NASHVILLE SKYLINE: ONE HELL OF A POET
One Hell of a Poet!
The needle hits the groove. A guitar player strums a familiar and especially resonant melodic line. It is a little hard to identify at first, as it is considerably slowed down from the deft finger picking opening of the original version. But when we hear the highly familiar opening words: …If you’re travelling to the north country fair/ Where the wind hits heavy on the borderline… we know we are listening to Girl from the North Country, one of Bob Dylan’s most memorable early love songs, based on his memories of his adolescence in the chilly ‘north country’. But at first we may wonder who this singer with the low, slightly hesitant, baritone actually is. Perhaps we can pick up the album cover and examine it again. Could it be that this guy with the enigmatic smile, who tips his cowboy hat to us, is really the ‘voice of his generation’ – the oracle of rock and roll who never gave us an easy ride with his harsh, cutting vocal style?
Poet -Nashville Skyline
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Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan in Nashville
Moments later, we are treated to the deeply resonant bass voice of Johnny Cash, a singer Dylan later described as having …a voice that came from the middle of the earth… We can just about hear Cash taking a breath before committing himself to the evocative lyrics: …See for me that her hair’s hanging down/ It curls and falls, all down her breast… hanging onto that last word, that subtly ironic use of ‘breast’ rather than ‘breasts’. As the song progresses they take a verse each, before joining together on the final chorus. This was always a piece that relied on understatement for its effects. In the original version on 1963’s Freewheelin’ the singer sounds somewhat detached from his subject, but now he and Cash give it the full emotional heft. Each verse builds up the emotional investment that both singers (who come from very different places but are united in the extreme respect they have for each others’ art) make. The performance becomes a kind of love song that they sing to each other. Whereas once it dealt in delicate remembrance, it now mines the emotional depths of the artists’ deep reverence for the power of memory itself.
To say that the opening song on 1969’s Nashville Skyline was something of a shock for many Dylan fans is in itself an understatement. Although the adoption of country stylings on much of 1967’s John Wesley Harding had to some extent prepared them, here he was utilising the full-on Nashville sound for songs which conveyed (at least on the surface) simplistic, even trite sentiments and used cliché in an unabashed way. This led many of those who viewed Dylan as a leader of the counter culture to believe that he had ‘sold out’ to commercial interests. But Dylan seemed to want to prove to the world that he could, if he turned his hand to it, write conventional romantic songs and that he had the ability to adopt a completely different voice to the ‘authentic’ one that listeners were accustomed to. But despite their brevity and straightforwardness, the songs on Nashville Skyline do not abandon poetic song writing. As Johnny Cash says in his award winning sleeve notes: …Herein is one hell of a poet…
‘IS IT ROLLING BOB?’ BOB DYLAN AND BOB JOHNSTON
Duets in Nashville
The duet with Cash was chosen from the sessions that the two singers took part in during the recording of the album. The recordings eventually became available as part of the Bootleg Series release Travelin’ Thru (2019). It has been rumoured that Bob Johnston actually arranged the sessions to coincide with Cash being in the studios, hoping that the two would get together. Their collaboration lasted only days. After running through duet versions of Dylan’s One Too Many Mornings and Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right and Cash’s I Still Miss Someone with the studio band on the first day, the two reconvened for another long day of takes with Cash’s band, which included rockabilly legend Carl Perkins on guitar. Thirty eight tracks were recorded, presumably leaving almost no time for rehearsals. Dylan and Cash were clearly relying on their previous shared knowledge of the songs, most of which were from Cash’s repertoire. The two are clearly enjoying themselves, even if the renditions of Cash’s songs like Big River, Five Feet High and Rising, I Walk the Line and Ring of Fire are somewhat ragged. The duets also incorporate a couple of medleys of Jimmie Rodgers’ best known tunes, along with Mystery Train and That’s All Right Mama from Elvis’ Sun Sessions and a few traditional numbers and hymns. Only Girl from the North Country and One Too Many Mornings appeared to have been seriously worked on for possible inclusion on the album. The use of the Girl from the North Country duet to open the album was a clear attempt by Dylan to promote the virtues of a key genre of American music for an audience that had previously rejected it as being too conservative.
LINKS
STILL ON THE ROAD – ALL DYLAN’S GIGS
THE CAMBRIDGE BOB DYLAN SOCIETY
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