Revolution in the Air

by Clinton Heylin

  Of course, what works on tape won’t necessarily sing on the page—nor is it meant to—and before the song was published in Writings and Drawings, Dylan red-penned some of its funnier lines. So although "Pick that drip / And bake that dough" makes marginally more sense than "Pink that dream / And nose that dough"—and the same goes for "Now grease that pig / And sing praise," as opposed to what he really sings, "Grease that gig / And play it blank"—I somehow prefer the originals in all their nonsensical glory.

  Any attempt to render sense from the published lyrics to these songs just strikes me as against the whole spirit of the sessions. Quite why Dylan turns T-Bone Frank into Half-track Frank, Bob alone knows. Apart from anything else, it loses the link to "Please Mrs. Henry," in which the narrator is "t-boned and punctured," a connection that reinforces the sense that every character in these songs is somehow in the same basement barroom (duly enhanced by the cover to the official Basement Tapes album, the best thing about the set). Fulsome as the fare is for Tiny Montgomery’s homecoming, it proves to be just a starter course for the basement banquet to come.

  {211} SIGN ON THE CROSS

  Published lyrics: Writings and Drawings; Lyrics 1985; Lyrics 2004.

  Known studio recordings: Big Pink, West Saugerties, summer 1967.

  Some [songs] were old ballads . . . but others Bob would make up as he went along. . . . We’d play the melody, he’d sing a few words he’d written, and then make up some more, or else just mouth sounds or even syllables as he went along. It’s a pretty good way to write songs. —Garth Hudson

  Coming at the end of the same reel as "Tiny Montgomery" and "All-American Boy," "Sign on the Cross" represents the first unalloyed masterpiece of the summer. Oddly enough, though, the song was not one of the fourteen songs sent out on the publishing demo in the winter of 1968, nor was it part of the "safety" reel compiled by producer Elliott Mazur at some point in late 1969. When the song was finally copyrighted in 1971, along with "Don’t Ya Tell Henry," it came across as an afterthought. Only after the song was respectfully covered by McGuinness Flint on their all-Dylan "covers" album, Lo & Behold, did the song’s reputation begin to pick up speed.

  Shortly afterward, the original basement "demo" began to circulate—in stereo!—and proved to be every bit the equal of "Tears of Rage" and "This Wheel’s on Fire." Its appearance in 1973’s Writings and Drawings seemed to imply acceptance into an "approved" canon of basement originals, only for the song to then be omitted from the official double-album two years later. A chance of official dispensation came again in 1991, when it was included on the original four-CD version of The Bootleg Series, due for release that winter. But again it got chopped at the roots, when that set was reduced—in an act of symptomatic stupidity on Sony’s part—to three volumes. And so, as of 2007, it remains one of those grade-A Dylan classics which resides solely in the bootleg domain.

  Dylan himself has never commented on the song. And though it was included in Writings and Drawings, he seems to have left it to the same transcriber-with-tinnitus who was let loose on the likes of "Tell Me, Momma" and "Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence." Even I am at a loss to explain how the couplet, "There’s some who’re in prison / And there’s some in the penitentiary, too," becomes, "There is some on every chisel / And there is some in the championship, too." More cloth-eared still is "The bird is here and you might want to enter it," which has been transmuted from the perfectly intelligible, "Later on you might want to enter it, but, of course, the door it might be closed." Quite a trick.

  So why has Dylan treated such a major song with scant regard, and what exactly is the man’s problem with this testimony to that indivisible link between singing and salvation? It is probably the exact same problem he has with that other captured-on-the-cusp-of-creation classic, "I’m Not There." Both songs are clearly semi-improvised. In the case of "Sign on the Cross," the entire spoken bridge bespeaks an incantation born of the moment—and a dose of medicinal weed, which has done more than just smoke his eyelids.

  Dylan may even have felt faintly embarrassed by this (premature) expression of religious yearning—hence the "rewrite" given it in Writings and Drawings. Something, it seems, was paining him; no one to date has been entirely successful nailing it down. Even the song title itself does not convey a clear meaning. What, one wonders, is this sign on the cross that has begun to worry him? Is it, as has been suggested, the sarcastic words posted on the cross, according to Matthew 27:35—"This is Jesus The King of the Jews"? And if so, how have these words begun to "worry" the singer?

  One thing is certain—Dylan was once again immersing himself in the Bible, and not just the Old Testament. When he talks of wanting to enter "the kingdom," but "the door, it might be closed," he seems to be making a direct reference to Luke 13:25: "You will begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us.’ He will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’" Dylan’s mother told Robert Shelton that, when she and husband Abraham had visited her son’s family in Woodstock late that summer, she had seen a Bible prominently displayed.

  The question then arises whether it is Dylan or Luke the Drifter (Hank Williams’s down-home alter ego) who is worrying about that "sign on the cross, just layin’ up there in top of the hill" (presumably Calvary). Because although he may well know in his head "that we’re all so misled," he can’t resist signing off with the kind of moral that the later Luke would’ve liked: "Sing a song / And all your troubles will pass right on through."

  {212} SANTA FE

  Published lyrics: Lyrics 2004; Words Fill My Head.

  {213} SILENT WEEKEND

  Published lyrics: Lyrics 1985; Lyrics 2004.

  Known studio recordings [212+213]: Big Pink, West Saugerties, summer 1967 [#212 TBS].

  As already stated, the last set of basement songs copyrighted prior to the release of the official double-LP were registered in September 1973, representing five more previously undocumented Dylan "originals" added to the ever-growing stockpile from Woodstock. None of the five, though, made the official set; and just three songs, the two songs above plus "Bourbon Street," were placed on the composite reels by its producer/s.

  And though neither "Santa Fe" nor "Silent Weekend" were deemed important or interesting enough for official dispensation on the 1975 LP, "Silent Weekend" popped up in a lavish, all-encompassing songbook, The Songs of Bob Dylan 1966–1975, the following year (sandwiched between "I Wanna Be Your Lover" and "Tell Me, Momma"). No explanation for its inclusion was forthcoming, and it remained unheard until the early nineties, when the composite reels passed into collecting circles.

  As with "All-American Boy" and the three other 1973 copyrights, the lyrics to "Silent Weekend" on the original 1967 recording are largely spur-of-the-moment spins on another silent weekend, with well-placed gargles replacing the odd line. Its closest kin, basement-wise, would have to be "Please Mrs. Henry." But in "Silent Weekend" he is pleading for his woman to drop the silent treatment; whereas in "Please Mrs. Henry" he needs another kind of relief. Yet the published lyrics are neither guesswork, nor what he sang at the time. And a couple of the lines are pretty good; "She’s uppity, she’s rollin’ / She’s in the groove, she’s strolling / Over to the jukebox playin’ deaf and dumb" rank among the best. So either some rewriting had again been done back in 1967, or, more likely, in 1973.

  Just as "Silent Weekend" began to circulate among diehards, "Santa Fe" was also being dispersed to one and all on 1991’s The Bootleg Series, in a sound quality that left a great deal to be desired. Of all the "missing" basement-tape originals that could have been included on that three-CD set, "Santa Fe" hardly represented an A-list candidate. Just another discarded ditty, it relies on the usual wordplay and slurred diction to obscure any pretense to a deeper meaning, making it ripe for a rewrite in 1973.

  And it seems to have gotten one. The copyrighted lyrics—which also serve as the published ly
rics when they finally appear in the 2004 edition of Lyrics—repeatedly depart from those he sang in the summer of love. Those original lyrics revolve around "dear, dear, dear, dear Santa Fe"—intended to be both a woman’s name and the town in New Mexico. After five verses of rolling said words around, he moves on.

  The copyrighted lyrics evince a dramatic reworking, and a later one. In 1973, musing in Malibu, Dylan might well have envisaged a time when he would "build a geodesic dome and sail away," but not in 1967. Likewise, "My shrimp boat’s in the bay / I won’t have my nature this way," sounds like someone sitting on the dock of a bay, not up on Meads Mountain. As to why Dylan would rework five basement-tape songs at this juncture, I guess that’s one more log to toss on the enigma fire.

  {214} BOURBON STREET

  Published lyrics: Words Fill My Head.

  {215} DON’T YA TELL HENRY

  Published lyrics: Writings and Drawings; Lyrics 1985; Lyrics 2004.

  Known studio recordings: Big Pink, West Saugerties, summer 1967.

  First known performance: Academy of Music, NY, December 31, 1971 [ROA].

  Neither "Bourbon Street"—another of those 1973 copyrights—nor "Don’t Ya Tell Henry" (copyrighted in 1971) constitute part of the two circulating sets of session tapes from the summer of 1967. They only appear on compilations made later. So placing them is an even more purified form of guesswork than most other songs recorded that summer. Marcus states unequivocally that "Bourbon Street" (or as he calls it, for no obvious reason, "Gimme Another Bourbon Street") comes from "the last cycle of recordings, those made with Levon Helm," meaning around November 1967, presumably because it is "of a piece" with that other drinking song, "Don’t Ya Tell Henry," a song recorded with and without Helm at the helm.

  The fact that "Bourbon Street" was copyrighted with other unfinished songs suggests an earlier assignment. And this time the copyrighted lyrics represent a fair transcription of the recording, save for the onanistic reference to bagging "it / Down in bitter sweet / I don’t beat the meat . . . On my Bourbon Street." The one known recording, found on the 1975 composite reels, cuts abruptly and, the copyrighted lyrics would suggest, prematurely. Absent is a final verse, which descends into the same oblivion the singer seeks in the French Quarter:

  Let me have another Bourbon Street

  Talk to your brother, mother

  I want a Bourbon Street, Mr Bartender

  I’ll have another Bourbon Street.

  So, not so much one for the road as one for the sidewalk; whereas "Don’t Ya Tell Henry" could be the fishing trip the morning after. If so, hair of the dog has already been applied, because the spirit of mayhem continues to reign. The song is subsequently adopted by The Band, but with nothing like the same sense of bacchanalian excess.

  {216} MILLION DOLLAR BASH

  {217} YEA! HEAVY AND A BOTTLE OF BREAD

  Published lyrics: Writings and Drawings; Lyrics 1985; Lyrics 2004.

  Known studio recordings: Big Pink, West Saugerties, summer 1967—2 takes each [BT—tk.2 x 2].

  #217—First known performance: Madison Square Garden, New York, November 27, 2002.

  These two classic basement-tape compositions were recorded on a single reel, both requiring just two takes to reveal their enigmatic selves. In keeping with that summer’s spirit, the element of spontaneity evident on each is fortuitous, but no accident. Talking about the whole experience in 2002, Garth Hudson, the tape operator, recalled Dylan’s methodology: "He would go in with us, play a new song only part way through. We wouldn’t much rehearse or much less play it all the way through to learn it. And he’d turn on the tape and we’d get it down in a first or second take. He just knew the material."

  "Million Dollar Bash" may be taken at much the same tempo both times around, but Dylan’s vocals are night and day. On take one he is a participant in the insanity, reveling in the party atmosphere and thoroughly mashed. The second go-round he is getting ready for "Clothesline Saga," sounding as laconic as a pipe smoker on his porch. As for the song itself, it begged to be covered as a doo-wop ditty, even alluding to the Coasters twice ("Along came Jones"—a song title in itself—and "emptied the trash"—a reference to "Yakety Yak"), but the best anyone managed was Fairport Convention’s free-for-all on their third album, Unhalfbricking.

  As for "Yea Heavy," one suspects Dylan had a whole string of non sequiturs he could have pulled out of his hat, but decided to stop at four verses, giving it a chance to be the psychedelic hit it never was. Though Dylan later claimed he consciously opted out of the brand of "psychedelic rock . . . overtaking the universe," songs like this suggest a psychedelic breakfast was still the meal of choice for these guys. Again Dylan tried out alternate vocal styles on the two takes—one hard, the other more resigned—though he changed little else, save replacing "a nose full of blood" with "a nose full of pus," and repeating the first verse at the end of the second take. It remains the least covered of the basement-based publishing demos, being left to ex–Pink Fairy Twink to accord it solitary recognition.

  {218} I’M NOT THERE

  Published lyrics: The Telegraph #24; Words Fill My Head; "Some Other Kinds of Songs."

  Known studio recordings: Big Pink, West Saugerties, summer 1967 [INT].

  There are times you just pick up an instrument—something will come . . . some kind of wild line will come into your head and you’ll develop that. If it’s a tune on the piano or guitar . . . you’ll write those words down. And they might not mean anything to you at all, and you just go on. . . . Now, . . . if I do it, I just keep it for myself. So I have a big lineup of songs which I’ll never use. —Dylan, Sing Out! June 1968

  Of the "big lineup of songs which I’ll never use" dating from this rich period, the most legendary would have to be "I’m Not There," a song that it took forty years and a $40 million film to put into the official domain. Dylan himself has consistently been baffled by the song’s enduring appeal. When asked in 1985 why the song had never been released, he replied, "It wasn’t there!" He stood alone with this opinion in 1967, 1970, 1975, 1985, and 1991—all occasions when the song could have emerged, but didn’t.

  The Band always loved this song, and not just because they play like their lives depend on it. When the "safety" reel was compiled, circa 1969 (see my Recording Sessions), some wise soul (presumably Garth) decided it must be on there, even though it had yet to be copyrighted, and the likes of "Tiny Montgomery" and "Sign on the Cross" were overlooked. It is from this "safety" that the 2007 film soundtrack derives its version. It had already been under consideration for The Basement Tapes, Biograph, and The Bootleg Series, but Dylan balked at its inclusion on the first of these, while the lack of a good copy counted against it when it came to later archival sets (the "safety" having been mislaid all the way to Neil Young’s Californian ranch—a long story, partially related in Sid Griffin’s commendable basement book, Million Dollar Bash).

  Meantime, it was obliged to rely on the kindness of collectors and commentators to build up a wellspring of demand. Because it was not part of the fabled "acetate"—the fourteen-track publisher’s demo compiled in early 1968—"I’m Not There" did not feature on any of the early bootleg LPs that stoked the legend (neither did "Sign on the Cross"). For the whole of the seventies it was essentially a taper’s treasure. All the while, it was known to the few. Of its early advocates, Paul Cable was probably the one who furthered the myth most, speculating that "the [circulating] tapes of it start some way into the song, [and] possibly several verses are missed." Actually, Dylan simply employed his usual trick of not telling his fellow musicians when he was about to start a song, and Hudson had to hastily lean over and press "record" on the reel-to-reel.

  Where Cable becomes his usual insightful self is in suggesting, "In places you get the impression that he is making the words up as he goes along. It is possible, even, that the incomprehensible bits are not real words
at all but slurrings to fill in where inspiration temporarily runs out." Though he has only his ears to go by, Cable is spot-on. Evidence, were it needed, that Dylan was once again "sing[ing] a few words he’d written, and then mak[ing] up some more, or else just mouth[ing] sounds or even syllables," comes from a most unlikely source—a typed draft that arrived anonymously at Wanted Man HQ in the late eighties.

  The late John Bauldie and I agreed that the draft had all the hallmarks of authenticity (evinced by the use of the x key for deletions; the way Dylan suddenly resorts to capital letters; and even the funny little misspellings, like "yesta-day" and "shUD," for "should"). As such, we ran it in issue 24 of The Telegraph. My view has not changed. But even this typescript could be a fragment. A tear at the bottom of the page obscures one couplet: "heaven knows the answer—don’t call nobod[y] . . . / i go by the lord BEWARE BE[WARE]." These lines appear in the recorded version at two separate points: "And I go by the Lord and she’s on my way / But I don’t belong there," and then, a verse later, "Heaven knows that the answer, she don’t call no one." While missing entirely are thirteen of the most elliptical—and most discussed—lines in the Dylan canon:

  Now I’ll cry tonight like I cried the night before

  And I’m leased on the height but I still dream about the door

  It’s alone he’s forsaken by fate, who can tell

  It don’t hang ’proximation, she’s my all, fare thee well.

  Now when I treat the lady I was born to love her

  But she knows that the kingdom weighs so high above her