Showing posts with label Another Side of Bob Dylan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Another Side of Bob Dylan. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

To Ramona

Bob lets a girl down.
He tries to make her feel good,
But it might not work.

"To Ramona" is supposed to be a song about Joan Baez, so they say. I don't know. I do know that the singer is in love with the woman in this song, that she's feeling bad about a number of things, and his words don't appear to be helping much. The song appears on the 1964 album, "Another Side of Bob Dylan."

Suggestions and encouragement:
- Stop crying.
- You won't be sad for long.
- Even the flowers in the city can't keep from drooping sometimes.
- Don't bother with the dying. There's no point. I'm having trouble expressing this.
- I still want to kiss you.
- The world you want to be part of doesn't exist. It's just a con job that makes you feel bad.
- You've been listening to idle chatter. No need for that.
- You don't have to leave here. You're your own worst enemy.
- You say that everybody's equal, but trust me, it's not true. You can be better than others, or else why are you doing what you're doing?
- Friends can be a drag on your ambition and feelings.
- I realize I can't help you though I keep trying.
- You know what? I'm sure that one day I'll be where you are and come to you for advice.






Monday, August 17, 2015

Spanish Harlem Incident

Bob wants gypsy girl
To tell him his fortune and
Then hook up with him.

Not Phil Spector's "Spanish Harlem," not by a long shot. This 1964 song from "Another Side of Bob Dylan" tells the story of a sexy gypsy fortune teller and the singer's designs on her. He uses sophisticated poetry to woo her with this ultimate aim: "I got you know, babe, will you surround me? So I can tell if I'm really real."

Methods of gypsy gal seduction:
- Harlem can't hold you
- You're too hot for taming. Your fiery feet burn the street.
- I have no home, so take me to yours. Let me know my fortune. Hold my hands to read them.
- Your flashing eyes and teeth have really got me. I'm nearly drowning.
- I'm riding the cliffs of your charms.





Saturday, July 18, 2015

My Back Pages

It's easy to preach
When I think I know it all.
But I know nothing.

Bob Dylan spent two notable periods of his songwriting life as a preacher. The second was his three-year, three-album journey into Christianity, while the first was the period for which he is best remembered - that of a protest singer. "My Back Pages," so the interpretations go, is his renunciation of those kinds of songs. One of the difficulties for many of Dylan's original fans, as well as those who weren't even born at the time this song appeared (on "Another Side of Bob Dylan" in 1964), is accepting his music and therefore the songwriter as they see him despite much evidence that he is something else. The idea that Dylan was a folksinger or a protest singer is off base, somewhwat, and it plainly galled him that his career and identity would be defined that way. It was a career option at the time and it brought him fame, money and popular success, but like anyone who becomes known for something, we often want to transcend it, become known for how we want to be seen or how we really feel, and keep all the rewards that we've earned from that role into which we're typecast. The have/eat cake problem, in other words. Dylan's fans liked what they heard from him, and often have reacted poorly to what seem like abrupt changes, both as he grew as an artist and has he tried to shake off admirers who in many ways became demanding and irritable when he did change what he wanted to change about himself. I suppose there are plenty of postmodern theories that you can use to discuss identity versus the real person, and I know that writing about it well requires more drafts and more rewriting than the quick job that I'm giving it here.

So what has all this to do with "My Back Pages?" This slow-moving, densely worded song is a statement of intent, one that shuts down the old machine shop of protest songs and socially conscious songs and songs written for the people. It looks forward to new kinds of songs, the ones that took a more aggressive stance toward rejecting what he had become known as. Songs like "Maggie's Farm," for example. And change he did. Folksinger to rock singer to country singer to middle-of-the-road country crooner, all to pursue that art that he wanted to pursue, while losing in his rearview mirror the people whose criticism of his new music must have aggravated him... though I am sure that any criticsm of anybody's work hurts the laborer who produced it. I don't know how it couldn't.

In this song, Dylan presents a series of scenes that describe his old self. Some of them are abstract, some less so. I've read various descriptions of these words as being like those of William Blake, though with the songs of experience coming first, then the songs of innocence. The recurring line "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now" refers to the idea that shedding the old, weighty concerns of his previous songs allows for new, different and deeper songs to spring up. Or so I think, at least.

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ’neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

Girls’ faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now


Here's a nice live version from Columbia's 30th anniversary celebration for Dylan. He appears alongside George Harrison, Neil Young, Eric Clapton and Tom Petty. I'll never understand concert appearance that require seven guitar players as well as bass, but this sounds pretty good.



Monday, July 13, 2015

Motorpsycho Nitemare

Right-wing farmer hosts
Bob for the night. Saucy
Daughter flirts with him.

"Motorpsycho Nitemare" is Bob Dylan's extended joke on the traveling salesman/suspicious farmer/sexy daughter story, blended with a few plot elements from Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho," Fidel Castro's beard, and the Communist witch hunts in America during the prior 10 years to the song's release. Dylan also drops in a Fellini/La Dolce Vita reference. The song appeared on the 1964 album "Another Side of Bob Dylan."

I pounded on a farmhouse
Lookin’ for a place to stay
I was mighty, mighty tired
I had come a long, long way
I said, “Hey, hey, in there
Is there anybody home?”
I was standin’ on the steps
Feelin’ most alone
Well, out comes a farmer
He must have thought that I was nuts
He immediately looked at me
And stuck a gun into my guts

I fell down
To my bended knees
Saying, “I dig farmers
Don’t shoot me, please!”
He cocked his rifle
And began to shout
“You’re that travelin’ salesman
That I have heard about”
I said, “No! No! No!
I’m a doctor and it’s true
I’m a clean-cut kid
And I been to college, too”

Then in comes his daughter
Whose name was Rita
She looked like she stepped out of
La Dolce Vita
I immediately tried to cool it
With her dad
And told him what a
Nice, pretty farm he had
He said, “What do doctors
Know about farms, pray tell?”
I said, “I was born
At the bottom of a wishing well”

Well, by the dirt ’neath my nails
I guess he knew I wouldn’t lie
“I guess you’re tired”
He said, kinda sly
I said, “Yes, ten thousand miles
Today I drove”
He said, “I got a bed for you
Underneath the stove
Just one condition
And you go to sleep right now
That you don’t touch my daughter
And in the morning, milk the cow”

I was sleepin’ like a rat
When I heard something jerkin’
There stood Rita
Lookin’ just like Tony Perkins
She said, “Would you like to take a shower?
I’ll show you up to the door”
I said, “Oh, no! no!
I’ve been through this before”
I knew I had to split
But I didn’t know how
When she said
“Would you like to take that shower, now?”

Well, I couldn’t leave
Unless the old man chased me out
’Cause I’d already promised
That I’d milk his cows
I had to say something
To strike him very weird
So I yelled out
“I like Fidel Castro and his beard”
Rita looked offended
But she got out of the way
As he came charging down the stairs
Sayin’, “What’s that I heard you say?”

I said, “I like Fidel Castro
I think you heard me right”
And ducked as he swung
At me with all his might
Rita mumbled something
’Bout her mother on the hill
As his fist hit the icebox
He said he’s going to kill me
If I don’t get out the door
In two seconds flat
“You unpatriotic
Rotten doctor Commie rat”

Well, he threw a Reader’s Digest
At my head and I did run
I did a somersault
As I seen him get his gun
And crashed through the window
At a hundred miles an hour
And landed fully blast
In his garden flowers
Rita said, “Come back!”
As he started to load
The sun was comin’ up
And I was runnin’ down the road

Well, I don’t figure I’ll be back
There for a spell
Even though Rita moved away
And got a job in a motel
He still waits for me
Constant, on the sly
He wants to turn me in
To the F.B.I.
Me, I romp and stomp
Thankful as I romp
Without freedom of speech
I might be in the swamp



Monday, July 6, 2015

Man of Constant Sorrow

A woman hurt him
He left her, but she haunts him.
Now he's going home.

There are variations on this song, of which Bob Dylan's is just one. The original, so far as can be determined, was by Dick Burnett, a fiddler from Kentucky who also was partially blind in the best tradition of mysterious folk and blues singers. This appeared on his 1962 debut and contains the usual topics that occupied Dylan at the time, and in some cases, up to now:

Rambling, bad weather, railroad riding, being mistreated by lovers

I am a man of constant sorrow
I've seen trouble all my days
I'll say goodbye to Colorado
Where I was born and partly raised

Through this open world I'm a-bound to ramble
Through ice and snow, sleet and rain
Im a-bound to ride that mornin' railroad
Perhaps I'll die upon that train

Your mother says that I'm a stranger
A face you'll never see no more
But here's one promise to ya
I'll see you on God's golden shore

I'm a-goin' back to Colorado
The place that I've started from
If I'd knowed how bad you'd treat me
Babe, I never would have come



Saturday, June 20, 2015

It Ain't Me, Babe

You need someone else,
A defender, a doormat.
I am not that guy.

"It Ain't Me, Babe" is the last song on the 1964 album "Another Side of Bob Dylan." It's the story of a guy who has figured out beyond all doubt that the woman he's with should be with someone else because her list of demands is one that he can't satisfy.

What she's looking for in a man:

- Never weak
- Always strong
- Protect and defend you, even if you're wrong
- Someone to open all doors for you
- Someone who will never leave you
- Someone who'll close his eyes and his heart for you
- Someone who'll pick you up when you fall
- Someone who'll pick flowers for you all the time
- Always ready to respond to your call
- Someone who has nothing to do beyond loving you

While I love the Dylan version of the song, there's something irresistible about hearing Johnny Cash and June Carter do it with a mariachi band.





Tuesday, June 16, 2015

I Shall Be Free No. 10

Bob gets strange notions
To box Ali and Goldwater.
His woman is mean.

The second of two impossible-to-render Bob Dylan "comedy" songs. I'm ready to take any suggestions for improvements.

I’m just average, common too
I’m just like him, the same as you
I’m everybody’s brother and son
I ain’t different from anyone
It ain’t no use a-talking to me
It’s just the same as talking to you

I was shadow-boxing earlier in the day
I figured I was ready for Cassius Clay
I said “Fee, fie, fo, fum, Cassius Clay, here I come
26, 27, 28, 29, I’m gonna make your face look just like mine
Five, four, three, two, one, Cassius Clay you’d better run
99, 100, 101, 102, your ma won’t even recognize you
14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, gonna knock him clean right out of his spleen”

Well, I don’t know, but I’ve been told
The streets in heaven are lined with gold
I ask you how things could get much worse
If the Russians happen to get up there first
Wowee! pretty scary!

Now, I’m liberal, but to a degree
I want ev’rybody to be free
But if you think that I’ll let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door and marry my daughter
You must think I’m crazy!
I wouldn’t let him do it for all the farms in Cuba

Well, I set my monkey on the log
And ordered him to do the Dog
He wagged his tail and shook his head
And he went and did the Cat instead
He’s a weird monkey, very funky

I sat with my high-heeled sneakers on
Waiting to play tennis in the noonday sun
I had my white shorts rolled up past my waist
And my wig-hat was falling in my face
But they wouldn’t let me on the tennis court

I got a woman, she’s so mean
She sticks my boots in the washing machine
Sticks me with buckshot when I’m nude
Puts bubblegum in my food
She’s funny, wants my money, calls me “honey”

Now I got a friend who spends his life
Stabbing my picture with a bowie knife
Dreams of strangling me with a scarf
When my name comes up he pretends to barf
I’ve got a million friends!

Now they asked me to read a poem
At the sorority sisters’ home
I got knocked down and my head was swimmin’
I wound up with the Dean of Women
Yippee! I’m a poet, and I know it
Hope I don’t blow it

I’m gonna grow my hair down to my feet so strange
So I look like a walking mountain range
And I’m gonna ride into Omaha on a horse
Out to the country club and the golf course
Carry The New York Times, shoot a few holes, blow their minds

Now you’re probably wondering by now
Just what this song is all about
What’s probably got you baffled more
Is what this thing here is for
It’s nothing
It’s something I learned over in England



Saturday, June 13, 2015

I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)

Girl sleeps with guy, then
Pretends she doesn't know him.
Two can play that game.

"I Don't Believe You" comes with the subtitle "She Acts Like We Never Have Met." The song, from 1964's "Another Side of Bob Dylan," is a simple song about a night of passion spent with a woman who afterward won't acknowledge what they did. It seems that he meant little to her, or she has some reason for turning her back on him and pretending in front of other people that they don't know each other. He doesn't take this well, and decides that he can give as well as he can get.

Part 1: Saturday night
- "We kissed through the wild blazing nighttime."
- "She said she would never forget."
- "The night ran swirling and whirling."
- She was whispering
- "Her skirt it swayed."
- A guitar played.
- "Her mouth was watery and wet."

Part 2: Sunday morning
- She let go of his hand.
- He's facing the wall.
- He can't get close to her.
- It's like he isn't here.
- "She acts like we never have met."
- She's not talking.
- She's turning her back to his face.
- She seems too far out.
- Something has changed, "she ain't the same."

Epilogue:
- He's leaving
- He is considering acting like she does
- Instruction to others on how to forget people: "You just pick anyone and pretend that you never have met."






Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Chimes of Freedom

The chimes of freedom
Flash for the world's losers
And make lots of noise.

"Chimes of Freedom" was a big hit in short form for the Byrds, and that's the version that most people know. Bob Dylan's recording, for 1964's "Another Side of Bob Dylan," is a denser affair, and one of the first to slide into the realm of the surreal where was to pay rent for the next two or three years. It's a haunting song, and the repetition of the slow, spare melody skirts the border between hypnotic and annoying, but the end product is undeniably a strong, intelligent work. Now, how do the chimes flash and toll? I suspect they reflect like while they're banging around.

And for whom are they flashing and clanging and banging?

1. Warriors whose strength is not to fight.
2. Refugees on unarmed road of flight.
3. Underdog soldier at night. 4. Rebel.
5. Rake.
6. Luckless.
7. Abandoned.
8. Forsaked.
9. Outcast.
10. Burnt at stake.
11. Gentle.
12. Kind.
13. Guardians.
14. Protectors of mind.
15. Unpawned, derivative painter.
16. Tongues with no place for their thoughts.
17. Deaf.
18. Blind.
19. Mute.
20. Mistreated.
21. Single mother.
22. Mistitled prostitute.
23. Misdemeanor outlaw.
24. Chased.
25. Cheated.
26. Searching.
27. Unharmful, gentle prisoners.
28. Aching with terminal wounds.
29. Countless confused.
30. Countless misused.
31. Countless accused.
32. Countless strung outs.
33. Worse.
34. Hung-up people.

Here is a version by Bob and Joan Baez at Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1992.



Monday, January 19, 2015

Black Crow Blues

Bob wants his babe back.
He wanders, disconsolate,
And suffers mood swings.

"Black Crow Blues" is the second song on the first side of "Another Side of Bob Dylan." It's the first one on which he plays the piano, and it's a ragged-and-dirty and fun, minor song. Despite its obscure place in the Bob Dylan catalogue, it's a smart, delightful and compact song. It has the usual Dylan concerns of his more "interior" music, listed by verse:

1. Tired, worn out, wishing lover would tell him what it's about.
2. Standing on a highway somewhere, this time by a billboard.
3. She can come to him any time she wants... not that she ever does.
4. Sometimes he's too high to fall, other times he's so low he's not sure he can get up at all.
5. Black crow's in the meadow, sort of like Churchill's black dog, I think. As for Dylan, he doesn't feel scarecrow enough to chase it away. That's a fancy way of saying he has the blues.



Thursday, January 15, 2015

Ballad in Plain D

Relationship dies
From family interference.
Bob kisses and tells.

This song from the 1964 album "Another Side of Bob Dylan" is an eight-minute-plus reconstruction of Dylan's quarrel with Carla Rotolo, sister of his ex-girlfriend Suzie Rotolo and the breakup of his and Rotolo's relationship. It's raw and mean and Dylan has said that he probably should have let that song stay in the dark. It's undeniably interesting and engrossing, but it does feel a little bit like reading someone else's mail.

Samples:

Of the two sisters, I loved the young With sensitive instincts, she was the creative one The constant scapegoat, she was easily undone By the jealousy of others around her For her parasite sister, I had no respect Bound by her boredom, her pride to protect Countless visions of the other she’d reflect As a crutch for her scenes and her society Myself, for what I did, I cannot be excused The changes I was going through can’t even be used For the lies that I told her in hopes not to lose The could-be dream-lover of my lifetime And: “The tragic figure!” her sister did shout “Leave her alone, God damn you, get out!” And I in my armor, turning about And nailing her to the ruins of her pettiness Beneath a bare lightbulb the plaster did pound Her sister and I in a screaming battleground And she in between, the victim of sound Soon shattered as a child ’neath her shadows

Try playing it at parties.



Sunday, January 11, 2015

All I Really Want to Do

Bob will befriend you.
But there are 46 things
He won’t do to you.

This song opens the 1964 album "Another Side of Bob Dylan" and sounds to me like a clear statement of intent. It's either:
1. Baby, you can trust me. I just want to be your friend. Maybe with benefits, but just maybe (he doesn't want to knock us up).
2. My adoring fans, you must have me confused with someone else. I am here to be your friend, not your protest leader. This is, after all, "another side" of Bob Dylan in more ways than one. Writings about that period and his public statements indicate that he was quickly getting sick of the "spokesman of a generation" label, and it was time to move the songs in a different direction.

Meanwhile, here are the 46 things that Bob mentions in this song that he is not trying to do to you:



Compete
Beat
Cheat
Mistreat
Simplify
Classify
Deny
Defy
Crucify
Fight
Frighten
Tighten
Drag down
Drain down
Chain down
Bring down
Block up
Shock up
Knock up
Lock up
Analyze
Categorize
Finalize
Advertise
Straight-face
Race
Chase
Track
Trace
Disgrace
Displace
Define
Confine
Meet kin
Spin
Do in
Select
Dissect
Inspect
Reject
Fake out
Shake out
Forsake out (?)
Feel like me
See like me
Be like me




Sunday, June 5, 2011

Chimes of Freedom

God can set you free,
Naked, restless refugees.
Bob sees it happen!

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

The Blues Yodel Series

Blues Yodel No. 1 (T for Texas)

T is for Texas.
It’s also for Thelma who
Wrecked me like a ship.

Blues Yodel No. 5

I'm troubled, lonely,
I'm poor. I like train smokestacks.
I need hats and shoes.

Blues Yodel No. 8 (Muleskinner Blues)

Muleskinner blues
Is a country-life portrait
With much yodeling.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Black Crow Blues

Bob wants his babe back.
He wanders, disconsolate.
He suffers mood swings.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Ballad in Plain D

Bob loves one sister.
The other is a wild bitch.
They fight. Bob leaves. End.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

All I Really Want to Do

Lovers can be weird.
Bob just wants to be your pal.
Do you believe him?