It was a strange scene. An audience of whiskery Classics enthusiasts listening to a lecture about the influence of Homer and Virgil on Bob Dylan, which is considerable – Sir Christopher Ricks has written a 500 page book on the subject. At the end of the lecture, this delightful and odd society moved to invite Dylan to its ranks, so impressed was it by his learning and art. A procession of old boys then shuffled out of Guildhall humming the tune to ‘Lonesome Day Blues’ (Dylan’s most Virgilian song), realising that they could have misspent their youth after all. It was a colourfully comic sight, dimmed by pathos.
That was some years ago; now the movement to canonise Dylan as poet has strengthened. A gaggle of language dons marked Dylan’s 70th birthday by codifying the allusions, assonance and caesura in his lyrics. They scrutinised his words with the close attention reserved for Shakespeare, Milton et al. A labour of love, you might say.
Their starting point was a good deal more accessible – just read the lyrics.
Few songwriters can match Dylan’s eloquence, especially when he’s feeling blue. Most people will have heard the classic bitter ballads such as ‘Idiot Wind’, but perhaps only devotees will have stumbled across ‘Workingman’s Blues’, the stand out track on Modern Times (2006). This weary ode on globalisation’s squeeze of the working man ranks among Dylan’s most mournful political lyrics.
‘Now I’m down on my luck and I’m black and blue,
Gonna give you one more chance,
I’m all alone and I’m expecting you,
To lead me off in a cheerful dance.’
The point is emphasised by the understatement, which is perhaps what Andrew Motion means by Dylan being “masked and anonymous” – those feints used to disguise a deep seriousness.
Alternatively, Motion may mean the range of Dylan’s voices. Dylan can veer between the visionary of ‘A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall’ to the idiomatic joker of ‘Leopard Skin Pill-box Hat’. Sometimes, this transformation takes place in one song. ‘Visions of Johanna’ on Blonde on Blonde (1966) is one example. Dylan opens in a ‘Hard Rain’ mood:
‘Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin’ to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin our best to deny it.
And Louise holds a handful of rain, tempting you to defy it.’
Then, at a turn, he’s playful:
‘Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously.
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously.
And when bringing her name up,
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me.
He’s sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I’m in the hall.’
And then he segues into metaphysics:
‘Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial.
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while.’
Quite. Who would want eternal life? What in heaven would you do for all that time?
Dylan’s sprint from Blake, through Belloc to John Donne in just a few verses is striking, but, for me, his brilliance lies in simplicity, a trait he shares with some renowned poets.
The early protest songs were childishly uncomplicated. Take ‘Masters of War’ on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963):
‘Come you masters of war,
You that build the big guns,
You that build the death planes
You that build all bombs,
You that hide behind walls,
You that hide behind desks,
I just want you want to know,
I can see through your masks.’
The contempt in that staccato metre recalls Seigfried Sassoon’s The General, which ends with this simple but savage triplet:
‘He’s a cheery old card,’ grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.
But he did for them both by his plan of attack.’
Dylan’s better love songs (and God there are some disasters) convey the bald truth that love is man’s strongest emotion, almost surpassing understanding when it strikes. The unassuming verses of ‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go‘ on Blood on the Tracks (1974) are a case in point:
‘Situations have ended sad,
Relationships have all been bad,
Mine have been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud,
But there’s no way I can compare,
All those scenes to this affair,
Your gonna make me lonesome when you go.’
John Donne emerges from the recesses of my mind when I read that verse. Donne, the embodiment of the virtue of telling it straight in matters of the heart, might have written it had he belonged to our age. Take this passage from The Good Morrow:
‘And now good morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear.
For love all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.’
But as Donne famously observed: ‘John Donne, Anne Donne, Undone.’ Loss in love breeds regret. This theme is perhaps the ageing Dylan’s forte: think of his rasping eulogy ‘Sara’ on Desire (1976) or the loss of physical and spiritual vitality in ‘Not Dark Yet’ on Time out of Mind (1997). Regret is a malign agent of memory, an anxiety upon which (according to volume one of his Chronicles) Dylan brooded when writing Oh Mercy (1989). ‘Most of the time’ is the track where the tension materialises.
‘Most of the time my head is straight.
Most of the time I’m strong enough not hate.
I don’t build up illusion till 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.’
I’ve ploughed brain and bookshelves for a comparison without success. There’s Sir Thomas Wyatt’s ‘They flee from me that sometime did me seek/ With naked foot, stalking within my chamber./ I have seen them gentle, tame and meek,/ That now are wild and do not remember.’ But it’s much too ambiguous; and, more to the point, nowhere near as good.
Detractors and wavering fans think that the septuagenarian Dylan is no longer good for the money. Certainly his live shows need plenty more life and even more show. But his last serious studio album, Together Through Life (2009), had more than a few moments of captivating originality. ‘Hell’s My Wife’s Home Town’ and ‘Beyond Here Lies Nothing’ possess lyrical joie de vivre and the band’s blues sound is at turns dark and mirthful. Dylan may be getting there, but it’s not dark yet.
Comments