Expecting Rain

Isn't that odd? I posted about this on Twitter last year.
https://twitter.com/scottwarmuth1/statu ... 7542393856

Dylan has peppered this passage with bits from Jack London.

Chronicles: Volume One, p. 96:
"It was like a great tree had fallen. Hearing about Hank's death caught me squarely on the shoulder. The silence of outer space never seemed so loud."

"The White Silence" by Jack London:
"The stillness was weird; not a breath rustled the frost-encrusted forest; the cold and silence of outer space had chilled the heart and smote the trembling lips of nature. A sigh pulsed through the air, - they did not seem to actually hear it, but rather felt it, like the premonition of movement in a motionless void. Then the great tree, burdened with its weight of years and snow, played its last part in the tragedy of life. He heard the warning crash and attempted to spring up, but almost erect, caught the blow squarely on the shoulder."

Chronicles: Volume One, p. 96:
"When I hear Hank sing, all movement ceases. The slightest whisper seems sacrilege."

"The White Silence" by Jack London:
"Nature has many tricks wherewith she convinces man of his finity--the ceaseless flow of the tides, the fury of the storm, the shock of the earthquake, the long roll of heaven's artillery--but the most tremendous, the most stupefying of all, is the passive phase of the White Silence. All movement ceases, the sky clears, the heavens are as brass; the slightest whisper seems sacrilege, and man becomes timid, affrighted at the sound of his own voice."

"He steals what he loves and loves what he steals."

Sean Wilentz - Bob Dylan in America

...in which Bob Dylan in 1970 reads a magazine that ceased publication in 1954, and then re-read it in the early 2000s.

p.139 of the paperback. Dylan says a copy of Collier's magazine was in the studio as he recorded New Morning. However, the magazine had ceased publication years before. It's interesting, however, that the magazine serialized some of the Fu Manchu stories, from which Dylan generously quotes throughout Chronicles.

That's great.

Taking a page from my pal Scott Warmuth, I'll note that Dylan's passage on the hand injury...

"Then it hit me….. Returning from the emergency room with my arm entombed in plaster I fell into a chair – something heavy had come against me. It was like a black leopard had torn at my tattered flesh. It was plenty sore…. I was on the threshold of nothing, ruined. This could be the last turn of the screw. The trail had come to a halt." (Chronicles page 156)

... is ah, strangely reminiscent of a passage from a pulp novel...

"... A black leopard, having its fore-paws upon the dead man's breast, turned ... dead--whilst the creature's gleaming fangs were buried in the tattered flesh..."

And that pulp novel? Why, it's by Sax Rohmer. And it's title?

"The Hand of Fu-Manchu"

p.139 of the paperback. Dylan says a copy of Collier's magazine was in the studio as he recorded New Morning. However, the magazine had ceased publication years before. It's interesting, however, that the magazine serialized some of the Fu Manchu stories, from which Dylan generously quotes throughout Chronicles.
That's great.

That's a very interesting passage in Chronicles that I discuss in my blog: http://www.dreamtimepodcast.com/2009/08 ... g-bob.html

This is very interesting, but it's not surprising. So, Dylan got his start rewriting old songs, which new words. Usually every song of his is lifted from somewhere. His artwork is basically a reinterpretation of photographs and such alike. And Chronicles is in the middle somewhere. He basically took an article and repurposed it for his own life. That's perverse, misleading, and brilliant. I myself, have had trouble painting and drawing, but using photographs and such as a guide has opened a new world for me and I can create something halfway decent. I and anyone can repurpose this tool for writing songs. It's kind of like putting a puzzle together. It's also sort of like magic, but yet so simple. I guess the best magic is the kind that was in front of you all the time and that's what the career of Bob Dylan has been, simply magic.

Maybe the Dead really did dose him in '87. They dosed about everybody else.

Wait, what? Bob talks about the Dead in Chronicles? And he was dosed? Maybe I oughta pick this up after all...

Page 149: "The tour with Petty was broken up into parts and during one of the
layoffs, one of the organizers, Elliot Roberts, had set up some shows for me to do with
The Greatful Dead. I needed to go rehearse with the band for these shows, so I went
to San Rafael to meet with The Dead.
...
I could hear the breaks screech. ... I had no feelings for any of those songs
and didn´t know how I could sing them with any intent."

What's the story about the Chinese coming back? It sounds like something that could have come out of The Late Great Planet Earth, which Dylan must have read around 1979, but "Sun Pie's" 'preordained' story isn't exactly there.