by Bob Dylan
“Everything Is Broken” Lanois thought was a throwaway. I didn’t think it was, but there was only one way to find out, only one way to cut it—one style and with plenty of tremolo. We recorded the song with the full band on the floor. Tony Hall on bass and Willie Green on drums. We cut it live in the big parlor room. Brian and I played the guitars. I was still playing the Tele. When you cut a song like this with a group of musicians, it’s rare to get a day when all five or six feel good in the same kind of way at the same time. Dan played on this and contributed as much as anybody. I thought the song did just what it had to do, wouldn’t have wanted to seriously change a thing about it. Danny didn’t have to swamp it up too much, it was already swamped up pretty good when it came to him. Critics usually didn’t like a song like this coming out of me because it didn’t seem to be autobiographical. Maybe not, but the stuff I write does come from an autobiographical place.
Though Lanois showed little excitement over the track, he knew it wasn’t a dog. I knew what he was looking for. He was looking for songs that defined me as a person, but what I do in the studio doesn’t define me as a person. There’s just too much small print in thousands of pages for anything like that to happen. He was helping me as a singer, though. As a singer, you could die without the right microphones and amps, and Lanois was doing his best to find the right combinations. I usually left the studio at night in a cold frame of mind. “Danny,” I’d say sometimes. “Are we still friends?”
After being in New Orleans for about a month, I was up early and I rooted my wife out of bed. Daylight was two hours away. “What’s wrong now?” she said. I hadn’t thought that anything was wrong. Within minutes she had slipped out of her loose robe and was making coffee. By daybreak we were riding on the Harley, had crossed the Mississippi River into Bridge City and headed over towards Thibodaux on Route 90. No purpose in heading there, it was just a place to go. At Raceland, we got onto 308. I was feeling stuffy—needed to get out of town. Something wasn’t clicking, like when the world is hidden from your eyes and you need to find it. If I wanted to keep awake for the rest of these sessions, I’d have to open a window and get a grip on something, and whatever it was I needed to be one hundred percent sure of it.
Crossing into Thibodaux, we rode near Bayou Lafourche. It was a clammy day, light rain off and on and the clouds were breaking up, heat lightning low on the horizon. The town has got a lot of streets with tree names, Oak Street, Magnolia Street, Willow Street, Sycamore Street. West 1st Street runs alongside the bayou. We walked on a boardwalk that ran out into the water above the eerie wetlands—small islands of grass in the distance and pontoon boats. It was quiet. If you looked you could spot a snake on a tree branch.
I moved the bike up close near an old water tower. We got off and walked around, walked along adjoining roads dwarfed by ancient cypress trees, some seven hundred years old. It felt far enough away from the city, the dirt roads surrounded by lush sugarcane fields, labyrinths of moss walls in crumbled heaps, marshlands and soft mud all around. On the bike again we cruised along Pecan Street, then over by St. Joseph’s Church, which is modeled after one in Paris or Rome. Inside there’s supposed to be the actual severed arm of an early Christian martyr. Nichols State University, the poor man’s Harvard, is just up the street. On St. Patrick’s Street we rode past the palatial grand homes and big plantation houses, deep porched and with many windows. There’s an antebellum courthouse that stands next to clapboard halls. Ancient oak trees and decrepit shacks side by side. It felt good to be off by ourselves.
It was early afternoon and we’d been going for a while. Dust was blowing, my mouth was dry and my nose was clogged. Feeling hungry, we stopped into Chester’s Cypress Inn on Route 20 near Morgan City, a fried chicken, fish and frog legs joint. I was beginning to get weary. The waitress came over to the table and said, “How about eating?” I looked at the menu, then I looked at my wife. The one thing about her that I always loved was that she was never one of those people who thinks that someone else is the answer to their happiness. Me or anybody else. She’s always had her own built-in happiness. I valued her opinion and I trusted her. “You order,” I said. Next thing I know, fried catfish, okra and Mississippi mud pie came to the table. The kitchen was next door in another building. Both the catfish and the pie were on cardboard plates, but I wasn’t nearly as hungry as I thought I was—just ate the onion rings.
Later on, we rode south towards Houma. On the west side of the road there’s cattle grazing and egrets, herons with slender legs standing in shallow bays—pelicans, houseboats, roadside fishing—oyster boats, small mud boats—steps that lead to small piers running out into the water. We kept rolling on, started crossing different kinds of bridges, some swinging, some lifting. On Stevensonville Road we crossed a canal bridge by a little country store and the road turned to gravel and began to wind treacherously through the swamps. The air smelled foul. Still water—humid air, rank and rotten. Kept riding south until we saw oil rigs and supply boats, then turned around and headed again towards Thibodaux. Thibodaux was neither here nor there and my mind started thinking opposites. Thinking about maybe going up to the Yukon country, someplace where we could really bundle up. By dusk we’d found a place to stay outside of Napoleonville. We pulled in for the night and I shut the bike down. It was a nice ride.
We stayed at a bed-and-breakfast cottage that was behind a pillared plantation house with sculpted studded garden paths, a cream stucco bungalow that had a certain charm—stood like a miniature Greek temple. The room had a four poster comfortable bed and an antique table—the rest, camp style furnishings, and it came with a kitchenette equipped with utensils, but we didn’t eat there. I laid down, listened to the crickets and wildlife out the window in the eerie blackness. I liked the night. Things grow at night. My imagination is available to me at night. All my preconceptions of things go away. Sometimes you could be looking for heaven in the wrong places. Sometimes it could be under your feet. Or in your bed.
Next day I woke up, felt like I had figured something out, why I wasn’t feeling right about the recording sessions. Here’s the thing—I wasn’t looking to express myself in any kind of new way. All my ways were intact and had been for years. There wasn’t much chance in changing now. I didn’t need to climb the next mountain. If anything, what I wanted to do was to secure the place where I was at. I wasn’t sure Lanois understood that. I guess I never made it plain, couldn’t put it in so many words.
It had been raining off and on all night and now rain was sprinkling again. It was late morning when we left the motel. A nipping wind hit me in the face, but it was a beautiful day. The sky was dull gray. We climbed back on the blue Harley and rode down around Lake Verret, riding on high trails, cruising by twisted giant oaks, pecan trees—vines and cypress stumps down in the swamps. Got down almost as far as Amelia and then headed back—stopped at a gas station off Route 90 near Raceland. Across a vacant field stood an obscure roadside place, a gaunt shack called King Tut’s Museum and it caught my eye. After filling the gas tank, we rode slowly across the cow path to the side of the shack. It was wood framed, an overhanging porch with support beams that had long ago rotted away—pickup truck full of vegetables parked out front and a junked out ’50s Oldsmobile Golden Rocket up on blocks in the tall grass. A young girl was on the balcony beating the dust off a rug, dressed in pink gymnastic tights, had long black oiled ringlets and a bath towel around her shoulders. The dust hung like a red cloud in the air. We went up the short steps and I walked in. My wife stayed outside on a wooden swing bench.
The place sold trinkets, newspapers, sweets, handcraft items, baskets made of swamp cane that were woven in the area—elaborate patterns. There were figurines and sham jewels, some items in display cases, umbrellas, slippers, blue voodoo beads and votive candles. There were ironworks around the entryway, oak boughs—acorn motifs, a few bumper sticker signs. One said WORLD’S GREATEST GRANDPA. Another one said SILENCE. One said KEEP ON TRUCKIN’. The place w
as also a crawfish joint with a small counter on one side of the room. There were hog parts hanging from hooks on walls—hog jowls, hog ears, make you wanna squeal. It was run by an old-timer named Sun Pie, one of the most singular characters you’d ever want to meet. The man was short and wiry like a panther, dark face but with Slavic features, wore a narrow brimmed, flat topped straw hat. On his bones was the raw skin of the earth. The young girl up on the balcony was his wife. She looked like a schoolgirl. The place was a little too bright inside and the tables shined from polishing. Sun Pie was working on a high loft chair. It looked like it came out of a cathedral. It was disassembled in pieces, clamped up on the sides and glued. He was sandpapering an edge of a six-planed leg.
“You looking for a hot spot to fish?”
“No, just riding through.”
“You could be doing worse,” he says—pauses, “I used to do some of that,” and he nodded in the direction of the blue cop bike. “Look around if you want to. Got some pretty nice stuff in here.”
There were posters displayed, one of Bruce Lee, another of Chairman Mao. Behind the counter taped to the mirror was a wide, framed photograph showing the Great Wall of China. On the other brick wall was a jumbo sized American flag.
The radio was on from beyond a wall and the sound was coming through in static. The Beatles were singing, “Do You Want to Know a Secret.” They were so easy to accept, so solid. I remembered when they first came out. They offered intimacy and companionship like no other group. Their songs would create an empire. It seemed like a long time ago. “Do You Want to Know a Secret.” A perfect ’50s sappy love ballad and nobody but them could do it. Somehow there was nothing wussy about it. The Beatles blasted away. Sun Pie put down his tools. Behind the man, there were double screen doors that swung open to the bayou. Sun Pie repaired boats in a trussed-up backyard, a yard full of crowbars, broken chains and moss covered logs. My wife walked in and Sun Pie looked towards the door, then back at me.
“You a praying man?” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Good, gonna have to be when the Chinese take over.”
He said it without looking at me. He had an odd way of talking, made me feel like I wasn’t in his place at all, like he had just strolled into my place. “You know, the Chinese were here at the beginning. They were the Indians. You know, the red man. The Comanche, the Sioux, the Arapaho, the Cheyenne—all them people—they were all Chinese. Came over here about the time when Christ was healing the sick. All the squaws and chiefs came from China—walked across from Asia, came down through Alaska and discovered this place. They became Indians a lot later.”
I’d heard that story somewhere once, that the Bering Sea was actually a land mass at one time so that anybody could walk over it from Asia or Russia, so it’s possible that what Sun Pie was saying was true.
“Chinese, huh?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Trouble was that they split up into parties and tribes and started wearing feathers and forgot they were Chinese. They started wars with each other for no reason, one tribe against another. You could make enemies out of anybody. Even the best of friends. That’s the nature of the downfall of the Indians. That’s why when the white man came from Europe to conquer them they fell so easily. They were ripe like peaches and ready to fall.”
I was curious about what Pie was saying and I sat down in one of the rickety chairs. “They’re coming back, these Chinese, millions of them. It’s been preordained, and they won’t have to use force. They’ll just walk in and take up where they left off.”
Sun Pie carefully selected a chisel, began scraping on the back post of the chair. There were lions’ heads on the leg rails and intricate swirling designs in the black wood. He was working close in. The Dale and Grace song “I’m Leaving It Up to You” was playing on the radio. I thought I had seen a face like Sun Pie’s before but couldn’t remember just where. He had an unusual way of talking…slow but with slam bang action words. He put his tool down and smiled, got soft voiced and told me a little bit about himself. He wasn’t distant or guarded. Said he’d been in jail once for cutting a man, that it got him into big trouble, but that the man had it coming. Said that I should turn in all my diamonds, emeralds and rubies and exchange everything for jade, because that will be the new currency when the Chinese get here with their fish and their meat. “People think I’m crazy, but I don’t mind. The Chinese are solid—they don’t use vulgar language. The Chinese nightingale will sing in the land. They don’t have any ten commandments, either, don’t need ’em. All the way from here to Peru, Chinese. You a prayin’ man, huh? What do you pray for? You pray for the world?” I never thought about praying for the world. I said, “I pray that I can be a kinder person.”
There was still a light drizzle outside, and you could hear it softly on the tin roof. New Orleans was beginning to pull on me and I was feeling the weight of the line. I looked through the window past the hanging baskets of ferns and white flowers, tried to see beyond the wisteria vines on the patio. Part of the sky was clear, but the light had a greenish glow at the edges.
“Sea of Love” came on the radio. It felt like I must have been cast off somewhere and it was time to go back and that if I had come out of New Orleans with any bitterness or hostility, it ought to be dead by now. “There used to be racetracks and stables around here,” he said. “A hurricane came through about a hundred years ago, water twelve feet high. Two thousand people gone—lost their lives. When the storm comes, you beg the Master, ‘If you just keep me from getting killed, I’ll do anything you say.’ ” He picked up a can of varnish from a old newspaper that was spread open on the floor. “Whom the Master wishes to kill, the Master kills.” He dipped a small brush into the dripping can and began to paint strokes on one of the side rails of the chair. Then he stopped himself and laid the brush down across the top of the can. There were varnish splotches all over the newspaper, but you could still make out certain stuff, certain faces in the news. “That’s a weapon,” he said, pointing to the newspaper. “I just use it to protect my floor. It’s a weapon in the hands of bad people. Miserable devils. They don’t know beans.” He picked up a long file with a wooden handle. “There’s no equality down here. Some of us are special. Some of us aren’t. Some down here are tougher and smarter than others, some are weaker and less wise. Can’t help it. Can’t help how you’re born. Some down here make better doctors and some are better victims. Some down here are better thinkers. Some down here make better mechanics and better rulers. No one ’round here is a better carpenter than me, but I couldn’t be a good lawyer. Can’t read law. We’re not even equal in our own races, some are at the top and some are at the bottom.” He paused and picked up an oily rag. “I think all the good in the world might have already been done.” Sun Pie talked in a language you couldn’t misunderstand. “Bruce Lee came from a good family and he defeated them all, all the babies, all the greedy criminals, the ones with clawing hands, powerful men but worthless. They couldn’t stand up to Bruce Lee. Their consciences, God help them, were vile and depraved.” Sun Pie was one of the most unique characters, the kind of guy who would be the center of a procession in a parade, or maybe he’d be the nucleus of a mob.
My wife, who had been out on the patio reading her John le Carré book after wandering around in the store, had come back inside and was using an eyebrow pencil over by the window. We didn’t have to communicate at all to know it was time for us to go. Sun Pie knew she was with me and he says, “What are you doing, man? You want to stay for supper or what?” A train whistle blew in the distance and brought me to my senses. There was something pleasurable about hearing it. I said I wasn’t too positive we could do that. Sun Pie wore gold rimmed spectacles. Every once in a while sunlight would shoot off like sparks—like comets from a dark sky blasting off the rims.
“The Queen of Country Music was in here a while back, bought a brass ashtray.”
“Who would that be?”
“Sweet Kitty Wells.”<
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“Oh, yeah.”
A subtle change comes over Sun Pie. He glanced over at the poster of Mao. “War is not a bad thing. It thins out the population. You got to let it all float up to the surface.” In my mind’s eye I saw blood being splattered and spilled. Whatever he was getting at, I didn’t believe like that. “Does your conscience bother you? It doesn’t matter, a man’s conscience is useless, clear or guilty, a live man’s is anyway.” This conscience stuff would stick in my mind.
I was holding a cane and felt my hand tightening on it. I made my way towards the door, looked out into the thick trees and then over at my pretty wife, who was looking back at me. I was thinking that if Sun Pie was an active man, I’d go to great lengths to get out of his way. “I’m ready,” she said.
I started to buy one of the bumper stickers but Sun Pie gave it to me for free—the one that said WORLD’S GREATEST GRANDPA. That would come in handy in a few years, when I would need at least about a dozen of them. Sun Pie was inspiring, didn’t play empty headed kid games. He was the right guy to run into at the right time, a guy who grooved on his own head.
“Got everything you need, then?” he asked.
“Yeah, but I need some more,” I said.
He laughed, said he did, too. We walked across the boards of the porch and over to the blue Harley. The sun was shining and it was as hot as a branding iron. Then we climbed on the bike—I tooted the trumpet-style horn, put the pistons in the upper position and we headed towards the railroad tracks—stopped only once more, and that was at Jesuit Bend, but before nightfall we were back on St. Charles Avenue.
I’d gotten back to New Orleans with a clear head. I’d finish up what I started with Lanois, even write him a couple of songs I never would have written otherwise. One was “Man in the Long Black Coat” and the other was “Shooting Star.” I’d only done that once before—did it for the producer Arthur Baker. Baker had helped me produce the album Empire Burlesque a few years earlier in New York City. All the songs were mixed and finalized except Baker kept suggesting that we should have an acoustic song at the end of the record, that it would bring everything to the right conclusion. I thought about it and I knew he was right, but I didn’t have anything. The night the album was being completed, I told him I’d see what I could come up with, saw the importance of it. I was staying at the Plaza Hotel on 59th Street and had come back after midnight, went through the lobby and headed upstairs. As I stepped out of the elevator, a call girl was coming towards me in the hallway—pale yellow hair wearing a fox coat—high heeled shoes that could pierce your heart. She had blue circles around her eyes, black eyeliner, dark eyes. She looked like she had been beaten up and was afraid that she’d get beat up again. In her hand, crimson purple wine in a glass. “I’m just dying for a drink,” she said as she passed me in the hall. She had a beautifulness, but not for this kind of world. Poor wretch, doomed to walk this hallway for a thousand years.