PODCAST: A Headful of Ideas Season Two 15) Mr. Tambourine Man: Cast Your Dancing Spell

In this PODCAST, Chris Gregory gives his thoughts on Bob Dylan’s great opus MR. TAMBOURINE MAN

Play a song for me….

EXTRACTS

Mr. Tambourine Man is certainly one of Bob Dylan’s most famous creations; so much so that it has become a kind of ‘signature song’. If any one of the characters in Dylan’s lyrics can be said to represent the singer himself, it is this mysterious and enigmatic figure who inspires the song’s narrator with his musical genius. It might be said that every time we listen to Bob Dylan, we are under the ‘tambourine man’’s magical spell. With its emphasis on spiritual and artistic transcendence through hedonistic pleasure seeking, the song is also one of the most iconic expressions of the spirit of the 1960s – an era in which popular music became the most powerful channel of expression of a cultural ‘revolution’. To follow the ‘tambourine man’ you do not need to join a religious group, devote yourself to serious learning or offer him your devotion. The ‘tambourine man’ is not a guru. He represents no movement, cult or closed society. He is that voice inside every one of us that tells us that there really is more to life than the daily grind and that we can become deeper, more fulfilled individuals merely by unleashing the spiritual power that lies within us. Ultimately he encourages us to dance not only our troubles but our mundane everyday thoughts, worries and concerns away – to engage with an ecstatic experience in order to transform ourselves into more fully realised beings.

Vast reams of ink have been consumed in commentaries on this song, a great many of which have identified it as a ‘drug song’ in which the ‘tambourine man’ is the singer’s dealer. The song’s dreamlike qualities and its surreal, mesmerising imagery have often been said to prove that the singer is ‘on drugs’. Given the evidence of Dylan’s personal history and the centrality of drugs to the countercultural ethos of the 1960s (for which Dylan was the most articulate voice) there is much to support this view. On one level the song could be taken to be a description of the LSD , which transformed the landscape of popular music in the ‘psychedelic era’ of the middle years of the decade. Anyone who has had this experience could surely relate to the song. And drugs such as LSD were said by their proponents to be capable of inducing ‘spiritual’ experiences without the need to subscribe to any religious creed or set of metaphysical beliefs.

Yet Mr. Tambourine Man is so much more than a ‘drug song’. Its focus on the search for inspiration recalls a number of literary antecedents. Its use of pastoral imagery and its personification of natural forces as elements of spiritual awakening are strongly reminiscent of the work of the romantic poets. In Ode to a Nightingale Keats, who compares his vision to an opium dream, wants to ‘fly’ on the ‘viewless wings of Poesy’ to join the mystical bird in his heavenly flight:

There are actually surprisingly few cover versions of Mr. Tambourine Man. Many of them, like the warmly engaging ‘pop’ versions by Johnny Rivers and Stevie Wonder, tend to be styled more closely to The Byrds’ famous version than Dylan’s. Judy Collins recorded a straightforward ‘folk’ reading with some quite beautiful vocals and Barb Jungr gave the song a jazzy inflexion. One of the most distinctive covers is that of Melanie, who gives the song a particularly bitter sweet reading. But the song is not one for which it is easy to change musical arrangements, as its melodic development is already so strong. It is one of Dylan’s most perfectly realised creations. It allows the poet to step boldly and defiantly into ‘the dance’ of symbolist art. At the same time it displays a certain ‘pop’ sensibility which has turned it into a much-loved ‘golden oldie’. Mr. Tambourine Man has thus a unique status – both symbolist poem and classic hit single. Here Dylan invokes the spirit of musical poetry in a kind of declaration of independence from his role as a ‘public poet’.  It is the beginning, perhaps, of the exploration of inner consciousness and spiritual meaning that will loom large in much of Dylan’s long career.

Chris discusses Dylan’s controversial appearance at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1969.