Tombstone Blues

or, Huh?

A poem is a naked person . . . Some people say that I am a poet.

Bob Dylan

*****

Yeah, some of the time. At other times, not so much.

Dylan’s name is bandied about in academia as the Shakespeare of our time, or something like that, which is an absurd comparison. Comparisons are odious, of course. Dylan’s work is great, but he’s a poetic songwriter. Compare him to Robert Burns, if you must. Shakespeare has more noteworthy metaphors in a single play than Dylan has in his entire oeuvre. There’s Shakespeare, and then there’s everybody else. Like there’s Hendrix, and then there’s everybody else. Or Mozart. Dylan gets to claim that seat for himself for songwriting, arguably, but not for writing. I get particularly tired of hearing this unwarranted fan gushing, because it insults actuality. When a misconception is spread widely enough, it takes on the form of accepted truth. The best way to turn a falsehood into truth is by repeating it as often as possible. Just ask the master of that illusion, Donald J. Trump.

So, Dylan’s mid-period songs especially haven’t fared as well on examination, over the years. Drugs were involved, that’s an excuse, but not a good one, since Coleridge wrote “Kubla Khan,” the beginning anyway, coming out of an opium dream. Dylan’s new album, Shadow Kingdom, is generally a very good record, more on that later, one that rearranges classic songs in a spared-down setting, enhancing the intimacy of Dylan’s voice throughout.

There’s one aberration in the mix, though, Highway 61’s “Tombstone Blues.” Here the words are removed from the surreal onward rush of the original electric version, so they stand naked. That’s the rub.

The sweet pretty things are in bed now, of course
The city fathers, they are trying to endorse
The reincarnation of Paul Revere's horse
But the town has no need to be nervous

The ghost of Belle Starr, she hands down her wits
To Jezebel the nun, she violently knits
A bald wig for Jack the Ripper, who sits
At the head of the Chamber of Commerce

Huh? Ah, ok, let’s try to parse this. Or better yet, let’s not. If you were high in the 60’s listening to these lyrics, all kinds of weird images could have gone through your head, as they likely did in Dylan’s, but excuse me, there’s no way any of this stuff works. It’s frighteningly close to the song parodies used in Walk Hard, when Dewey Cox was in his Dylan phase. Need more proof?

Now, John the Baptist, while torturing a thief
Says to his hero, the Commander-in-chief
"Tell me, great hero, but please make it brief
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?"

The Commander-in-chief answers him while chasing a fly
Saying, "Death to all those who would whimper and cry"
And, dropping a barbell, he points to the sky
Saying, "The sun's not yellow, it's chicken"

Ok, it’s about some hard head military guy, but the imagery is trite and cliched. What it has to do with John the Baptist is anyone’s guess - Dylan liked to do that at the time, throw famous historical names into a song. One should be careful not to be fooled by convoluted language - it’s not deep, it’s not great poetry.

The chorus redeems the song, with its vague air of ominous surroundings.

Mama's in the factory, she ain't got no shoes
Daddy's in the alley, he's lookin' for the fuse
I'm in the kitchen with the tombstone blues

When Highway 61 came out, I had a torturous discussion/argument with my older brother about the song. He was claiming the sun in the John the Baptist verse above was the son of god, Jesus, who was chicken, for some reason I forget now. My brother’s reasoning was because you’ve got John the Baptist in there, it followed that the sun had to be Jesus. That is, until the official lyrics came out on bobdylan.com and it clearly read ‘sun.’ This is an example of the kind of thing people would come up with back then, and still do, convinced they’d had some profound insight into the lyrics.

But then, Dylan thankfully turns humorous in this verse… and he’s usually good when he’s humorous.

Now I wish I could give Brother Bill his great thrill
I would set him in chains at the top of the hill
Then send out for some pillars and Cecil B. DeMille
He could die happily ever after

That’s a perfectly clear poetic image, which I hope I don’t have to explain to anyone. You might have to look up Cecil B. DeMille.

He ends the song marvelously, with heartfelt concern for a woman he knows.

Now I wish I could write you a melody so plain
That could hold you dear lady from going insane
That could ease you and cool you and cease the pain
Of your useless and pointless knowledge

But, though I know comparisons are odious, here’s Shakespeare on forgetting about pain.

One pain is lessened by another's anguish... Take thou some new infection to thy eye, And the rank poison of the old will die.

I rest my case.