Dylan fans: Please tell me, are Dylans lyrics supposed to make sense?

[Taverner]

Or are they tone poetry?

I'm referring to tunes like "Queen Jane Approximately" and "Visions of Johanna"

You know the ones where you're sure that if you were clued in, you'd know EXACTLY what he's talking about, but sadly, have no idea...

[mdmc]

1. oh, yes

Queen Jane spell out the dangers of use...

[hippywife]

2. You'd probably have to ask him.

Visions of Johanna sounds like something borne out of a personal experience or observation. Probably most songs are. I just know that I love them without necessarily being tuned into what all the lyrics are about.

[Guava Jelly]

3. They make complete sense

My favorite dylan tune

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right Lyrics


It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If’in you don’t know by now
An' it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It’ll never do some how.
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and I'll be gone
You're the reason I'm trav'lin' on
Don't think twice, it's all right

It ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe
That light I never knowed
An' it ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe
I'm on the dark side of the road
Still I wish there was somethin' you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
We never did too much talkin' anyway
So don't think twice, it's all right

It ain't no use in callin' out my name, gal
Like you never done before
It ain't no use in callin' out my name, gal
I can't hear you any more
I'm a-thinkin' and a-wond'rin' walkin’ down the road
I once loved a woman, a child I'm told
I give her my heart but she wanted my soul
But don't think twice, it's all right

So long, Honey Babe
Where I'm bound, I can't tell
But Goodbye's too good a word, babe
So I'll just say fare thee well
I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right

[datasuspect]

5. my favorite song about bob dylan

Oh, hear this Robert Zimmerman
I wrote a song for you
About a strange young man called Dylan
With a voice like sand and glue
His words of truthful vengeance
They could pin us to the floor
Brought a few more people on
And put the fear in a whole lot more

Ah, Here she comes
Here she comes
Here she comes again
The same old painted lady
From the brow of a superbrain
She'll scratch this world to pieces
As she comes on like a friend
But a couple of songs
From your old scrapbook
Could send her home again

You gave your heart to every bedsit room
At least a picture on my wall
And you sat behind a million pair of eyes
And told them how they saw
Then we lost your train of thought
The paintings are all your own
While troubles are rising
We'd rather be scared
Together than alone

Ah, Here she comes
Here she comes
Here she comes again
The same old painted lady
From the brow of a superbrain
She'll scratch this world to pieces
As she comes on like a friend
But a couple of songs
From your old scrapbook
Could send her home again

Now hear this Robert Zimmerman
Though I don't suppose we'll meet
Ask your good friend Dylan
If he'd gaze a while down the old street
Tell him we've lost his poems
So they're writing on the walls
Give us back our unity
Give us back our family
You're every nation's refugee
Don't leave us with their sanity

Ah, Here she comes
Here she comes
Here she comes again
The same old painted lady
From the brow of a superbrain
She'll scratch this world to pieces
As she comes on like a friend
But a couple of songs
From your old scrapbook
Could send her home again

A couple of songs
From your old scrapbook
Could send her home again
Oh, here she comes, here she comes
Oh, here she comes, here she comes

[mdmc]

30. is this a dan bern song

:kick:

[datasuspect]

31. david bowie

from the album hunky dory.

[mdmc]

32. david bowie - hunky dory

lol
sounds funny... :kick::)

[datasuspect]

33. it's an anglicism

my grandmother used to say it all the time: hunky dory is equivalent to "peachy" or "fine."

[av8rdave]

24. Lyrically, that's absolutely his best

Fun to play too....you can strum it or pick it.

[begin_within]

4. Dylan: "Just because you like my stuff doesn't mean I owe you anything."

That pretty much says all you need to know about his attitude towards people liking or making sense of his work.

[idgiehkt]

9. I've never heard a song of his that I couldn't follow though

they are pretty linear for the most part, at least what I've been exposed to.

[dback]

6. Don't know, but I found "Visions of Johanna" after my mom died

Her name was Johanna, and reading them was oddly comforting, even though they seemed a tad...esoteric. I think that's a hallmark of his style. (Try to sit down sometime and analyze all the lyrics by the Talking Heads.)

[Taverner]

7. Well Talking Heads were pure tone poetry

Except for some tunes like "Nothing But Flowers"

[_testify_]

34. I love Talking Heads and some of David Byrne's solo stuff.

and True Stories was a weirdly amusing movie.

[rug]

8. How about "Ballad of a Thin Man"?

[struggle4progress]

16. ... something is happening here but you don't know what it is ...

[rug]

17. . . .here is your throat back, thanks for the loan . . .

[dipsydoodle]

20. Do you

Mr Jones ? :)

[Pale Blue Dot]

10. Do they make you want to think about them?

Then they make sense.

Signed,
A guy with a BA in English.

[6000eliot]

11. Not all of them.

Some of the songs are more about "feel" than they are about literal meaning, and some are symbolic. I always heard that "Visions of Johanna" was about his ex wife.

[graywarrior]

12. I understand every word of his word bouquet.

[bridgit]

13. oh yes ~ To Ramona...

Ramona, come closer,
Shut softly your watery eyes.
The pangs of your sadness
Shall pass as your senses will rise.
The flowers of the city
Though breathlike, get deathlike at times.
And there's no use in tryin'
T' deal with the dyin',
Though I cannot explain that in lines.

Your cracked country lips,
I still wish to kiss,
As to be under the strength of your skin.
Your magnetic movements
Still capture the minutes I'm in.
But it grieves my heart, love,
To see you tryin' to be a part of
A world that just don't exist.
It's all just a dream, babe,
A vacuum, a scheme, babe,
That sucks you into feelin' like this.

I can see that your head
Has been twisted and fed
By worthless foam from the mouth.
I can tell you are torn
Between stayin' and returnin'
On back to the South.
You've been fooled into thinking
That the finishin' end is at hand.
Yet there's no one to beat you,
No one t' defeat you,
'Cept the thoughts of yourself feeling bad.

I've heard you say many times
That you're better 'n no one
And no one is better 'n you.
If you really believe that,
You know you got
Nothing to win and nothing to lose.
From fixtures and forces and friends,
Your sorrow does stem,
That hype you and type you,
Making you feel
That you must be exactly like them.

I'd forever talk to you,
But soon my words,
They would turn into a meaningless ring.
For deep in my heart
I know there is no help I can bring.
Everything passes,
Everything changes,
Just do what you think you should do.
And someday maybe,
Who knows, baby,
I'll come and be cryin' to you.

[dipsydoodle]

21. There is a simply fantastic version

of that by Sinead Lohan. It's only on one CD which is "A woman's heart a decade on"

You can hear a clip here : http://www.amazon.com/Womans-Heart-Decade-Various-Artists/dp/B000089YB0/sr=8-2/qid=1160140071/ref=sr_1_2/104-7766071-3227924?ie=UTF8&s=music

Music to die for !

[struggle4progress]

14. well man yknow i just hafta tell it like it is and when somebody asks

me if dylans songs make sense the only thing i wanna say is 'open yer eyes wide and take take a good hard look around ya and then come back and we can sit on the porch and blow a bit' cuz the way i see it madmen control our world and i dont mean people who see things and hear voices or other weird stuff i mean some really batshit crazy mofos are in control and when i see what they do and note how i feel about it well

and then ya wanna come askin if dylan makes sense?

i mean its not like to put ya down cuz i been there and we all have been there and sometimes we all still there but rilly of all the fugged up bullshit too useless to grow a magic mushroom in man and so why would i wanna talk about whether dylan makes sense?

so please dont take this wrong cuz its not me sayin yer clueless altho i am sayin that but not in a hostile way cuz ya aint more clueless than me or the rest of just about almost everybody i know cuz every one of us is clueless but we are gonna get a clue if ya know what i mean and we aint gonna stand for all of this establishment bullshit and all these plastic shitheads and their inane ability to talk 'sense' endlessly without ever sayin one damn thing of any importance and givin ya their crazy ass 'sensible' reasons fer why we hafta to drop napalm on our brothers and sisters halway around the world and poison our planet and make enough nukes to blow us all back to the stone age a thousand times over well no thanks

yknow what i mean?

[bridgit]

15. yup, it's a long lonely highway; my boots on backwards, think'n bout...

chicks kind'a day :)

[struggle4progress]

25. That's a great answer!

[mac56]

18. try this one

Far between sundown's finish an' midnight's broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
An' for each an' ev'ry underdog soldier in the night
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

In the city's melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden while the walls were tightening
As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin' rain
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned an' forsaked
Tolling for the outcast, burnin' constantly at stake
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
An' the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For the disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for-granted situations
Tolling for the deaf an' blind, tolling for the mute
Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased an' cheated by pursuit
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Even though a cloud's white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An' the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An' for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Starry-eyed an' laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an' we watched with one last look
Spellbound an' swallowed 'til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse
An' for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

[dipsydoodle]

19. You need to watch

Martin Scorsese's doumentary on Dylan, No Direction Home, to understand the sort of things that were in his mind when he was writing songs. The associations are not at all obvious. Dylan also explains that he wrote few if any protest songs - they were just interpreted that way.

[deutsey]

22. Well, one of his big influences was the poet Rimbaud

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Rimbaud

Rimbaud's "method for attaining poetical transcendence or visionary power (was) through a 'long, immense and rational derangement of all the senses'".

I believe Baudelaire was also an important influence on Dylan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Baudelaire

"Baudelaire is one of the most famous French poets and Decadent authors, but before the 20th century, his work was generally considered controversial, difficult, if not subversive. He is famous for his criticism of 'usefulness' in poetry, and thought that poetry is only acceptable in a form of pure, superior beauty, never to teach something or to convey a political message (like Victor Hugo or La Fontaine did)."

Having said that, Dylan was also deeply influenced by Woody Guthrie, who's poetic songs used direct, everyday language that often had a political message; hence some of Dylan's more pointed and unambiguous political songs.

None of this means I've unlocked what Dylan is as a poet and songwriter...I think these are important influences that help us grasp the stylistic variations in his music.

[XNASA]

23. I've read that some of his lyrics are 'cubist'. ???????????

Here's one explanation I stumbled upon while researching some of Dylan's lyrics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangled_Up_in_Blue

-----Tangled up in Blue is one of the most clear examples of Dylan's attempts to write "multi-dimensional" songs which defied a fixed notion of time and space. For example, the beginning of the song mentions a cross-country car trip, but towards the end a minor character gets involved in "dealing with slaves" in New Orleans; clearly the two cannot be happening in the same time period. Dylan was influenced by his recent study of painting and the Cubist school of artists, which sought to incorporate multiple perspectives within a single plane of view. In a 1978 interview Dylan explained this style of songwriting: "What's different about it is that there's a code in the lyrics, and there's also no sense of time. There's no respect for it. You've got yesterday, today and tomorrow all in the same room, and there's very little you can't imagine not happening."----

[tigereye]

28. yup, in relation to their cubist nature

:thumbsup:


and no, not all songs need to make sense. There is a lot of emotional, lyrical, cognitive and historical content, though. And that's what makes him great.

[SteppingRazor]

26. Absolutely

"Visions of Johanna" certainly tells a story, of the unrequited love between the narrator and Johanna, and how the narrator is reminded of Johanna in everything he does.

"Queen Jane Approximately" is supposedly about Dylan's being abandoned by his folk fans after going electric -- Queen Jane, in this case, is Dylan himself.

[ET Awful]

27. Well . . . if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme

To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind,
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seein' that he's chasing.

[tigereye]

29. you're just too young

:silly:

there does seem to be a bit of a generation gap with folks and Dylan, I think.