Dylan of the Week, Mk. 6

“Can't Wait”
Bob Dylan
Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 – 2008
(actual song recorded in 1997)

Talk about down in the groove. It's like a snake. A snake that slides through the grass like something that leaves dead little furry things behind it. Isn't it funny that the Lanois guitar licks sound both deadly and soothing at the same time? Deadly because Dylan's death is approaching but also soothing because he has some piece of peace hidden amongst the ambiguity. And his mind is a “lonely graveyard”? Now, the lyrics changed significantly before Time out of Mind, but we've got more cohesion here. The whole first verse gets overhauled and the “back is to the sun...” lyric had to wait another four years before appearing on “Sugar Baby” on Love and Theft. But this early version – whew! It's so desperate.

“Life is short and I think I've had a lot.
I can't say if I want the pain to end or not.
The blindness overtakin' me is beatin' like a drum
I don't know where it starts or where it's comin' from.
That's how it is when you try to concentrate
And I don't know how much longer I can wait.”

While the other one is a bit more polished, this one has got the quality of a drunken night playing in a bar and throwing out one more number, just for the band, after everyone has gone home. Especially with that rumbling “Let's do it in, uh, how 'bout B-flat?” at the beginning. Man, the treasures one finds! But, I guess be careful of what you find and what you find value in. Be careful of the things you store up, the jewel's in your crown. Because even when you've lost these things and feel stripped, “there's always more left to lose”. That's when you really can't wait for the end.



And the album version.

Dylan of the Week, Mk. 5

Skipped a week.





“Jokerman”
Bob Dylan
Infidels – 1983

“Nightsticks and water cannons, tear gas, padlocks,
Molotov cocktails and rocks behind every curtain,
False-hearted judges dying in the webs that they spin,
Only a matter of time 'til night comes steppin' in.”

Okeh, okeh, get over the drums. This is great vocal alacrity. (E.g. the way he snips off his breath on that “both of your fists-”; cramming in all those words quoted above; all those “ohhhs” in each chorus; that midwest “mick-el-angelo”.) So what the hell is the Jokerman? He's evil - “born with a snake in both of your fists while a hurricane was blowin'”. He's good - “Friend to the martyr, friend to the woman of shame”. He's totally ambiguous - “the Book of Leviticus” and “the Law of the jungle and the sea” are his teachers. Like any good Dylan song, it comes close to defying a reading of itself. But one thing is certain here – Dylan lives in the song and nearly destroys its subject matter. “So swiftly the sun sets in the sky / You rise up and say goodbye to no one.” What is that? It's nothing. It's pernicious, but also something like sublimity. He sees the rich man without any name in a fiery furnace. All joking aside, this is ridiculous. It's like a dream sequence. It's like everyday in the mind of an artist. It's simple imagination. Why don't we all articulate things like this? What poverty of expression that Dylan is possessor here! He's the kindred slave, king, and acrobat of humanity. He is willing to walk the rope that we only glimpse at. He can also be an asshole.

"Freedom just around the corner for you
But with the truth so far off, what good will it do?"

Also this.

Dylan of the Week, Mk. 4

"Never Say Goodbye"
Bob Dylan
Planet Waves - 1974



HA HA HA! Never say goodbye!? Always say goodbye. To what? To people. They come and go. Family is effervescent. Friends are transitory. Lovers are necessary. But Dreams! Ah! Those remain. Those are the things “made of iron and steel”. You can hear the wistfulness, especially that “turned your hair to broooowwn!” that arches up like his vocal chords slipped on a banana peel. (Like the wildness in his voice on the '66 UK tour, especially “Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues”, perhaps one of the greatest vocal performances in the rock cannon.) There's some understanding that he possesses that only experience, mistakes, and a hefty past can legitimate. The poet. The poet in me, the poet in you, working like a conscience, working at justice. We learn to understand it, to become friends with rogues (memories). Allowance of evolution, things that change and pass. Bye-bye.