So, Bob's got a new song out and despite a couple weak passages its pretty amazing. Winston Watson's drumming is impeccable, probably the best work he did at the Time Out of Mind sessions. According to a press release Edna Gunderson wrote up for USA Today, the lyrics were later used in other Dylan songs. Most notably, lyrics from "Standing In the Doorway" abound, but a few others show up as well. "Some things just last longer than you thought that they would" was tightened up into "some things last longer than you think they will" in "Cold Irons Bound" and "feel further away than I ever did before" was transplanted nearly verbatim into "Highlands."
Perhaps most interesting, however, is the line "I'm sleeping in the balance of man." This echoes the final couplet of "Every Grain of Sand" where Bob sings "I'm hanging in the balance of the reality of man." "Every Grain of Sand" is a song expressing Bob's faith, so is he renouncing it in "Dreamin' of You" by saying he is asleep? Is he saying that man has no reality and so his faith in humanity is asleep and he's gone completely into a spiritual realm?
Here are the lyrics as I hear them. I have placed portions I'm not sure about in (parentheses).
Dreamin’ of You
The light in this place is really bad;
It’s like being in the bottom of a stream.
Any minute now I’m expecting to wake up from a dream.
(Hurts) so much,
the softest touch.
On (the break of) some child
who neither wept nor smiled,
I (fathered my faith) in the rain.
I’ve been dreaming of you,
that’s all I do,
and its drivin’ me insane.
Somewhere dawn is breaking,
lightning streaking across the floor.
Church bells are ringing;
I wonder who they’re ringing for.
Travel under any star,
you’ll see me wherever you are.
The shadowy past
is so vague and so vast.
I’m sleeping in the balance of man.
I’m dreamin’ of you’,
that’s all I do,
but its drivin’ me insane.
Maybe they’ll get me
and maybe they won’t,
but (whatever they want me tonight).
I wish your hand was in mine right now;
we could go where the moon is white.
For years they had me locked in a cage
then they threw me onto a stage.
Some things just last longer than you thought they would
and they never never explain.
I’m dreamin’ of you,
that’s all I do,
and its drivin’ me insane.
Well I eat when I’m hungry,
drink when I’m dry,
live my life on the square.
Even if the flesh falls off my face,
it won’t matter long as you’re there.
Feel like the ghost of love
underneath the heavens above.
Feel further away than I ever did before,
(no) further I can take.
Dreamin’ of you
is all I do,
but its drivin’ me inane.
Everything in the way is so shiny today,
a queer and unusual fog.
Spirals of golden haze here and there in a blaze
like beams of light in a storm.
Maybe you’re here,
maybe you weren’t.
Maybe you took somebody
and got burnt.
The silent sun has got me on the run,
burning a hole in my brain.
I’m dreaming of you –
its all I do,
but its driving me insane.
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2 comments:
"For years they had me locked in a cage
then they threw me onto a stage.
Some things just last longer than you thought they would
and they never never explain."
Interestingly, I think this echoes "Ballad of a Thin Man" from wayyyy back in the 1960s and the general theme of isolation which was emerging in Dylan's work and performances in that era (Albert Hall and all that).
That's interesting. Whenever I think of "Ballad of a Thin Man" I kind of imagine the geek being kept in a cage, like some sort of circus freak, but of course then the geek couldn't come up to Mr. Jones.
"Ballad of a Thin Man" always has a very carnivalesque feeling to me. Where was an interview once where Dylan mentioned the film "Freaks," which was one of the early talkies, and I imagine "Ballad of a Thin Man" as something like that. Now, I actually want to go rewatch it to see if there is a Mr. Jones in it.
If you haven't seen "Freaks" the plot is that a normal sized hooker tries to woo a midget away from his midget wife (played by his real life twin sister) after hearing that he's inherited millions of dollars. She succeeds, and the other freaks realize he's being played and set a trap for her. The best scene is when the human torso, a man born without arms or legs, lights a cigaretted using only his mouth. In an outtake, he also rolls the cigarette using only his mouth. The use of actual circus freaks proved to shocking for a mainstream audience, however, and the film was lost to obscurity.
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