Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Apple Suckling Tree

We’re under a tree.
An old man is in a boat,
And my wife's with me.

I confess: I don't know what on earth this song is about. I fell back on the old Reuters rule: tell the reader what you see. I think that Dylan and the Band played this twice at most in Saugerties at the Big Pink house or somewhere in that area. (My Dylan recording arcana knowledge is less than you might think it is) It's one of the songs that first attracted me to the Basement Tapes recordings, but it's all feeling and no lyric, in a way. Each version has significantly different but equally nonsensical lyrics. I drew on both.

Sample:

I push him back and I stand in line, Oh yeah!
Then I push my lady and stand in line, Oh yeah!
Then I push my lady and stand in line
I get on board like a two-eyed time, Oh yeah!

And

Old man down like a county hook, my man
Old man down like a county hook, my man
pull man down a county hook
[Something something something] take a look
Pull him down in a county hook, my man.



1 comment:

  1. Hello Robert, thank you for posting this analysis of a song from Bob Dylan's Music Box http://thebobdylanproject.com/Song/id/33/Apple-Suckling-Tree Come up out of the basement and join us inside to listen to every version of every song composed, recorded or performed by Bob Dylan, plus all the great covers, plus so much more.

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