Nine Opening Lines To Dylan Songs That Impress Me

After Paul Simon's Graceland album came out, incorporating the emerging "world music" vibe into American rock in such a marvelously new way, I watched a video documentary about Simon returning to South Africa, performing and touring. In one segment he was teaching a group of young people on how to write songs. What I recall specifically was a statement that went like this: "Begin with one true sentence and follow it with another."

This memory came to mind this past week because of the opening line of a Bob Dylan's "Sugar Baby", which has been re-playing itself in my head for the past two weeks or more. "I got my back to the sun 'cause the light is too intense." It is such a great line to open a song with. First off, it captures a truth on a physical level, but because it's Dylan or because it's poetry it whets the appetite for whatever will follow, and definitely because it's Dylan you don't know what to expect but know it will be satisfying on some level.

The combination of these two ideas (Paul Simon's advice and the first line of Sugar Baby) led me to go back in time to find opening lines to various songs from the Dylan catalog that I thought especially fascinating, powerful or enigmatic... opening lines that made you say to yourself, "Wow, where is this going? I'm on the train. Let's find out."

It's generally agreed that Dylan is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, lyricists of all time. I thought it might be fun to lay out a handful of opening lines to various songs from his catalog. Here are ten, an arbitrary number, because it could have been a dozen or twenty or more. Enjoy.

Sugar Baby
I got my back to the sun 'cause the light is too intense
I can see what everybody in the world is up against

I started with this because it's an opening line I have been mulling over for somewhere in the neighborhood of two weeks or more. "I got my back to the sun 'cause the light is too intense." For some reason it just floors me. The song is from Love and Theft, which was released on 9-11... the day of the disaster that altered contemporary American history. Dylan is spot on with the follow up line, giving ambiguous definition to the first line. This is a great album and a rich opening line.

Visions of Johanna
Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it

It's generally agreed that Blonde on Blonde is one of Dylan's great albums, some say his best. The artist reached for great heights and, according to the historians, became uncompromising in his effort to produce that sound that he aspired to. But for those who find lyrics stimulating and significant, this album is filled with dazzling original work. "Visions of Johanna" is such an achievement.

Like many of the rest of these opening lines I'm in awe at how he lays down a story, line after line, with such originality. He is the consummate storyteller producing layered enticement. Ask yourself, "If I were hearing this for the first time, where is this going?" And where it goes flows so naturally, and unnaturally, out of these splendid opening lines.

Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)
Señor, señor, do you know where we’re headin’?
Lincoln County Road or Armageddon?
Seems like I been down this way before
Is there any truth in that, señor?

As nearly all Dylan fans and followers know his career has unfolded in a series of phases with transitions. Street Legal is the Seventies album that preceded his Gospel period which kicked off with Slow Train Coming. Several songs hint toward the change which was to come, most overtly this one.

Although "Señor" is literally the Spanish word for "Mister" it is also the word used for "Lord" in Latin American churches. It implies "Master" as well. The opening line references the classic emblem for the end times, Armageddon. It also makes the listener wonder the very thing that singer is taling about... where is this song going? Seems like we've been down this road before, but is it only an echo? Once you're hooked in you go with it, confident of a payoff.

Like a Rolling Stone
Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall”
You thought they were all kiddin’ you

It's not possible to talk about great opening lines without going here to one of the great songs in rock history, so ahead of its time, so pointed and refined. Once you know the song you can see how the whole is contained in the kernel of this introduction. And when you think about it, this song ties to the first in this list: the light is so intense. It's not pretty. Look at where you were, and where are you now?

Desolation Row
They’re selling postcards of the hanging
They’re painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town

Any number of songs from this period do it to me, but this one, when I am on the road, is the song of choice to make me feel at home. If you don't know the song, how can you possibly comprehend where it's going by this opening. The only thing you know is that it's totally original and you really must go with it to find a key to this parade of images. Some believe there is no key, but I take another stance, that the last stanza opens a door so we catch a glimpse.

Ballad of a Thin Man
You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say, “Who is that man?”
You try so hard
But you don’t understand
Just what you’ll say
When you get home

Right off, those ominous introductory piano chords let you know this no ordinary song. Holy buckets, where's this one going? Some day I will write all my thoughts on this song, but here I will only suggest that it is one of the boldest songs of its era, almost disorienting by the imagery it hits you with. John Lennon references it in Yer Blues, side three of the White Album.

All Along The Watchtower
“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief

This pair of lines so resonates with the human spirit, expresses so much. There's a discussion taking place, a joker and a thief. You want to know what it's about, where it will go next. How can you not? But anyone who has taken a nominal interest in poetry or in Dylan will grasp that the lines evoke so much more. It is not only about their situation, temporal and local, but easily conveys human universals.

Not Dark Yet
Shadows are falling and I’ve been here all day
It’s too hot to sleep, time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I’ve still got the scars that the sun didn’t heal

Like so many of Dylan's songs it's not just what he sings but how he sings it that moves you. Time Out Of Mind has a number of songs that appear written and sung by a heavy-hearted, world-weary sojourner. Not Dark Yet shows that he understands what it's like to stand at the edge of the abyss, what it's like to have been shattered. Will the songwriter find a basis for hope?

Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands
With your mercury mouth in the missionary times
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes
Oh, who among them do they think could bury you?

Three songs here from Blonde on Blonde, the third in Dylan's trilogy that cemented his stature as an artist. Sad-Eyed Lady was the last cut on the double album and one of the longest of his many long songs.

It's a song that has been both praised and vilified as noted in this entry from the Understanding Bob Dylan blog. Once again, just the manner in which he sings it conveys something.

There's something dreamlike about the imagery, and like dreams you don't always know where those images come from, or even what they mean, yet they are interesting. There's something happening here, but do we really have to know what it is? Like a Dali painting it's engaging even when we're not sure how to define it.

* * * *
As any Dylan fan can attest, this could easily be a much longer blog post. There are so many great opening lines one could talk about. What are some of your favorites?

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Engage it. 

All Along the Watchtower and John Hinchey's Like a Complete Unknown

If anyone is interested in simply studying the poetry of Bob Dylan, that is, to study his songs and their lyrics as poetry, I highly recommend John Hinchey's Like A Complete Unknown. Hinchey at one time taught literature at Swarthmore College and has been long time editor of the Ann Arbor Observer. He brings insights that often might escape the casual listener, especially as regards Dylan's more surreal and ambiguous songs, an ambiguity that seems to be a hallmark of his career.

What Dylan does that many, if not most, great writers do is to derive insight and imagery from direct observations of literal, concrete things, much like French Impressionists and the resurging "en plein air" art movement.

Hinchey himself is a vibrant writer, so writer-critic wrestles with songwriter-artist in this 270 page overview of Dylan's poetry from 1961-1969. Hinchey stated his intention to write four subsequent volumes, a decade by decade panoramic overview of the tapestry that Dylan has woven with words, though I'm not sure how far these winds have carried him.

I find it interesting that Hinchey called Dylan's John Wesley Harding album "the comeback of all comebacks." (Years later Dylan critics would point to Time Out of Mind and say the same.) It is an album very different from his previous series of in your face snarl and vim, following on the heels of Blonde On Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited. Harding was not my favorite Dylan album at the time, in part because I didn't care for the recording quality. It felt thin. But the songs have a lot of meat.

The most evocative song in this collection, and most memorable in part because of Jimi Hendrix's wonderfully haunting rendition, is "All Along the Watchtower". From the first line, it carries you into a vivid sandstorm of expectation.

ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER

"There must be some way out of here" said the joker to the thief.
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief

Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth

None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.”

"No reason to get excited", the thief he kindly spoke.

"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke;

But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,

So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view

While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,

Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

Copyright ©1968; renewed 1996 Dwarf Music

So, what does it mean? Here we are more than forty years later and the song still intrigues. Who are the joker and the thief? What is the moment in time that is being defined here?

There are a variety of websites where song meanings are discussed. Some of these interpretations of songs are quite amusing, but a brisk read often unveils new glimmers of light for previously shadowed text. Songs like "Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harem or "Horse Latitudes" by the Doors will bring on interesting comments. So does Watchtower, wrapped in mystery as it is.

Hinchey sees the joker and the thief as representing the sacred and profane parts of Dylan the trickster, "mythic master of limits and boundaries." Hinchey writes that the difference between the two, both here and elsewhere in Dylan's work, "is that the joker merely evades limits; the thief finds ways to render them permeable."

The commentary in Hinchey's book is too lengthy to re-record here. Needless to say that he and others writing of the song see in it an "apocalyptic moment" toward which this scene is leading. I myself get mesmerized by how much vivid content this tightly coiled song contains while still remaining shrouded.

What follows here is an alternative shade of interpretation from one of the websites I noted where people share their attempts to explain lyrics. This was posted by someone with the handle eveland on 11-30-2004.

I remember reading an article about this song when it first came out (I believe 1968) by Paul Williams in Crawdaddy magazine, which was a cheaply produced, but very serious, intellectual magazine published by Williams. The thing that stuck with me from the article was that Williams compared the structure of the song to a moebius strip (because the starting point of the lyrics is actually in the middle of the song & the song opens with the middle part of the lyrics) & felt it gave the song a claustrophobic feel (because you come into it & leave it in the middle). The starting point would be "All along the watchtower" & then after the line "Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl", the next line would be "There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief", the joker & the thief being the two riders who were approaching, of course. This makes perfect sense to me & seems right. As far as the actual meaning, my own opinion is that it's a philosophical piece about how one finds meaning in a chaotic & very imperfect world. The joker sees this world & can't take it seriously because it's so false & is depressed because he can't find a way to make sense of it. The thief has come to this same realization in his past, but has found a way to move beyond it & create his own meaning. So it is, in effect, a parable about existentialism. Or maybe I'm totally wrong... 

What I do know is that the song has continued to hold up for more than four decades, simple and dense, perpetually hinting toward a revelation that is perpetually elusive, and so Dylanesque.

EdNote: The numerous Dylan-themed blog entries are in preparation for next Tuesday's concert in Bayfront Park. This is a slightly edited version of a 2008 blog entry.

All Along the Watchtower, Revisited

Every Sunday evening Carmody's Pub in Downtown Duluth offers up a trivia contest, and this week was no exception. Being that we're in the middle of our North Country Dylan Celebration, the theme was properly oriented to the man whose 72nd birthday is being honored this week.

Twenty-five multiple choice questions were presented, and as last year many were pertained to exceedingly obscure details from the life of our contemporary bard. One in particular produced an especially amusing answer. The moderator, a bearded fellow suitably named McKinnon (this being an Irish pub), had asked the question, "Which Dylan song has he played more than any other?" The answer, if you wish to verify, can be found at www.bobdylan.com where the lyrics of every Dylan song can be found, along with the number of times each has been played in concert. Several, like Ballad of a Thin Man and Highway 61 Revisted have been played more than a thousand times, 1082 and 1780 respectively. But none exceeds All Along the Watchtower, which Dylan has played in concert 2,125 times to date. 

It was comical to overhear a group of young people say somewhat confusedly, "But that's a Hendrix song." It has to make you smile.

Hewitt Station performing All Along the Watchtower.

Last night Duluth Dylan Days moved to Beaners Central for an open mic night. Singer/songwriters were invited to sing a Dylan tune and one of their own compositions. Hewitt Station hosted, opening with a gravelly Girl from the North Country. Later in the program Hewitt sang a heartfelt rendition of All Along the Watchtower and one couldn't help but be reminded of the evening before.

* * * 

If anyone is interested in simply studying the poetry of Bob Dylan, that is, to study his songs and their lyrics as poetry, I commend to you John Hinchey's Like A Complete Unknown. Hinchey at one time taught literature at Swarthmore College. He brings insights that often might escape the casually listener, especially in the more surreal and ambiguous songs.

What Dylan does that many (if not most) great writers do, is to derive insight and imagery from direct observations of literal, concrete things. His language, however, explodes with splashes and starbursts of creative exuberance.

Hinchey himself is a vibrant writer, so writer-critic meets songwriter-artist in this 270 page overview of Dylan's poetry from 1961-1969. Hinchey stated his intention to write four subsequent volumes, a decade by decade panoramic overview of the tapestry that Dylan has woven with words.

Hinchey called Dylan's John Wesley Harding album "the comeback of all comebacks." It is an album very different from his previous series of in your face snarl and vim, following on the heels of Blonde On Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited. This was not my favorite Dylan album at the time, in part because I didn't care for the recording quality. It felt thin. But the songs have plenty of meat.

The most evocative song in this collection, and most memorable in part because of Jimi Hendrix's wonderfully haunting rendition, is All Along the Watchtower. From the first line, it carries you into a vivid sandstorm of expectation.

ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER

"There must be some way out of here" said the joker to the thief.
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief

Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth

None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.”

"No reason to get excited", the thief he kindly spoke.

"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke;

But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,

So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view

While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,

Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

Copyright ©1968; renewed 1996 Dwarf Music

So, what does it mean? Here we are forty-five years later and the song still intrigues. Who are the joker and the thief? What is the moment in time that is being defined here? 

There are a variety of websites where song meanings are discussed. Some of the interpretations of songs are quite amusing, but a brisk read often unveils new glimmers of light for previously shadowed text. Songs like Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harem or Horse Latitudes by the Doors will bring on interesting comments. So does this song, wrapped in mystery as it is.

For me it's the first line that gets you. "There must be some way out of here..." Out of these circumstance? Out of this corner I've painted myself into? Out of this world and it's sorrows? The next line unveils a little more. Confusion. "I can't get no relief." The situation is a conundrum that toys with his mind.

Hinchey sees the joker and the thief as representing the sacred and profane parts of his Dylan the trickster, "mythic master of limits and boundaries." Hinchey writes that the difference between the two, both here and elsewhere in Dylan's work, "is that the joker merely evades limits; the thief finds ways to render them permeable."

The commentary in Hinchey's book is too lengthy to re-record here. Needless to say that he and others writing of the song see in it an "apocalyptic moment" toward which this scene is leading. I myself get mesmerized by how much vivid content this tightly coiled song contains while still remaining shrouded.

What follows here is an alternative shade of interpretation from one of the websites I noted where people share their attempts to explain lyrics. This was posted by someone with the handle eveland on 11-30-2004.

I remember reading an article about this song when it first came out (I believe 1968) by Paul Williams in Crawdaddy magazine, which was a cheaply produced, but very serious, intellectual magazine published by Williams. The thing that stuck with me from the article was that Williams compared the structure of the song to a moebius strip (because the starting point of the lyrics is actually in the middle of the song & the song opens with the middle part of the lyrics) & felt it gave the song a claustrophobic feel (because you come into it & leave it in the middle). The starting point would be "All along the watchtower" & then after the line "Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl", the next line would be "There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief", the joker & the thief being the two riders who were approaching, of course. This makes perfect sense to me & seems right. As far as the actual meaning, my own opinion is that it's a philosophical piece about how one finds meaning in a chaotic & very imperfect world. The joker sees this world & can't take it seriously because it's so false & is depressed because he can't find a way to make sense of it. The thief has come to this same realization in his past, but has found a way to move beyond it & create his own meaning. So it is, in effect, a parable about existentialism. Or maybe I'm totally wrong... 

As I was saying, the song toys with your mind. Pure Dylan.

Tonight you will not want to miss Dylan movie and music night at Redstar Lounge at Fitgers. John Bushey has assembled an underground film collage of live Dylan performance which will be shared beginning at 8:00 p.m. Music by Snobarn to follow. Celebrate with us.
 

I Reek, Therefore I Am

I remember a guy on the Johnny Carson show who was a bus boy who cleaned Richard Nixon's spot while he had dinner with Nikita Kruschev during Kruschev's visit in the late 50's. Nixon had only taken one or two bites out of his sandwich (Nixon had been doing all the talking) and the bus boy felt it was so important he simply could not throw it away. He wrapped it and froze it, and it became the cornerstone of his uneaten sandwiches collection. The guy said he had 3,000 sandwiches from all kinds of famous people, I believe, and was hoping Johnny would let him have an unfinished Carson sandwich.

That story reminds me of how my cousin Gary got started with his baseball card business. It began with a lucky find as we were exiting the 1963 All Star Game. I kicked something with my foot, he bent down and retrieved a baseball that had been signed by all of the National League All Stars. Years later, while a fireman in Ponca City, Oklahoma, Gary Reed made this ball the centerpiece of his baseball cards and collectibles business.

In the same vein, Horace Waterman has the world's largest collection of discarded scraps of paper from the wastebaskets of famous writers. His family has been in the business of sifting through mountains of useless notes and discarded scraps for more than six generations. (His great great grandfather made a fortune in the blackmail business before having to flee England in the late 1800's.)

Here are some famous lines that were discarded before the memorable one's came into being. I pulled them from Waterman's eccentric Facebook pages. He even posted photos of some of them, though many were nearly illegible.

"I weep, therefore I am... in need of a tissue." ~ Rene Descartes

"Something's happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear.

There's a man with a pun over there

A-tellin' me that I'm a-kinda square." ~ Stephen Stills

"Dearest Pookie,

I'm pretty sure e = c x c x m.

What do you think?

Love, Albert" ~ Einstein

"I reek, therefore I am." ~ Rene Descartes

"In this world, nothing is sure but death and Texas." ~ W.

"When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters. The one is a liberal and the other a conservative." ~ JFK

"Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life, I find. But when you try to stretch it to a triple, unless you are really fast, or lucky, they can usually peg you. It's best to let the next hitter try to knock you in." ~ JFK

"When I look at our beer bellies, I understand why women don't mistake us for gods." ~ Nietzsche

"What doesn't kill me makes me.... something, something something. FIND a Catchy something here." ~ Nietzsche

For the record, the first two stories are true. But if you believed any of these quotes were real, than P.T. Barnum's famous observation applies to you.

Have a wonderful day.

All Along the Watchtower

If anyone is interested in simply studying the poetry of Bob Dylan, that is, to study his songs and their lyrics as poetry, I highly recommend John Hinchey's Like A Complete Unknown. Hinchey at one time taught literature at Swarthmore College. He brings insights at times that often might escape the casually listener, especially in the more surreal and ambiguous songs.

What Dylan does that many if not most great writers do, is to derive insight and imagery from direct observations of literal, concrete things. His language, however, explodes with splashes and starbursts of creative exuberance.

Hinchey himself is a vibrant writer, so writer-critic meets songwriter-artist in this 270 page overview of Dylan's poetry from 1961-1969. Hinchey stated his intention to write four subsequent volumes, a decade by decade panoramic overview of the tapestry that Dylan has woven with words.

Hinchey called Dylan's John Wesley Harding album "the comeback of all comebacks." It is an album very different from his previous series of in your face snarl and vim, following on the heels of Blonde On Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited. This was not my favorite Dylan album at the time, in part because I didn't care for the recording quality. It felt thin. But the songs have a lot to them.

The most evocative song in this collection, and most memorable in part because of Jimi Hendrix's wonderfully haunting rendition, is All Along the Watchtower. From the first line, it carries you into a vivid sandstorm of expectation.

ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER

"There must be some way out of here" said the joker to the thief.
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief

Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth

None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.”

"No reason to get excited", the thief he kindly spoke.

"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke;

But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,

So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view

While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,

Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

Copyright ©1968; renewed 1996 Dwarf Music

So, what does it mean? Here we are forty years later and the song still intrigues. Who are the joker and the thief? What is the moment in time that is being defined here?

There are a variety of websites where song meanings are discussed. Some of the interpretations of songs are quite amusing, but a brisk read often unveils new glimmers of light for previously shadowed text. Songs like Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harem or Horse Latitudes by the Doors will bring on interesting comments. So does this song, wrapped in mystery as it is.

Hinchey sees the joker and the thief as representing the sacred and profane parts of his Dylan the trickster, "mythic master of limits and boundaries." Hinchey writes that the difference between the two, both here and elsewhere in Dylan's work, "is that the joker merely evades limits; the thief finds ways to render them permeable."

The commentary in Hinchey's book is too lengthy to re-record here. Needless to say that he and others writing of the song see in it an "apocalyptic moment" toward which this scene is leading. I myself get mesmerized by how much vivid content this tightly coiled song contains while still remaining shrouded.

What follows here is an alternative shade of interpretation from one of the websites I noted where people share their attempts to explain lyrics. This was posted by someone with the handle eveland on 11-30-2004.

I remember reading an article about this song when it first came out (I believe 1968) by Paul Williams in Crawdaddy magazine, which was a cheaply produced, but very serious, intellectual magazine published by Williams. The thing that stuck with me from the article was that Williams compared the structure of the song to a moebius strip (because the starting point of the lyrics is actually in the middle of the song & the song opens with the middle part of the lyrics) & felt it gave the song a claustrophobic feel (because you come into it & leave it in the middle). The starting point would be "All along the watchtower" & then after the line "Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl", the next line would be "There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief", the joker & the thief being the two riders who were approaching, of course. This makes perfect sense to me & seems right. As far as the actual meaning, my own opinion is that it's a philosophical piece about how one finds meaning in a chaotic & very imperfect world. The joker sees this world & can't take it seriously because it's so false & is depressed because he can't find a way to make sense of it. The thief has come to this same realization in his past, but has found a way to move beyond it & create his own meaning. So it is, in effect, a parable about existentialism. Or maybe I'm totally wrong...