I've always seen the sword-swallower as Dylan himself. Kneeling down to the media at first so he could use their voice (or throat). He then took it and used it to speak and get his ideas out into the world. Then when he was all done with it, he asks them how it feels, making them think about something real. After that he dropped the media and went on to use his own throat; "here is your throat back, thanks for the loan."
Mr Jones was probably gay...I think that's all it means...he probably remembers some uptight fake pressing dylan with questions that showed he wasn't really interested in dylan as an artist just was on a job to wrote about him..looking for a a scoop butting having to pick out the bones as dylan says...he was probably a bit camp and dylan wanted to make sure the person knew who the song was about without giving to much away to anybody else...
@@tylercooper1551 Who cares? I happened to see this video a minute after it was posted, I made a silly joke about it. No reason to get worked up about it mate, you're the one who wasted your time responding to it :)
Bob Dylan aside from being a songwriter and performer is such an interesting figure of the 20th Century, I love the Beatles but he is something totally different on his own, it’s really quite something. The way that he can paint a picture of a fictionalized version of himself in songs like this is so ahead of its time for me
I always feel like Polyphonic looks at my recently listened to and then makes a video. Ballad of a Thin Man has been on heavy rotation recently and I love this song. Good video as always
@@aliviamason533 you're welcome the song title is YER BLUES th-cam.com/video/HEQQ-1rd4A0/w-d-xo.html and a special rendition with his friends eric clapton keith richards and mitch mitchell th-cam.com/video/JeFwaWFTGYU/w-d-xo.html
The complete works of Bob Dylan is staggering. No one wrote songs as good or original as Dylan. He is in a category of his own no one else comes close not even Cohen or Mitchell.
The sword-swallower line is so clever. Mr Jones had loaned his throat (perhaps a metaphor for something else) without realising. The Sword-swallower, having slashing up the insides of it with swords, (again, metaphor) gives it back, and only then Mr Jones realises he's been out done by the younger, smarter, freaky generation of the 1960s. That's how I've always imagined it.
I was there too. Dylan and his band gave us an absolute masterclass in American music. Fantastic show. I couldn't believe how good he was at 78 years old.
I love music. I'm 25 and every year of my life i have appreciated music more and more, and now i make my own music. Life without music isnt worth living in my opinion. Music has literally saved my life in more than one way. I see my friends and family talk about or listen to music in such an unaffected and stoic manner compared to me. It's like some people just don't hear good music the way others do. I think to some music is an addictive drug, whereas to some it's just catchy noises.
i feel like music is a drug too, and sometimes my only coping mechanism. i think what brings me towards dylan is i can relate to the melancholy in his soul
@@asarogers5786 me? All im saying is that many people are seemingly less affected by music than others. Do you not agree? I was pointing out how strange it is that the music is being heard the same, but it is perceived different. My siblings for example admit that they may go all week without playing music and they don't know but a hand full of artist and thats only because they are trending in the top 10 right now. Its a good thing we all have different interest and taste. I was simply thinking out loud because this video inspired me to think about variations in musical taste. I'm not implying that music people are objectively superior humans. I didnt intend to come off condescending.
Mr Jones is an institution asking questions that lead nowhere while actively (if unconsciously) working to fetishize the freaks, and Mr Jones is a freak who refuses to face himself and come out of denial. I dig it, and this probably explains why I like the song so much more now than I used to.
Been a Dylan fan for 25 years and know most of his songs by heart but the number of them where I'm sure what I know what he's talking about is probably in the single digits. It's stream of consciousness poetry that's beautiful and I don't try to dissect it. Some lines I hear for years and they just pass thru my brain w/o making contact and then something in my life will happen, a new experience and then the next time I hear that "nonsense lyric" I burst out laughing coz I finally have something to associate it with. I still don't think it means "I've understood what he was talking about" only that I finally related to something he said in a song.
If I'm understanding this correctly, these reporters were trying to understand Dylan almost as anthropologists, but were taking an ethnocentric approach (or etic vs emic approach if you know the vocabulary). Interesting application here; nice video.
I love your videos, but I also like to imagine that sometimes the artist actually didn't carefully craft their song to have a complicated poetical meaning and that they just thought it sounded good. I once went to a modern art museum and took a tour where the artist was present. after talking about one of his pieces and explaining all of the emotional baggage behind it, the tour guide asked the artist if he was correct. The artist answered with "No, it just looked good, so I kept it." I like to think that sometimes music is the same way, and artists just use peoples interpretations as a meaning so people stop asking about it. Led Zepplin's "Stairway to Heaven" for example, I always kind of thought that they might have put a message in that song, but it was mostly just a song that sounded good. That's why I always find it almost funny when I see people analyzing any form of art. That said, I really do love your videos, you clearly are well-read and know what you're talking about.
Well, it's true what you said but if there's ever a song in Dylan's work that does not fit the "just sounds good" it's Mr Jones.....lol Besides I think the "oh there's no meaning at all" take is as much an interpretation of the artist's intentions as any other even though it's normally thought to be "neuter" or "truer".
I really like your channel. I can tell you are very passionate about music (as am I) and you do a great job of explaining music and its backstories. Keep up the good work!
I heard this song as a child through my older brothers. Just watching "Peaky Blinders" tonight and they are using a really good rendition of this song in an episode. I forgot how damn old this song is!
That’s a tack piano Dylan is playing. That’s a a standard piano with tacks applied to the hammers inside to create a more metallic sound that eliminates the sustain.
One day someone will do a video on Polyphonic because these videos are great. I’m trying to learn about music and interesting stories and moments and you’ve summed them up cleanly and beautifully. Please. Don’t stop.
What "chiopix2" is probably referring to is Idiot Wind's opening verses. Dylan storms into the song with a dryly ironic mini-rant, whereby he caricatures the scandalizing faux-exposés of tabloid press, even while slightly humoring it by framing the song's first "persona" voice as a sort of villainized celebrity outlaw: "Someone's got it in for me; They're planting stories in the press! Whoever it is, I wish they'd cut it out quick. But when they will, I can only guess! They say I shot a man named Gray And took his wife to Italy. She inherited a million bucks. And when she died, it came to me..." Of course, if we were to take some presumed literal interpretation of these lines as being directly autobiographical, then Dylan would be technically "exaggerating", himself serving up "distorted facts" ("fake news"?). Yet, since it is hardly ambiguous that the songwriter had indeed remained by the mid 1970's a frequent target of overzealous media scrutiny - sometimes consisting of wild guesses and even outright fabrications - it is difficult to call his attitude quite "paranoid" either. Arguably, this odd tension between the simultaneous air of fanciful extravagance and of real palpability within his opening rant is just one of many levels of tension Dylan seems to set up... in the first verse alone! And the way some of this tension is resolved by the verse's "punchline" of "I can't help it if I'm lucky!" is merely a further testament to Dylan's crafty prowess. And, in any case: yes, he Is indeed talking about the press here. Nevertheless, Dylan being Dylan, even when he's talking about the press, he's not Only talking about the press. Specifically, he is also using the press here as a way to frame another discourse; namely, one concerned with his marriage. At select points of the song, Dylan does seem to use his 'song persona" to speak directly To his wife. So, both commenters are correct. And Dylan here is speaking about the press And about Sara. Yet, even to say that the song is an address to Sara would be over-reductive. Sure, Jacob Dylan's famous musing that songs on "Blood on the Tracks" are his "parents talking" seems most apt in reference to "Idiot Wind". However, one of the great things about this album is that, even if this is correct to some degree and even if this serves as the central expressive "intention" of the song as a whole, it still does not work as a "skeleton key" to every line. Because it is not just Dylan talking to his wife. Rather, it is both of them talking to each other! Indeed, the song's perspective seems to shift between different speakers from verse to verse. And whenever Dylan sings "you", the pronoun refers to different people throughout the song. Sometimes it's him speaking to Sara. Sometimes it's Sara speaking to him. Sometimes it might be a character from a movie or a book. Sometimes a sort of a dream or imaginary self ("the murderous outlaw" aka "righteous defender of truth" certainly makes reappearances). During one of the rare instances when Dylan allows himself to talk somewhat openly about the specificities of his craft (was it in Chronicles?), he provides a sizable hint as to his own methodology in writing "Blood on the Tracks": he compares the album to a Chekhov play. This may seem confusing to some people. As if Dylan is merely putting us on. Isn't he know for that sort of thing? Indeed he is. Always hiding his tracks! (Though not quite because there's blood on them. More like magic. Is he maybe afraid to jinx his own creative muse?). However, despite Dylan's real slipperiness, in this instance, I do imagine that he is being earnest. Whenever I really let myself stop and think about the lyrics at length, I am struck by how various lines throughout the album seem to relate to each other, by how they "talk" not only to the listener, but also "among themselves". As such, I've come to consider "Blood on the Tracks" to be one on the more complexely and innovatively "theatrical" of Dylan's albums. Something that gives even more credence to such an interpretation of Dylan's lyrical method with "Blood on the Tracks" is even a cursory glance at where the songwriter took his art next. After all, it's a well known fact that Dylan pursued his exploration of this "song as mini play" mode even further, when he was writing his follow-up to "Blood on...": "Desire". Dylan cowrote the latter with his friend Jacques Levy, a seasoned playwright and theater director. I suppose, after having been thrust into a life where he was constantly surrounded by people who wouldn't know "how to act" around him, it may have seemed to Dylan like a wise move to turn his song world into a sort of a semi-secreted metaphorical theater stage, one where real life and artifice would fuse together and begin to echo and quote each other. And if, per one of Dylan's many heroes - Shakespeare, all the world is indeed a stage and everyone mere players, then perhaps, by trying to make a theatre of his art and life alike, Dylan hoped that people around him might, at the very least, feel more inclined to let themselves grow into better actors. Whatever his real private reasons, the 1970s was when Dylan the actor-singer-poet had suddenly become a playwright as well. Moreover, soon after that he would expand his already long list of creative roles even further, adding to it the role of a film and a theater director (see Rolling Thunder Revue and "Renaldo and Clara").
This interpretation is way too nice. The song can be easily interpreted as saying Mr Jones ‘sword swallows’ men who ‘wear high heels’, and with so many randos he doesn’t even know who’s swords he swallowed, and goes into a room blindfolded ‘put eyes in his pockets’ and bends over ‘with his nose to the ground’ so all the cows in the room get milked.
To this day, this remains one of your strongest pieces...I come back to it every so often and get more out of each time!! I think Dylan brings out the best in you; although I love all your Led Zeppelin pieces as well. Can sense your passion and you clearly have thought long and hard about it---keep up the good work!!(and Dylan content;)!!!
Dylan and The Beatles always had stupid questions thrown in their direction to the point that they began to despise press conferences. Fortunately Dylan and The Beatles were quick witted and often shot right back. Especially Dylan in his acidic way.
Simon Schoeters Yes, do a video on Woody, my grandfather knew him in the late 20s maybe early 30s in Okema Oklahoma where Woody grew up.. I have a rich memory of my mother making me listen to a phone call recorded from the John Birch society talking about Woodys communist affiliations, she was angry with them, although Woody certainly was a Communist in the 1930s.. My grandmother was also close to Woodys sister. A true American icon his music and ideology that was inspired during the depression is a true contribution to our culture.
@@LK_Ireland "I ain't a Communist, necessarily, but I've been in the red all my life." - this quote was first presented to me as him denying being a Communist, but the qualifier, " _necessarily_ ", sounds to me like a winking confirmation.
“Three things will continue; Life, Death and the lumberjacks are coming” How Bob ends his only novel which earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature. ‘Tarantula’ Be careful of that black tarantula among the boatload of bananas on Day-O
I always thought Mr. Jones was Dylan and that the song was autobiographical. It reflects the alienation, confusion, surrealism, constantly shifting and tilting identity and nightmarish Dada-esque world he finds himself mired in while in the thick of his fame. All the stuff about the professors and F. Scott Fitzgerald's books is the way the press treats HIM and the literacy they expect of him as the "spokesman of his generation". The nightmarish circus atmosphere is very similar to Desolation Row: "the beauty parlour is filled with sailors/The circus is in town." I think he is looking into a mirror here. Surprise.
Are you sure it wasn't Paul Griffin on piano? He and Al Kooper were paired off on "Like A Rolling Stone" so it would have been natural that they were both featured on this record.
Excellent analysis. BTW, Tony Z (folksinger from 1995) revamped this song & called it "Ballad of A Dim Man." It was specifically written about Newt Gingrich. And every line in the verses rhymed with "newt." ("Newt, you're such a tiny, tiny little man..." was one aside that didn't rhyme... "but something is happening here & you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Newt?")
Another great one, sir! Of course, he became prescient as well, when in the live version he changed the last line to make Mr. Jones at all times wear a telephone!
I know you rarely if ever do country but the recent Ken Burns series highlighted the path that Pancho and Lefty took to being an iconic country tune. From the ever conflicted Townes Van Zandt through Cosmic Cowboy Gram Parsons to Emmylou Harris and from her through Willie Nelson's daughter to Willie and Merle Haggard. Ken did for Country Music what he did for Jazz, Baseball, the National Parks and the Civil and Vietnam wars. Opened a vein of American history and culture, distilled it down to the essentials and let that essential life blood flow across our screens back into our consciousness. You do the same but instead of opening a vein, you take a needleful at a time and put it under your microscope.
You should make a video about the story of the "real" Mr. Jimmy from the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want." That would make a great Polyphonic video right there!
I think you should do a video with a title something along the lines of ‘What was the story of the Hurricane?’ Something like that, about the Bob Dylan song looking at all the perspectives and what it’s about etc
No mention of Rolling Stone Brian Jones... who, it is reported, was teased by Bob for being “Mr Jones” Brian was extremely talented and admired by Bob, by all accounts, but also very paranoid, insecure and easily wound up which is no way to be in the nightclubs and bars populated by acidic and speeding successful rock stars in 1965-66
Really enjoy watching your videos man! Lots of insight. I know it might be an ambitious task but In My Time of Dying by Led is downright my favorite song by them & filled with imagery you could play with! Love it man, thanks!!
Lemon said he felt like Dylan's Mr Jones, and if you listen with Lennon in mind as Mr Jones it makes sense, especially with the people Lennon hooked up with over time
I was wondering if you had anything to say about Sam Cooke. I was born 1997 and don't listen to soul but I came across Chain Gang and it instantly stuck with me, even teaching me as I looked up the history of US chain gangs
I swear I think this song is about Hunter S. Thompson. Mr. Jones ..being just a common name. The Great Gatsby .. Hunter learned how to write by copying this book. The Hells Angel book had a lot of gay tones in it.. And Hunter had multiple personalities.. Just a myth of mine..
The question for me is, where there anyone or rather any journalist that at the time actually got Dylan? The way the younger generation did that is. Thanks for the video, you're very well read that's really known.
I've heard the theory that this is an attack on the press but every time I listen to it and pay attention to the words I find it really hard not to believe that this is a song about closeted homosexuality. The 'you' aka Mr Jones in the song is, if not Dylan himself, someone he knows or a fictional character struggling with their sexuality. No prizes for guessing who (or what;)) the 'one eyed midget' at the end is supposed to be
It’s not Dylan’s struggle with sexuality, rather he’s calling Mr. Jones a messy party bottom. And in the context of the mid sixties this was a harsh insult, rather than in 2024 where that’s a badge of honor.
Well the naked one is not a man with no cloaths. Its Dylan itself being himself free and honest, others who are this understand this, but Mr jones is too keen and apart that he cant understand what he sees, and need to know cous he needs to write something when he gets home to print. And the bone is not a bone. Its a helping hand, or an invitation. But true, the words naked, bone, camel, paints a ridgid picture, to feel the literal meaning punsh but have a opening reaviling what happening. Camel being a cigarette but its a snarling remark to get even with the guy, cous you picture a strange animal
No mystery. Keep up with the Joneses. Middle America...primrose lane. Can't dig what's goin' on in this wild new way of thinking and living. Once the main man, in the circus, an outcast.
Hey man. Been binging your content at work and blasting zeppelin records at home all week. I decided it was a worthwhile investment to sign up for CuriosityStream. I’m pressed to see your series’s on nebula but I cannot figure out how to get nebula with my CuriosityStream account??
@Polyphonic guys you are making excellent videos, I am still though expecting something about Muse after two years of production!! I am sure you could dig up some interesting facts about them!
I believe that the "Thin Man' here is meant to indicate that Mr Zimmerman will not allow, through his genuine responses to the press, to become their 'Straw-man'. How unfortunate that Mr.Zimmerman felt like he needed to lie about "workin' the streets'" and other hardships he alleged himself to have gone through. The press digs and snoops - they'll call you out if you aren't influential enough.
The clip of Bob Dylan getting off his plane with a camera and taking photos of the paparazzi that are taking pictures of him always cracks me up
Is that on TH-cam?
sourcee
colin r how times have changed
@@rivelman23 😂😂😂
its still a good answer rn you just make reporters run for their life
This aged like a fine wine
@@st.beatles7283 Repackaged of course
I've always seen the sword-swallower as Dylan himself. Kneeling down to the media at first so he could use their voice (or throat). He then took it and used it to speak and get his ideas out into the world. Then when he was all done with it, he asks them how it feels, making them think about something real. After that he dropped the media and went on to use his own throat; "here is your throat back, thanks for the loan."
Makes sense.
I think you're right.
Mr Jones was probably gay...I think that's all it means...he probably remembers some uptight fake pressing dylan with questions that showed he wasn't really interested in dylan as an artist just was on a job to wrote about him..looking for a a scoop butting having to pick out the bones as dylan says...he was probably a bit camp and dylan wanted to make sure the person knew who the song was about without giving to much away to anybody else...
He was a male prostitute on drugs before he became a folk singer.
Last time I was this early to a video, Dylan hadn't gone electric yet
@@terrimy3402 same
Lame attention grabbing post... annoying
@@tylercooper1551 Who cares? I happened to see this video a minute after it was posted, I made a silly joke about it. No reason to get worked up about it mate, you're the one who wasted your time responding to it :)
@@tylercooper1551 dude u suck
@@tylercooper1551 You are an idiot and with an undeserved pomposity
Bob Dylan aside from being a songwriter and performer is such an interesting figure of the 20th Century, I love the Beatles but he is something totally different on his own, it’s really quite something. The way that he can paint a picture of a fictionalized version of himself in songs like this is so ahead of its time for me
The more dylan content you have the more respect you get👍👍👍
I second that. More 72-74 Grateful Dead
It's just basic science
I always feel like Polyphonic looks at my recently listened to and then makes a video. Ballad of a Thin Man has been on heavy rotation recently and I love this song. Good video as always
Really love the aesthetic on this video dude
the eagle picks my eyes, worms they lick my bones
feel so suicidal just like Dylans Mr. Jones
i dont know if this is another song or something you wrote but either way, i really like it
Alivia Mason John Lennon wrote it
During his heroin phase
@@terrybono5995 Thank you!
@@aliviamason533 you're welcome the song title is YER BLUES
th-cam.com/video/HEQQ-1rd4A0/w-d-xo.html
and a special rendition with his friends eric clapton keith richards and mitch mitchell
th-cam.com/video/JeFwaWFTGYU/w-d-xo.html
The complete works of Bob Dylan is staggering. No one wrote songs as good or original as Dylan. He is in a category of his own no one else comes close not even Cohen or Mitchell.
Maybe, but Mitchell's run of albums in the 70s is a better five album run than Dylan ever had.
@Matt Miller Dylan 7 in a row. Plus Mitchell went Jazz so that precludes some albums. Jazz is a despicable form of music.
Thank you for this. Ballad of a Thin Man is my all time favorite Dylan song
The sword-swallower line is so clever. Mr Jones had loaned his throat (perhaps a metaphor for something else) without realising. The Sword-swallower, having slashing up the insides of it with swords, (again, metaphor) gives it back, and only then Mr Jones realises he's been out done by the younger, smarter, freaky generation of the 1960s.
That's how I've always imagined it.
Always heard it as “are you still speechless? You can speak if you like. Have you nothing left to say now?”
The pen is mightier than the sword? The sword swallower might be the artist who is using the media as a mouthpiece to spread the word? Maybe?
Could you make a video about Rory Ghallagher? I think that’d be awesome!
Went to a concert in Kilkenny, Ireland, with Young and Dylan and he opened with this song. The ground shook and people roared it was incredible
I was there too. Dylan and his band gave us an absolute masterclass in American music. Fantastic show. I couldn't believe how good he was at 78 years old.
"His movement" Dylan was insistant that he didn't belong to any movement.
Wait how are you still on 500K subs only? You deserve more than a million. I love your content
I love music. I'm 25 and every year of my life i have appreciated music more and more, and now i make my own music. Life without music isnt worth living in my opinion. Music has literally saved my life in more than one way. I see my friends and family talk about or listen to music in such an unaffected and stoic manner compared to me. It's like some people just don't hear good music the way others do. I think to some music is an addictive drug, whereas to some it's just catchy noises.
That's how interests work
i feel like music is a drug too, and sometimes my only coping mechanism. i think what brings me towards dylan is i can relate to the melancholy in his soul
Without music, life would be a mistake - Friedrich Nietzsche
my goodness you are condescending
@@asarogers5786 me? All im saying is that many people are seemingly less affected by music than others. Do you not agree? I was pointing out how strange it is that the music is being heard the same, but it is perceived different. My siblings for example admit that they may go all week without playing music and they don't know but a hand full of artist and thats only because they are trending in the top 10 right now.
Its a good thing we all have different interest and taste. I was simply thinking out loud because this video inspired me to think about variations in musical taste. I'm not implying that music people are objectively superior humans. I didnt intend to come off condescending.
Mr Jones is an institution asking questions that lead nowhere while actively (if unconsciously) working to fetishize the freaks, and Mr Jones is a freak who refuses to face himself and come out of denial. I dig it, and this probably explains why I like the song so much more now than I used to.
So not the devil then? 😂 wow you have much to learn.
@@DanFernandesBenficaSaint lol K
PS you don't know me at all
Been a Dylan fan for 25 years and know most of his songs by heart but the number of them where I'm sure what I know what he's talking about is probably in the single digits.
It's stream of consciousness poetry that's beautiful and I don't try to dissect it. Some lines I hear for years and they just pass thru my brain w/o making contact and then something in my life will happen, a new experience and then the next time I hear that "nonsense lyric" I burst out laughing coz I finally have something to associate it with. I still don't think it means "I've understood what he was talking about" only that I finally related to something he said in a song.
I feel like all you need in life is The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Sam Cooke, Neil Young ... and someone to listen to them with.
And pink Floyd.
Leo - I think I’m gonna listen to Dark Side of the Moon since you said that.
Santana
There's a few others too but those are definite "ins" for me.
Lol no.
Being that Dylan is still living, I can't help but wonder what he thinks of your analysis...
Jesse Terpstra he would completely disagree with all of it. LOL that’s why I love Dylan
He told me to tell you that he kind of likes it because it keeps people confused, his words not mine.
He'd say something like "oh look, Mr Jones is trying to figure out who Mr Jones is" 🪞
If I'm understanding this correctly, these reporters were trying to understand Dylan almost as anthropologists, but were taking an ethnocentric approach (or etic vs emic approach if you know the vocabulary). Interesting application here; nice video.
I love your videos, but I also like to imagine that sometimes the artist actually didn't carefully craft their song to have a complicated poetical meaning and that they just thought it sounded good.
I once went to a modern art museum and took a tour where the artist was present. after talking about one of his pieces and explaining all of the emotional baggage behind it, the tour guide asked the artist if he was correct. The artist answered with "No, it just looked good, so I kept it."
I like to think that sometimes music is the same way, and artists just use peoples interpretations as a meaning so people stop asking about it. Led Zepplin's "Stairway to Heaven" for example, I always kind of thought that they might have put a message in that song, but it was mostly just a song that sounded good.
That's why I always find it almost funny when I see people analyzing any form of art.
That said, I really do love your videos, you clearly are well-read and know what you're talking about.
Well, it's true what you said but if there's ever a song in Dylan's work that does not fit the "just sounds good" it's Mr Jones.....lol Besides I think the "oh there's no meaning at all" take is as much an interpretation of the artist's intentions as any other even though it's normally thought to be "neuter" or "truer".
Reminds me of sick-of-the-press NBA players
I really like your channel. I can tell you are very passionate about music (as am I) and you do a great job of explaining music and its backstories. Keep up the good work!
I didn't know the history to this song, but it has long been my favorite songs of Dylan's. Thanks for shedding some light!!!
I heard this song as a child through my older brothers. Just watching "Peaky Blinders" tonight and they are using a really good rendition of this song in an episode. I forgot how damn old this song is!
That’s a tack piano Dylan is playing. That’s a a standard piano with tacks applied to the hammers inside to create a more metallic sound that eliminates the sustain.
One day someone will do a video on Polyphonic because these videos are great. I’m trying to learn about music and interesting stories and moments and you’ve summed them up cleanly and beautifully. Please. Don’t stop.
Bob Dylan made it quite clear what he thought about the press in "Idiot Wind".
I believe the song had a lot to do with Sara
Yea... bad reading lmao
What "chiopix2" is probably referring to is Idiot Wind's opening verses. Dylan storms into the song with a dryly ironic mini-rant, whereby he caricatures the scandalizing faux-exposés of tabloid press, even while slightly humoring it by framing the song's first "persona" voice as a sort of villainized celebrity outlaw:
"Someone's got it in for me;
They're planting stories in the press!
Whoever it is, I wish they'd cut it out quick.
But when they will, I can only guess!
They say I shot a man named Gray
And took his wife to Italy.
She inherited a million bucks.
And when she died, it came to me..."
Of course, if we were to take some presumed literal interpretation of these lines as being directly autobiographical, then Dylan would be technically "exaggerating", himself serving up "distorted facts" ("fake news"?). Yet, since it is hardly ambiguous that the songwriter had indeed remained by the mid 1970's a frequent target of overzealous media scrutiny - sometimes consisting of wild guesses and even outright fabrications - it is difficult to call his attitude quite "paranoid" either. Arguably, this odd tension between the simultaneous air of fanciful extravagance and of real palpability within his opening rant is just one of many levels of tension Dylan seems to set up... in the first verse alone! And the way some of this tension is resolved by the verse's "punchline" of "I can't help it if I'm lucky!" is merely a further testament to Dylan's crafty prowess. And, in any case: yes, he Is indeed talking about the press here.
Nevertheless, Dylan being Dylan, even when he's talking about the press, he's not Only talking about the press. Specifically, he is also using the press here as a way to frame another discourse; namely, one concerned with his marriage. At select points of the song, Dylan does seem to use his 'song persona" to speak directly To his wife. So, both commenters are correct. And Dylan here is speaking about the press And about Sara.
Yet, even to say that the song is an address to Sara would be over-reductive. Sure, Jacob Dylan's famous musing that songs on "Blood on the Tracks" are his "parents talking" seems most apt in reference to "Idiot Wind". However, one of the great things about this album is that, even if this is correct to some degree and even if this serves as the central expressive "intention" of the song as a whole, it still does not work as a "skeleton key" to every line. Because it is not just Dylan talking to his wife. Rather, it is both of them talking to each other! Indeed, the song's perspective seems to shift between different speakers from verse to verse. And whenever Dylan sings "you", the pronoun refers to different people throughout the song. Sometimes it's him speaking to Sara. Sometimes it's Sara speaking to him. Sometimes it might be a character from a movie or a book. Sometimes a sort of a dream or imaginary self ("the murderous outlaw" aka "righteous defender of truth" certainly makes reappearances). During one of the rare instances when Dylan allows himself to talk somewhat openly about the specificities of his craft (was it in Chronicles?), he provides a sizable hint as to his own methodology in writing "Blood on the Tracks": he compares the album to a Chekhov play. This may seem confusing to some people. As if Dylan is merely putting us on. Isn't he know for that sort of thing? Indeed he is. Always hiding his tracks! (Though not quite because there's blood on them. More like magic. Is he maybe afraid to jinx his own creative muse?). However, despite Dylan's real slipperiness, in this instance, I do imagine that he is being earnest. Whenever I really let myself stop and think about the lyrics at length, I am struck by how various lines throughout the album seem to relate to each other, by how they "talk" not only to the listener, but also "among themselves". As such, I've come to consider "Blood on the Tracks" to be one on the more complexely and innovatively "theatrical" of Dylan's albums. Something that gives even more credence to such an interpretation of Dylan's lyrical method with "Blood on the Tracks" is even a cursory glance at where the songwriter took his art next.
After all, it's a well known fact that Dylan pursued his exploration of this "song as mini play" mode even further, when he was writing his follow-up to "Blood on...": "Desire". Dylan cowrote the latter with his friend Jacques Levy, a seasoned playwright and theater director.
I suppose, after having been thrust into a life where he was constantly surrounded by people who wouldn't know "how to act" around him, it may have seemed to Dylan like a wise move to turn his song world into a sort of a semi-secreted metaphorical theater stage, one where real life and artifice would fuse together and begin to echo and quote each other. And if, per one of Dylan's many heroes - Shakespeare, all the world is indeed a stage and everyone mere players, then perhaps, by trying to make a theatre of his art and life alike, Dylan hoped that people around him might, at the very least, feel more inclined to let themselves grow into better actors.
Whatever his real private reasons, the 1970s was when Dylan the actor-singer-poet had suddenly become a playwright as well. Moreover, soon after that he would expand his already long list of creative roles even further, adding to it the role of a film and a theater director (see Rolling Thunder Revue and "Renaldo and Clara").
You know what... that was an enlightening and downright impressive reply. My mind was changed well done sir 👍
@@dylandream2248 song Sara, idiot wind and sad eye lady
I read many years back that Bob said William F Buckley Jr was the thin man he was referring to in the song.
This interpretation is way too nice. The song can be easily interpreted as saying Mr Jones ‘sword swallows’ men who ‘wear high heels’, and with so many randos he doesn’t even know who’s swords he swallowed, and goes into a room blindfolded ‘put eyes in his pockets’ and bends over ‘with his nose to the ground’ so all the cows in the room get milked.
To this day, this remains one of your strongest pieces...I come back to it every so often and get more out of each time!! I think Dylan brings out the best in you; although I love all your Led Zeppelin pieces as well. Can sense your passion and you clearly have thought long and hard about it---keep up the good work!!(and Dylan content;)!!!
Dylan and The Beatles always had stupid questions thrown in their direction to the point that they began to despise press conferences. Fortunately Dylan and The Beatles were quick witted and often shot right back. Especially Dylan in his acidic way.
What I like is that he didn't call the song, Mr Jones! He called it Ballad of a Thin man - so the title is a puzzle as well!
Love the videos about Dylan, I’d love something about The Velvet Underground
From sixty years on we sometimes forget the impact that LSD was having on writers and musicians in those days
Very interesting video, but could you do a video about Woody Guthrie?
Simon Schoeters Yes, do a video on Woody, my grandfather knew him in the late 20s maybe early 30s in Okema Oklahoma where Woody grew up.. I have a rich memory of my mother making me listen to a phone call recorded from the John Birch society talking about Woodys communist affiliations, she was angry with them, although Woody certainly was a Communist in the 1930s.. My grandmother was also close to Woodys sister. A true American icon his music and ideology that was inspired during the depression is a true contribution to our culture.
@@LK_Ireland "I ain't a Communist, necessarily, but I've been in the red all my life." - this quote was first presented to me as him denying being a Communist, but the qualifier, " _necessarily_ ", sounds to me like a winking confirmation.
@@dwc1964 to add apparently this was said a sentence or two before "Left wing, right wing, chicken wing - it's the same thing to me,"
omg yessss
“Three things will continue; Life, Death and the lumberjacks are coming” How Bob ends his only novel which earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature. ‘Tarantula’
Be careful of that black tarantula among the boatload of bananas on Day-O
I always thought Mr. Jones was Dylan and that the song was autobiographical. It reflects the alienation, confusion, surrealism, constantly shifting and tilting identity and nightmarish Dada-esque world he finds himself mired in while in the thick of his fame. All the stuff about the professors and F. Scott Fitzgerald's books is the way the press treats HIM and the literacy they expect of him as the "spokesman of his generation". The nightmarish circus atmosphere is very similar to Desolation Row: "the beauty parlour is filled with sailors/The circus is in town." I think he is looking into a mirror here. Surprise.
Interesting!
I love how he trolled the media. They are even worse today!
Are you sure it wasn't Paul Griffin on piano? He and Al Kooper were paired off on "Like A Rolling Stone" so it would have been natural that they were both featured on this record.
Excellent analysis.
BTW, Tony Z (folksinger from 1995) revamped this song & called it "Ballad of A Dim Man." It was specifically written about Newt Gingrich. And every line in the verses rhymed with "newt." ("Newt, you're such a tiny, tiny little man..." was one aside that didn't rhyme... "but something is happening here & you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Newt?")
Another great one, sir! Of course, he became prescient as well, when in the live version he changed the last line to make Mr. Jones at all times wear a telephone!
I know you rarely if ever do country but the recent Ken Burns series highlighted the path that Pancho and Lefty took to being an iconic country tune. From the ever conflicted Townes Van Zandt through Cosmic Cowboy Gram Parsons to Emmylou Harris and from her through Willie Nelson's daughter to Willie and Merle Haggard.
Ken did for Country Music what he did for Jazz, Baseball, the National Parks and the Civil and Vietnam wars. Opened a vein of American history and culture, distilled it down to the essentials and let that essential life blood flow across our screens back into our consciousness.
You do the same but instead of opening a vein, you take a needleful at a time and put it under your microscope.
You should make a video about the story of the "real" Mr. Jimmy from the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want." That would make a great Polyphonic video right there!
Beatles and how they dealt with the press is also interesting.
The one song he wrote later that came close to Ballad of a Thin Man was This Wheel's on Fire from The Basement Tapes. It has a similar feel and vibe.
I'd love to have a beer with the guy that narrates these videos
I think you should do a video with a title something along the lines of ‘What was the story of the Hurricane?’ Something like that, about the Bob Dylan song looking at all the perspectives and what it’s about etc
This is probably my all time favorite Dylan song.. Thank you so much!!
That’s cool! Somehow, even from the very first listen, I had always had this vision of ‘the thin man’ as being a member of the press.
Your Dylan videos are my favorite
This was great! I was just thinking that you should put out another Dylan video 2 days ago and then "Oh hey look...!"
I genuinely believe that this channel makes the best content on TH-cam. Not even joking
You've just got yourself a new subscriber, love your work!
Was eagerly waiting for another Dylan video.
Do make more
I have tried for nearly 30 years to like Dylan's music but I just can't. The Traveling Wilburys is all I can take of him.
No mention of
Rolling Stone Brian Jones...
who, it is reported, was teased by Bob for being “Mr Jones”
Brian was extremely talented and admired by Bob,
by all accounts,
but also very paranoid,
insecure and easily wound up
which is no way to be in the nightclubs and bars populated by acidic and speeding successful rock stars in 1965-66
He might be winking a little at Brian but I don't think he is main subject of the song.
Was literally just listening to Dylan!
Love your videos
your videos are freaking great!
Really enjoy watching your videos man! Lots of insight. I know it might be an ambitious task but In My Time of Dying by Led is downright my favorite song by them & filled with imagery you could play with!
Love it man, thanks!!
Dude you need to talk about The Band
'ballad of a thin man' s opening chords sounds more like 'sinner's prayer' than 'i believe to my soul', but maybe that's just me.
Almost forgot to say I appreciate your interpretations and thank you for posting 💟
Please do a video on MGMT
Lemon said he felt like Dylan's Mr Jones, and if you listen with Lennon in mind as Mr Jones it makes sense, especially with the people Lennon hooked up with over time
Incredible timing!
Definitely think that made to wear headphones may be a Harrison Bergeron reference, the short story by Kurt Vonnegut.
I was wondering if you had anything to say about Sam Cooke. I was born 1997 and don't listen to soul but I came across Chain Gang and it instantly stuck with me, even teaching me as I looked up the history of US chain gangs
please make a video on every dylan song
I swear I think this song is about Hunter S. Thompson.
Mr. Jones ..being just a common name.
The Great Gatsby .. Hunter learned how to write by copying this book.
The Hells Angel book had a lot of gay tones in it..
And Hunter had multiple personalities..
Just a myth of mine..
one of the reasons i love dylan is how personal his works are... he makes what he wants to make. idk if u get what i mean
They sampled my edit of "Ballad of a Thin Man"!
Music Guy Haha I’m not complaining. Just wish they gave me some credit because I worked pretty hard on it. Either way, I’m glad they did it.
So refreshing to see a real great singer giving the stupid journalists who asked idiotic questions. And always wanting to dissect everything.
The question for me is, where there anyone or rather any journalist that at the time actually got Dylan? The way the younger generation did that is. Thanks for the video, you're very well read that's really known.
These vids are beautifully mad dude! Keep it up
I've heard the theory that this is an attack on the press but every time I listen to it and pay attention to the words I find it really hard not to believe that this is a song about closeted homosexuality. The 'you' aka Mr Jones in the song is, if not Dylan himself, someone he knows or a fictional character struggling with their sexuality. No prizes for guessing who (or what;)) the 'one eyed midget' at the end is supposed to be
A bit of school boy humor. I think he is implying that the subject of his tirade is gay yes.
It’s not Dylan’s struggle with sexuality, rather he’s calling Mr. Jones a messy party bottom. And in the context of the mid sixties this was a harsh insult, rather than in 2024 where that’s a badge of honor.
Dylan’s press conference videos are so funny
A few suggestions for video topics: Bruce Springsteen and Jackson Browne.
Wouldn't mind seeing another Eric Clapton video
Great video on probably my second favorite Dylan song.
Damn, that intro was smooth af
Very informative and interesting, well done!
Great video once again, Polyphonic. Is there a possibility you could make a video decoding 21st Century Breakdown (by Green Day)’s story?
Well the naked one is not a man with no cloaths. Its Dylan itself being himself free and honest, others who are this understand this, but Mr jones is too keen and apart that he cant understand what he sees, and need to know cous he needs to write something when he gets home to print. And the bone is not a bone. Its a helping hand, or an invitation. But true, the words naked, bone, camel, paints a ridgid picture, to feel the literal meaning punsh but have a opening reaviling what happening. Camel being a cigarette but its a snarling remark to get even with the guy, cous you picture a strange animal
Jamie Saft did a great version of this song with Mike Patton of Faith No More
I didn’t appreciate the brilliance of Dylan until now, great video
No mystery. Keep up with the Joneses. Middle America...primrose lane. Can't dig what's goin' on in this wild new way of thinking and living. Once the main man, in the circus, an outcast.
One of my all time favorite Dylan songs
Bob was such a troll lmao
Hey man. Been binging your content at work and blasting zeppelin records at home all week. I decided it was a worthwhile investment to sign up for CuriosityStream. I’m pressed to see your series’s on nebula but I cannot figure out how to get nebula with my CuriosityStream account??
Graphics winner n challenging
Super summary 👌
Would love to see a video about the Moody Blues
Another fantastic video. Thanks for your work!
Your next Dylan video should be about Abandoned Love
Could you do a video about King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard?
the best on YT
Brilliant analysis
@Polyphonic guys you are making excellent videos, I am still though expecting something about Muse after two years of production!! I am sure you could dig up some interesting facts about them!
I believe that the "Thin Man' here is meant to indicate that Mr Zimmerman will not allow, through his genuine responses to the press, to become their 'Straw-man'. How unfortunate that Mr.Zimmerman felt like he needed to lie about "workin' the streets'" and other hardships he alleged himself to have gone through. The press digs and snoops - they'll call you out if you aren't influential enough.