Street-Legal has long been my favourite Bob Dylan album. It is the one I return to again and again, and i almost always listen to it right through. Generally, I prefer 70s Bob to 60s Bob. While most of the 60s songs are amazing, I find Bob's 65/66 'persona' off-putting. This is based, of course, on very limited evidence - mainly 'Dont Look Back' and 'Eat the Document'.
70s Bob strikes me as a much more mature person, and a more powerful performer. I love the Rolling Thunder material. By 1978, Bob had been through the trauma of divorce from Sara. He is in his late 30s, and on Street-Legal I hear someone who has really lived life and been through the mill. The album conveys a lot of confusion and pain, but of a kind that promises growth rather than self-destruction. I think Street-Legal is Bob's post-divorce, mid-life crisis album. It is raw, passionate, sexy (not much romance here).
I think it must rank as one his most autobiographical albums, beginning with the very first words of the opening track:
'
Changing of the Guards':
"Sixteen years ..." (i.e., 1962 - 1978; from his first album to Street-Legal) are like "sixteen banners" waving in the breeze, in the field. The "sixteen banners" could also be sixteen albums produced in those years (excluding the 'Greatest Hits' compilations, the 'live' albums ['Before the Flood' and 'Hard Rain'] and 'Dylan', which Colombia released in retaliation for his brief move to Asylum Records for 'Planet Waves'
.
"the good shepherd" (i.e., Bob, but also a hint of his coming religious conversion; the field is like his Gethsemane; the "good shepherd" is a Jesus-like figure).
This shepherd "grieves" - he has lost Sara (and, to an extent, his children); his youth has passed; he feels bitter, cheated; he is disillusioned with the music industry; perhaps he is disappointed with himself also).
The world is full of "desperate men, desperate women". And they are "divided" - a Hobbesian world where everyone is against everyone ("
homo hominis lupus"
. [reminds me of a certain notorious website, but I won't get into that now! :whistle: ]
The desperate men and women are "spreading their wings 'neath the falling leaves". They are like butterflies, trying to take to the sky, but the falling leaves indicate that it is Autumn/Fall - they are doomed to die. Or, the wings may belong to fallen angels, pals of Lucifer ("Once I had a pony, her name was Lucifer"
.
A dark space indeed, and that is only the first verse of the opening song!
"
I don't have anything but darkness to lose. I'm way beyond that..."
(Bob Dylan, 1978)
"Fortune calls" - it called in a big way in 1962, when he signed the contract with Colombia, at just 21 years of age.
"I stepped forth from the shadows" [of Hibbing and mid-west obscurity]
"to the marketplace" [New York, New York!; Colombia; voice of his generation; rock star ...]
"Merchants and thieves, hungry for power" [does this include Albert Grossman? all the hangers-on in '65 and '66? the many record/music industry people who saw him as an opportunity to enrich themselves, mere merchandise, property ...]
"my last deal gone down" [this is a shabby, petty, commercial deal - unlike in 'When the Deal Goes Down', where the deal in question is life/death]
"She's smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born" [is this new pony? horses are born in meadows. or is it sad-eyed Sara Lownds [lowlands]? or is the sweet memory of something even farther back, before he stepped forth from the shadows: Bonnie beecher or even Echo Helstrom?
"On midsummer's eve" (as in A Midsummer Night's Dream)
"near the tower" (Shakespeare's play open in the palace of Theseus, in Athens; or, are we back at the watchtower, where "all the women came and went", and where "businessmen ... drink my wine" without knowing anything about its true worth?).
"The cold-blooded moon." - Killers are usually "cold-blooded" - this moon is not friendly or comforting. Or, it could be that the moon makes his blood 'run cold'. There is something ominous here.
"The captain waits above the celebration" - Dylan is "the captain". He is the leader, the boss, the main man, with so many people awaiting his next order. But he is aloof, standing apart, looking on from the side, or from above. He remains the outsider, the outlaw, the loner, the prophet, the drifter. It's lonely being captain!
"Sending his thoughts to a beloved maid whose ebony face is beyond communication." the maid who occupies his thoughts has an "ebony face". Is this a reference to one of the '78 backing singers (perhaps Carol Dennis, the future 2nd Mrs. Dylan whom he met in May '78)? The theme of 'the face' as marking the limit of communication is common in the Old Testament (e.g. Moses could not see the face of God and continue to live).
"The captain is down but still believing that his love will be repaid." - he regards himself as a wounded hero, down but not out, bruised, but defiant and hopeful. He desperately needs a shot of love! This, like so many lines from the Street-Legal songs, foreshadows the Gospel albums of the following years.
"They shaved her head." - This seems to refer, symbolically, to a form of punishment and public shame. Was she being ridiculed or criticised for loving the captain?
"She was torn between Jupiter and Apollo." - Apollo, the Greek sun god, was the son the Zeus, the Greek equivalent of Jupiter. Jupiter was, of course, the supreme deity. If she was torn between Jupiter (the older man, the boss, the captain) and Apollo (in the context, it could just refer to a younger rival, perhaps a members of Dylan's entourage). Also, Jupiter was associated with law and order, while Apollo was a god of music, poetry, healing. Perhaps 'she' was torn between conventional moral rules, on the one hand, and allowing herself to be seduced by the poet-musician.
"A messenger arrived with a black nightingale." - The "black nightingale" is a more explicit indication that 'she' is indeed one of the '78 backing singers. For the captain, she was, perhaps, a "messenger" of love, hope, healing.
"I seen her on the stairs and I couldn't help but follow" - Why the grammatically incorrect "seen" rather than "saw"? Probably just because it sounds better. This line describes the moment when the seducer become the seduced. He was powerful to resist when he saw her on the stairs; he followed her; the captain was no longer in command.
"Follow her down past the fountain where they lifted her veil." - The face of the ebony-faced maid is exposed to his gaze; her mystery is no longer hidden behind a veil"; her face is no longer "beyond communication".
"I stumbled to my feet." - this verse may be a dream sequence ("she wakes him up comes two verses later)
"I rode past destruction in the ditches
With the stitches still mending 'neath a heart-shaped tattoo." - in his dream, he surveys the wreckage of all the battles he has been through (see opening verses); he hasn't been healed yet, but he is getting there, thanks to the re-discovery of love ("neath a heart-shaped tatoo)
"Renegade priests and treacherous young witches
Were handing out the flowers that I'd given to you." - there is a lot of bitterness remaining; the renegade priests and treacherous young witches probably symbolise all the people in and out of the record/music industry who, he feels, have betrayed or squandered whatever he gave them.
"The palace of mirrors
Where dog soldiers are reflected" - - the mirrors distort, but perhaps they also reveal the truth; some of the people formerly surrouding him were revealed as 'dogs'
The endless road and the wailing of chimes" - reference to The Band (Endless Highway)? - there does not seem to have been an enduring friendship with members of The Band, in spite of all Dylan had shared with them; the 'wailing' chimes' convey bitterness, mourning, violence (like a policecar siren or an air raid warning) rather than freedom.
"The empty rooms where her memory is protected," - a reference to Sara?
"Where the angels' voices whisper to the souls of previous times." - 'whisper' indicates that these are good angels, reminding him of the good times; there remain some tender memories of times past, but the past has gone forever.
"She wakes him up
Forty-eight hours later, the sun is breaking
Near broken chains, mountain laurel and rolling rocks." - a lot of positive imagery here: awakening, sunshine, broken chains, pastoral surroundings.
"She's begging to know what measures he now will be taking.
He's pulling her down and she's clutching on to his long golden locks." - she may be pushing him back into the captain's role, but he is totally immersed in the present moment; love-sex = healing; interesting reference to "his golden locks": in pics and videos from 1978, the stage is lit in such a way that Bob's hair appears to be red or gold, and there is a halo effect (another foreshadowing of the imminent religious phase?).
"Gentlemen, he said,
I don't need your organization, I've shined your shoes,
I've moved your mountains and marked your cards" - self-explanatory; I wonder what the record execs made of this when they first heard it? -
"But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination
Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards." - yet another reference to one of own songs, but, whereas formerly "there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden", now it looks like there are no truths inside either. This is a declaration of war!
"Peace will come
With tranquility and splendor on the wheels of fire" - continuation of the war theme: "Best notify my next of kin,
This wheel shall explode!". War & Peace. It's Tolstoy Bob!
"But will bring us no reward when her false idols fall" - another clear foreshadowing of the Gospel songs - He seems to see most of his first "sixteen years" as various forms of idolatry (even 'Bob Dylan' is a false idol that must fall).
"And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating
Between the King and the Queen of Swords." - the captain is now a King, and he has found his Queen. He's ready for anything!<br><br>Post edited by: 4th Time Around, at: 2007/06/18 04:52
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