One of the Dylan albums I have been listening to a lot lately is his Victoria's Secret Exclusive
Lovesick. This 2004 release is a collection of nine great songs spanning the arc of his career. The playlist includes She Belongs to Me, Don't Think Twice, To Ramona, Boots of Spanish Leather and It's All Over Now, Baby Blue from the first decade of his career. Then closes out with four late career songs from
Time Out of Mind to
Love & Theft. "Things Have Changed" is the second to last track and I find myself repeating it each time I play this
Lovesick CD. As a result, the song, its lyrics and the way he delivers those lyrics has really gotten into my head.
As for the lyrics, this really is something of an unusual, even bizarre, song on one level. In a few minutes I will compare it to Salvador's Dali's
Hallucinogenic Toreador. Like much of Dali's surrealistic painting, it's also infectious. And when contrasted with "The Times They Are A-Changin'" certain features especially stand out. In this case I will contrast
Toreador with Picasso's explosive
Guernica.
There are few long-time Dylan fans unfamiliar with this anthem of the Sixties and his third album wearing the same name.
Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’
Each verse has a singular aim, the first verse setting the trajectory. "Listen up. You see what's happening. It's time to act."
The second verse is directed to writers and critics. "This is a unique time in history. Pay attention."
Verse three is directed to our political leaders. Each line in the stanza serves that end. "Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall."
Verse four speaks to the mothers and fathers in our land and the widening generation gap.
Finally, we return to the overarching message. Things are changing, with the very last line echoing a passage from the Bible (Matthew 20:16), as if the truths here were a prophetic utterance from on high.
THINGS HAVE CHANGED
When dissecting "Things Have Changed," Dylan's Oscar-winning contribution to
The Wonder Boys, we find a song both similar and dissimilar. The similarity comes in the structure. We get a batch of words, with lines that rhyme, followed by the recurring theme from which the title is extracted. "I used to care, but things have changed."
Whereas with "Times Are A-Changin'" each verse is crystal clear as regards its meaning, "Things Have Changed" is the very definition of ambiguity.
What's more, and this is what has struck me about the song, the lines are interchangeable, and actually have no relationship to one another except inasmuch as they are sung in conjunction with one another. Watch this.
A worried man with a worried mind
No one in front of me and nothing behind
There’s a woman on my lap and she’s drinking champagne
Got white skin, got assassin’s eyes
I’m looking up into the sapphire-tinted skies
I’m well dressed, waiting on the last train
Standing on the gallows with my head in a noose
Any minute now I’m expecting all hell to break loose
Each of the images is specific, but very few lines are actually related to one another, other than the woman in line three and the suggestion that she's got white skin and assassin's eyes. But even that is only implied. What if he were referring to himself with white skin and assassin's eyes, since the next line is he himself looking into sapphire-tinted skies?
If this is a description of a scene, are they sitting outside. Where? At a train station?
The gallows is a pretty specific image, too, but can plainly be a metaphor. And the statement that any minute all hell could break loose is punchy, captures a sense we've all had at one time or another, but what is happening?
The elements are very specific, but the overall meaning is completely ambiguous. You could change multiple sentences anywhere along the way and not change anything. For example, in the second verse he sings:
Gonna take dancing lessons, do the jitterbug rag
Ain’t no shortcuts, gonna dress in drag
Only a fool in here would think he's got anything to prove
But you can insert anything for some of these lines and it would change nothing. The lines in maroon are my inventions. (Not saying these are good lines, just that I don't think they change the meaning of the song.)
Gonna walk through a storm, gonna fill my bag
I've never been afraid to kiss a hag
Only a fool in here would think he’s got anything to prove
Stick my fingers down my throat, make myself gag
Clean up the dishes with a greasy rag
Only a fool in here would think he’s got anything to prove
I mean it seems almost anything would work because the verses aren't focused on saying anything. But whoa,
the way he sings it still
floors you.
A lot of these lines could have been borrowed from films he was watching or books he's been reading. That is part of
Scott Warmuth's schtick.
This Rolling Stone article points to the line "Don't get up, gentlemen, I'm only passing through" as having originally come from the mouth of Vivien Leigh in
Streetcar Named Desire.
This is not to suggest the song doesn't make connections with listeners. In point of fact, it continually makes connections, but in a more convoluted way than many of his other songs. The third verse has a set of truisms that connect with the listener, but aren't necessary to connected to each other, except they do make a picture, a
Hallucinogenic Toreador.
I’ve been walking forty miles of bad road . Possibly True
If the Bible is right, the world will explode . Sort of True
I’ve been trying to get as far away from myself as I can . Possibly True
Some things are too hot to touch . True
The human mind can only stand so much . True
You can’t win with a losing hand . Possibly True
Then he says he feels like falling in love with the first woman he meets, and putting her in that wheelbarrow to roll her down the street. It's an image that's easy to picture, but where does it go? It affirms the refrain for sure. People are crazy and times are strange.
GUERNICA
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| Guernica. Click to enlarge. |
If you've ever seen Picasso's Guernica in real life, it's power is difficult to dismiss. A massive painting written in response to the bombing of a Basque town of the same name during the Spanish Civil War. Like the cover of album
The Times They Are A-Changin', Guernica is painted in black, white and greys. And like the song, every element contributes to show the horror of this incident which has become itself a metaphor for modern war in which civilians are the ones who suffer. (cf.
The Cold War's Killing Fields)
It was also painted at a significant moment in time. Ultimately a reproduction of this was created for the United Nations. War is a horror, it says.
Dylan's song was likewise "painted" during a significant moment in time. It spoke of an upheaval taking place that would rock the nation. An despite it's reference to a moment in time, it continues to be relevant in its timeless way, the same as so many of Dylan's prophetic songs, and Picasso's
Guernica.
THE HALLUCINOGENIC TOREADOR
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| "The Hallucinogenic Toreador" |
Dali's striking
Toreador stands 15 feet high and can be seen at the Dali Museum in St. Augustine. It's absolutely stunning in person, like most of his work. And like many of his paintings, the picture is comprised of optical illusions. In this case, it's a painting of a pair of Venus de Milo statues, which when viewed in an alternative manner become re-assembled as the image of a bullfighter.
Dali combines a number of other elements to produce the effect, including bees, dots of color, shadows. And in the upper left we see Gala, his wife and muse, who is a feature of many Dali paintings.
When all is said and done, you can lose yourself in the elements or come away with the bigger--and in real life it is a much bigger--picture. And like Dylan's
Things Have Changed, it makes an impression.
It's noteworthy that neither Dali nor Dylan explained their work and let their works speak for themselves. As a result, critics have endlessly dissected and analyzed the symbols and images in both of their creative contributions.
* * * *
Here's another example of what I'm saying from the song's last verse. Dylan sings:
Mr. Jinx and Miss Lucy, they jumped in the lake
I’m not that eager to make a mistake
Notice that he doesn't link these two, yet they stand side by side. He could have written, "I'm not that eager to make
that mistake" or "I'm not that eager to make
their mistake." Instead, he just throws in a line that rhymes with lake, so he could have just as easily said, "I'm just diggin' through the fridge looking for something to bake." Or "I'm finished with this garden, gonna hang up my rake." Or "I'm a little too tired to be on the make."
Whatever line you throw down changes nothing because when you finish the refrain it still rings true.
People are crazy, times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed
What do you think?
* * * *
RELATED LINKS
Picasso's Guernica
Picasso's Guernica Revisited
Dali's The Hallucinogenic Toreador
Dylan and 50 Years of Change
Lyrics: Things Have Changed
