You go back and revise
A friend of mine gave me a bunch of little-heard Bob Dylan recordings that I guess will be part of yet another upcoming documentary. Among the tracks is a spoken-word eulogy to Woody Guthrie and an early version of "Tangled Up in Blue".What is different about the new/old recording is several sets of lyrics and the place of certain pronouns. Whereas the later version of the song has everything in the first person, this one mixes it up so it's a little clearer what's happening to whom.
There are also little differences in location. In the later song I headed out to the west coast and drifted down to New Orleans. In this one I headed out to the old east coast and he "drifted down to L.A., hoping to try his luck, working for a while in an airplane plant loading cargo onto a truck."
In what became the paragraph featuring "he started into dealing with slaves", the early version is less cryptic:
"He was always in a hurry
Too busy or too stoned
And everything she had planned just had to be postponed
He thought they were successful
She thought they were blessed
With objects and material things
But I never was impressed."
I like the early version better. It's more immediate, less electric, and easier to follow. I'm not sure why he changed it.
One of my favorite Jack Kerouac quotes (seen here being counseled by William S. Burroughs) is, "Once God moves the hand - you go back and revise? - it's a sin!"
I don't really believe that (because I am a sociopath and think that personal accountability is a quaint anachronism after the last few elections) but I have to say that there are a lot of first drafts I like better than the finished product.
On the other hand, I agreed with what George Lucas said when he was being attacked for making amendments to the original "Star Wars" movies. In a nutshell, he said they were his goddamn movies and he would do whatever he wanted with them.
"Do I please myself and [finally] make the movie that I wanted," he asked in a 2004 Entertainmen Weekly interview, "or do I allow the audience to see the half-finished version that they fell in love with?"
It's one thing to endlessly revise something no one will ever look at. Does something change ownership the more people see it?
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by Marty Barrett at Thursday, February 02, 2006
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