Standing on the Highway

Bob's standing around.
Trying to thumb himself a ride.
His life rolls on by.

Here's another lonely hitchhiker thumb-a-ride song that Bob Dylan recorded as a demo for the Witmark publishing company in 1962. It’s the old, well known lament of blues singer Robert Johnson: Standing on the highway, trying to bum a ride, but nobody knows him, and everyone passes him by. The second verse is more metaphorical: he’s trying to be brave, as he notes that one road goes to “bright lights” and the other goes to the grave.
It goes on like that.

Whatcha Gonna Do?

When death comes for you,
What do you think you will do?
Because I can't help.

"Whatcha Gonna Do?" is a standard warning from any holy man to us folly-indulging sinners to repent before death comes for us and it's too late to say we were good. Think about Hieronymous Bosch and his "Death and the Miser," or any of the other paintings you've seen in galleries of people having a good time as the clock strikes its final memento mori. Or "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe. You get the idea. This song is from 1963, and was recorded for the Witmark publishing company as a demo for other artists. It appears on the ninth volume of the Bootleg Series.

What will you do when:
- The shadow comes under your door
- The devil calls your cards
- Your water turns to wine
- You can’t play God no more

Poor Boy Blues

Poor boy cries a lot.

Everyone and thing he sees

Produces fresh tears.

The song "Poor Boy Blues" was released in demo form only on the ninth volume of the Bootleg Series, which collects all the demonstration songs that Bob Dylan wrote for the Witmark publishing company as possible tunes to sell to other artists to perform. It contains nine tiny songs over nine verses, all with the same refrain: "Cain't ya hear me cryin'? Hm hm hm."

Bob Dylan and Nine Stories:

1. Where did you sleep last night?

2. What's wrong with you, baby?

3. Let me jump on this train.

4. I'm old enough for you to serve me a drink, bartender.

5. I run at the sound of the police whistle.

6. Don't charge me for this call, long-distance operator.

7. No difference between ashes and diamonds.

8. Court hears about my general condition.

9. Mississippi River she sure do run swiftly.

Only a Hobo

Bum dies on the street.
He might not mean much to you,
But he's human too.

A social consciousness song from 1963. "Only a Hobo" doesn't specifically say that the guy died, but "His face was all grounded in the cold sidewalk floor" and "Only a hobo, but one more is gone" suggest to me that he did. This song appeared on the ninth volume of the bootleg series as a demo version for the Witmark music company. There's also a later version that he recorded around 1969 or 1970 that appears on volume 10 of the bootleg series, which collects recordings from that time.

As I was out walking on a corner one day
I spied an old hobo, in a doorway he lay
His face was all grounded in the cold sidewalk floor
And I guess he’d been there for the whole night or more

Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin’ nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone

A blanket of newspaper covered his head
As the curb was his pillow, the street was his bed
One look at his face showed the hard road he’d come
And a fistful of coins showed the money he bummed

Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin’ nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone

Does it take much of a man to see his whole life go down
To look up on the world from a hole in the ground
To wait for your future like a horse that’s gone lame
To lie in the gutter and die with no name?

Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin’ nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone

Long Time Gone

Good boy turned hobo
Gets heart broken, scorns others,
Wanders forever.

Here's another song from the Witmark Demos, done in 1963. You can find it on volume 9 of the Bootleg Series.

1. Parents raised me right. I went wrong because I like rambling. "I'm a long time a-comin', ma, and I'll be a long time gone."
2. Tried to find work in west Texas. They said I was too young.
3. I joined the carnival.
4. I loved a young girl. She broke my heart.
5. I went hitchhiking and couldn't get a ride.
6. The me you see now isn't the me you saw before.
7. Beauty lies, youth rots. Whatever, I'm just out here wandering.

Long Ago, Far Away

Crucifixion, slaves,
War, murder... Out of fashion?
Don't you believe it.

This demo, which Bob Dylan recorded for the Witmark company in 1962, reminds listeners that evil deeds of the past aren't just history so we're not absolved from thinking about them and worrying about the evil deeds of today. You can find the song on volume 9 of the Bootleg Series.

1. Preaching peace and brotherhood got Jesus crucified, but things like that wouldn't happen now, would they?
2. Slavery? That was just in Lincoln's time. Not.
3. Guns and war? Yeah, that happens today.
4. Kings and beggars living as they do? Not just historical.
5. Lynching? No, that's not the past either.

John Brown

John Brown goes to war
And gets himself blown to bits.
How proud is Mom now?

"John Brown" is a grim tale penned by Dylan in 1963 about a boy who makes his mama proud by enlisting and going to war. She doesn't know quite what to do when he comes home disfigured by injury, but clutching all those medals that she was hoping that he would win. The song appeared at the time under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt on a Broadside Ballads release. Its first appearance on a Dylan album was on 1995's "MTV Unplugged." Further versions have surfaced on commercial releases since then.

1. John Brown goes to war in his nice new uniform.
2. Mom says, go win lots of medals.
3. Mom tells everyone her son's going to be a war hero.
4. She gets letters from the front.
5. Letters stop.
6. She get a letter saying Johnny's coming home. She goes to the train station.
7. She can't find him because she doesn't recognize him.
8. Face shot up, hand blown off, metal brace on his waist. He can't talk properly.
9. What have they done to you?
10. You didn't see what I saw.
11. What am I doing in this war? I tried to kill my enemy, but he looked just like me.
12. As soon as I realized that this was bullshit, I was hit by a cannonball and went blind.
13. He gives his medals to his mother and walks away.

I'll Keep It With Mine

You have many fans
Eager to earn your favors.
Ignore them, choose me.

"I'll Keep It With Mine" saw its first release on a Judy Collins single in 1965. I first heard it on Nico's debut solo album in 1967. She recorded the song after her now legendary appearance on the first Velvet Underground record, and songs like this were intended to cast her as a Germanic folk chanteuse. It worked, sort of, though nobody could keep Nico on the rails, and by the time she recorded her next album, "The Marble Index," she was charting a course for waters that were too dark for most other musicians to follow. 

Dylan wrote the song in 1964 as a demo for the Witmark company. You can find that version on the ninth volume of the Bootleg Series. He also tried recording it for the 1965 album "Bringing It Back Home." That version is available on the "Biograph" box set from 1985. A version for the "Blonde on Blonde" album in 1966 appeared on volume 1 of the Bootleg series in 1991. There are other versions too, but apparently don't circulate even among obsessives. I could be wrong about this, as I have found one instrumental version from 1966, pasted below.

As for the song, which is Bob lecturing a woman on what's good for her:
- She searches for what's not lost.
- He notes people will help her and be kind, but he might be able to save her some time by being her main man.
- He might seem odd to you because he loves you for what you're not.
- Again, people MIGHT try to help you, but he's a better bet for the job.
- Separately, there's a train leaving at 10:30, but it will be back tomorrow. The conductor's sick of the reputation.

I'd Hate to Be You on That Dreadful Day

Get right with Jesus;
Judgment day is no picnic
For lifelong sinners.

I'm assuming, admittedly, that this is a song about repenting in time before the gods tell you that you waited too long. But I don't really know. Here's the breakdown of "I'd Hate to Be You on That Dreadful Day," which Dylan recorded as a demo for the Witmark publishing company in 1964.

1. St. Peter will tell you it's too late when your clock stops and you visit him.
2. Sweats and nightmares.
3. The pills you will want that day will cost too much to buy.
4. You'll walk instead of drive. Everybody will know just who you are.
5. Wine's 5 cents a quart. You only have 4. (Preview of "Subterranean Homesick Blues")
6. You should have listened when you had a chance.

Hero Blues

You want a hero?
Not me, try another guy.
Like Napoleon.

"Hero Blues" was recorded for the 1963 album "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" but left off the album. There are various versions available, the easiest of which to find is on the Witmark Demos, released on the ninth volume on the Bootleg Series. You also can find it on the "50th Anniversary Collection," volume 1, but it's not an easy-to-find collection or recommended for all but the completist.

You can hear the seeds of "It Ain't Me, Babe" in the lyrics. Both songs are about a woman who wants her man to be things that he's not. Witness:

- She wants him to be a hero so she can tell her friends.
- She begged, cried and pleaded for him to go out and start a fight with a stranger.
- She reads too many books and watches too many movies.
- She needs a different kind of guy, perhaps Napoleon Bonaparte.
- When he's dead, she's more than welcome to call him a hero while she stands over his grave.

Hard Times in New York Town

Poor folks in New York.
Bob wants to live there, but he
Loves to hate the place.

"If you got a lot o' money you can make yourself merry. If you only got a nickel, it's the Staten Island Ferry." "Hard Times in New York Town" is one of Dylan's earliest songs, recorded in 1962 and released later on the first volume of the Bootleg Series. It's a Woody Guthrie-style ode to New York City, giving the listener both sides of town depending on how much or little money they have.

It has irony:

"Old New York City is a friendly old town
From Washington Heights to Harlem on down
There’s a-mighty many people all millin’ all around
They’ll kick you when you’re up and knock you when you’re down."

It has robber barons:

"Mister Rockefeller sets up as high as a bird
Old Mister Empire never says a word."

It has unemployment lines:

"Well, it’s up in the mornin’ tryin’ to find a job of work
Stand in one place till your feet begin to hurt."

It has enough hardship to make you wish you had hardship elsewhere:

"I’ll take all the smog in Cal-i-for-ne-ay
’N’ every bit of dust in the Oklahoma plains
’N’ the dirt in the caves of the Rocky Mountain mines
It’s all much cleaner than the New York kind."

Gypsy Lou

Elusive girlfriend:
The pursuit of Gypsy Lou
Is a full-time job.

You'll need a second girlfriend if you make Gypsy Lou your first. Gypsy, as Bob sang way back in 1963 when he recorded this song for the Witmark Demos collection, is not a reliable life companion. He demonstrates:

"She’s a ramblin’ woman with a ramblin’ mind
Always leavin’ somebody behind.
Hey, ’round the bend
Gypsy Lou’s gone again
Gypsy Lou’s gone again."

The singer searches the country to find her. He tires out his feet. You would too. She's been to:

- Old Cheyenne
- Denver town
- Wichita
- Arkansas
- Gallus Road, Arlington (I'm assuming this refers to Gallows Road in Fairfax County, Virginia)
- Washington
- Oregon
- Gallus Road (again)
- A Memphis calaboose (prison)

Her itinerary ends in the calaboose, unfortunately. One of the boys she left behind committed suicide.

Guess I'm Doing Fine

No cash, much trouble.
Without my sunny nature,
Life would suck much more.

"Guess I'm Doing Fine" appears on the Witmark Demos album, which is volume 9 in the Bootleg Series. It's from 1964, I think, and is a fair enough ballad of the archetypal annoying optimist. Predating "Moonshadow" by a few years, the song lists a host of unfair omissions and grievances, but the singer bounces back with the "yes, but at least I have X" resilience of the perpetually irritating happy-go-lucky wandering folksinger. I'm trying to imagine Burl Ives singing this while playing Big Daddy.

- No childhood, no friends. But I have my voice!
- No money, but I'm still around!
- Trouble on my mind. But other people have more trouble than I do!
- No armies. But I have one good friend!
- People have kicked me, whipped me, trampled on me and shot at me. But I'm alive!
- Rocky road. Stones cut my face. But at least I have a road!

Grumble grumble, get off my lawn.

Farewell

He's leaving his girl
For no particular place,
And he will miss her.

"Farewell" is the straight forward tale of a man who is:

1. Leaving at sunrise for Mexico. Or maybe California.
2. Promising to meet his true love at another time.
3. Sad at the thought of missing his true love though he's the one with a restless foot.
4. Lamenting the weather (wind and rain, and eventually hail).
5. Looking to get lucky out west.
6. Saying he'll write her letters and travel with his true love in his heart.
7. Preparing to tell her stories of the road as he passes by incognito.
8. Ready for the friendly, discreet and non-judgmental people of Mexico.

The song appears in the Coen Brothers film "Inside Llewyn Davis," and a different version appears on the soundtrack. There are various recordings from the early 1960s, though the official album release is on volume 9 of the Bootleg Series.

The Death of Emmett Till

Two angry white men
Torture and murder Emmett.
They are acquitted.

Emmett Till was a black teenager, murdered by Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam in 1955 because they took offense when he spoke to Bryant's wife, 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant. They beat him in a barn, gouged out one of his eyes, shot him in the head and dumped him in the Tallahatchie River. The tied a 70-pound cotton gin fan around his neck with barbed wire. His mother insisted on an open casket at the funeral to bring attention to the brutality of the crime and to raise attention to racism in the United States. A jury acquitted Bryant and Milam, who later told Look magazine that they killed Till.

Dylan's song, copyrighted in 1963, appears on the Witmark Demos in the Bootleg Series. It's one of his "journalism songs," as I call them, in the same vein as "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" or "Who Killed Davey Moore?" Or, for that matter, "Hurricane." He lets his indignation show, and saves up some for the end when he more or less accuses his listeners of apathy. If the song suffers at all, it's more in delivery than in spirit. Some critics say the lyrics are earnest to the point of silliness, and I do think that they could have been stronger with more subtlety. But what can you do.

If you can’t speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that’s so unjust
Your eyes are filled with dead men’s dirt, your mind is filled with dust
Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood
it must refuse to flow
For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!

This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man
That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan
But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could give
We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live

Here is a version of the song that he performed on WBAI radio with Cynthia Gooding in 1962. Don't miss his commentary before the song on how he stole the chords from another folksinger. 

Bound to Lose, Bound to Win

Gonna be walking

Whichever way I'm bound for.

I might win or lose.

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

Ballad for a Friend

My friend went out west.

He left home on a truck, but

Came home in a box.

It's probably not nice to make jokes about people dying, but when it works the first time, you must go with it. Bob sings about an old friend from Minnesota who went wandering on the open road, and either was hit by a truck or else someone else hit him after a truck dropped him off by the side of the road in Utah. Either way, they brought him back to the North Country to bury him. You can see the lyrics here. The song appears on "The Bootleg Series Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964."

Baby Let Me Follow You Down

I’ll do what you want.

I’ll follow you to your house.

Be my future wife.

This is one of my favorite songs that Bob has performed. It gets right to the point and each version that I've heard, the one on his debut album in 1962 and the other on his performance with The Band in The Last Waltz, is full of energy and passion:

1. Baby let me follow you down. I'll do anything in this God-almighty world if you'll just let me follow you down.
2. Let me come home with you. I'll do anything in this etc etc etc
3. I'll buy you a diamond ring and a wedding gown if you'll....

As Boz Scaggs might reply: "What do you want the girl to do?"

Note, there are various live versions of this song kicking around, including one on the Bootleg Series, Vol. 4, the infamous Manchester 1966 concert in which he changes the lyrics significantly. You can see them here (He would buy her a serpent skirt and a velvet shirt, for instance).

Here's the hardcore version from The Last Waltz.

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.

Ain't Gonna Grieve

Don’t waste time grieving.

Equality is coming

Despite obstacles.

This is one of those classic folkie protest songs, mainly full of the line, "Ain't gonna grieve no more no more." Dylan recorded the version that I used here for the Leeds Music and M. Witmark & Sons publishers between 1962 and 1964. The theme is civil rights, notably the verse that goes like this:

"Brown and blue and white and black
All one color on the one-way track
We got this far and ain’t a-goin’ back

And I ain’t a-gonna grieve no more."

I also relied on this line for the haiku:

"If you get knocked down get up again We ain’t a-gonna grieve no more."