Every song Bob Dylan wrote or performed can be distilled in a haiku. NOTE FOR READERS: All posts from 2010 to 2014 should be considered out of date. Please disregard them. There are, or will be, new versions of each haiku.
This sweet, short heartbreaker of a song closes the miserable and gloomy masterpiece of an album "Blood on the Tracks" from 1975. Taken with a big dose of real life, it's supposed to chronicle in a reasonably abstract form the breakdown of Bob Dylan's marriage to his wife Sara. Whether that's the inspiration behind the album is the listener's choice as far as I'm concerned. Dylan has disavowed that notion, but he's an unreliable narrator at the best of times considering that it's his private life and he's not crazy about discussing it. One of his sons has said that indeed this is a series of references to the private lives of his parents. I prefer to leach out the details and focus on the words, which are sad, angry, confused and bitter much of the time. In "Buckets of Rain," you get the idea that everything about the woman he's singing to makes him happy, and he even gets into how he likes the cool way she looks at him, likes her smile and her fingertips and lips, etc., but as he says baldly, "Everything about you is bringing me misery." Then there's the genius conclusion of the song:
Everything about this song suggests that the end product should be ridiculous, but it isn't. "Brownsville Girl," co-written with actor/playwright Sam Shepard, is an absurd tale that is nearly impossible to relate. It's over the top, it's a big 1980's-power-pop-style production. It's something like 11 minutes long. The plot jumps all over the place. The verses emphasize talking over singing. The backup girls sound like they just came from a Pink Floyd concert. There are more references to Gregory Peck than any song should have. And yet, it's a masterpiece. That's not just my conclusion, but the conclusion of everyone who found this to be the only enjoyable song on the otherwise miserable album "Knocked Up Loaded" (which of course has its defenders).
Here's the summary:
1. Guy remembers going to see "The Gunfighter," a western with Gregory Peck. A young man shoots the old gunfighter, and the town wants to hang him.
2. The marshal beats the kid, but Peck says let him go because, in words that chill to the bone, "Turn him loose, let him go, let him say he outdrew me fair and square. I want him to feel what it’s like to every moment face his death."
3. Bob reminisces about the movie as he misses his gal.
4. She showed up on the painted desert in platform heels and driving a beaten-up Ford.
5. They drive to San Antonio. They sleep together. She goes to Mexico and never comes back. He doesn't chaser because he fears having his head blown off.
6. Now he's in a car with another woman, but the first woman's soul is with them and she haunts them.
7. They cross the Texas panhandle for Amarillo. They arrive at Henry Porter's wrecking yard where his wife Ruby says Henry's not in, but they can hang around for a while. She's washing clothes.
8. Times are tough and she's thinking of leaving. In the classic ridiculous line of the song, she says, "Even the swap meets around here are getting pretty corrupt." It's the "land of the living dead," she says.
9. Ruby asks where Bob and his gal are going. They say they're going anywhere until the car falls apart. Ruby says some babies never learn.
10. Bob thinks about the Gregory Peck movie again, and discovers that he's IN THE FILM.
11. Either in real life or in the film, Bob is crossing the street when armed men looking for someone in a pompadour take shots at him. In another classically ridiculous line, he says, "I didn't know whether to duck or run so I ran." He hears that they've got the man cornered in a churchyard. Is he the man?
12. The second woman sees Bob's picture in the Corpus Christi paper with the words "man with no alibi" written in the caption. She lies to the judge to get him off, whatever crime it is that he's supposed to have committed.
13. Bob's never been the kind of guy who likes to trespass, but sometimes he can't help it. He needs an original thought. He feels OK, but that's not saying much.
14. He's in line to see a Gregory Peck film. Not "The Gunfighter," but a new one. He doesn't know the name, but he'd watch Peck in anything so he stands in line.
15. Things don't turn out as planned. We learn that Henry Porter's name wasn't Henry Porter. He remembers being with the first woman, or maybe the second one, in the French Quarter in New Orleans.
16. He ruminates on how people who suffer together have more in common than people who are most content, most likely taking a page from Leo Tolstoy's opening lines of "Anna Karenina."
17. He remembers, again, seeing "The Gunfighter" with Gregory Peck, and concludes with the gut punch line, "Seems like a long time ago, long before the stars were torn down."
And throughout, every time the chorus gets ready, the backup girls shout, "Whoaaaaah!" and then the mighty chorus with big drums and a big horn section making big horn chords:
Brownsville girl with your Brownsville curls Teeth like pearls shining like the moon above Brownsville girl, show me all around the world Brownsville girl, you’re my honey love
The body that needs some work is the singer's, of course. In this old blues song by Blind Willie McTell, a man is lonely so he blows all his money on gambling. When he runs out of cash, he pawns his pistol and his best clothes. Then he prays for God to give him back his woman, and promises to stop bothering God if he'll just do as he asks. Following this, he asks the woman directly to come back to him. He praises her dance skills and suggests that if she's a real hot momma, she can make his engine, whistle and bell work again (as I was saying about "body work"), and most importantly, relieve his weeping spell. Bob's version of the song appears on his blues covers album "World Gone Wrong" from 1993.
This appears to be a variation on the title "Bring Me Little Water Sylvie," which I understand was written by Leadbelly, though I don't know that for sure. Bob recorded it during the "Self Portrait" sessions in 1970, but it wasn't released until volume 10 of the Bootleg Series. Sylvie appears to be a nice girl from Florida who lacks for nothing in the department of serving her man:
Sylvie is a good ol' girl G From Florida, so they say. C C7 F Dm7-5 She came up here last April C G C To pass some time away. Now, won't you bring me a little water, Sylvie? Bring me a little water now Bring me a little water, Sylvie For my tired brow Sylvie came here Wednesday She came this morning by the light of the dawn She comes up here now nearly all of the time to see if she can carry on Sylvie says she loves me she says it all of the time she always gets behind me when the hill is too high to climb She brings me milk and honey Brings me slop and beans brings me coconuts and candy brings me turnip greens
Bob Dylan recorded Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer" for his 1970 album "Self Portrait." Whether the album really was Dylan's attempt to shake off fans and fame by recording a bunch of other people's pop hits, soft vocal standards and his own b-team music is up for debate. What's undeniable is that his version of this song borders on parody. As one music critic, I forget who, said of this cover that Dylan's voice is double tracked and neither voice is on time or on key or in sync with the other. It sounds to me like an intentionally horrible piss take on the original, which is one of Simon & Garfunkel's most soaring and big moments on tape. As with most of Dylan's lesser moments, however, this one in its short, stark simplicity grew on me after a while, if only because I like seeing just how far you can go with a song before you break it.
Complete chaos from the Basement Tapes session. Bob and the boys sing a woozy boozy New Orleans Dixie-style song that sounds like they made up the words as they played. The story vaguely concerns a man singing about how he used to live on Bourbon Street, but he doesn't live there anymore, but should you happen to be going there, you should take care to note that there are lots of nice women there who will show you a good time. The song is nearly surreal in its way of sliding off itself like an avalanche off a mountain, particularly as whoever is playing the trombone seems able to blow away on the thing at top volume without taking a breath. Unfortunately, I do not have a copy of the song to share.
This is a short track from the Bootleg Series volume 9, the demos for the Witmark company. It's another in the big book of Dylan songs about people who ramble like hobos, and generally reflects the Woody Guthrie spirit of the age that he embraced for a few years. Here are the words with his spoken introduction from the recording.
["Here's one, I can write you out the verses to this later,
I can't really remember this right now,
I'll write you out the verses to it."]
G C
Well I'm bound to lose, bound to win
G C D G
bound to walk to the road again
G C
Bound to lose, bound to win
C D G /e /g
bound for a-walkin' to the road again
[interlude similar to the intro]
G Em
Well, I'm just one of them ramblin' men
C D G
Ramblin' since I don't know when.
G C
Here I come, and I'm-a gone again
/b D/a G
You might think I got no end.
G Em
Bound to lose, I'm bound to win
G C D G
I'm bound for a-walkin' to the road again
G Em
Bound to lose, I'm bound to win
G C G
bound for a-walkin' to the road again
This is a difficult song from "Under the Red Sky," an album that underwhelmed many listeners. It's not hard to see why. Dylan veers between childish/childlike rhymes, songs about why TV is bad for you, and the usual assortment of enigmatic songs about enigmatic people. In "Born in Time," he sings to a woman that her vision is coming to his mind in the middle of the night, that whatever relationship they had failed in some way, and somehow she remains on his mind. He makes repeated references to how they were "born in time," but whether that means they were born on schedule, born in some more general temporal measure or whatever else he might have been thinking, the meaning goes slipping by.
You can see what I mean about ambiguity....
You're blowin' down a shaky street
You're hearing my heart beat
In the record breaking heat
Where we were born in time
Not one more night, not one more kiss
And not this time babe, no more of this
Takes too much skill, takes too much of will
It's too revealing
You came, you saw just like the law
You married young just like your ma
You tried and tried, you made me slide
You left me reeling with this feeling
Here's a version of the song that was recorded for the album preceding "Under the Red Sky," "Oh Mercy." It was dropped and later released on the eighth volume in the Bootleg Series.
Usually it's Dylan who's doing the wandering, the walking and the rambling. This time the girl sails away and offers him gifts, presumably from the guilt of missing him. He asks only for her to return, saying that that's worth more than "the stars from the darkest night and the diamonds from the deepest ocean." She's not feeling guilty enough to change her plans for an indefinite expatriate life, however, and once she makes this clear, our hero asks for boots of Spanish leather. These boots are, after all, made for walking.
This song was recorded for the album "The Times They Are a-Changin'," released early in 1964.
This is an old song about whale hunting in Greenland, though Dylan changed the lyrics radically when he and The Band test drove the song during the Basement Tapes sessions in 1967. The original lyrics, which you can see below, don't mention how the Diamond and a bunch of other ships became trapped in ice in the Melville Bay and that a bunch of sailors died. Dylan's takes the action south to Vera Cruz, but gets in all the negative stuff, or so it seems to me.
Original:
The Diamond is a ship, my lads
For the Davis Strait we're bound
The quay it is all garnished
With bonnie lasses 'round
Captain Thompson gives the order
To sail the ocean wide
Where the sun it never sets, my lads
Nor darkness dims the sky
For it's cheer up my lads
Let your hearts never fail
For the bonnie ship the Diamond
Goes a-hunting for the whale
Along the quay at Peterhead
The lasses stand aroon
Wi' their shawls all pulled around them
And the saut tears runnin' doon
Don't you weep, my bonnie wee lass
Though you be left behind
For the rose will grow on Greenland's ice
Before we change our mind
Here's a health to the Resolution
Likewise the Eliza Swan
Three cheers for the Battler of Montrose
And the Diamond, ship of fame
We wear the trousers o' the white
The jackets o' the blue
When we get back to Peterhead
We'll hae sweethearts enou'
It will be bright both day and night
When the Greenland lads come hame
Our ship full up with oil, my lads
And money to our name
We'll make the cradles for to rock
And the blankets for to tear
And every lass in Peterhead sing
"Hushabye, my dear"
Dylan's with chords and some guesses by the transcriber, as not all the words are audible:
Am Am C/g D/f# Well, the bonnie ship was a good old ship Am E She was a-fishin' on a [leading chain] Am /c C/g And me an' John oh was a long catch[-on?] D/f# F E Am It was the last of the ones I've seen Am G Am So with sword and a rope in bay E Feel all that your heart be sailed Am C/g D/f# When that bonnie ship the Diamond goes Am Em Am fishin' for the whales. Am D Well, we feud all night, the cabin gauge, Am E It was a-more than feelin' bad Am D And with all kind friends we watched in fear Am Em Am It was a naught time we ever had. Am D Am So it's rise up my lads E Let your hearts never fail Am C/g D/f# When that bonnie ship the Diamond goes F E Am fishin' for the whales. An' all day long at Vera Cruz We sailed [all the likes] to bind With no heavy moan, any hearts [of stone] No aid was cried [tried?] for mine. So it's cheer up my boys Let your hearts never fail When that bonnie ship the Diamond Goes fishin' for the whales. Well, now along Cape Fate, 'twas lit in red All along cape Horn And from Vera Cruz we sailed ahead It was all in the time of storm. So, it's cheer on up my boys Let your hearts never fail When that bonnie ship the Diamond Goes fishin' for the whales. Here's a typically Celtic-sounding version by the Corries.
"Bob Dylan's 115th Dream," which appeared as the last song on side one of "Bringing It All Back Home" in 1965, is a long, ridiculous saga that can scarcely be stuffed into 17 sounds. I wrote this one about 10 times before producing the present defensive maneuver that you see here. Here's the longer story, which involves Bob discovering the New World with a gang of lusty sailors aboard the Mayflower. They're promptly jailed, though Bob breaks out and encounters a variety of freaks and geeks all over lower Manhattan while trying to spring his crew. As he passes Christopher Columbus on his three ships on the way out of town, he wishes them a cynical "good luck."
1. Bob and Captain Arab sail the Mayflower and take a break from hunting Moby Dick after espying land.
2. They name the place America and buy it from the natives, paying beads as the Dutch did for New Amsterdam/Manhattan. A cop arrests them for carrying harpoons.
3. Bob gets directions to a Bowery-area protest from a cow. He joins in, then realizes he's hungry.
4. He orders crepes suzette from a bewigged etiquette book writer doubling as a chef. Bad moonlight option, no doubt, as the kitchen explodes from boiling fat.
5. Bob goes to the bank to borrow money to make bail for his crewmates. He drops his pants when asked for collateral. He ends up in an alley, meets a French girl, goes to her place, gets beaten up by her boyfriend.
6. He asks a guy for help. Guy says, get off my property. Dylan compares himself to Jesus. The guy knows better than to buy that.
7. After a cameo encounter by one of the Beatles, he visits a funeral parlor. The funeral director can't help his crewmates unless they're dead.
8. He decides to abandon his quest and finds a parking ticket on the mast of the ship. The coast guard interrogates him, but lets him go.
9. He hears that Arab is stuck on a whale married to the jail's deputy sheriff. Christopher Columbus and his crew shows up. Bob exits.
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.
Recorded in 1963 for the album "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan," this dose of nostalgia could easily veer into mawkish territory, but I find it affecting and sincere. Bob's friends used to sit around and talk about life, the universe and everything, as he recalls while riding a train heading west. Back then, they knew what was right and wrong, they laughed and sang all night long by a wooden stove, and goddamnit, wouldn't it be nice if life could stay as it was when we were young. Or as he sings in the last two verses:
How many a year has passed and gone
And many a gamble has been lost and won
And many a road taken by many a friend
And each one I’ve never seen again
I wish, I wish, I wish in vain
That we could sit simply in that room again
Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat
I’d give it all gladly if our lives could be like that
I've always thought that the song "The Last Time I Saw Richard" by Joni Mitchell was a natural sequel to this one, several affairs, jobs, and a few thousand cocktails later, only this time in some suburban desert:
Another of Bob's melancholy-go-lucky walking songs, "Bob Dylan's Blues" was recorded in 1962 for the 1963 album "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan." I focused on the first verse since problems tend to be what plague Dylan through many of the verses of many of his songs, and that seemed to capture the essence of this little rambler-gambler tune.
For what it's worth, the other verses tackle different subjects, while his spoken introduction notes that this song was written in the United States, not Tin Pan Alley in New York City:
1. Someone must have told the Lone Ranger and Tonto that Bob was doing all right because they're fixing everyone's troubles but his.
2. Bob has a real gal, not a "five and 10-cent woman," and he advises those in the latter coterie to go away from his door and window.
3. He doesn't go to the racetrack because he doesn't have or need a sports car. He can walk around the block on his feet if he wishes.
4. The wind blows him in various directions. Don't step on him.
5. If you want to be like Bob, go commit armed robbery. Tell the judge later when you're on trial that Bob said it was OK.
Here's another version of the song, released on "The 50th Anniversary Collection."
This is Bob Dylan's rendition of Elvis Presley's 1956 version (or Frank Sinatra's version?) of a 1934 song by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The original version of the song was meant for Jean Harlow to sing in the movie "Hollywood Party," expressing her hope to become a movie star. The song went unused in the film, and was copyrighted as "Prayer (Oh lord, make me a movie star)." I like its repeated use in the John Landis film, "An American Werewolf in London."
The song, as Bob recorded it for 1970's "Self Portrait," features a guy wishing on a blue moon to send him someone to fall in love with.
Blue moon
You knew just what I was there for
You heard me saying a prayer for
Someone I really could care for
And then there suddenly appeared before me
The only one my arms will hold
I heard somebody whisper please adore me
And when I looked to the moon it turned to gold
Blue moon
Now I'm no longer alone
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own
Here's a studio session from the time with Bob giving it a whirl. It's not what you hear on the final "Self Portrait" album.
This is the first Bob Dylan haiku that I ever wrote, and like the original song, it has stood the test of time.
Dylan recorded this song for his second album, "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" in 1963. There are multiple studio and live recordings of the song on various Dylan live and archival albums. Take your pick.
Here is a thoroughly different version, recorded down the street from my apartment last month at the Beacon Theater. I wasn't willing to shell out the crazy money that scalpers were asking so I didn't go.
