Friday, August 24, 2007

Tambourine Man



So. This time a highbrow look at the lyrics of one of those Dylan songs that you maybe kind of liked once, before you heard it played too many times.

Maybe you thought the lyrics were some annoying psychedelic BS but the song was okay, at least in the "Byrds" version, and who really cares about song lyrics anyway, right?

Well, I'd say, go ahead and hate "Tambourine Man" for being overplayed, but don't doubt this: the lyrics are getting at something very specific, and I think they're sublime once you understand what it is.

(clip)

Here's my close reading:

Dylan is asking the one who really makes the music _ call him The Tambourine Man, Dionysus, God, or the Muse, whatever you want _ to possess him.

This is a peek into the creative process of someone who is universally acknowledged as a master songwriter. Sometimes you wonder where he got all the ideas: in this song he more or less says he can't really take credit for what it is that he does.

Everyone knows the famous first verse/chorus:

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me.
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.


This intro is the exact equivalent of the beginning of Homer's Illiad: the invocation to the muse: the "Tambourine Man," (not the 'Sandman' or the 'Pusher Man', as I think many people interpret the lyrics).



Dylan himself is pretty much erased from the picture. His senses are gone, he's so tired he's past sleeping, it's early morning, his fingers barely feel the strings, and he's begging to be released from what remains of his consciousness and just go under the 'dancing spell.'

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'.
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it.


In Plato's Ion, Socrates drops his famous Q&A for a minute and gives his explanation of how poetry is created. It runs something like this ('Jowett' translation:)

The gift which you possess ... is not an art, but ... an inspiration. There is a divinity moving you, like that contained in the stone which Euripides calls a magnet ... This (magnet) not only attracts iron rings, but also imparts to them a similar power of attracting other rings...all of them derive their power of suspension from the original stone.
In like manner the Muse first of all inspires men herself..For all good poets ... compose their beautiful poems not by art, but because they are inspired and possessed.
And as the Corybantian revellers when they dance are not in their right mind, so the lyric poets are not in their right mind when they are composing their beautiful strains: but when falling under the power of music and metre they are inspired and possessed; like Bacchic maidens who draw milk and honey from the rivers when they are under the influence of Dionysus but not when they are in their right mind. And the soul of the lyric poet does the same, as they themselves say; ... For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses ... when he has not attained to this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles.
In this way, the God would seem to indicate to us ... that these beautiful poems are not ... the work of man, but divine and the work of God; and that the poets are only the interpreters of the Gods by whom they are severally possessed.


Once you've got the idea, the rest of the lyrics fall into place and don't need much interpretation.



Though you might hear laughin', spinnin', swingin' madly across the sun,
It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin'.
And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind,
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seein' that he's chasing.


Dylan is the ragged clown. He warns the Tambourine Man not to be distracted as the mortal behind him tries to keep pace with the song. But of course, Dylan won't ever quite be able to behold the Muse directly, he has to chase after its shadow, that's as much as humans can comprehend of the divine.

(Chorus)

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.


Amazing imagery. Dylan will have to sacrifice all that makes him individual in order to experience the rapture.
Once he loses himself "with all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves" he'll be all the way in the creative trance state.

Of course, that means he'll be part of the song, not a performer performing it, but part of the Bacchanal.

After he sleeps maybe a few glimpses of what he saw while dancing with Dionysus on the circus sands will come back to him; that's what's he handed down to us, the next link in Socrates's magnetized chain of rings.

(The photos are of my son, who succumbed totally to Bacchus during our vacation when he was exposed to a techno version of "Bolero" at full volume. It was pretty humorous...).

Full lyrics to "Tambourine Man":

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand,
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.

(chorus)

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'.
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it.

(chorus)

Though you might hear laughin', spinnin', swingin' madly across the sun,
It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin'.
And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind,
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seein' that he's chasing.

(chorus)

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

(chorus)

*end*


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