The giggling, playful, frisky performer who stood before an adoring audience at New York’s Philharmonic Hall on Halloween night 1964 blossoms into something nobody anticipated during the Newport Mod portion of Bob Dylan’s career. It was as if the heavily organized, tradition-addicted New York folk movement had gone to its sanctioned nursery, selected its preordained type of rose, planted it according to time-honored ritual, pruned it religiously (as dictated by a Library of Congress manual), and awakened one morning to discover the sacred rosebud had morphed into a rabbit who ate all the flowers in the garden and hopped off to find another nesting place.
Never mind that the faithful folkies had been warned. They laughed heartily when their chosen one inquired if “Mary Had a Little Lamb” was a protest song that Halloween night. They totally missed the fact that their designated hero stood before them and mocked their sacred texts. Warnings were everywhere: on the first album (“Talkin’ New York”), during the recording of the second album (and the electric-based outtakes and Dylan’s first single, “Mixed up Confusion”), within the liner notes of his third and fourth albums, and in the thematic shifts on Another Side. No, they ignored it all; believing what they had ordained, they would realize. Their control was complete. Their traditions were inviolable.
No wonder those people went nuts in the summer of 1965.
Radical is the best descriptor for the changes we’re about to observe. The seeds of Dylan’s characterological versatility were planted and nurtured on the Iron Range, and they experienced a major growth spurt in 1965. The March release of Bringing It All Back Home, the spring tour of England and the filming of Dont Look Back, the July appearance at the Newport Folk Festival, and the August release of Highway 61 Revisited flowed from an inspired creative nexus. Our actor concocted a new mission and devised a new Show, Look, and Script to serve that “idea.” The results are historic.
When he performed at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, Dylan unveiled his new version of The Show, shocked his idolatrous following, and formally introduced the Newport Mod Era—a period that blends Iron Range rebellion with the British subculture’s stylistic attitude. For insight, I turn to English journalist Nik Cohn—a writer who thoroughly understands Mod culture—to describe The Look:
In place of the Minnesota boy scout, a whole new face emerged, watchful and withdrawn, cold and arrogant and often mean, full of conscious hipnesses. In particular, he became secret—he stonewalled and played games and pulled faces, let nobody intrude and, when he decided to put someone down, he’d stare at them without expression until they crawled, he’d be merciless. Definitely, this machine could kill. . . . At any rate, if his changes made him paranoid, they also improved his writing out of all recognition. No more schoolboy sermons and no more good intentions, his songs now were sharper, fiercer, stronger in every way. His melody lines got less hackneyed, his imagery less obvious, his jokes less cute. Instead, he was harsh and self-mocking and hurt, he laughed with his teeth, he packed real punch.
The charming apprentice of the Folk Posturing Period—Cohn’s “Minnesota boy scout”—evolved into a combative celebrity unsure of his friends or enemies. The clothes, haircut, and eyewear may have changed (as per the “Mod” attention to fashion), but Bob called upon the confrontational attitude of his Jacket Jamboree and St. Louis County Fair days to refashion The Show, reject his oppressors, and revolutionize his art. For our Glissendorf master, stonewalling games were natural. He was more than prepared for this “purpose.”
The kid who warned people of huge, dangerous snakes slithering through Minnesota forests matured into a young man who warned people about themselves. Those who saw prophesy in his words had to refocus as Dylan turned things around to grand effect. Lines about weathermen and their forecasts may be more cartoon than commentary. Remarks about the President of the United States may be more playful than polemical. Since so many people were unwilling to accept anything other than “message music,” our new character devised a plan just for them, as he told Playboy’s Nat Hentoff: “Myself, what I’m going to do is rent Town Hall and put about 30 Western Union boys on the bill. I mean, then there’ll really be some messages. People will be able to come and hear more messages than they’ve ever heard before in their life.” This was the new Bob Dylan.
The telegrams to be issued there read like no others—a point with which the Swedish Academy agrees. We turn once more to the 1966 Playboy interview for a slice of this new characterological pie. Hentoff asked a simple question—what inspired Dylan to play rock and roll—and the Newport Mod responded:
Carelessness. I lost my one true love. I started drinking. The first thing I know, I’m in a card game. Then I’m in a crap game. I wake up in a pool hall. Then this big Mexican lady drags me off the table, takes me to Philadelphia. She leaves me alone in her house, and it burns down. I wind up in Phoenix. I get a job as a Chinaman. I start working in a dime store, and move in with a 13-year-old girl. Then this big Mexican lady from Philadelphia comes in and burns the house down. I go down to Dallas. I get a job as a “before” in a Charles Atlas “before and after” ad. I move in with a delivery boy who can cook fantastic chili and hot dogs. Then this 13-year-old girl from Phoenix comes and burns the house down. The delivery boy—he ain’t so mild: He gives her the knife, and the next thing I know I’m in Omaha. It’s so cold there, by this time I’m robbing my own bicycles and frying my own fish. I stumble onto some luck and get a job as a carburetor out at the hot-rod races every Thursday night. I move in with a high school teacher who also does a little plumbing on the side, who ain’t much to look at, but who’s built a special kind of refrigerator that can turn newspaper into lettuce. Everything’s going good until that delivery boy shows up and tries to knife me. Needless to say, he burned the house down, and I hit the road. The first guy that picked me up asked me if I wanted to be a star. What could I say? Playboy: And that’s how you became a rock-’n’-roll singer? Dylan: No, that’s how I got tuberculosis.
Hey, hey Woody Guthrie the times sure have changed. During the Newport Mod Era, a new mission guided The Script, and it used the new Dylan as its weapon of choice. I apologize. But this “needle-in-the-haystack” imagery just will not leave me alone! Finding a “message” in this portion of the lifework is not like searching for that needle in that place. It’s like searching for a needle without any idea what a needle looks like. The interpreters ask, “Is this one?” Then, enter self-proclaimed experts—some armed with computer programs and corresponding mental illnesses—who interpret Dylan’s words like Pentecostal deacons translating a tent revival’s “speaking in tongues.” To noninitiates, the results are more than problematic.
Yes, Glissendorf is a great game—if you enjoy that kind of thing. It takes a unique personality to pull that sort of trick off. So, welcome to our Glissendorf master’s finest moment. From 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited to 1966’s Blonde on Blonde and Dylan’s “novel” Tarantula, the films Dont Look Back and Eat the Document, the Nobel laureate pursued his mission of rejecting the messiah-seeking branch of Bob Dylan’s constituency by generating lyrics unlike any before them. The Bootleg Series set The Cutting Edge 1965–66 offers remarkable insight into this songwriting; demonstrating how Dylan framed his poetry through diverse musical structures as he assembled these historic compositions. As Bob reports in Scorsese’s film, “I wrote a lot of songs in a quick amount of time. I could do that then because the process was new to me. I felt like I’d discovered something no one else had ever discovered and I was in a certain arena artistically that no one else had ever been in before, ever—although I might have been wrong about that.” He wasn’t wrong. This rebellious Iron Ranger did more than meet the needs of a new idea and its purpose. He changed songwriting forever.
Bringing It All Back Home
Clinton Heylin’s chronology relates that the first installment of this era—Bringing It All Back Home—was recorded in three sessions (on January 13, 14, and 15, 1965) and that several songs required but one take. Those sessions initiated a whirlwind year for the new Dylan. Bob’s 1961 may rival his 1965 in terms of the sheer number of important career events; however, the media attention generated in 1965 joined the laureate’s response to create as volatile a year as any artist has ever endured.
Produced by Tom Wilson, Bringing It All Back Home (released on March 22) was originally divided into two distinct sides—one containing solo acoustic songs and the other with a band (featuring John Sebastian, Bruce Langhorne, Bobby Gregg, John Hammond Jr., William Lee, Paul Griffin, and others). Dylan changed the sequence and the “electric songs” were interspersed throughout the album. The record features 11 tracks (running over 47 minutes) that fall into two orientations: organized and disorganized wordplay. Under those two master categories, we have four subdivisions: narrative impressionism involving positive responses to romantic relationships (“She Belongs to Me” and “Love Minus Zero/No Limit”); narrative impressionism featuring sermonic prescriptions (“Gates of Eden” and “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”); wordplay with a point (“Maggie’s Farm” [rebellion], “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” [relational], “Mr. Tambourine Man” [escape], and “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream” [history lesson]); and, wordplay without a point (“Subterranean Homesick Blues,” “Outlaw Blues,” and “On the Road Again”). An interesting hybrid appears via the evolution of the artist’s trademark satire (“115th Dream”) that synthesizes Dylan’s “tall tale with a moral” tradition with the impressionism that dominates the other songs. This is one enigmatic record.
The love songs refer to the narrator’s romantic interests, their special characteristics, and leave us to contemplate those traits. Yet, nothing ever happens. The same holds for the impressionistic sermons that feature rich descriptions without any story development; although, the recurring ghost chorus adds a measure of coherence. Dylan’s wordplay either flirts with specific points or drifts into repetitive, idiosyncratic imagery. Through it all, the contrast between metaphor and folly may involve a distinction without a difference. Robert Shelton captures the results perfectly in an August 30, 1965, New York Times review: these songs are “musical Rohrschachs [sic] capable of widely varied interpretation.” Dylan’s imagination was on fire and he invited his audience to join in the fun, get out of the way, or fight.
The impressionistic love songs are warm, accessible, and respectful—they just don’t tell stories. They’re also our closest link to Dylan’s songwriting past and, therefore, provide a bridge to the new style of writing. One song uses the repetitive lyric schemes typically associated with pop music (“She Belongs”) while the other departs from that tradition (“Love Minus”). Both songs worship their subjects through uneventful musical structures featuring brief blasts of harmonica. The opening verse of “She Belongs” captures the song’s rhythm and its impressionistic tone:
She’s got everything she needs,
She’s an artist, she don’t look back.
She’s got everything she needs,
She’s an artist, she don’t look back.
She can take the dark out of the nighttime
And paint the daytime black.
All of the song’s five verses follow the same six-line strategy. An observation is stated, repeated, and the stanza closes with a surreal image. The narrator reports how anyone would be proud to steal for her, that she always maintains her balance, that she wears foreign jewelry, and that she deserves praise. Once he relates these points and repeats them, he turns to more cryptic conclusions. After you gladly steal for her, you’ll find yourself on your knees “peeking through her keyhole”; after describing her Egyptian jewelry, he observes that she is a “hypnotist collector” and “You are a walking antique”; finally, after saluting her on Sunday and on her birthday, we’re told to give her a “trumpet” for Halloween and a “drum” for Christmas. As you can see, nothing ever happens in the song. It merely praises this woman, repeats that point, and drifts into idiosyncrasy. Yet, there is no doubt about the theme: the narrator adores his woman and her magical powers.
“Love Minus Zero” follows part of this strategy while omitting the repetition. Here the impressionistic descriptions appear in couplets that are piled upon one another—all of them in praise of the song’s subject. The track’s four verses (with eight lines each) detail the wonders of this goddess who is faithful, simple, loyal, and gentle. She can’t be bought. She tempers her opinions. She is, in a word, idyllic. The song’s last two verses demonstrate this rhythm of expression:
The cloak and dagger dangles,
Madams light the candles.
In ceremonies of the horsemen,
Even the pawn must hold a grudge.
Statues made of match sticks,
Crumble into one another,
My love winks, she does not bother,
She knows too much to argue or to judge.
The bridge at midnight trembles,
The country doctor rambles,
Bankers’ nieces seek perfection,
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring.
The wind howls like a hammer,
The night blows cold and rainy,
My love she’s like some raven
At my window with a broken wing.
The song floats from image to image for no apparent reason. As you can see, there’s no sign of any story, just enigmatic praise for the adored one. Cloaks and knives sit alongside women lighting candles and vengeful chess pieces coexist with frail, wooden statues that this wonderful woman embraces without prejudice. How interesting that this idyllic woman turns out to be fragile—even injured—as she arrives at her lover’s home . . . perhaps in need of convalescence. At times, these images seem to wander off on their own (e.g., the activities of the country physician and bankers’ relatives), but the point quickly returns: this is one fine woman. While the impressionism floats in and out of these two love songs, their central thesis is driven home either through repetition or through the clear, compelling lines that conclude the verses. Here Dylan turns away from American Song as he paints in more neutral colors and the Delta poet’s big-assed truths assume a symbolist stance as Robert Johnson learns French.
To the extent that Dylan’s characters praise their women through blends of concrete observation and surreal imagery, they also leap off the symbolic deep end. That wordplay begins with its more extreme version and the unrestrained folly that is “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and its two weak sisters, “Outlaw Blues” and “On the Road Again.” “Outlaw” and “On the Road” use lyrical repetition in the manner of “She Belongs” either to open a verse (“Outlaw”) or to close one (“On the Road”). After or before, the word games flow; some create fascinating images, while others make you scratch your head in wonder. But the prize in this symbolic sandbox is the album’s opening song, the lyrical masterpiece “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” Here, the rollicking music grabs you. It seems to whirl around in some circus–honky-tonk–barrelhouse fashion that provides the perfect platform for the folly that accompanies those sounds. The opening verse says it all:
Johnny’s in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I’m on the pavement
Thinking about the government
Badge out, laid off
Says he’s got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It’s somethin’ you did
God knows when
But you’re doin’ it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin’ for a new friend
The man in the coon-skin cap
In the big pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten
This is the “Subterranean” rhythm: images flow for eight or nine lines across the song’s four verses, each verse pauses for the “Look out kid” transition, and back we go to the symbolic jaunt. The second verse opens with Maggie’s dirty face, references to a drug bust, and the infamous warning: “You don’t need a weatherman / To know which way the wind blows.” The short lyric bursts continue with the final two stanzas. The third verse opens:
Get sick, get well
Hang around a ink well
Ring bell, hard to tell
If anything is goin’ to sell
Try hard, get barred
Get back, write Braille
Get jailed, jump bail
Join the army, if you fail
Look out kid . . .
The song is an aural circus. The music merrily bops along with lines that operate with varying degrees of clarity floating in and out. A line here or there may grab you, but when taken in its totality, the song is a musical Rorschach test; make of it what you will. Have fun!
The other examples of free-flowing wordplay are less imaginative. “Outlaw Blues” deploys a basic blues beat and grinding guitar to hammer home its vacuity. The five stanzas consist of six lines with two opening lines that are repeated and followed with a two-line tag that may or may not have anything to do with the opening sentiment. The first verse talks about stumbling into a lagoon and closes with the time and temperature. The second verse states an unwillingness to hang a “picture frame” and declares that while the narrator looks like “Robert Ford” he feels like “Jesse James.” The third verse longs to travel to Australia for a change of scenery. The final verse talks of a nameless, dark-skinned woman from Jackson that the narrator loves, it seems, despite the color of her skin. The fourth verse captures the rhythm in an exemplarily fashion:
I got my dark sunglasses,
I got for good luck my black tooth.
I got my dark sunglasses,
I’m carrying for good luck my black tooth.
Don’t ask me nothin’ about nothin’,
I just might tell you the truth.
The simple street-blues rushes these lines along at a steady rate. The song sounds like something you’d hear a Memphis street musician bang out in an alley off Beale Street. Notice how Dylan spices the song with references to his trademark “dark sunglasses,” pauses for the “black tooth” line (pure Delta poet), and closes with a warning that would make Abe Zimmerman proud (remember the rule: don’t ask a question if you’re not prepared to hear the answer). The Dylan Edge is pushing back.
“On the Road” advances the wordplay with stanzas containing six lines that preface a concluding two-line statement that is introduced by a piercing harmonica blast. Once more, the street blues beat pushes the verses along in a toe-tapping fashion. The first verse is indicative of the entire song:
Well, I woke up in the morning
There’s frogs inside my socks
Your mamma, she’s a-hidin’
Inside the icebox
Your daddy walks in wearin’
A Napoleon Bonaparte mask
[harmonica break]
Then you ask why I don’t live here
Honey, do you have to ask?
The folly continues across the song’s five verses as the narrator plays with a monkey and gets his face scratched, notices Santa Claus is in the fireplace, sees a well-dressed milkman, complains about his meal (hey, it sounds great: rice, seaweed, and a “dirty hot dog”), discusses her weird family, and describes “fist fights” in the kitchen that involve opinionated postal workers and house servants. When we embrace all these weird happenings, it appears the narrator is explaining why he’s leaving this crazed place where parents live in appliances and wear masks, service workers overdress and overtalk, extended family members act strangely, and violence abounds. The last two lines sum the scene well: “Then you ask why I don’t live here / Honey, how come you don’t move?” Consequently, he’s “on the road again”—no doubt, before someone comes and burns the house down.
These songs establish the writing style that dominates the Newport Mod Era. Crazy activities convey some equally weird point (“On the Road”). Discontinuous images are packed together in a fast-paced, rhythmically continuous manner (“Outlaw”). Or circling circus sounds are deployed to paint a surreal image that fondles a variety of symbolic toys (“Subterranean”). The images rotate between genius, madness, and gibberish in unpredictable rhythms. If one line doesn’t move you, be patient, the next one might (or it might not). The songs are too busy being crazy to achieve any depth; therefore, our emotional anthropologist goes on extended vacation. We’re not feeling here; we’re playing.
Four of Bringing It All Back Home’s tracks use this songwriting strategy in a more focused manner. While they romp around Bob’s symbolic playpen in haphazard ways, they also display features that hold everything in its own context. Whether the track discusses social rebellion, relational decline, metaphysical escape, or revisionist history, that subject provides an anchor that is absent on “Subterranean” and its cohorts. We begin with Dylan’s statement of vocational rebellion and “Maggie’s Farm.” Here the “Subterranean” musical circus supports five verses containing eight lines each that close with that one line statement of defiance (the ghost chorus). The music is steady, playful, and totally subservient (only the occasional harmonica blast disrupts the rhythm). The opening verse establishes the approach:
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more.
No, I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more.
Well, I wake in the morning,
Fold my hands and pray for rain.
I got a head full of ideas
That are drivin’ me insane.
It’s a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor.
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more.
This character has obviously had enough of Maggie’s action. He denounces Maggie’s brother, father, and mother by describing how her brother gives him money and then takes it away for frivolous reasons, how her father is physically abusive, and how her mother extols virtues that she personally ignores. The place is a mess, and the narrator has had enough. The final verse is telltale:
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more.
No, I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more.
Well, I try my best
But everybody wants you
To be just like them.
They sing while you slave and I just get bored.
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more.
This impressionism is tame in comparison to “Hard Rain” and its account of bleeding hammers, deceased poets, and despondent clowns, however, just as those scenes embellish the dire consequences of a world gone wrong these images convey the dastardly qualities of hypocritical employers. Now, my friends, should we go out on a limb and conclude that Mr. Dylan is discussing the music business? Is he talking about those disillusioned folkies who would love to silence his individualism and have their bidding done? I’ll let you decide. But one point is clear: there are no answers or definitions in these songs.
But that doesn’t keep them from being preachy. “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” chronicles the end of some form of relationship throughout its four-verses that use five lines to establish scenes of varying clarity before closing with the title in the ghost chorus. Consider the opening verse:
You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last.
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast.
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun,
Crying like a fire in the sun.
Look out the saints are comin’ through
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.
It’s time to move on. Grab what you have and run, we’re told quite directly before an image of an armed orphan with raging tears is featured (Robert Johnson would surely love that “crying like a fire” line). The second verse encourages the audience to round up their experiences since the sky is giving way while the third verse describes how “the carpet” is being pulled out from under a loving relationship. This need to break free is driven home in the final stanza:
Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you.
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.
Through images of disgruntled orphans, wandering gamblers, weird painters, sick sailors, “reindeer armies,” and wayward lovers, the narrator drives home his straightforward point: it’s time to go. The minimalist musical backdrop reinforces the argument. Interpreting Dylan’s work from this era in literal fashions is risky business; nevertheless, his references to “stepping stones,” deceased followers, and encroaching wanderers wearing the subject’s used clothes seem pointed. To suggest that the author is dismissing his past, embracing his present, and anticipating his future (a cleansing fire?) seems reasonable. It is, simply, time to turn things around.
From an enigmatic refusal to work for oppressive employers and a cryptic declaration of independence, we move to a magical escape from everything and “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Supposedly inspired by a trip to New Orleans, “Mr. Tambourine Man” massages a cosmic wanderlust that delivers everybody from everything through a subtle, steady musical framework featuring intertwining acoustic and electric guitars with an occasional harmonica riff. Wonderful, psychedelic imagery is anchored by—are you ready?—a chorus that asks Mr. Tambourine Man to play music for a wide-awake, uninhibited patron who’s itching to follow him wherever he may lead. The song offers the chorus, follows with a verse, and moves back to the chorus in a systematic manner. The plea for escape is evident in the second stanza:
Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can’t feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin’.
I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it.
Not only does this character wish to escape, he pledges his loyalty to his benefactor. He’ll go anywhere via a selfless dedication that ensures his prosperity. The writing is impeccable, as the final verse reveals:
Then take me disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.
The narrator begs for escape—an exodus that would deliver him dancing beneath the magical heavens, surrounded by nature’s beauty. “People” are beside the point, now. What matters here is liberation. The narrator seeks to rid himself of his past, to free his mind, and enjoy the results within an inclusive natural setting that buries the past and delays the present. The Dylan Edge has taken a historic turn.
While “Mr. Tambourine Man” is an older song (a version was recorded during the Another Side session), the impressionistic trilogy that is “Maggie,” “Baby Blue,” and “Tambourine” work in harmony to produce yet another installment of the “Restless Farewell”–“My Back Pages” theme. Maybe these songs are more of an urge than a systematic statement; nevertheless, there is a theme here. The narrator is not going to work for oppressive people who treat him badly, limit the scope of his thinking, or restrict his imagination. It is, instead, time to leave the original path behind, forget the musically dead, throw away the old uniform, and follow his muse—the enigmatic Mr. Tambourine Man.
Perhaps Dylan places all of this in its proper context with our last impressionistic treatise, “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream.” Using the “I Shall Be Free” method of casting famous characters in weird scenes that parody historical events, this song explores the discovery of the New World and the strange, mean-spirited people who populate what became known as “America.” The song is a marathon with its 11 stanzas containing either 12 or 13 lines each. This character—a sailor on board Captain Arab’s whaling ship—gazes through his spyglass and spots land. The ship scurries over, docks, the narrator names his discovery, and the Captain aspires to build a fort and purchase land with beads. Unfortunately, a police officer arrests the crew for carrying harpoons and the land-grabbing ceases for the moment.
Once the narrator escapes, his adventure intensifies. He joins a picket line, dines at a French restaurant, tries to secure bail for his imprisoned comrades (unsuccessfully), gets mugged for his trouble (a French girl’s partner steals his boots), seeks help for his friends from an unfriendly local citizen and a funeral parlor director (to no avail), and concludes that he’ll just flip a coin to decide whether he should help his friends or return to the ship. The ship wins, he returns, takes a parking citation off the mast, and identifies himself as “Captain Kid” to a passing “coastguard boat.” The story ends with our narrator leaving Arab behind in the arms of a “whale” who was married to a local police officer before stumbling onto three ships approaching the harbor. He asks the captain’s name (as he inquires why he doesn’t “drive a truck”), the man identifies himself as “Columbus,” and our narrator wishes him “good luck.” (I believe we just stood Moby Dick on its head.)
What fun. The song’s playfulness is established at the outset when Dylan’s first lines are interrupted by a laughing Tom Wilson. Both men enjoy a good belly laugh before Wilson restarts the recording. Bob insisted that the glitch not be deleted. It surely sets the tone for the fantastic tale that follows. It’s all one big laugh conveyed through a steady-rolling instrumental track. As I noted earlier, these satires are delightful examples of Dylan’s imaginative writing. Just as the “Talkin’” songs and “Motorpsycho” take news events or traditional jokes and recast them in crazy ways, the song toys with history, fondles some moral (there’s a lot of greedy people in this New Land), and leaves us to laugh at the results. This lyrical hybrid synthesizes Dylan’s controlling impressionism, his narrative skills, and his sarcastic sense of humor into a rollicking musical form that is about to go dormant.
The wave of Dylan’s songwriting future is on display through the two examples of sermonic impressionism that are “Gates of Eden” and “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).” Here the vivid, surreal imagery of “Mr. Tambourine Man” marries the dark, foreboding symbolism of “Hard Rain” to create prescriptive accounts of the world around us. Just as “With God on Our Side” exposes the cheap rhetoric that provides the moral justification for any conceivable act, “Eden” and “It’s Alright” roam similar symbolic playgrounds; exposing hypocrisy, denouncing elitism, and advocating a social awakening. There are no jokes in these songs. The symbolism is anything but playful. This is Bob Dylan alone with his guitar, occasional harmonica, and historic poetry. These songs are the stuff of Nobel Prizes.
“Gates of Eden” consists of nine seven-line verses with the ghost chorus featuring a reference to “Eden.” Typically, the respective verses make some point about truth, life’s futility, equality, or materialism and follow that observation with a response from “Eden.” The first three verses are cloudy as they report that truth is lost (except in Eden), the world is lifeless (with no help emerging from Eden), and life is futile. It is easy to overreach with these opening verses. The sermon pivots with the fourth verse:
With a time-rusted compass blade
Aladdin and his lamp
Sits with Utopian hermit monks
Side saddle on the Golden Calf
And on their promises of paradise
You will not hear a laugh
All except inside the Gates of Eden
These references to false indicators or divinations (e.g., an old compass, a genie, idealistic prophets, or magical creatures) and their fairytale explanations of the afterlife are laughable inside the Gates of Eden. Thus, our preacher opens his sermon with four stanzas that characterize the sorry state of the world, point to the silliness of worldly explanations, and refer us to the epicenter of Truth, “Eden.”
The following five stanzas offer a compare and contrast treatment of worldly attitudes and Eden’s response. The fifth verse speaks of secular roles (owners, royalty) and declares: “There are no kings inside the Gates of Eden.” The sixth verse describes a “motorcycle black madonna,” her “silver-studded phantom cause,” and a “gray flannel dwarf” who cries “to wicked birds of prey” who “pick up” his “bread crumb sins” before announcing there is no sin in Eden. The seventh verse denounces materialism and philosophy and proclaims that there is equality of possessions and ideas in Eden. The eighth verse reveals that there are no judgments in Eden, and the song’s final verse features a personal story. There the narrator describes his lover awakening in the morning and sharing her dreams. He responds:
With no attempts to shovel the glimpse
Into the ditch of what each one means
At times I think there are no words
But these to tell what’s true
And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden.
“Gates of Eden” reveals why the world has gone wrong, and in so doing, reinforces Dylan’s commentary in his liner notes and elsewhere. Echoing Another Side’s “Some Other Kinds Of Songs” and poem three’s repudiation of unholy masters who manipulate words to their advantage and poem five’s pronouncement “words are invented by those that are trapped in scenes,” this song reinforces what is becoming a long-standing metaphysical position. The world is a series of “scenes” that attract, retain, and manipulate their participants through clever—occasionally, time-honored—words and stories that may have a very loose relationship to anything tangible. In fact, these “kingdoms of Experience” (according to verse 7) may propagate these views as a means of maintaining the status quo, ensuring their supremacy in their particular “scene” (at least in their eyes), and in turn, promoting their longevity. Like “Masters of War” or “Only a Pawn,” there is evil in the worldly house and the landlords propagate lies that keep their tenants in line. So, Dylan tells us where to go if we want equality, perfection, justice, and Truth: the Garden of Eden.
Dylan’s impressionism demonstrates his ability to use different songwriting tools to build a case. He could have turned to a tight “Hattie Carroll”–type narrative to issue his point or, as we shall see in the moral period, he could have deployed a gospel structure to present his argument. Instead, his impressionism carried the sermon in its own, idiosyncratic way. What is most evident here is that these matters are on the writer’s mind. He says these things in all sorts of ways. The liner notes are crystal clear. His stories leave no doubt. And his impressionism massages the same notions.
Here Dylan appears to be responding to his experience with social movements (political or religious). He understands the arbitrary qualities of language and its power to create realities for strategic reasons. What is overwhelmingly clear is that our author does not trust those who engage in these practices. The former sloganeer understands slogans and warns his audience of their manipulative powers. Do we hear the voice of experience? Truth, honesty, equality, justice, and more are not of this world. People use those terms to justify worldly—not heavenly—acts. Beware of answers and definitions is the moral. Individuals must, therefore, stand up against institutional or societal structures, address their potentially evil practices, and advocate a better way. Dylan reinforces this point in his next sermon as well.
“It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” is one powerhouse piece of impressionism. It features 15 six- to seven-line verses that are divided into five segments separated by five three-line choruses. It builds and builds and builds until it reaches a most predictable resolution. Again, it is not a story in that there is no plot progression or character development; instead, the five segments establish points that are tied to that section’s chorus. It is a proclamation for intellectual, emotional, and spiritual freedom.
Segment one presents a personal challenge. The first verse establishes life’s futility. The second relates how life requires work (using the marvelous Delta wisdom “he not busy being born / Is busy dying”). The third verse reinforces the opening stanza by adding a touch of humility to the scenario. Dylan sums this situation with his first chorus:
So don’t fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It’s alright, Ma, I’m only sighing.
This sigh over life’s demanding nature gives way to a three-verse segment that identifies the evil that creates these difficult situations. Dylan denounces bigotry, commercialism, and wicked institutions in verses 4, 5, and 6, respectively. He condemns those who hate by claiming the only thing worth hating is hate. He contends that by selling any and everything, nothing is held “sacred.” He questions what preachers preach, what teachers teach, and announces the limitations of social institutions (culminating in his famous line about how “even” U.S. presidents must admit their weaknesses). Once more, the chorus brings it all together:
An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it.
(There is more than a little irony in a statement where the Glissendorf master warns of people’s games.) Having established the challenge and its enemy, segment three decries the media that enslave audiences through delusions of grandeur (verse 7), that entice people to lose themselves in these calculating lies (verse 8), and that require people to rise up against that situation through their individuality. The point is compelling: Through your individualism you may fight off the media manipulations that cause people to lose their identities and abide by false standards. Once you lose sight of that identity, you’re a target for evil. Again, the chorus sums the situation:
Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.
The writer reiterates his case with the next segment. He describes the angry prisoners entrapped by their realities (verse 10), the false idols that abound (verse 11), and the false promises that enslave people and restrict them. Simply, the establishment creates false standards and demands everyone conform to them—or else. People become angry and jealous of those trying to break free. People in “scenes” condemn those who are not. People want others to suffer life as they do. Here the chorus reaches the simple conclusion that “it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him.” If independence is going to anger people, inspire jealously, or prompt criticism, so be it.
The song’s final segment returns to the lies and misplaced pride that results from this sorry situation and closes with a statement of rebellion. The sermon condemns the lies that support it all; having a go at the infamous root of all evil: “money doesn’t talk, it swears” (there’s one big-assed truth). The preacher denounces the pride that protects that which is indefensible and grants a sense of false security. Finally, the resolution is at hand. Reverend Dylan has had enough. He dismisses the “false gods.” He rejects “pettiness.” He frees himself of these restrictions and mocks their conceit before he concludes:
And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only.
Some 52 years later, the Swedish Academy will take note of this amazing composition.
At this point in Dylan’s career—after all of the liner notes, songs, interviews, and commentaries—one of two things has happened. Either Bob is giving lip service to the social movements that played a central role in his emergence or he actually went there and rejected it. That is, when he wrote those protest songs, he meant them. Then, when he peeked behind the curtain and realized that one person’s evil manipulation is another person’s just cause, he realized that everybody is a sloganeer and that all of the slogans were potentially bogus. To be part of a “scene,” you must follow that group’s prescriptions for living (just as Ramona or Suze). If you don’t, expect that scene’s hierarchy to admonish you—perhaps in hurtful ways. Words are the crux of the problem. Apparently, Mr. Message Man realized how words are used by all sides to create and sustain the realities that rally their respective troops. When he became a pawn in that game, he not only quit, he took up arms against his oppressors.
“It’s Alright, Ma” is that man’s Sermon on the Mount—complete with fishes and loaves lyrics. After announcing our personal challenge (to overcome life’s futility through humility and perseverance), identifying why that challenge exists (bigotry, materialism, and untrustworthy institutions), drawing the terms of the battle (rejecting media-inspired delusions that cause people to lose touch with themselves), and reiterating what must be resisted (jealousy, false idols, and false promises), our sermonic poet denounces the prideful lies that support it all and promises to fight the status quo. He may dismiss his battle as a natural consequence of contemporary living, but he’s obviously up for the fight as the laureate turns it all around for strategic effect.
Bringing It All Back Home does exactly that. Dylan proclaims that it may very well be that all of these social movements—the essence of politics and religion—build their respective houses on sand and that the real answer is to “bring it all back home” and build that house on the rock of individuality. The guy who warned people that they may be pawns in someone else’s game took that message to heart. The guy who described how people justify any imaginable act by asserting that the action was God’s Will came to recognize both edges of that particular sword. The guy who not-so-subtly threatened people by writing if you resist the changing times you’ll lose everything realized that when that ship comes in, the enemy will be hard to detect (as per John Brown’s lament). Once that guy watched how easily the righteous became self-righteous, he rebelled against it all.
On the surface, these poetic word games dance to their own rhythms and open themselves to myriad interpretations. However, once you pull back, take a breath, and consider this record in its totality, a compelling statement is issued through Bringing It All Back Home. Individuality is the key. Don’t work for oppressive employers. Don’t believe institutional pronouncements just because institutions pronounced them. Do more than believe in Eden, bring Eden to Earth by rejecting evil where you find it—even if you find it in supposedly holy places. Yes, at times Bob toys with these ideas (“115th Dream”). Sure, at times he dreams of esoteric escape (“Mr. Tambourine Man”). But when taken as a whole, Dylan dismisses his perceived oppressors (“Baby Blue”), acknowledges his guiding principles (“Eden”), and wages war on those who’ll never step one foot inside the Gates of Eden (“It’s Alright, Ma”). That this man will undergo a religious conversion later in life is not surprising.
Bringing It All Back Home’s liner notes add a distinctive flavor to this poetic stew. These notes aren’t as detailed as the previous editions; nevertheless, they complement the album in the now-traditional manner. They read like an excerpt from the writer’s crazed diary. The story opens with the narrator watching a parade, issues a “pause” for a seemingly confessional statement, and concludes by returning to the opening scene. The account begins with our narrator minding his own business, probing his feelings (he feels like a blend of Sleepy John Estes, Jayne Mansfield, Humphrey Bogart, “Mortimer Snerd,” “Murph the Surf,” and more), and watching the parade. An “erotic hitchhiker” wearing a “Japanese blanket” interrupts his pleasure by inquiring if he recognized our narrator from a Mexican hootenanny. The narrator assures him that that’s impossible, since he’s a member of the Supremes. The hitchhiker then tears off the blanket and reveals that he is a “middle-aged druggist” running for district attorney. He screams at the narrator claiming that he’s the cause of “all them riots” occurring in Vietnam. If elected, he promises those around him, he’ll ensure that our narrator is “electrocuted publicly on the next fourth of July.” Since everyone around the narrator held “blowtorches,” he decides to leave. He goes home and writes “WHAAAT” on his “favorite wall.” When his recording engineer suddenly arrives via a jet plane, he informs our narrator that he’s there to retrieve “you and your latest works of art.”
At this point, a “pause” is issued. The writer offers views on his songwriting that claim he has “given up at making any attempt at perfection,” since the White House is full of people who have never visited the “Apollo Theater” and neglected to invite Allen Ginsberg to participate in their inauguration. The plot thickens at this point. He declares he would rather “model harmonica holders” than “discuss aztec anthropology / english literature. or history of the united nations.” He continues: “i accept chaos. i am not sure whether it accepts me. i know there’re some people terrified of the bomb. . . . experience teaches that silence terrifies people the most.” He declares that “all souls have some superior t’ deal with” and how “in the face of this” terms such as “responsibility,” “security,” or “success” are meaningless. He announces that he wouldn’t want to be Bach, Mozart, Tolstoy, Joe Hill, Gertrude Stein, or James Dean, since those people are dead. He talks about drawing a picture to explain what’s going on even though he admits that he doesn’t understand anything. He notes that death is inevitable and that “no death has ever stopped the world.” His poems, he claims, are “written in a rhythm of unpoetic distortion / divided by pierced ears, false eyelashes / subtracted by people constantly torturing each other.” He defines a song as “anything” that is able to “walk by itself.” He recognizes that people call him a songwriter. He defines a poem as a “naked person.” He acknowledges that “some people” call him a “poet.” The “pause” ends and our narrator asks the recording engineer to help him load the wall onto the plane.
These notes directly foreshadow the Tarantula writing style. Crazy characters with shifting identities doing weird things are the norm in Dylan’s long-anticipated “novel.” After Bringing It All Back Home, Bob concentrated on the Tarantula project for an extended period. In fact, when Dont Look Back shows Dylan writing away on a typewriter in his hotel, he is supposedly writing Tarantula. These liner notes certainly fall in line with that type of exposition.
However, once the notes “pause” and Dylan writes about songwriting, poetry, and poets, we seem to venture back to the writing style of “11 Outlined Epitaphs” or “Some Other Kinds of Songs.” While he plays with definitions of songs and poems, he once more massages his views about creating “perfection” and answering to “superiors.” Yes. The man who will one day pen “Gotta Serve Somebody” was examining that thesis 15 years before he addressed the issue in that song. These were fertile times. Bringing It All Back Home demonstrates the extent to which the author was wrestling with ideas, events, people, and places. The man who claimed the answers were blowing in the wind and later argued that the questions were as well now seems to acknowledge that everything is blowing in that wind.
The extent to which Dylan was in touch with these metaphysical positions that are beginning to dominate his writing is uncertain. He was merely 24 years old. He could very well be articulating urges that, in hindsight, become coherent when assembled. But coherent they are. They guy who carried posters learned how to write them and now distrusts posters and the people who make them. He now stands alone. His principal concern, it seems to me, would be his next move. He’s denounced his oppressors and freed his art. What next? The answer to his dilemma is as old as time itself. It’s time to make a movie.
Dont Look Back and Newport ’65
Artistic transitions occur in a variety of ways. A critical painting, a pivotal writing, any pioneering work of art may signal a shift in an artist’s creative direction. What may first appear to be radical idiosyncrasy ultimately opens the door to a new way of doing things. Dont Look Back records one of those historic moments when one style of art yields to another. This film says goodbye to the solo acoustic Bob Dylan. The film presents Dylan’s spring 1965 tour of England and portrays the controlled mayhem associated with the celebrity’s travels across Her Majesty’s United Kingdom. It records the media relations, the constant movement, the public relations, the preshow tensions, the management negotiations, the on-the-road tomfoolery, the postshow social life, the fans’ reactions, and more as they unfold during Dylan’s final acoustic tour.
Dont Look Back is not a “concert film.” It is a “direct cinema” account of what it was like to be on the road with Bob at this point in his career. As direct cinema—when every effort is made to record an event without interference—the movie offers raw views of its subject matter. Never does Dylan address the camera. Everyone goes about their business without regard for staging, since the film involves one camera shooting under natural lighting with minimal sound. In fact, director D. A. Pennebaker reports the project could not have happened just five years earlier, since recent technological developments enabled the direct cinema strategy. Consequently, we’re afforded a useful glimpse of the celebrity-singer-songwriter in action. Not stage action mind you, but in the off-stage activities that often overwhelm—or at least distract—artists in potentially debilitating ways.
The film features no sense of time or place. It cuts from location to location, scene to scene in its own way, or as Pennebaker states in his postproduction commentary, the movie is a marriage of “avant-garde filmmaking and avant-garde songwriting.” Director/photographer/sound engineer/editor Pennebaker named his film after the famous line by baseball great Satchel Paige and registered his thoughts about his work during the audio commentary that accompanies the movie’s release on DVD (a special feature allows us to view the movie with Pennebaker and Dylan’s road manager Bob Neuwirth’s comments dubbed over the action). There he describes the film:
I didn’t want it to be a concert film because the music was really absorbing . . . it was new music that people had never heard before. And I thought if I start out and make this a film of musical performances it’s not gonna be about anything else. I want people to think that they’re seeing behind the music. That the music isn’t why they’re there. The music is why he’s there and that they’re seeing somebody who’s responsible for the music. So, I thought to do that by shooting every night and then—pretty much at the last minute . . . till the song began, I would wait and then I would shoot something that seemed to me, right for the minute . . . where we were in the tour. So, what I shot kinda came out of our experiences through that day or so leading up to that concert. I only wanted bits of it.
Consequently, we see shot after shot of Dylan walking on stage and starting a song before the film cuts to another activity or we cut from some event to the middle of a song. This movie is not about the music.
Although the film jumps from scene to scene in unpredictable ways, it focuses on six specific contexts: hotel rooms, encounters with journalists or fans, transportation scenes, green room activities, and snippets of performances. The hotel scenes involve postshow parties; members of the entourage relaxing, joking around, and reading newspaper accounts of Dylan’s activities (clipping them and building a collage on the room’s wall); or Bob talking with fans, guests, journalists, or friends. The camera is merely another occupant in a crowded room where people sing, write, argue, work, joke, and play. Confrontations occur with hotel management. Rowdy guests have to be reprimanded. Journalistic questions are repeated and receive rote answers. Parties abound. Fans worship. Bob is at the heart of it all.
Dylan’s sessions with journalists seem to grow in intensity as the film opens with amiable exchanges during a welcoming hotel press conference, moves to a friendly interview with a BBC radio producer, to a playful encounter with a college newspaper music critic, to an aggressive scene with a Time magazine reporter. Two things emerge from these scenes: you gain a feel for the conflicting agendas associated with these activities (i.e., the artist vs. reporter dynamic) and Dylan drives home his points about protest songs, folk singing, and his art’s direction. He makes it clear, Clear, CLEAR that he does not consider himself to be a protest singer, that he is not an advocate for any political cause, that he is not a folksinger, and that everybody makes too much out of his words—often taking idiosyncratic expressions as mass declarations. If he says it once, he says it a dozen times: words have different meanings for different people. There is no doubt that Bob used this opportunity to register these views.
The scenes featuring fan activities are playful. Cute English girls whistle at his hotel room from the street and are invited up to meet their idol (Dylan is quite gracious with these young ladies). Fans stand in the rain awaiting a glimpse of the celebrity. Fans crowd Dylan’s car as he departs a venue (these “escape scenes” recur throughout the film) and, in one instance, a female fan has to be pulled from atop the vehicle. Fans are also shown entering venues, greeting Dylan at the airport or on the road, and in conversation with Bob backstage after shows. Never is there any acrimony, disrespect, or anything negative presented in scenes involving fans; instead, we see loving youngsters embracing their hero.
The transportation and green room scenes present the chaotic nature of these tours. Shots of Dylan traveling by car or train create a sense of constant motion and eternal activity. The green room scenes communicate the preshow jitters, last-minute preparations, and never-ending distractions associated with the final moments before a performer goes on stage. Several of the film’s most compelling scenes occur in this setting as Dylan is shown surrounded by his entourage (you get the feeling the guy is rarely alone), dealing with journalists, welcoming visitors and dignitaries, or just pacing back and forth smoking cigarette after cigarette, nervously plucking his guitar and adjusting his harmonica holder.
Performance scenes are—with one exception—short and sweet. Usually, Dylan is shown walking on stage starting a song and the movie cuts to backstage activities, an escape scene, or changes topics completely. A closing collage of songs from the Royal Albert Hall show offers the most depth with regard to Dylan’s performances as the scene dissolves between several songs. Still, even though we are allowed but a snippet of a song, we witness the reverence Bob’s audiences extended and the general intensity that surrounded The Show. There are neither screaming teenagers, shouting between songs, nor any distractions whatsoever. My, how things will change in less than a year!
A consistent cast of characters fills these scenes. At the forefront are Dylan, Neuwirth, and manager Albert Grossman with Joan Baez appearing often in the film’s first half. Cameraman Howard Alk appears in the background of several scenes with a host of cameo appearances (e.g., Alan Price, Donovan, Marianne Faithful, John Mayall, Tom Wilson, Allen Ginsberg) rounding out various segments. Occupying much of the film’s 96 minutes are hotel staff members, unnamed journalists, fans, stage crew personnel, partygoers, and tour professionals. These people come and go as the scenes march along and, once more, convey the constant motion that characterizes a tour production of this magnitude.
The movie opens with a slight twist and the musical world’s first music video. Working to the tune “Subterranean Homesick Blues” the video features Dylan flipping through a large series of placards with words, phrases, and ideas from the song appearing as they occur in the recording. Shot in a London alley, Dylan stands to the right with his cards while Ginsberg and Neuwirth talk over to the far left. Bob merely flips through the cards with a detached, perhaps occasionally disdainful, look on his face until the song ends, he holds a “what?” sign, and tosses it down as he walks off with Ginsberg and Neuwirth doing the same. Everyone goes in different directions. From there we cut to our first green room shot of Dylan pacing before appearing on stage (he’s searching for a missing walking cane). He walks out onto the stage and the rollercoaster film begins with credits.
Dont Look Back does so many things. It documents a specific moment in a major artist’s career in which he dismisses one approach to his profession and embraces another (at one point there’s a brief shot of Bob admiring electric guitars in a music shop window). Along with the tour madness and its constant motion, the film relates Dylan’s stance on his music’s style (he’s not a folksinger), his songs’ meanings (those words have varying definitions—big and little letters, you know), his attitude toward his audience (telling one group that he doesn’t care if people “listen” to him or not), and his views on the journalistic process (he is used by people he does not need). It also advances the direct cinema strategy. Finally, it portrays the artistic power of the lone performer onstage before large, responsive audiences. In short, this is one compelling capstone statement. As such, it offers a major contribution to the Dylan canon.
Once Bob returned from the United Kingdom, he initiated work on his sixth album. On June 15th and 16th, he recorded his last track with producer Tom Wilson at Columbia’s Studio A in New York—a song that many consider to be the greatest rock song ever recorded, “Like a Rolling Stone.” Bob Johnston assumed the producer’s chair with the July 29th sessions. But history took a little turn before the July 29th sessions, and we must spend a moment with the madness that was the infamous 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
I don’t mean to be rude, but how could anybody have been surprised by Bob’s new act? Bringing It Back Home was released in March. The “Subterranean” single had been out for months. Dylan and his band mates Bloomfield, Kooper, Barry Goldberg (piano), Jerome Arnold (bass), and Sam Lay (drums) assembled on Saturday and rehearsed all night at a Newport home (with people present). There was a sound check. The instruments were set up on stage (from an earlier performance by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band). How could anybody have been surprised when Dylan took the stage that Sunday evening with an electric band? Did they bother with his new record? Did they listen to the radio?
The legend reports that Dylan was secretive about his plans. Of course he was! Remember how Bobby Zimmerman insisted that his band keep quiet in order to surprise the audience? Dylan kept everything quiet. There was, however, compelling evidence of what was about to transpire. The Pete Seeger work clothes were nowhere in sight. The Look was totally different. From my examination of the reporting, there was no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Dylan was going to perform a solo acoustic set. NONE. Nevertheless, what unfolded was a scene for the ages.
When the Dylan Gang ran through “Maggie’s Farm,” “Rolling Stone,” and “Phantom Engineer” (soon to evolve into “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry”), legend has it that all hell broke loose. Again, reports vary. Murray Lerner’s film is inconclusive: we hear a standard blues band ripping away (Bloomfield is on fire!), Bob’s screaming vocals, and minor rumblings in the background. The soundboard recording indicates the band did a fine job; ragged at points, but steady throughout the brief set (you can hear Dylan say “let’s get outta here” after the final song). Nevertheless, can you imagine the shock of watching Pete Seeger attempting to sever the power cord with an axe? That’s one legend that Seeger steadfastly disavows in the film Greenwich Village: Music That Defined a Generation. And I believe the guy. Newport 1965 must have been a weird experience for something like that to surface.
During the BBC’s The Bob Dylan Story, stage manager Joe Boyd reports that Dylan’s electric sound wasn’t loud in a contemporary sense, but it was earsplitting by Newport 1965 standards. Some sources indicate that many in the audience were yelling to adjust the sound mix—not booing the performance (Dylan subscribes to this view in Scorsese’s film). Other sources claim the audience was booing the performance and insisting that Dylan play folk music. As Rolling Stone reporter Joe Levy notes in Biography’s account of Dylan’s career, an “aesthetic riot” broke out. At a folk festival no less! Unbelievable.
The Gang left the stage after the third number, and reportedly, Johnny Cash and Peter Yarrow convinced Dylan to return for a solo acoustic set. He did. After running through “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” and “Mr. Tambourine Man” Dylan left the Newport stage, not to return for 37 years (and when he returned in 2002, he performed wearing a fake beard and wig). I’m unsure how Dylan responded to all of this. He sounds relaxed as he asks for a harmonica before “Tambourine.” He graciously accepts the audience’s raucous applause at the close of his two-song encore. So who knows? Scorsese’s documentary cites Maria Muldaur’s recollection that Dylan was despondent and refused her invitation to dance with “I would, but my hands are on fire.” In any event, the opening shots of that aesthetic war were fired that Sunday evening in July 1965. Things would get much worse before it all crashed in the summer of 1966.
I must say that I can’t imagine Dylan being upset about the events of July 25, 1965. If you can stand before a jeering and booing crowd when you’re a teenager—as Bobby Zimmerman did—and walk confidently away from that, I doubt that a bunch of people that you don’t even like are going to bother you when you’re the ripe old age of 24. Remember, in Dont Look Back, Dylan is shown talking to an English band about how he doesn’t care if his audience “listens” or not. Bob’s relationship with his audience has always been one of mutual coexistence—they may be dependent on him, but he is in no way reliant upon them (remember, Bob performs for an audience of one: himself). So, I conclude that our mischievous Glissendorf master smelled the blood of a fine game brewing. But first, as Bruce Springsteen is fond of saying, the songwriter always gets the last shot.
Well, maybe not the last shot, but when Dylan returned to Studio A on July 29th, he came armed with his response to the Newport craziness. His first recording session with new producer Johnston yielded three finished tracks; two of which would appear on the next album, one was released as a single (issued that September). The single followed the path blazed by “Rolling Stone” as it quickly shot into the Top 10. Its opening lines left little doubt about this “message.” “Positively 4th Street” opens:
You got a lotta nerve
To say you are my friend
When I was down
You just stood there grinning
From there, Dylan uses 12 four-line verses to rant against those who claim they want to offer a “helping hand” but in reality just want to be on the winning side (verse 2); those who claim he disappointed them but fail to show injury (verse 3); and, those who claim to have lost faith but in reality “had no faith to lose” (verse 4). Next Bob communicates that he understands the game, since he used to affiliate with that scene. He denounces their hypocrisy and acknowledges how they wish him harm. When he describes their disgruntled lives in verse 10, he proclaims that it is just not his problem. Dylan closes in a telltale fashion: “I wish that for just one time / You could stand inside my shoes / You’d know what a drag it is / To see you.”
That is “Positively 4th Street” and Dylan’s response to the controversy surrounding his change in musical instruments. The writing is clear, direct, and without mystery. By using the Village address (he lived on 4th Street), Bob focused his attack. By stating his understanding of that “crowd,” he established both his previous affiliation and his departure. By recognizing their unhappiness with their lives, he declared his lack of interest and his complete disregard. And the concluding verses wrap up this “kiss off” in a compelling, sneering fashion. Yes, I wish you could be me and realize the disappointment that accompanies seeing you. Our aesthetic war just escalated, don’t you think?
While those attending the August 28 Forest Hills Music Festival were yet to hear the “Positively 4th Street” response to Newport, they were most certainly aware of the previous month’s events. Dylan announced that there would be an electric set at the Forest Hills show and the day before the event he told The New York Times’s Robert Shelton: “It’s all music: no more, no less . . . I know in my own mind what I’m doing. If anyone has imagination, he’ll know what I’m doing. If they can’t understand my songs they’re missing something. If they can’t understand green clocks, wet chairs, purple lamps or hostile statues, they’re missing something, too.” The battle lines were drawn. The guy who had the power yanked on him during a high school talent show was prepared to take on his so-called audience.
Dylan opened the Forest Hills show with acoustic numbers such as “She Belongs to Me,” “To Ramona,” “Gates of Eden,” and the debut of his powerful new song, “Desolation Row.” After a thorough acoustic set and an intermission, Dylan returned with Kooper, Harvey Brooks (bass), Robbie Robertson (guitar), and Levon Helm (drums). War ensued. People called Dylan a “scum bag” (according to Shelton’s report), some threw fruit, and one jerk climbed on stage and knocked Al Kooper off his stool. Dylan instructed the band to repeat the instrumental opening to the new “Ballad of a Thin Man” for some five minutes, and that seemed to calm the crowd. When the performance reached “Rolling Stone,” Shelton maintains the audience sang along. What an evening!
Levon Helm’s autobiography sheds much light on these events. Before the concert, Dylan assembled the band and, according to Helm, announced: “We don’t know what’s gonna happen. It may be a real freak show out there. I want you guys to know this up front. Just keep playing, no matter how weird it gets.” The booing started as the band set up for the electric half. During the mayhem Bob laughed and yelled at Levon: “Looks like the attack of the beatniks around here!” When Albert Grossman prohibited an encore, it actually angered Dylan. This Iron Ranger was not intimidated by this hostility. In fact, several days later, the band played before a friendly audience at Los Angeles’s Hollywood Bowl. Afterward, Bob confided to Levon: “I wish they had booed. It’s good publicity. Sells tickets. Let ’em boo all they want.” Levon was amazed by it all. He reports that Dylan “absolutely refused to cave in.” But Levon did. He left the band later that year. He told Howard Sounes: “Bob is a funny guy like that. He don’t care, you know. And I like Bob’s policy: if you bought the ticket, you should be allowed to boo. If you don’t like it, voice your opinion. But, goddamnit, it’s a hard one to take.” That Dylan proclaimed to Ephron and Edmiston that he thought the Forest Hills show “was great” reinforces Helm’s point.
Robertson and Helm were members of a Canadian band, the Hawks (so named for their role as singer Ronnie Hawkins backing band). John Hammond Jr. used several members of the Hawks in a 1965 recording session and, eventually, the band was signed to accompany Dylan on a world tour. Joining Robertson and Helm were Rick Danko (bass), Garth Hudson (organ), and Richard Manuel (piano). Once the band broke from Hawkins, moved to the east coast, and joined Dylan, the Hawks—later to be known as The Band—experienced a career change unlike any other in popular music history.
The booing waned after Forest Hills and a brief stay on the west coast saw more appreciative audiences. Armed with the August 30th release of Highway 61, Dylan and his new backing band set off for a world tour that would make Dont Look Back seem tame by comparison. But first, we must examine the record named after one of the musical world’s infamous roadways and the sonic adventure that Dylan, Bob Johnston, and the studio musicians assembled that crazed summer of ’65.
Highway 61 Revisited
Proof that the crazed happenings of 1965 inspired Bob Dylan far more than they distracted, disturbed, or disillusioned him appears in the canon’s sixth album, Highway 61 Revisited. Released on August 30, 1965, and produced by Bob Johnston (with the exception of Tom Wilson’s “Like a Rolling Stone”), the nine-track entry is a musical masterpiece (running over 51 minutes). Here the world’s greatest wordsmith places his language in the backseat of a vehicle piloted by that “thin wild mercury sound” of Dylan legend. Each track follows its own sonic strategy. The flamingo feel of “Desolation Row” complements the honky-tonk playfulness of “Tombstone Blues” and “From a Buick 6.” The ponderous circus hymn “Ballad of a Thin Man” sits opposite the rocking revelry of the title cut. It’s all one big joy ride. Dylan’s harmonica never sounded better. His voice and harmonica lead the blues-based rhythms that are accented by churchy organs and barrelhouse pianos. The supporting cast differs between sources: Mike Bloomfield (guitar), Paul Griffin (keyboards), Al Kooper (keyboards), Russ Savakus (bass), Bobby Gregg (drums), Harvey Goldstein (bass) (also listed as Harvey Brooks in Heylin’s account), Sam Lay (drums) (omitted from the liner notes listing), Frank Owens (piano), and Charlie McCoy (guitar). Together, these guys made history.
This record is designed to make you crazy. The only way any of this makes any sense is if it’s in some sort of code. Still, each song features a musical backdrop that suggests something. Once you hear the opening piano of “Thin Man” you know there’s more to this. As the guitar opens “Desolation Row,” you can feel the story coming. But they’re not there. Hey, what could be crazier than a messenger (the sound) without any message? These songs are quintessential examples of Shelton’s “musical Rorschach” analogy. The Dylan of Dont Look Back (with all of those comments about language and meaning) throws the dictionary out the window through songs that frolic about in their musical—not symbolic—sandboxes. Just listen, someone’s laughing in the background. Our Glissendorf master is in his element.
The album is neatly divided into two parts: four pieces of narrative impressionism and five songs of unrestrained wordplay. The four impressionistic tracks explore two reliable topics, relationships (“Like a Rolling Stone,” “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry,” and “From a Buick 6”) and society (“Highway 61 Revisited”). From the portrayal of “Highway 61” as a harbinger of evil (home to murder, theft, and intrigue), to the celebration of another person’s misfortunes (“Rolling Stone”), to a character’s cloudy warnings to his lover (“It Takes a Lot”), to a character’s celebration of his girlfriend’s heroic qualities (“Buick 6”), these songs establish loose storytelling contexts for a succession of images of varying clarity. The album’s centerpiece, however, is its five songs of wordplay: “Tombstone Blues,” “Ballad of a Thin Man,” “Queen Jane Approximately,” “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” and “Desolation Row.” These songs range from enigmatic descriptions of people and places (“Tom Thumb’s Blues”) to organized chaos (“Desolation Row”). Again, any structure evident within these songs is musical, not narrative. Each track is its own universe.
We begin with the relational trilogy that is “Rolling Stone,” “It Takes a Lot,” and “Buick 6.” This three-song set touches all of the bases as “Stone” projects the negative, “Buick” the positive, and “It Takes” offers mixed views. “Rolling Stone” contains four nine-line verses with a six-line chorus separating the respective stanzas (The Cutting Edge project features over 65 minutes of “Rolling Stone” outtakes and tells us so much about the song’s creation). The sound is magical. The organ floats over a smooth rhythm section in a soothing manner. The piano dances in the background as Dylan’s vocals bark out his case and his harmonica punctuates the experience. The song attacks a former insider who is now on the outs. Whether this is a former lover, friend, colleague or gardener is never revealed. The evidence suggests that the song’s target is a woman, since the first verse refers the subject as “doll,” the second verse makes reference to “Miss Lonely,” and the fourth verse calls her “babe.” But that could be misleading; Dylan often deploys slang or personal codes as camouflaging devices. Or maybe the song is simply words piled on top of one another via a loose framework (in the Scorsese film Bob Neuwirth claims the original “Rolling Stone” contained “fifty some verses”). In all cases, the song needles its subject in a relentless fashion.
“Rolling Stone” opens with comments about the old days and this lady’s attitudes toward the people in her social group. She was once on top of her game, carefree (as she tossed money to street people), and amused by everyone around her. Apparently, she was warned that her luck may one day change. When it did, she found herself humbled by the experience and coping with her pride as she struggles for her “next meal” (this could be anything). Dylan drives home his point in the chorus:
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
(Subsequent choruses change replacing “To be without a home” with “To be on your own” and adding “With no direction home” afterward.) Next, we’re told that “Miss Lonely” attended the “finest school” but that education failed to prepare her for a life on the “street.” Things she’s never endured before are now confronting her and the narrator loves it. He constantly attacks through metaphors that are difficult to unpack—if they’re metaphors at all. He refers to a “mystery tramp” and some sort of “deal” that requires Miss Lonely to “compromise.” He describes how unhappy circus performers entertained her in some way (very cloudy here) and her irresponsible response. He refers to her failed relationship with a thieving “diplomat” with a cat on his shoulder. To be sure, these lines feature attacks; yet, the nature of the assault is evasive. Mystery tramps and diplomats with pets prompt compromises and disappointment in cryptic ways. The song is a lyrical game and only the narrator’s sneering tone offers any hint as to what’s unfolding. The final stanza demonstrates the song’s style:
Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They’re drinkin’, thinkin’ that they got it made
Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things
But you’d better lift your diamond ring, you’d better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can’t refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.
Do with this what you will. The song’s musical qualities are impressive. The organ-piano interplay is stunning. Dylan’s voice is commanding and suggestive. You know he’s attacking someone or something, but big-assed truths like “when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose” are wrapped in an enigmatic cloak of private symbolism. I recommend traveling with caution.
“It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” is a rolling blues tune that takes us to the Delta on a moonlit night. Another smooth rhythm section provides a backdrop for a countrified piano, Dylan’s honky-tonk vocals, and his sterling harmonica. Little wonder the record’s liner notes refer to these tracks not as songs, but as “exercises in tonal breath control.” The harmonica is the lead instrument here. Those sounds are complemented by Bob’s voice, not his words (more tonal breath control).
The song features the laureate’s most commonly used song structure: three eight-line verses. The first verse relates that the narrator rides an uneventful “mailtrain,” that he was up the entire night leaning in his window, and his belief that if he dies “on top of the hill” and fails to “make it” he realizes that his “baby” will. The second verse features more train imagery as the narrator praises the sights (the moon shining through the forest, the sun setting over the ocean) and his beautiful woman who is “comin’ after” him. With “All I Really Want to Do” echoing in the background, the third verse closes our beer joint blues in this fashion:
Now the wintertime is coming,
The windows are filled with frost.
I went to tell everybody,
But I could not get across.
Well, I wanna be your lover, baby,
I don’t wanna be your boss.
Don’t say I never warned you
When your train gets lost.
This train imagery is the key to unlocking this track. He loves his woman, but something’s amiss. He’s qualifying the relationship for some reason before closing with his warning. From any other writer, we would shrug this off as a typical blues tune with vacuous references to trains, moons, and the seasons. But this is Dylan, so we think a bit harder.
We can stop thinking with “Buick 6” and that honky-tonk rhythm that characterizes so much of this album. “Buick” swings, that’s for sure, but it says precious little. The song’s four four-line verses concentrate more on rhyming than substance. The first verse demonstrates my point:
I got this graveyard woman, you know she keeps my kid
But my soulful mamma, you know she keeps me hid
She’s a junkyard angel and she always gives me bread
Well, if I go down dyin’, you know she bound to put a blanket on my bed.
Each stanza closes with the ghost chorus after the previous three lines describe some scene or characteristic that places the woman in a heroic light. The second verse offers a cryptic account of a “pipeline” breaking, the narrator stranded on a bridge, a highway, by the “water’s edge” and his rescue (it all rhymes, though). The third verse praises the woman since her silence makes for a calm environment, her manner of walking is effortless, and she keeps her shotgun loaded. After a raucous harmonica break, Dylan closes in this manner:
Well, you know I need a steam shovel mama to keep away the dead
I need a dump truck mama to unload my head
She brings me everything and more, and just like I said
Well, if I go down dyin’, you know she bound to put a blanket on my bed.
The bait has been placed on the hook. Watch yourself! If you want to characterize those old folkies as the “dead” or take the line about shedding his mental burdens as indicating something, go ahead. Whatever those lines reference, this is one fine woman. She’s armed. She’s willing. She’s capable. And she also knows how to use a blanket. This is a surely a song of relational praise clouded by heaven knows what. In any event, the band rocks!
Turning to our final piece of narrative impressionism and the cryptic moralizing of the title cut, we gain additional proof of the musical majesty that defines this recording. This song is an aural party. That crazy whistle makes you look for a silent film character waddling across your yard twirling a cane. The rhythm section drives and drives and drives as the keyboards cut loose at the close of the fifth line of the five seven-line stanzas (with a ghost chorus). The song dances with itself. “Highway 61 Revisited” is an amazing piece of music. (The Cutting Edge outtakes offer several stellar versions of this historic composition.)
Complementing that musicality are some mighty-fine Dylan lyrics. The song massages thoughts about murder, commercialism, family relations, and war. All I can say is that Highway 61 is a busy place! The first verse introduces some famous characters:
Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”
God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’ you better run” [instrumental burst]
Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”
God says, “Out on Highway 61.”
What fun. The language is clear, the story is direct. Next we have “Georgia Sam” who, unfortunately, has injured his nose and has no clothes. He seeks relief from “Howard” who uses his gun to point him in the direction of Highway 61. Having cleared that up, the third verse offers a conversation between “Mack the Finger” and “Louis the King.” Poor Mack has invested poorly and finds himself with a bunch of colored shoe strings and a “thousand telephones that don’t ring.” Although I’d love one of those phones, Mack seeks advice as to where he might unload this unwanted merchandise. Louis ponders the situation and suggests Highway 61 might be an option. The fourth verse is a tad more complicated:
Now the fifth daughter on the twelfth night
Told the first father that things weren’t right
My complexion she said is much too white
He said come here and step into the light he says hmm you’re right
Let me tell the second mother this has been done [instrumental flourish]
But the second mother was with the seventh son
And they were both out on Highway 61.
Life can be so confusing. The fourth verse is certainly the photo negative of the first. This rollicking number closes where all good songs should: with a world war. It seems as though a homeless gambler seeks to relieve his boredom by starting a world war. He approaches a promoter without experience in such matters; nonetheless, he proposes a solution: build a grandstand along Highway 61 and do it there. Highway 61 is one diabolical road! God wants a murder to take place there. Louis sees it as a commercial outlet. They even stage wars there. Yes, Highway 61 is a lively place. And that crazy whistle captures it all so perfectly.
Highway 61 Revisited’s five songs of wordplay are treasures. Each track features its own adaptation of the “great American song tradition.” Most of the time you have no idea what’s going on in the song, but you’re tapping your toe to the tune anyway (“Desolation Row” is the lone exception here; you just sit there with your mouth open). The man who wrote “Hattie Carroll” is not telling stories like that here. There’s no Bear Mountain picnic, no spiteful love song, no traveling salesman joke, there’s not even a dream to interpret (or is there?). No sir, a master storyteller is going out of his way to avoid a story. The results did more than change songwriting. They killed Mr. Message Man stone dead on their way to the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The fun opens out west with “Tombstone Blues.” Sounding much like “Buick 6” with its honky-tonk, barroom sound, “Tombstone” features 12 four-line verses that are organized into pairs separated by six six-line choruses. Famous names (e.g., Paul Revere, Belle Starr, Jack the Ripper, John the Baptist, Galileo, Cecil B. DeMille, Ma Raney, and Beethoven) join wacky characters (e.g., Jezebel the nun, a crazy bride, a medicine man, a Commander-in-Chief, a king, Gypsy Davey, and more) to do things that may or may not make any sense whatsoever. The first verse establishes the song’s rhythm:
The sweet pretty things are in bed now of course
The city fathers they’re trying to endorse
The reincarnation of Paul Revere’s horse
But the town has no need to be nervous
This is Dylan’s wordplay. The imagery comes in droves as it complements the music’s madcap qualities (Bloomfield is incredible as he literally defines that “thin wild mercury” sound). Sister Jezebel makes a “bald wig” for Jack the Ripper. A distressed bride seeks relief from a doctor. A medicine man offers weird advice. John the Baptist asks the Commander for a good place to throw up. Galileo throws a mathematics book at a laughing Delilah. Banks sell spiritual maps. And Bob punctuates it all with this telltale chorus:
Mama’s in the fact’ry
She ain’t got no shoes
Daddy’s in the alley
He’s lookin’ for the fuse
I’m in the streets
With the tombstone blues
Just when I thought I understood “green clocks, wet chairs, purple lamps and hostile statues,” Dylan throws this at me. Ever feel like somebody’s toying with you? What a party!
The pace calms considerably with the circus hymn that is “Ballad of a Thin Man.” This ringmaster preaches to his assembled congregation by speaking in tongues. Those who know nod approvingly. The piano provides a dramatic tension for the funeral sounds that are enlivened by that churchy organ that bends and weaves throughout the song. The song’s eight eight-line verses are punctuated by seven three-line choruses (verses 4 and 5 don’t have a chorus separating them). General weirdness occurs in the individual stanzas and pauses for the insightful refrain: “Because something is happening here / But you don’t know what it is / Do you, Mister Jones?”
Evidence that this is all one extended game of Glissendorf appears in the second verse. Just as Bucklen and Zimmerman confused their victims with their “I see it’s raining / It isn’t raining / what’s the next first thing to cross you mind” game, this verse romps in the same symbolic playground:
You raise up your head
And you ask, “Is this where it is?”
And somebody points to you and says
And you say, “What’s mine?”
And somebody else says, “Where what is?”
And you say, “Oh my God
Am I here all alone?”
Classic Glissendorf. All I can say is that Mr. Jones is not alone. Verse 3 features a conversation with “the geek” (this circus freak is supposedly the song’s inspiration). Verse 4 offers a character that’s friendly with lumberjacks, under attack for an active imagination, and expected to contribute to charity (Dylan sings this like a middle-eight, but the music indicates otherwise). Verse 5 presents a well-read individual that’s admired by professors and lawyers. Verse 6 unveils a “sword swallower” who returns his throat to its rightful owner (what did I just say?). Verse 7 plays another round of Glissendorf in which a vertically and visually challenged individual shouts words that rhyme. Finally, verse 8 describes a man who walks like a camel, frowns, places his eyes in his pockets and his “nose on the ground” as the narrator declares: “There ought to be a law / Against you comin’ around / You should be made / To wear earphones.” The track’s slow, again churchy, piano-organ interplay works to a rhythm that betrays the wordplay. When “Tombstone” rushes along musically and lyrically, you sort of sit back and soak it all in; yet, this song’s sermonic sounds create expectations that are thoroughly ignored. To suggest all of this is metaphor is risky business.
“Queen Jane Approximately” uses pop music sounds (smooth rhythm, timely piano flourishes, steady organ, harmonica breaks) and lyrical repetition to invite Jane to visit. This character appears to offer a respite from all of the bad things in Jane’s life. The five five-line stanzas present three lines containing some observation about Jane before closing with the ghost chorus’s repeated invitation. Consider the opening verse:
When your mother sends back all your invitations
And your father to your sister he explains
That you’re tired of yourself and all of your creations
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?
The song continues with more negative scenes that preface the invitation. Florists want their flowers back (they’ve lost their smell anyway), Jane’s children “resent” her, clowns die in vain, “advisers” question Jane’s “conclusions,” and “bandits” that Jane has apparently absolved complain. The music swirls around as these lyrics unfold. Mr. Jones isn’t the only person in the dark on these matters: just who or what “Queen Jane” is or represents is certainly fertile ground for the Dylanologists to plow.
“Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” conjures images of the old Dylan, strumming his guitar in support of his poetry. Although the piano-rhythm section interplay is unlike Dylan’s earlier solo work, that feel is present and narrows your focus to the song’s lyrics. When you zoom in on these expressions, bring your interpretative binoculars—you’ll need them. The first verse reveals why:
When you’re lost in the rain in Juarez
And it’s Eastertime too
And your gravity fails
And negativity don’t pull you through
Don’t put on any airs
When you’re down on Rue Morgue Avenue
They got some hungry women there
And they really make a mess outa you
The song’s six verses march along in a similar fashion with a strong harmonica bridge separating the fifth and sixth stanzas. Verse 2 discusses “Saint Annie,” the narrator’s physical predicament, and a silent physician. Verse 3 introduces the “goddess of gloom” (“Sweet Melinda”) and her strange powers. Verse 4 talks not about a person, but a place (“Housing Project Hill”) where the police enjoy their independence. Verse 5 discusses corrupt government officials and their impact on “Angel.” After an extended harmonica break, the final verse offers a personal statement from the narrator:
I started out on burgundy
But soon hit the harder stuff
Everybody said they’d stand behind me
When the game got rough
But the joke was on me
There was nobody even there to call my bluff
I’m going back to New York City
I do believe I’ve had enough
That verse has a sign posted: Beware of Poet. Whatever Tom’s blues are about, I know of nothing “just like” them. There’s a thread somewhere that holds this song together. The talk of negativity, undiagnosed illnesses, gloom, disillusionment, corruption, and betrayal is presented in a systematic fashion. Like “Queen Jane” there’s a rhythm to the word play that suggests some form of logic. Whatever that angle might be, experience counsels restraint.
One of the great things about Bob Dylan is his ability to produce the one-of-a-kind song. Name a song that’s like “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” What tune sounds like “Rolling Stone”? Dylan’s capacity for musical innovation is certainly historic. He pulls another musical rabbit out of his songwriting hat with “Desolation Row.” The ten 12-lines-per-verse stanzas (with a ghost chorus) consist of ten independent vignettes with subtle musical accompaniment (acoustic guitar and bass). While they all supposedly involve the location, “Desolation Row,” only one character appears in more than one vignette: the narrator. Introduced in the opening stanza and returning as the subject of the tenth verse, our narrator offers his/her take on the activities in and around Desolation Row.
As with much of the Newport Mod’s writing, the various characters—ranging from celebrities (e.g., Cinderella, Einstein, Ezra Pound, and T. S. Eliot) to individual locals (e.g., Ophelia, Dr. Filth, and Casanova) to an unnamed cast of thousands (e.g., sailors, a blind commissioner, the superhuman crew, and lovely mermaids)—are portrayed in wild and crazy ways; doing more than unlikely or absurd acts (e.g., smelling sewers while repeating the alphabet). The scenario unfolds via four characters profiles, five scenic descriptions, and the closing personal commentary from the narrator. The opening verse, a scenic vignette, offers a fine example of that particular style:
They’re selling postcards of the hanging
They’re painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They’ve got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they’re restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row
Well, what have we here? A “scene” where they sell photos of public executions, colorize public documents, glamorize military personnel, and public officials fraternize with carneys. Notice the narrator’s appearance in the penultimate line as s/he establishes his/her role in the unfolding scenario.
Other scenic descriptions involve verse 3’s account of a dark night in which most people hide inside making love, while Cain, Able, the hunchback of Notre Dame, and the Good Samaritan prepare for the evening’s festivities; verse 7’s portrayal of the Phantom of the Opera’s and Casanova’s activities as the neighborhood prepares for a feast (the Phantom yells at local “skinny girls” about Casanova’s transgressions on Desolation Row); verse 8’s report of the activities of the “superhuman crew” and local “insurance men” (they work in their own ways to guarantee that people don’t escape to Desolation Row); and verse 9’s chaotic description of conflicts on the Titanic (featuring a fight between Pound and Eliot as calypso singers laugh, fishermen clutch flowers, and everyone avoids thinking about Desolation Row). In each case, there is evidence of plot progression within the individual scenarios; however, the next verse drops that scene and moves on to the next vignette.
Complementing these scenic descriptions are the character profiles that add another layer to this surreal situation. The second verse unveils Cinderella’s conflict with Romeo and her penchant for cleanliness. The song’s fourth verse offers this characterization:
Now Ophelia, she’s ’neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid
To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession’s her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah’s great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row
Say hello to a young spinster and her dark life. Apparently, she’s an outsider, looking in on the varied happenings of Desolation Row. With her romantic visions of death and her protective attire, she worships her life away, transfixed by Noah’s promise.
Other character profiles involve verse 5’s presentation of Einstein (he dresses like Robin Hood, hangs out with a jealous ecclesiastic, smells his way around town, and betrays his personal history) and verse 6’s portrayal of Dr. Filth’s weird world. Everyone is either preparing for a night on Desolation Row, doing something strange on Desolation Row, winding down from a night on Desolation Row, peering in on the activities of Desolation Row, keeping people from going to Desolation Row, or practicing mental avoidance behaviors about that nutty place. After a protracted harmonica blast, the closing verse returns to the narrator’s situation. He receives a letter, criticizes its contents, attacks the people mentioned therein, and tells his correspondent not to write again unless the missive is mailed from Desolation Row. Another harmonica solo concludes this surreal trip through the Nobel laureate’s lyrical toolbox.
“Desolation” is a blend of characters that mix and mingle through strange scenes that stand by themselves. Nothing ever builds upon anything. Each vignette could easily be the start of its own song. The ghost chorus’s reference to “Desolation Row” is the only common thread among the mayhem. What song is like this? It’s certainly not a narrative. It displays characteristics of narrative impressionism although the references to Desolation Row are too fast and loose for that style. So, I place it in the wordplay category, and leave it at that.
“Desolation Row” is an excellent example of Dylan’s inventive style. Remember his comments in our biography chapter about the waves of crazy circus characters that flowed through Hibbing? Seeing George Washington or Napoleon in blackface, or watching the Fat Man hang out with the Snake Woman and the Bearded Lady left an indelible impression on the emerging artist. As he told Edna Gundersen in 2001: “That’s a minstrel song through and through. I saw some ragtag minstrel show in blackface at the carnivals when I was growing up, and it had an effect on me, just as much as seeing the lady with four legs.” When he opened his mind to these weird combinations scenes like watching Albert Einstein in his Robin Hood outfit strolling about smelling the street; or seeing Cain, Abel, and the hunchback of Notre Dame mingling; or witnessing a fistfight between famous poets aboard a doomed ship emerged and found their way into the work. Indeed, Bob’s Way is a process of assembly. And the items to be assembled can come from anywhere ranging from Moby Dick to Rebel without a Cause to Atlas the Dwarf.
Highway 61 Revisited is a one-of-a-kind recording. Both sonically and lyrically, it stands alone in the history of music. This record, more than any other in the Dylan canon, demonstrates the writer is unafraid of chaos; in fact, he embraces it. What began on Bringing It All Back Home peaks in Highway 61. Both records deploy a raucous barrelhouse–honky-tonk–churchy–Delta blues musical strategy that Tom Wilson and Bob Johnston capture wonderfully. With that soundstage in place, Dylan advances his Glissendorf skills in unprecedented ways. Yes, go ahead, interpret Einstein’s relationship with Robin Hood, or analyze the cryptic moralizing of “Highway 61,” or read between “Tom Thumb’s” lines. The Glissendorf master issued his invitation into his world of word games and patiently awaits your participation. Listen to “Desolation Row” and tell me “what’s the next first thing to cross your mind?”
There were but a few outtakes from the Highway 61 Revisited sessions. According to sources, only the “Positively 4th Street” single, “Can You Please Crawl out Your Window,” and “Sitting on a Barbed-Wire Fence” were excluded (all are featured on The Cutting Edge set). Once more, Dylan penned liner notes for the album as well. Those notes—entitled “Highway 61 Revisited”—demonstrate the Tarantula writing style in a compelling fashion. Once you accept the flow of crazy-named characters, there is evidence of plot progression. The “story” traces the activities of “White Heap,” the “hundred Inevitables,” “Cream Judge,” “the Clown,” “Savage Rose,” “Fixable,” “Autumn,” and features cameos by “Tom Dooley,” “the bartender,” “Paul Sargent,” “Madam John,” “Rose,” and “Lifelessness.” They are all sort of out on the town, working their way—it seems—over to the “Insanity Factory” (operated by the “WIPE-OUT GANG”). Some of the characters are quite interesting. For example, we have Autumn, the poet. She’s not, we’re told, “extremely fat but rather progressively unhappy” as she writes her poetry and awaits the “slow train.” We have Cream Judge, the author. Cream is currently writing a book “on the true meaning of a pear,” which is a follow-up to last year’s book on “famous dogs of the civil war.” The bartender appears to be a nice fellow who “keeps a buffalo in his mind.” At one point, the bar scene is disrupted by Paul Sargent of 4th Street who arrests everyone “for being incredible” (no worries, no one was offended). I thought Clown went a bit too far when he gagged Autumn’s mouth and prompted White Heap to challenge our poet regarding her relationship with spring. Apparently, Savage Rose and Fixable agreed (they kicked his brains and colored him pink “for being a phony philosopher”).
Suddenly, a break in the action occurs and we receive the statement about tonal breath control. That passage continues: “the subject matter—though meaningless as it is—has something to do with beautiful strangers. . . . the beautiful strangers, Vivaldi’s green jacket & the holy slow train.” The liner notes close with a discussion of the word “eye,” the author’s inability to “say” that word any longer, and his conclusion that we’re lucky, since we “don’t have to think about such things as eyes & rooftops & quazimodo.” (Previously we were told that our roof was “demolished” and that quazimodo—along with john cohen and mozart—were right about, I think, the word “eye.”) What can you say?
The Newport Mod’s exploration of the dark recesses of Bob Dylan’s mind is coming to a close. Bob’s rebellion successfully pushed away those “New York organizations,” dismissed the practice of sloganeering, and massaged his concerns over language by introducing his poetry to the practice of songwriting. His unique “proetry” also brought new life to liner notes and fed Tarantula. All of Dylan’s influences synthesized into a new approach that dutifully served this idea and its purpose. The nexus prospered when our poetic ragpicker probed his memories, colorized those Robert Johnson lines, and used the sounds of American Song to paint freewheeling pictures free of any dogma.
Bob’s musical toolbox expanded as well. By bringing in a band to add color to his compositions, Dylan advanced his adaptations of rock and roll, blues, country, and gospel sounds. Gospel music’s traditional organ-piano counterpoint found a new home featuring a blues-based rhythm section, slashing rock and roll rhythm/lead guitar, and a country-style vocalist. None of this was about perfection, it was about greatness. The results represent the epitome of tonal breath control.
The creative fire burned white hot during this time frame. Writing Tarantula, the songs, the liner notes, pieces for magazines such as “Alternatives to College,” and constant touring would take a toll on the artist. And it all intensified after Highway 61. A new band, a new world tour, another movie project, the ever-present “novel,” and changing recording studios for a new album made 1966 look even tougher than the incredible year that was 1965. It would be tougher, that’s for sure, but it would not be better. Just look at 1965: Bringing It All Back Home, Dont Look Back, the Newport legend, and Highway 61 Revisited. That’s merely the first eight months of that year. Songs for the next album, major performances, and unsuccessful recording sessions rounded off an intense 1965. Now, that fire begins to dim. The celebrity life, the overheated word machine, the constant movement, and a debilitating fatigue set in and bring a glorious era to a close—and it all happens in the last place you’d ever expect.
Blonde on Blonde
Transitional projects tend to be confusing and, occasionally, dilute their artistic impact. Bob Dylan’s seventh album, the Nashville-produced Blonde on Blonde, is such an album. The sonic edge that powered Highway 61 Revisited disappears on Blonde. The lyrical magic that fueled the Newport Mod Era slowly fades as well. Consequently, we have a 14-song album that splits straight down the middle with seven tunes from the clever songsmith who changed songwriting forever, and seven songs from a pop music version of the writer that preceded him—a style that would soon dominate the work. “Visions of Johanna” and “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” are testaments to the brilliance that radiates from “Gates of Eden” and “It’s Alright, Ma” as that historic approach descends to the back of the toolbox until Jack Fate pulls it out decades later. The news here—aside from the Nashville influence that totally tamed the record—is that the topical master reapplies his finger-pointing technique as he zooms in on that one topic that never ceases to inspire him: relational complaint.
To be sure, the sounds vary. From the raucous party of the opening track (“Rainy Day Women #12 & 35”) through the variations of blues-oriented platforms to the downright pop tunes that are “I Want You” and “4th Time Around” (only the Beatles are missing here), this record marches along at its own Music City pace. The seven songs of relational complaint present another “greatest hits” package as they touch all of the musical bases. We have three country tunes, a New Orleans–style pop tune, a Merseybeat-style pop song, a Sun Records–style pop song, and a pop variation of the record’s musical innovation, the Salvation Army band song. The impressionistic songs also deploy diverse musical strategies with a decided emphasis on Tennessee signatures and Delta sounds. The organ, piano, and guitar work complement the steady Nashville rhythm section as they operate within the various musical genres. In all cases, the harmonica remains dazzling. Blonde is a beautifully warm recording in that majestic Music City tradition.
Clinton Heylin’s chronology reports the album’s production process was a marked departure from the spontaneous sessions that characterized Dylan’s recording to that point. Dylan, Bob Johnston, and the Hawks started the Blonde project in Columbia’s New York studios in October 1965 and carried on through the end of January 1966. With little coming from those sessions, Dylan dismissed the Hawks and traveled south with Johnston, Robbie Robertson, and Al Kooper to complete the venture.
There Johnston brought in several seasoned musicians to work with an artist quite unlike anything the Nashville regulars had ever experienced. Accomplished musicians such as Wayne Moss (guitar), Jerry Kennedy (guitar), Joe South (bass), Hargus Robbins (piano, listed as “Robinson” in Heylin’s book), Kenneth Buttrey (drums), Henry Strzelecki (drums), Bill Aikins (not listed in Heylin), and informal leader Charlie McCoy (guitar, harmonica) provided the backing sounds for the Newport Mod’s unlikely appearance in Music City.
It was a unique experience for everybody. You see, Nashville musicians work in tightly supervised, supposedly efficient sessions—a stark contrast to the Dylan Method that relied on the improvisational skills of the accompanying musicians. On the BBC’s The Bob Dylan Story, the series host, Kris Kristofferson, recalls the recording of the first double-album in pop music history. How fascinating that the man who in a little over seven years would star in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid was working at Columbia’s Nashville studios as a janitor! When he recounts the experience you can still hear the excitement in his deep, booming voice. During that BBC broadcast, Charlie McCoy explains how these sessions unfolded:
It was a bit different. It had a totally different approach . . . up to that point it was almost a set rule that you would go into a studio at either 10, 2, 6, or 10 and record four songs. But he took his time . . . he wanted to make sure every lyric was exactly the way he wanted it. So we had a tendency to relax a bit more . . . wasn’t quite as nervous . . . wasn’t trying to beat the clock kind of situation.
Proof of McCoy’s recollections exists in Heylin’s chronology where he cites the aforementioned conversation with Allen Ginsberg about Bob’s compositional method (running back and forth from the studio to the control booth, assembling lyrics). Now this is not the stuff of the patented Nashville Sound. That the musicians played cards and ping pong as Dylan composed his songs, stopped the game to record a new song, and resumed the game while Bob prepared the next track also deviates from Nashville working prescriptions. These were strange times for all involved.
Blonde on Blonde (released May 16, 1966) is a 14-track double album (running over 73 minutes) that offers two songs in the free-form, wordplay style (“Visions of Johanna” and “Stuck Inside of Mobile”), five songs that employ the narrative impressionism technique (“Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” “Pledging My Time,” “I Want You,” “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat,” and “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”), and seven stories about relationships that contain the occasional flash of Newport Mod poetry: “One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later),” “Just Like a Woman,” “Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine,” “Temporary like Achilles,” “Absolutely Sweet Marie,” “4th Time Around,” and “Obviously Five Believers.” The relational songs establish a narrative trend that extends through the remainder of the lifework, while the wordplay and impressionism grind to a halt. The cavalier wordsmith’s spontaneous utterances—like his unstructured recording sessions—would now give way to more strategic, less inspirational art. The stark stylistic variations of the outtakes featured on The Cutting Edge set reinforce that point.
That the laureate’s impressionistic inspiration had run its course is evident throughout the five pieces of narrative impressionism and the final two editions of wordplay. The absence of liner notes may signal that development as well. Indeed, my friends, the Newport Mod says goodbye to Music City; never to return. So, let’s celebrate! I think it’s safe to say that the Nashville cats were yet to experience anything like the recording of “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.” Bob Johnston describes for the BBC how “Rainy Day Women” emerged:
Dylan came to me and he sat down on the piano and he said, “I’ve got a song.” And he started playing this thing. And I said, “Goddamn that sounds like a Salvation Army band.” He said, “Well, see if you can get one.” I think it was late at night and I called everywhere and I couldn’t get one, so I talked with Charlie McCoy. And McCoy said “well I play trumpet and I know somebody who can play trombone.”
There McCoy recalls: “I said ‘does he want it to be good?’ And [Johnston] said no. I said when do you want him here? And he said midnight . . . so the guy showed up at ten till twelve . . . and went home at seventeen after . . . and it was done. Two takes.” Wayne Moss recounts the details for the BBC:
[Dylan] wanted everybody to whoop and holler and act like they were having a party. So he said “what do you guys do to relax around here?” And Charlie McCoy says, “well we play golf and fish.” He said, “naw, that’s not what I mean.” He said, “what can I do to make things loosen up a little bit so we can make this sound more like a party?” Charlie says, “oh I don’t know, maybe everybody can drink a beer or something.” . . . We got quite relaxed. To show you how foggy it is in my memory, Henry Strelecki and I have a difference of opinion as to who played bass on it. It was either he or I, I don’t recall. Seems like to me I was playing foot pedals on the organ with my hands cause I couldn’t stand up.
McCoy adds: “Bob was talking about how he wanted it to have a Salvation Army-type marching beat to it. And so someone . . . said why don’t we just march around the room? And so, next thing you know . . . the bass drum was taken off the stand and Jerry Kerrigan strapped it around his chest and we physically marched around the room. But that had the feel that he wanted . . . no changes or nothing. That’s the way it was supposed to be and that’s the way it was.” (Al Kooper denies this story and I agree. It would be impossible to record in this fashion.)
Once the trombone player was on his way home and the track was completed, Dylan named his new song. Bob Johnston recalls the succession of titles Bob considered in the BBC documentary: “I said what are you gonna call that . . . he said ‘Rainy Day Women . . . number 48 and 63.’ No, ‘number 18 and 24’ . . . no ‘number 12 and 35.’ And it was just like [snaps his fingers] he knew when he hit 12 and 35 that was it. And that’s what he called it.” When asked about the significance of those particular numbers, Dylan responds: “There was great significance to it at the time . . . I know there must have been. It wouldn’t have been titled that for no reason whatsoever. I don’t know what that reason was. Everything had a reason back then. But then again, it could be a no reason. I’m not sure.” All of this took place in Nashville, but it surely wasn’t of Nashville.
Turning to the song’s specifics, “Rainy Day” features five six-line stanzas that are divided into two sections; four lines describing where people get stoned, and two lines stating the inevitable in the embedded chorus. The song, as the musicians’ comments indicate, is an aural wonder. The piano swirls, a subtle harmonica floats throughout with a fine instrumental bridge between verses 3 and 4, and the crazy marching band sound effects whip around to produce one rowdy song. So much so that the song is widely believed to be a “drug song” with Dylan’s comments on oppression getting buried. The Salvation Army band–inspired social statement opens:
Well, they’ll stone ya when you’re trying to be so good,
They’ll stone ya just a-like they said they would.
They’ll stone ya when you’re tryin’ to go home.
Then they’ll stone ya when you’re there all alone.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.
That’s the song’s structure: four lines of stoning locations followed by the comforting conclusion that that’s just the way it is. Verse 2 reports that “they’ll” oppress you while you’re walking down the street, trying to hold your seat, walking across the floor, or going to the door. Verse 3 notes how “they’ll” get you eating breakfast, during your able youth, when you try to earn a living, and when all is said and done, these people will wish you well. A harmonica break segues into verse 4’s comments about people oppressing you and then asserting closure, how they will come back for more, go for you in your car, and of course, there’s no peace when you play your guitar, either. Yes, those stones come from every direction, all of the time—as the final verse drives home:
Well, they’ll stone you when you walk all alone.
They’ll stone you when you are walking home.
They’ll stone you and then say you are brave.
They’ll stone you when you are set down in your grave.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.
This straightforward song of oppression betrays itself with the marching band, partying sound effects. So much so that it’s been reported that the song inspired Elvis Presley to seek a special U.S. Marshall appointment from President Richard Nixon. You can’t make something like that up, you know?
Our other impressionistic songs concentrate on relational matters. “Pledging My Time” welcomes you to the Delta with its first note. This slow, prodding, blues tune features one compelling lesson in tonal breath control (especially during the bridge between verses 3 and 4) and Dylan’s harmonica may very well reach its peak on this track (a long burst closes the song). Complementing that harmonica work is some lightning sharp guitar licks. Lyrically, the five six-line verses follow the four-two ratio of “Rainy Day” in that we have four lines of description before a two-line standard close. The first verse cites the narrator’s day-long headache and his recovery as he states his commitment to his love interest. The second stanza demonstrates the song’s method of expression:
Well, the hobo jumped up,
He came down natur’lly.
After he stole my baby,
Then he wanted to steal me.
But I’m pledging my time to you,
Hopin’ you’ll come through, too.
“Pledging” continues with verse 3’s invitation to give the narrator a chance, verse 4’s comments about a stuffy room containing the two of them and the narrator’s need to leave, and closes with this enigmatic verse:
Well, they sent for the ambulance
And one was sent.
Somebody got lucky
Now I’m pledging my time to you,
Hopin’ you’ll come through, too.
The song’s complaint is buried in this blues-oriented piece of impressionism. The narrator talks around his concerns far more than he talks to them; nevertheless, the cloudy imagery featuring the hobo and the ambulance scene join cryptic remarks about giving the relationship a chance and the stuffy room scene to suggest that this character hopes to receive as much as he gives. There’s no praise or celebration, just a hope for reciprocity. Dylan’s voice and harmonica color this blues the appropriate hue.
Our relational theme advances with the pop sounds of “I Want You.” This is one bouncy, happy-go-lucky sounding pop song that just bops along with some wonderful harmonica bits. The four 10- to 11-line verses feature seven or eight lines of surreal descriptions before turning to the three-line close stating the narrator’s desires. Here we have a major songwriting innovation within the Dylan canon: our first lyrical bridge. While Dylan has often deployed his harmonica or another instrument in the bridge role, he now steps straight into that Tin Pan Alley tradition with a four-line bridge between the second and third verses. Welcome to Music City! The opening stanza sets the tone:
The guilty undertaker sighs,
The lonesome organ grinder cries,
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you.
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn,
But it’s not that way,
I wasn’t born to lose you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.
Here we have a classic example of the narrative impressionism writing style. A contrite mortician, talking musical instruments and more set the scene for the concluding appeal that occupies the final lines. Verse two offers jumping politicians who’ve had too much to drink, crying mothers, sleeping saviors, and a reference to the narrator drinking from a “broken cup” (?). With that, we turn to the lifework’s first bridge:
Now all my fathers, they’ve gone down
True love they’ve been without it.
But all their daughters put me down
’Cause I don’t think about it.
A bridge as clear as mud prefaces two closing verses that share that clarity. A conversation with the narrator’s “chambermaid” occupies the third verse with the final stanza offering an apology for any harm the narrator may have inflicted on his love interest’s son. Right.
Although we’ve certainly seen this sort of writing before, Bob never employed standard pop song strategies to frame those words. The playful sounds and the “I want you” lines create images that the remaining lyrics dodge. The first four lines of each stanza are either Romper Room wordplay or a diabolical private code (or they could be words from the back of a cereal box written in the reverse order).
The next impressionistic track, “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat,” is a slow, ripping Delta blues that suggests Dylan’s beloved thin wild mercury sound and its wicked guitars. The track sounds like the sort of song you might hear walking toward the Daisy Theater on Memphis’s Beale Street after midnight. Its raw, pulsating drive makes you sweat. Some stellar guitar appears in the instrumental bridge between verses 3 and 4. A strong guitar solo closes the song as well. The writing is in the blues tradition—except we have classic Dylan twists in their presentation. The five verses appear in four eight-line segments with an opening five-line stanza. In all cases, the ghost chorus provides the anchor for a series of scenes that go nowhere while flirting with a relational complaint. (The song’s multiple incarnations on Cutting Edge indicate that this number took some time to unfold.)
The track opens with the narrator acknowledging his “baby’s” new head-wear and his curiosity regarding its impact on her head. Next, he does what anyone would do in this situation: he asks if he can jump on her new hat. Before the guitar break, the third verse invites this well-adorned lady to accompany the narrator for a view of the sunrise in which he promises to wear his belt on his head while she wears her hat. The plot thickens with the final stanzas:
Well, I asked the doctor if I could see you
It’s bad for your health, he said
Yes, I disobeyed his orders
I came to see you
But I found him there instead
You know, I don’t mind him cheatin’ on me
But I sure wish he’d take that off his head
Your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
Well, I see you got a new boyfriend
You know, I never seen him before
Well, I saw him
Makin’ love to you
You forgot to close the garage door
You might think he loves you for your money
But I know what he really loves you for
It’s your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat.
Perhaps this isn’t about the hat at all, but about the hypocritical doctor who lies to his patient for his own gratification (. . . right). Anyway, the final stanza lodges the relational complaint in its own fun way.
Just look at the musical strategies evidenced in these impressionistic songs! The Salvation Army sound, two pounding Delta blues tracks, and one merry pop tune set the scene for the impressionistic hymn that closes Blonde: “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.” Wayne Moss recounts recording this 11-minute track that occupied one whole side of the two-record set for the BBC: “The first day . . . the first call . . . we were called at two. His plane was late. He showed up at six. And he said, ‘Look, I gotta finish writing a song.’ . . . we didn’t start recording ’til four a.m. . . . and the song was ‘Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’ . . . a fourteen minute ballad . . . it was tough . . . we were lucky to hang with him. Everybody was very tired.”
“Sad-Eyed” is a slow, slow, slow grind that opens with a telling harmonica blast before settling into a pace that never changes. The song features five 13-line verses that share identical strategies: Each verse opens with a three-line statement of praise (of varying degrees), pauses for a question, follows with three more descriptive lines, pauses for another question, and closes with a five-line recurring statement. The song ends with a harmonica solo that runs the length of a stanza (that means it’s long). The five-line closing statement holds the song together:
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?
We’re a long way from sloganeering here. The song features lines and lines of imagery; some of which extend to two lines. The opening verse captures the three-line-and-a-question approach:
With your mercury mouth in the missionary times,
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes,
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes,
Oh, who among them do they think could bury you?
Other questions ask who could “carry” her, who could “outguess” her, who could “impress” her, who wants to “kiss” her, who could “resist” her, who could “mistake” her, who could “persuade” her, who would “employ” her, and who would “destroy” her. What prefaces these questions, as the example above indicates, are lines of varying degrees of clarity. Some examples include: “And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass”; “And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass”; “And your deck of cards missing the jack and ace”; “Into your eyes where the moonlight swims”; “With your childhood flames on your midnight rug”; and my favorite, “And your saintlike face and your ghostlike soul.”
From its length, to its placement on the Blonde album in that all-important capstone slot, to its lyrics, well, we don’t see songs like “Sad-eyed” very often. In a later song, Dylan will write that he wrote this song for his wife. Whether or not that’s accurate, it is most assuredly an impressionistic hymn of unadulterated adoration. This woman is wonderful, but under threat. Who would do that, the song asks. Moreover, the fourth and fifth stanzas make references to a former lover or spouse in negative terms (e.g., “And your magazine-husband who one day just had to go”) that reinforce the biographical argument. One way or another, the song is a statement. But since it’s a Dylan statement, I’ll leave such matters for you to decide.
The finest pieces of Newport Mod songwriting on Blonde are the record’s two works of unrestrained wordplay. “Visions of Johanna” and “Stuck Inside of Mobile” are the last of their kind for a long while. Interestingly, both songs use variations of Memphis soul to carry the wordplay. Hints of that wonderful Booker T.–style organ provide a soulful jazz feel for the poetry that is “Johanna” and the “Green Onion”–style romp of “Stuck Inside.” Dylan’s harmonica colorizes it all. The results are impressive.
“Visions of Johanna” consists of five verses; four with 9–10 lines, the fifth with 14 lines. Only the ghost chorus reference to Johanna holds the thing together (and it varies). The music provides a swanky platform for the poetry with recurrent harmonica bursts punctuating the experience. As with “Sad-Eyed” some images require two to three lines while others occupy single lines. There is no plot progression within the stanzas or throughout the song. Grab a line and go is the philosophy here.
And what lines they are. The song opens with “Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin’ to be so quiet?” while the second verse offers: “The ghost of ’lectricity howls in the bones of her face.” These lines just pop up out of their context in startling ways. Verse 4 offers some imaginative sentiments: “Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial” and “But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues / You can tell by the way she smiles” and “Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule.” The lines come and go in their own enigmatic way. The final, extended verse is telltale:
The peddler now speaks to the countess who’s pretending to care for him
Sayin’, “Name me someone that’s not a parasite and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him”
“Ya can’t look at much, can ya man?”
As she, herself, prepares for him
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev’rything’s been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain.
Originally entitled “Freeze Out,” “Visions” was long in the making (The Cutting Edge outtakes are wildly different). Echoing the liner notes from days-gone-by and Tarantula, these lyrics operate in their own world. Their antecedents may be in the Delta or with the French symbolists (or more likely, a combination), but they represent a distinctive contribution to the Dylan canon. This is historic songwriting.
Proof of the unnatural qualities of the Blonde sessions for the Nashville musicians exist in the 11 and a half hours required to record “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” on February 16th and 17th. Here again Memphis sounds appear through Nashville filters as the organ leads a steady-charging Music City rhythm section that yields a country soul musical hybrid. The sound is not quite country, not quite soul, not quite anything else either. Ho-Hum. Another Newport Mod innovation establishes a platform for Dylan’s wordplay.
“Stuck Inside of Mobile” is an impressive achievement. It contains nine 11-line verses, each with a three-line recurring statement about Mobile and the Holy City of American Music (Memphis). The respective verses offer vignettes about specific characters in which that individual or location is identified and something unfolds from there. We hear about the ragman, Shakespeare, Mona, Grandpa, the senator, the preacher, the rainman, Ruthie, and the happenings on Grand Street. No choruses, no bridges, just a steady stream of vignettes, one after the other. Consider verses 2 and 3 of this now-perfected songwriting strategy:
Well, Shakespeare, he’s in the alley
With his pointed shoes and his bells,
Speaking to some French girl,
Who says she knows me well.
And I would send a message
To find out if she’s talked,
But the post office has been stolen
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.
Mona tried to tell me
To stay away from the train line.
She said that all the railroad men
Just drink up your blood like wine.
An’ I said, “Oh, I didn’t know that,
But then again, there’s only one I’ve met
An’ he just smoked my eyelids
An’ punched my cigarette.”
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.
Notice the consistent strategy of introducing a famous or crazed name, having that character participate in some unlikely scenario, and winding the whole thing up with a recurrent image that may or may not have any possible connection to the weird scene that preceded it. Throughout, we witness touches of the old satires, dreams, and irreverence that populate the canon. Whip them all together with some form of musical hybrid and you have another classic Bob Dylan song from the Newport Mod Era.
But now it’s almost over. Years later Tarantula will demonstrate how this writing style works outside of songs or liner notes, but we’ll not see this type of songwriting until Jack Fate arrives. Perhaps it was just too much—too much energy, too many demands, too little time for concentration, and maybe just maybe, too many words. Still, it was a great ride.
Now the musical portion of this incredible period crashes in a predictable place: Music City. I used to live in Memphis and the folks there call Nashville “NashVegas” for a variety of reasons. We witness a few of them in the seven songs of relational complaint on Blonde. Weird things happen in these songs. Although the spiteful bite of the writer’s relational commentary is festering and preparing for the Tidal Wave of romantic storytelling that would dominate the 1970s and beyond, these songs sift relational comments through a Nashville filter. Of these seven songs, five of them use Tin Pan Alley South–style bridges and one features a middle-eight (the first in the Dylan canon). Somehow, someway Dylan’s muse encountered the standard songwriting structures of that Nashville sound and rendered a series of pop songs.
“One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)” is a country-style song with a churchy feel—thanks to the piano-organ interplay. Subtle guitars and rhythms provide a musical setting for a traditional pop songwriting strategy: three eight-line verses accompanied by three four-line choruses. The song is a simple “I’m sorry” tale that states its case in the opening four lines: “I didn’t mean to treat you so bad / You shouldn’t take it so personal / I didn’t mean to make you so sad / You just happened to be there, that’s all.” From there, the narrator explains that he was unable to see or hear what she was showing or saying and admits that when she asked if he were leaving someplace with her or with another woman, he was confused by the situation. Let’s examine the third segment for a sample of this formulaic approach:
I couldn’t see when it started snowin’
Your voice was all that I heard
I couldn’t see where we were goin’
But you said you knew an’ I took your word
And then you told me later, as I apologized
That you were just kiddin’ me, you weren’t really from the farm
An’ I told you, as you clawed out my eyes
That I never really meant to do you any harm
But sooner or later, one of us must know
You just did what you’re supposed to do
Sooner or later, one of us must know
That I really did try to get close to you
This sort of no fault relational song is unusual in this artist’s world to date. Nevertheless, the tale is straightforward: She did her job but he failed. He tried yet he just failed. Sorry. “One of Us” is a simple pop song that follows a simple songwriting strategy that is simply unusual for this writer (despite the occasional biting or enigmatic line). Was the word machine running out of fuel?
Our next country-style composition reinforces that Nashville trend as it uses a smooth harmonica introduction to establish a light musical backdrop for another standard pop song. In “Just Like a Woman” we witness our first middle-eight. The song features three 10-line verses that contain six lines of commentary before a four-line embedded chorus. Between verses 2 and 3, Dylan places his initial middle-eight. We have, then, another Nashville-fueled pop song.
The track opens with our narrator sitting in the rain thinking about his “Baby” and her new look (new clothes, different hairdo). Next he refers to his friend (“Queen Mary”) and how—when all is said and done—she is like everybody else, “With her fog, her amphetamine and her pearls.” The middle-eight and final verse communicate the thrust of the song:
It was raining from the first
And I was dying there of thirst
And your long-time curse hurts
But what’s worse
Is this pain in here
I can’t stay in here
Ain’t it clear that—
I just can’t fit
Yes, I believe it’s time for us to quit
When we meet again
Introduced as friends
Please don’t let on that you knew me when
I was hungry and it was your world.
Ah, you fake just like a woman, yes, you do
You make love just like a woman, yes, you do
Then you ache just like a woman
But you break just like a little girl.
The final stanza lodges the relational complaint after the narrator expresses the pain he associates with the status quo. Consequently, it’s time for a change—plain and simple. Although the track follows a standard songwriting formula, snippets of that Dylan Edge appear. Just what does the songwriter mean by that last line? Despite the tranquilizing Nashville influence, the Newport Mod’s fire smolders.
Our final country pop tune represents a blend of songwriting strategies presented through a fast-paced version of the Nashville sound (super smooth). “Absolutely Sweet Marie” synthesizes lines of relational complaint with impressionistic imagery that, at times, seems somewhat out of place. “Marie” contains five five-line verses with three different bridges. It opens with a complaint about what appears to be Marie’s false promises. That sentiment continues in verse 2 when he describes how he “waited” for her when he was sick, hated, and stuck in traffic. Apparently, our narrator is in jail; taking stock. The lie theme advances in verse 3:
Well, six white horses that you did promise
Were fin’lly delivered down to the penitentiary
But to live outside the law, you must be honest
I know you always say that you agree
But where are you tonight, sweet Marie?
That stanza is followed by the second bridge and its reference to a prescient boat captain and a plea for patience. The song closes with two cloudy verses about a stalking “Persian drunkard,” the mail he received in jail, and his predicament with Marie. The song’s final lines are representative:
And now I stand here lookin’ at your yellow railroad
In the ruins of your balcony
Wond’ring where you are tonight, sweet Marie.
The complaint over Marie’s absence drives the song in no uncertain terms; however, the enigmatic imagery of a colored railway, foreign drunks, and all-knowing riverboat captains paints a foggy picture of the events supporting the relational complaint. Blonde’s transitional qualities are on display.
This characteristic is also evident in the first of our parade of pop songs and the Merseybeat sounds of “4th Time Around.” With sounds reminiscent of the Beatles “Norwegian Wood” swirling lightly in the background, this song portrays an exchange between lovers on the down side of a relationship (in fact, the final scene finds the narrator with another woman). The five nine-line verses feature no tag lines, bridges, or choruses as the story unfolds in its own obscure way. The first verse sets the tone:
When she said,
“Don’t waste your words, they’re just lies,”
I cried she was deaf.
And she worked on my face until breaking my eyes,
Then said, “What else you got left?”
It was then that I got up to leave
But she said, “Don’t forget,
Everybody must give something back
For something they get.”
Obviously, there’s conflict in the air, but the details are evasive. The flashes of impressionism once more signal the song’s transitional qualities.
From there, the narrator stands and hums, beats on drums, and gives away his gum. The plot thickens when she throws him out. But he forgot his shirt and returns for it. She answers the door and goes to fetch the shirt as he examines a photograph of her in a wheelchair. Upon her return, they argue. He makes her so mad that she falls to the floor, unconscious. Oddly, our narrator seizes the opportunity and rifles through her things. The story ends in this fashion:
And when I was through,
I filled up my shoe
And brought it to you.
And you, you took me in,
You didn’t waste time.
And I, I never took much,
I never asked for your crutch,
Now don’t ask for mine.
The story sure turns things around with that fifth verse when he takes one girl’s possessions, stores them in his shoe, and delivers them to another woman. Whatever is going on in the references to the wheelchair and crutches is anyone’s guess; in any event, the opening scene and the subsequent arguments indicate the relational difficulties that are at the heart of this slightly crazed pop song. The Newport Mod is hanging on for his life.
This pop tour continues with the return of the Salvation Army band and “Most Likely You Go Your Way (and I’ll Go Mine).” Although nowhere near as demonstrative as “Rainy Day,” the swirling organ, incisive harmonica, martial drumbeat, and subtle horns of this track provide a circus, Salvation Army platform for the relational complaint that completely dominates this song. We pause occasionally for a weird image or two, but the relational proclamation is controlling. The track features three 13-line verses, each with a five-line embedded chorus. Between verses 2 and 3 is a five-line bridge. Thus, we have another pop song. The track opens:
You say you love me
And you’re thinkin’ of me,
But you know you could be wrong.
You say you told me
That you wanna hold me,
But you know you’re not that strong.
I just can’t do what I done before,
I just can’t beg you any more.
I’m gonna let you pass
And I’ll go last.
Then time will tell just who fell
And who’s been left behind,
When you go your way and I go mine.
We’re breaking up here folks. The language is clear and the sentiment is conveyed without mystery. Notice that when the narrator raises his initial complaint, he doesn’t attack her or question her sincerity, he merely notes that she may be in error. Whatever has happened must now cease and time will reveal who was right, in the meantime, distance is the order of the day.
The second stanza advances the point. There the narrator offers more reasons for his decision as he explains that all of her shaking, aching, and in verse three, lying has grown tiresome. It is time to stop. Suddenly, the bridge offers a cryptic warning:
The judge, he holds a grudge,
He’s gonna call on you.
But he’s badly built
And he walks on stilts,
Watch out he don’t fall on you.
Once more, the Newport Mod is wrestling with Nashville song structures: a traditional bridge provides a context for a surreal expression—a threatening remark at that. The song concludes with a twist. The narrator reveals that he’s aware that she has another lover. He departs after delivering a final blow: “You say my kisses are not like his, / But this time I’m not gonna tell you why that is.” Instead, he’s going to let her go. The end. Like “Restless Farewell,” what good is a separation without a biting conclusion?
Our pop trip next enters the Crescent City and a New Orleans–based relational complaint, “Temporary like Achilles.” With Fats Domino–Nawlins–style piano complementing Dylan’s vocals, this song contains four verses (three with seven lines, one with eight) that feature two-line tags. Two bridges are offered between verses 2 and 3 (vocal) and verses 3 and 4 (harmonica). Yes, we have yet another pop song about a relationship. The song’s essence is conveyed in the first bridge:
Like a poor fool in his prime,
Yes, I know you can hear me walk,
But is your heart made out of stone, or is it lime,
Or is it just solid rock.
How many pop songs have used this imagery? That “heart of stone” has once more raised its cold self and threatens yet another relationship. Supporting that core is a litany of complaints such as: “How come you don’t send me no regards?” (verse 1); “How come you send someone out to have me barred?” (verse 2); “Just what do you think you have to guard?” (verse 3); and “How come you get someone like him to be your guard?” (verse 4). These complaints are set up in the preceding lines to create a fuzzy, but essentially direct, account of a dying relationship. The imagery may be idiosyncratic but the point shines through.
Finally, the Blonde on Blonde pop tour ends upstream in the Bluff City and Memphis, Tennessee. With the sounds of Sun Studios providing the musical context, our final relational complaint is lodged by way of “Obviously Five Believers.” Slashing guitars supported by rock and roll rhythms punctuated by Dylan’s Delta blues harmonica conjure sounds from Union Avenue in this six-verse song that uses repetition to drive—and I mean drive—its point home. The seven-line verses repeat the first two lines of each stanza before a three-line closing that complains about the narrator’s relational struggles. There are no vocal bridges, choruses, or recurring tag lines in this straightforward blues jaunt. The fact the song repeats the first verse after the guitar bridge not only contributes to its repetitive qualities, it separates this track from most Bob Dylan compositions. Although a common songwriting technique, outside of his blues compositions, Dylan seldom repeats a line, much less an entire verse. The first stanza says it all:
Early in the mornin’
Early in the mornin’
I’m callin’ you to
I’m callin’ you to
Please come home
Yes, I guess I could make it without you
If I just didn’t feel so all alone
This tune continues with the narrator explaining how he’ll not disappoint her as he urges her reciprocity (verse 2), how he’s depressed over his situation (via the “black dog” barking line of verse 3), how her mother needs her (verse 4), pauses for an odd description of his friends (the “believers” and “jugglers” of verse 5), and closes by repeating the first verse. The song follows a tried and true formula.
With that, we have Blonde on Blonde. The recording is a transitional statement that slowly bids farewell to the Newport Mod, fondles a variety of traditional musical structures, and shifts songwriting modes to accommodate those soundstages. The Newport Mod’s brilliance is on display in “Johanna” and “Stuck Inside of Mobile” as this newfound Tennessee sound is used to paint a surreal portrait and an enigmatic collage, respectively. They are, most assuredly, statements for the ages. The five songs of narrative impressionism indicate that the clever wordsmith who generated songs like “Johanna” may be in need of a respite. As innovative as “Rainy Day Women” may be, the technique is clearly on the wane. A songwriting era has come to a close.
The principal finding here is in how Dylan adjusted his writing style to his environment. Our first lyrical bridges join the lifework’s initial middle-eight and songs following Tin Pan Alley South prescriptions to create a songwriting moment that apparently yields to Music City. Or this is merely further proof that the Newport Mod had run his course. Either way, this songwriting style is unique to Bob Dylan’s Nashville pen.
While Blonde is certainly a product of its environment, a determination of just what kind of context generated our final topics is difficult to discern. The 1966 spring tour brings closure to a madcap era. The creative fire that assembles Tarantula burns out during a world tour that is the subject of the never-aired Eat the Document. That spring the reverent audiences of Dont Look Back devolved into screaming beasts that confuse biblical characters with rock stars. The on-the-road-with-Bob scenes of Dont disintegrate into the in-hell-with-Dylan shots from Eat the Document. The eighteen months from January 1965 through July 1966 were a turbulent portion of this Nobel laureate’s historic career. We now turn to two products of that crazed time frame and Bob’s infamous book of words and his film from hell.
Tarantula and Eat the Document
Throughout this chapter, I have described many of Dylan’s songs as “musical Rorschach tests”—make of them what you will. Enjoy. Now, we turn to this era’s “literary Rorschach test” and Tarantula. Clinton Heylin describes Tarantula as a “series of in-jokes” while Howard Sounes refers to it as “a hundred and thirty-seven pages of liner notes.” There is compelling evidence to support both claims. Here we consider the project’s origins, walk through its contents, contemplate its value within the lifework, and invite you to check it out for yourself. There is only one way to appreciate Tarantula—you must go there yourself. Tarantula is something to behold.
Dylan’s 1969 interview with Rolling Stone discusses the evolution of the Tarantula project in much detail. He told Jann Wenner that the project emerged because of reporters’ inquiries about other forms of writing: “And I would say, ‘Well, I don’t write much of anything else.’ And they would say . . . ‘Do you write books?’ And I’d say, ‘Sure, I write books.’” After that, he claimed that all the major publishers started sending book contracts and he merely accepted the largest one and “then owed them a book.” The interview continued: “But there was no book. We just took the biggest contract. Why? I don’t know. . . . So I sat down and wrote them a book in the hotel rooms and different places, plus I got a lot of other papers laying around that other people had written, so I threw it all together in a week and sent it to them.” Our ragpicker was practicing his art of assembly.
Soon afterward, Dylan received his copy to proofread, rejected it (saying, “My gosh, did I write this? I’m not gonna have this out”), and relayed to the publisher that he had “corrections” to make. He wrote another “book” and sent it in only to repeat the process (“I just looked at the first paragraph—and knew I just couldn’t let that stand”). After taking the manuscript on tour in an attempt to meet the publisher’s deadline, the writer’s frustrations grew: “But still, it wasn’t any book; it was just to satisfy the publishers who wanted to print something that we had a contract for. Follow me? So eventually, I had my motorcycle accident and that just got me out of the whole thing.”
The publisher’s notes to Tarantula’s original edition concur with Dylan’s observations. After copies of galley proofs and advanced review copies filtered out through the press (and others), Macmillan and Dylan decided to publish the original set of writings, as the publisher states: “People change and their feelings change. But Tarantula hasn’t been changed. Bob wants it published and so it is now time to publish it. This is Bob Dylan’s first book. It is the way he wrote it when he was twenty-three—just this way—and now you know.”
Tarantula contains 47 entries with crazy titles (e.g., “A Confederate Poke into King Arthur’s Oakie”) attributed to different authors (e.g., “Popeye Squirm”). Several entries kick about celebrity names in strange, unwieldy contexts; others introduce characters with wild street names that may (or may not) say something about those characterizations. Yet, once again, nothing ever seems to happen. Once the reader gains a feel for what is going on, everything changes. In these impressionistic antinarratives, characters appear and do things, they suddenly disappear as the context instantly changes planets, and then reappear doing something totally unrelated to the previous act. These expressions involve a concerted effort to make plot progression or continuity impossible. Often, you find yourself looking at words instead of reading, or as Matt Damsker writes for Rolling Stone, “Maybe it amounts to a lot more typing than writing, but Tarantula captures the teeming tenor of the bard at a moment when he seemed singularly capable of naming the unnameable [sic].” (In all fairness I should note that Tarantula is an exemplary example of the Surrealist practice of “automatic writing” in which the author merely puts to paper anything that comes to mind without any editing whatsoever—a purely stream-of-conscious process.)
But what do we expect? The author was unequivocal in his explanation of what he was, in fact, doing. Bob Dylan had nothing to say with Tarantula. It was writing for the sake of writing (or more accurately, publishing for the sake of publishing). He received a contract and placed himself in the unfortunate position of having to deliver a manuscript with no purpose other than fulfilling his contractual obligation. That Macmillan accepted and published a work that its author disavowed says everything. The disbelief must have been intoxicating for Dylan who was relentlessly churning out words that meant little to him and everything to everybody else. In the end, the project seems to have worn out the writer.
To take excerpts from Tarantula and present them as I do Dylan’s song lyrics or his liner notes is to do nothing less than betray the work. There is just no way to extract a scene, examine its contents, and build an argument that is representative of the whole. To place the whole bloody book here would be absurd, so for the one time in this journey, I must send you on your mission and urge you to check it out for yourself. Good luck and be careful.
Joining in that fondling of hazardous material is another project that hit the hold button after Dylan’s Triumph motorcycle slid down that narrow country road. With D. A. Pennebaker and Howard Alk back on the cameras, Bob Neuwirth handling the sound (with Jones Cullinan), music mixing by Phil Ramone, and with Dylan and Alk doing the editing, Eat the Document returns to the cinematic strategy of Dont Look Back and toys with that formula. With shots of press conferences, fans’ ranting and raving, hotel rooms, restaurants, green rooms, business dealings, live performances, and image after image of constant motion (e.g., trains, buses, cars) providing the raw materials, this film is almost too sketchy to be meaningful. Unlike Dont, the scenes are underdeveloped. There is no guiding strategy such as Pennebaker’s efforts to capture the events occurring around the musical performances. Although the film works hard to establish the controversy over Dylan’s new music, it seems to concentrate more on the artist’s deteriorating situation than anything else. Still, the more protracted performance scenes offer compelling insight into Dylan’s new version of The Show. That Bob Dylan is no longer that acoustic troubadour of old is made oh-so-clear by Eat the Document.
The movie’s opening scene says it all. Here Dylan and Richard Manuel are presented in a fine, but empty restaurant (only a waiter stands off in the distance). Our first view of Bob shows him bent over a table, consuming what would appear to be lines of cocaine (Manuel joins in the fun in a more obvious manner; using his fingernail to do the deed). Afterward, Dylan breaks into hysterical laughter—the kind of mad, uncontrollable laughter the characters in the movie Reefer Madness display after smoking marijuana. The hysterics cease and Dylan moves to the piano for a bit of classical music. From there, the film cuts to image after image: train passengers, shots of the train, animals, countryside, back to the moving train, band members, strangers, and a jittery Bob Dylan. With but a few exceptions, this is Eat the Document. The action is fast-paced, uneven, underdeveloped, and more often than not, virtually incoherent.
The film moves to scenes from a sound check, to the changing of the Buckingham Palace guards (Dylan looks horrible) featuring a menacing guard dog and an apocalyptic protestor, to a bus trip, shots of the street, a car cruising down a country road at a high speed, a man recounting an accident on that road (I think), to a Dylan voice-over (“I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. I hope to remedy it soon.”), to scenes from a concert, to a series of shots featuring a blonde woman (appearing in and out of scenes for no apparent reason), to a press conference, to a scene with Dylan and Robbie Robertson writing songs in a hotel room (the movie cuts back to this scene from time to time and, in fact, ends there), and on and on. Nothing is ever developed. We hop, skip, and jump our way through a maze of images that—unlike Dont Look Back—don’t communicate anything. A scene with Johnny Cash joins brief appearances by Albert Grossman and John Lennon that are featured for no apparent reason—just like everything else. Yet, two segments achieve a measure of depth as the film captures the “going electric” controversy and offers its version of an Elvis Presley movie, respectively.
A long segment built around the performance of “Ballad of a Thin Man” establishes the intensity of fans’ reactions to Dylan’s new performance style. I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to recognize how Dylan used “Thin Man” lyrics to frame the differing opinions. Fans scream that the new show is “rubbish” while others claim “Dylan’s the greatest every time.” A brief shot featuring a journalist offers a reporter-as-Mister Jones implication. There Dylan is asked if he is “ever off stage at any time” to which he merely shrugs his shoulders (the suggestion is clearly “no”). More fan rants follow as the song proceeds. Every side of the story is told: some fans are heated in their opinions (one man suggests that Bob is “crawling through the bloody gutter”), others are worshipful (one fan states that Dylan is “better than Elvis Presley”), and one fan is utterly confused by the whole thing as she concludes “I don’t know” before walking off. As the segment ends, Dylan yawns adding his response to the mix as well. To suggest that this portion of Eat the Document is driven by an agenda is to offer the most obvious conclusion. (As another aside, Scorsese uses much of this footage in his documentary.)
After a brief scene in which Dylan unsuccessfully pursues an elderly lady’s opinion of “Tom Thumb’s Blues,” we move to the Elvis portion of Eat the Document. This protracted segment features Dylan and Richard Manuel (along with very brief shots of other band members) walking around a village, climbing through what appear to be ruins, and moving down a street. One shot shows Dylan standing by the road holding some flowers. As he walks around with his flowers, Dylan and Manuel come across a beautiful blonde sitting by the road with her boyfriend. Seemingly speaking on Dylan’s behalf (he stands behind Manuel, flowers in hand), Manuel bargains with the guy for the woman. He offers his jacket, adds a can opener and chap stick, throws in his shirt, and inquires if she “smokes cigars.” Failing to close the deal and complaining that “she doesn’t have any business sense,” Manuel raises the ante by tossing in his cigarettes. Manuel announces that that’s all he has before asking the guy “how much” money would it take? The guy is quick to respond, “2000 crowns.” The segment closes with Manuel inquiring if he would accept “Australian money.” Without question, this is—by far—the longest, most detailed scene in the movie. And so it goes.
For me, the telltale scene in Eat the Document involves the brief appearance by John Lennon. It opens with a shot through a car windshield that reveals a rainy ride through winding streets. A tight close-up of a sick, weary, about-to-vomit Bob Dylan follows. He’s leaning forward, pale and gaunt. Suddenly we hear a voice stating, “Come, come boy. It’s only a film. Come, come. Pull yourself together . . . come on, come on. Money, money.” The camera pulls back and Lennon appears, nonchalantly encouraging Dylan to rise to his occasion. The scene ends with the camera returning to the windshield shot. That’s one revealing moment, friends.
Although Eat the Document effectively communicates the intensity of the fans’ reactions to the new musical style and offers several extended examples of Dylan and the Hawks in action, the movie’s significance lies elsewhere for this reviewer. From the opening scene to the segment with John Lennon, the film captures the state of Bob Dylan in unequivocal terms. The man is wasted. From his mad laughter after supposedly doing cocaine, to his death stare as he watches the changing of the Palace guard, to his frenetic performances with the Hawks, to his tired exchanges with journalists, to the shots with Lennon, this film relates the necessity of a motorcycle accident—or its functional equivalent.
That sums the Newport Mod Era of Bob Dylan’s career. What began with fun-loving music making that distanced the artist from the more dysfunctional elements of his audience slowly but surely devolved into a sad, sacrificial situation. He rejected all that hero worship through a good old-fashioned game of Glissendorf, and in so doing, changed songwriting forever. When he articulated those lyrics through a new musical style, all hell broke loose. Fortunately, Bob was prepared for that as well. Not only did our Iron Ranger display the wherewithal to combat the Mr. Message Man branch of his constituency through his innovative word games, he also knew how to stand before a rude audience and do his thing. This man was more than prepared for the task at hand. It’s fascinating. It’s destiny. Bob Dylan was trained for all of this.
But something happened. The difference in the Dylan of Dont Look Back and the Dylan of Eat the Document is monumental. The cocky, self-assured-but-polite poet of Dont disappeared into a wiry, jittery, distant personality whose wit and cutting humor devolved into blank expressions with nothing to say. When you compare the journalistic encounters of Dont with the press scenes of Eat, the results are troublesome. Instead of sharp, attentive responses, we witness tired, empty platitudes—usually slurred and sloppy. When the reporter in Eat asked if Dylan ever ventured “off stage,” all he received was a shrug. In Dont, Dylan would have turned the question around; inquiring what was meant by “stage” or “performance” or some other detail. It was a complete transformation.
Yes, something happened. I could speculate on these personal matters, but I’m not interested in that. Whatever it was, it caused that wonderful word machine that gave the world “Desolation Row” to run out of gas in Nashville. Whatever it was, it caused the razor sharp personality of Dont to devolve into a caricature in Eat. Whatever it was, it had to end. Or else, the Bob Dylan story would have closed here. The Newport Mod Era of Bob’s career required all of the talent, energy, and perseverance the man had to offer. It was time to purge. It was time for a new mission—or else.