[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.{ 1972–3: Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid; Planet Waves }Still in a befuddled state as far as songwriting went, Dylan managed to write two of his most enduring songs in the wastelands of Arizona and Mexico—"Forever Young" and "Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door"—between the spring of 1972 and winter 1973, proving, I guess, that there are droughts and there are droughts.But he knew he needed to write more.And it would still be another nine months before he had enough songs to make a ten-track album of originals.Planet Waves, written mostly during a stint east in October 1973, suggested he’d finally called up a familiar phantom engineer to look at some of the internal wiring.Songs like "Dirge," "Tough Mama," and "Going, Going, Gone" at last suggested someone gearing up to peer over the cliff again.{283} BOWLING ALLEY BLUES{284} FIELD MOUSE FROM NEBRASKAPublished lyrics: Writings and Drawings (endpapers).{285} ROUND AND ROUND WE GOPublished lyrics: In His Own Words Vol.2.Shortly after midnight on New Year’s Eve 1971–2, Dylan joined The Band onstage at the New York Academy of Music for a rousing five-song encore that included a powerful performance of "When I Paint My Masterpiece." It would be January 1973 before he would be heard from again, now in Durango, playing a bit part in a Western movie by that archetypal maverick, Sam Peckinpah.In between, he somehow managed to drop off the face of the earth.In songwriting terms, he achieved much the same trick.In fact, he had escaped to Phoenix, Arizona, with his family, where he continued to work on songs without success.According to a 1986 article by history teacher Bob Finkbine, who befriended Dylan at this time, one day he was "sitting in Dylan’s kitchen drinking coffee.[and] I asked him, ‘Bob, did you ever have a time when you had trouble writing?’ Sara turned from fixing sandwiches at the counter and quipped, ‘Try the last two years.’" The lack of any evidence to the contrary validates Sara’s unguarded aside.One way Dylan found to confront his ongoing problem of earning a living as a songwriter was compiling the evidence of a time when "everything had been like a magic carpet," published in the winter of 1973 as Writings and Drawings.Though the collection concluded with "When I Paint My Masterpiece," already almost two years old, the end papers to the volume included four pages of typed lyrics to what appeared to be new songs, two of which bear titles: "Bowling Alley Blues" and "Field Mouse from Nebraska."If these end papers have a lyrical equivalent, it is the 1963 Margolis and Moss manuscripts.Again Dylan seems content to let ideas fizzle out, failing to finish anything he started.A decade earlier he was taking a breather.But these half-formed lyrics were worrying evidence of stultifying stasis, either expressing the cloyingly mundane ("It was early in the evening, I was cutting up the bread / Man alive, that crust was hard") or detailing a series of vain attempts to parlay with paradoxes, which had been done so dazzlingly back at Big Pink ("When I was a boy on the Wagon Wheel / I married a false young maid / She was tender hearted and tho it showed / She kept her mood concealed").Bookending a decade of innovation and inspiration, these unformed songs were omitted from subsequent editions of the man’s lyrics.As for "Round and Round We Go," this was a six-line fragment found in the Dylans’ trashcan by self-styled garbologist A.J.Weberman at the end of 1971 and published in Weberman’s autobiography, A Life in Garbology.Suffice it to say, there is a reason it was in the trashcan with all the dog shit and diapers.And there was also a reason why Dylan moved far from the crazies who were taking over the American asylum.He intended to follow the advice offered in this fragment—"round & round the mountain / play that guitar, man"—as he headed for Arizona, where he might yet hide from "unknowing eyes."{286} FOREVER YOUNGPublished lyrics: Lyrics 1985; Lyrics 2004.Known studio recordings: Ram’s Horn demo, June 1973 [BIO]; Village Recorder, LA, November 2, 1973—1 take; November 5, 1973—2 takes;November 8, 1973—5 takes; November 9, 1973—1 take; November 14, 1973—5 takes [PWx2].First known performance: Chicago Stadium, January 3, 1974.When I was living in Phoenix, Arizona, in about ’72, the big song at the time was "Heart of Gold.".It bothered me every time I listened to "Heart of Gold.".I needed to lay back for a while, forget about things, myself included, and I’d get so far away, and turn on the radio and there I am, but it’s not me.—Dylan to Scott Cohen, November 1985The nine months or so that Dylan spent in Arizona in 1972 remain shrouded in the dust of rumor.Even a 1986 article in a local Phoenix paper by Bob Finkbine has done little to fill this chasm in the chronology.The one solid piece of information Finkbine does provide is confirmation that "Forever Young" dates from this time.Dylan was proud enough to play it for his new friend, informing him, "I’ve been tinkering around with a new song.I wrote it for Jesse.It goes kinda like this." He then broke into that memorable opening, "May God bless and keep you always [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]