An Examination of the Physics of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

"I don't remember a thing about Rolling Thunder. It was before I was even born." --Bob Dylan

The film begins with some nostalgic footage of a magician making his assistant disappear and re-appear. It's a metaphor for the story you are about to see, of course. A little hocus pocus as we go back in time, and maybe a little hokum, too.

Then we find ourselves at the 200th Bicentennial, the tall ships and the mayhem of that mid-Seventies moment in time. There's a bit of Nixon footage, then Gerald Ford, and the stage is set with a reference to Bob as Mr. Tambourine Man who states, "Life isn't about finding yourself. It's about creating yourself." (Best line in the film? Maybe one of the best lines ever?)

It's a great place to begin. If that statement doesn't sum up the 78 years of Bob Dylan's life and career, then you haven't been paying attention.

Much has already been made of the mixing of reality and fiction in Martin Scorsese's second Dylan documentary on the Rolling Thunder Revue, so I will just make comments on some things that jumped out for me personally.

Early on, Bob mentioned "the idea of having a jug band." That jug band feel, on a grand carnival scale, was part of what he did in fact create. A hallmark of jug bands is the informality and the camaraderie.

Publicity still that everyone seems to be using.

When asked where the name Rolling Thunder came from, he described the sound of rolling thunder that rumbled across the stratosphere one evening while thinking about all these things. I am sure that it happens in all parts of the country, but the rolling thunder in Northern Minnesota's skies can be exceptionally powerful when the arctic and equatorially driven weather fronts collide. It was only later that he learned that Rolling Thunder was also the code name for Nixon's carpet bombing of Cambodia a few years earlier.

Masks and "Truth" were two of the threads running through the story here. As Dylan explains, "When somebody's wearing a mask, he's gonna tell you the truth." Of course with so much fictional flak getting flung into the mix, you don't know if he's being earnest here or just playing with our heads.

The manner in which the story is told, like a traditional documentary, gave the whole of it a feel of veracity, even when the characters were bogus. The snippet interviews did achieve one thing for sure: we gained a range of perspectives so as to see this flash from history in a variety of ways. Even when incoherent the collage/montage made an impression.

Ronnie Hawkins compares Bob to a gladiator. Sizzling violinist Scarlet Rivera's summing up was priceless: "Mr. tambourine man gives us the opportunity to be whoever we wish."

In my notes I scribbled the words, "High holy gypsy holiday" which was either something someone said or my interpretation of what I was seeing.

Another feature of the film was its ability to convey the chaos of the tour as well as the love affair between the players and their audiences. The rough edges of this Revue undoubtedly contributed to the remarkable music that was generated. I'll try to explain this by contrasting with a couple other performers I'd seen in 1973-74 Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick tour and Emerson Lake and Palmer. In both cases they were in the spotlight to showcase their music and their talent. ELP were exceptional. In both cases, however, the shows were so scripted one wonders where the "heart" was.

By way of contrast, Dylan seriously comes off as from another galaxy. The RTR was the complete antithesis of a scripted concert tour.

As you watch Dylan singing and moving about, interacting with the various performers, you can't help but be struck by the energy. This energy emerges from the tension created by its lack of structure, its freedom within form, its uncertain destination.

The concert camera work was exceptional, too. Look at those eyes. At times you can see lightning flashin' out from Dylan's eyeballs as he sings about Isis, Hurricane and all those other great themes from his Desire album.

Because of Scarlet Rivera's visits to perform in the Northland in recent years I have no doubt that many of us here were especially thrilled to see so much footage featuring her violin-work that so contributed to the unique Desire sound.

The film has received much fanfare from the critics, though not all have been equally on board. Olivia Elston's review in the Indiana Daily Student had this to say regarding what she saw as a shortcoming: "While 'Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story' will be welcomed by Dylan fans who may want to relive the tour or even see it for the first time, it tends to be a little lackluster. Behind the scene clips do not offer much excitement or insight to the concert tour as a whole."

Being a Dylan fan, these little side eddies were not an impediment, though I understand how they could be for some.

As for the physics behind the tour, it's based on the formula e=mc2. Albert Einstein demonstrated that there is a relationship between mass and energy. The conversion of rest energy to other forms of energy occurs in ordinary chemical reactions, but much larger conversions occur in nuclear reactions. What Dylan did with the RTR was to bring all these various elements into play, creating a chemistry whose chemical reactions resulted in some remarkably explosive releases of energy.

If you don't like that explanation, then MC in this equation represents Magical Carnival which when multiplied produced the energy that we saw flashing from Bob's eyes. You saw it, right? Inexplicably intense, riveting and empowering.

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BONUS TRACK

Louie (L) and Mr. Tambourine Man.

It may as well be noted that Bob's childhood friends Louie Kemp and Larry Kegan both appeared briefly. That was Larry in the back of the van singing "Your Cheatin' Heart" with Bob. And as for Louie, though a bit part, he had his fingerprints on a lot of what happened behind the scenes as producer of the tour.

To learn more about Louie, here's a half-hour interview on SiriusXM radio.

Themes include how the RTR got started, what Bob Dylan was like as a kid, and how his book Dylan & Me got written. The anecdotes here are a foretaste of many other stories that have yet to appear in all those other books we sifted through for "the good stuff."