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The call of the Highlands: Jean Redpath, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Scottish Bard.

In August of 2019, The Living Tradition published an article by Tara Zuk, discussing Bob Dylan's connections to Jean Redpath. 

Zuk, Tara. "The call of the Highlands: Jean Redpath, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Scottish Bard." The Living Tradition 130, August, 2019: 20-22 


There comes a time when every Bob Dylan fan is introduced to Jean Redpath as a part of their musical journey. This introduction can take many forms. For some this may be a passing mention of her name, a momentary confusion with Jean Ritchie, or maybe even a slight reference to ‘that Scottish singer’ with whom Dylan once shared an apartment in 1961.

However, for many of us that moment is a revelation - it involves an exploration of raw ballads the way they were meant to be performed and heard. Minimal to no instrumental backing, the voice and lyrics taking us on a voyage to a time and place outside our own experiences, yet so utterly familiar and connected to our human understanding that we feel it to our bones.

To hear Jean Redpath sing is thrilling. She had a clear voice, warm and round with a distinctive Scottish accent but such beautifully intelligible pronunciation as to never confound the listener, even when singing in dialect.

In 1961, following a six-month residence in San Francisco, when Redpath was first making an impact in New York and along the east coast of the United States, Robert Shelton noted that:

“Miss Redpath would charm an audience with her repertoire alone – some 250 songs, enough to keep a ceilidh (folk jam session) going for hours. [...] Her voice is a clear, rich mezzo-soprano, sure-pitched enough to sustain long unaccompanied numbers [...] In a genially playful manner she conveys her fascination with the language of the Scots (“There’s nae wey o’ translatin’ it”) and flavors her onstage remarks with glottal stops and a thick burr.” [1]

It is even more charming that the ‘thick burr’ was Redpath’s genuine accent, rather than a way of flavouring her onstage persona.

Of course, Shelton also rather dubiously described Redpath as ‘a big-boned, apple-cheeked, radiantly healthy girl,’ [1] which apart from the poorly concealed reference to her physical appearance, also negates the fact that at that time she was a highly educated, well-travelled, fully-grown woman at 24 years of age. But barring that, his assessment of her singing talents accurately encapture the reasons why Jean Redpath was having a sincere effect on the American folk music scene at a time when it valued authenticity and credibility. For here was a woman with both qualities, but also with the talent and personality to execute the traditional ballads of her homeland in a manner that enthralled and enchanted receptive audiences.

By the summer of 1962, Jean Redpath had scored a ‘newcomer’s triumph’ at the Fifth Annual University of California Folk Festival at Berkley [2], she was a regular at Gerdes Folk City in New York as well as other venues in New York, Boston and across the United States, and she was given an evening to perform and talk about her traditional Scottish music at the New School for Social Research in July 1963.



Robert Shelton’s review of Redpath’s performance at the New School pointed out that her small audience of fewer than one hundred people showed that her knowledge and talent was deeply underappreciated. He extolled the breadth of Redpath’s command of Scottish musical history, her way of connecting with the audience, and pointed out (perhaps with a hint of disappointment in a music industry which even in folk circles over half a century ago was manufacturing the esteem and popularity of questionable attributes, or disappointment in the fans so easily swayed by glitz over substance) that, ‘Some of our singers who draw huge crowds with a gag and a fast beat would do well to study Miss Redpath’s art.’ [3]



There was a beautiful piece written by Robert J. Lurtsema in 1964 for The Broadside of Boston, entitled ‘To Know Her Is To Love Her.’ It clearly expresses Jean Redpath’s natural born vocal talent, her versatility, her wit and humour, and her ability to evoke a mood in the most subtle and spellbinding ways. Lurtsema stated:

“For when she sings, the legs of the cricket are still and birds pause mid trill to listen. She charms them into being there when she gets to them. She doesn’t fit a song to her style, she expands her style to fit the song. She doesn’t aspire to being a singer, she only wants to sing. “She has wit and wisdom and a wealth of talent. She’s a warm and wonderful waif and I love her. You will too.” [4]

During her performance on Pete Seeger's 1965-1966 Rainbow Quest show (episode 17, alongside Roscoe Holcomb), Redpath sang unaccompanied by any instruments [5]. She sang five songs, ‘The Beggar Laddie,’ 'Skye Fisher’s Song,’ 'I lost My Love,’ 'Miss MacLeod's Reel,’ and 'Auld Lang Syne.’ Her performance persona of serene sweetness, subtlety, charm, ready smile, unaffected authenticity, and sheer innate intelligence shone through; with unadorned sensitivity, understanding, and empathy, she conveyed the story behind the songs and spoke with gentle humour of Scottish folklore. It is no wonder that so many folk performers, both in the United States and back in the United Kingdom, were captivated and influenced by Jean Redpath.

So what were Jean Redpath’s roots?

Jean Redpath was born in Edinburgh Scotland, raised in Fife, and had musical parents who passed on both the history of Scottish folk music and the joy of playing and performing. Jean’s interest was in history and she studied medieval history at the University of Edinburgh, making herself some extra funds along the way by singing at night - as well as stints as a driving instructor and undertaker’s assistant amongst other jobs. [6]

During her time at the University of Edinburgh Jean showed an interest in the research of Scottish poet and folk-song collector Hamish Henderson, who was working in the School of Scottish Studies at the university. [7]

Henderson will be known to Bob Dylan fans as the writer of ‘The Banks of Sicily,’ a song which is credited for having given Dylan the basic melody structure for ‘The Times They are A-Changin’.’ [8]

The School of Scottish Studies is an archive for protecting and preserving traditional Scottish music and oral traditions, with an extensive collection of tapes and recordings of ballads, songs, stories and folklore from the Scottish – and Gaelic – speaking areas of Scotland, many of which would otherwise have been all but lost. Redpath made an association with Henderson, and she soon demonstrated a voracious appetite for learning songs by heart. It is said that during her time at the university, she learned approximately 400 traditional Scottish songs and ballads along with their backgrounds, stories and lore. [9]


In 1961, at the age of 24, Jean Redpath experienced what Rob Adams described in The Herald newspaper as “a belated teenage rebellion” [10] and was driven by her musical passion to strike out for the United States – a route many folk singers from the UK were taking at the time, wanting to be a part of the American folk revival, knowing they could find like-minded performers and a larger audience who respected their cultural traditions and contributions.

Initially, Redpath found herself in San Francisco. Then having been somewhat naively ‘hoodwinked’ by a self-proclaimed impresario [11], along with what her Linn Records page intriguingly describes as ‘a series of serendipitous "accidents”,’ [12] she ended up on the east coast of the United States in Greenwich Village.

In her retelling of the tale, Jean recalls that she was directed to an apartment where the newly arrived Bob Dylan was enjoying something of a hootenanny with Ramblin' Jack Elliott and the ­Greenbriar Boys. She decided to stay as Dylan’s flatmate for a while, and Dylan reportedly introduced her to Gerdes Folk City. [13]

Record deals, a career in archiving, singing, teaching, international recognition for her knowledge of the ballads and culture of Scotland, and a string of honours were to follow (as well as regular appearances on Garrison Keillor’s radio show ‘A Prairie Home Companion’) before Jean Redpath sadly lost her battle with cancer and passed away in 2014 at the age of 77. [13] Jean Redpath was always passionate about the poetry and balladry of Robert Burns, and during her time with Bob Dylan it is highly likely that they discussed Burns and other Scottish traditional music. In 1976, Redpath embarked on a project to record every Burns song, but only completed seven volumes of recordings before her collaborator Serge Hovey died, bringing the ambitious project to a premature conclusion. [14] [15]

When Bob Dylan received an honorary degree of Doctorate of Music from St. Andrews University, Scotland on 23 June 2004, the Laureation speech was given by Neil Corcoran. His comment on the connection between Bob Dylan and Scottish music was perceptive:

“It seems appropriate that his second such degree should come from Scotland’s oldest university, since Scottish border ballads and folk songs have been the inspiration for some of his melodies, and his great song ‘Highlands’ is an elaborate riff, or descant, on Robert Burns.” [16]

For a more thorough and detailed analysis of Bob Dylan’s Scottish influences, I recommend Andrew Muir’s three-part article ‘Songs from, but not out of, History: Bob Dylan and Traditional Scottish Music.’. [16] It is a wide and extensive influence, and well worth the deeper study for anyone interested in Gaelic music and how the traditions have fed into Dylan’s music and the paths that the influences have taken. Sometimes this is a quiet and subtle process of osmosis, and sometimes it is blatant and obvious.

In 2008, as part of HMV's ‘My Inspiration’ campaign, Bob Dylan chose A Red, Red Rose as the piece of literature that most inspired him. [17] The poem was written by Robert Burns in 1794.


"O, my luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June.
O, my luve's like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune."

This should have come as no great surprise to fans of Bob Dylan, as he recorded his own song ‘Highlands’ in January 1997 as part of his Time Out Of Mind recording sessions at Criteria Studios, Miami, Florida. There is a repeated line tying the song together as Dylan rambles through a mixture of sentimental rural imagery and contemplation of modern urban disconnection. The repetition is 'My heart's in the Highlands' - which itself is a 1789 song and poem by Robert Burns. [18] [19]

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

Chorus.
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

Farewell to the mountains, high-cover'd with snow,
Farewell to the straths and green vallies below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

It should be mentioned that in 2007, as a co-investment with his brother David Zimmerman, Bob Dylan was reported to have bought Aultmore House estate near Nethybridge, Inverness-shire, in the foothills of the Cairngorms. The house was built at the turn of the 20th century for the millionaire owner of a department store in Moscow, and has been described as one of the finest homes in the Highlands. [20]

Bob Dylan would surely have been aware of Woody Guthrie’s deep admiration for Robert Burns. Woody Guthrie wrote a letter entitled 'To That Man Robert Burns', dated June 9, 1947 (reprinted in Guthrie’s book, Born To Win). [21]

In his letter-poem, Woody Guthrie points out the similarities between himself and Robert Burns, and the deep connection he felt to the Scot, as well as reminiscing about visiting Scotland as a torpedoed seaman in WWII. [22]

To That Man Robert Burns

Dear Robert Burns,

You skipped the big town streets just like I done, you ducked the crosstown cop just like I ducked, you dodged behind a beanpole to beat the bigtime dick and you very seldom stopped off in any big city where the rigged corn wasn't drying nor the hot vine didn't help you do your talking.

Your talking was factual figures of the biggest sort, though. Your talking had the graphboard and the chart and had something else most singers seem to miss, the very kiss of warm dew on the stalk.

Your words turned into songs and floated upstream and then turned into rains and drifted down and lodged and swung and clung to drifts of driftwood to warm and heat and fertilize new seeds. Your words were of the upheath and the down, your words were more from heather than from town. Your thoughts came more from weather than from schoolroom and more from shifting vines than from the book.

I go to the church halfway between the farm and halfway into the town and halfway back. I sing and dance at just one altar only and cry with the folks that would like to be more fertile. If there's a bench I kneel down to laugh and cry on, I suppose it's this bench with the kids waiting along it while us dads and us mamas stamp and stomp around looking for something to give our trip more sense. I worship in the limbroof arbors of pure fertility and very little else makes sense to me. Like Robert Burns and Jesus and some others I believe we ought to learn how to make a law or two to help us brothers love the sisters more.

I bought your little four-inch square book when I was a torpedoed seaman walking around over your clods and sods of Glasgow and the little book says on the outer cover, Fifty Songs of Burns, the price 4d, and I read from page to page and found you covered a woman on every page. I thought as I picked the book up here at home that maybe the book ought to have some kind of a new name. Like, Fifty Pages of Fifty Women, enlarged upon by Robert Burns.

Well, Rob, it's awfully rainy here in Coney today. Been drizzling like this now for several days to make some folks happy and some folks sad, since this is a big resort town and folks pay good money to come here from all over. Some like the rain today and some folks hate it. I like it and love it for several reasons, like you'd love it, to see our new seeds grow in this old trashy back yard, and to see these green shoots, roots, limbs and leaves start dancing like Tirza and her Wine Bath. And because Marjorie just painted some flowers of a wild and jumpy color on the pink wall of the baby's room so when he does squirm his way out here to see his light of the day he'll see some twisting flowers like you seen all around your rock hearths and heatherhills there all over your Scotland. This rain is making the grass and flowers spud out, the roots to crawl like guerrillas, and the house to take a better shape, so's our little shoot and shaver can have these growing limbs to give him such a good fast start that maybe he can grow up in four years with us giving him pushes to be has happy and dancy and glad and joking and pretty as our little Stackybones was on that Sunday's afternoon when she got dressed up her very prettiest in her pinkest dress and greenest ribbon to look just as nice and sweet and glad and pretty as any of your fifty girls you raved about. And fifty times fifty. The only good part about living you really did miss, Bob, was not to get to stick around a house like Marjorie keeps and see a kid like Cathy dance and grow. You died at thirty-four which was a bit too young for you to get to see these things I'm seeing in the faces of my kids.

This is why I'll keep you posted and brought up to date as the year leafs out and me and Marjorie have more kids of the kinds you missed out on.

– Woody Guthrie, June 9, 1947

Clinton Heylin has been amongst the writers and researchers who have traced the influences of traditional Scottish ballads on the music of Bob Dylan. In his book ‘Revolution In The Air’ Heylin explores many of the probable links between Dylan compositions and old Scottish songs. [23]

For example, Jeannie Robertson was a performer of Scottish ballads. She was a member of the travelling community in Aberdeen in the early 1950s. Clinton Heylin says, "It was probably (Robertson's) version of (Scots ballad) Mary Hamilton he drew on for the Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll." Although Joan Baez had already been performing the song before she met Bob Dylan, you can hear more of the influence on Dylan through Robertson’s version as well as Peggy Seeger’s. Heylin reports in his book how Dylan and Baez were staying in Carmel, California, when Dylan read the newspaper story about Hattie Carroll. At the time it is also known that Dylan was vigorously raiding their host’s record collection, which included Robertson’s recording of ‘Mary Hamilton.’ [24]

Heylin suggests that ‘Lay Down Your Weary Tune’ was possibly influenced by the Scottish song ‘Waly, Waly.’ ‘A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall’ is taken from the structure of the traditional ballad ‘Lord Randal’, a song with strong Scottish roots. And in 1961, Bob Dylan recorded ‘The House Carpenter’ (also known as ‘The Daemon Lover’) where he doesn’t reproduce the more Americanised version of the song, but instead returns to the 400 year old Scottish version of the ballad. Indeed, Heylin wrote a fascinating book tracking the history of the song, ‘Dylan's daemon lover : the tangled tale of a 450 year old pop ballad’. The concept of a ‘Daemon Lover’ is a story theme Dylan was to revisit in his 1989 song, ‘The Man In The Long Black Coat.’ [25] [26]

As a way to bring this brief exploration to a close, it is interesting to return to my earlier point, that one of Bob Dylan’s most anthemic and globally-known songs, ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’,’ was inspired by the Scottish song ‘The Banks of Sicily’ (also known as ‘Farewell To Sicily’). The lyrics of the Scottish song were written by Jean Redpath’s collaborator Hamish Henderson, but the melody is taken from a much earlier Scottish tune - and it is in that earlier tune we hear the influences on the Bob Dylan song.

However, there is a quote from Professor John (Jack) Mitchell in his essay concerning the works of Hamish Henderson that is particularly pertinent to this connection between Dylan and Scottish ballads. Mitchell wrote:

“The soldiers’ attitude to Sicily is the complex contradictory attitude of humanity to the alienated world of capitalism. It is a grey, eerie, inimical, unhuman place reminiscent of the “cold hillside” in Keats’ ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’, a place where the human feels a stranger, an alien, yet at the same time (and this is the important and finally triumphant aspect) behind the mask it is the world, the place where alone humanity’s destiny is forged, where love and laughter and kinship do and will triumph over alienation. It is a song of belief in the infinite resilience of humanity, in the validity of the world, a song of acceptance of life.” [27]

As Andrew Muir pointed out in the first part of his article [16], this final sentence encapsulates the way in which Dylan performs his (dare I use the phrase?) ‘protest song’ in concert even to this day. However, I would go even further and widen the description to include all of Dylan’s extensive creative catalogue. For as well as the traditional ballads of lost love, supernatural events, and justified lyricism about the beauty of the location, Scottish (and Irish) music and poetry has always exuded an attitude that resonates with many Bob Dylan fans as being expressed through his music and performances. The alienation of the human against larger forces of the grey, impersonal, individualist society and the contrast between that urban dystopia and the calm beauty of nature; but also the resilience of humanity, the belief in the ties of relationships and friendships that bind us together, and ultimately our strength in the shared human experience.

There are multiple connections between Bob Dylan and traditional Scottish ballads and folklore. Jean Redpath may or may not have been his first exposure to the music and stories, but it’s fair to say that she was certainly influential. She was also knowledgeable, talented and a passionate performer who deserves recognition in her own right.

Tapadh leat, Jean Redpath!

(c) Tara Zuk, 2019

References:

[1] Shelton, Robert. ‘Foreign Folk Music in ‘Village’’ The New York Times, 15 November, 1961.

[2] Shelton, Robert. ‘The Folks Out West’ The New York Times, 22 July, 1962.

[3] Shelton, Robert. ‘Banter and Song by Jean Redpath’ The New York Times, 20 July, 1963.

[4] Lurtsema, Robert J. ‘To Know Her is to Love Her’ The Broadside of Boston, Volume III No.2, 18 March, 1964.

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnI9EWQr_K0 Accessed on 2019-02-02

[6] Schofield, Derek. ‘Jean Redpath Obituary’ The Guardian, 22 August, 2014
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/aug/22/jean-redpath Accessed on 2019-02-02

[7] https://web.archive.org/web/20170202081057/http://www.linnrecords.com/artist-jean-redpath.aspx Accessed on 2019-02-02

[8] ‘Caledonia homesick blues: Bob Dylan's Scottish inspiration’ The Scotsman, 23 April, 2009. https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/caledonia-homesick-blues-bob-dylan-s-scottish-inspiration-1-1035469 Accessed on 2019-02-02

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Redpath Accessed on 2019-02-02

[10] Adams, Rob. ‘Jean Redpath’ The Herald Scotland, 25 August 2014 http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/13176641.Jean_Redpath/ Accessed on 2019-02-02

[11] http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/13176641.Jean_Redpath/ Accessed on 2019-02-02

[12] https://web.archive.org/web/20170202081057/http://www.linnrecords.com/artist-jean-redpath.aspx Accessed on 2019-02-02

[13] Adams, Rob. ‘Jean Redpath’ The Herald Scotland, 25 August, 2014 http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/13176641.Jean_Redpath/ Accessed on 2019-02-02

[14] Schofield, Derek. ‘Jean Redpath Obituary’ The Guardian 22 August, 2014 https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/aug/22/jean-redpath Accessed on 2019-02-02

[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Redpath Accessed on 2019-02-02

[16] Muir, Andrew. ‘Songs from, but not out of, History: Bob Dylan and Traditional Scottish Music’ Judas! Issues 14, 15, 16. 2004 http://www.a-muir.co.uk/Dylan/OMN/judas.html Accessed on 2019-03-08

[17] Michaels, Sean. ‘Bob Dylan: Robert Burns is my biggest inspiration’ The Guardian, 6 October, 2008 http://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/oct/06/bob.dylan.robert.burns.inspiration Accessed on 2019-02-02

[18] http://www.bjorner.com/DSN17840%20-%201997%20TOOM%20Session.htm Accessed on 2019-02-02

[19] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Heart%27s_in_the_Highlands Accessed on 2019-02-02

[20] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/6266459.stm Accessed on 2019-02-02

[21] Guthrie, Woody, and Robert Shelton. Born to Win. New York: Macmillan, 1965. http://www.worldcat.org/title/born-to-win/oclc/1299950

[22] From Woody Guthrie’s book, ‘Born to Win’ pages 213-215. http://tinyurl.com/q5v8jj8

[23] Heylin, Clinton. Revolution in the Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan, 1957-1973. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2012. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/774667364

[24] https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/caledonia-homesick-blues-bob-dylan-s-scottish-inspiration-1-1035469 Accessed on 2019-02-02

[25] Heylin, Clinton. Dylan's Daemon Lover: The Tangled Tale of a 450 Year Old Pop Ballad. London: Helter Skelter, 1999 http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/231886479

[26] http://www.bjorner.com/DSN09830%20-%201989%20Early%20Sessions.htm#DSN09841

[27] Mitchell, John [Jack], ‘Hamish Henderson and the Scottish Folk-song Revival,’ in Essays in Honour of William Gallacher Berlin: Humboldt University, 1966

Beyond an angel's art:
Bob Dylan’s voice, his vocal styles, delivery, and the oral tradition of storytelling through song.

In August of 2017, ISIS magazine published an article by Tara Zuk, discussing Bob Dylan's voice. 

Reference:

Zuk, Tara. "Beyond an angel's art: Bob Dylan's voice, his vocal styles, delivery, and the oral tradition of storytelling through song." ISIS 193,  August, 2017: 37-48


“And until then what you got to lose but the losing? We're fallen angels who didn't believe that nothing means nothing.”
Jack Kerouac, Book of Blues

It becomes a regular occurrence if you are a Bob Dylan fan. Well-meaning friends tolerating your interest will nod distractedly at your discussion of the latest tour or album and tell you that although Bob Dylan is a fantastic songwriter, they prefer his songs performed by other people (Adele, Guns N’ Roses, Billy Joel, Jimi Hendrix).  Or they will tell you that although they love the lyrics, Dylan sounds whiny and nasally, he mumbles too much, and they can’t listen. Some may even accompany their statements with what they believe to be a humorously Dylanesque impersonation, wheezing their way through a line or two of ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ like a parody of a bad parody twice removed, laughing at their own cleverness as though no one had ever heard the joke before.

Well, we have heard it all before, and not just from the armchair critics.

Following the release of the album Tempest in 2012, an article from Max Thorn on the website Vulture collated a few of the more interesting descriptive phrases used by reviewers to describe Bob Dylan’s voice. (1)

Jon Pareles of the New York Times talks about Bob Dylan’s voice being "the wry cackle of a codger who still has an eye for the ladies. [...] a raspy, phlegmy bark that’s not exactly melodic and by no means welcoming." (2) Sean Daly in the Tampa Bay Times called Dylan’s voice a "zombie bullfrog holler" (3) and Alexis Petridis in The Guardian describes “a terrifying, incomprehensible growl that sounds like one of those death-metal vocalists in full flight.” (4)

And this is not a new phenomenon. David Bowie once affectionately but tellingly compared Bob Dylan’s voice to “sand and glue” in his Song For Bob Dylan (5),  while John Updike scathingly described Dylan as having a “voice to scour a skillet with.” In April of 1965, Fred Billany described Dylan’s voice as having a ‘dry and bitter quality’ (6) and Time magazine in 1963 spoke of his ‘whooping harmonica, skinny little voice’ which at its very best ‘sounds as though it were drifting over the walls of a tuberculosis sanitarium’ softening with, ‘but that’s part of the charm.’ (7)

People since day one have been trying to tell us that Bob Dylan can’t sing. The truth is, he is one of the greatest singers we have ever known, a communicator of melody and lyrics in the best oral tradition, and someone who can use his voice to transcend the borders of time and place.

The ‘poetics of the voice’


“I’m just as good a singer as Caruso.
Have you heard me sing?
Have you ever heard me sing?
I happen to be just as good as him... a good singer, have to listen closely.”
Bob Dylan (8)


Literary writing by necessity is ‘mute’. A facsimile of voice is present on the page, but it is little more than a shadow. Writers use devices, style and technique to evoke the concepts of voice and orality. However, that voice alters from reader to reader. A writer can never be sure that their readers hear the voice they intended to transmit. That is part of the joy, and also part of the frustration.

As Christophe Lebold argues in his essay ​A Face like a Mask and a Voice that Croaks: An Integrated Poetics of Bob Dylan’s Voice, Personae,and Lyrics (9), Bob Dylan is in an interesting position. A literary study of his lyrics shows that when read on paper, Dylan’s songs have elements of what Lebold calls ‘high poetry’. Formal poetic structures and devices are evident and are often executed with skill and precision. However, the lyrics are fused with the oral tradition and the use of voice in a way that simultaneously elevates Dylan’s music from the realms of popular song, whilst also giving his verses the orality, the concrete voice, which is lacking in the written words alone. The songs then become a form of oral literature.

Therefore, to study Bob Dylan’s lyrics without also studying his voice and the way he uses it, is to miss a vital part of his performance art.

Poetry and music share common ground, and in Bob Dylan’s songs they are inseparable. Excellent studies of the lyrics exist to prove to the world the depth of style, symbolism, and literary techniques employed by Dylan. However, it takes a performance of the songs to lend them their true voice and brilliance.

As mentioned by Declan Lynch (10), Bob Dylan has faced several decades of misunderstanding. His lyrics are poetic, but they are not ​just​ poetry. Dylan’s music depends heavily on his vocal performance and delivery for them to achieve their full and most powerful complexities; just as the writer of a drama requires actors to deliver the lines and make the words come alive. To reduce Dylan’s songs to the category of ‘pop music’ or take the lyrics alone on paper and place them in the category of ‘poetry’ is to do him a disservice. Because without the voice and the music, the lyrics are incomplete. A vitality is lost.

Bob Dylan has an idiosyncratic vocal style that expresses the emotion of a piece of music quite effectively. His voice conveys tone, rhythm and cadence, intonation, age and a subtlety of expression that within seconds can create a persona which is so tangible it can almost be perceived as semi-autobiographical. A whole other topic for discussion is the concept of Bob Dylan’s use of masks; ​je est un autre (11). We can surely say that Bob Dylan’s voice is yet another mask. If each song has a ‘voice’ and an orality - a protagonist whose desires, fears, imperfections and strengths need to be immediately communicated to the listener - the best and most successful method to convey each story is through the voice. Wearing and replacing different vocal masks is a powerful way to express the underlying message, viewpoint and feeling of a song.

You told me that you'd be sincere

“Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you've got it made.” George Burns (12)



In the development of the recorded popular song through the twentieth century, there was a gradual shift away from long instrumental dance pieces with short vocals as a hookline (swing, jazz and early popular romance songs), to the point where the voice became dominant and punctuated by shorter instrumentals. This was partly to do with the development of microphone technology making the voice more audible above the sound of large bands and orchestras. But also, as the music industry became geared towards charts and sales and market dominance, audiences responded more directly to the human voice than to instrumentals, especially in the short format of a pop song for radio broadcast which went hand in hand with the creation of singing celebrities, heartthrobs for the affluent youth market. This was a contrast to the live venue music that had previously predominated when recording was a more secondary feature. (13)

The natural human perception is that we immediately equate ‘voice’ with a sense of another person’s self. Linguistically, voice and identity (individual, social and cultural) are intrinsically linked. Your voice is as exclusive as a fingerprint - it reflects your gender, age, culture, origin, education level, current state of mind or emotion, and even personality traits. Therefore, a singer who is able to flexibly control and alter elements of their voice to transcend such boundaries, is going to be a more successful communicator of a variety of characters, situations and emotions. The flexible singer can sing convincingly from many different perspectives. This process can become contrived and lack a feeling of authenticity when used as manipulation for effect. It is most successful when employed as a natural reaction to the music, and is often combined with a sense of vocal vulnerability. (14)

The crack and the croak. Holding a note a fraction too long. A stumbled lyric. Words crammed into a line, challenging the rhythm and balance. These techniques all convey specific flaws or imperfections to fit the limitations and struggles faced by the protagonist.

Vulnerability and fallibility is human - and it is the human experience that binds us and authentically connects us. For a singer, that connection is made through the voice.

Some singers sing ​at​ their audience. They may be pitch perfect, pretty and smooth, but sometimes this comes across as lacking an element of authenticity. They are singers for whom each song sounds similar so as to always maintain the one persona, the persona that works, safe in the knowledge that sometimes the commercial public tends to like the comfort of predictability and art that does not unduly challenge expectations.

Then there are the singers who sing ​to​ their listeners, connect ​with​ them and draw them in with apparent sincerity and genuineness, challenging perceptions and almost daring you not to react. This is how Bob Dylan is able to convincingly engage an audience - from the perspective of a woman, an old transient bluesman, a Dust Bowl refugee, a Nashville country music crooner, a gospel singer, a minstrel, a troubadour, a vaudevillian, a sharecropper, a British folk balladeer, an Irish sailor, or a soldier from the American civil war, a prisoner - each perspective given a backbone of truth and believability directly through the use of voice and phrasing. Each one believable because of the perceived sincerity in Dylan’s voice, and the honesty of his delivery.

In a 2011 interview for Rolling Stone magazine, Paul Simon said of Bob Dylan:

“One of my deficiencies is my voice sounds sincere. I’ve tried to sound ironic. I don’t. I can’t. Dylan, everything he sings has two meanings. He’s telling you the truth and making fun of you at the same time. I sound sincere every time.” (15)

However, this difference between the two artists might be looked at in another light. Whether Paul Simon finds it difficult to express irony is not for debate here, but I believe that Simon is correct - Dylan certainly has the ability to convey multiple meanings through a combination of lyric ambiguity and vocal delivery. Indeed, Bob Dylan’s ability to tell you the truth and make fun of you at the same time is an essential aspect of his act. However, this does not make him any less sincere than Paul Simon. The ability to convey irony, ridicule, or multi-faceted layers of meaning does not reduce authenticity or sincerity. The human condition is complex. It is natural for a person to feel a combination of emotions simultaneously. A failed relationship, for example, may result in feelings of anger, regret and sadness.

For instance, in ​Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right​ we can read the lyrics:

I’m a-thinkin’ and a-wond’rin’ as I’m walkin’ down the road
I once loved a woman, a child I’m told
I give her my heart but she wanted my soul
But don’t think twice, it’s all right. (16)

On the paper, we are faced with ambiguity. Is this an expression of resentment? He gave her all he could, but she wanted more, she wanted the impossible. It obviously is not ‘all right’ and the irony in the line can express a level of bitterness that the experience ‘wasted his precious time’. Or is this a song of sadness and regret? The singer is so sorry that he couldn’t give her what she needed, but everything will be all right. The ambiguity and irony is still very much an expression of honesty and sincerity. And the only way we can interpret the words for ourselves (not definitively, for they are organic and changing) is to listen to the voice and delivery as Bob Dylan sings them, and react to that stimulus. And Dylan surely knows full well that the way a person will react to any song will depend not even solely on his delivery, voice and persona, but the listener’s own state of mind.

Prosody and connection

“People think they know me from my songs. But my repertoire of songs is so wide-ranging that you'd have to be a madman to figure out the characteristics of the person who wrote all those songs.”
Bob Dylan (17)


Prosody is the pattern of rhythm and sound used in poetry and voice - the musicality of speech and language, the patterns of stress and intonation. Those patterns are processed by the right temporal cortex of the human brain from the age of approximately 7 months, and whilst they may elicit varying responses from a listener, the meanings of the patterns are universally identifiable. That is the reason why we can tell, without speaking a language, whether someone is angry, happy, sad, or bored by their tone of voice. (18)

The prosody of a person’s language and intonation are significant in communicating their emotions and attitudes, making connections with others or creating divisions. Think of how the tone of voice, the rhythm, the stress, the emphasis, changes between a politician making a public speech or talking in an informal interview... or even how they must talk at home to their family. Think of a teacher adapting their voice when they enter a classroom of uninterested adolescent students.

Considering the main linguistic attributes of prosody (19), we can see that in all areas Bob Dylan is individual and often displays a difference from other singers. If we just look at the auditory, non-acoustic terms, we can immediately tell that Bob Dylan communicates his song by altering his pitch, the length of the word sounds (often quite differently to the conventional pronunciations and syllable emphasis), and utilising the pause to separate phrases, phrasemes, and constituents.

In his essay ​A Foreign Sound to Your Ear: Bob Dylan Performs “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” 1964–2009, ​Steven Rings makes the following assertion in his introduction: 

Bob Dylan is no stranger to academia, but he has yet to gain the full attention of music scholars. There are likely many reasons for this neglect, one of which is the tendency to elevate the literary Dylan above the musical one; another is the surprisingly durable tradition in music theory and (to a lesser extent) musicology of valuing complexity in harmony, melody, rhythm, and form—areas in which Dylan’s music is often (though not always accurately) perceived as simple. (20)

It is my suggestion that Bob Dylan’s musicality very much integrates his vocal and linguistic prosody, which creates intense connections with some fans, whilst simultaneously pushing other listeners away. Almost all fans will have a song or two that they consider to have been a ‘mistake’, whilst those same songs have many ardent followers. It should also be mentioned that the complaints of some of Dylan’s detractors often centre around the inability to understand and make out precise words when he sings. However, that is like life, when listening to others speak in conversation. Much as when Hitchcock made his first partial sound film ​Blackmail​, he often recorded people speaking but undecipherable, as he assumed films would be like that. Years later some film makers went back to indecipherable dialogue in parts. But after ​Blackmail​ everyone aimed to get the technology to precisely give words. (21)

Deceptively simple melodies (that are often not at all ‘simple’, as some people who have attempted to perform them can attest) are vocally embellished and enhanced by nuanced phrasing, pauses, and the challenge of lines where the vocal syllables appear to overload the musical beats.

Listening comprehension, and processing the use of context and prosody to derive meaning, is very much linked to general reading and language comprehension skills and tastes. Sometimes a reader has prefered styles and authors, connecting with and understanding certain writers whilst having no bond to others. In a similar way, listeners will have prefered speakers and singers. These reactions are often subconscious and can be due to preference of accent, rhythms of speech and choice of vocabulary. It can also be linked to the ability to process, or the preferences for / against, phonological modifications such as assimilation, elision, sandhi, and intrusion. (22)

Some listeners feel uncomfortable when they are unable to decipher the prosody - when the rhythm and emphasis on words creates ambiguity and uncertain definition, it discomforts them. (23) They may enjoy the same song performed by a different singer, simply because they are more comfortable with the delivery and emphasis of the performer.

I’m just average, common too
I’m just like him, the same as you (24)

Bob Dylan’s voice has an amazing quality of ‘nowness’ to it. With its timeless ​everyman character of slight imperfection masking the breathtaking depth and brilliance, the genius of both the lyric construction and the vocal prosody. His voice has the ability to take a song from any era and construct it in a way that is relevant and enduring - an intriguing mix of immutable human truths and ephemeral characters in unspecified times.

But it is exactly the conversational tone and rhythm, and the deceptively simple style, never overblown, that connects immediately with listeners. It convinces many people that he is talking to them personally, that he is talking about their lives, that he understands them, and that they in turn know him. He’s everybody’s brother and son.

The wolf pit of Dylan’s vocal delivery has the branch-covered veneer of simplicity and ease and connectivity, the tempting carrion of a good musical hook and a stylish attitude of cool. It is only as you plunge through the surface you realise the hidden depths, and before you can jump back you’re freefalling into the shadows, astounded by the multiple layers that went into the construction. 

Sometimes, the silence can feel like thunder...

“Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing.”
Macbeth Act 5, scene 5
William Shakespeare (25)


Until we have the gift of silence, we can never truly understand the power of sound.

Silence is tangible. The pause can indeed be pregnant – swollen, heavy, and full with the promise of a new birth of ideas and feelings. Effective use of vocalisation includes knowing when not to vocalise. Just as in interviews, Bob Dylan always uses silences to effect, a habit of taking long pauses between his differently cadenced responses depending upon his level of interest. A chance to think. An uncomfortable pause after an inappropriate question. An opportunity to make the questioner feel uncomfortable. A reason to declare the meeting over and leave.

In life as in the songs, the very absence of sound has its own meanings. And Bob Dylan often uses silence to great effect in his songs.

Firstly, consider the staccato phrasing on ​The Man in the Long Black Coat​. Each line broken and half-whispered so that the anticipation builds in an atmospheric way that makes the breaks and pauses as important as the lyrics themselves. The events and thoughts are disjointed and the conclusion of the song - the mysterious disappearance remains without ‘closure’ or answer - is highlighted by the choppy delivery. The only moment of any fluidity is the soaring wave of the bridge which rises (​‘There are no mistakes in life, some people say’​) is broken by an aside (​‘And it’s true sometimes, you can see it that way’​) then rises a second time (​‘People don’t live or die, people just float’​) only to be broken yet again (​‘She went with the man in the long black coat’​). We can see how the listener gains meaning and intent from the phrasing and prosody.

There is an example in the song​ Highlands​ when a delicious (but maybe unintended?) pun is expertly worked by a silence:

‘Insanity is smashing [pause]
up against my soul
You can say I was on anything [pause] but a roll’ (27)

The thought of insanity being ‘smashing’, in the UK sense of being fun and pleasant, enters the English listener’s head for that split second before the full meaning of the continued line takes grip. Then there is the inference created by the second pause. We may fleetingly wonder, what is the singer on? Is this a drug reference? Then the completion after the pause shows us the meaning.

In ​The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar​ there is a great line with an intriguing use of the pause:

There’s a wall between you [pause]
what you want and you got to leap it
Tonight you’ve got the power to take it
Tomorrow you won’t have the power to keep it’ (28)

The written lyrics add the word ‘and’ in that pause (29) (in some performances he sings the ‘and’), but on the released album recording he does not sing it. He pauses. The silence becomes as physical and as insurmountable as the metaphorical wall he talks of. In the frenzy of that fevered song, it is a stroke of masterful vocalization that sets Dylan apart. He is never obvious. Always subtle. But therein lies the intensity that obviousness is devoid of.

As you listen to Dylan’s music, you will find countless examples of the same thing. Never sloppy. Always precise. Carefully measured.

It also marks a level of confidence and bravery. Silence can be terrifying. We have all known times when we have filled the air with words out of insecurity or nervousness. Anything to fill that chasm, that moment of empty nothingness.

“Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most.” (30)

However, there is value to silence. It is the eye of the storm which sometimes has more to say than any word could express. Or it can be an unspoken thought which hits harder than any shouted expletive.

This is true in life as well. There are moments when silence says more than words ever could. There is a time for quiet, for reflection, for listening and contemplation.

I began this section with a quotation from Macbeth which describes life as ‘​a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing​’. Transferring this idea to Bob Dylan’s music, using an understated pause correctly can speak volumes and can only be successfully achieved by the best vocalists and writers.

“There is no love except in silence and silence doesn’t say a word.” (31)

Angels and shadows

“The Delmore Brothers – God, I really love them. I think they've influenced every harmony I've ever tried to sing. This Hank Williams thing with just him and his guitar – man, that's something, isn't it? I used to sing these songs way back, a long time ago, even before I played rock and roll as a teenager. Sinatra, Peggy Lee, yeah. I love all these people, but I tell you who I've really been listening to a lot lately – in fact, I'm thinking about recording one of his earlier songs – is Bing Crosby. I don't think you can find better phrasing anywhere.”
Bob Dylan (32)


Anyone active on social media in 2016, and following Bob Dylan’s summer tour, will know that fans are very divided. Some like the fact that he has taken time out to cover a selection of Sinatra standards, and others are bemoaning the set lists. Dylan’s last two albums have been dedicated to cover versions of songs previously recorded by Frank Sinatra, and it seems certain that there were enough studio recordings to fill a third, fourth, and fifth album.

Shadows In The Night​ (2015), ​Fallen Angels​ (2016), and ​Triplicate​ (2017) may have perplexed and frustrated some fans, who have been waiting since ​Tempest​ in 2012 for a new album of self-penned Dylan songs. However, this departure will have come as no surprise for those who had followed interview comments that showed respect for the ‘crooners’ like Sinatra and Bing Crosby, the admiration and esteem showed by Bob Dylan during his performance of ‘​Restless Farewell​’ at Frank Sinatra’s 80th birthday tribute gala.

Born in 1941, young Robert Zimmerman was a child of the 1940s and 1950s. Rock and roll would have hit the teenage rebel with passion. However, the earliest musical influences he must have heard on the radio would have been the formative background soundtrack of his childhood - Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee, Hank Williams. Composers such as Johnny Richards, Carolyn Leigh, Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael, Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar, Rube Bloom and Sammy Gallop, Peter DeRose and Billy Hill. They wrote Bob Dylan’s earliest musical lexicon. Is it so surprising that he wants to record his tribute to their art?

Bob Dylan was listed as a mourner at Frank Sinatra’s funeral, and it was reported that he attended the vigil the night before the mass. (33) Dylan’s official statement was poignant and heartfelt.

“Right from the beginning he was there with the truth of things in his voice. His music had a profound influence on me, whether I knew it or not. He was one of the very few singers who sang without a mask. It’s a sad day.”

It is interesting that the most integral point for respect and admiration was Dylan’s approval of how Sinatra ‘sang without a mask’. This from a performer who has utilised masks and personae and obfuscating vagueness to the greatest effect throughout his whole career.

Perhaps what Dylan is striving for in these cover albums is to touch a piece of that openness and honesty - the almost childlike naivety of those songs. If these songs are important to Bob Dylan as influential childhood memories, it is a valuable decision to commit his interpretation of them.

Because they are not really ‘cover’ songs at all. They are ‘uncoverings’ as explained by Dylan himself when he said:

“I don't see myself as covering these songs in any way. They've been covered enough. Buried, as a matter a fact. What me and my band are basically doing is uncovering them. Lifting them out of the grave and bringing them into the light of day.” (34)

If Dylan believes in the raw honesty and unmasked authenticity of Frank Sinatra’s singing, then surely each cover performed by others ​is​ a literal cover. It adds a blanket of detraction and muddiness to the songs. Just as in his MusiCares speech he railed against singers who sing “every note that exists, and some that don't exist,” (35) it would not be a stretch of the imagination to consider that Bob Dylan had heard just so many karaoke versions of ‘My Way’ before deciding to rediscover these monumental iconic songs and bring them back to their simple roots of truth about the human condition - love, loss, struggle and joy.

And Bob Dylan’s voice and delivery is without doubt the high point of the current albums.

Melodiously sliding through the tunes with a smoothness that might not out-croon Sinatra, but that certainly surprises. His pared back arrangements are almost ‘cowboy’ in style, with Donnie Herron’s pedal steel guitar and viola replacing the orchestral and big band sweeps that backed Ol’ Blue Eyes. Dylan’s voice might strain for some of the higher notes, becoming a little hoarse on the longer held notes... but there is a clean and clear, enunciated and cared-for, respect for the lyrics and melodies.

On ​Shadows In The Night,​ ​Fallen Angels​ and ​Triplicate​, Bob Dylan’s voice and phrasing captures the haunting melancholy, the sadness that never becomes bitter, the aching loneliness, the timelessness of unsentimental nostalgia. His voice is smoky and familiar, yet unique. He vocally inhabits and evokes this black and white world. It is as natural to him as breathing. His phrasing on ​All The Way​ for example. Listen to how he runs phrases together so smoothly, taking pauses to emphasise certain words, holding certain notes, allowing others to trail off into silence, and hitting the final high note with clarity and a touch of vulnerability. Consider the vocal dexterity (and the well-held alveolar hissing sibilant /s/ in ‘kiss’, sounding just like the cooling effect on the protagonist’s heated desire) of ​That Old Black Magic​, and contrast it with the slow underplayed drama of ​Come Rain or Come Shine, or the well-placed and gentle tremolo effect used sparingly during ​It Had To Be You​.

When talking about Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan once said, ​“The tone of his voice, it’s like a cello.” (36) We can see in these three albums (Triplicate​ being Dylan’s first triple album of 30 songs) that Bob Dylan is also using his voice like another instrument. To list adjectives I thought of when listening to the albums, Dylan’s voice alternates between percussive, velvety smooth, teasing, witty, sustained and understated, undulating, and (of course) melancholy. 

Dylan is totally correct that these are not ‘cover songs’. They are an exploration of the great American Songbook, a rediscovery of truthful and heartfelt music, nostalgia and memory without the dripping sentimentality.

And if the split reaction of fans to the recent albums is anything to go by, the reaction when he finally puts out the often hinted at traditional polka album, well, that will be even more remarkable!

Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016

“Yea, but you’re not talking about Nobel Peace Prizes, you know. Come on, let’s... you know really.”
Bob Dylan (37)


Gordon Ball, a teacher at the Virginia Military Institute (39), outlines in his essay​ ​Dylan and the Nobel (40),​ how in 1996 he endorsed an application to the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy nominating Bob Dylan for the Nobel Prize for Literature. He admits that he is not a Dylan fan and his area of related expertise is the study of Allen Ginsberg and Beat Generation literature.

Before briefly discussing the role of Dylan’s voice in the consideration for the Nobel, it is first worthwhile taking the time to understand the nomination process.

Each year the Swedish Academy sends out requests for nominations of candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature to Members of the Academy, members of literature academies and societies, professors of literature and language, former Nobel literature laureates, and the presidents of writers' organizations. By April, the Academy narrows the field to around twenty candidates.

By May, a shortlist of five names is approved by the Committee. The subsequent four months are then spent in reading and reviewing the works of the five candidates. In October members of the Academy vote, and the candidate who receives more than half of the votes is named the Nobel Laureate in Literature.

No one can get the prize without being on the list at least twice, thus many of the same authors reappear and are reviewed repeatedly over the years.

Thousands of people send in unsolicited suggestions for Nobel Prizes. Only the Swedish Academy sends out requests for nominations of candidates to be considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

However, it is interesting as an exercise to consider the questions - how did Bob Dylan make the running for, and in 2016 winning, a Nobel Prize, regardless of the logistics and reality of nominations? And to what extent is his vocal delivery, combined with the oral tradition of his music, a contributing factor?

It is clear that Bob Dylan satisfies the Nobel Prize criteria in that the nominees for the Literature award should be reflecting idealism and integrity in addressing the human condition. Most people would agree that in these fields alone, Bob Dylan’s music has excelled over several decades. It is the literary element which draws debate, and is doing so today in the light of Dylan’s victory. Dylan’s best lyrics certainly can be read as poetry, and are all the more powerful in performance. So why would people question whether Bob Dylan is a suitable Nobel winner?

It might be a consideration that the perception of the songwriting art has been denigrated during the rise of the more vacuous ‘pop song’. This might create a preconceived notion that rock music is created solely for marketing and saleability, is not a poetic art form, and is limited in scope and structure by the constriction of the musical boundaries. Whether this preconception can be overcome is an interesting question. However, if we look at the history of poetry and song, the oral tradition, we can see that there is solid reason to accept a singer songwriter, moving away from the western shift that elevated the written word above the spoken, chanted or sung forms.

The Nobel committee has given awards to dramatists, mixed-media artists and orators (such as Winston Churchill in 1953, who beyond his written work was praised for his speeches and the effects they had in defending human values). So why not a lyricist?

In Greek lyric poetry the word ‘lyric’ is used because the poems were from the tradition of poetry sung or chanted to the accompaniment of the lyre. It is also known as ‘melic’ poetry from the word ‘melos’ meaning "song", from which we get the English word ‘melody’. In this sense, it is difficult to point to another iconic artist who has contributed more to re-establishing the high poetic form in modern culture. Bob Dylan embodies the oral traditions of balladeers and troubadours or Greek lyric poets, in combination with poetic and literary influences that permeate his work. (41)

And on a world stage Bob Dylan echoes the traditions of Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore or even the Bauls of Bengal who felt most at home visiting Bob Dylan in Woodstock. Wandering singers, learning from everyone and everything, sharing knowledge and insight and a love of wild living.

The last outback at the world’s end

I feel it is fitting to conclude with a quotation from Bob Dylan’s speech at the 2015 MusiCares Person of The Year ceremony, February 6th, 2015. Dylan said:

“Sam Cooke said this when told he had a beautiful voice: He said, "Well that's very kind of you, but voices ought not to be measured by how pretty they are. Instead they matter only if they convince you that they are telling the truth." Think about that the next time you are listening to a singer.” (42)

Think about that the next time you are listening to Bob Dylan.

More phases than the moon: an addendum

Only the mediocre are always at their best.”
Jean Giraudoux (43)  

Readers who are familiar with Bob Dylan’s oeuvre can undoubtedly reel off an extensive list of songs where they have heard Bob Dylan’s voice do something ​different ​or extraordinary. However, for more casual listeners I am including here a playlist of a few songs, in addition to the songs already mentioned above, where to hear them, and their release information. These songs are just a small sample of Bob Dylan’s voice fulfilling some of the effects mentioned above - representing a different character, utilising silence and pauses, integrating phonological modifications, exemplifying ambiguity of meaning through vocalisation and related methods.

Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie

Recorded live at Town Hall, 12 April 1963
Released on The Bootleg Series, Volumes 1-3, 1991

This is a spoken poem, not a song. The words here tumble quickly and to the edge of breath in parts. Dylan’s accent, his use of contractions, his beautiful imagery, assimilation and elision, His youthful voice rolling from one phrase to another, sometimes running lines together without pause, taking breaths whenever possible, pausing in unusual places, vocally jumping from one idea to the other, the beat and rhythm pounding like the rattle of the ‘fast flyin’ train on a tornado track’, seeking the answers to the questions and despair talked about in the verse. The journey takes us from rural idylls to the slums and ‘trash can alleys’ of urban decay, and it is incredible to hear someone who was only 22 years old at the time so artfully dissect the materialist society and the way that we are duped into seeking for answers in all the wrong places. The voice appears to have lived longer than the body it inhabits.

House of the Rising Sun

First performed at The Purple Onion or Bastille, St. Paul, Minnesota, June 1960
Recorded at Studio A, Columbia Recording Studios, New York City, New York, 20 & 22 November 1961
Released on Bob Dylan, 1962

A young Dylan tells the story of a woman from a troubled family who ends up in a women’s prison in New Orleans, with a voice of such authenticity that a listener would have trouble finding fault with his singing from a woman’s point of view.

See also, ​Dink’s Song​, The Home Of Bonnie Beecher, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 22 December 1961. Released on The Bootleg Series (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991, Volume1 (1991) and also on The Bootleg Series, Vol 7: No Direction Home (2005).

Black Cross

The Home Of Bonnie Beecher, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 22 December 1961.
Released on The Bootleg Series (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991, Volume1 (1991).

Black Cross (Hezekiah Jones) was written by Joseph Simon Newman who was the uncle of the actor Paul Newman. It was most famously performed by Lord Buckley (who had a substantial effect on Bob Dylan’s creative development). It is a harrowing moral tale of a southern lynching of a self-educated black man, and we can hear the spoken vocal effects of Bob Dylan as he tells the story. The rhythm and prosody, the drawled voices, the bellow of the preacher, the croak of sarcasm in the white lynch mob, the volume and tone and different accents catching the true nature of the characters in the tale.

She Belongs To Me

Recorded at Studio A, Columbia Recording Studios, New York City, New York, 14 January 1965.
Released on Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

Ambiguity. Who is ‘she’? What is the relationship between the singer and the female character? In the album version and subsequent live performances, vocal nuance and phrasing leads the listener down different paths.

One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)

Recorded at Studio E, Columbia Recording Studios, New York City, New York, 30 July 1975.
Released on Desire (1976).

A example of cross-cultural vocal assimilation and prosody, One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below) is a part of an album that has the protagonists searching for pyramids embedded in ice, visiting the beaches of Mozambique, escaping bandits in Durango, exploring very real legal injustice, and facing the (natural and human) chaos in Black Diamond Bay. Bob Dylan’s powerful voice here captures it all, with the gypsy feel of those on the fringes of society, the outcasts and outlaws. Dylan’s voice in the song reflects a Jewish cantor, gypsy music, and Arabian influences.

Pretty Saro

Recorded at Studio B, Columbia Recording Studios, New York City, New York, 3 March 1970.
Released on The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (2013).

Bob Dylan changes his voice and delivery style for these recording sessions. Here he takes the 18th century English ballad and sings it with a sweet and simple ‘crooning’ quality.

If anyone ever tells you that Bob Dylan can’t sing, play them this one song.

Tell Me Momma

Recorded at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, England, 17 May 1966.
Released on ​The Bootleg Series, Vol 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966 (1998).

Full-fledged rock star mode. The glissando, the elongated vowels, the beautifully vocalised howl, the assimilation.

Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again

Recorded at Columbia Music Row Studios, Nashville, Tennessee, 17 February 1966.
Released on Blonde on Blonde (1966).

For listeners wishing to hear what Bob Dylan called ‘that thin, wild, mercury sound’, ​Tell Me Momma​ played live, and ​Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again​, are classic examples.

“The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It's that thin, that wild mercury sound. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up. That's my particular sound. I haven't been able to succeed in getting it all the time. Mostly, I've been driving at a combination of guitar, harmonica and organ, but now I find myself going into territory that has more percussion in it and [pause] rhythms of the soul.” (44)

I Threw It All Away

Recorded at Columbia Studio A, Nashville, Tennessee, 13 February 1969.
Released on Nashville Skyline (1969).

This is pure Nashville. Bob Dylan family man; with a country style and a clean cut, down home feeling, but enough metaphorical lyrics to tip a sly wink and remind us that we are still firmly in Dylanesque territory. The deeper, more laid-back and softer vocal style is a nod to Hank Williams and the formative country singers of his youth, and Dylan chose to sing ​I Threw It All Away​ as the first of his three songs he performed on Johnny Cash’s inaugural television show. The show was filmed at the Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee, 1 May 1969 and broadcast on 7 June that year. The video clips are usually available online in various places and are well worth watching to see how Bob Dylan combines a change of physical look, dress, vocal style and facial expression to project a very different persona to that of his tour in 1966, which many of the viewers might have been expecting. He looked right at home sitting next to Johnny Cash at the Ryman Auditorium in the heart of the ​Grand Ole Opry​.

Lo and Behold!

Recorded at Big Pink's Basement, Stoll Road, West Saugerties, New York, May-October 1967.
Released on The Basement Tapes (1975).

This song is representative of the vocal style(s) being produced at Big Pink with The Band in 1967. Raw, rough and real. Mistakes left in. Chuckle and coughs as friends on the same creative pathway experiment with lyrics, melodies and sounds. The almost spoken and drawled verses are well timed with a mixture of well placed pauses, an expressive vocal effect with the change of syllable emphasis on ‘behold’ to place the stress on the first syllable, a beautifully rounded pronunciation of ‘mound’, elongated vowels, hurried words in parts, elision, assimilation and a general conversational prosody that counterbalances the almost howled but harmonised chorus.

Ain’t Talkin’

Recorded at Sony Music Studios, New York City, New York, February-March 2006.
Released on Modern Times (2006).

An encapsulation of Bob Dylan’s voice as an elder statesman of the damned. Interestingly sung in the first person, we feel that the character here is still active in the fight, still making his way through the ‘cities of the plague’, His heart is still burning and yearning for change. This is not a game, it is very real, and he is considering who remains loyal in the battle. However, there is a weariness, a concern that he is losing his powers, and a decision that despite the seeming futility, action is still the best way forward.

Dylan’s voice here is clear in articulation, the slight understated growls, the clipped enunciation, the emotion of repressed frustration in the structure and formality that counterbalances the chaos and pain. There is a nice contrast between the elongated vowels and the punctuated rhythm of intricate lines such as ‘​I’m not nursing any superfluous fears​.’ Like the protagonist, his voice falls and rises, growls, wanders, burns its bridges, and wearily warns his enemies not to mess with him before disappearing over the horizon.

All The Way

Recorded at Capitol Studio A Hollywood Los Angeles, February / March 2014.
Released on Fallen Angels (2016).

It is difficult to select a song to encapsulate for the listener the quality of Dylan’s voice on what have been dubbed the ‘Sinatra albums’ (45) as they are all fine examples of a versatile voice in full form. The album ​Shadows In The Night​ had a more melancholy atmosphere. Mellow and smooth, it still leaves the listener feeling somewhat lost and alone in this noirish and umbrageous world. ​Fallen Angels​ has a more upbeat feel, more of the big band atmosphere, and Dylan’s voice reacts to the change of tempo and attitude - or, more accurately, his voice sets the tone. ​Triplicate​ is a fine mixture of playful, upbeat and heartbroken melancholy.

All The Way is a slower song, a timelessly simplistic and lyrical pledge of eternal loyalty that doesn’t need any bells and whistles or vocal tricks. This is a song that shows how Bob Dylan can still vocally express a melody with tuneful clarity, honesty and authenticity. Clear, strong, an edge of vulnerability, and the essence of the human need for commitment and trust.

Footnotes:


1 Thorn, Max. “What Does Dylan’s Voice Sound Like? Let the Critics Tell You”. ​Vulture​ 13 September 2012 ​http://www.vulture.com/2012/09/what-does-bob-dylans-voice-sound-like.html​ ​Accessed on 2016-07-19

2 Pareles, Jon. “From Romance to Carnage: Review: ‘Tempest’ by Bob Dylan” ​New York Times ​10 September 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/arts/music/bob-dylan.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=13 47479494-gOM1BXqIGXc3FvYgz1QzzA​ ​Accessed on 2016-07-19

3 Daly, Sean. “Review: Bob Dylan's new album 'Tempest' is breathtaking but bleak.” ​Tampa Bay Times​ 10 September 2012​http://www.tampabay.com/features/music/article1250790.eceAccessed on 2016-07-19

4 Petridis, Alexis. “Bob Dylan: Tempest – review: Dylan's latest is angry, growling and mostly great fun. But comparing it to his best work is way over the top”. ​The Guardian​ 6 September 2012 ​http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/sep/06/bob-dylan-tempest-review​Accessed on 2016-07-19

5 Bowie, David, “Song For Bob Dylan” ​Hunky Dory​. RCA, 1971. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_for_Bob_Dylan

6 Billany, Fred. “A Wandering Troubadour With No Message For Anyone” ​Newcastle Evening Chronicle ​4 May 1965​ ​www.edlis.org/word​ p120-121

7 “Let Us Now Praise Little Men.” ​Time Magazine​ 31 May 1963, ​www.edlis.org/word​ p62 

8 Horace Judson interview, Savoy Hotel, London, England 9 May 1965. Pennebaker, D A. Bob Dylan: Dont Look Back. New York: Ballantine Books, 1968. www.edlis.org/word​ p151

9 Lebold, Christopher. “A Face like a Mask and a Voice that Croaks: An Integrated Poetics of Bob Dylan’s Voice, Personae, and Lyrics.” ​Oral Tradition​ Volume 22, Number 1. March 2007 http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/22i/Lebold.pdf​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

10 Lynch, Declan. “Bob Dylan: 75 years of total misunderstandings.” ​Irish Independent​. 29 May 2016 http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/declan-lynch/bob-dylan-75-years-of-total-misunderstandings-34754849.html​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

11 Rimbaud, Arthur. Letter to Georges Izambard; Charleville, 13 May 1871, https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Lettre_de_Rimbaud_%C3%A0_Georges_Izambard_-_13_mai_1871 Accessed on 2016-07-19

12 The quote has been attributed to many people. Actor George Burns also put it in his own 1980 memoir. The joke has been traced to a 1962 newspaper column by Leonard Lyons, in which actress Celeste Holm quotes an unnamed actor saying, ​"Honesty. That’s the thing in the theater today. Honesty... and just as soon as I can learn to fake that, I’ll have it made." Burns, George. The Third Time Around. New York: Putnam, 1980.

13 Gross, Jason. “Simon Frith Interview by Jason Gross” Perfect Sound Forever. May 2002 http://www.furious.com/perfect/simonfrith.html​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

14 Echard, William. Neil Young and the Poetics of Energy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005. Pages 194 - 197

15 “Paul Simon Gets Personal in New Rolling Stone Feature” ​Rolling Stone​ 28 April 2011 http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/paul-simon-gets-personal-in-new-rolling-stone-feature-20110 428​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

16 Dylan, Bob “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” ​The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.​ Columbia 1963 http://bobdylan.com/songs/dont-think-twice-its-all-right/​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

17 Smith, Joe, and Mitchell Fink. Off the Record: An Oral History of Popular Music. New York: Warner Books, 1988.

18 ‘Human brain becomes tuned to voices and emotional tone of voice during infancy.’ ​Eureka Alert​ 24 March 2010 ​http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-03/cp-hbb031910.php​ Accessed on 2016-07-19 

19 Prosody (linguistics) ​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosody_(linguistics)​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

20 Rings, Steven. “A Foreign Sound to Your Ear: Bob Dylan Performs “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” 1964–2009” ​Music Theory Online​ Volume 19, Number 4, December 2013 http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.13.19.4/mto.13.19.4.rings.php​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

21 Bays, Jeffrey Michael. “Sound: Hitchcock’s Third Dimension” ​Borgus​ June 2011 http://borgus.com/hitch/sound.htm​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

22 Buck, Gary. Assessing Listening. [Online]. ​“What is unique to listening” ​ Cambridge Language Assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001 http://www.cambridge.org/download_file/591332/0/ http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9780511732959​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

Definitions:
Assimilation​ in phonological modification, is when sounds influence the pronunciation of adjacent words in a way they wouldn’t be pronounced separately. So ‘won’t you’ often is spoken as ‘wonchoo’ or ‘didn’t you’ becomes ‘dinchoo’.
Elision​ is when a sound at the end of a word is dropped in everyday speech. Dropping the /g/ from the end of ‘blowin’’, or running two words together such as ‘nexday’ instead of ‘next day’, and ‘kind of’ becomes ‘kinda’.
Intrusion​ is introducing a new sound between words to ease the flow of speech. So, for example, an /r/ between the word ‘far’ and a vowel at the beginning of the next word. In English the final /r/ is usually silent in the word ‘far’, yet we clearly sound out the /r/ when saying ‘far away’.
Sandhi ​is the process whereby the form of a word changes as a result of its position in an utterance (for example, the change from a to an before a vowel).

23 Snedekera, Jesse and Trueswellb, John. “Using prosody to avoid ambiguity: Effects of speaker awareness and referential context” ​Journal of Memory and Language​ 48. 2003. http://www.ircs.upenn.edu/~truesweb/trueswell_pdfs/2003_JML48_103-130.pdf​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

24 Dylan, Bob ‘I Shall Be Free No. 10.’ ​Another Side Of Bob Dylan​. Columbia,1964. http://bobdylan.com/songs/i-shall-be-free-no-10/​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

25 ​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_and_tomorrow_and_tomorrow

26 Bob Dylan, at the San Francisco press conference, 3 December 1965. ​www.edlis.org/word​ p243

27 Dylan, Bob ‘Highlands.’ ​Time Out Of Mind.​ Columbia,1997. http://bobdylan.com/songs/highlands/​ Accessed 2016-07-19

28 Dylan, Bob. ‘The Groom’s Still Waiting At The Altar.’ ​Shot of Love​. Columbia, 1981 http://bobdylan.com/songs/grooms-still-waiting-altar/​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

29 Dylan, Bob, Christopher Ricks, Lisa Nemrow, and Julie Nemrow. The Lyrics: Since 1962 , 2014. Page 628

30 Anderson, Randy. An interview with DYLAN. ​The Minnesota Daily​, 17 February 1978. www.edlis.org/word​ p594

31 Gleason, Ralph J. “The Children’s Crusade.” ​Ramparts​ March 1966. ​www.edlis.org/word​ p304

32 Gilmore, Mikal. “Bob Dylan - After All These Years In The Spotlight The Elusive Star Is At The Crossroads Again.” ​ Los Angeles Herald Examiner​ 13 October 1985. www.edlis.org/word​ p885

33 A note from Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra’s funeral service, Good Shepherd Catholic Church, Beverly Hills, California, 20 May 1998. See ​www.edlis.org/word​ p1230

34 Greene, Andy. “Bob Dylan Releases Frank Sinatra Cover, Plans New Album.” ​Rolling Stone Magazine​ 13 May 2014 http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bob-dylan-releases-frank-sinatra-cover-plans-new-album-201 40513​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

35 “Read Bob Dylan's Complete, Riveting MusiCares Speech: Dylan thanks his supporters, denounces his detractors in epic acceptance speech”​ Rolling Stone​ 6 February 2015 http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/read-bob-dylans-complete-riveting-musicares-speech-20150 209​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

36 Gates, David. “Dylan Revisited.” ​Newsweek​ 6 October 1997. ​www.edlis.org/word​ p1192

37 ​ ​Elliot Mintz interview for the Westwood One Radio Station three hour broadcast, Los Angeles, March 1991. Transcript can be read at ​ www.edlis.org/word​ pages 1090-1100.

38 Bob Dylan Revisited. “Bob Dylan and John Henry Faulk.” 26 April 2012 https://plus.google.com/114972365014876681245/posts/D3yfaiSfXp9​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

39 Gordon Ball biography ​http://www.gordonballgallery.com/gordon_ball_bio.htm​ ​Accessed on 2016-07-19

40 Ball, Gordon. “Dylan and the Nobel.” ​Oral Tradition​ Volume 22, Number 1. March 2007 http://journal.oraltradition.org/issues/22i/ball​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

41 Greek lyric poetry ​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_lyric​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

42 “Read Bob Dylan's Complete, Riveting MusiCares Speech: Dylan thanks his supporters, denounces his detractors in epic acceptance speech”​ Rolling Stone​ 6 February 2015 http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/read-bob-dylans-complete-riveting-musicares-speech-20150 209​ Accessed on 2016-07-19

43 This quotation has been attributed to many writers. Giraudoux quoted in: Principal, Victoria. The Beauty Principal. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984. Page 117

44 Rosenbaum, Ron. “Playboy Interview, Bob Dylan: a candid conversation with the visionary whose songs changed the times.” ​Playboy- Entertainment for Men​ March 1978. See ​www.edlis.org/word p534 - 555

45 Here I would note that a Frank Sinatra song is rarely one with lyrics or music written by Frank Sinatra. A Frank Sinatra song usually refers to a song ​performed by​ Frank Sinatra.


(c) Tara Zuk, 2017 
All Rights Reserved



Do Cars Pass You Up on the Highway? 

 In June of 2014, ISIS magazine published an article by Tara Zuk. The article uses the information from her compilations on this website, and condenses it into a brief overview of Bob Dylan's fascination with cars and motorcycles.

Read the complete article in document form, or read below. 

Reference: 

Zuk, Tara. "Do Cars Pass You Up on the Highway?" ISIS 174, June 2014: 42-47 

___________________________________________________________________________________________


Following the public reaction to Bob Dylan’s 2014 Super Bowl advertisement for Chrysler automobiles, a brief overview of Bob Dylan’s youthful fascination with cars and motorcycles, and how this passion has touched his art and life can be an interesting avenue to pursue. Further detail can be found on the website, http://afterawar.yolasite.com/
 

 “Hibbing's got souped-up cars runnin' full blast on a Friday night
Bob Dylan, 'My Life in a Stolen Moment' (1963)

Robert Zimmerman’s need for speed developed early.

The newspaper article above [circa 1951?] shows a racing clinic for Hibbing Junior Chamber of Commerce. Prospective Soap Box Derby racer, Robert Zimmerman (second from the right) wearing a billed-cap, lays hands on a steering wheel for his Derby car.

The questions remain. What year was this? Did the racer get built? Did Bobby Zimmerman race on July 24 [1951?] at the second annual Hibbing Soapbox Derby race?

 And the interest only began with the Soap Box Derby.

Bob Zimmerman was born into a car owning family. Robert Shelton interviewed Bob Dylan’s parents in May 1968, and his mother Beatty Zimmerman reminisced.

Beatty: My father was Ben D. Stone. I had the pick of the crop. He was the lucky one. You must remember I always had a car. It was my father's but it was like mine. It was a four-door Essex. My Dad said, “You learn to drive, I’ll teach you.” I said, “You don’t have to.” I got in the car and drove away. I just had watched him a few times. Bobby is very much like I am. You either do or you don't. (Interview with Robert Shelton, May 1968)

Example of a 1930s model Essex 4 door sedan car

In his biography, No direction home: the life and music of Bob Dylan, Shelton (1986) points out that by the time Bob Zimmerman hit his teens in the 1950s, the traditional American 'folk heroes' who inspired the youth no longer rode horses.

They rode motorcycles, drove fast cars, and wore leather jackets.

Epitomised by James Dean and Marlon Brando, these were the 'wild ones' whose attitude and individuality spoke powerfully to the teenage Robert Allen Zimmerman.

‘In the basement den, Bob tried to explain that he had stayed to see part of the movie over again. He talked about James Dean and waved his hand towards the walls covered with pasted-up photographs of the dead actor.

‘“James Dean, James Dean, James Dean,” his father repeated. He pulled a magazine photograph of the actor off the wall. “Don't do that,” Bob yelled. The father tore the picture in half and threw the pieces to the floor. “Don't raise your voice around here,” he said with finality, stamping upstairs. Bob picked up the pieces of the photograph, hoping he might be able to paste them together. No, he wouldn't raise his voice around there.’ (Shelton, 1986, pp.23-24)

The best motorcycle rider in Bobby Zimmerman's hometown of Hibbing was Dale Boutang, a friend of Bob's who rode a Harley Davidson 74. Bob in turn bought a Harley 45. Bob's need for speed and rebellious adventurousness led to a reported close shave when racing a train across the tracks from the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Hibbing. Not the last motorcycle incident Bob would be involved in.

Apparently, Bob had several accidents in his father's car as well as on his motorbike (car-related incidents were allegedly reported to Abe Zimmerman with the euphemistic phrase, 'I broke the fan belt'). One accident allegedly involved an out of court settlement by Abe of an almost unbelievably high $4000. However, the worst was when Bob was riding his motorcycle fairly slowly, but hit a small three-year-old boy who ran out into the road and collided with the side of Bob’s Harley. The boy needed hospital treatment in Duluth, and Bob was badly shaken by the event. (Shelton, 1986, p.53)

Dave Engel (1997) tells us that early on, Bob did drive the family Buick, but he wanted his own car - more specifically, a pink and white '51 Ford convertible. Customized, lowered in back, minus the nose piece, with added dual exhaust pipes, fender skirts, fancy hubcaps.

A 1951 Ford convertible in blue and white, similar to the one owned by Bob Zimmerman in the late 1950s

Bob kept pressuring his father, Abe, "Gotta have that car", and eventually he convinced Abe to go look at it. He knew he really had to have the car when he found out it could get to Minneapolis and halfway back on a tank of gas. A few weeks later, the car was sitting in the Zimmerman driveway. Bob had it painted blue. It was a neat car to drive around town with the top down. But as mentioned, young Bob seemed prone to fender benders. (Engel, 1997)

It seems more than likely that his wild driving record, and his history of hanging with a tough crowd, will mean Bobby Zimmerman was known to  the Hibbing law enforcement officers during his teen years. Who were they?

 Photograph of the Hibbing police, contemporary with young Bob Zimmerman.From left to right: Ed Brigom, Richard (Dick) Frider, Dennis Romano and Archie Passeri. (1958).

In a 1999 interview for ‘On The Tracks’, Bob Dylan’s teenage friend LeRoy Hoikkala, recalled:

"The convertibles... Bob had a '54 Ford convertible, I had one also. They were used, but nice little cars. They were not expensive cars. We didn't have new cars. We used (our cars) to promote our dances or rock concerts. We would get these big speakers, horns and two big amplifiers on top of my convertible and we would sit there playing, to advertise our dances. You don't see that anymore!" (Lindh, 2000)

It was common practice back then for cars to be used in local promotion and raising awareness. Signs on the sides, speakers with music and announcements. The same technique of mobilized public performance for self-advertisement had been employed by The Golden Chords, of which Bobby Zimmerman was a member from 1957 to 1958.

In this photograph, The Rockets join a Howard Street parade [1958?] through Hibbing to promote an appearance sponsored by Bob Zimmerman’s local music store, Crippa Music. Photograph courtesy of LeRoy Hoikkala.

Cars were a symbol of freedom to the post-war youth of America, representing independence, financial stability, movement and an escape route from the small town mentality. But motorcycles represented rebellion, danger and an appealingly edgy cool hipness.

'In a decade of soft American affluence with no visible frontier to challenge, nothing was better than a bike - unless it was a guitar - to symbolize the young man's dream of sexual potency, to defy his father and his "safe" car. Harley and Davidson were the Lewis and Clark of the 1950s.’ (Shelton, p.44)

As Linda Fiddler, a high school acquaintance of Bob Dylan's remembered:

‘Bob was considered one of the tough motorcycle crowd.  Always with the black leather jacket, the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, rather hoody.  And Echo with her bleached hair and vacant look; That’s mostly how I first noticed him, running around with this freaky girl hanging on the back of his motorcycle, with her frizzy white hair flying and her false eyelashes.  It was shocking to me.  I tried not to be narrow minded, but I thought that crowd was a bunch of creeps.  We used to laugh at the sight of them on the motorcycles.  They used to zip through town and it was funny to see them. The thing is motorcycles were taboo because motorcycle guys were automatically bad.  I had to stay away from them.  They were terrifying, Bob with his big boots and his tight pants.’ (Scaduto, 1971. p. 20)

Marlon Brando in ‘The Wild One’ (1953) with his own Triumph Thunderbird 650cc. Was this the ‘big boots and tight pants’ look that kids like Bob Zimmerman were going for?

A few years later, just after his arrival in New York City, Bob Dylan recalled a moment with singer/songwriter Len Chandler - who became a real influence on Dylan’s early work - when Chandler’s daredevil exploits were somewhat edgy, even for our intrepid thrill-seeker.

One freezing winter's night I sat behind him on his Vespa motor scooter riding full throttle across the Brooklyn Bridge my heart just about shot up in my mouth. The bike was speeding on the crisscrossed grid in the high winds, and I felt like I could have gone overboard at any time -- weaving in and out of the night's traffic, it scared the lights out of me -- sliding all over the iced steel. I was on edge the whole way, but I could feel that Chandler was in control, his eyes unblinking and centered steadfast. No doubt about it, heaven was on his side. I've only felt like that about a few people. (Dylan, 2004, pp.91-92)

Len Chandler 1965
(David Gahr & Robert Shelton: The Face Of Folk Music, New York 1968, p. 191)

Hibbing's a good ol' town
I ran away from it when I was 10, 12, 13, 15, 15 1/2, 17 an' 18

I been caught an' brought back all but once”
Bob Dylan, 'My Life in a Stolen Moment' (1963)

The young Bob Dylan might never have physically run away from Hibbing (except in his imagination), but the idea of freedom and escape from the small town were probably never far from his mind. The folk, country and blues music he loved often concerned travelling. Moving on. Physical and emotional journeys of wandering. Lonesome highways. Elusive searches for creative and physical freedom.

Bob Dylan explains in his Chronicles: Volume One (2004), that when he discovered Woody Guthrie, it was life-changing for him.

'My life had never been the same since I’d first heard Woody on a record player in Minneapolis a few years earlier. When I first heard him it was like a million megaton bomb had dropped.

'I suppose what I was looking for was what I read about in On the Road - looking for the great city, looking for the speed, the sound of it, looking for what Allen Ginsberg had called the “hydrogen jukebox world.”'(Dylan, 2004)

The influence of Woody Guthrie, the Beats, Jack Kerouac, the music... it all led back to that fundamental need to find something bigger and experience that freedom. Hitting the road, hitchhiking, catching trains, riding with friends, owning cars and motorbikes. The symbolism, the movement, the idea of a life and mind in motion and never static.

These are important to the subsequent music, art, ideas, and personae of Bob Dylan.  


One of the defining moments of the Dylan myth is the motorcycle crash, which led to him taking time out of the public eye for a couple of years.

In the mid 1960s, Bob Dylan owned a 500cc, red and silver 1964 Triumph Tiger 100 motorbike. On the cover of his 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited,  Bob Dylan is photographed wearing a Triumph motorcycle t-shirt. We remember that his teenage heroes James Dean and Marlon Brando owned Triumph motorcycles.


At a
 press conference on the afternoon of December 3 1965, at the KQED Studios on Bryant Street San Francisco, the first question was about this t-shirt and photograph. The intensely-posed question was asked by someone later identified as 'Eric Weil', who was rumoured to have subsequently spent time in prison and a mental hospital. (Butterfield, 2007-2011)

Eric Weil: I'd like to know about the cover of your forthcoming, erm, album... the one with 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' in it. I'd like to know about the meaning of the photograph of you wearing a Triumph t-shirt.

Bob Dylan: What do you want to know about it?

Eric Weil: Well, I'd like to know if that's an equivalent photograph, it means something, it's got a philosophy in it (Dylan and the audience laugh)... I'd like to know visually what it represents to you. Because you're a part of that.

Bob Dylan: Um. I haven't really looked at it that much.

Eric Weil: I've thought about it a great deal.

Bob Dylan: It was just taken one day when I was sitting on the steps, you know. I don't really remember it or think too much about it.

Eric Weil: But what about the motorcycle as an image in your songwriting? You seem to like that.

Bob Dylan: Oh, we all like motorcycles... to some degree.  (Gleason, R.J., 1967)

July 29 1966 was the date of the now mythical motorcycle crash, when Bob Dylan is reported to have come off his famed Tiger 100 after the brakes had locked on a road in Woodstock near his manager Albert Grossman's house. Alleged fractured vertebrae and a lengthy withdrawal from the public eye followed. “Truth is," Dylan wrote in Chronicles (2004, p.114) "that I wanted to get out of the rat race.”

Was Dylan even riding his Triumph when he crashed on the highway? John Hammond Jr. once added a further twist to the tale.

John Bauldie interviewed John Hammond Jr. on October 26 2006. The interview was published in issue 44 of The Telegraph fanzine, Winter 1992.

The topic of conversation turned to Dylan's motorcycle crash. Hammond said:

‘Ah, the crash. Well, Jack Elliott had left a bike in Bob's garage up there. It was an old AJS, a great old bike, 500 single, the kind you can break your leg trying to kickstart. The tyres were flat and I think Bob wanted to have the thing repaired, so... but maybe I shouldn't say this. This is for Bob to talk about it if he wants to talk about it. It's not my place to talk about it. Bob did get hurt. I imagine it shook him up to the point where he looked at his life very carefully.’  (Bauldie, 1992)

Jack Elliott confirmed his ownership of an AJS 500, which he says he took back to America from England in 1963, in an interview with the Montreal Gazette. (Montreal Gazette, 2006)


The motorcycle black madonna
Two-wheeled gypsy queen

Bob Dylan, Gates of Eden (1965)

Sometimes, a car is just a car. Sometimes, a bike is just a bike.  

However, despite Bob Dylan's dismissive and bemused attitude toward questions during the 1965 San Francisco press conference about the 'philosophy' of the Triumph motorcycle t-shirt, there can be detected a purpose and intention in the use of references to cars and motorbikes in his songs.

Taking a brief look at just a few songs, in a cursory sweep rather than a comprehensive analysis, we can begin to notice some recurring themes and symbolism.

 We see, for example, that a vehicle is often used as a metaphor for a relationship. In ‘Tangled up in Blue’ (1974), two people are in an enclosed physical or emotional space, moving through the moment inextricably linked. The line, 'We drove that car as far as we could / Abandoned it out West' is followed immediately by the protagonists splitting up as soon as the journey is over and the car (relationship) is abandoned.

 There is an extension of this metaphor in ‘Brownsville Girl’ (1986) and also in Dylan's cover of Hank Snow's ‘Ninety miles An Hour (Down A Dead End Street)’ (1988), which fits so well with Dylan’s own works; the entire song is a metaphor for a doomed and adulterous temptation. It is of note that the couple who are attempting to avoid the unfaithful pursuit of their desires are in a car, the symbolic representation of stability and responsibility, trying and failing to pay heed to the stop lights and warnings. The impulsive and seductive Devil is riding a rebellious motorcycle.

 ‘Let's Keep It Between Us’ (1982) includes the line 'backseat drivers don’t know the feel of the wheel'. If the car is a symbol of a relationship, or even representing movement along the road of life, the backseat drivers are the people who are vocally interfering in a person's chosen route without being aware of the position, difficulties or goals of the 'driver'.

 Dylan refers to cars as representing energy, drive, restlessness and the potential for self-destruction (the 'crash') as well as progress. ‘This Wheel's On Fire’ (1967) is an example of such, in a youthful and passionate way, with a touch of irony, sarcasm and gall every bit as much as it is a Biblical/Chaucer/Shakespeare/King Lear "bound upon a wheel of fire" reference .

Embodying the reflection of someone older, we hear in ‘Summer Days’ (2001), 'Well, I got eight carburetors and boys, I’m using ’em all / I’m short on gas, my motor’s starting to stall’, which could allude to prolonging that drive and motion, pushing oneself to the limits, but recognizing the inevitable constraints of age.  

Urban decay and dissolution is represented by the use of negative car images - 'boulevards of broken cars' (‘Beyond Here Lies Nothin’’ (2009))  and 'Where all the cars are stripped between the gates of night' (‘Golden Loom’ (1975)). They could be said to emphasise the dismal atmosphere of anti-social, emotionally disconnected environments against which the singer is building a contrasting positive image of internal emotional connection. The broken down and abandoned cars reflecting the broken and abandoned personal relationships in a disaffected modern world.

In some songs, specific car models are mentioned and the make of car is significant.

 A Cadillac car is an American luxury vehicle. When it is mentioned in ‘Talkin' World War III Blues’ (1963), the car is in a showroom 'uptown' and is only accessible to the protagonist because of the lack of others around to prevent his joy ride. It is a symbol of extravagance and conspicuous consumption  - he is alone, believing himself to be the last human being alive in the world, with the freedom to do almost anything... and he chooses to take a Cadillac for a spin!

Returning to ‘Summer Days’ (2001), the song mentions 'driving in the flats in a Cadillac car' but the girls describe the song’s protagonist as 'a worn-out star'. Along with his pockets being 'loaded', the car is a symbol of wealth and power against the background of the formerly inhospitable and semi-industrialized environment and the put-down of faded glory by the self-confident youths - which he does not take seriously, but appear to irk him all the same, resulting in a growled, tongue-in-cheek, refutation, “How can you say you love someone else / you know it’s me all the time...”.

The song ‘From a Buick 6’ (1965) is a bittersweet, metaphor-laden, pounding blues from the album Highway 61 Revisited. The Buick is another American car - not an expensive luxury car like the Cadillac, but still ‘above the norm’ for people earning more than the average. Although only mentioned by name in the title, the juxtaposition comes in writing from a position of relative comfort against the darkness of the other images. It could be the “Buick 6”, the specific model from 1914 to 1930, echoing the blues songs of that time. And  it could at the same time bring to mind a later family car, as Dylan mentions in Chronicles how his father had an ‘old Buick Roadmaster’ into which he would load the Zimmerman boys for weekend trips out of Hibbing to visit family in Duluth. (Dylan, 2004)

Early Blues era 1916 Buick 6 sales catalogue

‘Union Sundown’ (1983) is a song with a clear political point. When the protagonist says 'the car I drive is a Chevrolet' it is a best-selling American car, but it is from a company who have outsourced their production over the years ('it was put together down in Argentina / by a guy makin' thirty cents a day'). It is a statement about  the loss of American jobs, the downsides of capitalism and the mistreatment of foreign workers within a single line. This is more poignant as the car is so indicative of core American culture and pride in the post-war years. Dylan is singing here about similar issues to those raised in the media by his February 2014 Chrysler commercial.

In ‘High Water (for Charley Patton)’ (2001) Bob Dylan sings, 'I got a cravin’ love for blazing speed / Got a hopped-up Mustang Ford / Jump into the wagon, love, throw your panties on the board'. The Mustang is a sports model of the American automobile giant, the Mustang I was built in 1961, the production model Mustang came onto the market in 1964. The craving for speed and the sexual comment to throw your panties on the [dash]board, often misheard as overboard, can be seen as a reference to trying to regain that feeling of freedom, living on the edge and sexual potency - back when he wasn’t short on gas with his motor starting to stall? Certainly, it hearkens back to the emotions and symbolism of the vehicles from Dylan's teenage years. A hopped-up car has had the engine given added power, a hopped up person is stimulated with the aid of drugs.

The 350 car Hibbing Drive-in Theater, 313 Mesabi Drive, Hibbing, MN 55746, opened in 1955 and was sold by the family in 1980. It closed in 1985. 

Bob Dylan grew up as a teenager in 1950s America. It was the age of drive-in movies, hot rods, motorcycles, and drive-through restaurants with car-hop service. The teen movie idols were nothing without their ‘wheels’. Financially, cars were becoming more affordable for the average family and it became part of the ‘American Dream’ to explore those endless open highways. Rock ‘n’ roll continued the American automobile love affair. Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley eulogised the motor vehicle, while many popular songs focussed on such cars as the Rocket 88, Hot Rod Lincoln, Brand New Cadillac, Coupe de Ville and even the odd Thunderbird. 

Young Bobby Zimmerman was not immune. Music, freedom, rock ‘n’ roll, girls, the open road and the allure of power, independence and beauty in heady combination.

Consider those embedded seam lines of car-based imagery and metaphor threading their way through Bob Dylan’s songs, poetry and writing; the various influential road trips he took with friends and colleagues at different points in his life (a complex subject that warrants treatment in an article of its own);  the fact that even sections of Bob Dylan’s iron gate sculptures for his ‘Mood Swings’ exhibition (2013) include recycled car parts. Omnipresent automobile influences impact his art. These things run deep.


‘how come you're so afraid of things that dont make any sense to you? do people pass you up on the street all the time? do cars pass you up on the highway? how come you're so afraid of things that dont make any sense to you?’ (Dylan, 1971)

Bob Dylan selecting pieces for his sculptures from the ‘Auto’ section of his scrap metal collection. Photograph by John Shearer, 2013.

References:

Bauldie, J., 1992. Interview: John Hammond Jr, The Telegraph (44)

Butterfield, M., 2007-2011, Zodiac killer facts. [online]  <http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/belli.htm[Accessed 3rd March 2014]  

Dylan, Bob, My life in a stolen moment, Columbia Records, 1963

Dylan, Bob. Tarantula. New York, N.Y: Macmillan, 1971.

Dylan, Bob. Chronicles. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.

Engel, Dave. Dylan in Minnesota: just like Bob Zimmerman's blues. Rudolph, Wis: River City Memoirs-Mesabi, 1997.

Gleason, R.J. 1967, Bob Dylan gives press conference in San Francisco, Rolling Stone Magazine, December 14, 1967. [online]

<http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bob-dylan-gives-press-conference-in-san-francisco-19671214> [Accessed 3rd March 2014] 

Lindh, Lars. An exclusive interview with LeRoy Hoikkala, On the tracks : the unauthorized Bob Dylan magazine, Grand Junction, Colorado, USA : Rolling Tomes Inc. Issue 18, Spring 2000.

Perusse, B., 2006. Q&A with Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Montreal Gazette, October 3, 2006. [online] <http://www.canada.com/story.html?id=76e782ad-1226-43af-9b73-8ba3fee2eb52>  [Accessed 3rd March 2014]  

Scaduto, Anthony. Bob Dylan: an intimate biography. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1971.

Shelton, Robert. No direction home: the life and music of Bob Dylan. New York: Beech Tree Books, 1986.

Shelton, Robert. Interview with Abraham and Beatty Zimmerman. Hibbing, May 1968

(c) Tara Zuk, 2014
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