Born In Time and Other Dylan Songs About Bein' Born

"He not busy bein' born is busy dyin'."
-- It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding

This past week I was thinking about how many Dylan songs mention the word born. It started when I was thinking about Born In Time and the line above from It's Alright, Ma. Born in Time, particularly the version on Tell Tale Signs, is on my short list of favorite songs, and "He not busy bein' born is busy dyin'" is on my short list of favorite lines.

But there are some other favorite lines with the word born in them. The first that immediately came to mind was "She was born in spring, but I was born too late" from Simple Twist of Fate. Then this one came to mind: "I was born here and I'll die here against my will" from Not Dark Yet. (I love the follow up line, too: "I know it looks like I'm moving, but Im standing still."

So I went to the Dylan Concordance and looked up the number of references to "born" in Dylan's lyrics. It turned out to be a surprisingly long list, and (for a Dylan fan) an enjoyable search-and-find exercise, reading through song after song trying to find each born-reference in its context. Dylan's lyrics are so rich and rewarding it's difficult to remain "on task" as one gets swept into the whitewater rush of imagery. Read through the lush lyrical vibrance of Changing of the Guard, for example.

What follows are the lines or stanzas where the word born appears in each song.

In the Garden:
Nicodemus came at night so he wouldn’t be seen by men
Saying, “Master, tell me why a man must be born again”

Saved
"I was blinded by the devil, born already ruined…"

Song to Woody
“Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song
’Bout a funny ol’ world that’s a-comin’ along
Seems sick an’ it’s hungry, it’s tired an’ it’s torn
It looks like it’s a-dyin’ an’ it’s hardly been born”

Subterranean Homesick Blues
“Ah get born keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance…”

Neighborhood Bully
“Always on trial for just being born…”

Only a Pawn in Their Game
A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain.

Jokerman
You were born with a snake in both of your fists while a hurricane was blowing

Catfish
Carolina born and bred

Joey
Born in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in the year of who knows when (opening line)
and late in the same song:
They said a mass in the old church near the house where he was born

Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie
And to yourself you sometimes say
"I never knew it was gonna be this way
Why didn't they tell me the day I was born"

Motorpsycho Nightmare
He said, “What do doctors Know about farms, pray tell?”
I said, “I was born At the bottom of a wishing well”

Ballad of Hollis Brown
Somewhere in the distance there are seven new people born.

Don't Ya Tell Henry
I went down to the river on a Saturday morn
 A-lookin’ around just to see who’s born...

Sugar Baby
Just as sure as we’re living, just as sure as you’re born
Look up, look up—seek your Maker—’fore Gabriel blows his horn

Tough Mama
Angel Baby, born of a blinding light and a changing wind

Changing of the Guards
She’s smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born
 On midsummer’s eve, near the tower

Shelter from the Storm
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born
 “Come in,” she said, “I’ll give you shelter from the storm”

North Country Blues
Oh, the years passed again, and the giving was good
With the lunch bucket filled every season
What with three babies born, the work was cut down
To a half a day's shift with no reason

I Want You
But it’s not that way
I wasn’t born to lose you

Wedding Song
Oh, can’t you see that you were born to stand by my side
And I was born to be with you, you were born to be my bride

Jokerman
You were born with a snake in bother of your fists
while a hurricane was blowin'

What Can I Do For You?
Soon as a man is born, you know the sparks begin to fly

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Did I miss anything?

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Meantime, life goes on all around you. Get into it.

An Idea for Creating Tricky But Memorable Dylan-Themed Passwords

Am I the only one who's concerned about how complicated life is starting to become? I could enumerate a whole batch of issues we must deal with today that were at one time fairly simple, but I won't/ I'm just going to address this one: Passwords.

First, there are the passwords at the office, which every three months my employer reminds us to change. And then there are all the warnings from various places -- online banks, the Social Security office, social media sites, online stores -- that insist that the new password you create be different from all your other ones. Just in case one site gets hacked and now all your other spaces are vulnerable. And how many of these are there? Dozens. And every couple years these sites tell you that for the sake of security you not only need a new password, it needs to be longer and strong than your old password.

Is it essential to have these muscular passwords? They say so, and I'm inclined to go with it. For the record, you're not the first and won't be the last to find passwords frustrating.

So, what I aim to share here are a handful of password tricks you can use, followed by my ultimate Passwords for Dylanophiles Tipsheet.

1. Padding
This is what I use at the office. What you do is use the same password forever, but change the set of add-on characters at the end. For example, your favorite car is a Jaguar. The first time you create the password you might have used the word Jaguar. But then they said it wasn't strong enough and you needed a numeral and a symbol, and an upper and lower case letter. By "padding" you add a two digit number and a hashtag or $ or @. Let's say you start with Jaguar22@. Then next time you change to Jaguar 23@. No more thinking. You are a Jaguar forever.

2. Padding Type B
You have the password Jaguar but pad it with <><><> little meaningless characters so that Jaguar22 becomes Jaguar22#<><><>

3. Spaces
I read somewhere that spaces make it harder for codebreakers to crack or hack your password. I don't know if that is true, but I do know that at least one site where I used a space my password was reject. That being said, it does make sense that a space would fool people. Jag uar 22#--><><>< might be tricky.

4. Password Managers
These are something you will have to investigate on your own. If you work for a company ask your IT department. Or you can ask Google or Siri or whomever and get the skinny on what is arguably the most secure password system. It seems complicated. That's why I invented the Passwords for Dylanophiles Tipsheet.

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A Passwords for Dylanophiles Tipsheet

A week or two ago I saw an article on Flipboard that suggested a unique way of coming up with what appears to be a random assembly of letters and numbers, but which is actually memorable. That is, the biggest problem with random character sets is that we can't remember them and have to write them down. But we're told NOT to write them down because they can be stolen. Your IRA, your 401K, your bank accounts, your credit union accounts, credit card information and more is suddenly fair game because the Tip Sheet is somewhere at hand because you need it every day.

Well, the article said that you can come up with a memorable but apparently random sequence of letters by taking the first line of a song, like "She'll Be Coming "Round the Mountain When She Comes" and converting it to SBCRtMWSC. Not a bad password, but made stronger if you add numerals and padding. For numerals, you could take your birth year and divide it by your favorite number, and use the first three digits and an asterisk.

That's the concept. And now you probably already see where this is going.

<><><><><><><><><><><><>

For the purposes of this illustration I will use The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan as my code maker and code breaker.

How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
Hmrmamwdbycham

Well, if you’re travelin’ in the north country fair
Wiytitncf

Come you masters of war You that build all the guns
CymowYtbatg

Well, I’m walkin’ down the highway With my suitcase in my hand
WIwdthWmsimh

Well, the Lone Ranger and Tonto They are ridin’ down the line
WtLRaTTardtl

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Owhybmbes     or, just for the heck of it you might keep the hyphen and add the e so it reads:
Owhybmb-es    which I sort of like.

Now here's the fun part. You don't have to write down any of your passwords anywhere. You only need to know in what order the password protected sites are listed, and which Dylan album is your answer key.

Example:
Amazon.com -- WtLRaTTardtl

Checking Account -- Wiytitncf

Credit Union -- CymowYtbatg

Gmail -- WIwdthWmsimh

Facebook -- WtLRaTTardtl

Twitter -- Owhybmb-es

You no longer need to make a list of your passwords. Rather, you will know your favorite Dylan album by heart, or at least the first line, and will know what order the songs appear in. And you you don't remember them, there is no penalty because you can quickly open a tab and visit BobDylan.com and find all the lyrics to every song right there.

As for numerals and special characters, you can always mix things up with the square root of your birthday, minus the decimal. Or whatever scheme you wish to apply to throw hackers off the scent.

What do you think? Too complicated? You can always just do what I do. Zimmy***. With a space or two here and there. And a numeral. No one has broken yet.

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TOUR NEWS
Bob Dylan's Fall Tour Schedule has been released. If you're already a fan, you probably already know, he'll be doing a Coast-to-Coast series of shows from California to Boston. Full schedule here, along with links to tickets.

BOOTLEG SERIES 13 ANNOUNCED
A nine volume set (8 CDs and one DVD) from his "Gospel Period" (1979-81) has been announced. It's called "Trouble No More." There's a 2-CD Bonus that is available only if you Pre-Order. All the other details are here, though again, you probably already knew that.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Doesn't make your head spin?

What Dylan Lyric Describes Where You're At Right Now?

It's amazing how song lyrics speak to us at various moments in our lives, and even in various moments in a single day. As I write this I'm listening to Simon & Garfunkel's "Only Living Boy In New York," a song that expressed the loneliness and alienation I felt at certain times when I was growing up. It's literally an inexpressible phenomenon how music connects to the deepest parts of who we are.

Bob Dylan's music spans such a vast range of psychological and emotional spaces that one would be hard pressed not to find words from his lyrics that fail express where each of us are at or have been at various points of our lives.

It just so happens that one of the discussion threads in a forum at expectingrain.com is called Dylan lyric that describes your life right now. I thought you might find it interesting to read some of the lyrics expressing where people are at.

I never took much,
I never asked for your crutch.
Don't ask for mine.

Time passes slowly
When you're searching for love...

"the country music station plays soft..."

Don’t know how it looked to other people
I never slept with her even once

Don't even hear the murmur of a prayer
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

They tell me everything is gonna be all right
But I don’t know what “all right” even means

May your heart always be joyful, may your song always be sung...

Still I wish there was somethin’ you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay

Walkin' through the leaves, falling from the trees
Feelin' like a stranger nobody sees
So many things that we never will undo
I know you’re sorry, I’m sorry too

Beyond Here Lies Nothin'

I feel a change comin' on

ain't talkin'

In the end
My dear sweet friend
I'll remember you

I need a Shot of Love

I've got mixed up confusion, man it's killin' me

I'm beginning to hear voices and there's no one around...

Well my ship's been split to splinters and it's sinkin' fast
I'm drownin' in the poison, got no future, got no past.
But my heart is not weary, it's light and it's free
I've got nothing but affection for those who've sailed with me.


47 pages of this stuff... That's entertainment!

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The reason for this small run of Dylan-related posts has to do with the coming of spring and all the preparations doing into this year's Northland Dylan Celebration. The official schedule has been assembled, and the Acoustic Salute to the Music of Bob Dylan is coming together, which will be very different this year.  And no one will want to miss the Blood on the Track Express, another of the highlights these past several years. To participate in the Singer Songwriter Contest send an email to duluthdylanfest@gmail.org

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

In an Age Where Content Is King, "The Lyrics: Since 1962" Shows Dylan's Mastery of Content Generation

We're all familiar with the adage "Content is King." On the Internet, content is the coin of the realm. He (or she) who produces content is the one who collects the chips at the end of the game. Hype and B.S. only go so far. When all is said and done, everyone is eventually found out for what they are. That’s where celebritydom fails. All too often American celebs are pure vapor. The soul hungers for substance.

Well, this coming month Simon & Schuster is publishing a substantial new edition of the collected works of Bob Dylan aptly titled The Lyrics: Since 1962. The book is a tad larger than an LP, near a thousand pages in length and weighs more than 13 pounds. 50 numbered copies of this massive volume will be signed by Mr. Dylan himself, with a price tag set at $5,000 apiece. 3500 copies will be available for $200 each.

The signed edition is available from dylansignedbook.com. The $200 version will supposedly be available in bookshops, but 3,000 U.S. copies (500 have been set aside for Britain) means there will only be 60 copies per state, which seems a pretty limited edition. The collectible $5K signed edition will be available to only one person per state at this rate... though my guess is a few will be snapped up by Dylan fans in other corners of the world from Britain and Spain to Japan and Scandinavia. Recommended: You want one? Better snatch it while you can.

One of the more interesting features of the book is the contribution from Christopher Ricks, a British literary scholar now on the faculty of Boston University. Ricks, who authored the 2003 analysis of Dylan's work titled Dylan's Visions of Sin, edited the lyrics here and contributed a lengthy introduction. The sisters Lisa and Julie Nemrow assisted as co-editors.

According to one announcement I saw about the book the editors strove to show the different ways Dylan has performed the songs over time, or even at a single recording session. "When a song’s previously published lyrics differ from what Mr. Dylan sang on the original recording, the differences are noted. So are differences that crop up on officially released live recordings, or outtakes."

The Nemrows, who run a design company, were also involved with the layout of the book. Some of the decisions with regard to the layout of the songs may be surprising, but the aim is to give the printed word the feeling associated with the performance of the songs as Dylan sang them.

Here's a little more background on Mr. Ricks:

Christopher Ricks is the William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the Humanities at Boston University, having formerly been professor of English at Bristol and at Cambridge. He is a member of the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers, of which he was president (2007-2008). He has edited and also teaches in the Core Curriculum. He was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 2004, and is known both for his critical studies and for his editorial work. The latter includes The Poems of Tennyson (revised 1987), The New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse(1987), Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917 by T. S. Eliot (1996), The Oxford Book of English Verse (1999), Selected Poems of James Henry (2002), Samuel Menashe’s New and Selected Poems (2005), Samuel Beckett’s The Expelled / The Calmative / The End / First Love (2009), Henry James’s What Maisie Knew (2010) and for Penguin Books Alfred Lord Tennyson: Selected Poems(2007). He is the author of Milton’s Grand Style (1963), Keats and Embarrassment (1974), The Force of Poetry (1984), T. S. Eliot and Prejudice (1988), Tennyson (1989), Beckett’s Dying Words (1993), Essays in Appreciation (1996), Allusion to the Poets (2002), Reviewery (2002), Decisions and Revisions in T. S. Eliot (2003), Dylan’s Visions of Sin (2004), and True Friendship: Geoffrey Hill, Anthony Hecht, and Robert Lowell under the Sign of Eliot and Pound (2010). He was Professor of Poetry at Oxford, 2004-2009; in 2010, Waywiser Press published his anthology Joining Music with Reason: 34 Poets, British and American, Oxford 2004-2009.

And if this isn't enough to establish his authority, you can read Donald MacLeod's 2004 profile of Ricks that appeared in The Guardian.

"Don't Look Back"

I mention all this only because I have a couple friends who do not consider Dylan a poet. Mr. Ricks, who seems to have a fairly substantive understanding of poetry, would disagree with my friends. As Mr. MacLeod states early on in the piece, "The critic who made his name with meticulous readings of Milton, Tennyson and TS Eliot has long championed the American rock star as a poet worthy of the same close and painstaking analysis. Not everyone approves."

Regarding the price tag on the signed and numbered limited edition, a story here comes to mind. Jonathan Winters was once criticized because he had priced one of his paintings at $25,000. A woman who was interested in purchasing it exclaimed, "Why is this painting worth $25,000?" to which the famous comedian replied, "Because it has my signature on it. If it had been signed by Red Skelton it would be worth $40,000."

Jonathan Karp, Simon & Schuster's president and publisher, said, “It’s the biggest, most expensive book we’ve ever published, as far as I know.” And personally, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the books will be sold out before the date of their release. I know know at least a few people in my own circle who will likely end up owning one.

Meantime, life goes on....

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Photos of The Lyrics: Since 1962 courtesy Simon and Schuster.
"Don't Look Back" is an original painting by Ed Newman that will be on display tonight at the Goin' Postal 2014 Fall Art Show in Superior. You can see the art of 17 local artists from 6-9 p.m. and then unwind up the street at V.I.P. Pizza while listening to the music of Cowboy Angel Blue.