The one and only Sir Bob (as in Dylan) is eighty today, and to acknowledge/commemorate, I am reviewing two independently published books on the Bard by the Dutch writer and most adroit of Dylanologists, Jochen Markhorst.
Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot –
Dylan’s lookin’ for the fuse
By Jochen Markhorst
Independently Published – £6.36
Or, to put it more poetically: the poet provides the colouring picture, we may colour it ourselves. Wrong colours do not exist. So, you can colour Einstein like Robin Hood, the house yonder is red, the rain is purple, and the sun is not yellow – it’s chicken.
(‘He was kiddin’ me, didn’t he?’)
Well, I’ve got a monkey wrench collection and I’m very interested in that.
(‘What is the most important thing in your life?’)
Where to even start celebrating the eighty years of Bob Dylan’s life, idiosyncratic influence and most profound of inventive, in-depth body of work?
‘Tis a tantalisingly tough call.
If not nigh impossible.
Well of course it is possible, but you hopefully get my drift.
So to embark upon writing about Jochen Markhorst’s Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot – Dylan’s lookin’ for the fuse – which quintessentially ‘’delves into the kaleidoscopic lyrics, irresistible musical accompaniment, rich music-historical roots and literary brilliance of one of Dylan’s ground breaking masterpieces’’ – is as good a place as any.
To be sure, these 102 pages (excluding bibliography) focuses on the ever sparkling diamond that is 1965’s ‘Tombstone Blues.’
Replete with analysis and an altogether dense deconstruction, the book traverses both the literary as well as the fluidic confluence from which Dylan poetically pounces, time and time again throughout the song’s five minutes and fifty-six seconds. That is almost six minutes of suave and surrealistic indoctrination, which is as equally scathing of (predominantly American) society as it is indirectly trajectorial in relation to a whole host of biblical characters – John the Baptist in particular:
John the Baptist after torturing a thief
Looks up at his hero the Commander-in-Chief
Saying, “Tell me great hero, but please make it brief
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?
Moreover, while the song’s surrealistic sojourn is somewhat substantiated by the first of the above quotations (‘’So, you can colour Einstein like Robin Hood’’), it is Markhorst’s intrinsic investigation that fundamentally accounts for much of this book’s validity and all round reading enjoyment: ‘’[…] ‘’Violently knitting’’ is a beautiful, funny catachresis, a non-existent word connection. The ‘’bald wig’’ is a contradictio in terminis with a word-playful follow-up to head of the chamber of commerce. Jack the Ripper, the archetypal English killer who turns up in between, completely out of place, probably owes his supporting role to the preparatory work of Belle Starr, to the association with an archetypal American outlaw. And to the poet’s love of sound, perhaps – ‘’rip’’ does sound nice, after all, among wits, knits, wig and sits.
Outrageous, surrealistic and irresistible. And it shall get even worse.’’
As a colossal song within the Dylan canon, ‘’Tombstone Blues’’ is indeed‘’outrageous, surrealistic and irresistible.’’ Although Markhorst’s rendition and interpretation thereof, is admittedly (and perhaps thankfully) a tad more grounded.
John Wesley Harding –
Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville
By Jochen Markhorst
Independently Published – £6.36
In 1939, Auden held a position that can only just be suggested by that of Bob Dylan in 1967: indisputably the voice of his generation, he also wrote in a style so cryptic and allusive that the generation puzzled over what exactly it was that they were supposed to be saying. Something about war and doubt and sex and mining machinery (‘’The Double Man,’’ The New Yorker, 15 September 2002).
(‘As I Went Out One Morning’).
There’s a poignant lucidity to be found within the pages of John Wesley Harding – Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville. One such example being the episode wherein Dylan bows down to his own admittance and (devout) respect for none other than Neil Young: ‘’The bard hangs around for some twenty minutes, they talk about Neil Young, about the places in Winnipeg where he probably performed with his school band, the weather and life in the North. Then Dylan and his companion get back in the taxi that has been waiting in front of the house all this time, and leave (‘Dear Landlord’).
Yet what will further resonate with readers is the degree to which the author, Jochen Markhorst, demonstrates his shimmering knack and panache at deciphering a period in Dylan’s life, which was exceptionally grounded with the parameters of change.
Change, that from an intrinsic writing perspective at least, saw huge swathes of surrealism being partially put on hold – only to be replaced by the cardinality of biblical persuasion in such songs as ‘The Ballad of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest,’ ‘The Wicked Messenger’ and of course, ‘All Along The Watchtower.’ The latter of which is a song that has since been covered by everyone from U2 to XTC, the aforementioned Neil Young to of course, Jimi Hendrix; who’s own version is an unquestionable masterpiece. A fact, acknowledged by even Dylan himself: ‘’After he became famous, he took some small songs of mine that nobody pain any attention to and pumped them up into the outer limits of the stratosphere and turned them all into classics. I have to thank Jimi, too.’’
Apart from the nod to one of my all time favourite poets, W. H Auden (‘As I Went Out One Morning’) as succinctly touched on in the above opening quotation, ‘All Along The Watchtower’ is further examined amid the (occasionally perplexing) prism of Kafka. Hence, this book’s secondary title: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville, from whom Markhorst quotes: ‘’To describe reality in a realistic way, but at the same time as a ‘’floating nothing,’’ as a clear, lucid dream, so as a realistically perceived irreality’’ (Aufzeichnungen aus dem Jahre 1920, Recordings from the year 1920).
So in a way, although the actual album John Wesley Harding was rather simplistic and very stripped back instrumentally, it’s lyrical imprint remains anything but simplistic. In fact, there are those who still grapple with its lyrical content and all-round biblical persuasion to this very day.
All the more reason to read this overtly concise book and grapple no more.
David Marx
David Marx:Book Reviews 