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BOB DYLAN’S “TEMPEST” – INTERTEXTUALITY, SHAKESPEARE AND EDGAR ALLAN POE
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Christopher Rollason
Sep 9, 2012, 12:21:07 PM9/9/12
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It will surprise no-one to discover that winds from the past blow across Bob Dylan’s brand-new album « Tempest », released in September 2012. The singer-songwriter’s latest opus lives and thrives under the sign of intertextuality, literary and musical – as of course does all his work, and even more so his more recent production. Such is announced by the title « Tempest » itself, which, whatever Dylan’s own disclaimers, inevitably recalls Shakespeare’s late-period masterpiece « The Tempest » (which Dylan had earlier cited, in the phrase “the stuff dreams are made of”, from his unreleased early-80s song “City of Gold”).
The album offers textual nods from Dylan to Shakespeare himself (« I came to bury, not to praise », a straight allusion to « Julius Caesar »), the Bible (the Book of Revelation, directly sourced), Mark Twain (« the gilded age »), a nursery rhyme like “Little Boy Blue”, and popular ballads and blues songs from « Pretty Polly » to « Two Trains». « Roll on John », the tribute to the murdered John Lennon with which the album closes, includes direct quotations from Beatles and Lennon songs (« A Day in the Life », « Come Together », « The Ballad of John and Yoko ») and from William Blake’s’ poem « Tyger, Tyger ». « Scarlet Town » starts out from the ballad « Barbara Allen », and its compeers « Black Jack Davey » and « Matty Groves » are there behind « Tin Angel ». The album’s epic title track, a near-14-minute narrative of the sinking of the Titanic, sounds like a pastiche of an old broadside ballad, and effectively has Dylan citing himself, since he had already mentioned the ill-fated vessel in 1965, in the ninth stanza of « Desolation Row ».
Haunting the album’s intertextual aisles is the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe, whom I have discovered there no less than three times! The opening track, « Duquesne Whistle » (co-written by Dylan with Robert Hunter) has the phrase « at my chamber door », which, like the title track’s « nameless here for evermore », comes direct from Poe’s celebrated poem « The Raven » (as earlier referenced by Dylan in 1965’s « Love Minus Zero / No Limit »). It is worth noting that Poe’s poem itself includes the word « tempest » twice, and the song « Tempest » mourns the Titanic’s dead in a lament – « Sixteen hundred had gone to rest / The good, the bad, the rich, the poor / The loveliest and the best » - that recalls another poem by Poe, « The City in the Sea » (« Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best / Have gone to their eternal rest »). Poe’s own interest in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, besides, is clear from his borrowing of its protagonist’s name, Prospero, for his story “The Masque of the Red Death”.
Be the tempest Shakespeare’s or Poe’s, storms from the past loom over Bob Dylan’s newest work, released a full half-century after his debut album. The poet and songwriter is still there, accompanied by shadows of the high and popular culture of the past, to serve as our elusive and ironic guide, on this disturbing but eminently listenable album, through a deceptive world where “if love is a sin, then beauty is a crime”, a dark and shadowy universe perhaps only redeemable by the constant, ironic alertness of the artist.
The album offers textual nods from Dylan to Shakespeare himself (« I came to bury, not to praise », a straight allusion to « Julius Caesar »), the Bible (the Book of Revelation, directly sourced), Mark Twain (« the gilded age »), a nursery rhyme like “Little Boy Blue”, and popular ballads and blues songs from « Pretty Polly » to « Two Trains». « Roll on John », the tribute to the murdered John Lennon with which the album closes, includes direct quotations from Beatles and Lennon songs (« A Day in the Life », « Come Together », « The Ballad of John and Yoko ») and from William Blake’s’ poem « Tyger, Tyger ». « Scarlet Town » starts out from the ballad « Barbara Allen », and its compeers « Black Jack Davey » and « Matty Groves » are there behind « Tin Angel ». The album’s epic title track, a near-14-minute narrative of the sinking of the Titanic, sounds like a pastiche of an old broadside ballad, and effectively has Dylan citing himself, since he had already mentioned the ill-fated vessel in 1965, in the ninth stanza of « Desolation Row ».
Haunting the album’s intertextual aisles is the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe, whom I have discovered there no less than three times! The opening track, « Duquesne Whistle » (co-written by Dylan with Robert Hunter) has the phrase « at my chamber door », which, like the title track’s « nameless here for evermore », comes direct from Poe’s celebrated poem « The Raven » (as earlier referenced by Dylan in 1965’s « Love Minus Zero / No Limit »). It is worth noting that Poe’s poem itself includes the word « tempest » twice, and the song « Tempest » mourns the Titanic’s dead in a lament – « Sixteen hundred had gone to rest / The good, the bad, the rich, the poor / The loveliest and the best » - that recalls another poem by Poe, « The City in the Sea » (« Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best / Have gone to their eternal rest »). Poe’s own interest in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, besides, is clear from his borrowing of its protagonist’s name, Prospero, for his story “The Masque of the Red Death”.
Be the tempest Shakespeare’s or Poe’s, storms from the past loom over Bob Dylan’s newest work, released a full half-century after his debut album. The poet and songwriter is still there, accompanied by shadows of the high and popular culture of the past, to serve as our elusive and ironic guide, on this disturbing but eminently listenable album, through a deceptive world where “if love is a sin, then beauty is a crime”, a dark and shadowy universe perhaps only redeemable by the constant, ironic alertness of the artist.
Delia
Sep 17, 2012, 10:08:55 PM9/17/12
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Just Walkin'
Sep 18, 2012, 4:58:29 PM9/18/12
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links!
Hey Delia: Indeed, we're all like the Titanic.
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