the blues
All night long like he used to
The dust that Pancho bit down south
Ended up in Lefty's mouth

Dylan loves these songs of betrayal and again gives this one the lavish treatment.

Pancho & Lefty

‘Samson & Delilah’ was written by Blind Willie Johnson and Reverend Gary Davis, was again covered by The Grateful Dead, and retells in verse the biblical story of how Samson’s strength was taken away when Delilah cut his hair. You can think of it as another tale of betrayal.

Dylan gives it a fast, shuffle beat, and keeps the interest up for six minutes.

Samson and Delilah

That brings us to the end of the Manchester cover songs, but we have more; a stray ‘No More One More Time.’ This is written by Troy Seals and Dave Kirby and, since it came out in 1988, cannot be described as a golden oldie, except perhaps in the spirit of it.

It’s an ‘I’m going to get over you’ song, but the lyrics are not especially interesting, and I’m not sure what might have attracted Dylan to the song. Maybe he just likes those country chord changes, you know, the corny ones CDCG. I think Dylan’s performance makes the song sound better than it really is. (Undated, from the ‘Gone to the Finest Schools’ collection).

No more one more time

We can finish this off with two songs done on stage with Willie and Lucas Nelson. The first is the well known ‘Milk Cow Blues’ by Kokomo Arnold, dating back to 1934, and covered by many artists including Elvis Presley. It’s an archetypal blues song, open to a country or urban blues interpretation. Big Joe Williams did it in an urban style. This one’s from 8^th August. Dylan takes the last verse and does the piano backing.

Milk Cow Blues

The last one is ‘Heartland’ also with Lucas and Willie Nelson. It was written by
Steve Dorff, John Bettis and appeared in a movie called ‘Pure Country.’ It’s a patriotic song celebrating country music as being the very heart of America:

When you hear twin fiddles and a steel guitar
You're listenin' to the sound of the American heart
And opry music on a Saturday night
Brings a smile to your face and a tear to your eye

This one’s from 20^th August, Lincoln. I can’t hear much Dylan on this one. I guess he was sitting quietly at the piano letting it all happen.

 Heartland

So that’s it for 2004, a big year in which the sound Dylan evolved in 2003 was consolidated. Next post we’ll move on to 2005 and see what happened to the NET in that year.

Kia Ora.

—————-

About Untold

Untold is written by people who want to write for Untold. They don’t get paid; they just like to do it.

If you’d like to write for Untold, or if you would like to suggest an article or a series of articles we could cover, even if you can’t write it yourself, please do write in to Tony@schools.co.uk

We also have a very active Facebook group with over 14,000 members – if you would like to join please go on Facebook and search for Untold Dylan.

There are indexes to some of our series at the very top of the page just below the picture, and some more on the (not always up to date) home page.

If you have been, thank you for reading.

Tony Attwood

A list of all the previous articles in this series is given at the end.

by Patrick Roefflaer

• Released                        January 19, 1976
• Photographers                Ken Regan, Ruth Bernal, Stephanie Chernikowsky
• Collage                           Carl Barile
• Liner Notes                     Allen Ginsberg & Bob Dylan
• Art-director                     John Berg

In books or websites about album covers, Desire’s front cover is often depicted next to that of John Philips’ self-titled solo debut (1). It is often presented as an example of plagiarism or parody.

There are indeed quite a few similarities between the portraits of Dylan and those of the ex-leader of The Mamas and the Papas: on both covers we see the singer in profile, looking to the right. Both wear a grey felt hat, a scarf, and a coat with a collar of fur.

Too much to be accidental? John Berg, who was responsible for the design of the Desire cover, strongly denies that there is any influence: ‘No. I never even saw that [John Phillips cover]. I can’t imagine how I could plagiarize something I’ve never seen before.’ So Dylan is responsible. After all, he chose the photo.

The Rolling Thunder Revue 

In June 1975, Dylan moved back to New York to prepare for a new tour.

As he didn’t like the large-scale approach of his previous tour with The Band in 1974 (see Before the Flood), he searched for a new approach. The idea is to set up an itinerant show, to travel around and appear in small concert halls or even in coffee houses, without much publicity.

The core of the Rolling Thunder Revue is a regular band, but when they visit a city, local artists are invited to join them for the show.

For the design, Dylan calls on Jacques Levy, a New York writer and dramaturge. Levy wrote and directed the scandalous musical Oh Calcutta! and collaborated with Roger McGuinn on two dozen songs for The Byrds, including ‘Chestnut Mare’.

Dylan was impressed enough to ask him to collaborate on some songs together. Of the nine songs on Desire, Levy is credited as co-author.

Levy designs a décor that gives the Revue the appearance of an old-fashioned variety show. It starts with a yellow stage curtain with the name of the tour in circus letters. When the curtain is raised, a group of gypsy-like musicians becomes visible, standing on a large carpet.

“I was able to make it all very theatrical,” Levy explained. “At the beginning of the evening I had the whole band come on and everyone did a song. In between the songs, I put everything in a shadowy blue. People came up and people went off.” The setlist is built up to a grand finale – the performance of Dylan himself – followed by the encores with the whole gang together on stage.

Such a spectacle lends itself perfectly to a film adaptation. Dylan hires two professional film crews who film all the performances.  But also during rehearsals and informal sessions the cameras keep running.

It soon becomes clear that Bob has a film in mind that would involve much more than a simple concert recording. It has to be a Fellini-like work of art, with Bob, his wife, and his friends playing dramatic scenes. Sam Shepard is hired to write a script. The brief is simple but confusing:  “There doesn’t have to be coherence in it. One-third of the film is improvised, one-third is fixed and one-third is pure luck.” The young stage director is not sure what to do, and looking back concludes: “In the end, we didn’t write a script at all.” Instead, Shepard keeps a diary (2).

Unsurprisingly, the resulting four-hour film, Renaldo And Clara, is quite chaotic.

On Halloween, October 30, 1975, the Rolling Thunder Revue kicks off with a show in Plymouth, Massachusetts. According to Bob’s intention, the War Memorial Auditorium is a small hall that can hold only 1,800 spectators, in a city where rarely any renowned artists pass.

Of course, the choice of location was no coincidence: Plymouth famously is the place where, in 1620 the ship the Mayflower dropped anchor, where the first European pilgrims set foot on land. That was the first step towards the Declaration of Independence of the United States, on July 4, 1776 — an event whose 200th anniversary will be celebrated exuberantly when the film is released. (Although disappointingly, the premiere will only occur in January 1978).

The first day of shooting is October 31. Some improvised scenes are shot on the location. Dylan and his company (Roger McGuinn, Bobby Neuwirth, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, and a bearded man in a cowboy hat) pretend – somewhat predictably – that they come ashore with a boat.

Further scenes are shot when they visit the Mayflower II (a replica of the original boat), the famous Plymouth Rock, and Memorial State Park.

The photo that adorns the cover is made in that park, by Ken Regan.

Ken Regan

On the occasion of the release of his book All Access: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Photography of Ken Regan in 2011, the photographer revealed to Sean Fennessey how he became the only official photographer of the Rolling Thunder Revue (1975-76).

“That was because of (promoter) Bill Graham. I worked for some magazines and Time called me up: “We want to do something about Bob Dylan. He’s going on tour with his band and it’s the last tour with The Band.” I said, “I don’t know if that’s going to work. Bob is very concerned about his privacy […], but I’ll see what I can do.”

He calls Bill Graham. Graham shows Dylan some pictures of Ken and he gets his permission. “So Time sent me to Chicago. Bill was there and he introduced me to the big shots there. Finally, I got to join Bob. He was friendly and said he liked my pictures. ‘Don’t get in my way,’ he said. ‘Take pictures as much as you want of everyone who’s on stage, but backstage is taboo.’ Fine for me.

“That first night, I stood in the wings, doing my best to stay out of his sight. Fantastic experience. I’m always looking for a new angle and thought to take some pictures of the audience. In the second row I saw a lady in her sixties – grey hair and glasses on – and she was jumping and applauding. It was a beautiful sight, because she was surrounded by all young people.

“The next night I saw Bill, he told me that Bob hadn’t said anything and that it was okay. I asked him about that woman in the second row. He shouted, ‘Did you photograph her? That’s Bob’s mother. Don’t do anything with those photos because if Bob notices that, you’ll never come close to him again.’

“Time published some of my photos and I was over the moon. It was only the second time that a photo report of mine appeared in an important magazine.

“As always, I also made some prints for Bob, including his mother’s. Bill would deliver them to him.

“About a year later, I’m asleep at home — it’s 3 a.m. — when the phone rings. It’s Barry Imhoff, Bill Graham’s partner. ‘Hey Ken! How’re you doing?’

“I shout: ‘It’s damn 3 o’clock in the morning. I’m asleep! You there in California don’t take into account the time difference.’

“He says, ‘No, I’m in New York. I wanted to know if you have anything to do in the next few months.’

“I say, ‘No idea. I work for a few magazines. What’s up?’

“‘Yeah look, Bill and I are setting up a little tour and we were wondering if you were interested.’ I asked, “Can you tell me a little bit more?” He gives me Louie Kemp, a childhood friend of Dylan’s, who tells me that it’s a Bob Dylan tour and that they want to see me and if I want to cover the whole tour. I ask to speak to Barry again and cackle him out: ‘Man it’s 3 a.m. I don’t feel like having my leg pulled now’.”

“For a moment it is quiet on the line and then I hear a voice that I immediately recognize: Bob Dylan. ‘Ken, sorry we woke you up so early. We were rehearsing all day and I had no idea what time it was. I got your pictures and wanted to thank you for that, especially my mother’s. Because you didn’t use it, I know I can trust you. We want to see you. Bring your portfolio’.

“The next day I went to S.I.R. [Studio Instrument Rentals’ in Manhattan] where they were rehearsing. I saw Bob and Louie and Barry. After half an hour Bob said he would like me to do the tour. ‘It’s very unusual, because I’ve never done anything like this before. We will be away from home for about three months. Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, David Mansfield, T-Bone Burnett and some other people we pick up along the way will come along. We’re making a movie, which I’m directing, and I want you there to photograph everything, 24/7 – no restrictions. And no one else is allowed to take pictures.’

“During that tour I took 13,750 photos (4). Every night, after the performance or the party, Bob and I would sit together and look at the prints and he would say yes or no. He either approved of them or disapproved of them. After a few gigs, the phone calls came: People, Time, Rolling Stone… I told Bob and he said he expected something like that. ‘Just choose what you give to whom. Let me see them and make sure everyone has something exclusive.’ That was my big break at the magazines, because it was an exclusivity of Bob Dylan and it opened a lot of doors for me.”

It can’t be a coincidence that out of those 13,750 photographs Bob Dylan chose one that is so similar to that of John Phillips, taken there on the first day of the Rolling Thunder Revue, in a park in Plymouth.

Why this picture? As is so often the case with Bob Dylan, he himself does not give any explanation.

The back sleeve

The back shows a collage by Carl Barile, head art director at the glossy magazine Avenue. Some of the black and white photos are hand tinted.

Ruth Bernal is credited on the inner sleeve for the “collage photos”, but Rob Stoner assured me, in a mail dated January 6, 2020: “Pics by Stephanie Chernikowsky”. Perhaps Ruth Barile only made the central portrait of Bob, which is also used for the inner sleeve.

The singer looks down thoughtfully on that central photo. Around his neck a necklace with an Egyptian-inspired jewel – a design by Edward Merrifield (whose wife was friends with Sara Dylan). Around it we see, starting at the top left and then turning like the hands of a clock: drummer Howard Wyett with violinist Scarlet Riviera.   Then producer Don DeVito talking to his brother.

Below is a smaller portrait of Dylan, smoking and partially hidden under a drawing portraiting the writer Joseph Conrad. His 1915 novella Victory provided inspiration for the song ‘Black Diamond Bay’.’

Next we see Bob talking to Jacques Levy and at the bottom right Dylan in a baseball shirt, together with Sara.

Centre below is a text by Dylan, in which he talks about the landing at Plymouth Rock. Emmylou Harris is joined by a Buddha statue.

Above that: a photo with three people. It’s not clear who’s on the left, but according to Rob Stoner: “I’m on the far right of a trio with Dylan and Don DeVito.  We are listening to a take at the mixing console. The song is ‘Abandoned Love;’ eventually released on Biograph.   I’m the unidentified harmony singer on that track.”

Finally, the tarot card The Empress. A card that, according to the book by travelling journalist /writer Larry Sloman (5), always was prominently displayed in Sara’s hotel room.

Inner sleeve

For the vinyl release, the record itself was in a black protective cover. On one side, the large black and white portrait of Dylan is printed sheet filling. On the other side is a text by Allen Ginsberg, surrounded by the other photos of the back cover, with the Tarot card placed in the center. This time the photos are not colored.

Striking is the caption to the title Desire: ‘Songs of Redemption’.

Notes

1. Although John Phillips’ debut album (January 1970) is untitled, the record is often referred to as ‘The Wolfking of L.A.’, after a poem printed on the back of the cover.
2. Sam Shepard’s diary is later published as Rolling Thunder Logbook (The Viking Press, 1977/Penquin Books, 1978).
3. Ken Regan – All Access: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Photography of Ken Regan (Insight Editions, 2011)
4. Here’s a link to some of Regan’s photos about the tour.
5. Larry Sloman – On the Road with Bob Dylan (Crown Publishing, 1978/Three Rivers Press, 2002)

Previous articles from this series

• Another side of Bob Dylan
• Biograph – see Empire Burlesque
• Blonde On Blonde: The Artwork
• Blood on the Tracks
• Bob Dylan
• Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits
• Bringing it All Back Home
• Desire
• Down in the Groove
• Dylan
• Empire Burlesque and Biograph artwork
• Good as I’ve been to you
• Greatest Hits Volume II
• Infidels: what’s in a name?
• John Wesley Harding: the art work
• Knocked Out Loaded
• Nashville Skyline
• New Morning
• Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
• Self-Portrait
• Slow Train Coming
• Street Legal and the secret cover location
• The Basement Tapes
• The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan – the untold story of the artwork of the album
• The Times they are a changin’ album artwork
• Time out of Mind
• Travelling Wilburys Vol 1 (guest visitor, Michael Palin)
• Triplicate
• World Gone Wrong

Beelzebub And Lilith (Part VII)

• Mixing-Up The Fluids: Red Crimson And Yellow Dylan
• King Crimson And Yellow Dylan (Part II)
• The Crimson King And The Yellow Jester (Part III)
• King Crimson and the Yellow Jester (Part IV)
• King Crimson And BeelzeBob (Part V)
• The Crimson King And Serpent Lilith (Part VI)

by Larry Fyffe

Beelzebub, the crimson king, over time becomes conflated with Satan; he’s often represented as a symbol of evil by interpreters of the Holy Bible. Satan disguises himself as a snake, and seduces Adam’s once loyal wife Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Simplification be damned, however, and  Beelzebub, the grim reaper, becomes more complex –  depicted figuratively as a seven-headed dragon, upon which sits his consort, a demiurgic Lilith-like she-devil who seduces human beings:

And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour
And decked with gold and precious stones and pearls
Having a golden cup in her hand
Full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication
(Revelations 17:4)

Word images irresistible to creative and imaginative artists, including song writers:

There's a woman on my lap, and she's drinking champagne
Got white skin, got assassin's eyes
I'm looking up into sapphire-tinted skies
I'm well dressed, waiting on the last train

(Bob Dylan: Things Have Changed)

https://youtu.be/K_NvlvNWgsQ

An easy creative jump it be for an imaginative artist to portray one of the heads of the biblical crimson dragon as representing America, the Promised Land, a new and alluring place to start over.

But there’s bad news, a twist – America turns out to be the New Babylon (with its capital in Washington) that’s been released from the bottomless pit of Hell; the materialistic, not spiritualist, whore returns:

The road that you travel on

Goes to the Babylon
Girl with the rose in her hair
Starlight in the East
And you're finally released
You're stranded with nothing to share

(Bob Dylan: No Time To Think)

With the benefit of hindsight, the singer/songwriter elaborates on the biblical prophecy below:

And the woman which thou sawest is that great city
Which reigneth over the kings of the earth
(Revelation 17:18)

Interpreted in earlier biblical times that one head of the red dragon personifies Jerusalem, the capital of Judah whose inhabitants have not fully accepted the mysterious Hebrew God as their one and only commander, a regrettable mistake for which its inhabitants will surely suffer.

Updated in the song lyrics quoted beneath:

Every empire that's enslaved him is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon
He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand
In bed with nobody, under no one's command
He's the neighbourhood bully
(Bob Dylan: Neighbourhood Bully)

According to the narrator above, given all the ensuing circumstances, there be a nonZionist space that remains to have sympathy for the Hebrews – given the way they’ve been negatively portrayed by the Gospel of John, and the Book of Revelations in the New Testament.

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Untold Dylan is published daily (occasionally more often) and details of some of our series of articles can be found at the top of the page.   If you would like to write for Untold Dylan please email a copy of your article, or your idea for an article to Tony@schools.co.uk.   We also have a Facebook group – just go to Facebook and search for Untold Dylan.

By Tony Attwood

I’m working through Dylan songs in roughly alphabetical order looking for cover versions that are available free of charge on the internet and which offer an extra insight into the songs.  And this little article contains some meandering around … but if you have a few moments please stay with me because it ends with a masterpiece of musical invention.

So, to start from the start, I would love to be able to include a cover version of “In the Garden” at this point, just to see what others might make of its very odd musical construction, but I can only find one, and I really don’t like it.  Taking a song like that and just building up the hype doesn’t work for me on a musical level, so it is set aside and I have to move on.

“In the Summer time” comes up next and here again I can only find one cover that has a video freely available and it is by Chrissie Hynde.  We’ve already picked out this cover before in Jochen’s article on the song, and it is certainly worth a repeat.

This was part of a lockdown project in which the band recorded nine Dylan songs and which we covered in part as they were released.  It was fun then, as it is now.

So moving on again, “Is your love in vain” turns out once more to be a song that artists don’t really want to record, although it is part of the Girl from the North Country show and on this video starts around 4 minutes 30 seconds.

And so I move onto Isis and at last I have re-workings that I can evolve some prose of praise around.  Julie Corbalis .

Now taking on this song as a solo with just acoustic guitar as backing is one hell of a venture – it is a long piece of course which has the most extraordinary lyrics.  But here’s the problem – most of all already know all the lyrics by heart, so stripping up the band puts an awful lot on the vocal, especially if the accompaniment is simply strumming the guitar.

But I think she does give it a good bash.  And full marks for attempting what I don’t think many others have done.

By way of contrast we have Popa Chubby, who again goes for a less than full band approach, although not as minimalist as Julie Corbalis.  I think Popa gets more out of the lyrics than Julie – I feel a much greater need to listen and focus, maybe because of the variation in his approach, maybe the three musicians are so in tune with each other through the arrangement.   After each short instrumental break I’m ready to hear how he’s going to deliver the next verse.  After each verse I’m ready to hear what the band is going to next.

And finally something different again.  I love this Vitamin String Quartet instrumental.  If you have the time do go straight from the Popa Chubby version above into the VSQ – the VSQ version is almost a coda to the Chubby performance.  Of course this is helped by the fact that both performances are in the same key, but there is something more than that.   The VSQ version really is a final commentary on everything Popa Chubby puts into the piece.  And in many ways a final commentary on the composition.

I rather enjoyed that.

Here’s a list of most of the articles from this series…

• The song with numbers in the title.
• Ain’t Talkin
• All I really want to do
•  Angelina
•  Apple Suckling and Are you Ready.
• As I went out one morning
•  Ballad for a Friend
• Ballad in Plain D
• Ballad of a thin man
•  Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
• The ballad of Hollis Brown
• Beyond here lies nothing
• Blind Willie McTell
•  Black Crow Blues (more fun than you might recall)
• An unexpected cover of “Black Diamond Bay”
• Blowin in the wind as never before
• Bob Dylan’s Dream
• You will not believe this… 115th Dream revisited
• Boots of Spanish leather
• Born in Time
• Buckets of Rain
• Can you please crawl out your window
• Can’t wait
• Changing of the Guard
• Chimes of Freedom
• Country Pie
•  Crash on the Levee
• Dark Eyes
• Dear Landlord
• Desolation Row as never ever before (twice)
• Dignity.
• Dirge
• Don’t fall apart on me tonight.
• Don’t think twice
•  Down along the cove
• Drifter’s Escape
• Duquesne Whistle
• Farewell Angelina
• Foot of Pride and Forever Young
• Fourth Time Around
• From a Buick 6
• Gates of Eden
• Gotta Serve Somebody
• Hard Rain’s a-gonna Fall.
• 42 Heart of Mine
• 43: High Water
•  44: Highway 61.5
• 45: Hurricane
• 46: I am a lonesome hobo
• 47: I believe in you
• 48: I contain multitudes
• 49: I don’t believe you.
• 50: I love you too much
• 51: I pity the poor immigrent. 
•  52: I shall be released
• 53: I threw it all away
• 54: I want you
• 55: I was young when I left home
• 56: I’ll remember you
• 57: Idiot Wind and  More idiot wind
• 58: If not for you, and a rant against prosody
• 59: A Dylan cover a Day: If you Gotta Go, please go and do something different
• 60: If you see her say hello
• 61: Dylan cover a day: I’ll be your baby tonight
• 62: I’m not there.

An index to the whole series on the Never Ending Tour can be found here.     Below are the previous episodes for 2004.

• NET, 2004, Part 1 – The best singing audience
• NET 2004 part 2: The Jazz Connection
• Never Ending Tour, 2004, part 3, Harping On
• Never Ending Tour, 2004, Part 4 More jazz, regulars and rarities
• NET 2004 Part 5: Rocking on

By Mike Johnson (Kiwipoet)

When I get close to finishing my survey of a particular year of the NET, I often end with a rather ragbag collection of performances that are too good or too interesting to leave on the cutting room floor.

Take, for example, this version of ‘It Ain’t Me, Babe’ from the Glasgow concert.

 It ain’t me babe

It has a lot going for it. A powerful vocal and harmonica, an intriguing steady beat, and a completely new arrangement. The problem here is because at some stage in the past we have bonded with a song, with its previous incarnation, because we have loved it so much, identified with the particular performance that struck us, we find it hard to take in a new vision of the song. Then we start making up all sorts of reasons why it is inferior to the one we identify with.

It took me a while with this ‘It Ain’t Me, Babe’ but I think I finally got it. Despite the rigidity of the beat and the awkwardness in the way some of the vocal lines fit, it’s a powerful reconfiguration of the song.

I could say something similar about this performance of the soul-searching folk ballad, ‘If You See Her Say Hello’ from Blood on the Tracks:

If you see her say hello

It comes out as a country rock song, which gives it an upbeat mood. It took me a while to get used to it as a foot-tapper, but the change in tempo hasn’t worn the painful edge off the song. Dylan makes some significant changes to the lyrics here. I haven’t tried to transcribe them, but they are worth noting. There’s a bit more bitterness in these lyrics, which remind me of the slow, agonizing, 1976 performance with the lyrics transformed into a much darker, more bitter mood. Dylan seems to veer from performing this as a ‘nice’ song with laudable sentiments, to a splenetic expression of grief. The miracle of the song is that it is both at the same time. (No date for that one, I’m sorry)

The essence of a song, however, can’t change, and that’s evident from this countrified ‘I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight,’ from the Toronto show (20^th March)

I’ll be your baby tonight

It sounds great as a 1950’s style pop song. You could dance around the jukebox to this one. The careless beat, the apparent careless delivery. One of Dylan’s few genuinely carefree songs. He plays brilliantly with the vocal, playing a little tipsy (‘bring that bottle over here’), almost missing the beat but not quite. We can revel in the retro feel of it.

Rainy Day Woman is another song easy to overlook, and yet those brassy, insouciant opening chords, seeming to herald the arrival of the ringmaster of a circus, first pulled us into Blonde on Blonde. Hard to credit, fifty-five years on, just how provocative and dangerous this song was at the time. Play it too loud and you might get the police knocking at your door. It’s fine to sing this one with a bit of a stoned stumble. It’s all in good fun.

Rainy Day Woman

‘Tryin’ to Get to Heaven Before They Close the Door,’ from Time Out Of Mind benefits from the lusher sound Dylan achieves in 2004. There’s a sense of resignation in it. And that profound disorientation that marks most of the songs on the album:

They tell me everything is gonna be all right
But I don't know what "all right" even means

I couldn’t possibly have left out this beautifully considered performance.

Tryin’ to get to heaven

Any performance of ‘Man in the Long Black Coat’ is hard to overlook. It’s such a drama of seduction (but who’s seducing who?), and a marvellous mood piece. While I don’t think Dylan has ever matched the soaring 1995 performance at Prague, the song never fails to cast its spell. In this one Dylan slows the tempo way down and creates a spooky atmosphere with his echoey voice.

Man in the long black coat.

I nearly left ‘Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum’ behind, but realized in time that this was only my own preference in action. Like any other compiler making a selection, I tend to favour songs with which I have formed a strong connection.

It’s not just the words themselves which seem obscure, probably no more so than other Dylan songs from “Love and Theft”  but what may be driving the song. Often, despite the complexities in a Dylan song, most songs have a powerful affective centre. Look at the emotional drive in ‘Man In the Long Black Coat.’ The sense of horror and loss.

‘Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum’ doesn’t seem to have that kind of easily identifiable drive. I do see how it evokes the era of the 1920s and 30s, and I can see there’s a story of betrayal here, but I don’t have enough to answer the deceptively simple question – why did Dylan write this song? Favourite lines:

They walk among the stately trees
They know the secrets of the breeze

What also convinced me to include the song was the superior nature of the recording at Rochester. If any performance is going to get the song across it will be this one.

Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum

‘God Knows’ is a song about war, and the imminence of war, although the lyrics might apply to a personal relationship. Being able to sing of the personal and the political at the same time is one of Dylan’s great achievements. When I hear these lines,

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

I can’t help thinking of the situation in Ukraine unfolding as I write. The stretched tension in those lines is palpable. Maybe it has already snapped apart like putting scissors to a string. Can we face it?

God knows it’s terrifying
God sees it all unfold

This is another Dylan song that doesn’t lose its relevance as time goes on.

God Knows

We have heard some exquisite performances of ‘Girl from the North Country’ over the past few years, and since 1999 especially. Mostly quite delicate, acoustic pieces. However, like all the very early songs Dylan is still performing, the song has had to adapt to the piano. Dylan uses the same baroque arrangement as in 2003, but this Glasgow performance has a special warmth that marks that concert out in 2004. When it begins, it almost has the feel of a medieval madrigal. Dylan’s tribute to this early love is warm and affectionate, the harp has just the right touch of pathos, and it’s hard not to feel a tear in your eye. We might love those old acoustic guitar versions, but there’s no doubt this one has the power to move us.

Girl from the North Country

‘Positively 4^th Street’ is famous as an attack song:

You got a lotta nerve
To say you are my friend..

But while this performance is not exactly affectionate, with Dylan’s rough been-through-the-mill voice, tired and world-weary, these lines seem to have lost their most vicious edge. There are two performances of this one I think are of interest. The first is from Toronto, and Dylan puts some roughness into his voice, maybe trying to keep the sentimentality out. Toughening it up.

Positively 4th Street (A)

This second performance (date unknown) sounds more in sorrow than anger. The same song, slightly different edge.

Positively 4^th Street (B)

‘Saving Grace’ from Saved (1980) is something of a rarity. It is however a song that well suits Dylan’s rough careworn 2004 voice.

Death is often mentioned in the song; it’s near death that we might feel that ‘saving grace’ and the ongoing miracle of being alive. The sense that the prospect of death brings us closer to grace is the song’s driver, and Dylan’s 2004 crackle sounds closer to that ‘pine box for all eternity’ than the warm, vibrant album version. And is there not also a touch of wistfulness in it? That saving grace is there, but can we always feel it? And do we deserve it? There is perhaps as much hope as there is faith in this performance.

Saving Grace

‘Dignity’ is a song I can easily overlook as it seems like a second rank Dylan song, but it’s a rocker with a swirling movement. I had it on my list for Part 5 of 2004, but it didn’t quite make the cut. This Rochester performance however is full of vigour. Can’t resist a performance with this flair, and I’m happy to slip it in here.

 Dignity

I went down where the vultures feed
I would've got deeper, but there wasn't any need
Heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of men
Wasn't any difference to me

Chilly wind sharp as a razor blade
House on fire, debts unpaid
Gonna stand at the window, gonna ask the maid
Have you seen dignity

With lyrics like that, how come we tend to think of it as a ‘second rank’ Dylan song? Is there any such thing?

Acoustic or electric, ‘Masters of War’ has always been a strident song, but by 2004 that stridency has given way to a more funereal, threatening atmosphere, supported by Dylan’s dark thumping on the piano. I’d love to see this performance (8^th Oct, Fishkill) put on You Tube as background to scenes from the Ukraine war. Still another song that’s kept its relevance.

Masters of War

While on the subject of war, I nearly overlooked this ‘Cat’s in the Well’ from the Manchester concert. Another of those ‘second rank’ Dylan songs. Wonderful vocal performance from Dylan. Listen to how he stages these lines. I’ve tried to set them out as I hear them.

The cat's in the well, the horse is going bump etybump.
The cat's in the well, and the horse is going bump ety bump.
Back alley Sally is    doin’   the Ameeeer ican       jump.

Maybe this song would be a good one to play against the background of the Ukraine war. ‘The dogs are going to war’… they sure are. The song’s last line, ‘Goodnight my love, may the lord have mercy on us all’ seems like the perfect way to finish this post.

Cat’s in the well

So that’s it for now…. But hey! wait a minute, isn’t there something we might’ve missed? A song in the shadows? Ah, how could I forget the old warhorse, ‘Tangled up in Blue’? Gotta slip it in at the end here. This is a song that, like Dylan himself, just keeps on keeping on. (Toronto)

Tangled Up in Blue

Ah! That’s better. See you soon with a brief epilogue for 2004 – some on the non-
Dylan songs he covered that year.

Kia Ora

• Red River Shore (1997) part 1: She wrote me a letter
• Red River Shore (1997) part 2: The importance of capturing spontaneity
• Red River Shore part 3: Pretty angels all flying in a row
• Red River Shore (1997) part 4: I got a gal named Sue
• Red River Shore (1997) part 5: Mom says the pills must be working
• Red River Shore (1997): part 6;  Misery is but the shadow of happiness
• Red River Shore (1997) part 7: Please try to make it rhyme
• Red River Shore (1997) part 8:  He is no one
• Red River Shore (1997) part 9: A floating nothing
• Red River Shore (1997) part 10: Send it to Lulu
• Red River Shore (1997) part 11: It’s complicated

by Jochen Markhorst

XII        I see dead people

Now I heard of a guy who lived a long time ago
A man full of sorrow and strife
That if someone around him died and was dead
He knew how to bring ’em on back to life
Well I don’t know what kind of language he used
Or if they do that kind of thing anymore
Sometimes I think nobody ever saw me here at all
Except the girl from the red river shore

In The Graham Norton Show, former Friends actor Matthew Perry tells the amusing story of how, in a bar, he met M. Night Shyamalan, whom he knows a little because six months earlier he had presented an award to Bruce Willis for his impressive role in The Sixth Sense. And in the process, he got to say hello to the rest of the cast and the director. Perry spends an exceptionally enjoyable, alcohol-soaked evening with the world-famous director, they go to another joint together and Matthew is already dreaming of a major role in one of Shyamalan’s next films. When the director goes to the toilet, Perry is approached by an acquaintance who happens to be passing by.

“He said, how’s your night going, and I said: what, are you kidding? I’m having the greatest night of my life. M. Night Shyamalan and I have been hanging out for the last two and a half hours. It’s been great. And M. Night Shyamalan came back from the bathroom and my friend said: that’s not M. Night Shyamalan.

And it wasn’t. It was just an Indian gentleman who looked a lot like M. Night Shyamalan.”

Perry’s eagerness is understandable. He is offered plenty of roles, but all in the romantic comedy department, and M. Night Shyamalan is Hollywood’s golden boy at the time, after the smashing, worldwide success of the occult thriller The Sixth Sense. (1999). That success is 90% due to the script, also written by director Shyamalan. And especially because of its mindfuck quality, the bewildering twist at the end that the main character, psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), is dead – we have unsuspectingly been sympathising and identifying with a ghost all this time, a ghost that, apart from the cinema audience, is only seen by the other main character, nine-year-old Cole “I see dead people” Sear.

Cole also learns why these ghosts are wandering around: they have unfinished business, only see what they want to see and don’t even know they’re dead. And that all sounds awfully close to Dylan’s protagonist, after hearing the last two lines;

Sometimes I think nobody ever saw me here at all
Except the girl from the red river shore

… lines spoken by the protagonist after he announces that he is looking for a guy who can bring the dead back to life.

There are enough lines to be drawn from Shyamalan to Dylan. He uses Dylan’s music in his films, calls Dylan one of his great heroes in interviews and even confesses to feeling a kind of telepathic connection with the Bard (in Michael Bamberger’s weirdly hagiographic, authorised study The Man Who Heard Voices, 2006).

But the suggestion that these two Dylan lines inspired his one great masterpiece is way too far-fetched. It is highly unlikely that the script-writing director could have heard the unreleased song from January 1997 at the time he was writing the screenplay for The Sixth Sense. And then again, the concept of the-one-who-can-see-ghosts is not that unique.

Meg Ryan sees the angel Nicolas Cage in City Of Angels, the Hollywoodised version of the brilliant Wim Wenders film Der Himmel über Berlin (1987). Whoopi Goldberg is the only one who can hear the murdered Patrick Swayze in Ghost (1990). Nicolas Roeg’s classic Don’t Look Now, in a way. And the witty Ricky Gervais as a blunt dentist in Ghost Town (2008) is also the only one who can see dead people – the idea was of course created for horror, but is surprisingly often used in romantic comedies and child-friendly family films as well.

But what sets Dylan’s “Red River Shore” apart from all those stories, and what it shares with The Sixth Sense, is its surprising twist. I think nobody ever saw me here at all offers, in its final lines, a new scenario that overturns all that has gone before; the scenario in which the narrator dwells in the shadows of a fading past, wanders in the dimension where the angels fly, living in the moonlight, seeks his soul’s rest there where the black winds roar, for whom the sun doesn’t shine anymore…

The closing lines offer the advanced insight that we have listened to a jeremiad of a wandering soul, of a spirit that has unfinished business and that probably does not even realise that he is dead. At least, he seems to be surprised that no one can see him.  Except the girl from the Red River shore. And it turns the motivation to find the guy who can bring the dead back to life; this is not a repentant murderer trying to undo his misdeed with the reanimation of the Red River girl, but he himself, like the angel Nicolas Cage and the jazz pianist Joe Gardner, wants to be brought back to life.

Nice twist – though far from conclusive. Dylan’s apparent dissatisfaction with “Red River Shore” (the song is discarded for Time Out Of Mind and never put on the setlist either – it belongs to the rather select club of Dylan songs completely ignored by the master himself) may have something to do with its imbalance.

Comparably great works like “Blind Willie McTell” and “Series Of Dreams” are, after initial rejection, eventually rehabilitated. “Series Of Dreams” is admitted to the stage in Vienna, Virginia (8 September 1993) four years after its demotion to outtake, and performed nine more times thereafter. “Blind Willie McTell” takes longer to be rehabilitated, but then returns all the more glorious; to the dismay of producer Mark Knopfler, among others, it is rejected for Infidels in 1983, only to be released on The Bootleg Series in 1991, and after The Band records it and enjoys success with it, Dylan surrenders: since 1997, fourteen years after its conception, Dylan has performed the song 227 times.

A reluctant capitulation, still. Dylan seems only half convinced, judging by his statements in the interview with Jonathan Lethem for Rolling Stone, 2006 (when he has performed the song already about a hundred times):

“It was never developed fully, I never got around to completing it. There wouldn’t have been any other reason for leaving it off the record.”

“It was never developed fully” also seems to be the key to explain the fate of “Red River Shore”. Presumably, the poet only gradually, around the seventh verse, recognised the beautiful ambiguity of traumatised killer or wandering soul, made a mental note, but never got around to completing it. And now the song is dead.

It needn’t be too late. Perhaps Dylan should consider a night on the town with the writer/director of The Sixth Sense. Storyteller M. Night Shyamalan is, after all, a guy who knows how to bring ’em on back to life.

To be continued. Next up: Red River Shore part 13: ’Twas in the merry month of June – finale.

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:

• Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
• Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
• Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
• Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
• Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
• Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
• Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits
• John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville
• Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s lookin’ for the fuse
• Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978
• Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2^nd Big Bang

• Mixing-Up The Fluids: Red Crimson And Yellow Dylan
• King Crimson And Yellow Dylan (Part II)
• The Crimson King And The Yellow Jester (Part III)
• King Crimson and the Yellow Jester (Part IV)
• King Crimson And BeelzeBob (Part V)

by Larry Fyffe

The snake-like Lamia of ancient mythology, bewitched by the wife of Zeus, resurfaces as Lilith of biblical lore.

In the poem below, the alluring, but treacherous, shape-shifting night spirit is involved in a human relationship rather than with the crimson Beelzebub:

Her stately neck, and arms were bare
Her blue-veined feet unsandaled were
And wildly glittered here and there
The gems entangled in her hair
(Christabel: Samuel Coleridge)

In the following poem, sympathy is shown toward the beautified demon because of her desire to please the one she loves

She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue
Striped like a zebra, freakled like a pard
Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barred
(Lamia, part I: John Keats)

The Gothic Romantic bent of the poems above influences the  rhythmic ballad song beneath that’s from more recent times:

I'll twine 'mid the ringlets of my raven black hair
The lilies so pale, and the roses so fair
The myrtles so bright with an emerald hue
And the pale aronatus with eyes of bright blue
(I'll Twine 'Mid The Ringlets: J.P. Webster et al)

In the next song appears the Lilith/Lamia figure again; she’s  depicted as flawed – separated and alienated from the unitary gnostic Monad out there beyond the stars:

Your breath is sweet
Your eyes are like two jewels in the sky
Your back is straight, your hair is smooth
On the pillow where you lie
But I don't sense affection, no gratitude or love
Your loyalty is not to me, but to the stars above
(Bob Dylan: One More Cup Of Coffee)

Reversing the polarity of the optimistic sentiment expressed in the overwrought Romantic Transcendentalist poem quoted below:

Down by the merry brook
That runs through the vale
Where blossoms the roses
And the lilies so pale 
Where the clover sweet-scented
Perfumes all the air
(I'm Waiting For Thee: 'Maud Irving')

The following bluegrass song might even be construed as a murder ballad; the Lilith/Lamia narrator therein looks forward to reaping her vengeance after her lover rejects her:

Oh, he taught me to love him, and call me his flower
That was blooming to cheer him through life's dreary hour
Oh, I long to see him, and regret the dark hour
He's gone, and neglected his pale wildwood flower
(Wildwood Flower: Carter Family)

Bob Dylan, with the Band, performs a short rendition of “Wildwood Flower”.

By Tony Attwood

Here the whole concept of doing a study of some of the best cover versions of Dylan’s songs (which is the point of A Dylan Cover a Day in case you hadn’t noticed) falls apart.   Because there is no definitive version of the song by Dylan with which we can compare it.

The best version we have is this one (it starts with some filming that is nothing to do with the song, so if you are of an impatient disposition, you might want to pop along to around the 25 second mark.

And if you care to follow the lyrics, they are below.  They still sound to me as if they are improvised as Bob sings, but if that is the case how on earth did he manage to take it all the way to

And the old gypsy told her, like I said, “Carry on,”
I wish I was there to help her but I’m not there, I’m gone.

which is a masterpiece of an ending given all that was said before.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on about this utter masterpiece elsewhere on this site, and there’s not much I can add to that – except to note that this original by Dylan is far better than the cover version that turned up in the movie.  Which is really the reverse of the whole point of this series – what I am normally trying to comment on are the covers that ADD something to Dylan.  Nothing adds to Dylan in this case, although I’ve had a go myself out of desperation to give the world another version of this masterpiece.

We have published the lyrics before, and looking at them again I am correcting them here

Thing’s are all right and she’s all too tight
In my neighbourhood she cries both day and night
I know it because it was there
It’s a milestone but she’s down on her luck
And she’s daily salooning about to make a hard earned buck; 
   I was there.

I believe that she’d stop him if she would start to care
I believe that she’d look upon the side that used to care
And I’d go by the Lord anywhere she’s on my way
But I don’t belong there.

No, I don’t belong to her, I don’t belong to anybody
She’s my Christ-forsaken-angel but she don’t hear me cry
She’s a lone hearted mystic and she can’t carry on
When I’m there she’s all right, but then she’s not, when I’m gone.

Heaven knows that the answer she not calling no one
She’s the way, forsaken beauty for she’s mine, for the one
And I lost her hesitation by temptation lest  it runs
But she don’t honour me but I’m not there, I’m gone.

Now I’ll cry tonight like I cried the night before
And I’m leased on the highway  but I still dream about the door
It’s so long, she’s forsaken by her faith, (where’s to tell?)
It don’t have consternation she’s my all, fare thee well.

Now when I’ll teach that lady I was born to love her
But she knows that the kingdom waits so high above her
And I run but I race but it’s not too fast or still
But I don’t perceive her, I’m not there, I’m gone.

Well it’s all about diffusion and I cry for her veil
I don’t need anybody now beside me to tell
And it’s all affirmation I receive but it’s not
She’s a lone-hearted beauty 
    but she don’t like this spot and she’ gone.

Yeah, she’s gone like the radio, the shining yesterday
But now she’s home beside me and I’d like her here to stay
She’s a lone, forsaken beauty and I don’t trust anyone
And I wish I was beside her but I’m not there, I’m gone.

 Well, it’s too hard to stay here and I don’t want to leave
It’s so bad, for so few see, but she’s a heart too hard to need
It’s alone, it’s a crime the way she hauls me around
But she don’t fall to hate me but tears are gone; a painted clown.

Yes, I believe that it’s rightful oh, I believe it in my mind
I’ve been told like I said one night before “Carry on the crying”
And the old gypsy told her, like I said, “Carry on,”
I wish I was there to help her but I’m not there, I’m gone.

This version I really like – I don’t know who this guy is, but full credit to him for taking this very difficult song on.  He even gets the breathing right, and certainly holds my attention.

And one more.  Ignore the date – that can’t be right.  I don’t think the opening works, but it improves… do stay with it – after 40 seconds they get going.   I wonder why the guys didn’t hear that this opening needs a much stronger solo male vocal if you are going to try it.

The instrumental verse however is perfect – brilliant thought out and executed even though the recording is a little rough.

Finally this is the version you’ll know from the soundtrack.

This is an utterly staggering song, and it deserves much more in terms of attention than these few versions.  But then as ever these are just my opinions.

Last up: the interview with the producer director Todd Haynes discussing “I’m not there” and the issue of cover versions.

https://youtu.be/bR66am6F6IE

Here’s a list of most of the articles from this series…

• The song with numbers in the title.
• Ain’t Talkin
• All I really want to do
•  Angelina
•  Apple Suckling and Are you Ready.
• As I went out one morning
•  Ballad for a Friend
• Ballad in Plain D
• Ballad of a thin man
•  Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
• The ballad of Hollis Brown
• Beyond here lies nothing
• Blind Willie McTell
•  Black Crow Blues (more fun than you might recall)
• An unexpected cover of “Black Diamond Bay”
• Blowin in the wind as never before
• Bob Dylan’s Dream
• You will not believe this… 115th Dream revisited
• Boots of Spanish leather
• Born in Time
• Buckets of Rain
• Can you please crawl out your window
• Can’t wait
• Changing of the Guard
• Chimes of Freedom
• Country Pie
•  Crash on the Levee
• Dark Eyes
• Dear Landlord
• Desolation Row as never ever before (twice)
• Dignity.
• Dirge
• Don’t fall apart on me tonight.
• Don’t think twice
•  Down along the cove
• Drifter’s Escape
• Duquesne Whistle
• Farewell Angelina
• Foot of Pride and Forever Young
• Fourth Time Around
• From a Buick 6
• Gates of Eden
• Gotta Serve Somebody
• Hard Rain’s a-gonna Fall.
• 42 Heart of Mine
• 43: High Water
•  44: Highway 61.5
• 45: Hurricane
• 46: I am a lonesome hobo
• 47: I believe in you
• 48: I contain multitudes
• 49: I don’t believe you.
• 50: I love you too much
• 51: I pity the poor immigrent. 
•  52: I shall be released
• 53: I threw it all away
• 54: I want you
• 55: I was young when I left home
• 56: I’ll remember you
• 57: Idiot Wind and  More idiot wind
• 58: If not for you, and a rant against prosody
• 59: A Dylan cover a Day: If you Gotta Go, please go and do something different
• 60: If you see her say hello
• 61: Dylan cover a day: I’ll be your baby tonight

• Red River Shore (1997) part 1: She wrote me a letter
• Red River Shore (1997) part 2: The importance of capturing spontaneity
• Red River Shore part 3: Pretty angels all flying in a row
• Red River Shore (1997) part 4: I got a gal named Sue
• Red River Shore (1997) part 5: Mom says the pills must be working
• Red River Shore (1997): part 6;  Misery is but the shadow of happiness
• Red River Shore (1997) part 7: Please try to make it rhyme
• Red River Shore (1997) part 8:  He is no one
• Red River Shore (1997) part 9: A floating nothing
• Red River Shore (1997) part 10: Send it to Lulu

by Jochen Markhorst

XI         It’s complicated

Now I heard of a guy who lived a long time ago
A man full of sorrow and strife
That if someone around him died and was dead
He knew how to bring ’em on back to life
Well I don’t know what kind of language he used
Or if they do that kind of thing anymore
Sometimes I think nobody ever saw me here at all
Except the girl from the red river shore

Dylan also comes along for a moment. In “the Zone”, the border area where the soul resides for a while when you are enraptured on earth – by music, for example. And that, “the Zone”, is where Moonwind Stardancer’s ship sails; to the sounds of “Subterranean Homesick Blues”. Protagonist Joe roams around there, looking for Moonwind, because Moonwind knows how to bring him back to life. In Soul, the overpowering 2020 Pixar film, the soul of dying jazz pianist Joe Gardner can be brought back to life if he has a fully ticked off Earth Pass that grants him access to Earth, and thus back to his lifeless body. In The Great Before, the dimension where souls are prepared for Life, he must obtain one. A given used at about the same time by filmmaker Edson Oda for his thoroughly poetic film Nine Days (2020); in a lonely house on an unreal plain, the hermit selects, in nine-day interview sessions, the souls that are allowed to go to a body on Earth. The scenario is a Swiss cheese, but oh well; the images are pure poetry and the actors are sublimely cast.

Reanimation as a theme is of all times, but in most cases the plot leads to fright and horror, to sorrow and strife. The Flatliners who deliberately kill themselves and then reanimate each other do not exactly enjoy their regained, nightmarish lives (1990), and the life broker in the rip-off The Lazarus Effect (2017) also horribly regrets the monster he creates when he revives his own wrecked girl from the Red River shore, fiancée Zoë. She turns into an unstoppable killing machine with supernatural powers. And similar horror is provided by most reanimation stories and the dozens of Frankenstein films.

Only a handful of films have a positive twist like Soul. The Crow, although a gory revenge film, has a sort of happy ending for the revived Brandon Lee (whose actual death during the shooting is filmed, lugubriously, as a fake gun accidentally shoots a projectile into his stomach). And the cinematic monument RoboCop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987) is not quite a feel-good movie either, but the reanimated cop Alex Murphy is at least programmed to serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and uphold the law. And is inspired by the most famous reanimator of all time, the same one who also inspires Dylan;

“The point of RoboCop is, of course, it is a Christ story. It is about a guy that gets crucified after 50 minutes, then is resurrected in the next 50 minutes and then is like the super-cop of the world, but is also a Jesus figure as he walks over water at the end.”
(director Paul Verhoeven in MTV News, 2010)

The final couplet of “Red River Shore” is, without a doubt, the most fascinating one of the song. Every line is striking and the whole, like Dylan’s best final couplets, offers both a twist on the previous stanzas and a menu of possible scenarios.

The opening, I heard of a guy who lived a long time ago, masks through the choice of words (“a guy”) the identity of Jesus, who therefore all the more surprisingly three lines later turns out to be “the guy”. For the time being, the storyteller keeps the suspense going; the “guy” was a man full of sorrow and strife. Which pushes the associations, again through word choice, to medieval tragic heroes and ancient murder ballads. Identical word choice as in one of the many “Matty Groves” variants, for example. In the seventeenth century, troubadours sang about Matty (or rather: about Little Musgrave, as he was more often called in those days):

‘To lodge wi thee a’ night, fair lady, 
Wad breed baith sorrow and strife; 
For I see by the rings on your fingers 
You’re good Lord Barnaby’s wife.’

… and to the nineteenth-century “Arthur McBride”, the song Dylan interprets so lovingly, seven years before “Red River Shore”, on Good As I Been To You (“And he pays all his debts without sorrow and strife”).

But on the other hand, it already has an evangelical connotation; “Sorrow and strife” does indeed have a New Testament colour, is a word combination that is otherwise only to be found in gospel music. In “Wait For Me” by The Statesmen for example, Brenda Lee’s “Some People”, and in old hymns like “Jesus, I Come” and “Out Of My Darkness Into Thy Light” – all edifying songs in which a longing for liberation from earthly sorrow and strife and for union with Jesus is sung. With the single use of those two words sorrow and strife, in short, the poet builds a bridge from the old-fashioned folk atmosphere of the previous seven stanzas to the introduction of the gospel in this finale. A bridge that becomes all the more solid with the following if someone around him died and was dead; again that Biblical tone, the tautological of John (“he who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth,” 3:31), Esther (“and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink,” 4:16), Proverbs 14:24 (“the foolishness of fools is folly”), to name but three examples – the Bible is rich in tautologies like Dylan’s he died and was dead.

The road is paved. So, in this chapter 8, verse 4 we get to know who the guy is: the most famous reanimator of all time, that is. But still described with the same pleasantly disrespectful, folksy tone: He knew how to bring ’em on back to life. Undertones: boy, he was quite something, this guy Jesus. The same tone Dylan uses in “Highway 61 Revisited” in the dialogue of Abraham and God; man, you must be puttin’ me on.

Apart from that: the insinuation confirms the veiled hints from the previous verses; the narrator is looking for a guy who can bring the dead back to life – and thus insinuates that his girl from the Red River shore is dead. More than that, he reaffirms the vague suspicion that he himself is the murderer. After the cryptic opening in which he suggests that he has scared her to death in the dark, after which she has left for an area where the angels fly, and after the in this scenario rather lugubrious words she should always be with me, and all subsequent ambiguous outpourings, this is then relatively unambiguous – after “death” in the opening the narrator, neatly cyclic, returns in his closing words to the words dead, died and back to life. Words of a desperate, repentant sinner who needs a deus ex machina to undo auld lang syne, to dissolve the shadows of his past.

But: this is a Dylan song in the same category as “Desolation Row” and “Mississippi”, in the category of monumental songs that meander between lyricism and epicism, that insinuate more than they tell, that don’t show anything more than what the broken glass reflects. The poet has one final twist up his sleeve…

JOE
Does this mean I’m… dead?

COUNSELOR JERRY A
Not yet. Your body’s in a holding pattern. It’s complicated.

To be continued. Next up: Red River Shore part 12: I see dead people

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:

• Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
• Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
• Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
• Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
• Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
• Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
• Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits
• John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville
• Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s lookin’ for the fuse
• Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978
• Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2^nd Big Bang

A list of all the previous articles in this series is given at the end.

by Patrick Roefflaer

• Released                                1989-09-12
• Graffiti                                   Remerro Trotsky Williams
• Photographer                       Suzie-Q
• Art-director                          Christopher Austopchuck
• Type Design                          Mark Burdett

Often, when a photo is needed for the cover of his next album, Bob Dylan invites a photographer to meet him at the recording studio where the sessions took place, usually during the mixing stage.

His 26 studio album, Oh Mercy, was famously recorded in New Orleans in the Spring of 1989. But when the record company asks for a photo, the singer is in New York City, where he is rehearsing for his imminent Summer tour.

Tour 89 starts in Europe, on May 27. There’s only a two-day break between the last show in Athens, Greece on June 28 and the start of the American leg in Peoria, Illinois, on July 1^st. That tour ends on September 24.

A show is planned in New Orleans on August 25, but that’s too late to obtain a picture for the album.  So, it’s time for a plan B.

The rehearsals take place in The Power Station in the Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood in Manhattan. Those recording facilities are located at 441 West 53rd Street. On the next corner – just a three-minute walk – is a Chinese Restaurant, Kowk Wah.

The entrance of the restaurant is on 9^th Street,  the wall facing West 53^rd is graced with a colorful acrylic-on-brick mural, which charms Bob Dylan. The mural is signed: Trotsky ‘86.

Dylan has the work photographed.  The photograph was taken by JIM LINDERMAN / DULL TOOL DIM BULB.

With the help of a local community group, representatives of Columbia Records locate the artist living just across the street of the mural. They find that his name is actually Trotksy: Remerro Trotsky Williams.

Williams was born (in February 1953) and raised in Washington DC.  He had painted murals in his hometown, and on the West German side of the Berlin Wall before creating the ‘Dancing Couple’ mural.

In an interview with New York Magazine, published in September 1989,  Trotsky recounted: “I had just come from the housing court, and I owed thousands of dollars in rent. I was just about to give up and move to Atlanta or Istanbul, and I get a phone call: ‘CBS calling – we want to use one of your paintings for the Bob Dylan LP’, and I say ‘You’re kidding me; this is some kind of cruel joke; go away, but give me your number and I’ll call you back.’ I called back and it ended up being a real thing.”

The artist is offered $5,000 for the use of his art on the next Bob Dylan album and he’s invited to meet the singer (probably on July 23 at the show at the Jones Beach Theatre, Wantagh, Long Island, NYC).

“He told me my painting blew him away,” says the artist in another late 1989 interview for People. “He was also concerned that I liked the title of the album to go with my artwork. That was very nice.”

”I’m hot right now and I love it,” Trostky concluded. However, a few months later he was diagnosed with HIV. Luckily he survived.

The mural itself self however didn’t survive. In 2011 it was replaced by two new pieces of wall art. Nowadays the place is a pizzeria, called Norma. The brick wall is painted brownish, without any artworks.

On the back of the cover is a photo of the singer with a hat, according to the credits taken by Suzie-Q. This probably refers to his clothing advisor, Suzie Pullen.

The overall design of the album is overseen by Christopher Austopchuck, graphic design professor at the School of Visual Arts. As Creative Director for CBS, he was responsible for the art works for three other Bob Dylan related albums: The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991 (1991), The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration (1992) and  Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3 (1994).

Type Design by Mark Burdett, another photographer & art director for CBS.

————-

This is a continuing series of articles with illustrations, concerning the origins of and decision making within, creating the covers of Bob Dylan’s albums.

Here are the articles so far .  All are by Patrick Roefflaer.

• Another side of Bob Dylan
• Biograph – see Empire Burlesque
• Blonde On Blonde: The Artwork
• Blood on the Tracks
• Bob Dylan
• Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits
• Bringing it All Back Home
• Down in the Groove
• Dylan
• Empire Burlesque and Biograph artwork
• Good as I’ve been to you
• Greatest Hits Volume II
• Infidels: what’s in a name?
• John Wesley Harding: the art work
• Knocked Out Loaded
• Nashville Skyline
• New Morning
• Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
• Self-Portrait
• Slow Train Coming
• Street Legal and the secret cover location
• The Basement Tapes
• The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan – the untold story of the artwork of the album
• The Times they are a changin’ album artwork
• Time out of Mind
• Travelling Wilburys Vol 1 (guest visitor, Michael Palin)
• Triplicate
• World Gone Wrong

• Mixing-Up The Fluids: Red Crimson And Yellow Dylan
• King Crimson And Yellow Dylan (Part II)
• The Crimson King And The Yellow Jester (Part III)
• King Crimson and the Yellow Jester (Part IV)

By Larry Fyffe

In the Gnostic-like Book of Revelations of the New Testament, Satan is depicted as a red dragon with seven heads. In the Old Testament, as a smooth-talking serpent whereby humans end up mortal:

Now the serpent was more subtil than any  beast of the field
Which the Lord had made
(Genesis 3:1)

Whether by flies or by fires, death consumes us all – the biblical winged Baalzebub and red Satan symbolic thereof.

As in the Gospels of the Holy Bible, the recordings of the musical band known as ‘King Crimson’ merge the two demons  – Beelzebub with Satan.

Inspired no doubt by the Blakean-tiger-pounching song lyrics below written by Bob Dylan:

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rolling high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
(Bob Dylan: My Back Pages)

In the New Testament of the Holy  Bible, Jesus (who gets raised to God’s level in the Christian religion) is accused of being a follower of Satan, not of God:

And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said
"He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils
Casteth he out devils"
(Mark 3:22)

To which Jesus, the Christian Messiah-to-be, replies:

" ...How can Satan cast out Satan?
And if a kingdom be divided against itself
That kingdom cannot stand"
(Mark 3: 23, 24 )

In a number of his songs, BeelzeBob Dylan tries to reconcile good (God) and evil (the Devil) both of whom the singer/songwriter takes as haunting the souls of us all; he attempts to marry Heaven and Hell [please click on the link after the four lines from the song to hear a cover version].

I been double-crossed now
For the very last time, and now I'm finally free
I kissed goodbye to the howling beast
On the borderline which separated you from me
(Bob Dylan: Idiot Wind)

However, Satan, the beastly side of the Almighty One, hangs around; isn’t that easy to get rid of:

I dreamt a monstrous dream
Something came up out of the sea
Swept through the land of the rich and the free
(Bob Dylan: 'Cross The Green Mountain)

There is a list of most of the earlier articles from this series at the end of the article.

By Tony Attwood

If this song has to be anything, it has to be fun.  Which means a lilting beat and beautiful harmonies.  Or delicate.  Or beautiful.  Or smooth.  Or lilting… which explains why this is so successful a song.  It can be what you make it.

Just let this track play and enjoy the perfection as well as the smoothness…  It is by the Shaken Bakers, of whom I know next to nothing – if you know please fill in a comment and tell me more.

By way of contrast Dennis Bono turns the song into something utterly different.  Dennis Bono, was noted as “the consummate interpreter of the Great American Songbook,” by the Chicago Tribune as “a thoroughbred singer, born and bred to sing.”

It doesn’t do much for me, but that’s just me.   It’s the other end of the spectrum from the Shaken Bakers.

Many of the hundreds of recordings of this song are just obvious in what they do, relying on us knowing the song and accepting it as background music.

But some, like those above, make the effort, and in that category we must include Clare Teal and Her Mini Big Band.  A really good middle eight, and a suitably understated use of the full band.

Just one more to show what people with musical imagination (as opposed to people who do the obvious) can actually do with a Dylan song.  It’s not revolutionary, but it has its own beauty, and there are moments in life (if you are very lucky) when it applies.  By the end, chances are, you are ready to fall asleep in her arms.

If you have been, thanks for reading.

Here’s a list of most of the articles from this series…

• The song with numbers in the title.
• Ain’t Talkin
• All I really want to do
•  Angelina
•  Apple Suckling and Are you Ready.
• As I went out one morning
•  Ballad for a Friend
• Ballad in Plain D
• Ballad of a thin man
•  Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
• The ballad of Hollis Brown
• Beyond here lies nothing
• Blind Willie McTell
•  Black Crow Blues (more fun than you might recall)
• An unexpected cover of “Black Diamond Bay”
• Blowin in the wind as never before
• Bob Dylan’s Dream
• You will not believe this… 115th Dream revisited
• Boots of Spanish leather
• Born in Time
• Buckets of Rain
• Can you please crawl out your window
• Can’t wait
• Changing of the Guard
• Chimes of Freedom
• Country Pie
•  Crash on the Levee
• Dark Eyes
• Dear Landlord
• Desolation Row as never ever before (twice)
• Dignity.
• Dirge
• Don’t fall apart on me tonight.
• Don’t think twice
•  Down along the cove
• Drifter’s Escape
• Duquesne Whistle
• Farewell Angelina
• Foot of Pride and Forever Young
• Fourth Time Around
• From a Buick 6
• Gates of Eden
• Gotta Serve Somebody
• Hard Rain’s a-gonna Fall.
• 42 Heart of Mine
• 43: High Water
•  44: Highway 61.5
• 45: Hurricane
• 46: I am a lonesome hobo
• 47: I believe in you
• 48: I contain multitudes
• 49: I don’t believe you.
• 50: I love you too much
• 51: I pity the poor immigrent. 
•  52: I shall be released
• 53: I threw it all away
• 54: I want you
• 55: I was young when I left home
• 56: I’ll remember you
• 57: Idiot Wind and  More idiot wind
• 58: If not for you, and a rant against prosody
• 59: A Dylan cover a Day: If you Gotta Go, please go and do something different
• 60: If you see her say hello

• Red River Shore (1997) part 1: She wrote me a letter
• Red River Shore (1997) part 2: The importance of capturing spontaneity
• Red River Shore part 3: Pretty angels all flying in a row
• Red River Shore (1997) part 4: I got a gal named Sue
• Red River Shore (1997) part 5: Mom says the pills must be working
• Red River Shore (1997): part 6;  Misery is but the shadow of happiness
• Red River Shore (1997) part 7: Please try to make it rhyme
• Red River Shore (1997) part 8:  He is no one
• Red River Shore (1997) part 9: A floating nothing

by Jochen Markhorst

X          Send it to Lulu

Well I went back to see about her once
Went back to straighten it out
Everybody that I talked to had seen us there
Said they didn’t know who I was talking about
Well the sun went down on me a long time ago
I’ve had to pull back from the door
I wish I could have spent every hour of my life
With the girl from the red river shore

 Chancellor Merkel also plays along. In 2012, at a prize-giving ceremony, she happens to mention a recent visit to the town of Bielefeld, a small city in North Rhine-Westphalia. She drops a dramatically perfect pause and then adds: “… so es denn existiert – if it exists at all.” The audience laughs all the louder, as Frau Merkel very rarely allows herself to indulge in frivolities. When the laughter subsides, the Chancellor places, again perfectly timed: “Ich hatte den Eindruck, ich war da – I was under the impression that I was there.”

Merkel is referring to a running gag that by then has been popular in Germany for nearly 30 years: the collective conspiracy to maintain that Bielefeld does not exist at all. Its existence is said to have been fabricated by, as befits a good conspiracy theory, an unnamed “THEY” (“SIE” – always written in capitals).

The city council deals with it somewhat ambiguously. For the first few years, until 1999, the increasingly popular joke is ignored, but then the council decides on a counter-offensive and launches the Bielefeld gibt es doch! campaign (“Bielefeld does exist!”) with an official press release. Unfortunately, an inattentive official sends the official statement to the press on 1 April, so obviously, it backfires. In 2019, the next counter-offensive follows: the city council awards 1 million euros to the person who can prove conclusively that Bielefeld does not exist.

Usually, it is less funny, such a collective conspiracy. Which seems to be Dylan’s approach now; the less funny track. Apparently, the previous verse, the I know I’ve stayed here before verse, inspires him to the plot of an old-fashioned mystery thriller – the plot of a movie like The Lady Vanishes, to be more precise. Not too far-fetched; Hitchcock is on a pedestal with Dylan. In interviews, he does mention the director quite frequently, always admiringly, Hitchcock passes by once in Tarantula (“the world didn’t stop for a second – it just blew up / alfred hitchcock made the whole thing into a mystery”) and anyway: Dylan does have a fondness for old black and white crime thrillers in general.

In this old Hitchcock film (The Lady Vanishes is from 1938 and is considered one of Hitchcock’s “early sound films”), the plot revolves around a young woman who seems to be the only one to notice the disappearance of a fellow passenger on the train, the elderly lady Miss Froy. The other passengers and the train staff all claim they never saw her. Everybody that I talked to had seen us there said they didn’t know who I was talking about. A doctor present diagnoses hallucinations in poor, desperate Iris, and is not bothered by professional secrecy; he blabbers about it all over the train. An artifice that effectively contributes to the feeling of increasing suffocation for both the protagonist and the audience – in a more modern film (2005) with a similar plot, Flightplan with Jodie Foster, poor Jodie is even tied to her plane seat by supposedly well-meaning airline staff, and a therapist present there diagnoses something like hallucinations due to an unresolved trauma. Which, of course, exponentially increases the helpless frustration of the audience and Jodie. Especially since the missing lady in this film is Jodie’s six-year-old daughter – an extra traumatising dimension already added in Otto Preminger’s Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) and later, in a variant, in Clint Eastwood’s Changeling with Angelina Jolie.

There is a difference though, a psychological deepening in fact, with Dylan’s protagonist – in all these films, the unhappy protagonist has at least one powerful ally: the audience. We have all witnessed that Miss Froy really exists, that Jodie Foster is not crazy and that little Bunny Lake is not a figment of a mentally ill lady’s imagination either. In “Red River Shore”, however, the screenwriter has already sown doubts about the protagonist; the audience has already heard him say that his time with that girl was “a dream”, has heard him sigh that she was “true to me”, and we even have some reason to suspect that the protagonist is a traumatised murderer – with all those whole and half references to a fatal event in the shadows of the past.

The build-up is good. “I went back to see about her once, went back to straighten it out” is an announcement that already makes the audience cringe: “Don’t do it, man.” The subsequent observation that everyone denies knowing her, all those people that had seen us there together back then, is then even a bit of a relief; thankfully, the whole village conspires to keep this dubious figure away from her. We, the audience, even become accomplices in a way; unlike in all those paranoia films, we are not on the side of the victim of the conspiracy, but we have sympathy for the conspirators.

It seems to break the I-person. “The sun went down on me a long time ago / I’ve had to pull back from the door” – Dylan’s paraphrase of the poetic resignation from a recent pop song beyond categorization, from Elton John’s 1974 “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”. The brilliant song, which superficially expresses a long jeremiad of a spurned lover, but with, as lyricist Bernie Taupin says, “a dark twist”;

But you misread my meaning when I met you
Closed the door and left me blinded by the light
Don't let the sun go down on me
Although I search myself, it's always someone else I see
I'd just allow a fragment of your life to wander free
But losing everything is like the sun going down on me

An hors catégorie song that achieves a Holy Trinity: majestic lyrics with a dark twist, delightful melodies and a brilliant, just not over-the-top from babbling-mountain-brook-to-wilderness waterfall arrangement. Thanks to the chilling elegance of Davey Johnstone’s guitar, Del Newman’s superior horn arrangement and the heavenly backing vocals of the Beach Boys Carl Wilson and Bruce Johnston (and Toni Tennille of Captain & Tenille).

Elton, too, had an opinion, by the way:

“I’m not always the best judge of my own work – I am, after all, the man who loudly announced that ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’ was such a terrible song that I would never countenance releasing it […]. I hated the song so much we were going to stop recording it immediately and send it to Engelbert Humperdinck – ‘and if he doesn’t want it, tell him to send it to Lulu! She can put it on a B-side!’ – I was coaxed back to the vocal booth and completed the take. Then I yelled at Gus Dudgeon that I hated it even more now it was finished and was going to kill him with my bare hands if he put it on the album.”
(Me – Elton John, 2019)

Which, in retrospect, makes us regret that Gus Dudgeon was not the producer in Miami in January 1997. To coax Dylan back and complete the song.

To be continued. Next up: Red River Shore part 11: It’s complicated

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:

• Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
• Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
• Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
• Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
• Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
• Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
• Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits
• John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville
• Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s lookin’ for the fuse
• Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978
• Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2^nd Big Bang