Another Dylan Masterwork: Ain't Talkin'

It's been a while since I heard Ain't Talkin', the closing track on Dylan's 2006 album Modern Times, but whenever I do it sends me. Saturday night I heard it played on Highway 61 Revisited, the Dylan Hour radio show here in the Northland hosted by Miriam Hanson. It's a moving song with lots to commend it. 

Modern Times was Dylan's first album to become #1 in the U.S. since Desire in 1976. (EdNote: Scarlet Rivera, whose sizzling electric violin was featured on Desire and in Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue, has been here in the Northland this weekend.) And the album was hailed as the top album of 2006 in Rolling Stone's list of Top 50 for that year. Here's a deeper dive into some features of this sprawling, 8 minute-plus folk ballad. 

It was the third album written and produced by Dylan under his pseudonym Jack Frost. The song features a lone pilgrim navigating a desolate, morally bankrupt world, hence its ongoing relevance. It's dark, introspective and vivid. Some mark it as one of Dylan’s most evocative works of the 21st century, blending spiritual yearning, vengeance, and existential despair. Rolling Stone ranked it third among Dylan’s best songs of this century.

The lyrics of "Ain’t Talkin’" paint a portrait of a weary, silent wanderer moving through a bleak, apocalyptic landscape. Or as this writer on Reddit says, "For me, it perfectly achieves an atmosphere that Dylan had been trying to capture for a long time, that of a man moving through a world gone wrong - a world which feels distorted and disconnected." 

Andy Greene of Rolling Stone called it “Dylan at his bone-chilling best,” evoking a “desolate, violent landscape” straight out of Cormac McCarthy.

Something I've said about Dylan--for decades probably--is that no one, going all the way back to the beginning, writes songs like this guy. Hard Rain, Desolation Row, It's Alright Ma, Changing of the Guards, right up to the present, lyrics that surprise and capture the imagination, sung in evocative tones that resonate in your bones. Here's the opening stanza:

As I walked out tonight in the mystic garden

The wounded flowers were dangling from the vines

I was passing by yon cool and crystal fountain

Someone hit me from behind

That's an opening stanza that hits ya. 

The refrain, “Ain’t talkin’, just walkin’,” underscores the narrator’s withdrawal from communication, reflecting a rejection of superficial engagement with a corrupt world. This silence suggests both resignation and resilience, as the narrator trudges through a “weary world of woe” with a “heart burnin’, still yearnin’.” The refusal to speak underscores a deeper soul-searching, as if words can't capture the weight of the narrator’s experience.

The song wrestles with the tension between righteousness and moral compromise.

They say prayer has the power to help

So pray for me mother

In the human heart an evil spirit can dwell

I’m trying to love my neighbor and do good unto others

But oh, mother, things ain’t going well

Like many of his songs across the decades this one is steeped in Biblical imagery, The opening reference to the “mystic garden” can easily be a reference to Eden, and those "wounded flowers dangling from the vine” indicating the starting point of man's earthly sojourn is after the Fall. Being “hit from behind” can evoke betrayal and divine judgment, possibly alluding to Genesis 3:24 (expulsion from Eden) or Judas’ betrayal in Gethsemane. The plea for prayer (“They say prayer has the power to help / So pray for me mother”) and the acknowledgment of “an evil spirit” in the human heart underscores the inner nature of this spiritual battle. 

Of course the ambiguity is also endless with Dylan. When it comes to the details, what he says and what it means is frequently open ended, even when the primary thrust is perfectly rendered and underscored: alienation and emptiness.

The song’s landscape is a “world mysterious and vague,” filled with “cities of the plague” with  The narrator’s journey to “the last outback at the world’s end” suggests a quest with no destination, amplifying the sense of futility. (This phrase, borrowed from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, was one of several that leaped out at Harvard Professor Richard Thomas, author of Why Bob Dylan Matters.)  Lines like “The suffering is unending / Every nook and cranny has its tears” convey a world in moral and spiritual decay, resonating with Dylan’s recurring fascination with apocalyptic themes.

The repeated “heart burnin’, still yearnin’” (lifted from the Stanley Brothers’ “Highway of Regret”) reflects an unfulfilled longing, possibly for love, redemption, meaning or a lost ideal. References to “thinkin’ ‘bout that gal I left behind” and “got to get you out of my miserable brain” suggest personal loss, perhaps romantic, adding a layer of human vulnerability to the narrator’s stoic facade.

Musically, the song is a minor-key folk ballad with a hypnotic, repetitive structure. (For some reason "What Was It You Wanted?" from Oh Mercy comes to mind. The band—featuring Dylan on vocals and guitar, Stu Kimball and Denny Freeman on guitars, Donnie Herron on viola, Tony Garnier on upright bass, and George G. Receli on drums and percussion. The relentless, understated groove replicates and complements the narrator’s ceaseless walking, while Dylan’s weathered voice is (as always) perfectly suited to the song’s bleakness. 

As the Beatles noted, "Boy, you're gonna carry that weight a long time," I'm reminded of the Christina Rosetti poem Up-Hill.  

Does the road wind uphill all the way? 

    Yes, to the very end.

Will the day's journey take the whole long day?

    From morn to night, my friend.

Some say the song's ending suggests a note of optimism when it shifts to a major chord from the despairing minor progression, the first glimmer of hope amidst all this despair. Bleakness, however, is nothing new with Dylan, of course. "It's not dark yet, but it's getting there," is a far cry from Abbey Road's "Here Comes the Sun."

To some extent "Ain’t Talkin’" is a theme Dylan has explored throughout his career, particularly in his later works like Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft.

Dylan played this song 118 times in concerts from 2006. His last performance of "Ain't Talkin'" was in Rome, November 7, 2013.

More can be said here, but I'll leave off and let you draw your own conclusions.

Full lyrics Here

https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/aint-talkin/ 

Official recording from Modern Times

https://youtu.be/fcHJsW8V5uo?si=vIFqiEQ9VWvF04ON

Bonus Track: Powerful cover of this song by Bettye LaVette**

**I discovered this on Tony Attwood's always thought-provoking Untold Dylan

RELATED LINK

Every Grain of Sand: Dylan Finds a Basis for Hope in the Darkness of Despair

Dylan's Ain't Talkin': Spiritual Light Shines Through This Lament of a Weary Traveller on Life's Long Road

Modern Times was Bob Dylan's 2006 followup to his critically acclaimed Love and Theft. Being 65 when he produced this album, he became the oldest living person at the time to have an album enter the Billboard charts at number one, a feat which he repeated at age 67 with Together Through Life. (Tony Bennett became the oldest performer to have a #1 on the Billboard charts when he introduced his Duets II in 2011.)

"Ain't Talkin'" is the last cut on the album, right after "When the Levee Breaks". Weighing in at nearly nine minutes it seems to show Dylan's fondness for opening his albums with an upbeat tempo and closing with a lengthy lament. eg. Highlands, Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. Tempest ends with a pair: it's title track and Roll On John.

While listening again to the album yesterday I was struck by all the Biblical allusions. The opening line has the narrator walking out into a mystic garden, and several thoughts combine here, the immediate one being the Garden of Eden and the old hymn "I come to the garden alone..." Dylan's affiliations with Christian and Jewish mysticism are well known, but less known is that this song
derives its chorus from a Stanley Brothers song, "Highway of Regret".

But which garden is it really? Jesus frequently withdrew from the crowds to be alone with the Father, to be nourished in prayer. During Passover it was the Garden of Gethsemane was he was betrayed by Judas and taken.

The second line brings to mind a line from the Song of Solomon, "catch the little foxes that spoil the vines.." This is the first clue something isn't right in Paradise. Getting hit from behind is further evidence. What ought to be a beautiful place, was intended to be so, is fraught with sorrows.

As I walked out tonight in the mystic garden
The wounded flowers were dangling from the vines
I was passing by yon cool and crystal fountain
Someone hit me from behind
Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Through this weary world of woe
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
No one on earth would ever know

Instead of saying "prayer has the power to help" the narrator states, "They say" so as to keep his own convictions ambiguous. But he is correct to note that evil isn't "out there somewhere" but resides in the human heart, and though he is trying to live his creed, it isn't going so well.

I find Dylan's use of the word ain't and the leaving off of the g at the endin's of words has been part of Dylan's songwriting from the beginning. "Ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe..."

They say prayer has the power to help
So pray from the mother
In the human heart an evil spirit can dwell
I'm trying to love my neighbor and do good unto others
But oh, mother, things ain't going well
Ain't talkin', just walkin'
I'll burn that bridge before you can cross
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
They'll be no mercy for you once you've lost

In verse three the narrator bares his soul, discouraged by how worn down he is by weeping, then expresses his what he is really feeling, though he knows it is wrong.

Throughout the book of Psalms in the Old Testament we see passages in which David expresses very strong emotions of despair, anger and jealousy. Not all Psalms express the tranquility of Psalm 23. Psalms 55 and 73 reveal a man deeply troubled and what he wants to do or say is expressed in his prayer that ultimately circles round -- after deep honesty -- to a place of trust. Verse three is that valley of fog and shadows in the midst of the "cities of the plague."

I'm picturing here the chaos that defines the setting in Dylan's 2004 film Masked and Anonymous. The plague is real. How we respond is what reveals who we are.

Now I'm all worn down by weepin'
My eyes are filled with tears, my lips are dry
If I catch my opponents ever sleepin'
I'll just slaughter them where they lie
Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Through the world mysterious and vague
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
Walking through the cities of the plague

Here's another picture of the world we live in that demands that everyone be "up to the minute" on everything.

The whole world is filled with speculation
The whole wide world which people say is round
They will tear your mind away from contemplation
They will jump on your misfortune when you're down
Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Eatin' hog-eyed grease in hog-eyed town
Heart burnin' – still yearnin'
Someday you'll be glad to have me around

While listening to a lecture by Jordan Peterson this week he stated that when Nietzsche had Zarathustra declare that God is dead, what he was saying are that the foundations of our civilization are gone. The inevitable result is the collapse of the structures it supported, and in point of fact that was the outcome as we saw massive horrors committed in the name of idealistic ends in Germany, the Soviet Union and China. And it's not over yet. At some point Peterson stated (and this is a paraphrase) the reason why our contemporary world is run by Machiavellians is that the ruling philosophy of the day appears to be "If all truth and morality is arbitrary, then the only way to decide what is right and wrong is Brute Force."

This next stanza brings together all these ideas into one. The first line speaks to the Machiavellian ethic that dominates the halls of power with the fourth line referring to "our Father who art in heaven" whom Nietzsche has declared dead.

They will crush you with wealth and power
Every waking moment you could crack
I'll make the most of one last extra hour
I'll avenge my father's death then I'll step back
Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Hand me down my walkin' cane
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
Got to get you out of my miserable brain

The next stanza brings the previous thought home. The narrator is one of many such travelers who also share this faith that has been mocked and denounced, that once permeated Western Civilization but has been dismissed.

All my loyal and much-loved companions
They approve of me and share my code
I practice a faith that's been long abandoned
Ain't no altars on this long and lonesome road
Ain't talkin', just walkin'
My mule is sick, my horse is blind
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
Thinkin' ‘bout that gal I left behind

The first line in this next stanza directly connects to Ezekiel's vision of the four living creatures and the wheels. Much can be said about these wheels. Ezekiel 1:16 states, "This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like topaz, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel." In other words, Ezekiel is trying to describe something akin to a gyroscope, a notion worth further elaboration.

The line about walking with a toothache in his heel reminded me of the song from Godspell where a disciple sings, "I'll put a pebble in my shoe, and watch me walk..." There something monastic about this kind of act.

It's bright in the heavens and the wheels are flying      
Fame and honor never seem to fade
The fire's gone out but the light is never dying
Who says I can't get heavenly aid?
Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Carrying a dead man's shield
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
Walkin' with a toothache in my heel

This theme of unending suffering is not new. "Everything's Broken" tells the extent of this world's brokenness on Oh Mercy (1989). And the kinds of fears referred to here are detailed in "Shot of Love" (Shot of Love, 1981).

The suffering is unending   
Every nook and cranny has its tears     
I'm not playing, I'm not pretending
I'm not nursing any superfluous fears   
Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Walkin' ever since the other night
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
Walkin' ‘til I'm clean out of sight

Here at the end is the clincher. Who is the ma'am he's talking to? And who is the gardener? The answer to that can be found in this passage from the Gospel of John.

As I walked out in the mystic garden
On a hot summer day, hot summer lawn
Excuse me, ma'am I beg your pardon
There's no one here, the gardener is gone
Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Up the road around the bend
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
In the last outback, at the world's end

* * * *

I've chosen to analyze this as it struck me, and I am certain that others have already investigated the other sources of many of these lines, and if someone points me to those I would welcome that information. I've not done that digging yet myself.

My guess is that if Christopher Ricks had published Dylan's Visions of Sin after Modern Times he would have included a discussion of this song in his chapter on Fortitude.

Meantime, the road goes on... Keep walkin'.  

Another great song... 

Anyone Want To Buy A Historically Significant Restaurant? Zimmy's Is For Sale

As I walked out tonight in the mystic garden
The wounded flowers were dangling from the vines
I was passing by yon cool and crystal fountain
Someone hit me from behind
~ Bob Dylan, Ain’t Talkin’

That's how it hit me. A rubber truncheon. Point blank, base of the skull. The news that hit me in this unexpected manner was the recent closing of Zimmy's Bar & Restaurant in Hibbing.

Ain't Talkin' is a favorite of mine. As with so many other Dylan songs there's a direct connection vibrating through the lines capturing something real and when you live that something the words burst to life and you know you're not the only one to have felt it.

For year's I'd heard about Zimmy's and finally made it… What a treasure. Owners Linda and Bob Hocking transformed the space into a wonderful Dylan tribute in the heart of Hibbing. Dylan fans from all of the world have been making a trek to Dylan's home town. The house he grew up still stands. The high school stage he performed on resonates with vibes from the era. And Zimmy's seemed to define itself by maintaining the legacy.

The art and the vibe were what struck me the first time we ate there. (OK, the food was good, too.) It became my inward aim to have one of my own Dylan paintings hanging on the walls there with all the other work.

Ironically I finally had a chance to meet Bob & Linda Hocking at a private party this past winter, an acquaintance I welcomed. Good people. Very special people. I began looking forward to this year's Dylan Days more than ever, hoping to contribute a piece to the art event they do each year. Then the news came down. The brightness that Zimmy's gave the world was snuffed. "Every nook and cranny has its tears."

But there's still something worth talking about. Zimmy's is for sale, and not only can but should be preserved.

Here's something to consider. When my family moved to New Jersey in 1964 they bought a house for $24,000. Four bedrooms, partial basement split level. By the 21st century the value of this piece of real estate, on 3/4's of an acre, reached $450 K.

Now get this, for only $475 K you can own this historic dream. I do not know if the art goes with it, but the art is worth half that and more. (I am biased. This could be be hyperbole.) What would you rather own, a house in New Jersey with no revenue stream and lots of taxes, or a historical restaurant which has visitors from all over the world? Having lived in that house in Jersey, I would much rather have Zimmy's.

Across the street: The Androy Hotel

The building itself is historically significant. A sign out front tells this abbreviated version of its story:

“Mesaba Street Railway Power Plant and Waiting Station, 531 Howard Street. During the heyday of mining on the Mesabi Iron Range electric cars rumbled down Howard Street every 15 minutes, picking up passengers from all across the Range who came to shop Minnesota’s new commercial district.

“The Mesabi Interurban Railway Company ran trollies between Gilbert and Hibbing commencing on Christmas Eve 1912. When North Hibbing moved south, one of the most significant events was the rerouting of the Streetcar down the newly built Howard Street business district. Constructed in 1921 by the Oliver Iron Mining Company for the Mesaba Railway Company, this building served as the power plant and western terminus for the 41 mile electric rail line. Passengers purchased their tickets at the ticket office; women and children waited in the “Women’s Comfort Room”; and men socialized in the “Men’s Smoking Room.” Two tracks, large steel doors, and a 49 foot long repair pit accommodated streetcars tied up in the carhouse for the night.

“At the demise of the Railway Company, the building became home to Furlong Oil Co., Shell Tire, and eventually Mancuso Oil.

“In 1983, it was remodeled into the Atrium Restaurant, and its historical architecture was kept intact. In 1990, the Zimmy’s Restaurant was added to compliment the Atrium and to pay tribute to Hibbing’s own music icon/poet laureate, “Bob” Dylan (Robert Zimmerman). As a result of this, Zimmy’s is not only a fine eating establishment, but a restaurant that exhibits “Bob” Dylan memorabilia, and gives customers/Dylan fans, alike, a sense of his influence on this Music industry, as well as, our American culture.

“A project by Hibbing Kiwanis, Iron Range Research Center (IRRRB), Hibbing-Chisholm Rotary, and Central Business Commission.”

Not far away is the house on Howard Street where young Bob grew up, carving his initials into the wall next to the phone. Makes me wonder what evidence of my youth was left in my house inBridgewater.

As for the bygone times of Hibbing in general and Zimmy's in particular, much more could be said, as the town and the building have a well documented history. If you're seriously interested in scoping out more info on this deal contact Larry Furlong at Village Realty. I for one will be glad you did. As long as you keep the name.

Meantime....  life goes on all around you. Embrace it.

EdNote: The painting Don't Look Back pictured above is one of my own and was not featured at Zimmy's. It was only my dream to have it there one day.