DYLAN/MELVILLE - A Study in Affinity

It was Bob Dylan's birthday yesterday. Actually just a few hours ago... He turned 70. Two nights ago I was at a local irish pub here in minneapolis and I met an irishman who referred to himself as "fresh off the boat" - yes it surprised me to hear a man in his position actually use that phrase but what with postmodernism and the use of the 'meta' we all can relax and just be... wow, how zen---
anyways - This young irishman told me he ventured to Minneapolis of all places for two reasons - One because he listened to Bob Dylan's cd collection "the bootleg series" and it made him leave his ancestral home and go to where Dylan was born and Two - because he heard there was a thriving economic scene here in Minneapolis for people to cash in on a) the irish and b) dylan himself. I was impressed with his misguided fanhood and drive and equally cynical of his motive but he did say something I loved - something that I never considered other than maybe a wishful subconscious  sentiment -  he said -
"What you Americans Don't realize is that Bob Dylan is your William Shakespeare"

Now, I'd take that as a witticism from an academic - or a writer, or a literary critic - seems like a bit of cultural currency one can spend at a dinner party - but I've been to dinner parties and no one has the balls to say that - even the aging hippies - and truth be told if they did I'd think they were just high - not cause it's not true but because I believe drugs hamper your intent in the artistic community not endorse them but that's me - aging (reformed) hippie...

 Anyways - The previous parts of this ranting post you can discard for fucksakes but let me get to The Point -
Bob Dylan read Moby Dick. AND  Bob Dylan's art was forever transformed by it. This is a Melville and MD blog not a dylan one but dylan - like shakespeare,  leaves no stone unturned - and unrolling, if you will.
Yes - I James Tigue Moran am about to unleash upon the world a few Melvillian/ Dylan nuggets that (as far as I can find on the web or in research) have never been said. Now I'm hesitant to do so what with copyright law probably not extending to this blog forum but WTF if you want to steal my material so be it - here is the first place it is proclaimed and for that I am proud.

And if you're reading and are in possession of a guggenheim fellowship or grant - please email me - like Olson, I will do you proud...

So - here's my theory - Bob Dylan read Moby Dick in the early sixties - right before he recorded the music for "Bringing it all back home" and in fact probably prior to that before the album "Another side of Bob Dylan - maybe even well before that - Rock and roll critics love to give so much credit to psychedelia and narcotics and whatnot in art but how deceived they are - drugs are often there - but so are schools and books and mothers and lovers and travel and angst and creativity - show me any song about "drugs" and I'll show you a rock star that made a lot of money off stupid people. Fact - we all know a lot of stupid people on drugs that never could write a poem or sing a bar or play a chord - to attribute any piece of art to drugs is to be uninspired.
I say this because if you research the song, "Mr. Tambourine Man" by Dylan you keep hitting this wall of drug references being the motif or if your lucky a rimbaud reference or a vaudevillian actor sometimes making an appearance  but here's the truth -
Dylan wrote the song about a chapter in Moby-Dick. Chapter 110 to be exact, "Queegueg in his Coffin" - In my opinion the best chapter in MD - and the 'key to it all' that AHAB was searching for throughout the whole novel. Go back to my pictures of my first copy of MD and you will see a paper clip inserted onto a page that fell out of the novel that I attempted to preserve - it is a page right out of this chapter - because it is a page I've read more than any page in the book - a page that Bob Dylan read with similar fervor in the early 1960's. THIS is where Melville trumps shakespeare  - William Shakespeare hinted in his works that the court jesters- the fools, the comic relief characters surrounding the kings were actually dispensing wisdom - that they were actually smarter and more regal than the kings themselves - Not a hard path of thought if you consider the fool had to get where he was by cunning and the king was most likely inbred into his position - but WS is all coy and hints eternally... and Melville continued this hinting with the character of PIP - the cabin boy- poor coward pip, young black, slave , minstrel, weak, wait, BULLSHIT - regal pip - pip a boy among men - a boy who transforms in the novel from boy to man - from coward to hero from castaway to Captain's consort- the only character who grows within the course of the novel - ishmael forever is aloft dreaming his dream, Ahab is forever chasing the high he never finds, queequeg is even steadfast in his 'savage' even-keeled approach to life not unlike starbuck who is as dumbed by his christianity as queegeg is satisfied with his wildness. NO, PIP is the character who Melville makes a man. Speak not of him as a coward - he, the shaker of the tambourine, the soothsayer who saw GOD's 'foot upon the treadle of the Loom' No pip goes from boy to Man within Chapter 110.

Fact:: Queequeg was dying -

It was all over - he was ready - In his wisdom he called upon the carpenter to build him a coffin just like the ones he saw in New bedford and nantucket - just like the canoes that his people on KOKOJoko or ROKOJOKO were set adrift on as they died -  The coffin was built - the ritual was set - queequeg lay in his coffin and began to die - the swirling ship sailed on  - queegueg lay 'branded' (tattooed) in the coffin with his god yojo and his pipe and his loincloth and his boot heals that he took so long to put on early in the novel - he laid to die -
BUT prior to dying a young man arose from the shadows and sang him an elegy - he beat his tambourine in time and sang and danced for queegueg who was sleepy and near death, he sang for him to find a better world on the other side and to find an alternative universe there where Pip is no longer a coward where pip has a voice where life has a purpose where death cannot find you - and queequeg ALMOST DIED BUT he arose and decided it was not his time - he , in fact had other business to attend to on shore - (business that i will discuss later in my soon to be completed novel....) NO, queequeg was rescued by this boy pip - this 'coward boy' who from henceforth in the novel becomes a seer - becomes a revelator - Becomes a Man -

AND BOB DYLAN picked up on this change of pip - he saw the transformation - he put the guitar and the microphone in QUEEQUEG's hand and the voice that sings 'Mr. Tambourine Man' is Queequeg's
This is queequeg describing what happened to him in chapter 110 -

listen...

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you

Though I know that evenin’s empire has returned into sand
Vanished from my hand
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping
My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship
My senses have been stripped, my hands can’t feel to grip
My toes too numb to step
Wait only for my boot heels to be wanderin’
I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you

Though you might hear laughin’, spinnin’, swingin’ madly across the sun
It’s not aimed at anyone, it’s just escapin’ on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin’
And if you hear vague traces of skippin’ reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it’s just a ragged clown behind
I wouldn’t pay it any mind
It’s just a shadow you’re seein’ that he’s chasing

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you

Then take me disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you

Copyright © 1964, 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1992, 1993 by Special Rider Music

Play the song if you own it - read chapter 110 in MD AND THEN play the song. 

That's my theory  - and the facts - enjoy ---JTM

oh wait, if your doubtful of my theory then WHY is it that the song on "Bringing it all back Home" immediately prior to"Mr. Tambourine Man" is 'Bob Dylan's 115th dream'  a song about America and a young verile man like dylan partying with a whaling boat's crew headed by a 'captain A-RAB' - describing  a mad journey into a city of normal society by this young bachelor man and his crazy whaling friends - armed with harpoons - listen to "Bob Dylan's 115th dream'  -it is replete with MD references.  It's a no-brainer - so why has no one ever connected Chapter 110 with 'Mr. tambourine man?'  I'll tell you why - because no one ever realized but me that 'Bob Dylan's 115th dream" is about the 115th chapter of Moby-Dick - the chapter entitled, "The Pequod meets the Bachelor" - I guess Bob Dylan fancied himself the bachelor in the young 1960's and no one was ever lucky enough to get the joke until now -

Damn - that's just the start of MD references in Dylan songs from here on out - but these two are by far the most important. '115th dream'  is an obvious - "Mr. Tamb. Man ' is my gift to you - young readers -  Happy birthday Bob dylan - and also to my brother Joe - he shares a birthday with America's shakespeare - fitting that it was him that gave me my first copy of shakespeare too...  

Listen to the song - read chapter 110 - repeat...


and remember this stanza -
"Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow"

JTM