Dylan On Loneliness: References A-Plenty, Sorrows Run Deep

This week I was thinking about Eleanor Rigby and that famous line, "Ah, look at all the lonely people, where do they all come from?" This song influenced me to post Thursday about David Bowie's Space Oddity, though I was only scratching the surface on this topic. 

A 1950 bestseller, The Lonely Crowd, addressed it from another angle. It's a striking title. How can you be lonely when you're with a crowd? Is that an oxymoron? Not really. It's probably quite common, even too common.

When I turned to my Bob Dylan Concordance, I was not surprised at how many of his songs include the words lonely, lonesome and loneliness.

For example, Dylan used the word Lonely 13 times in his songs. One of my favorites, Born in Time, begins, "In the lonely night..." Time Out of Mind has a lot of moody lyrics, including this line from Can't Wait: "While I'm strolling through the lonely graveyard of my mind..." What an evocative image. Think about it. 

In I Shall Be Released he references "this lonely crowd." And Dylan uses the word thrice in his latest album, Rough & Rowdy Ways -- twice in Murder Most Foul and once in False Prophet: "I go where only the lonely can go." 

Dylan uses the word Loneliness four times, as follows:
"There are those who worship loneliness, I'm not one of them." (Dirge/Planet Waves)
"In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space..." (Every Grain of Sand/Shot of Love)
"Father of loneliness and pain..." (Father of Night/New Morning)
"Loneliness, tenderness, high society, notoriety..." (No Time to Think/Street Legal)

As if that weren't enough, the word Lonesome appears over 25 times in Dylan's songs. In 1962 he sang "I wanna leave my lonesome home." Going forward he sings about all kinds of lonesomes: Lonesome shadows, the lonesome ocean, a lonesome day, a long lonesome road, the lonesome nighttime, the lonesome sparrow that sings in Gates of Eden, a lonesome grave, a lonesome organ grinder, lonesome fear and lonesome clouds are just a few of the places where the word is an adjective expressing lament. Yes, "today has been a sad and lonesome day" he sings on Lonesome Day Blues (Love and Theft) and "lonesome comes up as down goes the day." (That latter is an especially interesting image from Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie) 

His lonesomes are not always due to longing for a lost love. In The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll it's a reference to the pathos of injustice.

* * * 

Dylan didn't originate the idea of lonesomeness. Elvis ("Are you lonesome tonight?), Hank Williams ("I'm so lonesome I could cry"), Billie Holiday ("The Lonesome Road"), and a host of others before him have testified to this feature of the human condition. 

On the other hand, there's another aspect of being alone that shouldn't be overlooked. I'm referring to the satisfaction of healthy solitude. Being comfortable with our selves in solitude is a good thing. Most artists, writers and musicians value that timeless feeling of being absorbed in one's work. 

In short, being alone does not necessitate our feeling lonely. How are you doing today?

Related Link
Bob Dylan's Dreams

Duluth Dylan Fest 2021