Marty Barrett: The Flight of the Mavervorl: Bob Dylan's kelping hand

While Bob Dylan has done just fine without relying on my opinion, I am worried about his legacy as reflected in a section of lyrics that has always made me want to pop an aneurysm.

Dylan's beautiful love song "Sara", from his 1976 album "Desire" (which includes "Hurricane") is his second most well known song about his ex-wife. He name-checks the first in "Sara" in a self-referential move worthy of rappers:

I can still hear the sounds of those Methodist bells,
I'd taken the cure and had just gotten through,
Stayin' up for days in the Chelsea Hotel,
Writin' "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" for you.

Here's the line that bothers me. It comes near the end of the song:

Now the beach is deserted except for some kelp
And a piece of an old ship that lies on the shore.
You always responded when I needed your help,
You gimme a map and a key to your door.

I think the most important lines are the last two, but he painted himself into a corner by falling in love with "when I needed your help", because what does one rhyme with help?

If I asked you who was at the restaurant, for example, and you said, "No one but the bar towels," I would punch you. Don't get cute with me, pal. Life is too short. Kelp.

When you say that something is deserted, you mean that it is devoid of humans or living things. So you could say that a house is deserted except for some mice. By mistakenly introducing kelp, Dylan became responsible to list every other non-living thing on that beach, and should have also said:

Now the beach is deserted, except for some kelp, sand, crabs, lobster parts, Pepsi cans, french fries someone forgot about, a Butterfinger wrapper, a murder of cormorants
And a piece of an old ship that lies on the shore.

If Dylan could have just let go of "help", he could have been faithful to the beach imagery throughout the song and maintained the integrity of the powerful final lines of that quatrain. Here's a dazzling substitution:

Up to the sandbar, the cormorants WADE
And gaze at the PEPSI CANS that lie on the shore
You always responded when I needed your AID,
You gimme a map and a key to your door.

or, just as powerful but not employing the kelp logical fallacy:

Out in the harbor, the musk seals doth YELP
About how ST. FRANCIS would give to the POOR
You always responded when I needed your help,
You gimme a map and a key to your door.

Not only are these suggestions lyrically sound, but they also impress the listener with a deeper understanding of the song, as well as of the desires of cormorants. You might have an issue with "doth yelp", pointing out that it would be better to have said "yelped", but as my "All That Jaws" collaborator Brian Descheneaux has observed, there is a precedent in Dylan's lyrics for padding the verb:

Outside in the cold distance, a wildcat DID GROWL

I encourage you to submit your own versions of the kelp stanza, and I will present these worthy alternates to Dylan the next time I see him.

Previously: The Other Side of the Mirror...; The Smog Cutter: It was all yellow; Tearing that hotel down, contextually; You go back and revise; "A cormorant will snack on us all."

Labels: music, poetry, pop

3 Comments:

Anonymous said...: Now there's nothing alive on this wide stretch of beach, Just pieces of boat and some white seagull crap, Your ears would perk up when you heard me beseech, You gimme a key to your door and a map.; 18/11/07
LEstes65 said...: No, I pretty much think you pegged it perfectly with your list of every other non-living thing on the beach.

But any song that can utilize a Pepsi Can, yah, I'm all for that.

You need to get out more.; 18/11/07
Anonymous said...: Now the beach is deserted and strewn with seaweed, The Japanese could make a soup out of that, You always responded when I was in need, A map to your door and key under the matt.; 21/11/07