(Personal reflections
inspired by Bob Dylan songs)
Song: “I Feel a Change
Comin’ On”
Album: Together Through Life
Release Date: April
2009
In a pre-concert interview at the Bob Dylan
30th Anniversary Tribute Concert in 1992, Lou Reed confidently stated
that he believed Dylan had not yet reached the summit of his creative
capabilities. Flashing forward to today there
has since been 1) eleven studio albums 2) a treasure trove of a Bootleg Series (13 and counting) 3) Theme Time Radio Hour 4) the “Never
Ending Tour” 5) a page-turner memoir (Chronicles:
Volume One) and 6) a masterful movie about the man (Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home). At the core of it all was 4-straight studio-album
gems: Time Out of Mind (1997), “Love
and Theft” (2001), Modern Times
(2006) and Together Through Life
(2009). With all that output, one could
say today that Sweet Lou’s words were truly prophetic. Here was a man - Bob Dylan - in his 50s, 60s,
and beyond, cranking it out as good as he had at any period in his life: A rare treat for the rock music crowd….and
darn motivational for those of us who still aspire to the creative accomplishments
of our elder statesman as we approach this period in life ourselves.
The fourth-quarter installment of those 4 studio-album
gems, Together Through Life, has, for
me, required a patient ear. Upon its
release, my early forays listening to it could be summed up in the words of a
younger generation thusly; “meh” …. which is always the tricky moment with
albums that have this initial effect on me.
To take more cracks at it or not?
Sometimes music requires repeated listening to hear the deep genuineness
within (Neil Young’s Time Fades Away
comes to mind). Other times it is just plain
bad (Randy Newman’s Faust,
unfortunately). I’ve learned over the
years that there is a bit of a trick to figuring it out: Listen, and if you are ambivalent, put it
down for a spell; be it a month, several months, even a year. Then give it
another go; particularly if you hear good things from others who have your
respect when it comes to music. If you
are still not impressed after round 2, bag it.
Together
Through Life benefited from what turned
out to be a necessary third listening phase, compliments of how I have
approached this blog series. As
mentioned before, I did some prep work with Master
Blueprints, spending all last year trying to fill in the gaps of my Bob
Dylan discography. Listening Phase II
for this album played out during that time, specifically on a work trip via automobile
to and from Sherbrooke, Quebec. During
that drive, pieces were beginning to gel for me, including the closing number “It’s
All Good”, a return-to-form protest song for Bob Dylan, the title alone
reflecting how some in the privileged upper class respond to the harsh realities
of the world around them (one of my favorite moments in the song is a cynical
exclamation “Whoo!” at the 4:10 mark, Dylan sounding extraordinarily like a
much younger Blonde on Blonde version
of himself). And then there was “My
Wife’s Home Town”, Bob Dylan showing his great sense of humor there. All in all, this experience was helpful, and
yet I needed further convincing.
Early this week, I recalled last year’s drive
north as I queued up Together Through
Life for Listening Phase III. The big
reason that memory came back to me was that I coincidentally was heading back to
Quebec, this time for fun. A colleague,
Mike, who I had become friends with through my Canadian coordination efforts
these past 10 years, had invited Nancy and I to spend a few days with he and
his wife at their stunning country home in the Eastern Township hamlet of South
Hatley, just south of Sherbrooke near the Vermont border (side note: South Hatley is where Secret Window was filmed, starring Johnny Depp). Mike also happens to be a fellow Bob Dylan
enthusiast. One way we express our
mutual admiration for Dylan is that we always close email exchanges with a
lyric of his to reflect upon. These
quotes are typically in reference to the work-related reason for the email
exchange, seeing as there’s always something there in Dylan’s vast catalog to
relate a topic to (but finding the right line usually requires a bit of forethought).
Anyhow, it was a wonderful visit, and a much-needed
getaway. Mike and I kept work discussion
to a bare-bones minimum (for the wives’ sake, but also for our own), but we did
manage to fit in some discussion on our other favorite topic. This kept Bob Dylan on the brain, which was
helpful for me as I continued to negotiate Together
Through Life as the week rolled along.
As hoped and anticipated, the pieces were beginning to fall into place
nicely. The opening number, “Beyond Here
Lies Nothin’” seeped in first, with its refreshing jaunty vibe. Soon enough I began hearing the accordion
everywhere on the album to a degree I had not before. From there it was a domino effect. My ears quickly opened to “Jolene”, “If You
Ever Go to Houston” and the deep thinker “Forgetful Heart”. Best of all, was “I Feel a Change Comin’ On” ( https://www.mojvideo.com/video-bob-dylan-i-feel-a-change-comin-on/3551124e5886d97189fc ), a song that found its
way to the core of my consciousness, leading to it being chosen as this entries
Blueprint cornerstone.
How did I not pick up on the addictive “I
Feel a Change Comin’ On” before? It’s so
strange how you can listen to a song without connecting, and then one day….
Boom! I pondered on this as the week
progressed, and once again found my mind flashing back to that first Together Through Life Quebec drive last
year. I concluded that the difference
between then and now was in my ear for Bob Dylan’s vocals, not just in terms of
this song, but the entire album. Now we
all know Dylan’s vocals are an acquired taste.
In fact, I hate to admit this, but for the life of me, I never could
make the mental breakthrough with Bob Dylan’s post 1990 concerts despite having
caught a handful of his shows in the last quarter century or so….and it all
came down to his vocals. For others, including
my wife, it’s much more than that; virtually his entire catalog is a struggle
for her vocal wise (she does like “Hurricane”).
Post 1990 studio albums all took some
additional level of effort on my part, Bob Dylan’s vocal delivery showing its
age as the decades have rolled along. I always
find myself lagging a bit behind getting my ears tuned correctly. For example, the positive tipping point for
me for “Love and Theft” was about 10
years ago after a few years of ambivalence.
From then on, I had the ear. Next
up was Modern Times, which also took
a while. I should have known this was
the process I was going through with Together
Through Life. It wasn’t the music,
it was simply the vocals that needed patience to adjust to.
Bob Dylan actually addresses his vocals in “I
Feel a Change Comin’ On” with the self-aware line “Some people they tell me, I’ve got the blood of the land in my voice”,
which is one of my all-time favorite Dylan lyrics. Has he always felt this way though? It would make sense. Dylan adapted his vocal delivery very early
in his career. You hear it from “The
Times They Are a Changin’” on (with a few exceptions, including the entirety of
Nashville Skyline). Bob Dylan has refused to be labeled to
anything throughout his career (“I’m Not There”), but if someone were to pose
to him that he has always sung with the blood of the land in his vocals and in
his thoughts, I’m not sure he would disagree.
His is a singing style of serious nature, and of all the musicians I love
listening to, Dylan is the most consistently serious in just about everything
he does in the public eye. There must be unspoken reasons for this. Reasons that require commitment to a promise
made-to-self a long time ago, and never broken.
“I
feel a change comin’ on” is a phrase that is repeated throughout the song,
which of course gets your focus when it comes to trying to dissect the meaning. Unlike much of Bob Dylan’s music, there is
nothing remotely credible on the web that diagnosis this song. This can be a good thing. It can get your
wheels spinning independent of anyone else’s interpretation. My early thoughts were like others I had
read: A Dylan effort at
self-change. But the more I listened the
more I felt this was way too easy. And so,
I rewound and repeated, taking in the song in different atmospheres - morning,
noon and night for example - to see if I could find the right aligning of the
stars that would have me breaking on through to the other side…. and then
finally, after about 4 days of this, I got there.
“I Feel a Change Comin’ On” is a song on
par with Leonard Cohen’s “Democracy” in terms of meaning. It’s about change happening not so much from
within Bob Dylan, but in the world around him (ditto Robert Hunter, Dylan’s
cowriter for most of the songs on Together
Through Life). Some of these changes
are good, and some not so. At one
extreme is hope. For example, the early
line about his gal “walking with the village priest” indicates that she’s
coming around in profound ways, trying to connect more with her spiritual
soul. A later stanza reaffirms this
awakening:
“Life
is for love
And
they say that love is blind
If
you want to live easy
Baby
pack your clothes with mine”
…. insinuating that with more openness to
faith comes a deeper understanding of love.
But there are other changes happening as well, which is summed up at the
end of the song:
“Everybody
got all the money
Everybody
got all the beautiful clothes
Everybody
got all the flowers
I
don’t have one single rose”
It would defy character to think that Bob
Dylan is wallowing in self-pity here. I believe what Dylan is really saying in
these lines refer to how much of the world feels this way these days. It’s a big picture view.
All of this plays out with the refrain “and
the fourth part of the day’s already gone”.
In other words, just when you think there is no possibility for change,
that’s when it happens. It's one reason Bob Dylan persists in his craft, despite deteriorating vocal chords. But one thing Dylan fans can rely on is artistic integrity, personified in many ways, including as a reflection of blood of the land. I'll take that over a perfect set of pipes lacking substance any day.
- Pete
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