We Better Talk This Over

Breakup suggestion:
Let's go our separate ways and
Act like we're OK.

For all the words that Bob Dylan has devoted to missing lovers, you would think that a song like "We Better Talk This Over" would never appear. But people are complicated. If you assume that the unnamed departed woman of the yearning songs of the past few years is his ex-wife, then you get the other side here. This song appeared on the 1978 album "Street-Legal," (ie, single again and willing to mingle) and is an attempt at a compassionate breakup, but it sounds more like he's pushing her away by trying to use persuasion. I love the music, but find the words painful. It's not a song to "enjoy."

- We need to talk once we sober up.
- Let's call it a day before we decay.
- Time will make all this easier.
- You were a two-faced double dealer.
- I still find your ways enchanting.
- You'll find someone who'll treat you properly.
- I'm leaving tomorrow. It would be great to meet again in 36 hours and find out this was all a bad joke. But that won't happen. Our marriage is in tatters.
- Let's be grateful for what we had.
- If we keep tabs on each other, we'll go crazy.
- I wish I could turn back time and not go through this.

True Love Tends to Forget

Marital discord
Can't last if you love your spouse
Because love forgets.

"True Love Tends to Forget" is part of Dylan's ultimate "to hell with love" album, "Street-Legal," reportedly so named because he was back in business again as a single man after his separation from his wife. I try to avoid the personal references in Dylan's songs, since they ought to appeal to a wide crowd being that it was published for everyone, but this one must be about the confusion of an ended relationship that keeps sort of almost starting again. It's the moment in the breakup at which one of the parties says "whatever" to the most callous insults and transgressions because they seem preferable to losing someone entirely. Hence the recitation of various grievances, along with the assurance that he can deal with all this. Specifically: 

I was lyin’ down in the reeds without any oxygen
I saw you in the wilderness among the men
Saw you drift into infinity and come back again
All you got to do is wait and I’ll tell you when

You belong to me, baby, without any doubt

Don’t forsake me, baby, don’t sell me out

- When his baby's near, it's hard to recognize her. No more room to regret. "True love tends to forget."
- He wants her to hold him. He reminds her that she said she would be sincere, but every day feels like a game of Russian roulette.
- The great instrumental break and verse comes here in this verse, which he sings twice:
"I was lyin’ down in the reeds without any oxygen
I saw you in the wilderness among the men
Saw you drift into infinity and come back again
All you got to do is wait and I’ll tell you when"
- He's under her spell, but this "weekend in hell is making me sweat."
- She should stay, she shouldn't leave him. Don't let him just wander around from Mexico to Tibet. Regarding that last line, evidence in Dylan's more recent work, starting with "Time Out of Mind" in 1997, indicates that he's been doing just that, at least in his songs.

Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)

Where are we going?
What are we doing? Bob asks.
Senor doesn't say.

"Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)" has long been a fan favorite. The song came out in 1978 on the album "Street-Legal," and captures, at least to me, this kind of weary post-Vietnam malaise and disillusionment with America -- at least in the title. The rest of the song is more mysterious and obscure. What's really going on? I don't know. I've attacked the song from a few different angles for the haiku, but didn't get anywhere, and I'm unwilling to spelunk in the depths of Dylanology in search of an answer. Whether Senor means god or just some guy, I don't know. Here's what else is going on in this song:

- Are we going to Lincoln County Road or Armageddon? Either way, I think I've been here before. Could this be true, senor?
- Where is she? How long is our trip going to take? How long must I watch the door? (I guess the high school literature class key would say that this is a reference to love and death and how long do we have in this world.)
- What's going on and where -- Upper deck: wicked wind blowing. Her neck: iron cross hanging. Vacant lot: marching band. Also in the vacant lot: her telling me, "forget me not."
- I see a painted wagon (pioneers?) and smell a dragon's tail (heroin?). I'm getting impatient. I need someone to contact in this strange place.
- I had to strip and kneel. Before that happened, I saw a bunch of fools on a train. They were beset by magnetic force. I also saw a gypsy with a broken flag and a flashing ring, and he was telling me that I wasn't dreaming.
- Some unidentified party's hearts as hard as leather. Meanwhile, I need to get it together. Give me a minute, here, senor.
- This whole damned place makes no sense. I'm going to overturn the tables and disconnect the cables. What are we waiting for? (Is this a statement of suicide?)

No Time to Think

You go through troubles,
All meaning is doubled, and
Thinking is rubbled.

"No Time to Think" could have been subtitled "Dylan: in the Bunker." This 1978 song from the album "Street-Legal" spreads its 18 verses over more than eight minutes. Each describes his travails in the midst of danger, fear, paranoia, alcohol, depression and anger, while a few contain strings of words with similar endings and rhymes. Ultimately, it's a pity party, brimming with self indulgence, suspicion of others and shaded portraits of self martyrdom. I confess that I tune out the words when I listen to this song because they're so damned dreary. I don't know what the "concept noun" rhymes are doing here other than to overstuff this already stuffed narrative. Here they are, along with the other parts of this airplane engine of a song, which I have taken apart piece by piece and presented here (though I left out any summary of each verse because they don't reflect much unless they're put together. I also left out some remark about the "Federal City" which pops up in the song, never to return).

Strings of unrelated nouns:
Loneliness/tenderness
High society/notoriety
Memory/ecstasy/tyranny/hypocrisy
China doll/alcohol
Duality/morality
Paradise/sacrifice
Mortality/reality
Equality/liberty/humility/simplicity
Mercury/gravity/nobility/humility (he must have run out of ities)
Socialism/hypnotism/patriotism/materialism
Loyalty/unity/epitome/rigidity

Words in the song that rhyme with "think," as in "No time to think":
Sink
Link
Wink
Ink
Drink
Brink
Clink
Pink
Blink

Characters in the song:
You
Child
Wife
Empress
Judges
Country priestess
China doll
Destiny
Tyrant
Lion
Lamb
Traitor
Magician
Madmen
Warlords of sorrow
Queens of tomorrow
Her
Lovers
Fools
Babylon girl with rose in hair
Camille 
Death 

Things you are:
Soldier of mercy

Things you do or are done to you:
Face life while in death
Fight for the throne
Travel alone
You're unknown as you sink
You're cold and you curse
Been blown and shown pity for pieces of change (Judas)
Attracted by empress
Distracted by oppression
Feel violent and strange
Betrayed by a kiss (Jesus)
Haunted by judge
Wanted by country priestess
See decoys
Feel depressed
Betrayed by your conscience
Waylaid by tyrant
Can't find salvation
Have no expectations
Murder your vanity
Bury your sanity
Resist something for pleasure
Lovers obey you
You aren't swayed by lovers
Lovers aren't sure you exist
Released upon seeing starlight in the east
Harmed by bullets
Disarmed by death
Deceived by no one
Stripped of virtue
Crawl in the dirt
Give
Not receive
Don't choose, lose, say goodbye, prepare for the victim, suffer, blink, think

Tarot card references:
"Mercury rules you"
Empress
Death

New Pony

Bob's new pony is
Sexier than the last one.
He's gonna ride her.

I've heard a bizarre charge regarding this song: Dylan, that sexist, is comparing a woman to a pony, therefore he's a sexist. Let's leave that alone from the outset. There are plenty of songs that use animals as a metaphor for people, and sometimes in a sexual way, and when Dylan has expressed more caveman-like views toward women, he hasn't been shy about it (as much as I dislike it). "Ballad of the Absent Mare," "Milk Cow's Calf Blues," "Honeybee," "Closer to God" (I've noticed nobody ever gives Trent Reznor a hard time for his blunt and honest line, "I want to fuck you like an animal") and so on. The difference between those songs and this is Dylan's "naked" intent. He's singing about lust and sexual confusion, and the dirty, grinding blues of the song underlines his intent. It's one of his most raw songs, and I think it's effective. The blues guitar solo in the middle is rude and bad-ass, and is exceeded only by the nasty sound of the saxophone on the fade-out. The backup singers, sometimes off the beat, bellow, "How much longer?" in a terrifying way as Dylan growls through the verses, including his vocal fills, like "well-lllllll" and so on. I love this song. You can find it as track 2 on the 1978 album "Street-Legal."

Once I had a pony, her name was Lucifer
I had a pony, her name was Lucifer
She broke her leg and she needed shooting
I swear it hurt me more than it could ever have hurted her

Sometimes I wonder what’s going on with Miss X
Sometimes I wonder what’s going on with Miss X
You know she got such a sweet disposition
I never know what the poor girl’s gonna do to me next

I got a new pony, she knows how to fox-trot, lope and pace
Well, I got a new pony, she knows how to fox-trot, lope and pace
She got great big hind legs
And long black shaggy hair above her face

Well now, it was early in the mornin’, I seen your shadow in the door (This verse is not in the recording)
It was early in the mornin’, I seen your shadow in the door
Now, I don’t have to ask nobody
I know what you come here for

They say you’re usin’ voodoo, your feet walk by themselves
They say you’re usin’ voodoo, I seen your feet walk by themselves
Oh, baby, that god you been prayin’ to
Is gonna give ya back what you’re wishin’ on someone else

Come over here pony, I, I wanna climb up one time on you (I always thought he was singing, "I want to climb up on top of you." Whichever...)
Come over here pony, I, I wanna climb up one time on you
Well, you’re so bad and nasty
But I love you, yes I do

Journey Through Dark Heat (Where Are You Tonight?)

Woman and friends gone,
Parties and despair remain.
Can he persevere?

Sometimes it's hard to be a woman, spurning all the love of just one man.

Bob Dylan's attitude toward life, as expressed in his music, was none too bright in 1978. He was on the road after his separation from his wife, changing his old songs into soft-edged musical revue numbers, and looking and sounding like he was sick and tired of everything. "Journey Through Dark Heat (Where Are You Tonight?)" reads like a bunch of neuroses pureed in a blender, with the results left out in the sun on an old paper plate with an empty bottle of cheap gin and half a pack of menthols.

1. Train in rain, tears on letter, miss woman/want touch. She drifting like satellite.
2. Green smoky haze. She bathe in heat.
3. Cherokee father say relationship no last.
4. Angry woman got baby. Stripper on stage with clock and page of unwritten book. Where u at tonight?
5. Truth: obscure, profound, pure. Can't live with it without risk of explosion. You and me agree sacrifice and road for us.
6. Marcel, St. John and I: strong dudes full of doubt. Couldn't share thoughts with my women. She find them out all same.
7. She put flowers on shelf. I climb her hair. She feel my despair. 
8. Lion? In road. Demon? Escaped. Million dreams? Gone. Landscape? Being raped. Her beauty? Faded. 
9. Fight with my twin. He my enemy within. We both lose. My maladies: horseplay and disease. Law no notice.
10. Your partners in crime want my money. Your new boyfriend is an addict. I kick him in face. Didn't want to, but he leave me no choice.
11. Bite into root of forbidden fruit. Juice run down my leg (Hint: it's not juice). I see your boss who don't know loss, don't know how to beg.
12. Dark room, diamond gloom. Path to the stars. You think this life fun? Not so. Check these scars.
13. Dawn. I arrive. I survive. Can't believe I alive. All good, but no you make not right. Where u at tonight?

Is Your Love in Vain?

I don't trust your love.
You should give me alone time.
Would you be my maid?

The milk of human kindness, soured. That's "Is Your Love in Vain?" which seems to capture the spirit that Bob Dylan found himself in in 1978 when he released the album "Street Legal." Have a look:

1. "Do you love me, or are you just extending goodwill?
Do you need me half as bad as you say, or are you just feeling guilt?"

2. This isn't the first time I've been hurt, and I won't complain if you give me an answer that I don't want to hear, but looks, I need to know, is your love in vain?

3. Don't you know that I need alone time? Why do you bother me then? Do you know anything about me? Can't you let me be myself?

4. I've been high and low, I've eaten with kings, and I've never been too impressed by that jazz.

5. OK, fine, I'll be your lover. I'll even give you more time than I know that I can give. Meanwhile, can you cook and sew and keep a garden? While doing that, can you understand my pain?

If you've ever wanted to file an anti-personals ad, you can use this song as the backdrop.

Changing of the Guards

Bob makes some changes

Sixteen years into his job.

He might have found God.

One of the most vague and sometimes annoying songs in Bob Dylan's catalogue, "Changing of the Guards" is an anthem full of willful obscurity, best viewed from a distance. Musically it sounds fine, but my experience always has been that I listen to the words more as sounds and focus on the music, or else I start asking myself too many questions about "what it all means."

I couldn't avoid that question any longer, however, so I concluded that in 1978, 16 years after his commercial debut, he was announcing a number of changes in his moral, spiritual and musical path. Why 16? Because the song begins with the words, "Sixteen years, sixteen banners united over the field where the good shepherd grieves."

Then there's divorce and opposition and departure: "Desperate men, desperate women divided, Spreading their wings 'neath the falling leaves."

Other "clues:"

Entrance upon the professional stage: "Fortune calls, I stepped from the shadows to the marketplace."

And his historical problem with hangers-on and managers: "Merchants and thieves, hungry for power, my last deal gone down."

What to make of the captain sending loving thoughts to a woman beyond communication, with an "ebony face," and who eventually has her head shaved and is torn between Jupiter and Apollo? No idea. For what it's worth, he follows her past a fountain, but it sounds like he loses her.

Then there's the heart-shaped tattoo with stitches still mending, dog soldiers reflected in a palace of mirrors, lovemaking with a blonde, long-haired guy and gal amid mountain laurel, another rejection of the music business: "Gentlemen, he said, I don't need your organization, I've shined your shoes, I've moved your mountains and marked your cards."

Then there's the challenge that he issues to all the grubbers, mooches and other people in his life: "But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination, or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards."

And finally, peace comes, but apparently it's represented by false idols -- perhaps an early reference to the more explicitly stated idea on the "Infidels" album that "sometimes Satan come as a man of peace." And then there's a thoroughly obscure reference to death surrendering, and the death of death retreating between two tarot cards. Right. Enjoy yourself...

("Changing of the Guard" was the first song on the "Street Legal" album of 1978, a period after Bob's divorce when you get the impression that he was entering a period of sour milk moods and general grumpiness, not long before he'd find Jesus and enter a period of general religious grumpiness.)

I can't get the Dylan version to load, so here's Frank Black and the Catholics doing their own raucous take.

Baby, Stop Crying

Some asshole hurt you,

I'll avenge you and love you,

But please be quiet.

This bloated yet enjoyable song ends side one of the bilious and angry 1978 album "Street Legal." The singer is angry because this woman's former lover treated her meanly enough that he's ready to shoot him. He then asks her to stop crying, and follows it up with an invitation to take advantage of his services as a friend, and most likely something more than that.

Sample:

You been down to the bottom with a bad man, babe But you’re back where you belong Go get me my pistol, babe Honey, I can’t tell right from wrong Baby, please stop crying, stop crying, stop crying Baby, please stop crying, stop crying, stop crying Baby, please stop crying You know, I know, the sun will always shine So baby, please stop crying ’cause it’s tearing up my mind

As you can see, he's ready to handle the situation, but her crying is giving him a headache.

Coming From the Heart

Make up your mind, girl.
We were meant to be a pair.
I know this is true.

Changing of the Guards

This confusing song
Blends a man's obscure quest with
Tarot card symbols.

Renaldo and Clara to get DVD release?

This person quotes an anonymous source near or in Dylan's management team.


As epic bombs go,
Renaldo and Clara is
Said to be The One.

Baby Stop Cryin'

Some asshole hurt you,
But I'll love you. Come to me,
But please be quiet.

No Time to Think

A muddled mess, this.
And it goes on and on and
On and on and on.

Daddy's Going on One More Ride

Can someone tell me whether "Daddy's Going on One More Ride" is really the name of the supposedly Shel Silverstein-penned song that Bob Dylan performed either at a rehearsal or a soundtrack or in concert sometime in 1978? Here is my problem:

Daddy's Going on One More Ride:

I can't find words to
Shel Silverstein's obscure song.
Is it even real?

Baby Stop Cryin'

Some asshole hurt you.
Bob will love you. Go to him,
But please be quiet.