Grotesque in Dylan

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Bent out of shape from society s pliers: A sociological study of the

Grotesque in the songs of Bob Dylan John Wells

To cite this Article Wells, John(1978) 'Bent out of shape from society's pliers: A sociological study of the Grotesque in thesongs of Bob Dylan', Popular Music and Society, 6: 1, 39 — 44

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BENT OUT OF SHAPE FROM SOCIETY'S PLIE RS :A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE GROTESQUE IN THE

SONGS OF BOB DYLAN

by

John Wells

I accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts m e.Bob Dylan

Although Bob Dylan is widely known for his musical and lyrical contributions to therock culture, few attempts have been made to examine the symbolic expressions andexpe riential dimens ions of his lyrics from a sociological point of view. No doubt thislack of attention is due to the belief that Dylan is not a se rio us artis t, or me rely a folksinger or pop star and thus, he has no bearing upon legitimate inquiry. It is my con-tention tha t Dylan is an imp ortant a rtist whose writings portray unique societal themes,symbolic representations and structures of consciousness found in contemporarysociety. Fu rth erm or e, these topics ar e deeply rooted within a socio-historical contextand provide linkages to similar them es throughout other historical settings.

This essay does not attem pt a total evaluation of Dylan 's lyrics from this standpoint,but mor e specifically it conce ntrates on a re-occurrin g them e in his work: the notion ofthe grotesque through his dram atic representation of a fictional cosmos.

The reader familar with Dylan knows that he has developed his art in a series of sta ge s beginning with the classical and traditional folk idiom, progressing through asurrealistic folk-rock phase and more recently incorporating a more toned-down versionof country, folk and Spanish influences. An artis t may rese nt his place me nt into ar-bitrary categories, pigeon-holes, or sta ge s in a caree r, but it is considered nece ssaryto the purpos e of this anal ysis . Certainly it is undeniable th at the Dylan who wrote Blowing in the Wind is not the same man who wrote Like a Rolling Sto ne -at leastnot in an ar tis tic sen se. Con sequen tly, I will focus upon the period betw een 1965 and 1966in which he recorded three albums including Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. These years can be considered the surrea listic chainsof rhyming im ag es phase of his caree r and particula rly lends itself to the presentdiscussion.

THE GROTESQUE IN A FICTIONAL COSMOS

Most individuals in society prefer (or would prefer) to view the world in relation to acentral stand ard or nat ural order of the universe. They like to feel as if they belong in a

society held together by safe well-constructed systems of belief, logic and rationality

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POPUL R MUSIC N SOCIETY

which makes the everyday world both familiar and dependable. However, as hard as

people try to orchestrate their lives in accordance with some harmonious consistency, at

some historical point in time, the system seems to spring small leaks within its tightknit

structure and even occasionally collapses at its foundation. At these historical junc-

tures, the universe is transformed and sometimes rather suddenly into a chaotic,

distorted and contradictory place. People loose their collective moral bearings,

traditional beliefs and firm footholds on rea li ty/No longer does everyday life seem

comfortable and secure, but individuals feel lost, alienated and confused about their

existence.This experience is certainly not a new phenomenon. Emile Dirkheim warned long ago

that if a society's moral structure splintered into desparate components, then anomie or

a feeling of normlessness could result. (1) GeorgSimmel asserted that, The deepest

problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the

autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of

historical heretage, of external culture and the technique of life. (2) In addition,

numerous literary writers such as Franz Kafka, Charles Dickens, Samuel Becket and

Albert Camus conveyed this problematic notion about the world in which they lived, i.e.,

under some societal conditions existence may not be viewed as essentially ordered in

any real sense, but on the contrary, may seem utterly grotesque.

The word grotesque is certainly not a well-defined category of scientific un-

derstanding and is often used in extremely vague terms like strange, incredible, or

unbelievable. (3) In his book, The Grotesque(4), Philip Thompson includes categories

such as disharmony, the comic and terrifying, extravagance and exaggeration,

abnormality, plus related terms and modes such as the absurd, the bizarre, and

the macabre. He even covers functions and purposes of the word encompassing

among others aggressiveness and alienation, tension and unresolvability and

playfulness. Obviously, the variety of phenomena associated with the grotesque

limits its usage as a valuable scientific word. One must be careful to clarify its

definition and examine the immediate social context in conjunction with'its chosen

meaning. In this regard, I intend to use two components of the term grotesque which are

formed most frequently in Dylan's lyrics. These include elements of disharmony and

alienation of the individual within a social milieu. In creating a fictional cosmos

composed of many people who seem bent out of shape from society's pliers, (5) Dylan

represents a picture of reality separated from its ordinary psychic underpinnings. His

characters are often fantastic or distorted persons caught in a terrible moral drama.

For Dylan in his surrealistic phase, the ordinary world and a nightmare madhouse are

virtually undistinguishable.

THE WORLD AS A MADHOUSE

In Bringing It All Back Home(6) Dylan's songs reflect a man trapped in an insane

world not quite of his own making. For example, in the song Maggie's Far m (which

could easily be interpreted as modern society) the continuing refrain, I ain't gonna

work on Maggie's farm no more echoes Dylan's resentment against a woman whose

brother hands you a nickel, hands you a dime, asks you with a grin, if you're having a

good time. Here Dylan is wrestling under disturbing conditions superimposed upon his

own sensibilities to the point where he just can not manage to function anymore.

Maggie's' farm is a grotesque place not only because it represents an overtly

authoritarian locality, but offers a contradictory view of his existence. The normal

routine patterns of life are juxtaposed against jumbled confusion. His attitude toward

his job at Maggie's farm contradicts the excessive bureaucratic operations which

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B E N T O U T O F S H A P E F R O M SO C IET Y S P L IE R S : A SO C IO L O G IC A L

STUDY O FT HE GROTESQUE IN THE SONGS OF BOB DYLA N

rule our so-called familiar world. Disharmony and alienation arise through a desparateattempt to maintain his personal identity in the face of a world gone mad with theroutinization of specialized, boring tasks . Dylan proclaim s at the end of the song that hetrys to be as he is, but everybody wants you to be like they are and while other peoplesing while they slav e, Dylan just gets bored. A sim ilar rea ction, one even mor egrotesq ue, is displayed in On the Road Ag ain . Throughout the song Dylan stum blesthrough a series of utterly incomprehensible misfortunes and meets a demented world

where there are fistfights in the kitchen, Santa Claus is in the fireplace, there are frogsinside his socks, a milkman wears a derby hat, someone's daddy walks in wearing aNapoleon Bo naparte ma sk, and an uncle steals everything inside his pockets. At the endof each chorus Dylan wonders why his woman wants to know why he does not live herewhen it is obvious that they are both caught up in a precendented realm of absurdities.This corresponds closely to Wolfgang Kayser's observation that in genuine grotesqueart, the everyday world is suddenly changed into a strange and unpleasant place, into aworld in which we do not wish to live.(7) Dylan 's use of incongruent scen es and star kimages are reminiscent of the French symbolist poets, particularly Rimbaud andBa ude laire. One of the key functions of these poets was to provoke their audien ce into adifferent kind of perception by presenting to the ordinary eye an object or person sodazzling that it would destroy the dominant temporal-spatial order and rational mode ofconsciousness. (8) Indeed, D ylan's creations of grotesque disharmonies revea l a far-cical universe not founded upon any systematic and logical representations, and hiswork during this period is aligned with Walter Bag enot's dec laration tha t ...tak en as awhole the universe is absurd...all is incongruous. (9)

Highway 61 Revisited(lO) contains some of the best poetic imag ery Dylan has everwritten . His blurring of reality and irreality in such songs as Deso lation Row,

Tombstone Blu es, Ballad of a Thin Ma n, and Highway 61 Rev isited furtherchallenges the familiar world to which we are accustom ed. In Tombstone Blues one

again finds the world-as-a-madhouse them e. Dylan encounters, among others, the cityfathers trying to endorse the reincarnation of Paul Re vere's horse, Jezebel, a nun whoviolently knits, Jack the Ripper who sits at the head of the Chamber of Commerce, anhysterical bride in a penny arcade, and John the Baptist who tortures a thief.

Throughout all these cha rade s Dylan repeats the alienated refrain that M am a's in afactory (she ain't got no shoes ) and daddy's in an alley (he's looking for food) andDylan's in the stre et with the tombstone blue s.

In Desolation Row Dylan descends completely into the abyss of mo dern society.

Here is a place inhabited by extremely grotesque figures in a cold cunning andmech anical environment. As he descends into this Dantesque netherworld he mee ts ariot squad who needs some place to go, sexless patients trying to blow-up a leather cup,Ophelia'who is an old maid on her twenty-second birthday, Einstein disguised as RobinHood, the Titanic sailing at dawn, and Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in a captain'stowe r. In one of the mor e chilling choruses Dylan dec lar es:

Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crewCome out and round up everyone that knows more tha n they do

Obviously Dylan is experiencing a radically different kind of existence and thesurrealistic images he projects causes one to shudder because they reflect a totallyestrang ed world. It is his own season in hell and here especially the similar ities betweenDylan and Rimbau d are quite apparent. Rimba ud, almost a century earlier, ex-perimented with aD sorts of drugs, underwent hunger, exhaustion and other e xtrem ephysical deprivations to produce a complete deregularization of the sen ses . Through

this method Rimbaud hoped to achieve poetic visions which would loosen the mooringsof ordinary consciousne ss through the dissolution of ordin ary reality . Dylan himself

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POPULAR MUSIC IN SOCIETY

certainly used various drugs, particularly amphetamines and marijuana asdocum ented in Dylan,(12) a biography by Anthony Scad uto. It is imposs ible to ac -curately estimate the importance of the drug experience in connection with artisticachie vem ent. One does not nece ssarily need drugs to induce a visionary expe rience orproduce fantastic ima ges. As Salvadore Dali once said, I do not take drugs. I amdrugs . Nevertheless, Dylan does make numerous references to drugs in his songs andone may safely say that he used some method similar to Rimbaud's to gain visionaryinsights and surrealistic chains of rhyming images devoid of any conscious control by a

rationalistic state of mind.The album Blonde on Blonde(13) contains many stylistic resemblances to Highway 61

Revisited, although perhaps expanding even more significantly the deeply rootedparadoxical nature of human relationships - especially those between a man and awom an. In virtually e very song Dylan alludes to a woman he loves or car es about, butsomeone, something or some unfathomable forces are alwa ys operating to prevent anyreal substantial union between them . The ti t les themse lves reveal this dilem ma: Oneof Us Must Know (Sooner or La te r) , I Want Yo u, Mos t Likely You'll Go Your Wayand I'l l Go Min e, Fou rth Time Around. Whe reas ma ny of Dylan's earlier songsdepicted a man alienated and confused from impenetrable forces in society, Blonde onBlonde focuses upon a man alienated from practically the only thing left to confind inand find securi ty, i.e., a woman . Ultim ately, this attem pt also fails. Nowhe re is thisbetter de mon strated than in the sadly ironic Most Likely You'll Go Your Way and I'l lGo Min e, in which Dylan lam ents the loss of his girlfriend who is not strong enough to

hold him . Dylan even wonders why it gets so ha rd to care ( it ca n't be this wayeve ryw her e ) and in the end he resolutely lets her go he r own way.

But if Blonde on Blonde has one song which somehow perfectly captu res the grotesq uedisharmony and alienation themes with which we are dealing, it must be the supe rblywritten Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Aga in. Discussing Dylan'slyrics in this context is severely hampered by the fact that the reader is only reading thelyrics and not listening to the song as it wa s produced in the studio. This song in par -ticular cannot possibly be wholly experienced as a truly remarkable work of art unlessone actually hea rs Dylan 's vocalization and musical instrumentation. Aided with theuse of an electric guitar, an eerie circus-like organ sound and a steady drum beat, Dylansings as if this is his last day on ear th. When he deliver s the repe ated refra in of everychorus , Oh M ama can this rea lly be the end - to be stuck inside of Mobile with theMemphis blues again , there is no doubt that this is a man crying from the utter de pthsof experien ce. It has been said that with the Beatles you thought you had a chanc e; w ith

the Rolling Stones you knew you didn't want one. In this song Dylan confirms that youwill never hav e a chanc e. This, as he says , is really the end.

After repeated listening one realizes that Mobile no longer just means being stuck inan Alabama city, but more symbolically, Mobile represents the grotesque turbulentworld we all inhabit. In this song Dylan drinks som e Texas medicine which strang les uphis mind and expe riences people getting uglier, loses his sense of time and wonders w hatprice he ha s to pay for going through all these things twice. Among other gro tesquescenes Dylan portrays a ragman drawing circles up and down a block, Shakespeare inan Alley, railroad men who drink up his blood like wine, a grandpa who is buried in therocks and a fter a ll this he moans wou ldn't it be my luck - to be caught without a ticket -and be discovered beneath a truc k. Dylan may be stuck in an insane world, but hesomehow m ainta ins his sanity by not taking the world or himself too seriou sly. Thisma y be a terribl e place to live, but it is also something of a joke and if a person reac hesthe point where something has strangled up his mind, he has no sense of time, people

just get uglier, and he wonders why he has to go throu gh a ll these things twice then it is

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BENT OUTO FSHA PE FROM SOCIETY S PL IERS: A SOCIOLOGICAL

STUDY OF THE GROTESQUE IN THE SONGS OF BOB DYLAN

obvious that norm al real ity has no meaning whatsoever. The world has becometransformed and transformed into a grotesque madhous e. As Benjamin Nelson hasnoted, Im age s of the grotesque...regularly seem to multiply when large numbers ofpeople find it impos sible to function, muc h less thriv e, in their every day worlds. (14)This is why Dyla n's work rem ains important from a sociological point of view.

CONCLUSION

In developing his poetry fused w ith an electric gu itar sound, Dylan stru ck a vital chordin the consciousnes s of contem porary y outh. In the ..mid-sixties this symbolic re -representation of his own experiences condensed into a few lines and songs the ex-periences ma ny persons were having at a time . Philip Thompson correctly maintainsthat the grotesque is an appropriate expression of the problematic na ture of existenceand ...I t is no accide nt that the grotesque mode in the litera tur e tends to be preva lent insocieties and eras m arked by strife, radical change, or disorientation. (15) Certainly,the era of the mid-sixties marked a dramatic change in the fluid motion of Americansociety, not only from events such as the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, andthe generation gap, but also many young people began altering their consciousnessthrough various dru gs, eastern religions, vegetarianism and so forth. There is no needto chronicle these changes here since they have been well studied and explored but theimportant point for our purposes is that societies do run courses which are surely notlinear and exhibit malises , distempers and functional disorder s. Invariable these shifts

or breakdowns a re coterminous w ith dram atic shifts in structure of consciousness andre-represen tations of experience.(16)

If these changes in the normal ordering of existence are evidenced by certain writerslike Bob Dylan describing the world as grotesque, circus-like, crazy or absurd, and ifthis image corresponds to other people's experiences, then perhaps social scientistswould do well to examine so-called everyday life from a more radical perspective.Although, as Nelson points out, terms like consciousnes s, experien ce and existenc e havelargely been dropped from sociological vocabulary, it seems evident that we riskeliminating these conce pts at our own peril.

FOOTNOTES

(1)See Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society, translated and with anintroduction by George Simpson (New York: The MacM illan Company, 1933).

(2)Georg Simm el, The Metropolis and Mental Life, in Georg Simm el, OnIndividuality and Social For m s, ed. Donald N. Levine (Chicag o: The Univers ity ofChicago P re ss , 1971), p. 324.

(3)Wolfgang Kayser, The Grotesque in Art and Literature translated by VerichWeisstein (Glou cester, M as s.: Pet er Smith, 1968), p. 17.

(4)Philip Thompso n, The Grotesque (London: Methuen an d Compan y, 1972).

(5)This quote is derived from the song, It' s Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) on theBringing It All Back Home album .

(6)Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home (New Yo rk: Columbia Recor ds, 1965)

CS9128.

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POPULAR MUSIC IN SOCIETY

(7)Kayser (1963: 184-185).

(8)John Senior, The Way Down and Out: The Occult in Symbolist Lite rature (NewYork: Greenwood Pre ss, 1968), p. 95.

(9)Walter Bagehot, the Firs t Edinburgh Review ers Liter ary Studies, Vol. I (1855),30.

(10)Bob Dylan, H ighway 61 Revisited (New Yo rk: Columbia Rec ords, 1965) KCS 9189.

(11)See Enid S tarkie, Arthur Rim baud (New York: New Directions, 1968).

(12) Anthony Scaduot, Dylan (New Y ork: Gro sset and Du nlap , Inc., 1971).

(13)Bob Dylan , Blonde on Blonde (New Yo rk: Columbia Re cor ds, 1965) C25841.

(14)Benjamin Nelson, The Omnipresense of the Gr otesq ue in The Psycho-analyticRev iew 57:3 , (1972), 514.

(15)Tho mpson, (1972:11).

(16)Nelson, (1972:507-512).

Bla ckb urg, Virginia 24061

I would like to express my gratitude to Donald A. Nielsen, Micahel Moore and DonnaAllison for their thoughtful suggestions and comments.

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Grotesque in Dylan