Hi folks
Hope you enjoy this! This is the ‘audio version’ of my blog on Bob Dylan’s rather fabulous
and certainly under rated 1976 song BLACK DIAMOND BAY….
The whole text can be found at https://chrisgregory.org/articles/black-diamond-bay-another-hard-luck-story/
Excerpts…
One of Dylan’s most distinctive qualities- as shown in songs like Desolation Row, Stuck Inside of Mobile and All Along the Watchtower – is his ability to create and use characters in his songs. Sometimes these figures are invented but they may also be historical, mythical or literary figures. This allows him to create individual ‘dramatic worlds’ within which disparate individuals interact. In Black Diamond Bay the characters can easily be identified as stock figures in old movies. The unnamed woman who appears throughout the song is memorably described in the opening line as wearing …a necktie and a Panama hat…
A number of well known female film stars of the 1940s often wore men’s clothing onscreen in stylish and often successful attempts to amplify their sexual mystique. Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Bette Davis all wore both items of apparel in various movies. Another major player is the guilt ridden character referred to only as ‘the Greek’, who one can imagine being portrayed by Sydney Greenstreet or Anthony Quinn. The ‘soldier’ is a hard bitten figure who might be a ‘shoe in’ for Humphrey Bogart, whereas the ‘tiny man’ would be a good fit for the sinister Peter Lorre. Perhaps Claude Rains, ever the smooth villain, could portray the ‘desk clerk’. The ‘loser’ and the ‘dealer’ in the casino might be natural parts for Dana Andrews and Edward G. Robinson.
The whole song has recounted a ‘hard luck story’ which makes the listener, who is presumably attuned to expect the usual closure of a Hollywood movie story, increasingly curious as to the details of the intrigues that are unfolding. But the final verse, with its brilliantly deadpan dismissal of the significance of it all, supplies a wonderfully comic twist. The outstanding feature of the song is the attention to detail in the lyrics, which build up as if we are watching a moody film noir thriller. The final image of the Panama hat and the shoes is particularly resonant, and is reminiscent of the ending of Citizen Kane, which dwells on the protagonist’s childhood sled ‘Rosebud’ which, like the entire plot of Black Diamond Bay, remains an enigma.
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