I Wish I Could Write You a Melody So Plain

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.
-from "My Back Pages"

I’m revisiting old Bob Dylan music these days and I’m blown away by the vigor of those early songs. I guess I had taken his early music for granted so long that it took such a long respite from it to hear it fresh again. So there’s the reason for his early fame. And there’s the reason so many were distraught when he went electric.

Much has been said about Dylan’s use of language, his poetry. But to me it’s the toughness of that language that’s so striking. He’s taking no prisoners. It’s almost universally accepted that Dylan brought poetry to pop music (as well opened the pop song to all subjects.) But I wonder if that should be turned on its head to say that Dylan brought old time folk music to poetry. He brought the toughness from those lyrics of that early American music (what Greil Marcus calls old weird America) to language that he set to music.

Ron Silliman recently wrote a fascinating piece about poetry and troubadours. I can follow the logic behind his argument for the most part. There were folk troubadours who created music easily understood by the folk and then there were the troubadour’s troubadours whose music was complex and understood by their fellow artists. He defends avant garde poetry in such a spirit. It’s a complex poetry understood by complex poets.

But I believe his argument breaks down at the beginning by basing his defense of a non-musical poetry with the strictures of a musical art. The basic difference between formalism and avant garde is not subject matter, although I’d agree that there is a certain unfortunate quietude in much formalist writing, and a certain unfortunate sciolism in the avant garde. But the essential difference is meter and rhyme, that is, music.

Dylan is the real thing, a true troubadour, and a living example that musical poetry (a better term than formalism I think) need not be quiet. Last week I posted the lyrics from “Masters of War”. The last verse is truly dangerous.

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

Many formalists would cringe at such a rough treatment.

But he is also an example of why poetry needs to be musical. Take these lines from “To Ramona”:

I've heard you say many times
That you're better 'n no one
And no one is better 'n you.

On the page, they’re very simple. But in song, with the waltzing rhythm of the music, they’re memorable poetry. I don’t argue that Dylan’s lyrics are poems in themselves. I believe that the music behind them is integral to their power. But both combined create a true poetry (and one that requires, possibly, new analytical tools.)

Poetry, without the aid of a tune, requires a different kind of music behind it. Meter and rhyme is one way of providing that music. Longfellow and Frost worked that way; Whitman and Ginsberg another. There is more than one way to skin a cat. But in the end the cat must be skinned. Otherwise it’ll just walk away on its little prose feet.





This was a posting that I held in reserve from last week. That night I posted about Dylan’s Victoria’ Secret ad instead. That posting led to an instalanche of, for me, epic proportions, which I appreciate. I’ve been posting a great amount of Dylanology the past week, most of it because I’m making a best of Dylan sixties CD compilation so I’m revisiting his early music.. Only one posting was created specifically for that new incoming audience, as a greeting. But I want to be careful here and not become “all Dylan, all day” so this will be the last one for the time being. Well, at least until I finish listening to Bringing It all Back Home, Highway Sixty-One Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde. I’m sure those listens will have me talking again.

Previous Dylan Postings:
-And every one of them words rang true and glowed like burnin' coal
-Dylan Does Venice
-Dylan's Secret
-The Master of the Anti-War Song
-Bob Dylan's Wine