Time Out of Mind: The Lives of Bob Dylan
Page 69
The Times man conceded, nevertheless, that the artist was not ‘courting new fans with anything that’s easily appealing. Nowadays Mr Dylan is singing, and cackling, to loyalists.’ In Vancouver in October the Sun reported that two types of fan had been in evidence, one ‘completely enchanted’, the other ‘fairly disappointed’ by the performer’s ‘mumble-jumble rambling style’. The Los Angeles Times reviewer called one concert in the city an ‘unimpeachable’ 15-song display of the artist’s work. But the critic added: ‘Way up in the Hollywood Bowl’s cheap seats on Friday, it was hard to tell whether the guy with the gutter-nasal voice was actually Dylan or a monster with indigestion.’ The Chicago Tribune’s veteran Greg Kot stuck, meanwhile, with the fable of reinvention that had seemed to explain everything once upon a time. ‘He treats his songs as portable, mutable works in progress – forever subject to change,’ wrote Kot. It was therefore impossible to write the artist off or ‘embalm’ him in his own history.27
Perhaps so. Perhaps, in a weird way, it no longer really mattered. If he still wanted to play and if people still wanted to pay, that was a matter for the artist and his audience. All the possible explanations for touring became irrelevant, in any case, as the 25th continuous year of concerts began. On 1 May 2013, according to bjorner.com (also unstoppable), Charlotte, North Carolina, saw show number 2,500 on the unending pilgrimage. As this is being written, the annual European tour is being announced. So here he goes again: Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, France, Luxembourg. Then three nights in Glasgow in November? You never know. You can tell for certain, though, which city will draw most attention. His sense of history – or is it humour? – is intact. In 2013, Dylan means to finish up with three nights at London’s Royal Albert Hall. That’s almost where we came in.
*
In his interview with Mikal Gilmore of Rolling Stone in September 2012, Dylan said one of the strangest things he has ever said. It could all be explained – survival, belief, the ability that ‘allows you to crawl out from under the chaos and fly above it’ – by transfiguration. Or as the artist said to the writer, ‘I’m not like you, am I?’
Since Dylan had been expounding on his perfectly truthful Chronicles tale about a character named Bobby Zimmerman, the Hell’s Angel dead thanks to his own stupidity at the start of the ’60s, Gilmore wanted to know if they were talking not about transfiguration but about the transmigration of souls, metempsychosis. (You suspect the journalist also wanted desperately to ask if Dylan was kidding.) The artist denied it, though he seemed a little unsure, suspiciously so, about his terms, far less his theology. He certainly affected not to realise that by claiming transfiguration he was placing himself among the Old Testament prophets – finally – and the mother of God, and the Christ Himself. In the usual version, we humans get our transfiguration, if we’re lucky, only in the life eternal. The artist’s real point seemed to be that Gilmore was asking his questions of a person who ‘doesn’t exist’. Dylan went on: ‘But people make that mistake about me all the time.’
He doesn’t exist; the truth sets him apart. In some strange, beguiling sense, there is no Bob Dylan. After all those lives, all those incarnations, all the years under so much scrutiny, you can just about see why it might make sense to him. Perhaps it also imparts a truth about poor human existence to the rest of us.
Transfiguration does not explain art. An artist’s gift might amount, though, to a kind of transfiguration. If there is truth in art, each and every Bob Dylan might count as a product of the imagination, with Robert Allen Zimmerman its first page and its first canvas, not invented but made real, time and again, time out of mind, like a folk tale told and retold. The tale is American, of course, and probably the oldest story of them all.
Chants of the prairies;
Chants of the long-running Mississippi, and down to the Mexican Sea;
Chants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota;
Chants going forth from the centre, from Kansas, and thence, equidistant,
Shooting in pulses of fire, ceaseless to vivify all.28
Acknowledgements
A number of Bob Dylan’s songs, as listed below, have been quoted for purposes of criticism and review:
see here, here, here, here, here, ‘Narrow Way’ (Copyright © 2012 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, here, ‘Pay in Blood’ (Copyright © 2012 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘Tempest’ (Copyright © 2012 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, here, ‘It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)’ (Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Wedding Song’ (Copyright © 1973 by Ram’s Horn Music; renewed 2001 by Ram’s Horn Music); see here, ‘Idiot Wind’ (Copyright © 1974 by Ram’s Horn Music; renewed 2002 by Ram’s Horn Music); see here ‘Shelter from the Storm’ (Copyright © 1974 by Ram’s Horn Music; renewed 2002 by Ram’s Horn Music); see here, here, here, here, here, ‘Isis’ (Copyright © 1975 by Ram’s Horn Music; renewed 2003 by Ram’s Horn Music); see here, here, ‘One More Cup of Coffee’ (Copyright © 1975, 1976 by Ram’s Horn Music; renewed 2003, 2004 by Ram’s Horn Music); see here, ‘Rita May’ (Copyright © 1975 by Ram’s Horn Music; renewed 2003 by Ram’s Horn Music); see here, here, here ‘Joey’ (Copyright © 1975 by Ram’s Horn Music; renewed 2003 by Ram’s Horn Music); see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, ‘Hurricane’ (Copyright © 1975 by Ram’s Horn Music; renewed 2003 by Ram’s Horn Music); see here, ‘Oh, Sister’ (Copyright © 1975 by Ram’s Horn Music; renewed 2003 by Ram’s Horn Music); see here, here, ‘Black Diamond Bay’ (Copyright © 1975 by Ram’s Horn Music; renewed 2003 by Ram’s Horn Music); see here ‘Romance in Durango’ (Copyright © 1975 by Ram’s Horn Music; renewed 2003 by Ram’s Horn Music); see here, here, ‘Sara’ (Copyright © 1975, 1976 by Ram’s Horn Music; renewed 2003, 2004 by Ram’s Horn Music); see here, ‘She’s Your Lover Now’ (Copyright © 1971 by Dwarf Music; renewed 1999 by Dwarf Music); see here, ‘Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream’ (Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘When I Paint My Masterpiece’ (Copyright © 1971 by Big Sky Music; renewed 1999 by Big Sky Music); see here, ‘Is Your Love in Vain?’ (Copyright © 1978 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)’ (Copyright © 1978 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Changing of the Guards’ (Copyright © 1978 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)’ (Copyright © 1978 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Gotta Serve Somebody’ (Copyright © 1979 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Do Right To Me Baby (Do Unto Others)’ (Copyright © 1979 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘I’d Hate to Be With You On That Dreadful Day’ (Copyright © 1964, 1968 Warner Bros. Music, renewed 1992 Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘Spirit on the Water’ (Copyright © 2006 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Chimes of Freedom’ (Copyright © 1964 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1992 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Ain’t Gonna Go to Hell for Anybody’ (Copyright © 1980 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘One Too Many Mornings’ (Copyright © 1964, 1966 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1992, 1994 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Covenant Woman’ (Copyright © 1980 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Love Minus Zero, No Limit’ (Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music); see here ‘Trouble in Mind’ (Copyright © 1979 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Gonna Change My Way of Thinking’ (Copyright © 1979 Special Rider Music); see here ‘Precious Angel’ (Copyright © 1979 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘I Believe in You’ (Copyright © 1979 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘Slow Train’ (Copyright © 1979 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘When You Gonna Wake Up’ (Copyright © 1979 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘When He Returns’ (Copyright © 1979 by Special Rider Music); see here, here ‘Every Grain of Sand’ (Copyright © 1981 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Trouble’ (Copyright © 1981 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘Dead Man, Dead Man�
�� (Copyright © 1981 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Property of Jesus’ (Copyright © 1981 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, here, ‘Shot of Love’ (Copyright © 1981 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Caribbean Wind’ (Copyright © 1985 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar’ (Copyright © 1981 Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Lenny Bruce’ (Copyright © 1981 Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Ballad of Hollis Brown’ (Copyright © 1963 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘License to Kill’ (Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Sweetheart Like You’ (Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Man of Peace’ (Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Julius and Ethel’ (Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, here, here, here, ‘Blind Willie McTell’ (Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music); see here ‘Someone’s Got a Hold of My Heart’ (Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music)’ see here, ‘Neighbourhood Bully’ (Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Man of Peace’ (Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, here, here, here, ‘Jokerman’ (Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘When the Ship Comes In’ (Copyright © 1963, 1964 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1992 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Tight Connection to My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love)’ (Copyright © 1985 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Dark Eyes’ (Copyright © 1985 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Brownsville Girl’ (Copyright © 1986 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Night After Night’ (Copyright © 1987 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Death Is Not the End’ (Copyright © 1988 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Tweeter and the Monkey Man’ (Copyright © 1988 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Series of Dreams’ (Copyright © 1991 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Most of the Time’ (Copyright © 1989 by Special Rider Music); see here ‘What Was It You Wanted’ (Copyright © 1989 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Wiggle Wiggle’ (Copyright © 1990 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, here, ‘Not Dark Yet’ (Copyright © 1997 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘’Til I Fell in Love with You’ (Copyright © 1997 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, here, ‘Standing in the Doorway’ (Copyright © 1997 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘Can’t Wait’ (Copyright © 1997 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘Mississippi’ (Copyright © 1997 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘Red River Shore’ (Copyright © 1997 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, here, ‘Love Sick’ (Copyright © 1997 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Million Miles’ (Copyright © 1997 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘Tryin’ to Get to Heaven’ (Copyright © 1997 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, here, here, here, ‘Highlands’ (Copyright © 1997 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘Things Have Changed’ (Copyright © 1999 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum’ (Copyright © 2001 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘High Water (For Charley Patton)’ (Copyright © 2001 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, here, ‘Floater (Too Much to Ask)’ (Copyright © 2001 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘Summer Days’ (Copyright © 2001 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘Po’ Boy’ (Copyright © 2001 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘When the Deal Goes Down’ (Copyright © 2006 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, here, here, here, ‘’Cross the Green Mountain’ (Copyright © 2003 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, here, ‘Workingman’s Blues #2’ (Copyright © 2006 Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘Thunder on the Mountain’ (Copyright © 2006 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘Nettie Moore’ (Copyright © 2006 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Ain’t Talkin’’ (Copyright © 2006 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Dignity’ (Copyright © 1991 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘If You Ever Go to Houston’ (Copyright © 2009 by Special Rider Music and Ice-Nine Publishing); see here, here, ‘I Feel a Change Comin’ On’ (Copyright © 2009 by Special Rider Music and Ice-Nine Publishing); see here, ‘It’s All Good’ (Copyright © 2009 by Special Rider Music and Ice-Nine Publishing); see here, ‘Forgetful Heart’ (Copyright © 2009 by Special Rider Music and Ice-Nine Publishing); see here, ‘Duquesne Whistle’ (Copyright © 2012 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, here, ‘Scarlet Town’ (Copyright © 2012 by Special Rider Music); see here, here, ‘Early Roman Kings’ (Copyright © 2012 by Special Rider Music); see here, ‘Soon After Midnight’ (Copyright © 2012 by Special Rider Music)
Notes
CHAPTER ONE – TIME IS AN ENEMY
1. According to the indefatigable fans who insist on keeping count, Dylan’s last concert of 2012 – in Brooklyn, New York, on 21 November – was performance number 2,480 in the unending tour. The first show is dated to 7 June 1988. The lives devoted to these studies are not refundable.
2. The Hearst Greek Theatre, 19 October 2012. Madonna had just picked up $7 million for a couple of nights’ work in Las Vegas during the previous week.
3. Edition of 27 September 2012.
4. ‘We’re all familiar with Fitzgerald saying that there are no second acts in American lives and this clearly disproves that.’ (Greil Marcus, nbcnews.com, May 2011.) ‘When F. Scott Fitzgerald declared that “there are no second acts in American lives,” he obviously hadn’t envisioned the existence of Bob Dylan.’ (Douglas Heselgrave, www.musicbox-online.com, January 2009.) And so on.
5. ‘Bob Dylan’s Invisible Republic: Interview with Greil Marcus’, Paolo Vites, Jam magazine (Italy), 1997.
6. Allen Ginsberg: Beat Poet (2010), p. 460.
7. The verses come, respectively, from the songs ‘Narrow Way’, ‘Pay in Blood’ and ‘Tempest’.
8. Edition of 27 September 2012.
CHAPTER TWO – WRITTEN IN MY SOUL
1. See Bert Cartwright’s ‘The Mysterious Norman Raeben’ in Wanted Man: In Search of Bob Dylan (1990), ed. John Bauldie.
2. That Dylan made an editorial choice is not seriously in doubt. Two or three of the notebook’s unused blues songs would have given him enough for a double album. Blonde on Blonde, the most famous double-disc set of them all, runs to just under 73 minutes. Clearly, the notebook overmatter was not up to scratch, or a distraction from Dylan’s purpose. In years to come he would be less scrupulous. In 1988, in arid times, Down in the Groove, barely 32 empty minutes long, would be deemed fit for release.
3. Down the Highway (2002, paperback ed.), p. 332.
4. Dylan’s 1964 poem acquired a curious history of its own. The actor-singer Ben (Benito) Carruthers, who had travelled with him in Europe that year, set an adapted version of the piece to music and released it as a UK single in the summer of 1965. The Dylan/Carruthers ‘song’ was in turn recorded by Fairport Convention for their eponymous first album in 1968. Richard Thompson was still performing this version in 2004.
CHAPTER THREE – A WANDERER BY TRADE
1. Foreword to Sam Shepard’s The Rolling Thunder Logbook (1977, reissued 2004), p. viii.
2. ‘Patti Smith’ by Barry Miles, from the anthology Wanted Man: In Search of Bob Dylan (1990), ed. John Bauldie.
3. The first pair of quotations appeared in the issue of 18 December 1975. Ginsberg’s remark was reported by Nat Hentoff in the issue of 15 January 1976.
4. ‘Jacques Levy and the Desire collaboration’, first published in the British fan magazine The Telegraph in April of 1983, reprinted in All Across the Telegraph: A Bob Dylan Handbook (1987), edited by Michael Gray and John Bauldie.
5. www.reddit.com. The exchanges, in one of the site’s regular ‘Ask Me Anything’ features devoted to almost-live exchanges between notable individuals and the public, appeared on 14 November 2012.
6. On the Road with Bob Dylan (1978, reissued 2002), Chapter 1.
7. SongTalk, winter issue, 1991.
8. See, if you truly must, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982) by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (2003) takes certain of these speculations to their preposterous conclusi
ons. An equally good Provençal fairy tale holds that the Romani are survivors of Atlantis who clambered ashore locally.
9. See, for example, p. 247 of Tim Dunn’s daunting The Bob Dylan Copyright Files 1962–2007 (2008) as it concerns the ownership of the song ‘Isis’. Since Dylan would surrender ‘an undivided fifty percent (50%) of his fractional interest’ in such works in January 1978 as part of the settlement made on Sara Dylan, he actually wound up making less from the writing deal than Levy. In 2012, equally, the director’s son would tell his online audience that his father had earned little for his efforts.
10. Edition of December 1977.
11. Sam Shepard, The Rolling Thunder Logbook (1977, reissued 2004).
12. ‘Rita May’ would also turn up on the 1978 three-disc compilation Masterpieces, a ‘greatest-hits’ package sold to Dylan fans in Japan and Australia – and to those among us prepared to pay absurd import prices for a couple of unfamiliar tracks.
13. See the Desire session notes at Olof Björner’s inestimable resource bjorner.com.
14. Dr Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter LLD (with Ken Klonsky), Eye of the Hurricane: My Path from Darkness to Freedom (2011). Klonsky’s introduction to the tale of a ‘spiritual journey’ concedes of Carter: ‘There are those who focus on his character flaws, his difficult past, his long-windedness. He owns up to it all, often good-naturedly.’
15. The Sixteenth Round, p. 15.
16. Ibid., p. 42.
17. Larry Sloman, Rolling Stone, issue of 4 December 1975.