Some ideas and phrases of "Idiot Wind" would also fit into King Lear's world,
First the medieval idea the wheel of fate and fortune in which the pauper can become King, also used as a central idea in "danse macabre", where 'the bottom' relates to death. In Lear it would suggest a lack "ordo," the underlying philosophical characteristic of a well structured society.
"Now everything′s a little upside down
As a matter of fact the wheels have stopped
What's good is bad, what′s bad is good
You'll find out when you reach the top
You′re on the bottom”
Also the use of "seeing" and "blindness" also a central idea in King Lear.
"“I noticed at the ceremony
Your corrupt ways had finally made you blind
I can't remember your face anymore
Your mouth has changed, your eyes don't look into mine”
Last but not least, the sense of "foolishness" and "idiocy" which seems to pervade the whole fabric of society.
Thanks Andrew – for discussing links between Dylan and Shakespeare’s greatest work. Some fascinating moments in the Cott recording. “Jesus was a Jew! He was exploited.”
For some reason I find it moving and arresting that when Cott asks Dylan about the women in the Kaddish scene: “Those old women. I mean, Let’s face it. That is the most vulnerable thing in the film. These pathetic, old women who are interested in…” And Dylan forcefully interrupts: “No. They’re not pathetic old women.” Cott: “I don’t mean pathetic but they are…I mean Allen Ginsberg talks about that thing about her vagina and you cut on that. That was striking.” Dylan (forcefully): “Those women are strong.”
The Kaddish scene is one of the highlights of Renaldo and Clara, but interpretations differ. I found it moving. My wife thought the women in the scene were cruelly used.
My suspicions that Dylan is playing games with Cott (or arguably playing games with anyone who tries to understand Renaldo and Clara) gather momentum when Dylan explains: “We don’t know who Renaldo is, we only know who he isn’t. We know he’s not the Masked Tortilla.”
The first few times I watched it, I had the same reaction as your good lady wife. Then I started to have some (slim) doubts about that view, mainly I reckoned because i wanted to doubt it. Those flimsy doubts are strengthened by this audio, however. Dylan does, as you say, speak forcefully on the issue, twice. Overall, I still think my first reaction was right, though I'd love to be wrong and have more hope of being so now.
He is absolutely playing games with Cott and the whole interview process; but, then again, he's been doing that with interviews for over 60 years now. "The Masked Tortilla", if my memory serves me well, is his own "safe phrase" from then on throughout the interview. Whenever Cott gets close to manoeuvring him into saying something meaningful, or, heaven preserve us, "true", out it comes. My memory, like all of us, is, however, fallible.
Thanks, Andrew. Ginsberg’s poem Kaddish remorselessly explores the physicality of ageing, the physicality of his mother Naomi whom the poem memorialises, along with her political baggage and disastrous psychological history. But AG always grounded his images of mortality and ecstatic transcendence in the physical body. Remember those “angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night… who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love” in Howl?
A glance at IMDb confirmed my recollection that The Masked Tortilla was played by Bob Neuwirth. Speaking of whom, I enjoyed the moment in A Complete Unknown when Dylan encounters Neuwirth in an elevator, follows him to Greenwich Village where he and his band perform a version of The Irish Rover – which sounds just like The Pogues! Of course, none of this really happened but enjoyably raucous folk music fun.
Nicely put, Mick. I wasn't casting any aspersions on the poem itself, sorry if it came across that way.
Speaking of ACU, I find it shocking that it's already nearly 9 months since that came out. Won't be long until we get yhe "A Year Ago...." look backs at it.
Thanks for doing this. I’m listening to “The Complete Basement Tapes” and just had to see if there were any writings on the unmissable Lear connections. Dylan’s vocals on these versions are stunning. I prefer them to Manuel’s classic Big Pink version.
My pleasure. I write about The Basement Tapes songs' connections to King Lear at length in “Bob Dylan and William Shakespeare: In The True Perfuming Of It.” Unfortunately, Amazon sell the first edition in Paperback, but they do have the revised (post R&RW) version in paperback.
The publisher sells the up-to-date version in print, here:
So as usual the Great Sage has absolutely nothing to say, but the apologists creating the framework can’t wait to imbue his non-answers to their leading questions with great profundity. There is no bigger or more obvious Rorschach blot in Western culture than Bob Dylan.
(All the characters in King Lear are not “interchangeable,” by the way.)
Indeed the characters are not , Jordan, I think we all know that. It's a nonsensical statement, though outdone in that regard by the comment "in later years it changed, father to mother" just prior to it.
I'm getting the distinct impression that that you didn't enjoy this post, but I hope you can find/have found something to enjoy on the site.
Fascinating. Damn. Reality is not to be trusted. As an 18 year old, I swallowed these interviews whole. And thought they were magnificent, which they are. My first taste of someone (Cott) approaching Dylan intellectually. Now I see it was all a construct. Who the hell at RS edited this conversation? No wonder Dylan has tried to control his interviews for years (and has succeeded). It annoys me that someone intervened and decided we couldn’t hear the actual words, but amazingly, a lot of the good stuff still comes through. Gosh, it reminds me of something … Dylan’s recent Instagram posts of Foster, Poe, James, and Capone are also fake: totally made up bios, as emphasized with A. I. voices. Based in reality. In the end, a folk tale. “My Own Version of You.” An idea that was seeded in Bob’s mind a long time ago. Maybe an idea he invented.
The conversations this has sparked with fans of a certain age are filled with memories of how we waited for these interviews with bated breath and pored over the published versions. More than once with a hint of reading words directly from The Oracles’ mouth and dismay at seeing them in this new light.
I wouldn’t put all the changes on to RS/Cott. Dylan will have been involved, possibly mainly Dylan, come to that - which at least means you are reading what he wants to project rather than a rambling dinner conversation. I may be clutching at straws here, admittedly, especially as he has always liked to mislead or redirect. Then again, as we have seen in this century’s interviews, sometimes there are clues and directions half-hidden in what we are given (as also happens in Chronicles.)
More general comment on Dylan's protest period ( not sure when it begins or ends) but is a good summation of his motivation as outlined in 'Visions of Sin' by Christopher Ricks.
"Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear.
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks.
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it."(King Lear Act 4 scene 6). Oh "reason not the need" so I will desist in further associations. I am not Scott Warmuth, and was never meant to be!
No need to desist, Paul, as striking lines and connections made are always a pleasure to read.
Justice is a central theme of just, and just about to be, published studies of Dylan. There's a good chance one of them uses the same quote - at least, I hope they do.
Some ideas and phrases of "Idiot Wind" would also fit into King Lear's world,
First the medieval idea the wheel of fate and fortune in which the pauper can become King, also used as a central idea in "danse macabre", where 'the bottom' relates to death. In Lear it would suggest a lack "ordo," the underlying philosophical characteristic of a well structured society.
"Now everything′s a little upside down
As a matter of fact the wheels have stopped
What's good is bad, what′s bad is good
You'll find out when you reach the top
You′re on the bottom”
Also the use of "seeing" and "blindness" also a central idea in King Lear.
"“I noticed at the ceremony
Your corrupt ways had finally made you blind
I can't remember your face anymore
Your mouth has changed, your eyes don't look into mine”
Last but not least, the sense of "foolishness" and "idiocy" which seems to pervade the whole fabric of society.
Thanks for this, Paul, great stuff.
I sense the genesis for a Substack article of your own taking shape in front of my eyes, here.
Thanks Andrew – for discussing links between Dylan and Shakespeare’s greatest work. Some fascinating moments in the Cott recording. “Jesus was a Jew! He was exploited.”
For some reason I find it moving and arresting that when Cott asks Dylan about the women in the Kaddish scene: “Those old women. I mean, Let’s face it. That is the most vulnerable thing in the film. These pathetic, old women who are interested in…” And Dylan forcefully interrupts: “No. They’re not pathetic old women.” Cott: “I don’t mean pathetic but they are…I mean Allen Ginsberg talks about that thing about her vagina and you cut on that. That was striking.” Dylan (forcefully): “Those women are strong.”
The Kaddish scene is one of the highlights of Renaldo and Clara, but interpretations differ. I found it moving. My wife thought the women in the scene were cruelly used.
My suspicions that Dylan is playing games with Cott (or arguably playing games with anyone who tries to understand Renaldo and Clara) gather momentum when Dylan explains: “We don’t know who Renaldo is, we only know who he isn’t. We know he’s not the Masked Tortilla.”
Hi Mick,
Thanks for this.
The first few times I watched it, I had the same reaction as your good lady wife. Then I started to have some (slim) doubts about that view, mainly I reckoned because i wanted to doubt it. Those flimsy doubts are strengthened by this audio, however. Dylan does, as you say, speak forcefully on the issue, twice. Overall, I still think my first reaction was right, though I'd love to be wrong and have more hope of being so now.
He is absolutely playing games with Cott and the whole interview process; but, then again, he's been doing that with interviews for over 60 years now. "The Masked Tortilla", if my memory serves me well, is his own "safe phrase" from then on throughout the interview. Whenever Cott gets close to manoeuvring him into saying something meaningful, or, heaven preserve us, "true", out it comes. My memory, like all of us, is, however, fallible.
Thanks again, Mick, always good to hear from you.
Thanks, Andrew. Ginsberg’s poem Kaddish remorselessly explores the physicality of ageing, the physicality of his mother Naomi whom the poem memorialises, along with her political baggage and disastrous psychological history. But AG always grounded his images of mortality and ecstatic transcendence in the physical body. Remember those “angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night… who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love” in Howl?
A glance at IMDb confirmed my recollection that The Masked Tortilla was played by Bob Neuwirth. Speaking of whom, I enjoyed the moment in A Complete Unknown when Dylan encounters Neuwirth in an elevator, follows him to Greenwich Village where he and his band perform a version of The Irish Rover – which sounds just like The Pogues! Of course, none of this really happened but enjoyably raucous folk music fun.
Nicely put, Mick. I wasn't casting any aspersions on the poem itself, sorry if it came across that way.
Speaking of ACU, I find it shocking that it's already nearly 9 months since that came out. Won't be long until we get yhe "A Year Ago...." look backs at it.
Thanks for doing this. I’m listening to “The Complete Basement Tapes” and just had to see if there were any writings on the unmissable Lear connections. Dylan’s vocals on these versions are stunning. I prefer them to Manuel’s classic Big Pink version.
My pleasure. I write about The Basement Tapes songs' connections to King Lear at length in “Bob Dylan and William Shakespeare: In The True Perfuming Of It.” Unfortunately, Amazon sell the first edition in Paperback, but they do have the revised (post R&RW) version in paperback.
The publisher sells the up-to-date version in print, here:
https://redplanetmusicbooks.com/products/bob-dylan-william-shakespeare-the-true-performing-of-it
However, if you are outside the UK, postage is ridiculously expensive nowadays.
Thanks for the comment and i agree wholeheartedly re the vocals!
So as usual the Great Sage has absolutely nothing to say, but the apologists creating the framework can’t wait to imbue his non-answers to their leading questions with great profundity. There is no bigger or more obvious Rorschach blot in Western culture than Bob Dylan.
(All the characters in King Lear are not “interchangeable,” by the way.)
Indeed the characters are not , Jordan, I think we all know that. It's a nonsensical statement, though outdone in that regard by the comment "in later years it changed, father to mother" just prior to it.
I'm getting the distinct impression that that you didn't enjoy this post, but I hope you can find/have found something to enjoy on the site.
All the best,
Andy
Fascinating. Damn. Reality is not to be trusted. As an 18 year old, I swallowed these interviews whole. And thought they were magnificent, which they are. My first taste of someone (Cott) approaching Dylan intellectually. Now I see it was all a construct. Who the hell at RS edited this conversation? No wonder Dylan has tried to control his interviews for years (and has succeeded). It annoys me that someone intervened and decided we couldn’t hear the actual words, but amazingly, a lot of the good stuff still comes through. Gosh, it reminds me of something … Dylan’s recent Instagram posts of Foster, Poe, James, and Capone are also fake: totally made up bios, as emphasized with A. I. voices. Based in reality. In the end, a folk tale. “My Own Version of You.” An idea that was seeded in Bob’s mind a long time ago. Maybe an idea he invented.
The conversations this has sparked with fans of a certain age are filled with memories of how we waited for these interviews with bated breath and pored over the published versions. More than once with a hint of reading words directly from The Oracles’ mouth and dismay at seeing them in this new light.
I wouldn’t put all the changes on to RS/Cott. Dylan will have been involved, possibly mainly Dylan, come to that - which at least means you are reading what he wants to project rather than a rambling dinner conversation. I may be clutching at straws here, admittedly, especially as he has always liked to mislead or redirect. Then again, as we have seen in this century’s interviews, sometimes there are clues and directions half-hidden in what we are given (as also happens in Chronicles.)
More general comment on Dylan's protest period ( not sure when it begins or ends) but is a good summation of his motivation as outlined in 'Visions of Sin' by Christopher Ricks.
"Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear.
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks.
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it."(King Lear Act 4 scene 6). Oh "reason not the need" so I will desist in further associations. I am not Scott Warmuth, and was never meant to be!
No need to desist, Paul, as striking lines and connections made are always a pleasure to read.
Justice is a central theme of just, and just about to be, published studies of Dylan. There's a good chance one of them uses the same quote - at least, I hope they do.
Thanks again,
Andy