Stealin'

Some people don't change.
They say they will, but they go
Back to what they were.

This song was recorded in 1963, but it didn't get any wide release. In short: She doesn’t believe that he loves her. She doesn’t believe that he’s sinking (and needs her). He’s gradually turning back into the same kind of person that he used to be, which presumably is not such a good kind of person. Evidence: the woman whose love he needs is married, so you can be sure that she treats him properly. It reminds me of that old movie title, “I could never sleep with a man who had so little respect for my husband.”

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.

Lonesome River Edge

He holds her hand
And kisses her lips and leaves
Her on the river.

This is an abbreviated performance that Bob Dylan played at Gerde's Folk City in 1963.

I held her hand
on a cobblestone corner,
I kissed her lips
by the river bridge
I said good-bye
with a night train rolling
on a lonesome day
by the lonesome river edge.

"No, that's not the one I was thinking of."

At that point, he segues into the song "Back Door Blues," covered here earlier. This is available on the rare second volume in the "50th Anniversary Collection" series.

James Alley Blues

I love you, but you
Treat me poorly. Sometimes I
Wish you would drop dead.

Bob Dylan performed a reasonable version of the "James Alley Blues" in April 1963 at the home of Eve and Mac McKenzie, and it eventually appeared on the hard-to-find "50th Anniversary Collection 1963," which was released in November 2013. The recording that he took it from, by Richard "Rabbit" Brown, is one of the strangest and most amazing blues songs I've ever heard, due in no small part to Brown's oddball voice. Dylan used the "sugar for sugar/salt for salt/Well if you can't get along with me, then it's your own fault" line, amended, in the song "Crash on the Leveee," also known as "Down in the Flood," several years later.

Times right now ain't nothin' like they used to be 
Well times right now ain't nothin' like they used to be 
You know I'll tell you all the truth, won't you take my word from me

Well I seen better days, but I ain't puttin' up with these 
Well I've seen better days, but I ain't puttin' up with these 
I had a lot better time with those women down in New Orleans 

Well I was born in the country so she thinks I'm easy to lose 
Well I was born in the country so she thinks I'm easy to lose 
She wants to hitch me to a wagon and drive me like a mule 

I bought her a gold ring and I pay the rent 
I bought her a gold ring and I pay the rent 
She tried to get me to wash her clothes but I got good common sense 

Well if you don't want me then why don't you just tell me so? 
Well if you don't want me then why don't you just tell me so? 
It ain't like I'm a man that ain't got nowhere else to go

I give you sugar for sugar, but all you want is salt for salt 
I give you sugar for sugar, but all you want is salt for salt 
Well if you can't get along with me, then it's your own fault 

Well, you want me to love you, but then you just treat me mean 
Yea, you want me to love you, but then you just treat me mean 
You're my daily thought and you're my nightly dream 

Well, sometimes I think that you're just too sweet to die 
Ah, sometimes I think that you're just too sweet to die 
And other times I think that you ought to be buried alive

Honey Babe

So long, honey babe,
You don't do me like you did.
That's enough of you.

There's not much to this song which pops up briefly on a recording of a concert at Gerde's Folk City in 1963 and that showed up on the ultra-rare "50th Anniversary Collection 1963." It's arguably not worth including as a haiku, but I figured that the "honey babe" line that he used here must have later found a home in the song "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," which led me to steal a line of that song for this haiku.

Hiding Too Long

Racists and bigots
Say they are patriots though
We know they are not.

Dylan performed "Hiding Too Long," also known as "You've Been Hiding Too Long," in 1963 at Town Hall in New York. It's a rant, though a well intended and blunt one, and falls right into the middle of his protest song catalog. The song is hard to find outside the Internet. The only album on which it appears is "The 50th Anniversary Collection 1963," the second of Sony's super-rare albums to extend the copyrights on Dylan's songs. This collection was limited to 100 copies, and the only way to get a hand on one outside paying huge prices is to download it if you can find it somewhere.

Come you phoney super-patriotic people that say
That hating and fearing is my only way
That this here country has got to be
You're thinking of your sales, you ain't thinking of me.
You're not thinking of any George Washington
You're not thinking of any Thomas Jefferson
But you say that you are and you lie and mislead
You use their names for your aims, for your selfish greed.
Don't speak to me of your patriotism
When you throw the Southern black boy in prison
And you say the only good niggers are the ones that have died
Don't think I'll  ever stand on your side.
Don't think I'll ever stand on your side
Though you make it so hard for me to love
My face will never feel the slap of your glove
My hands will never buy the cards that you play
My feet will never walk down the road that you lay.
Get out in the open, stop standing afar
Let the whole world see what a hypocrite you are
I ain't joking and it ain't no gag
You been hiding too long behind the American flag.

Goin' Back to Rome

You can have New York.
I'll take the Coliseum
As I'll be in Rome.

"You can keep Madison Square Garden, give me the Coliseum." This wisp of a song, "Goin' Back to Rome" got one performance live in 1963, and is available on the super-hard-to-find "50th Anniversary Collection 1963" album. Here are the lyrics that I swiped off a website somewhere. I don't know what he's singing in the ?? parts either.

Well you know I'm lying 
But don't look at me with scorn.
Well you know I'm lying 
But don't look at me with scorn.
I'm going back to Rome
That's where I was born.

Buy me a ?? I can carry
Keep it for my friends.
Buy me a ?? I can carry
Keep it for my friends.
Don't go to Italy
All around the bend.

You can keep Madison Square Garden
Give me the Coliseum.
You can keep Madison Square Garden
Give me the Coliseum.
So I can see the gladiators,
Man I can always see 'em.

Dusty Old Fairgrounds

Melancholy clowns
From one fairground to the next
Ride the blue highways.

"Dusty Old Fairgrounds" is a rarity from 1963. Dylan performed it at Town Hall in New York City in April 1963. It appears on the hard-to-find "50th Anniversary Collection 1963." It's slice-of-life tale of ratty fair roustabouts and performers and so on. Dylan traces their melancholy ride to bring others fun, from the winter grounds in Florida to Michigan, Wisconsin and other places. They entertain the kids in cow country and in Montana and so on. They all make friends from their cameraderie on the road, they live their life free of the rules and conventions of normal society. Then they go back to St. Petersburg for the winter. Life is fleeting, joys are fleeting, love is fleeting...

Bob Dylan's New Orleans Rag

Bob's friend refers him

To a call girl. Evidence

Suggests she's lethal.

This is a silly song recorded during the sessions for "The Times They Are a-Changin'" in 1963, and is available on the hard-to-find "The 50th Anniversary Collection 1963" set. Bob's in New Orleans, feeling low and mean and all the usual blues feelings, when a guy suggests that he visit a woman who can fix him up. He discovers through the repeated evidence of broken men emerging from her boudoir that she might be a stronger course of antibiotics than he was anticipating. He concludes with warning future busted fellows to seek their pleasures elsewhere.

Here is what happens to the men ahead of him in line for room 103:

1. Couldn't walk, linkin' and a-slinkin', couldn't stand up, moaned, groaned, shuffled down the street.

2. Wiggled and wobbled, could hardly stand, frightened look in eyes as though had fought bear.

3. Long legs, couldn't crawl, muttered and uttered, broken French, looked like had been through monkey wrench.

The scientific method, in other words, comes through for Bob: observe repeated experimentation, then conclude.

Back Door Blues

You would be blue too

If your girl split, and then a

Big coffin arrived.

Dylan performed this old song live one time in 1963 and abandoned it as far as I know. It's on "The 50th Anniversary Collection 1963." In reality, the singer would rather have a coffin show up at his back door than have his girl leave, but it seems ambiguous enough to me when I explore the words that I thought it was OK to fool around with the order of things.

All Over You

Bob’s gonna get you.

Will he love you or kill you?

Remains to be seen.

I've seen the title of this song written as "If I Had to Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You," and that's the gist -- a revenge comedy, ha ha. Here's the first verse of the song, complete with tabs in case you want to play it on the guitar or bang it out on the piano. This comes courtesy of Eyolf Østrom. The song is available on the Witmark Demos collection in the Bootleg series, and also on the harder-to-find "The 50th Anniversary Collection 1963."

G /f# /f E Well, if I had to do it all over again, A D G Babe, I'd do it all over you. G /f# /f E And if I had to wait for ten thousand years, A D Babe, I'd even do that too. B7 Em Well, a dog's got his bone in the alley, B7 Em A cat, she's got nine lives, A A millionaire's got a million dollars, D(7) King Saud's got four hundred wives. C D G Well, ev'rybody's got somethin' G /f# /f C/e That they're lookin' forward to. C G /f# /f E I'm lookin' forward to when I can do it all again A D G And babe, I'll do it all over you.