Details of the articles covering the other three tracks on side two of “Bringing it all back home” are given at the end of this piece.
Previously in this series on this song….
Part 3: All your reindeer armies.
By Mike Johnson
[I read somewhere that if you wanted the very best, the acme of Dylan’s pre-electric work, you couldn’t do better than listen to side B of Bringing It All Back Home, 1964. Four songs, ‘Mr Tambourine Man,’ ‘Gates of Eden,’ ‘It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)’ and ‘It’s All Over Now Baby Blue’ represent the pinnacle of Dylan’s acoustic achievement. In this series I aim to chart how each of these foundation songs fared in performance over the years, the changing face of each song and its ultimate fate (at least to date). This is the third article on the fourth and final track, ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’ You can find the previous articles in this History in Performance series here: ]
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The ability to switch from one language register, or modality, to another is a feature of Dylan’s song writing. From one line to the next he can switch from intensely lyrical language to common sayings, idioms and cliches. In the third verse of ‘Baby Blue’ he delivers this astonishing line, ‘all your reindeer armies are all going home,’ to be followed, a couple of lines later, with, ‘the carpet too is moving under you,’ an image derived from the common saying ‘to pull the rug or carpet out from under someone’s feet.’ The Cambridge Dictionary defines that as ‘to suddenly take away help or support from someone, or to suddenly do something that causes many problems for them.’ It is an action that destabilises a person.
(Note: my proofreader, Janscie Sharplin sent me this comment ‘Iinterestingly, when I checked the repeated ‘all’ in the reindeer armies line, almost all the lyric sites had ‘ your empty handed armies’ instead, which wasn’t nearly as good cos it repeated the previous verse. But the ‘official’ Dylan site had the reindeer. Wonder what happened there, a mistake in some performances?)
I can’t help thinking that it is the song itself that is pulling the rug out from under a certain someone’s feet, even that line itself. In other words, the song is not merely describing that vertiginous feeling, but inducing it. Sometimes we have to ask, not what is a song saying, but what is it doing.
The last verse is a mix of common and extraordinary language:
Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you The vagabond who’s rapping at your door Is standing in the clothes that you once wore Strike another match, go start anew And it’s all over now, Baby Blue
The intensely lyrical lines two, three and four are bracketed by two everyday images. Stepping stones and striking another match evoke common and familiar sayings, while those middle lines are mysterious and strange. It’s the juxtaposition of these elements that helps give the song its force. The requirement to move on, to leave the past behind, is both mundane and singular.
I finished the last article, (Part 2) with a couple of stunning performances from 1980. We now jump to 1984, to Rotterdam, April 6th. This marks the first attempt since 1978 to give the song a full band backing, a step away from acoustic versions. He puts a bit of a bounce into it also. I’m not sure about it. It’s a fine, jeering vocal performance, but it’s a bit too dumpty-dum for me, perhaps a bit too up-tempo. There is a messiness here. The emotional intensity seems to have been compromised as Dylan rushes through the verses, but others may not agree.
The extended harp break is of interest with Dylan using the instrument, as he so often does, to push the emotion of the song to new levels. The harmonica will become increasingly important as Dylan guides the song into the 1990s.
1984
Better all around, is the following recording from the same year (date unknown). Not only is it a clearer and better recording but, by slowing the hectic pace, Dylan is able to deliver a more considered and moving version. It swings without falling into the dumpty-dum. Finally, a successful rock version of this acoustic song. All it lacks is the harp break.
1984
Dylan dropped the song for 1985 and 1986, his Tom Petty years, but it resurfaced again in 1987 when Dylan performed it with The Grateful Dead and with Petty’s band, The Heartbreakers.
For his Grateful Dead performance, Dylan slows the song down once more, drops the harp break in favour of Jerry Garcia’s lyrical guitar playing – Garcia finds the sweetness in the melody – and uses an exaggerated version of his famous ‘undulating’ tones, half-singing (with vibrato) half calling. Asalways, it’s good to see Dylan performing, a fair quality video. Not too bad at al
1987 (with Grateful Dead)
For my ear, however, that is eclipsed by this performance with The Heartbreakers. Maybe it’s that piano accompaniment by the ever-inventive Benmont Tench, whose contribution makes these 1987 performances memorable, or the drastically slowed down tempo, or Dylan’s compassionate vocal, or maybe all these elements combined that give rise to this arresting Helsinki performance.
1987 Helsinki (with Heartbreakers)
That wasn’t the only great performance with the Heartbreakers. A few days before the Helsinki concert we find this one from Nuremberg. It’s the same arrangement as in Helsinki but Dylan sings in a higher register, delivering an outstanding vocal performance. Both these 1987 performances show how well the song responds to the slower tempo, a lesson Dylan will apply later in the 1990s. But he didn’t play the harmonica.
1987 Nuremberg
1988 was the first year of the Never Ending Tour, a year in which Dylan’s vocal style changed again to a strangely forced, supercharged, almost breathless sound, chopping up lines into brief phrases or single words, breathing after every word or three. It sometimes sounds as if he is deconstructing rather than singing the songs. It’s astonishing how different his voice is, thicker and angrier, from 1987. There were thirteen performances of the song in 1988, compared to ten in 1987. He’s not losing sight of the song, but nor is he featuring it regularly.
It stays as a rock song, pretty much working the arrangement he’d hit upon in 1984, abandoning the slow, soulful approach of 1987 (Birmingham, Sept 8th). Still no harmonica.
1988
Dylan rarely, if ever, played the harmonica in 1988, but in 1989 the instrument came back strongly, often played at its squeakiest, the very top notes, hard and biting. ‘Baby Blue’ came back with a vengeance too, clocking up twenty-nine performances.
In 1989 we have a return to form, if you want to see it that way. ‘Baby Blue’ is stripped back to its acoustic roots, is closer to the original tempo, and the somewhat unruly audience likes that.
It’s a fine vocal, while the subdued, mournful and bluesy harp break is outstanding.
1989 (Upper Darby Oct 15th)
There were other brilliant performances in 1989. It’s worth checking out this one from Cleveland.
1989 (Cleveland, Nov 2nd)
What’s outstanding is how different the harp break is from the Upper Darby performance, which was intense and reflective. At Cleveland, the harp is scratchy and anguished, the emotion jagged. It rips through your brain. It occurs to me that this discordance is very punky – it could hardly be more abrasive.
This punkiness could be the key to understanding what came next in the three years 1990 – 1992, the era of the Untouchables (how the band came to be known), an era in which, perhaps, Dylan discovered that he could not destroy his songs no matter what he did to them. Bob and his thrash band. We’ll return soon to see how ‘Baby Blue’ fared in the hands of the Untouchables.
In the meantime, make sure the carpet doesn’t start moving on you.
Kia Ora
Previously in this series….
Tambourine Man
- Part 1: A masterpiece is born
- Part 2: 1966 – Darker hues.
- Part 3: Chasing Shadows
- Part 4. 1978-1986. Far From the Twisted Reach
- Part 5: 1986-1993: Evening’s Empire
- Part 6: 1994 – 99: My weariness amazes me
- Part 7: 2000 – 2010: the jingle jangle.
Gates of Eden
- Part 1: 1964 Ancestral voices prophesying war
- Part 2: 1974 – 1991 A crashing but meaningless blow
- Part 3: 1991 – 2001. Where Babies Wail: A Spooky Grandeur
It’s alright ma
- Part 1: 1964 – 74 – From the fool’s gold mouthpiece
- Part 2: 1975/81 – Stuffed graveyards and false gods.
- Part 3: 1984 – One who sings with his tongue on fire.
- Part 4: 1988 – The darkness at the break of noon
- Part 5: 1999 – 2004. Stuffed graveyards, false goals.