Dylan - not the hippy rabbit

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archie

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So, Bob Dylan gets the Nobel Prize for Literature. It's almost exactly 50 years since I had a 6th form project to compile a commonplace book (from wiki: a book into which notable extracts from other works are copied for personal use.) I did the expected thing of collecting a selection of pithy sayings but also took a chance on including a largish number of recent folk lyrics as poetry and social comment. This being the 1966/67 school year there was a fair amount of Dylan in there but this middle verse from Love Minus Zero/No Limit has been a favourite of mine to the present day:

In the dime stores and bus stations
People talk of situations
Read books, repeat quotations
Draw conclusions on the wall
Some speak of the future
My love, she speaks softly
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all

'Draw conclusions on the wall' is just such a wonderful line.

John Cooper Clarke for Poet Laureate.
 
the guy is a living legend isn't he?..larger than life...who will take his mantle i wonder..he is an immense influence..probably the most influential modern day..that means last 50 years to me..musciian of that time..even more so than Lennon /McCartney

i can't even count the number of times i have read musicians bios and seen Dylan as an influence.
 
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I am a great fan of Dylan up to and including John Wesley Harding. Thereafter, he disappears up his own arse. David Bowie post 1982 may also be up there too.
 
simmo said:
I am a great fan of Dylan up to and including John Wesley Harding. Thereafter, he disappears up his own arse.
Click to expand...

Totally agree with that, if only Like A Rolling Stone had been on Blonde On Blonde would have been an immense album. I have a book containing all the sheet music up until around then, spent hours with my buddies at that time playing guitar and singing ( well just playing in my case :whistle:) all his work.
 
I think that many people would agree with that but I'd have to single out Blood On The Tracks as an outstanding, if temporary, return to form.
 
Agreed, it was downhill fast after John Wesley Harding, though Desire some ten years later was enjoyable

Someone, I think in Rolling Stone magazine, described much of his work as being 'allusive surrealism' which until I twigged the difference I construed as 'elusive surrealism'; which anyway is equally apt

My favourite example of the allusively elusive is:

Bob Dylan's 115th Dream


I was riding on the Mayflower
When I thought I spied some land
I yelled for Captain Arab
I have yuh understand
Who came running to the deck
Said, "Boys, forget the whale
Look on over yonder
Cut the engines
Change the sail
Haul on the bowline"
We sang that melody
Like all tough sailors do
When they are far away at sea.

"I think I'll call it America"
I said as we hit the land
I took a deep breath
I fell down, I could not stand
Captain Arab he started
Writing up some deeds
He said, "Let's set up a fort
And start buying the place with beads"
Just then this cop comes down the street
Crazy as a loon
He throw us all in jail
For carryin' harpoons.

Ah me I busted out
Don't even ask me how
I went to get some help
I walked by a Guernsey cow
Who directed me down
To the Bowery slums
Where people carried signs around
Saying, "Ban the bums"
I jumped right into line
Sayin' "I hope that I'm not late"
When I realized I hadn't eaten
For five days straight.

I went into a restaurant
Lookin' for the cook
I told him I was the editor
Of a famous etiquette book
The waitress he was handsome
He wore a powder blue cape
I ordered some suzette, I said
"Could you please make that crepe"
Just then the whole kitchen exploded
From boillin' fat
Food was flying anywhere
And I left without my had.

Now, I didn't mean to be nosy
But I went into a bank
To get some bail for Arab
And all the boys back in the tank
They asked me for some collateral
And I pulled down my pants
They threw me in the alley
When up comes this girl from France
Who invited me to her house
I went, but she had a friend
Who knocked me out
And robbed my boots
And I was on the street again.

Well, I rapped upon a house
With the US flag upon display
I said, "Could you help me out
I got some friends down the way
" The man says, "Get out of here
I'll tear you limp from limb"
I said, "You know they refused Jesus, too"
He said, "You're not Him
Get out of here before I break your bones
I ain't your pop"
I decided to have him arrested
And I went lookin for a cop.

I ran right outside
And I hopped inside a cab
I went out the other door
This Englishman said, "Fab"
As he saw me leap a hot dog stand
And a chariot that stood
Parked across from a building
Advertising brotherhood
I ran right through the front door
Like a hobo sailor does
But it was just a funeral parlor
And the man asked me who I was.

I repeated that my friends
Where all in jail, with a sigh
He gave me his card
He said, "Call me if they die"
I shook his hand and said goodbye
Ran out to the street
When a bowling ball came down the road
And knocked me off my feet
A pay phone was ringing
It just about blew my mind
When I picked it up and said hello
This foot came through the line.

Well, by this time I was feed up
At tryin'g to make a stab
At bringin' back any help
For my friends and captain Arab
I decided to flip a coin
Like either heads or tails
Would let me know if I should go
Back to the ship or back to jail
So I hooked my sailor suit
And I got a coin to flip
It came up tails
It rhymed with sails
So I made it back to the ship.

Well, I got back and took
The parkin' ticket off the mast
I was ripping it to shreds
When this coastguard boat went past
They asked me my name
And I said, "Captain Kidd"
They believed me but
They wanted to know
What exactly that I did
I said for the Pope of Eruke
I was employed
They let me go right away
They were very paranoid.

Well, the last I heard of Arab
He was stuck on a whale
That was married to the deputy
Sheriff of the jail
But the funniest thing was
When I was leavin' the bay
I saw three ships a-sailin'
There were all heading my way
I asked the captain what his name was
And how come he didn't drive a truck
He said his name was Columbus
I just said, "Good luck".

Literature/poetry/lyrics apart it tends to be overlooked just what a great toonsmith he was. Check out 'Joan Baez Sings Dylan' for the angelic-voiced versions they deserve. Love Minus Zero/No Limit happens to be the opening track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCKGilveEWM
 
Blood on the Tracks is one of my favourite ever works of art.

[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588)]You're A Big Girl Now[/COLOR]
Bob Dylan





Our conversation was short and sweet
It nearly swept me off-a my feet
And I'm back in the rain oh oh
And you're on dry land
You made it there somehow
You're a big girl now.
Bird on the horizon sitting on the fence
He's singing his song for me at his own expense
And I'm just like that bird oh oh
Singing just for you
I hope that you can hear
Hear me singing through these tears.
Time is a jet plane it moves so fast
Oh but what a shame if all we've shared can't last
I can change I swear oh oh
See what you can do
I can make it through
You can make it too.

Love is so simple to quote a phrase
You've known it all the time I'm learning it these days
Oh I know where I can find you oh oh
In somebody's room
It's a price I had to pay
You're a big girl all the way.
A change in the weather is known to be extreme
But what's the sense of changing horses in midstream ?
I'm going out of my mind oh oh
With a pain that stops and starts
Like a corkscrew to my heart
Ever since we've been apart.




 
My elder wacky prodigal brother returned home to Scotland to sit his Highers round about 1970 and chose to dissect Dylan stuff in the poetry section of the English exam.

My aul' man had a hairy fit when he broke the news and ranted on about how he had thrown away a golden opportunity to get something right in his life.

Big bruv got an A for his Higher English.

(Never did fuuck all with it, mind.)

My father left him alone after that.
 
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