Where Teardrops Fall

I know where you are.
I follow a teardrop trail
And you're at the end.

I've always enjoyed the music of "Where Teardrops Fall," which comes from the 1989 album "Oh Mercy." I'm just not all that sure I know what it's about. If I had to guess, we're dealing with a broken-up couple, she's sad about it, he's sorry about it, and he's proposing a reconciliation. I went with a strictly literal interpretation for the haiku, and saved the guesswork for this miniature essay.

Notes:
1. You're hanging out where the teardrops fall. They're likely yours. Soft winds, far away.
2. It's past the stormy night and the wall. You're there in flickering light.
3. "We banged the drum slowly, And played the fife lowly, You know the song in my heart." This song refers to the cowboy song "Streets of Laredo," about a cowboy who's dying of a gunshot wound and requests that his chums play a funeral dirge as they carry him to his coffin. It's based on an older Scottish song about a young man dying because of mistreatment by maiden -- quite possibly a case of fatal syphilis. But that's another story. Dylan, meanwhile, suggests that his gal might show him "a new place to start."
4. "I’ve torn my clothes and I’ve drained the cup, strippin’ away at it all." I assume that the cup refers to the Last Supper. The clothes tearing is an old Jewish tradition to express grief, a broken heart and other unhappy emotions. It also expresses a devotion to God. Note that when Herod and the Romans mocked Jesus before nailing him to the tree, they made him wear expensive robes as an ironic expression of their view of him as "king of the Jews." The garments were seamless, so when the Roman soldiers decided to divide his possessions for themselves, they ended up not being able to rend the garment as that would have made it useless. Anyway...
5. If we met, we could toast the cutting of fences.
6. "I just might have to come see you, wWhere teardrops fall."

What Was It You Wanted?

Did you want something?
Am I supposed to get it?
Why should it be me?

"Oh Mercy" is an album that is full of the noun in question on the songs that are addressed to people instead of things. It also features Dylan's attempts to take some responsibility for his actions. The exception is "What Was It You Wanted?" which comes from a land of bad moods. He hectors the subject of his song from the beginning, a subject who seems to be having trouble getting the right words out. This is a song about someone whom he thinks has done him wrong, and he has the advantage so he's going to use it, not to get the outcome he wants, but to make sure that whoever is winning pays for it by feeling bad.

What did you want?
1. Tell me again. I'll leave for a bit and come back so you can "get it together by then."
2. Tell me again. I'm back. "Get it back on the track. You got my attention. Go ahead, speak. What was it you wanted When you were kissing my cheek?"
3. Did you need something that I might be able to give you? Who watched you kiss me?
4. I forgot what you wanted. Remind me. If you'd be so kind. Is someone waiting for you after we're done talking?
5. Are you the same person I used to know? Is what you want to tell me important? Maybe not.
6. Who said I had what you wanted? Who are you, anyway?
7. Are you even talking to me?

What Good Am I?

I'm not much good
If I just let you founder.
But my hands are tied.

In praise of compassion, from someone who evidently has not been able to display any. This song is from the "Oh Mercy" album, released in 1989. It's as beautiful as the rest of the songs there.

What good am I if:
I shut down to avoid hearing you cry
I know what's wrong and don't help
I look right through you
I turn a deaf ear
I ignore your tears
I don't acknowledge what you've been saying while you're asleep
I seize up instead of acting
I don't question who tied my hands or why, and don't try to untie them.
I talk trash
I laugh at sorrow's bounty
I turn my back while you die

Ring Them Bells

The saints ring their bells
For the world's lost and found
In moral decay.

The 1989 album "Oh Mercy" could have been such a soft tread through the landscape of adult contemporary neo-folk, even as the genre was just being born. Songs like "Ring Them Bells" made sure that this wasn't the case. Given that producer Daniel Lanois put a heavy stamp on each song, sometimes for good and sometimes for not quite as good, this one benefits from the restrained hand. Even though Dylan was working with a band and a producer who brought a particular sound that was theirs, he made this one his own with their accents rather than their entire signatures. If I had to guess, I would say the song is a plea to the saints and to the true wise men and women of religion who know why religion exists, to ring the bells of truth and goodness in a world that doesn't want to hear them. As such, they ring quietly and insistently, tolling a truth for a wounded world that needs the right path more than ever, but without commanding listeners to come. These bells are the small, clear voice that suggests a path to redemption, righteousness and paradise in a world where there is little demand for that path. The even, soft tone of the song indicates that patience, not fury at the oncoming apocalpyse, is the right way to react to a world out of balance.

1. Ring the bells, heathens, in the city of dreams and across valleys and streams. Do it because the waters are dark and deep and the world is off its kilter.
2. St. Peter, ring the bells with a steady hand. "Oh its rush hour now, on the wheel and the plow, and the sun is going down upon the sacred cow." To me, that says that people are rushing and speeding to keep their hand on the gospel plow, as the old spiritual says, the straight path to the Lord and to redemption, though you can't rush being right and being true. Even so, people are trying, which means they're trying for their selfish gain, an attempt to save themselves, when the true path to salvation lies in a good heart and good intent, not in trying to make sure you know all the answers for the test the night before when you've not tried all semester. Same goes for the sacred cow, upon which the sun is setting. This is the false idol that the Jews worshipped when they turned their backs on God during their 40 years between the bondage of Pharaoh and the establishment of themselves as a proper state. This was their period of doubt, and it's no wonder that they turned to more expedient means of salvation. But those means were wrong, according to the Bible, and possibly to Dylan.
3. Martha, perhaps of Mary and Martha in the New Testament, the women who gave shelter to Jesus, should ring the bells for the poor. Only the chosen people will hear them. They will know that God is one, even though they wander lost through the mountains now like sheep.
4. Ring the bells for the people who are chosen and who are damned, and for the people who are too blind and deaf to know which ones they are. Judgment day is coming, and someone needs to provide mercy and love for the child who "cries when innocence dies."

Political World

Political world:

Crime, death, fear, compromise: yes.

Love, mercy, God: no.

"Political World" is a general list of grievances about the state of the world, a table of contents of woe that opens the 1989 hit album "Oh Mercy." Dylan sings with an air of bitterness, but keeps the deadpan muffler on to keep from sounding too much like he's shocked to see gambling in this establishment. Producer Daniel Lanois keeps the musicians playing at a brisk clip, propelling the song from verse to verse in a way that keeps the listener hanging on, even though there's about as much variation in the tune as a James Brown funk workout. That's fine. It sounds good.

Aspects of a political world:

- Love has no place

- People commit crimes

- Crime has no face

- Icicles

- People get married

- Clouds cover the ground

- Wisdom is incarcerated, and placed safely out of the public's reach

- Mercy walks the plank

- Life is only a reflection of reality

- Death lives in banks

- Courage is obsolete

- Houses haunted

- Children unwanted

- Every day could be your last

- Even though we know nothing is real, everything seems real

- The deck is stacked

- Cities are lonely and frightening

- Nobody knows the meaning of life

- We're under the microscope

- You can go anywhere and do what you want, and there's always enough rope lying around to hang yourself with if you want

- We're trained to take the easy way out

- Peace is unwelcome and we often bully it

- Everything belongs to someone

- People are attention seekers

- Televangelists shout God's name on air without knowing what they're talking about

Most of the Time

You're not on his mind,
And you haven't been for years,
But sometimes you are.

"Most of the Time" is a great set of lyrics, but an outtake from the "Oh Mercy" sessions of a different version of the song shows that it owes half of its beauty to the production treatment that Daniel Lanois gave it. Over its five minutes and five seconds, it proves itself to be worth a full box of tissue because it's a weeper. Dylan sings about how he doesn't miss a woman anymore, except every once in a while. Lanois brings up the bass and a snarling lead guitar to the front of the mix, along with a repeated and echoing drum pattern, and lets Dylan tell his easy rhymes that strike at the center of your heart.

Most of the time
I’m clear focused all around
Most of the time
I can keep both feet on the ground
I can follow the path, I can read the signs
Stay right with it when the road unwinds
I can handle whatever I stumble upon
I don’t even notice she’s gone
Most of the time

Most of the time
It’s well understood
Most of the time
I wouldn’t change it if I could
I can make it all match up, I can hold my own
I can deal with the situation right down to the bone
I can survive, I can endure
And I don’t even think about her
Most of the time

Most of the time
My head is on straight
Most of the time
I’m strong enough not to hate
I don’t build up illusion ’til it makes me sick
I ain’t afraid of confusion no matter how thick
I can smile in the face of mankind
Don’t even remember what her lips felt like on mine
Most of the time

Most of the time
She ain’t even in my mind
I wouldn’t know her if I saw her
She’s that far behind
Most of the time
I can’t even be sure
If she was ever with me
Or if I was with her

Most of the time
I’m halfway content
Most of the time
I know exactly where it went
I don’t cheat on myself, I don’t run and hide
Hide from the feelings that are buried inside
I don’t compromise and I don’t pretend
I don’t even care if I ever see her again
Most of the time

Man in the Long Black Coat

The man in the coat
Takes the woman away. She
Left without remorse.

Something about noisy bugs seems to bring out the literal in Bob Dylan. "Day of the Locusts" on the 1970 album "New Morning" begins with the sound of locusts. And on "The Man in the Long Black Coat" from the 1989 album "Oh Mercy" begins with the lyric, "Crickets are chirpin’, the water is high..." and indeed, you can hear the chirping of crickets as the song begins. The crickets don't do much more than set the scene here, which is an empty house where a woman once lived and doesn't live anymore.

As you can see:
There’s a soft cotton dress on the line hangin’ dry... Not a word of goodbye, not even a note, She gone with the man In the long black coat.

People who know their music say that she's the woman from the song "House Carpenter," which Dylan sang on earlier recordings. If you don't know the song, she's the woman who married a house carpenter and had a kid before her old lover returned and said, "come away with me and leave these people." She does so, but discovers only too late, once they're sailing on the sea, that he's come to take her to hell because he's actually a demon.

And now, a little more about the man in the coat:

- Spotted at the old dance hall on the outskirts of town
- She asked him to dance-
- Someone says he spouts Bible quotes
- She gives her heart to him.

Notes on sin:
- The preacher says the conscience of men is vile and depraved, and you can't depend on it for guidance because you have to guide it in turn.

Notes on life:
- Some say there are no mistakes in life. You can look it that way... if you want.
- Some people drift through life instead of living or dying.

Everything Is Broken

If you can name it,
You probably can break it.
You think I'm jokin'?

"Everything Is Broken" is like swinging at the most depressing bar in the bayou. From 1989's "Oh Mercy" album, and produced by Quebec's swampiest, most atmospheric producer, Daniel Lanois, "Everything Is Broken" feels like some dark take on a party song. Dylan's in a reasonably sour mood here, though it's up to us to determine whether everything is really broken or whether it's the perception that counts.

Here's the boulevard of broken things:

Lines, strings, threads, springs, idols, heads, beds, bottles, plates, switches, gates, dishes, parts, hearts, words, cutters, saws, buckles, laws, bodies, bones, voices, phones, hands, ploughs, treaties, vows, pipes, tools, rules.

What people are doing:
Sleeping (improbably), jiving (don't bother), joking (there's no point), speaking (futile), hitting the ground (every time you turn around), breathing (but you're choking), bending rules (they're broken anyway)

What the animals are up to:
Hound dog's howling. Bullfrog's croaking.

What you're doing:
Leaving.

How that affects me:
When you go away, things fall apart right in my face.

Disease of Conceit

Universal ill:
Everyone is conceited.
You can die from it.

There could be something profound going on here, or it might just sound that way. "Disease of Conceit" is a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders entry for the seven deadly sins. This one, I suppose, falls under pride, or maybe the old sin of "vainglory," which "pride" bought out in a private equity deal led by Pope Gregory and a group of cardinals. Dylan reportedly has said that the disgraced televangelist Jimmy Swaggart might have been the inspiration for the song, but who knows.

Here is the summary:

- Many people suffer from the disease. It's not sweet, it's conceit.
- It breaks and shakes hearts. It eats your soul and robs you of control of your senses. It's not discreet, it's conceit.
- People die and cry from conceit. It turns you into meat, it's conceit.
- There's no cure, but plenty of research, and yet no one's sure.
- People are in trouble with delusions of grandeur. Once you think you're too good to die, you get buried -- from your head to your feet, because it's conceit.

Born in Time

She's a dream lover,

But he can't be with her now.

They weren't born in time.

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.

Everything Is Broken

There's no arguing
And little more to tell you
With titles like that