Another Side of Bob Dylan - Writing

Writing

Throughout 1963, Dylan worked on a novel and a play. A number of publishers were interested in signing Dylan to a contract, and at one point, City Lights (a small but prestigious company specializing in poetry) was strongly considered. However, as Dylan worked on his book at a casual pace, his manager, Albert Grossman, decided to make a deal with a major publisher.

Macmillan's senior editor, Bob Markel, said, "We gave an advance for an untitled book of writings...The publisher was taking a risk on a young, untested potential phenomenon." When Markel met with Dylan for the first time, "there was no book at the time...The material at that point was hazy, sketchy. The poetry editor called it 'inaccessible.' The symbolism was not easily understood, but on the other hand it was earthy, filled with obscure but marvelous imagery...I felt it had a lot of value and was very different from Dylan's output till then. it was not a book."

It would be years before Dylan finished his book, but the free form poetry experiments that came from it eventually influenced his songwriting. The most notable example came in a six-line coda to a poem responding to President John F. Kennedy's assassination (which took place on November 22, 1963):

the colors of Friday were dull / as cathedral bells were gently burnin / strikin for the gentle / strikin for the kind / strikin for the crippled ones / an strikin for the blind

This refrain would soon appear in a very important composition, "Chimes of Freedom", and, as biographer Clinton Heylin writes, "with this sad refrain, Dylan would pass from topical troubadour to poet of the road."

In February 1964, Dylan embarked on a twenty-day trip across the United States. Riding in a station wagon with a few friends (Paul Clayton, Victor Maymudes, and Pete Karman), Dylan began the trip in New York, taking numerous detours through many states before ending the trip in California. (At one point, Dylan reportedly paid a visit to poet Carl Sandburg.) "We talked to people in bars, miners," Dylan would later say. "Talking to people – that's where it's at, man."

According to Heylin, "the primary motivation for this trip was to find enough inspiration to step beyond the folk-song form, if not in the bars, or from the miners, then by peering deep into himself." Dylan spent much time in the back of the station wagon, working on songs and possibly poetry on a typewriter. It was during this trip that Dylan composed "Chimes of Freedom", finishing it in time to premiere at a Denver concert on the 15th. "Mr. Tambourine Man" was also composed during this trip.

It was also during this trip that The Beatles arrived in America. Their first visit to the United States remains a touchstone in American culture. Maymudes recalled how Dylan "nearly jumped out the car" when "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" came on the radio and his comments: "Did you hear that?..that was fuckin' great! Oh man.." and how Dylan seemed lost in thought replaying the record over in his head. Dylan, however, had already been following The Beatles since 1963. There have been different accounts regarding Dylan's attitude towards The Beatles at this time, but it's known that Suze Rotolo and Al Aronowitz immediately took to them and championed their music to Dylan. Aronowitz later claimed that Dylan dismissed them as "bubblegum", but in an interview in 1971, Dylan recalls being impressed by their music. "We were driving through Colorado, we had the radio on, and eight of the Top 10 songs were Beatles songs...'I Wanna Hold Your Hand,' all those early ones. They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid...I knew they were pointing the direction of where music had to go."

When Dylan returned to New York in March, he rented an electric guitar. In January, The Beatles were in France, playing a week's worth of concerts. During their stay in France, George Harrison came back to the hotel with an album titled En Roue Libre, better known as The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. According to Harrison, "we just played it, just wore it . The content of the song lyrics and just the attitude!" (While The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan was released in the UK in August 1963, the French edition En Roue Libre was not released until May 1965 so it was likely the UK release).

As The Beatles began to influence Dylan and vice versa, Dylan's personal life was undergoing a number of significant changes. Though their stage appearances together began to dwindle, Dylan continued his romance with folksinger Joan Baez. Dylan's girlfriend Suze Rotolo apparently had had enough of the affair. Soon after Dylan returned to New York, the two had an argument. At the time, Suze was staying with her sister Carla, and when Carla intervened, Dylan began screaming at Carla. Carla ordered Dylan to leave, but he refused to go. Carla Rotolo pushed Dylan, and he pushed her back. The two of them were soon practically fighting. Friends were called and Dylan had to be forcibly removed, effectively ending his relationship with Suze Rotolo. In a 1966 interview, Dylan admitted that after their relationship ended, "I got very, very strung out for a while. I mean, really, very strung out."

One account of Dylan's first experience with hallucinogens places it in April 1964; producer Paul Rothchild told Bob Spitz that he was present when Dylan took his first hit of LSD. By February 1964, Dylan was already telling his friends that "Rimbaud's where it's at. That's the kind of stuff means something. That's the kind of writing I'm gonna do." A legendary poet, Rimbaud once wrote to his mentor Georges Izambard that "the poet makes himself a seer by a long, prodigious and rational disordering of the senses...He reaches the unknown and even if, crazed, he ends up by losing the understanding of his visions, at least he has seen them." (Dated May 1871) Dylan's early experimentation with hallucinogens has often been connected with the dramatic development his songwriting would soon take, but Dylan himself has denied any connection.

Dylan later left for Europe, completing a few performances in England before traveling to Paris where he was introduced to a German model, Christa Paffgen, who went by the name of Nico. After treating Dylan to a meal at her flat, Nico accompanied Dylan across Europe, a trip that passed through Germany before ending in Vernilya, a small village outside of Athens, Greece. Dylan stayed at Vernilya for more than a week, finishing many of the songs that would appear on his fourth and upcoming album. Nine songs of these would be recorded upon his return to New York: "All I Really Want to Do", "Spanish Harlem Incident", "To Ramona", "I Shall Be Free No. 10", "Ballad in Plain D", "It Ain't Me, Babe", "Mama, You Been on My Mind", "Denise Denise", and "Black Crow Blues." Dylan also completed another song called "I'll Keep It With Mine", which, according to Nico, was "about me and my little baby". Dylan gave the song to Nico, who would eventually record it for her own album, Chelsea Girl, released in 1967.