1965 Was A Good Year
I remember well, my sophomore year in high school. It was a good year. Somehow I managed to earn As and Bs as a student, enjoyed life with friends on weekends, hanging out at Honey’s drive-in and occasional street racing on I-85 at night. I think it was the summer of 65 that I double dated with my best friend; we took our dates to a Four Seasons concert at Duke Universities Cameron Indoor Stadium. I’ll never forget that evening. The stadium was full and eight thousand of us were elevated by Frankie Vallie’s “Sherry Baby, Won’t you come out tonight?”
My sophomore year was the high point of high school for me. After that things slowly fell apart. The reasons are clear, and I’ll not go into them here.
I did not know that a revolution, the revolution was being launched in Hibbing Minnesota. Hibbing is close to Duluth and is home to the world’s largest iron ore mine. In the early 60’s Bob Dylan was writing songs, polishing his craft as a musician, songs which were critical to the social and political revolution that erupted in the 1960s. Who would have thought that from out-of-the-way Hibbing would arise a mind and a voice that would challenge the status quo?
Revolutions fail for obvious reasons. Society is a reflection of human nature writ large; the many contradictions, the conflict between fear, desire, reason, ignorance, the desire for order as well as freedom. It is a toxic and productive stew. Warfare and great music comes from the same troubled animal, humankind. And a toxic, corrupt social condition, the product of generations, cannot be made right by a single stroke of revolution.
I offer for your enjoyment and thoughtful appreciation a Dylan song likely written in January of 1965. It is very cold in Hibbing in January. The lyrics of the song strike me as coldly post-apocalyptic. Things are well on their way, falling apart, a lover is being addressed by the speaker. The time has come to leave, to move on, to say good-by to all that has been familiar and known. There are many chilling lines in this lyric.
Verse two, “Yonder stands your orphan with his gun,” perhaps is a reference to one’s alter ego, that concealed self that is capable of anything. Imagine yourself with a Glock 40 cal in your hand, shaking with rage and fear, quite prepared to use the weapon…. The orphan is “crying like a fire in the sun.” Surely this image is torn from a conflict zone.
Verse three states, “the highway is for gamblers, you better use your sense. Take whatever is gathered from coincidence.”
Another comment on the dissolution of ordered society, and the onset of randomness that the absence of institutions imply. Prepare to live by your wits the speaker instructs his listener.
Verse four, speaks of seasick sailors rowing home in lifeboats. Empty handed armies all going home. Can you image conditions so disordered that the military no longer has a defined mission? In generalized chaos elements of a bewildered military come home by whatever means is at hand. To sharpen the point, to localize the chaos, “the carpet, too, is moving under you…..and it’s all over now, Baby Blue.
Verse five is an invitation to forget the past, to listen to a voice calling from the future. “Strike another match, let’s go start anew……
I’ve gone on for too long. Here is the song. Enjoy this moving cover by Eric Burden and The Animals. And I think the image of the penetrating stone- like faces of the musicians are perfect for the tune and lyric.
Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktLwlCZZ00w
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
(originally by Bob Dylan)
You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun
Crying like a fire in the sun
Look out, the saints are comin’ through
And it’s all over now, baby blue.
The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense
Take what you have gathered from coincidence
The empty handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets
This sky too is folding under you
And it’s all over now, baby blue.
All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home
Your empty handed armies are all going home
Your lover who just walked out the door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor
The carpet too is moving under you
And it’s all over now, baby blue.
Leave your stepping stones behind, there’s something that calls for you
Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start a new
And it’s all over now, baby blue.
4 thoughts on “1965 Was A Good Year”
Jerry, thank you for an insightful analysis of this song and the chilling and effective cover by the Animals. You pointed out to me the song has much much more to it than what I and many others think, its not just a farewell to the folkies.
Hibbing ? Here is a Dylan song likely written about the iron ore mine there:
North Country Blues
Bob Dylan
Come gather ’round friends and I’ll tell you a tale
Of when the red iron pits ran a-plenty
But the cardboard-filled windows and old men on the benches
Tell you now that the whole town is empty
In the north end of town my own children are grown
But I was raised on the other
In the wee hours of youth my mother took sick
And I was brought up by my brother
The iron ore poured as the years passed the door
The drag lines an’ the shovels they was a-humming
‘Till one day my brother failed to come home
The same as my father before him
Well, a long winter’s wait from the window I watched
My friends they couldn’t have been kinder
And my schooling was cut as I quit in the spring
To marry John Thomas, a miner
Oh, the years passed again, and the giving was good
With the lunch bucket filled every season
What with three babies born, the work was cut down
To a half a day’s shift with no reason
Then the shaft was soon shut, and more work was cut
And the fire in the air, it felt frozen
‘Till a man come to speak, and he said in one week
That number eleven was closing
They complained in the East, they are paying too high
They say that your ore ain’t worth digging
That it’s much cheaper down in the South American towns
Where the miners work almost for nothing
So the mining gates locked, and the red iron rotted
And the room smelled heavy from drinking
Where the sad, silent song made the hour twice as long
As I waited for the sun to go sinking
I lived by the window as he talked to himself
This silence of tongues it was building
‘Till one morning’s wake, the bed it was bare
And I was left alone with three children
The summer is gone, the ground’s turning cold
The stores one by one they’re all folding
My children will go as soon as they grow
Well, there ain’t nothing here now to hold them
Songwriters: Bob Dylan
North Country Blues lyrics © Audiam, Inc
If you have time this an excellent cover of Dylan’s “Watching the River Flow” sung by Leon Russell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcWkBa-O_lg
It is reasonable to expect that any artist will bring the culture, geographic, and climate aspects of their home place into their art. You have to pay attention to the life around you to make art.
Jerry-good to see you addressing/pondering Bob Dylan’s lyrics. Self study and fascination with them can truly be a lifelong endeavor of self study and fascination. I know from experience. Especially since Dylan himself is an ongoing paradox of taking on a mantle and discarding a mantle, just when he appears to have a handle on the mantle. And that’s besides his ongoing Zen-like lyrics, by gone Christian exploration, returning Zionist devotion, ability to separate himself from his lyrics, and ongoing sincere declarations that it’s all really about the music and not the lyrics, besides his most recent declaration that all along it’s really always been just about his trying to put on and getting ready to put on a good show for his audiences. Much like he recently alluded Shakespeare must have also been only trying to do. Sounds like you too may have caught the Dylan bug. It’s a great ride for sure.
I think it’s great that you also paired, perhaps by happenstance or perhaps intentionally, your exploration of Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” along with an article on a philosophical thesis on philosophy and music, that you sent out under separate cover, to the Philo Group.
Especially as Dylan’s philosophy on music seems to be so evasive that it’s very evasiveness over his lifetime of musical and poetic achievements and accomplishments and influence makes that very mystery of it all-its own philosophical statement. And, one that seems to touch upon the wonder of musical art and it’s creation, making it even that much more fascinating and wonderful to enjoy! Which is a philosophy of music in itself. (That’s my statement and I’m sticking to it.)
My best to you, Jerry, as well as to all students of Dylan as well as philosophy.
Jeff
Evasion, ambiguity is the only way to indicate what is fundamentally shrouded in mystery. This is no mere technique, and anything more direct would distort and even render an obscene representation of Dylan’s point.