I never saw this pointed out but Dylan was obviously "remembering" Billy Budd when writing Mr. Tambourine Man...look at the last line.
Good of the Chaplain to enter Lone Bay
And down on his marrow-bones here and pray
For the likes just o' me, Billy Budd. -- But look:
Through the port comes the moon-shine astray!
It tips the guard's cutlas and silvers this nook;
But 'twill die in the dawning of Billy's last day.
A jewel-block they'll make of me to-morrow,
Pendant pearl from the yard-arm-end
Like the ear-drop I gave to Bristol Molly --
O, 'tis me, not the sentence they'll suspend.
Ay, Ay, Ay, all is up; and I must up to
Early in the morning, aloft from alow.
On an empty stomach, now, never it would do.
They'll give me a nibble -- bit o' biscuit ere I go.
Sure, a messmate will reach me the last parting cup;
But, turning heads away from the hoist and the belay,
Heaven knows who will have the running of me up!
No pipe to those halyards. -- But aren't it all sham?
A blur's in my eyes; it is dreaming that I am.
A hatchet to my hawser? all adrift to go?
The drum roll to grog, and Billy never know?
But Donald he has promised to stand by the plank;
So I'll shake a friendly hand ere I sink.
But -- no! It is dead then I'll be, come to think.
I remember Taff the Welshman when he sank.
And his cheek it was like the budding pink.
But me they'll lash me in hammock, drop me deep.
Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I'll dream fast asleep.
I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there?
Just ease this darbies at the wrist, and roll me over fair,
I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist.
And I don't think it weak -- attempt to be trippy
and profound seems like just an imposition.
It stands by itself -- nothing else like it.
I did my PhD work at the University of Minnesota
-- professors there still remembered Berryman.
I could get Chester Anderson to talk about him...
"he didn't hit the water" he reminded me.
Joseph Duemer <[log in to unmask]> wrote: I like a good deal of the later Dylan, Dom, and though I started with Dylan
pretty early -- Bringing it All Back Home when it came out -- I agree with
you about "Mr. Tambourine Man," which is pretty weak in its attempt to be
trippy & profound. My first encounter with that song was actually the Byrds'
AM radio version when I was in the 9th grade, which is pretty good for top
40 radio. I didn't tune in to Dylan till the next year.
And those first 77 Dream Songs simply lifted me out of my seat, spun me
around & dropped me down again a changed boy when I was 18. Some of the
later ones are wonderful. Somebody should put together a 125 Dream Songs
volume.
jd
On 5/7/07, Dominic Fox wrote:
>
> There are 385 Dream Songs in the book, of which the first 77 are those
> that were first published together. I have not read them in order, but
> am skipping backwards and forwards, so that the later and earlier ones
> happen for me side-by-side. You can't sustain the wow-factor of the
> first encounter - for both reader and author - of a new poetry
> indefinitely; there just isn't a career's worth to be had of what made
> early Dylan so hugely impressive. But people disappointed with later
> Dylan might in some cases have been less disappointed if they'd been
> able to start with later Dylan and work backwards - even to the point
> of finding some of the earliest material (e.g. "Mr Tambourine Man") a
> bit gauche and wishy-washy, even given the steely charisma of the
> person singing it...
>
> Dominic
>
--
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
[sharpsand.net]
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