English S-37u: Bob
Dylan: The Lyrics in Their By
Bledar Blake Zenuni
Literary, Cultural, and Musical
Contexts August 6, 2013
Professor:
XX-XX
Term Paper
Assignment: Imagery and Identity
The Early Bob Dylan:
Using Imagery to Create
Ambiguity
Imagery and Identity
within the Context of the “Protest” Era and Beyond
English
S-37u: Bob Dylan: The Lyrics in Their Literary, Cultural and Musical Contexts
Harvard
University, Summer 2013
“A song is something that walks by
itself,” proclaims Arthur Rimbaud, with a surly look on his face as smoke from
the cigarette in his right hand swirls around his scruffy hair in the pallid
interview room in I’m Not There. This
statement from one of the characters inspired by the “many lives of Bob Dylan”
captures much of the spirit of Dylan’s memoir, Chronicles: Volume One.[1]
Though ever mysterious and elusive, Dylan appears to talk openly about his
songs in his memoir, leading the reader to infer that his ‘topical’ songs walk
by themselves, songs composed when “you’d pick articles out of newspapers,
fractured, demented stuff—some nun getting married, a high school teacher
taking a flying leap off the Brooklyn Bridge, tourists who robbed a gas
station, Broadway beauty being beaten and left in the snow, things like that.”[2]
Dylan’s imagery here is a hallmark of his ‘topical’ songs—not to be confused
with ‘protest’ songs. According to Dylan, topical songs weren’t protest songs,
and the term “‘protest singer’ didn’t exist any more than the term
‘singer-songwriter’. You were a performer or you weren’t, that was about it—a
folksinger or not one.”[3]
What Bob Dylan arguably represents—more than any single other thing—is a
creative and enigmatic storyteller, one who uses imagery to weave together a
web of stories. This is particularly seen in two of Dylan’s early songs
composed and first performed between 1962-1964: “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”
(1962-1963) and “Chimes of Freedom” (1964). Dylan’s imagery attempts not to
present a message as a prophet’s or revolutionary’s would, but to create
ambiguity, ambiguity that takes the listener(s) on a journey through time and
that leaves the identities of the singer and addressee(s) unknown. This
ambiguity evokes emotions in the listener(s), allowing one to interact with the
song’s subject by oneself, instead of being told what the message is or what to
think.
“Imagery” is the literary or artistic
technique commonly used in a poem, song, painting, or other literary or
artistic piece to spark off the senses. [4]
Despite the word “image” denoting visual
effects, “imagery” is not limited to the visual, rather it refers to all of the
five senses (or as Ricks asks, “is it six?”) that the poet, painter, or singer
stimulates in the recipient.[5]
Imagery is a widely used technique in many literary and artistic movements, particularly
the 19th century (and early 20th century) movement of
Symbolism. Symbolism holds that art should represent ‘absolute truth’ through
indirect means, such as endowing particular images or objects with subtle,
symbolic meaning. Imagery, in the
tradition of Symbolism, is of particular importance to the development of the songwriting
(and later painting) of Bob Dylan. After moving to Greenwich Village in 1961,
Dylan was exposed to and influenced by
poets and artists associated with Symbolism. Such figures include Edgar Allan
Poe, Arthur Rimbaud, and Paul Verlaine.[6]
“Chimes of
Freedom”: The Sermon on the Mount or the Symbolism of Rimbaud?
One of the immediate poetic Symbolist
resonances first appears in Dylan’s 1964 album, Another Side of Bob Dylan, particularly in the song “Chimes of
Freedom.” Music critics and audiences have sometimes described “Chimes of
Freedom,” as Dylan’s “Sermon on the Mount,” but the Symbolist imagery used in
the song contributes to it being anything but that. The song begins with the singer and his
companion waiting out a thunderstorm, ducked under a doorway “far between
sundown’s finish an’ midnight’s broken toll”. [7]
As
thunder crashes around them, the singer equates “majestic bells of bolts struck
shadows in the sounds” with “chimes of freedom flashing.” This faceless (and
nameless) singer and his equally mysterious companion express solidarity with
the destitute and downtrodden “rebel, rake, forsaked, outcast, and those
burning at stake.”
The vivid imagery of the natural chaos
around them— the rain, lightning, thunder, and tolling bell— add on to the
mystery surrounding the characters and addressee(s) of the song. Other than
their outcast designation or destitute status, the listener(s) know(s) nothing
about the people that the singer and the companion refer to. Throughout the
song, the singer’s sympathies lie with those “with faces hidden,” and “the
disrobed faceless forms of no position.” In the third verse, the singer
observes:
“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”
(Bob Dylan,
“Chimes of Freedom”, 1964)
The
striking feature of this verse (and the entire song itself) is that not only
are the mistreated people faceless, but also that the abusers are not judged,
nor even named and identified. The striking imagery of “tongues with no place to bring their
thoughts,” “deaf an’ blind,” and “mistreated outlaw, chased an’ cheated by
pursuit,” grabs the listeners’ attention because
the identities are not mentioned and because
there is no mention of the singer as a prophet judging the abusers since the
abusers aren’t identified either. [Emphasis added]. If the singer were instead a prophet, then
there would, arguably, be no need for imagery because the listener would be
told what to think, who to judge, and possibly how to punish the abuser. Compared with
the “Sermon on the Mount,”—in which Jesus reinterprets the Ten Commandments,
says one should first judge oneself before judging others, and warns that
people are unable to do right (“bear fruit”) apart from God—“Chimes of
Freedom,” tells a story that evokes the listeners reactions via imagery not preaching.[8]
[Emphasis added]. The story being told
is one about the medley of sympathetic outcasts by intentionally or
unintentionally keeping the identities of the people ambiguous, and by instead
using imagery to show their destitution and sorrow as well as drawing parallels
between these characters and the thunder, lightning, and nature’s nasty,
solitary and brutish cold.[9]
Intention
Another factor that separates the singer
in “Chimes of Freedom,” from the Prophet in the “Sermon on the Mount” is the
question of intention. In the “Sermon
on the Mount,” Jesus, as the Prophet, intends to relay a message, intends to
warn his followers of false prophets, and deliberately reinterprets the Ten
Commandments as well as singling out those who abuse others. In “Chimes of Freedom”
(as one of the songs representative of Dylan’s use of imagery), the singer does
not intend to preach anything, nor does he, but instead paints a picture of
what he sees with his companion for the listener(s). It would, therefore, be a
misrepresentation to call “Chimes of Freedom,” Dylan’s “Sermon on the Mount,”
and ask if he intends to be a prophet; instead, one would better be served
asking if Dylan (or the singer, if we are to differentiate between the singer
and Dylan the songwriter) intentionally
creates ambiguity around the identities, even the time(s) and precise
location(s), of the downtrodden characters. According to Ricks, that age-old
difficulty of intention is
characteristic of an artist, as arguable is the case for Dylan the artist (or
the character of the singer) in “Chimes of Freedom” as he harkens back to the
Symbolist imagery of Rimbaud, among others. The artist “is someone more than
usually blessed with a cooperative unconscious or subconscious that can effect
things with the help of instincts and intuition of which he or she is not
necessarily conscious of.”[10]
Ricks goes on to say that he views Dylan as he would view a great athlete,
someone both highly trained and deeply instinctual, and argues that Dylan is
probably not “conscious of all the
subtle effects of wording and timing… What matters is that Dylan is doing the
imagining, not that he be fully deliberately conscious of the countless
intimations that are in his art.” As T.S. Eliot said,
the poet [and artist] does many things upon instinct for which he can give no
better account than anybody else.”[11]
So when the question of whether or not
Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom” is Dylan’s “Sermon on the Mount” is asked, the evidence
points to the response: no, not in any conventional or Biblical sense. Since
Dylan does not intent to deliver a message, he is not a prophet, but someone just
shares subtle insights through vivid imagery, whether he intends to or not..
What’s important is that the imagery—like the imagery of Chimes of Freedom—is
allowed to roam freely throughout the song, unconstrained by time and the
limitations of “do’s and don’t’s” of a prophet’s message.
“A Hard
Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”: The Visual, the Auditory, The Touch and the
Future
Imagery roams freely in another of
Dylan’s song, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” Just as in “Chimes of Freedom”,
there is no prophetic message but rather just a story, or, more precisely
a
web of literally many, many stories. Dylan has said “ “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” consists
entirely of first lines of songs he thought he would never have time to write.” [12]
In these webs of stories, Imagery appears in many forms: the visual, the
auditory, the touch, and in the visions of the future. The visual refers to the
imagery that consists of what the listener(s) can envision or can see the
characters in the songs envisioning. Amongst the many striking visual imagery,
“A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” features the following[13]:
Oh, what did you see, my
blue-eyed son…
I saw a newborn baby with
wild wolves all around it…
I saw a highway of diamonds
with nobody on it.”
(Bob Dylan, “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall 1962-1963)
It
is all too easy to equate such visual imagery as a form of protest,
particularly because it is recurrent throughout “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”,
which first appears as civil rights protests and anti-war protests begin to
emerge in the United States. However, one must not forget that the imagery
creates ambiguity once again, since no one is identified: instead the singer
shares a wide array of pictures with the listener(s) without a single message,
leaving the song open to interpretation. The singer also does this by using
auditory imagery, as the singer asks his “blue-eyed son” the “darling young
son” what he heard, with the son responding”
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared
out a warnin’
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown
the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands
were a-blazin’”
(Bob Dylan, “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall 1962-1963)
As
it’s done previously, the (auditory) imagery here adds a powerful effect to the
song that prophetic message would not allow for, since it once again contains
nothing absolute in and of itself, but open interpretations true only for the
individual listener(s). And if one still
needs convincing that there is no unambiguous message in this song, but that imagery
instead creates ambiguity for the listener(s), there are two additional senses
that Dylan’s imagery stimulates:
The touch:
“Oh, who did you meet, my
blue-eyed son…
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a young woman whose body was
burning…”
(Bob
Dylan, “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall 1962-1963)
And visions of the future:
“Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed
son….
I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the rain
starts a-fallin’…
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest
black forest…”
Bob
Dylan, “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall 1962-1963)
These four
different expressions of imagery, from visual to visions, leaves the
listener(s) being able to interpret the song any way they want, using any of
their five (or, as Ricks asks is it six sense?). So when Dylan was asked whether or not the
“rain” in the refrain refers to atomic rain, one can understand the annoyed
tone in Dylan’s response:
“No, it's not atomic rain,
it's just a hard rain. It isn't the fallout rain. I mean some sort of end
that's just gotta happen... In the last verse, when I say, 'the pellets of
poison are flooding the waters', that means all the lies that people get told
on their radios and in their newspapers."[14]
Dylan
knows he is not a prophet and so he will never be susceptible to tell people
lies as radios and newspapers do. He just wants the listeners of his songs to
know that too.
Another
Side of Bob Dylan: Imagery in another Medium
Imagery and ambiguity feature prominently
in another of Dylan’s creative medium: his paintings. Dylan’s work as a painter
goes back to at least 1966. His various relationships with the Beat poets,
women, artists and others while living in Greenwich Village, NYC in the 1960s exposed
him to the works of not just Symbolist poets but various artists, chief amongst
them those from the Symbolist movement. As a painter, Dylan also taps into the
tradition of Rimbaud, and the Symbolist painters, to create ambiguity in the
identity of his subjects, or objects, while sharing a subtle “story” behind the
painting. The follow painting below is
Dylan’s “Train Tracks”, first presented in the Statens Museum for
Kunst in 2009.[15]
“Train Tracks”
This
painting explores Dylan as someone other than a lyricist, singer-songwriter,
and performer. “Train Tracks” arguably functions in the same way as his
storytelling does in his songs: drawing upon disparate events, interactions,
and experiences to seek out new forms of self-expression. In this image, Dylan revisits
his obsession with railroads, a clear symbol of Americana. The viewer could
potentially envision herself traveling through the vast and the intractable
parts of the United States in another time and place. But it is does not have
to be precisely that; it’s completely open to interpretation. Dylan, the
painter, creates, and whatever images the painting presents or whatever story
the railroads may tell is for the viewer(s) to decide.
In
the next painting, we see another image that could be interpreted as a symbol
of Americana: “Man on a Bridge” depicts a man in what appears to be a Huck Finn
hat standing, anachronistically, in the middle of a modern, possibly European,
city.
“ Man on a Bridge”
The
Huck Finn hat is a constant item of display for Dylan, both when he wears it on
his hat and in his paintings. As Thomas points out, “Dylan was wearing a Huck
Finn hat before he became Dylan, more or less, but the renaissance that has
been going on since Time Out of Mind
(and before it in terms of performance) has bought Twain’s world into focus
with Dylan’s.”[16]
Interestingly, Dylan revisits Huck Finn and the railroads in these two
paintings, and in his later years since Time
Out of Mind, as the use of imagery once again breathes life to share a
(different) story for (different) viewers.
Long after Dylan leaves the “folk scene because it was too perfect” his
paintings remind us that imagery is an effective method of storytelling,
whether it be in his early songs such as that found in “Chimes of Freedom,” and
“A-Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” or in these two paintings.[17]
Avoiding the label of ‘prophet,’ and
separating his own “identity” from the “identity” of the singer, Dylan remains
as an artist, a faceless form who observes and tells a story. In a 1997
interview, Dylan was asked the following:
Why are you doing what you’re doing?
[Pause] “Because I don’t know anything else to
do. I’m good at "it.”
How would you describe “it?
“I’m
an artist. I try to create.”
-Interview with Ron Rosenbaum (Nov. 1977), Playboy (1978).[18]
“Chimes of Freedom,” and “A Hard Rain’s
A-Gonna Fall” are hallmark songs because Dylan
uses imagery to create ambiguity. [Emphasis Added]. The “it” for a prophet is
the unambiguous message itself, or perhaps for revolutionary prophets, the
zealous implementation of that message, always with an ideology in mind. But the “it” can’t be described for an artist—he has no ideology, at least not in
the conventional, prophetic sense. His one need is to try to create.
Works Cited
References
Dylan,
Bob. Chronicles. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. Print.
"King
James Bible Online." KING JAMES BIBLE ONLINE. N.p., n.d. Web. 06
Aug. 2013. <http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/>.
Ricks, Christopher. Dylan's Visions
of Sin. New York: Ecco, 2004: pp. 1-48 Print.
Cott, Jonathan, ed. Dylan on Dylan:
The Essential Interviews. Hodder & Stoughton. 2006. Print.
Thomas, Richard F. "The Streets of Rome: The
Classical Dylan." The Streets of Rome: The Classical Dylan (2010):
30-56. Journal of Oral Traditions. Web. 1 Aug. 2013 http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/22i/Thomas.pdf
Filmography
Scorsese,
Martin. 2004. No Direction Home. Paramount.
Haynes,
Todd, 2007. I’m Not There. The Weinstein Company; Paramount.
Art Credits
Dylan,
Bob, “Man on a Bridge,” 2009
Dylan,
Bob, “Train Tracks,” 2009
Dylan and Soper, “Drawn Blank Series”, Washington Green Fine Art Publishing Company, 2008.
Web Sources
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/science/space/timeless-questions-about-the-universe.html?_r=2&, 2013. Web.
[1]
See Haynes, I’m Not There, Paramount.
[2]
See Dylan, Chronicles, p. 82.
[3] Ibid.,
Chronicles: Volume One, pp. 82-83.
[5]
Ricks, Vision of Sin, p.25.
[6]
Dylan, Chronicles: Volume One,
Chapter 1 “Markin’ Up the Score” pp. 3-45.
[8]
King James Bible, Matthew 7: 1-29.
[9]
Note: This sentence directly references Thomas Hobbes on life in nature being
“solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” which highlights Dylan’s sentiment
on nature, having said “I am against nature. I don’t dig nature at all. I think
nature is very unnatural. I think the truly natural things are dreams, which
nature can’t touch with decay.” Perhaps intentionally or unintentionally (see
“Intention” on page 5 of this paper) Dylan equates the ‘nature’ in “Chimes of Freedom”
to the destructive forces of decay in the aforementioned quote.
[10]
op.cit., Visions of Sin, p. 7.
[11]
op.cit., Visions of Sin, pp. 7-8.
[12]
See The New York Times, “A Quantum of
Solace”: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/science/space/timeless-questions-about-the-universe.html?_r=2&
[14]
Cott, Dylan on Dylan: The Essential
Interviews, p. 7-9.
[16]
Thomas, “The Classical Dylan,” p. 34.
[17]
op.cit., Chronicles: Volume One, pp.
292-293.
[18]
op.cit., Visions of Sin, pp. 14-23,
58, 203.
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