Expecting Rain

Painting by TTRHWilburysFan91



I thought that we should start a thread listing all known musical and lyrical borrowings from Tempest . My list is, of course, incomplete but i'm sure you'll help me finish it in no time . My knowledge of American music is limited , so i'm looking foward to reading your posts .


Duquense Whistle


Well , as pointed out by Mr. Rimbaud and The Great Wandu :

The music is based on Jelly Roll Morton's Each Day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQcRQUjnx2c


Thde song was featured in an early chaplin film ( i laughed so hard when i found this , i always had fought that the song was chaplinesque. )


What's interesting is that Dylan seems to have given some credit to Jerry Roll Morton . Quoting wiki



You say i'm a gambler
you say i'm a pimp
but i ain't neither one


The lyrics seem also based on this "K.C. Moan" by the Memphis Jug Band

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3Ut4ovRTRM


Soon after midnight



The music is based on Bobby Fuller's a new shade of blue

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SmZedG9sVw


Narrow Way

(Music and ) lyrics loosely ( or not loosely ) based on You'll Work Down To Me Someday by the Mississippi Sheiks .

http://www.mediafire.com/listen/nh2fzbd ... omeday.mp3


Long And Wasted Years

...


Pay In Blood


...



Scarlet Town



...



Early Roman Kings


Music is a classic blues motif , popular in songs such i I'm a Man by Bo Diddley


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaC5ZKRjLUM


and Muddy Waters's answer to that Mannish Boy


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8LesTvNuaw


We might say that this is Dylan's answer to both songs , since they are definitely related lyrically .



Tin Angel



Lyrics echoing blackjack davey



Tempest

( Music and ) lyrics based on The Titanic by the Carter Family

( If i remember correctly , couldn't find this anywhere online )


Roll On John


...


( I'm posting it here because my TTL influences thread was moved here too . I think both threads might belong to General Discussion , since we're not only focusing on lyrical influences but also on musical. If you mods agree , we can move them there. Once again , sorry if i have any mistakes in my English)

"Duquesne Whistle's" "Blowing like she's at my chamber door" is a nod to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven".

I've collected a number of them here: http://pinterest.com/scottwarmuth/a-tem ... mmonplace/

Amazing work again Scott!

Roll On John - References Doctor Roberts and lifts lines wholesale from Come Together and The Ballad of John and Yoko, all Beatles songs. Also lyrically lifts from Simon and Garfunkel's Feeling Groovy, William Blake's Tyger and a popular prayer.

Pay in Blood - The bass part is partly a transcription of the first half of the main guitar part ( DA doo doo da DOO, da DOOda DA DOO) of Bitch, by The Rolling Stones.

When you state "Also lyrically lifts from Simon and Garfunkel's Feeling Groovy..." I'm assuming that you are referring to the line "Slow down, you're moving way too fast."

I'll grant that "Slow down, you're moving way too fast" is similar to "Slow down, you move too fast" from "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)" — but that is not what is going on.

Consider that "Slow down, you're moving way too fast" from "Roll On John" is far more similar to "Slow down, baby, now you're moving way too fast" from "Slow Down," the Larry Williams song as recorded by The Beatles with John Lennon on lead vocals.

I suggest that the line has nothing to do with Paul Simon. It is simply another Beatles reference in a song about a Beatle that is full of Beatles references.

Yeah, probably.

That phonetic transcription of Bitch I did did not turn out right. I wish I could read music once in a while.

http://www.cowboylyrics.com/tabs/johnny-and-jack/what-about-you-4984.html

Two lines from this song seem familiar from two different Dylan songs - one's in the studio version, the other in the recent live take.

"What About You?"

Now, this kind of "theft" I recognize from the old days.

What an amazing amalgam of sources -- low and high -- his work is.

Thanks, scottw.

Any literary (non-musical, I mean) sources for TOOM? I don't recall seeing much work by you on that album. No need for specifics, since I suppose you'll make them public when you're ready to. Just curious.

I've written quite a bit about literary sources used on TOOM. I'd start here: http://swarmuth.blogspot.com/2011/02/bo ... llins.html

great work. Thanks for all you do on this.

Nice.

From the dark room of his mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZFHLgIt7Dg

^ awesome find

I think there's quite a bit of Big Joe on Tempest, incl. My Gal's A Jockey, It's A Low Down Dirty Shame (Playboy Blues), and possibly Well All Right.

Will check . And thanks for the great work everybody .

Skim-read 482 Whittier poems these last few days. Not sure if the "electric wire / fire" rhyme has been mentioned in that context. Also, he uses the words "tempest" and "transfigure" a whole lot. I wouldn't be surprised if that's where Bob got both these ideas.

" O ye who tread the Narrow Way
By Tophet-flare to judgement Day,
Be gentle when 'the heathen' pray
To Budda at Kamakura!"

Budda at Kamakura.

Sorry if this has been found before but I just came across it.

New to me, and very good. Thanks for posting.


For in the Market-place, one Dusk of Day,
I watch'd the Potter thumping his wet Clay:
And with its all obliterated Tongue
It murmur'd---"Gently, Brother, gently, pray!"
(The Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam, trans. Edward Fitzgerald)

Nice JP! So that verse from Narrow Way seems like a combination of those two sources maybe.

Yes, there's quite a bit of the Rubaiyat all over Tempest. Maybe Kipling was inspired by them as well, the FitzGerlard translations were available at the time. But often, Bob's sources are woven into each other so that a single line or phrase can contain material from more than one source.

I've collected a number of them here: http://pinterest.com/scottwarmuth/a-tem ... mmonplace/[/quote]

thanks Scott. was thinking and wondering about some tie-ins with the connection u found with Lonnie Johnson's "Oh! Doctor the Blues" and why it might be in the mix with this John Lennon et al song.

i didn't realize that Lonnie Donnegan, often cited by Lennon (and McCartney) as a critical influence on his musical direction, took "Lonnie" from Lonnie Johnson in tribute.

---------------------
After leaving St Ambrose in 1946, Anthony Donegan took his first job in a Stockbroker's office. After National Service he originally toured as the Tony Donegan Jazz Band, but adopted the name "Lonnie" in tribute to the great American blues guitarist Lonnie Johnson, who was playing on the same bill at the London Festival Hall in 1952. The compere confused their names, and introduced him as "Lonnie Donegan". He kept the name, and invented a new form of DIY music called Skiffle. It was massively successful. In 1956 he sold 3 million copies of the "Rock Island Line" single. John Lennon's first group, the Quarrymen, was a Skiffle group. Donegan's single "Gamblin' Man"/"Puttin' on the Style"was number one in July 1957 when John Lennon met Paul McCartney. They have both declared that Donegan was a major influence. McCartney saw him Donegan play in Liverpool. He was impressed to see that although Donegan arrived late for the lunchtime show, he took time afterwards to personally write notes for the factory girls in the crowd to give to their bosses, to explain why they were so late returning to work! - See more at: http://www.st-ambrosecollege.org.uk/121 ... bNNSL.dpuf

I just finished reading the complete poems of John Greenleaf Whittier. For what it's worth, he talks of transfiguration a lot. Also, one of his late poems includes the line, "Hear'st thou, O of little faith," so that may have been on Bob's mind as much as anything else during the latest Rolling Stone interview.

It really pays reading the complete works, it brings up the stuff that Google can't. A smattering of lines and phrases from JGW also appears on the three pre-Tempest post-millenium albums.