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Frankie Lee

Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 02:29:35 GMT
From: Joseph Cliburn (jcliburn@FLINTCREEK.WIN.NET)
Subject: Frankie Lee & Judas Priest

Scaduto's (1971, 1973) analysis of John Wesley Harding is a classic of the Dylan's-work-as-religious-metaphor school. The pedantry begins with the interpretation of the album's title song, establishing JWH as a symbol for Christ and for Dylan, cast in the role of pop messiah. Moving through "As I Went Out One Morning" & "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine," Scaduto constructs an ornate system of linked symbolism. By the time we reach his analysis of "All Along the Watchtower," we have been set up for the fall of Babylon, personal Armageddon, & the Jimi Hendrix cover version. It is surprising that Scaduto doesn't suggest that JWH is the Tetragrammaton!

Finishing with "Watchtower," Scaduto is fiery-eyed, frothing at the mouth, & ready to rain down fire & brimstone:

"...Dylan is Frankie Lee ... and in naming him Judas Priest Dylan symbolized not only the betrayer of Christ but also the institutionalized religions & ruling establishments. ...Frankie needed money, Judas ... pulled out a roll of tens ... & Dylan is saying that he was placing himself above all people, exalting himself. Judas tells Frankie to take whatever he needs... Frankie resists the seduction at first... In giving [him] a choice, Dylan refelects the Biblical teaching... Judas leaves, pointing down the road ... putting down the paradise of the Lord. [A] stranger ... tells [Frankie Lee that] Priest is ... stranded in ... a house of prostitution. Frankie Lee loses control of his senses and runs into the house ... falls into Judas' arms & dies of thirst... Dylan should never have entered society's whorehouse... [T]he result of that huge ego trip was the death of his soul."
Scaduto places Dylan in the role of Frankie Lee, casting the "ruling establishments" as Judas Priest, responsible for the seduction & prostitution of the artist. It is also obvious that Scaduto's interpretation is very much a politically correct one, given the hip-cool standards of The Movement.

Hoskyns (1993) takes a much more personal view of "Frankie Lee & Judas Priest." Exploring the manager-artist relationship, he notes:

"At least two songs on John Wesley Harding, 'Dear Landlord' & 'The Ballad of Frankie Lee & Judas Priest', were veiled attacks on [Albert] Grossman..."
Both Scaduto & Hoskyns document the love/hate, father/son relationship between Dylan & his manager. Grossman's manipulative management style was being increasingly perceived by Dylan in Pony Express terms ("ride 'em until they drop") with Dylan in the role of the horse.

Hoskyns' is a valid albeit convenient interpretation then, too. Dylan's ability to vent intensely personal emotion in the form of symbolic lyric is one of his strong suits as a writer. Grossman destroying Dylan's spiritual connection through overwork & hype becomes the immortal trickster seducing Everyman to enter "society's house of harlotry."

The temptation to put a face on Dylan's symbolic characters through induction & quaint historical analysis is very real, but it takes the analyst in the wrong direction entirely. Questions like "Who is the real Mr Jones?" or "Was Baby Blue supposed to be Paul Clayton or David Blue?" are interesting but hardly important. In the end, it isn't really important whether Dylan is Frankie Lee, Judas Priest, both, or if the listener is involved as something more than a disinterested third party. Grossman may indeed have been the major emotional stimulus for "Frankie Lee & Judas Priest," but Dylan took the moral lesson to near-scriptural levels of distillation. Like good poetry, "Frankie Lee & Judas Priest" works (and works well) no matter who one plugs into the two central roles.

Hoskyns also notes that JWH was quite different sonically even from Dylan's work in the basement that year:

"Although it shared the rural, downhome quality of the basement tapes he'd recorded with the Hawks, the record was ... sparse & austere ... shot through with biblical references ... devoid of the humour & revelry of the songs he'd written that summer."
The "sparse & austere" production values of JWH invest the album with much of its 'my-god-this-must-be-profound' ambience. Taken in context of the general psychedelic morass that rock music had become in late 1967, even the cover of JWH with its simple photo and cryptic (but plain) notes was a major statement. Hoskyns discusses the "conservatism" of The Band's first two albums, and JWH shared this sober outlook, representing for many a rejection of The Movement, of Dylan's presumed leadership role in yippie politics.

According to Hoskyns, Robbie Robertson himself urged Dylan "to leave them [the JWH tracks] alone" & not to overdub guitar and organ as had been originally planned. Imagine how different JWH would sound with manic doodlings from Garth Hudson -- the whole would likely have been analyzed quite differently (& would probably sound like Planet Waves ;-)

One wonders why a performer (Dylan), faced with a messianic dilemma, would choose to announce his rejection of the job in such an overtly biblical fashion. Abandoning acid-hip postures, eschewing any leadership roles that might be foisted upon him, Dylan was clearly not interested in being a pop savior, but he wasn't averse to offering a little friendly prophetic assistance from time-to-time.

On one hand, Dylan refused to "compete" sonically with pop psychedelic faddists. But by using strong biblical themes, he forced the competition into a totally new arena. On the strength of its poetry alone, JWH became another instance of Dylan "changing the face of pop music."

The economic production values of JWH -- its conservatism -- create an intimate relationship between listener & performer. Could Everyman (Frankie Lee) be the listener & the tempter/deceiver (Judas Priest) be Dylan? Could Dylan's long-standing denial that he was anything other than a "song & dance man" have evolved into a warning: Observe what will happen if you consider me to be your leader. Dylan is saying that he is Everyman, too. He may be a prophet, but he is no messiah. We all are both Frankie Lee & Judas Priest.

Taken at face value, "The Ballad of Frankie Lee & Judas Priest" tells a sad tale of personal betrayal & deceit leading to temporal & spiritual death. Mixed with a healthy dose of biblical metaphor & served up in a soft, tongue-in-cheek basement rap, this is woe of the same order as "Delia," if death by dehydration after spending 2 weeks in a bordello is indeed woe. Scaduto, referring to "self flagellation" in JWH, obviously sees it that way.

Not everyone, however, will think that a fortnight of overindulgence in a whorehouse falls neatly into the "woe" category, regardless of the temporal or spiritual outcome. For these folks, "Frankie Lee & Judas Priest" is filled with the same bizarre gallows humor & deadpan delivery that leavens the basement tapes.

Part of any perceived lack of "humour & revelry" in JWH stems from a major change in Dylan's lyric style. From 1964 through 1966, Dylan's songs had become increasingly populated by a vividly realized cast of jugglers, clowns, midgets, and random historic personages. And although it's "vulgar to think so," Dylan's work from this period constitutes an almost textbook example of the effects of methamphetamine abuse. Many, if not most, of these characters appear to have been described so explicitly for no deeper purpose than sheer verbal impact.

After the crash, Dylan's basement songs were still peopled by a motley assortment of strange characters, but they were more genial & generic, less nightmarish and less likely to have been chosen as mere window-dressing. In JWH, the characters have evolved into purely symbolic & allegorical constructs: a Wild West bad guy, Tom Paine, St. Augustine, the joker & the thief, Everyman & the trickster, the drifter, judge & jury, a landlord, a hobo, an immigrant, & a messenger. An Italian poet from the 13th Century would be proud. Like a lot of 26 year olds, Dylan had finally confronted his own mortality & didn't like everything he saw. Unlike most, he expressed it with succinct elegance.


Date:    Thu, 16 Feb 1995 22:57:12 GMT
From:    Nate Smith [nates@LL.MIT.EDU]
Subject: Re: Frankie Lee & Judas Priest

first off, let me say that Joseph Cliburn is giving us a chance that
epitomizes what can be best about r.m.d. (of course i may gave given
him a nudge at times).

someone long back there wanted Frankie Lee & Judas Priest taken apart harpy style? Scaduto may have succombed to such travesties, as i also do now.... PLEASE REMEMBER that any discouraging words i may say below are not directed at Joe! it is scaduto, who is not present to defend his views, that i make this cowardly argument to. In article [1527@flintcreek.win.net] jcliburn@flintcreek.win.net (Joseph Cliburn) writes: ]Scaduto's (1971, 1973) analysis of John Wesley Harding is a classic of ]the Dylan's-work-as-religious-metaphor school. The pedantry begins with ]the interpretation of the album's title song, establishing JWH as a symbol ]for Christ and for Dylan, cast in the role of pop messiah. Moving through ]"As I Went Out One Morning" & "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine," Scaduto ]constructs an ornate system of linked symbolism. By the time we reach his ]analysis of "All Along the Watchtower," we have been set up for the fall of ]Babylon, personal Armageddon, & the Jimi Hendrix cover version. It is ]surprising that Scaduto doesn't suggest that JWH is the Tetragrammaton! indeed, i dont for one second think that any dylan reader would be puzzled over the title of bob's World Gone Wrong.... ]Finishing with "Watchtower," Scaduto is fiery-eyed, frothing at the mouth, ]& ready to rain down fire & brimstone: :-) ] "...Dylan is Frankie Lee ... and in naming him Judas ] Priest Dylan symbolized not only the betrayer of Christ ] but also the institutionalized religions & ruling ] establishments. i personally think the scope of this song was somewhere else...more like frankie lee is the old buddy of bob neuwirth who rips apart Times magazine reporters for lunch. you can hear neuwirth's friend in "i dont call it anything!" with a smile. you can hear the old bob panic as the new bob explains the current environment of thinking. the old bob, the friend of -okay lets go easy on neuwirth, here, he aint a _bad_ guy - just a friend who was creating an atmosphere of feedback on the - oh i am thinking of Norman Mailer's appearance on Dick Cavett where, after getting everyone else to sit on the other side (literally in her case), he remarks that perhaps they need finger-bowls, to wipe off the greasy stuff of picking each other brains apart - anyway! frankie lee IS the guy needing a finger bowl, judas priest has "graduated" beyong that level. NOTE: i happen to like the frankie lee dylan quite a bit. the judas priest dylan has also made my day a few times. Dylan is _also_ Judas Priest in this song. and surely frankie lee "betrayed" something, but it wasnt institionalized religions, for they cannot be betrayed, and it wasnt ruling establishments, for no version of zimmerman has ever clasped onto an established position of rule. actually this particular song is not that complex in my view. the album, taken as a whole, is in that vicinity, but this song just suffers from the misfortune of being the one with the biggest pimple. to get back on track, what frankie lee betrayed was more important - the sense of truth about oneself - because to make up an act, to "pose" as they say now, a role-playing that is not really what you are, is to hurt yourself in the long run in a way more damaging than can be explained in lines. ...Frankie needed money, Judas ... pulled out a roll ] of tens ... & Dylan is saying that he was placing himself above all people, exalting himself. naw...i dont think frankie feels so superior here...frankie lee doesnt place himself above anything (he says with a smile). frankie lee is terry shute, judas priest is Frank in the liner notes. Judas tells Frankie to take whatever he needs... ] Frankie resists the seduction at first... In giving [him] ] a choice, Dylan reflects the Biblical teaching... judas priest is the future of frankie lee - the older & wiser version who can afford to say "alright - i'll leave you here". . . .but doesnt anyone else find it Typically Dylan Amusing that that frankie lee is having problems picking *which* ten-dollar bills he wants?? they _should_ technically be all identical! :-D judas can parentally be patient & magnanimous here. then almost instantaneously after judas leaves, frank is visited by the stranger and has to "drop everything". :-) Judas leaves, pointing down the road ... putting down ] the paradise of the Lord. [A] stranger ... tells [Frankie ] Lee that] Priest is ... stranded in ... a house of ] prostitution. wait. judas says "eternity" with a voice as cold as ice, then says that frankie might call it something else - paradise...whatever! i'll see you in a while! because no matter what we do or how much money we have, we cannot stop the fact that we get older. later, judas sends a messenger back with a scripted dialogue designed to get frankie to hurry on down the road. the stranger, bursting on the scene with a wardrobe of lemons and limes no doubt, has been orchestrated to prey on frankie's worst fears - "stranded in a house"?? domesticated!!! oh woe! oh tragedy! our future is to be "one of them"! note that the stranger sidenotes "whose father is deceased" to frankie for ID verification...pointing out that frankie cannot go back, ever! he must go forward only. this is not a house of prostitution. the "4 & 20" windows with a woman's face in every one is a review of all the women the old dylan has known ("look out your window - i'll be gone", "go away from my window", "stay away from my window, too!", "come on! crawl out your window!", "my love, she's like some raven at my window with a broken wing", "i've been up all night, leaning on the window sill", and so on, except for Ophelia who is 'neath the window) - hey, there must be 24 easy, it's a good number as any other, resonating with "4 & 20 blackbirds" to fit in with the setting of john wesley hardinG. this is a house full of women. and for 16 days & night he made...again, judas priest is being magnanimous, for here he lets the old dylan die in the false ecstasy of getting that "One more chance! Honey, just allow me one more chance!". frankie lee dies of thirst, but that is only because he forgot - like mice experiments where they wired in a lever for food and for sexual pleasure and left the mice alone for days. when they came back, the mice were dead of starvation with their little front paws still resting on the pleasure lever. indeed the frankie lee dylan is being portrayed in this song as having a lot to learn! judas priest here takes the long view. he is thinking about everything beyond today. not the dylan who sang "let me forget about today until tomorrow!". indeed, the judas priest dylan would probably understand the rmd'er who was wondering why Tambourine Man is so highly regarded. ] Frankie Lee loses control of his senses and runs into ] the house ... falls into Judas' arms & dies of thirst... ] Dylan should never have entered society's whorehouse... but judas says "its not a house, its a home". now here is a place where judas priest can live, but, as much as it would be nice for judas (they were the best of friends, dont forget!), he knows that frankie will not be able to handle it. and even frankie knows, despite having to try. ] [T]he result of that huge ego trip was the death of his ] soul. ]Scaduto places Dylan in the role of Frankie Lee, casting the "ruling ]establishments" as Judas Priest, responsible for the seduction & ]prostitution of the artist. It is also obvious that Scaduto's ]interpretation is very much a politically correct one, given the hip-cool ]standards of The Movement. well, you can see that i disagree. priest isnt the "ruling establishment" or a seducer or a pimp. hip-cool standards? dylan has gone way beyond worrying about such things in many earlier albums. judas priest is not some judas iscariot here... ]Hoskyns (1993) takes a much more personal view of "Frankie Lee & Judas ]Priest." Exploring the manager-artist relationship, he notes: ] ] "At least two songs on John Wesley Harding, 'Dear ] Landlord' & 'The Ballad of Frankie Lee & Judas Priest', ] were veiled attacks on [Albert] Grossman..." i've heard this, heard the corroborating testimony about the contracted situation at the time, but i have never thought so. Dear Landlord is much broader in scope.

]Both Scaduto & Hoskyns document the love/hate, father/son relationship ]between Dylan & his manager. Grossman's manipulative management style was ]being increasingly perceived by Dylan in Pony Express terms ("ride 'em ]until they drop") with Dylan in the role of the horse. ok...i plead ignorance here... it is true that the individual who appeared in my worst light in "Dont Look Back" was none other than Albert Grossman. he comes off as quite a slimeball in places - certainly someone hard to make a good friendship with. (what _did_ sally get from him? $$? access to rock stars... ) ]Hoskyns' is a valid albeit convenient interpretation then, too. Dylan's ]ability to vent intensely personal emotion in the form of symbolic lyric ]is one of his strong suits as a writer. Grossman destroying Dylan's ]spiritual connection through overwork & hype becomes the immortal ]trickster seducing Everyman to enter "society's house of harlotry." this would be way off from the vantage point i'm describing... ]The temptation to put a face on Dylan's symbolic characters through ]induction & quaint historical analysis is very real, but it takes the ]analyst in the wrong direction entirely. Questions like "Who is the real ]Mr Jones?" or "Was Baby Blue supposed to be Paul Clayton or David Blue?" ]are interesting but hardly important. In the end, it isn't really important ]whether Dylan is Frankie Lee, Judas Priest, both, or if the listener is ]involved as something more than a disinterested third party. Grossman may ]indeed have been the major emotional stimulus for "Frankie Lee & Judas ]Priest," but Dylan took the moral lesson to near-scriptural levels of ]distillation. Like good poetry, "Frankie Lee & Judas Priest" works (and ]works well) no matter who one plugs into the two central roles. amen. absolutely true. indeed any sentences you read in this by me could be interchanged with others written by any of us. fascinating. ]Hoskyns also notes that JWH was quite different sonically even from Dylan's ]work in the basement that year: ] ] "Although it shared the rural, downhome quality of the ] basement tapes he'd recorded with the Hawks, the record ] was ... sparse & austere ... shot through with biblical ] references ... devoid of the humour & revelry of the ] songs he'd written that summer." i have called this album the First Unplugged album, because of the abruptness of the medium change. and i would also like to point out that this album - more than any other i have known - pays a huge amount of attention to *us*, the audience listening to dylan all along. each song seems like another rewording of a common theme to *us*, couched in cute dungeons & dragons language to resonate with the preponderance of astrologers & palm readers cropping up in the end of the battered '60's. ]The "sparse & austere" production values of JWH invest the album with much ]of its 'my-god-this-must-be-profound' ambience. Taken in context of the ]general psychedelic morass that rock music had become in late 1967, even ]the cover of JWH with its simple **** photo and cryptic (but plain) notes well, if "simple" includes the notion of hidden beatle faces in the bark. was a ]major statement. Hoskyns discusses the "conservatism" of The Band's first ]two albums, and JWH shared this sober outlook, representing for many a ]rejection of The Movement, of Dylan's presumed leadership role in yippie ]politics. i think that "Restless Farewell" addressed that issue, then the overtones of "Another Side" with "It Aint Me,Babe" and so on. by the time we get as far as JWH, that horse has long since left the barn. instead he now throws out the Bob-Neuwirth-cuteness/cleverness/acid-wit/finger-bowl action. the Wicked Messenger now clams up "...dont bring any [bad news]." i'll be your baby tonight, and other references of a dramatic change in perspective. conservatism indeed! i should read the books i talk about before i open my emacs window. ]According to Hoskyns, Robbie Robertson himself urged Dylan "to leave them ][the JWH tracks] alone" & not to overdub guitar and organ as had been actually what i heard is that dylan wanted the Band to back him up on this and they said it "too small time"!!!! :-D ]originally planned. Imagine how different JWH would sound with manic ]doodlings from Garth Hudson -- the whole would likely have been analyzed ]quite differently (& would probably sound like Planet Waves ;-) ] ]One wonders why a performer (Dylan), faced with a messianic dilemma, would ]choose to announce his rejection of the job in such an overtly biblical ]fashion. Abandoning acid-hip postures, eschewing any leadership roles that ]might be foisted upon him, Dylan was clearly not interested in being a pop ]savior, but he wasn't averse to offering a little friendly prophetic ]assistance from time-to-time. :-) yeah. but i think given the later years, with 20-20 hindsight, the biblical tones are not so strange.... as a general public we are dazzled by dylan's ability to describe what is not right. but then we expect him to dazzle us with telling us what is right. this is not on his agenda. never was. there's beauty in the silver singing river, there's beauty in the diamond sky with one hand waving free, there's beauty in the flowers blooming crazy, there's beauty in the twilight on the frozen lake and on and on and on, but it isnt his job to make that happen for us. (it may happen for a few of us anyway) ]On one hand, Dylan refused to "compete" sonically with pop psychedelic ]faddists. But by using strong biblical themes, he forced the competition ]into a totally new arena. On the strength of its poetry alone, JWH ]became another instance of Dylan "changing the face of pop music." from my vantage point dylan left pop music at that point. it was the others who felt they had to "change" and keep up with Mr. No-Jones. the whole thing was blown out of proportion by the mediot/industry. we now have a whole broadcloth of performers taking credit for having merely "survived" the 60's. (it was somehwat hard to survive, though) ]The economic production values of JWH -- its conservatism -- create an ]intimate relationship between listener & performer. Could Everyman ](Frankie Lee) be the listener & the tempter/deceiver (Judas Priest) be ]Dylan? ... well...again, i dont see Judas as a tempter/deceiver...just an older & wiser dylan. but frankie as the listener/judas as the teacher dylan? saying dont be like i was then. ("lest you wind up on this road") ... Could Dylan's long-standing denial that he was anything other than ]a "song & dance man" have evolved into a warning: Observe what will happen ]if you consider me to be your leader. Dylan is saying that he is Everyman, ]too. He may be a prophet, but he is no messiah. We all are both Frankie ]Lee & Judas Priest. ] ]Taken at face value, "The Ballad of Frankie Lee & Judas Priest" tells a ]sad tale of personal betrayal & deceit leading to temporal & spiritual ]death. not death, rebirth. kinda like Doctor Who regenerating.... ] Mixed with a healthy dose of biblical metaphor & served up in a ]soft, tongue-in-cheek basement rap, this is woe of the same order as ]"Delia," if death by dehydration after spending 2 weeks in a bordello is ]indeed woe. Scaduto, referring to "self flagellation" in JWH, obviously ]sees it that way. ] ]Not everyone, however, will think that a fortnight of overindulgence in a ]whorehouse falls neatly into the "woe" category, regardless of the temporal ]or spiritual outcome. For these folks, "Frankie Lee & Judas Priest" is ]filled with the same bizarre gallows humor & deadpan delivery that leavens ]the basement tapes. ] ]Part of any perceived lack of "humour & revelry" in JWH stems from a major ]change in Dylan's lyric style. From 1964 through 1966, Dylan's songs had ]become increasingly populated by a vividly realized cast of jugglers, ]clowns, midgets, and random historic personages. And although it's "vulgar ]to think so," Dylan's work from this period constitutes an almost textbook ]example of the effects of methamphetamine abuse. Many, if not most, of ]these characters appear to have been described so explicitly for no deeper ]purpose than sheer verbal impact. ] ]After the crash, Dylan's basement songs were still peopled by a motley ]assortment of strange characters, but they were more genial & generic, less ]nightmarish and less likely to have been chosen as mere window-dressing. ]In JWH, the characters have evolved into purely symbolic & allegorical ]constructs: a Wild West bad guy, Tom Paine, St. Augustine, the joker & ]the thief, Everyman & the trickster, the drifter, judge & jury, a landlord, ]a hobo, an immigrant, & a messenger. An Italian poet from the 13th Century ]would be proud. Like a lot of 26 year olds, Dylan had finally confronted ]his own mortality & didn't like everything he saw. Unlike most, he ]expressed it with succinct elegance. yes this is indeed a great album! i just wish it didnt slap me in the face so hard at times. rant rant rave rant.... you put some nice stuff in this, Joe. - nate, who may have to drive home in his fishtruck.


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