Great digging and beautifully illuminated. If I were in Tulsa, I’d try to connect with you in person Graley, to get your perspective on this: I’m not sure that Bob’s fascination with minstrelsy has dwindled. To your examples from TPOMS we can add a central image from Rough and Rowdy Ways. As I’ve written about in my book, serialized here on Substack, the phrase “I don’t love nobody,” from “Key West (Philosopher Pirate)” is a minstrel tune written by Lew Sully. The original lyrics and performances in blackface are unquestionably racist and disturbing. But the most famous version of the song was released by Libba Cotten on her late 1950s album recorded by Dylan’s inspiration, Mike Seeger, who is also alluded to in “Key West” in the opening, as one of the New Lost City Ramblers, who recorded a version of Charlie Poole’s “White House Blues.” So it’s easy to imagine Bob has both Sully’s and Cotten’s versions of “I Don’t Love Nobody” in mind when he cites it in the penultimate verse. Why are these references included? In my view, it’s because the great Soul, Elizabeth Cotten, has redeemed the song from its unholy, yet musically fascinating past. And “Key West (Philosopher Pirate)” is a song all about redemptions and confessions at the edge of heaven. As you point out so beautifully, Dylan is working all kinds of magic below the surface. Check out my book for more.
This a great analysis, but I think I just heard a similar paper at the World of Bob Dylan Conference in Tulsa by a person purporting to be “Graley Herren”. Do you care to explain the “coincidence?”
Great digging and beautifully illuminated. If I were in Tulsa, I’d try to connect with you in person Graley, to get your perspective on this: I’m not sure that Bob’s fascination with minstrelsy has dwindled. To your examples from TPOMS we can add a central image from Rough and Rowdy Ways. As I’ve written about in my book, serialized here on Substack, the phrase “I don’t love nobody,” from “Key West (Philosopher Pirate)” is a minstrel tune written by Lew Sully. The original lyrics and performances in blackface are unquestionably racist and disturbing. But the most famous version of the song was released by Libba Cotten on her late 1950s album recorded by Dylan’s inspiration, Mike Seeger, who is also alluded to in “Key West” in the opening, as one of the New Lost City Ramblers, who recorded a version of Charlie Poole’s “White House Blues.” So it’s easy to imagine Bob has both Sully’s and Cotten’s versions of “I Don’t Love Nobody” in mind when he cites it in the penultimate verse. Why are these references included? In my view, it’s because the great Soul, Elizabeth Cotten, has redeemed the song from its unholy, yet musically fascinating past. And “Key West (Philosopher Pirate)” is a song all about redemptions and confessions at the edge of heaven. As you point out so beautifully, Dylan is working all kinds of magic below the surface. Check out my book for more.
Very nice sleuthing, Steven!
This a great analysis, but I think I just heard a similar paper at the World of Bob Dylan Conference in Tulsa by a person purporting to be “Graley Herren”. Do you care to explain the “coincidence?”
Science! Dylan has the art of the unsaid; I specialize in the re-said.