Bob Dylan: Sony, a corporation of sharks,
who swallow up Dylan on YouTube.
Plus, the transcendent Mr Tambourine Man
I had a lovely evening meal with a friend this week. We talked for four hours about liberation, inner and outer, spirituality, truth, wholeness, gurus, teachers, Totnes and India. We talked about Bob Dylan.
She lamented the fact that you can barely find on YouTube any of Bob Dylan videos of him singing in his concerts.
Sony, his music company, have removed from YouTube most of the concert videos which blocks millions from the pleasure of watching Dylan in a concert.
Sony clearly think that they have not made enough money out of Dylan. Sony take the view that that the company and Dylan cannot make money from YouTube. So they have a team of lawyers and technicians deleting 99% of videos of Dylan singing in concerts.
Dylan says nothing.
In the space of a year, one report claimed Sony removed an estimated 45,000 Dylan videos from YouTube, thus depriving his fans worldwide of his concert songs and a whole generation of young people from developing an appreciation of the concerts. Most of Bob Dylan’s YouTube clips now show only a single photo or drawing. Dylan fans refuse to go to Vevo, the Sony site, which has uploaded a small, select number of Dylan clips.
You might see 10 or 20 likes on a Dylan clip on Vevo compared to millions who listen on YouTube.
You can still listen to some of Bob singing at a gig – often with other singers. Videos are few and far between of him singing alone on stage on Youtube. You have to search.
After dinner, my friend and I listened to Odetta singing for 10 minutes Mr. Tambourine Man with heart felt melancholy with its haunting lyrics. The song is not in the same league as Ode to a Nightingale by 19th century English poet, John Keats but carries a similar depth of beauty on the transience of our existence with the nightingale serving as the transcendent symbol for Keats.
Meaning of Mr. Tambourine Man
Bob Dylan looks across to the Tambourine Man as a source of liberating inspiration and insight. Dylan sings about the loneliness of life, impending death and the shadows that one chases. He calls on the Tambourine Man to take him on a transcendent journey. With the Tambourine Man, he’s not sleepy and there is no place he’s going to. He wants to leave behind the ragged clown of the self. He knows that with the Music of the Tambourine Man, he is transported beyond the smoky rings of his mind and beyond crazy sorrow, where he dances freely without painful memories and daily fate left behind. He’ll follow the Tambourine Man.
Watch Odetta singing Mr Tambourine Man in a slow, poignant rendering to get the richness of the meaning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOEPkRvpE2k
Watch Bob Dylan singing Mr Tambourine Man in 1964.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeP4FFr88SQ
Lyrics of Mr. Tambourine Man
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there ain’t no place I’m going to
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following you
Though I know that evenings 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 ain’t no place I’m going to
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following you
Take me on a trip upon your magic swirling 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 wandering
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 ain’t no place I’m going to
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following you
Though you might hear laughing, spinning, swinging madly through the sun
It’s not aimed at anyone
It’s just escaping on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facing
And if you hear vague traces of skipping 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 seeing that he’s chasing
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there ain’t no place I’m going to
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following you
Take me disappearing 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 bench
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 ain’t no place I’m going to
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following you
Yes, he made remarkable albums in the 1960s. Blood on the Tracks (1975), Oh Mercy (1989) and Time out of Mind (1997) contain depth and lyrical beauty.
On Bob Dylan and the Sony Corporation
Extract from Subterranean Homesick Blues
“Look out kid
Don’t matter what you did
Walk on your tip toes
Don’t tie no bows
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Wash the plain clothes
You don’t need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows…”
As a newspaper reporter, I interviewed Bob Dylan in a London hotel in 1966. I went with Dominika to see him in concert for my 65th birthday in Birmingham, England. He reveals an Original Mind (to use a Buddhist term) – as a singer.
Dylan is loved for his 1960’s songs but the depth of the lyrics also reveal in Blood on the Tracks (1975), Oh Mercy (1989) and Time out of Mind (1997),
Thank you, Mr. Tambourine Man