I see the current Bob Dylan set
list as the artist’s attempt, using a fixed string of songs, to present
one integrated and progressive tale which has a beginning, a middle
(pointing in different directions), and an ending. The songs, and
the sequence in which they are performed, are carefully planned.
During these last few years the order is never in any way random. Every
show is one powerful tale which deserves to be seen and heard as such –
and to be taken literally for what it is.
The major theme is about love
and love lost, about the pain and suffering of having lost a true love.
It is the tale of “A worried man with a worried mind / No one in front
of me and nothing behind”. These are the very first words of the opening
song, “Things have changed”. Following this, the next two songs “She
Belongs To Me” and “Beyond Here Lies Nothing” deal with romantic love:
Bow down to her on Sunday
Salute her when her birthday
comes
(She Belongs To Me)
We’ll keep on loving pretty
baby
For as long as love will
last
(Beyond Here Lies Nothing)
Things begin breaking up with
the fourth song – and much later, at the end of the show, the final song
presents the ultimate expression of the sting, hurt and ache of the
narrator’s heartbreaking lost love.
I’m sick of love; I hear the
clock tick
This kind of love; I’m love
sick
Sometimes the silence can be
like the thunder
Sometimes I feel like I’m
being plowed under
Could you ever be true? I
think of you
And I wonder
I’m sick of love; I wish I’d
never met you
I’m sick of love; I’m trying
to forget you
Just don’t know what to do
I’d give anything to be with
you
(Love Sick)
The song ends with a strong and
passionate contradiction. The narrator says “I wish I’d never met you”
and “I’m trying to forget you”. But then he pleads, “I’d
give anything to be with you”.
The love lost theme is initiated
by the fourth song where one sad night, the lovers “call it
a day”. From this point many of the following songs deal with this
common thread, including most of the old songs uncovered recently by the
artist for the “Shadows In The Night” project. Seven of these songs are
now in October 2015 part of the current tale.
Many reviewers refer
to these traditional songs as “Sinatra covers”, but this is
a huge understatement. Originally, these songs were sung by
(among others) Frank Sinatra, but that is not why the artist chose
them. The songs were selected for the “Shadows” project,
and now for the current set list, because they are genuine
expressions of the narrator’s emotions and feelings in relation to love
and love lost. The tunes are catchy, yes, but the words of these songs
are what is essential to the tale.
The titles alone of some of the
old songs point to the love lost theme – “The Night We Called It A Day”,
“What’ll I Do?”, “I’m A Fool To Want You”, “Where Are You?” – and the
lyrics are quite explicit: “All life through, must I go on pretending? /
Where is my happy ending, where are you, where are you?”
Towards the end of the tale
comes “Autumn Leaves”, which originally was a French song,
written by Hungarian-French composer Joseph Kosma with lyrics by poet
Jacques Prévert. The English lyrics were written by American songwriter
Johnny Mercer in 1947, and the song has been recorded by
dozens of artists, one of whom was Sinatra in 1956.
Since you went away
The days grow long
And soon I'll hear
Old winter's song
But I miss you most of all
My darling
When autumn leaves
Start to fall
(Autumn Leaves)
The tale is not only about love
lost. Other themes in the middle part of the show deal with different
aspects of endings – from feelings and thoughts about the narrator’s own
death, all the way to the end of time and the
ultimate destruction, the chaos of the great flood. “It’s rough out
there / High water everywhere”:
High water risin’, six
inches above my head
Coffins droppin’ in the
street
Like balloons made out of
lead
(High Water (for Charley
Patton))
In the opening song, the
“worried man with a worried mind” is well dressed, “waiting on the last
train”, standing on the gallows with his head in a noose. “Any minute
now I’m expecting all hell to break loose”. Similar images of time
running out appear in “Duquesne Whistle” where sometimes the whistle
sounds as if the train is on its final run, as if “she ain’t gonna blow
no more”.
Even tougher images of
destruction and endings appear in “Pay In Blood” and “Early Roman
Kings”. These are expressions of the dark sides. The words are
threatening and menacing. Disaster lurks behind every corner:
Well I’m grinding my life
out, steady and sure
Nothing more wretched than
what I must endure
(…)
How I made it back home,
nobody knows
Or how I survived so many
blows
(Pay In Blood)
I can strip you of life,
strip you of breath
Ship you down to the house
of death
One day you will ask for me
There'll be no one else that
you'll wanna see
Bring down my fiddle, tune
up my strings
I'm gonna break it wide open
like the early roman kings
(Early Roman Kings)
Scarlet Town is a mix of it all
– from good and evil and beginnings and endings to “The black and the
white, the yellow and the brown / It’s all right there in front of you
in Scarlet Town”.
In the context of the current
set list and the tale of lost love and rough endings, the old classic
“Blowin’ In The Wind” takes on a new meaning and becomes a quiet and
naïve reflection of the extreme events and emotions we have witnessed.
“How many times must a man look up / Before he can see the sky?” We have
seen the sky and heard people cry – and we know that too many people
have died. It’s time to go and to round it all up. “So much for tears,
so much for these long and wasted years”.
The show in Copenhagen on
October 8 was tight, emotional, well crafted with a clear sense for
every detail in musical arrangements, vocal styles, stage lighting and
the entire setting.
I see the current set list and
the current show as the artist’s successful attempt,
through a carefully selected string of songs,
to present one integrated and progressing tale. I hear the entire show
as one sublime and tender expression. The narrator portrays himself as a
worried man with a worried mind. He is nearing the end of his day and
sometimes sees the world on the edge of going under, but he is still on
the move and longing for his true and lost love,
pleading “I’d give anything to
be with you.” Not quite a swan song. It is not dark yet.
Now I’m going back again
I got to get to her somehow
(…)
Me, I’m still on the road
Towards another joint
We always felt the same
We’ve had our different
points of view
Tangled up in blue
(Tangled Up In Blue)
Written in October 2015.
Published on Bob Links on October 15 2015.
Previously, on Bob Dylan: Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.
Set list in Copenhagen on October 8 2015:
1. Things Have Changed
2. She Belongs To Me
3. Beyond Here Lies Nothin'
4. The Night We Called It A Day
5. Duquesne Whistle
6. What’ll I Do?
7. Pay In Blood
8. I'm A Fool To Want You
9. Tangled Up In Blue
(intermission)
10. High Water (For Charley Patton)
11. Where Are You?
12. Early Roman Kings
13. Why Try To Change Me Now?
14. Spirit On The Water
15. Scarlet Town
16. All Or Nothing At All
17. Long And Wasted Years
18. Autumn Leaves
(encore)
19. Blowin' In The Wind
20. Love Sick