Whatcha Gonna Do?

When death comes for you,
What do you think you will do?
Because I can't help.

"Whatcha Gonna Do?" is a standard warning from any holy man to us folly-indulging sinners to repent before death comes for us and it's too late to say we were good. Think about Hieronymous Bosch and his "Death and the Miser," or any of the other paintings you've seen in galleries of people having a good time as the clock strikes its final memento mori. Or "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe. You get the idea. This song is from 1963, and was recorded for the Witmark publishing company as a demo for other artists. It appears on the ninth volume of the Bootleg Series.

What will you do when:
- The shadow comes under your door
- The devil calls your cards
- Your water turns to wine
- You can’t play God no more

Walkin' Down the Line

Time for walking shoes.
Troubled man, troubled woman.
She's sick, he's walkin'.

This is a short folk song about wandering, women and money from 1963. Dylan wrote it and performed it in a demo form for the Witmark publishing company, and it was commercially released in 1991 on the first edition of the Bootleg Series.

1. He's walking, feet flying, mind troubled.
2. Gal: heavy-headed. Not feeling well. Feeling better? Time will tell.
3. Money: comes/goes. Holes/pockets/clothes.
4. Sunrise: I saw it. Didn't sleep all night.
5. Shoes: the walking variety. Can't lose with these shoes, though I got the blues.

Tomorrow Is a Long Time

Wandering the world
Seems nice until you miss her.
Then you want her near.

So many of Bob Dylan’s songs are about being forced to wander despite the affection of the girl back home. “Tomorrow Is a Long Time” takes the other direction. In this song, the singer wants nothing more than to be with his lover. It was recorded live in 1963, and released in 1971 on the second volume of Dylan’s greatest hits. It’s one of his best songs. What I find so stirring at the end is the rush of the applause, a fine and triumphant end to such a relentlessly melancholy song.

Summary:
Lonesome would mean nothing if every day didn’t take so long to get to tomorrow.
If only she were with me.
I can’t see myself or hear myself. I don’t know myself. I speak only sounds of pain.
The river and the sunrise are beautiful, but nothing is as beautiful as she is. If only she were waiting for me. 

Talkin' World War III Blues

Bob tells his doctor,
"I dreamed about a world war."
"So did I," doc says.

"Talkin' World War III Blues" is a fascinating, funny and dark song about a dream life in New York City after a war. It appeared on the 1963 album "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan." Lyrics republished here without further comment.

Some time ago a crazy dream came to me
I dreamt I was walkin’ into World War Three
I went to the doctor the very next day
To see what kinda words he could say
He said it was a bad dream
I wouldn’t worry ’bout it none, though
They were my own dreams and they’re only in my head

I said, “Hold it, Doc, a World War passed through my brain”
He said, “Nurse, get your pad, this boy’s insane”
He grabbed my arm, I said, “Ouch!”
As I landed on the psychiatric couch
He said, “Tell me about it”

Well, the whole thing started at 3 o’clock fast
It was all over by quarter past
I was down in the sewer with some little lover
When I peeked out from a manhole cover
Wondering who turned the lights on

Well, I got up and walked around
And up and down the lonesome town
I stood a-wondering which way to go
I lit a cigarette on a parking meter and walked on down the road
It was a normal day

Well, I rung the fallout shelter bell
And I leaned my head and I gave a yell
“Give me a string bean, I’m a hungry man”
A shotgun fired and away I ran
I don’t blame them too much though, I know I look funny

Down at the corner by a hot-dog stand
I seen a man
I said, “Howdy friend, I guess there’s just us two”
He screamed a bit and away he flew
Thought I was a Communist

Well, I spied a girl and before she could leave
“Let’s go and play Adam and Eve”
I took her by the hand and my heart it was thumpin’
When she said, “Hey man, you crazy or sumpin’
You see what happened last time they started”

Well, I seen a Cadillac window uptown
And there was nobody aroun’
I got into the driver’s seat
And I drove down 42nd Street
In my Cadillac. Good car to drive after a war

Well, I remember seein’ some ad
So I turned on my Conelrad
But I didn’t pay my Con Ed bill
So the radio didn’t work so well
Turned on my record player—
It was Rock-a-day Johnny singin’, “Tell Your Ma, Tell Your Pa
Our Love’s A-gonna Grow Ooh-wah, Ooh-wah”

I was feelin’ kinda lonesome and blue
I needed somebody to talk to
So I called up the operator of time
Just to hear a voice of some kind
“When you hear the beep it will be three o’clock”
She said that for over an hour
And I hung up

Well, the doctor interrupted me just about then
Sayin’, “Hey I’ve been havin’ the same old dreams
But mine was a little different you see
I dreamt that the only person left after the war was me
I didn’t see you around”

Well, now time passed and now it seems
Everybody’s having them dreams
Everybody sees themselves
Walkin’ around with no one else
Half of the people can be part right all of the time
Some of the people can be all right part of the time
But all of the people can’t be all right all of the time
I think Abraham Lincoln said that
“I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours”
I said that

Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues

Spotting communists
Is hard when there aren't any.
Best to check again.

This is an interesting song that was slated for performance on the Ed Sullivan show, until CBS corporate executives demanded that he not play it to avoid risking a libel lawsuit from the John Birch Society, a group of ridiculous sentinels who were trying to guard America against the infiltration of Communists. Dylan walked off the set rather than consider the demands. Sullivan backed Dylan on this, but the performance didn't happen. CBS also forced Dylan to remove the song from the lineup for his second album "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan." It made its official appearance -- on Columbia -- in 1991 on the Bootleg Series compilation. 

Well, I was feelin’ sad and feelin’ blue
I didn’t know what in the world I wus gonna do
Them Communists they wus comin’ around
They wus in the air
They wus on the ground
They wouldn’t gimme no peace . . .

So I run down most hurriedly
And joined up with the John Birch Society
I got me a secret membership card
And started off a-walkin’ down the road
Yee-hoo, I’m a real John Bircher now!
Look out you Commies!

Now we all agree with Hitler’s views
Although he killed six million Jews
It don’t matter too much that he was a Fascist
At least you can’t say he was a Communist!
That’s to say like if you got a cold you take a shot of malaria

Well, I wus lookin’ everywhere for them gol-darned Reds
I got up in the mornin’ ’n’ looked under my bed
Looked in the sink, behind the door
Looked in the glove compartment of my car
Couldn’t find ’em . . .

I wus lookin’ high an’ low for them Reds everywhere
I wus lookin’ in the sink an’ underneath the chair
I looked way up my chimney hole
I even looked deep down inside my toilet bowl
They got away . . .

Well, I wus sittin’ home alone an’ started to sweat
Figured they wus in my T.V. set
Peeked behind the picture frame
Got a shock from my feet, hittin’ right up in the brain
Them Reds caused it!
I know they did . . . them hard-core ones

Well, I quit my job so I could work all alone
Then I changed my name to Sherlock Holmes
Followed some clues from my detective bag
And discovered they wus red stripes on the American flag!
That ol’ Betsy Ross . . .

Well, I investigated all the books in the library
Ninety percent of ’em gotta be burned away
I investigated all the people that I knowed
Ninety-eight percent of them gotta go
The other two percent are fellow Birchers . . . just like me

Now Eisenhower, he’s a Russian spy
Lincoln, Jefferson and that Roosevelt guy
To my knowledge there’s just one man
That’s really a true American: George Lincoln Rockwell
I know for a fact he hates Commies cus he picketed the movie Exodus

Well, I fin’ly started thinkin’ straight
When I run outa things to investigate
Couldn’t imagine doin’ anything else
So now I’m sittin’ home investigatin’ myself!
Hope I don’t find out anything . . . hmm, great God!

Talkin' Hava Negeilah Blues

Hava Negeilah:
First you say it slowly, then
You yodel loudly.

This is a silly song from 1963. Dylan refers to a "foreign song" that he learned in Utah and it goes something like this etc...

Ha va
Ha va, na
Hava Na...
Ge, Ha va na gi
Lah, Ha va na gei lah

And it ends in a Jewish yodel: o-de-ley-e-e-oo!

Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues

A family picnic
Turns into a big fracas.
We should have stayed home.

Hudson River Father's Day cruise to Bear Mountain goes wrong when someone sells counterfeit tickets and too many people show up. Bob Dylan took this one from a newspaper article and turned it into a talking-blues song. It saw official release in 1991 on the first edition of the Bootleg Series.

I saw it advertised one day
Bear Mountain picnic was comin’ my way
“Come along ’n’ take a trip
We’ll bring you up there on a ship
Bring the wife and kids
Bring the whole family”
Yippee!

Well, I run right down ’n’ bought a ticket
To this Bear Mountain Picnic
But little did I realize
I was in for a picnic surprise
Had nothin’ to do with mountains
I didn’t even come close to a bear

Took the wife ’n’ kids down to the pier
Six thousand people there
Everybody had a ticket for the trip
“Oh well,” I said, “it’s a pretty big ship
Besides, anyway, the more the merrier”

Well, we all got on ’n’ what d’ya think
That big old boat started t’ sink
More people kept a-pilin’ on
That old ship was a-slowly goin’ down
Funny way t’ start a picnic

Well, I soon lost track of m’ kids ’n’ wife
So many people there I never saw in m’ life
That old ship sinkin’ down in the water
Six thousand people tryin’ t’ kill each other
Dogs a-barkin’, cats a-meowin’
Women screamin’, fists a-flyin’, babies cryin’
Cops a-comin’, me a-runnin’
Maybe we just better call off the picnic

I got shoved down ’n’ pushed around
All I could hear there was a screamin’ sound
Don’t remember one thing more
Just remember wakin’ up on a little shore
Head busted, stomach cracked
Feet splintered, I was bald, naked . . .
Quite lucky to be alive though

Feelin’ like I climbed outa m’ casket
I grabbed back hold of m’ picnic basket
Took the wife ’n’ kids ’n’ started home
Wishin’ I’d never got up that morn

Now, I don’t care just what you do
If you wanta have a picnic, that’s up t’ you
But don’t tell me about it, I don’t wanta hear it
’Cause, see, I just lost all m’ picnic spirit
Stay in m’ kitchen, have m’ own picnic . . .
In the bathroom

Now, it don’t seem to me quite so funny
What some people are gonna do f’r money
There’s a bran’ new gimmick every day
Just t’ take somebody’s money away
I think we oughta take some o’ these people
And put ’em on a boat, send ’em up to Bear Mountain . . .
For a picnic

Seven Curses

Woman marries judge
To spare dad from death. Judge lies
So she curses him.

Talk about a lack of faith in the judicial system. Here's a creepy tale of the daughter of Old Reilly. He stole a stallion and got caught. They put him in chains and locked him in jail. The sentence for stealing the horse? Hanging. Old Reilly's daughter hears about this and asks the judge for mercy. She's willing to pay him off, and she's been riding all night with gold and silver. The old man judge takes one look at Reilly's daughter, and has a different idea: he'll intercede if she fucks him. Reilly doesn't like the idea, saying he'd rather be dead than know the judge has been all over his daughter. She says death is certain if she doesn't do it, so she needs to take the chance. She goes to bed with the judge, and discovers that he lied. They still hanged her father despite her sacrifice. She wishes curses on the judge:
1. No doctor can save him.
2. Two healers can't heal him.
3. Three eyes won't see him.
4. Four ears won't hear him.
5. Five walls won't hide him.
6. Six diggers won't bury him.
7. Seven deaths won't kill him.

The song was recorded in 1963, but did not get an official release until the first volume of the Bootleg Series came out in 1991.

Rocks and Gravel (Solid Road)

How to build a road.
This lesson followed by: how
To find my girlfriend.

Bob Dylan recorded "Rocks and Gravel" during the 1962 sessions for "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan," but the song remained unreleased other than a live performance from that year (This is not entirely true. See below for why). The studio take appeared on the rare "50th Anniversary Collection" for copyright extensions in 2012. It also appeared on the TV show "True Detective" in the first season. It's a short song, and it contains the following pieces:

1. To build a solid road: you need rocks and gravel. 
2. To satisfy my soul: you need a good woman.
3. By the way: have you ever been down on the Mobile and K.C. line? If so, have you seen my girlfriend?
4. And here is a refrain that he took and altered for the song "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" -- "Don't the clouds look lonesome shining across the sea? Don't my gal look good when she's coming after me?"

The version of this song that I've presented here is incredibly rare. Here's why.

Restless Farewell

Haunted by gossip,
Enemies and fans, Bob slips
Out of public view.

More of a testy farewell. This closing song to the 1963 album "The Times They Are a-Changin'" is a reproving note to various situations and people who vex the singer, with the conclusion being that the best thing to do is to blow town before being stuck in negative situations.

Verse 1: Money - So much for that, we spent it on good times. It's closing time now, so I'm off.
Verse 2: Girls - I never meant to harm any of them, and I wanted to stay friends, but to do that you need to take the time, but since I'm the rambling kind, it's best just to leave.
Verse 3: Enemies - It was never personal, and I never regretted the battle. But sometimes it's time to knock it off and leave.
Verse 4: Thoughts - I've expressed my art for the sake of me and my friends, not for every Tom, Dick and Harry (despite being a hit recording artist for a major music label). Maybe it's time to leave all that behind.
Verse 5: Distractions - I don't want to be stuck on someone's notion of what I should be doing and when. Meanwhile, doing my own thing means I'll be the subject of gossip. But you'll see by my work that the arrow of my intent can pierce the dust of rumors that covers me, and in the meantime I'll do whatever the hell I want, and "bid farewell and not give a damn."

Ramblin' Down Through the World

I'm just a rambler.
Ramble happy, ramble sad.
Ramble good or bad.

This is a Woody Guthrie song that Bob Dylan performed live in 1963. It appears on the super-rare copyright extension collection, "The 50th Anniversary Collection 1963." In the song, we learn that the singer is just one of those rambling boys, rambling and making noise. Sometimes he's lonely, sometimes he's blue, and nobody knows it better than you. He's just a rambling pearl.

Quit Your Low Down Ways

God and the White House
Won't put you on the right track.
That's a job for me.

This is a vague song about a woman who's doing things that apparently are "low down." Once she realizes that she will be punished for her behavior, she embarks on a variety of acts to atone for them, but the singer knows that none of those things are going to do the trick. He suggests that he might be the answer that she is looking for. The song was recorded in 1963, but did not get commercial release until 1991 when it appeared on the first edition of the Bootleg Series, which collected a number of unreleased studio recordings that Dylan taped between 1961 and 1989.

Things that won't absolve you of your low down ways:
- Reading the Bible
- Praying
- Going to the White House
- Looking at the Capitol
- Asking the president for a pardon
- Rolling around in the hot desert sand
- Swearing in a court of law
- Hitchhiking

What might help absolve you of your low down ways:
- Me

Percy's Song

Bob implores the judge
Who sentenced his guilty friend.
The judge says, "Tough shit."

"Percy's Song" is about a falsely accused reprobate who's a friend of the singer. The singer is sure that Percy did not commit the manslaughter that he's been accused of, and implores the judge not to sentence poor Percy to 99 years in prison. The judge is having none of it, and leaves the singer to muse about the cruel rain and the wind, and to sing, throughout each verse, "Turn, turn, turn again... Turn, turn to the rain and the wind."

Summary:
- Bad news: one of your friends is in big trouble
- He's been sentenced to life in Joliet prison
- The charge is manslaughter "in the highest degree."
- You wrote and rehearsed it with the intention of visiting the judge of Wednesday to plead Percy's case.
- You arrive
- You ask the judge to tell him the story of what transpired.
- Percy was driving when his car crashed, killing the four people in the car with him.
- But he wouldn't do something like that! you say.
- Get out of my office. We had a witness.
- But 99 years? That's too much! you say
- He's not a criminal, you say. It could have happened to anyone, you say.
- Get out of my office, please, the judge says.
- You walk down the courthouse stairs and hear the judge slam the door.
- You play your guitar and muse on cruel fate.

The song was recorded in 1963, but was not released until it appeared on the "Biograph" compilation in 1985.

Paths of Victory

Walking a tough road

Of battles and troubles leads

You to victory.

If you're looking for a roadmap to success, you could probably do with a song like "Paths of Victory." The chorus is like an orientation guide for those of you who might be looking to reorient yourselves once in a while as the paths toward social justice, harmony and victory grow difficult to follow, given the various travails that people suffer while engaged in cumbersome tasks:

"Trails of troubles

Roads of battles

Paths of victory

I shall walk."

Here's what else happens in the various verses:

1. Dusty trail, rough road, but there are better roads nearby. "And boys it ain't far off."

2. Down by the river, if you look high, you'll see the silver lining on the clouds in the sky.

3. Dusk is coming, and there's a track, and that's where the wind is blowing at your back.

4. The road is bumpy as it's made of gravel, but there's another road that's easier to walk on.

5. There's a train that you can ride, and if you look out its windows, you can see better days coming from across the fields.

The song was recorded in 1963 for the album "The Times They Are a-Changin'," though it didn't make the cut. It was released officially in 1991 on the first edition of the Bootleg Series. The song was pased on a gospel song by the Rev. John B. Matthias in 1836. It's also known as "Deliverance Will Come" and "The Way-worn Traveler." 

Oxford Town

They lynch black people
In Oxford, and they tear gas
Protesting white folks.

Here's a Bob Dylan postcard from hell, which in this case is Mississippi. "Oxford Town," from the 1963 album "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan," is a clear-headed, unhappy examination of what awaits freedom riders and other civil rights advocates who tried to change the South's view on black people.

In Oxford Town:
- Everybody's head's down
- No sunshine
- Hell no I'm not going
- Guns and clubs, used against black people
- They don't let black people in in Oxford Town
- Try to change things in Oxford Town, you get tear gassed
- Two people were assassinated here for campaigning on behalf of civil rights and equal rights. 

Only a Pawn in Their Game

Black man killed down south,
Whites are caught in a web too.
Someone pulls their strings.

This is a song about the assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers. It examines the idea of individual responsibility vs collective evil in the perpetuation of racism in the United States, similar to the idea of individual operators in the Nazi death machine from 1933 to 1945. Are the individual criminals to blame? Or were they following orders? Or were they brought up that way by entrenched powers to act in a way that they can't control because it's in their breeding? Dylan seems to conclude that it's a mixture, though he makes an interesting defense of the poor, white, uneducated man who's manipulated by forces bigger than he is to behave in accordance with their ambitions. It would be interesting to get this song out there in public again more than 50 years after it appeared to see what modern audiences would make of it. You can find it on the 1963 album "The Times They Are a-Changin'."

A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers’ blood
A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man’s brain
But he can’t be blamed
He’s only a pawn in their game

A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain.
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
He’s taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
’Bout the shape that he’s in
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game

From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoofbeats pound in his brain
And he’s taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide ’neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain’t got no name
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.

Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They lowered him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He’ll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game

Only a Hobo

Bum dies on the street.
He might not mean much to you,
But he's human too.

A social consciousness song from 1963. "Only a Hobo" doesn't specifically say that the guy died, but "His face was all grounded in the cold sidewalk floor" and "Only a hobo, but one more is gone" suggest to me that he did. This song appeared on the ninth volume of the bootleg series as a demo version for the Witmark music company. There's also a later version that he recorded around 1969 or 1970 that appears on volume 10 of the bootleg series, which collects recordings from that time.

As I was out walking on a corner one day
I spied an old hobo, in a doorway he lay
His face was all grounded in the cold sidewalk floor
And I guess he’d been there for the whole night or more

Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin’ nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone

A blanket of newspaper covered his head
As the curb was his pillow, the street was his bed
One look at his face showed the hard road he’d come
And a fistful of coins showed the money he bummed

Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin’ nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone

Does it take much of a man to see his whole life go down
To look up on the world from a hole in the ground
To wait for your future like a horse that’s gone lame
To lie in the gutter and die with no name?

Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin’ nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone

One Too Many Mornings

Couple has a fight.
Man thinks about leaving town.
He's torn. What to do?

This is a walking-and-leaving-someone song from the 1963 album "The Times They Are a-Changin'." Many of Bob Dylan's narrators in his early years can't help but wander, particularly when the emotional demands of their ladies run hot and the arguments begin. The singers regret leaving, but they have no choice because they're outlaws and hobos at heart. And because they're not so different from Goethe's young Werther, they feel really bad about the choices they've made, usually once it's too late to reverse them or take them back.

Such is the case here:

- It's getting dark
- Dogs are barking
- His mind is occupied with trouble
- He's behind where he should be
- He takes a look at the place he shares with his lover
- He takes a look at the road outside
- He chooses the road
- They had a fight. They both made some good points that are irreconcilable
- That's that!

Dylan's studio version:

1966 live version:

Dylan fooling around with Johnny Cash (the song appears one minute into this clip):

North Country Blues

Miners get priced out.
Mine shuts down, cripples the town,
Men drink, the kids leave.

Here's a depressing song about the collapse of a mining town in northern Minnesota. It's from the 1963 album "The Times They Are a-Changin'," and it might be inspired in part by Bob Dylan's home town of Hibbing Minnesota -- though I can't be sure. 

1. Red iron pits go empty, old men sit around with no work, broken windows are replaced by cardboard, town is empty.
2. Woman with grown children recounts her childhood: her mother died, so her brother raised her.
3. Years go by. People mine iron. Woman's brother dies in the mines, just like their father did.
4. She passes the winter, drops out of school and marries a miner.
5. Food and plenty for three years. One baby each year. Mining company cuts shifts in half, then closes the mine shaft and lays off more people, then shuts down the whole operation.
6. Why did they shut the mine? Wall Street investors considered the costs too high, and the company chose to get its iron from cheaper mine labor in South America.
7. People turn to alcohol and loafing in the misery.
8. Her husband disappears, leaving her alone with the kids.
9. Winter is coming, stores are shutting, the children are getting ready to leave town.

At least you have your health!

Moonshiner

Drinking will kill me,
Women good, drinking better.
I'll drink till I die.

This is Bob Dylan's take on an old Irish or American folk song. He recorded it in 1963 during the sessions for the album "The Times They Are a-Changin'," but it did not appear commercially until 1991 on the first edition of the Bootleg Series. Here are the lyrics:

I've been a moonshiner,
For seventeen long years,
I've spent all my money,
On whiskey and beer,
I go to some hollow,
And sit at my still
And if whiskey dont kill me,
Then I dont know what will,

I go to some bar room,
And drink with my friends,
Where the women cant follow,
And see what I spend,
God bless them pretty women,
I wish they was mine,
Their breath is as sweet,
The dew on the vine,

Let me eat when I am hungry,
Let me drink when I am dry,
A dollar when I am hard up,
Religion when I die,
The whole world's a bottle,
And life's but a dram,
When the bottle gets empty,
It sure ain't worth a damn.