Revolution in the Air - The Songs of Bob Dylan

Because you demanded it: Terry's review - the FIRST one in print anywhere - of Clinton Heylin's new book, to be found in the latest edition of The Bridge (Spring 2009, No.33). What's The Bridge? Check our Links for the Curious...

POURIN' OFF OF EVERY PAGE: Clinton Heylin revisits the Dylan songbook

By Terry Kelly

Reviewing his definitive Dylan biography, 'Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades - Take Two (Viking, 2000), back in issue 8 of The Bridge, I called Clinton Heylin "feisty, spiky...a scrapper par excellence, the critical 'Dirty Harry' of the Dylan world, possessing more opinions than Hydra had heads." Unfair? Perhaps, perhaps not. Heylin's famous or infamous critical feistiness is again on display in his latest Dylan study. After a decade-long hiatus, Heylin has returned to the fray with Revolution In The Air - The Songs of Bob Dylan, Vol. 1: 1957-73 (Constable, London, 2009, £20). Ten years on, the text is still peppered with eruptions of critical impatience - with many commentators dubbed as the "chronically misinformed, the mercenary, and the magpie - " while other jabs are directed at such fellow Dylan scribes as the Michaels - Gray and Krogsgaard - plus leading literary scholar Christopher Ricks. While much of Heylin's Dylan criticism is distinguished by some sort of prickly, deep-rooted, often baffling animus for any other writer with the temerity to discuss His Bobness, I suspect his streetfighter literary persona is an essential component of his critical style. It's simply part of the man. Without it, perhaps Heylin wouldn't seem so passionate or committed to the work of Bob Dylan. We can't have one Clinton without the other. And he knows his stuff, which means the sparks really fly when he brings his considerable knowledge to bear on his Dylan dialectics. All of this is a long prelude to saying that Heylin's latest book is arguably his finest Dylan study to date. When the two-volume work is completed and published next year, it will have seen Heylin delving into the chronological and compositional history of some 600 Dylan songs. Volume one covers the years 1957 to 1973, stretching from Song To Brigit (dedicated to the sultry French actress and possibly Dylan's first song), to Wedding Song from Planet Waves. Running to more than 480 pages, this lovingly detailed book tracks and traces each original Dylan composition, detailing publication, studio recordings and first known performance. But this is no dry academic exercise, but rather a template for exploring, in a Wordsworthian sense, the Growth of a Poet's Mind. Heylin's overarching ambition is "to tell the stories behind those songs not from the outer realms of speculation, but from the centrality that is their compositional history." (My italics).Throughout the first volume, Heylin's critical focus remains fixed on Dylan's songs, as he seeks to provide what he calls "an authoritative history of the most multifaceted canon in twentieth-century popular song." And focussing on each individual song enables Heylin to chart the changes in Dylan's writing style in illuminating and specific detail, such as this critical thumbnail sketch of A Hain Rain's A-Gonna Fall: "Such a freewheeling verse structure was not something he acquired from either Woody Guthrie or Robert Johnson. It smacked more of Ginsberg's Howl or the speed-rapping of Kerouac - and it transformed Dylan into a folk modernist." But unlike some Dylan commentators, Heylin never treats Dylan with critical kid gloves. We therefore have a damning dissection of the untruths Dylan pedalled in Hattie Carroll ("By snapping the truth into little pieces, he proved himself a masterful poet but a lousy historian") and an equally strident critique of the the cherished Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, which Heylin calls "a thirteen-minute one-trick pony of a song...and possibly the most pretentious set of lyrics the man ever penned," while admitting it is also "a captivating carousel of a performance." But Heylin can be equally insightful while hymning Dylan's songwriting genius, as in his minutely detailed examination of Visions of Johanna (which he considers "Dylan's finest work/song"). Over six pages, Heylin traces the genesis of the song, placing it in a biographical and creative context, while exploring the studio development of the song, from New York in November, 1965, to its final and arguably definitive incarnation in Studio A, Nashville, on February 14, 1966. Pinpointing the nature of Dylan's achievement, Heylin comments that "the real triumph on Visions is the way Dylan manages to write about the most inchoate feelings in such a vivid, immediate way." Heylin's exploration of The Basement Tapes is another delight. One feature of the book is the exploration of songs which either only exist in manuscript form, or remain simply audio rumours. And since The Basement Tapes are wrapped up in more myths than ancient Greece, Heylin rightly touches on those songs from Big Pink and elsewhere which remain mere rumours, such as You Can Change Your Name, Wild Wolf, Better Have It All and You Own A Racehorse. Drawing on lyrics first published in The Telegraph (which, as Heylin explains, may only be a fragment), he rhapsodizes over I'm Not There's slippery, mysterious qualities: "I believe Dylan to be simply in the zone, flying the flag of a wild fancy, improvising on the spot." (This is akin to Seamus Heaney's definition of certain poetry as "erotic mouth music"). The book is highly quotable throughout and I was delighted to hear my favourite Dylan collection, John Wesley Harding, described as "his most perfectly realised album." While some will find much to argue with or even rail against, I think the majority of serious Dylan fans will love this book. (In conversation, Clinton told me: "If people read my book and go back and listen to the music, I know I've done my job"). My hunch is that this will become Clinton Heylin's most highly regarded book to date. Argumentative and authoritative, passionate and picky, but unfailingly insightful, Revolution In The Air is one of the most significant books published about Bob Dylan. And I can't wait for next year's volume two, Still On The Road - The Songs of Bob Dylan 1974-2006, in which Heylin promises to delve into Dylan's "little red notebook," which he mined for Blood On The Tracks.