Nostalgia Tracks is Atwood Journal’s column devoted to the ability of reminiscence in music, diving into the songs that form who we’re and remind us of the place we’ve been. Without delay private and common, these essays discover how sure tracks proceed to resonate with us throughout time, bridging the previous and current whereas tracing the threads of id and tradition that form our lives.
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From his 2001 album ‘Love and Theft,’ “Mississippi” stands as one in every of Bob Dylan’s most seminal works, stuffed with well-honed wistfulness and cultural citation.
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Stream: “Mississippi” – Bob Dylan
At age 84, Bob Dylan is a person who has been lots of issues and passed by lots of names: Poet, prophet, Nobel Laureate, painter, ringleader, Judas, Jack Destiny.
Above all, although, he’s the final word scavenger.
To scroll by means of his Instagram feed is to avalanche oneself in curated chaos: Outdated motion pictures, a clip of “Sizzling for Trainer,” and lately an AI-read clip of Aaron Burr’s Artwork of Survival (I’m picturing a really chaotic YouTube watch historical past – possibly the celebrities actually ARE similar to us!). He gives no commentary on the movies, simply these breadcrumbs. In a post-Taylor Swift world, it’s like he’s leaving a path and we get to resolve if it results in a brand new report, a second memoir, or only a lovely lifeless finish.
You’d be forgiven for calling it archiving or homage. What I believe it truly is, although, is the byproduct of a thoughts in a relentless state of reinvention. I’ve at all times been taken by the best way Dylan excavates and reshapes tradition in his music. It’s not only a nod, however an act in communion with these he borrows from. This scavenger’s strategy to songwriting is what makes tracks like “Mississippi” from his 2001 album Love and Theft a colossus in his discography. It’s a real tapestry of a track that mixes borrowed emotions, chain-gang area recordings, Shakespeare, a Yakuza memoir, Johnny Money, and the Bible. For my cash, it’s up there with “Tangled Up in Blue” and “‘Cross the Inexperienced Mountain” as a few of his most interesting storytelling. (I do know lots of people say this about lots of his songs. They’re often proper.)
Dylan is hardly the primary to sing about Mississippi. Many others earlier than him and since have invoked the state as a shorthand for his or her longing or grief or want – Bobbie Gentry, Jesse Winchester, Loretta Lynn, Stevie Marvel, Nina Simone, and lots of extra. In Dylan’s “Mississippi,” the pastoral tableau of the American South meets the weariness of the brand new millennium. It’s expressive honesty from a person who has shrouded his life in thriller since he was a teen.
He first recorded the track in 1997, throughout the Time Out of Thoughts classes with Daniel Lanois. Lanois provided drums that Dylan later groused about (considerably theatrically) as an “Afro-polyrhythm” misstep that was ill-suited for his knifelike lyrics. Oy! The outtakes, later launched on The Bootleg Collection Vol. 8: Inform Story Indicators, present interpretations of the observe which can be lovely however tentative.
“I’ve been criticised for not placing my finest songs on sure albums,” Dylan famous later, “however it’s as a result of I contemplate that the track isn’t prepared but… We had that on the Time Out of Thoughts album. It wasn’t recorded very properly however thank God, it by no means acquired out, so we recorded it once more.”
Dylan would return to the track just a few years later and by 2001, had re-recorded it for his subsequent studio album, Love and Theft.
This model has a free swing he certainly felt higher suited the lyrics, together with an ascending bass line (uncommon for Dylan) that offers the track a shocking buoyancy. For a lot of, this track and each albums related to it had been all a welcome return to the fundamental songwriting of his early work. The ornate and synthy lab experiments of the ’80s (which, to be honest, are enjoyable for what they’re and spared very few ageing ‘60s and ‘70s rock stars) had fallen absolutely away and left his voice standing.
The track is made up of twelve verses. They’re separated into three units, every ending with the refrain:
Just one factor I did unsuitable,
Stayed in Mississippi a day too lengthy
This line is a more-or-less direct raise from “O Rosie,” a conventional chain-gang work track. Within the authentic, it’s a cry of exhaustion and rage, of males trapped by authority. Dylan turns the phrases right into a broader reflection on his life, the situation of humanity, the state of the world. The narrative opens between metropolis and nation, with Dylan turning them into psychological realms of current and previous:
Metropolis’s only a jungle,
extra video games to play,
Trapped within the coronary heart of it,
making an attempt to get away,
I used to be raised within the nation,
I’ve been working within the city,
I been in bother since
I set my suitcase down
The town is confining and hostile, the nation a pastoral reminiscence of freedom he’s carried since he left. Within the third line, he’s probably nodding to Lead Stomach’s track “Goodnight Irene”:
Typically I dwell within the nation,
typically I dwell within the city
The track, naturally, operates on a small and grand scale. On the floor, it’s the story of a person confronting his regrets: love misplaced to time, some dangerous timing. But it surely additionally offers us emotions that replicate broader literary and cultural traditions. Take this line, as an illustration:
I do know that fortune is ready to be variety,
So give me your hand and say you’ll be mine
The latter line of the verse echoes Shakespeare’s Measure by Measure just about verbatim. His wholesale use of others’ phrases can really feel like he’s assuring us they’re, certainly, common and at all times will likely be – somebody has felt this stuff earlier than, and they’ll proceed to really feel them after the final one in every of us is gone.
The method of borrowing (love and theft, if you’ll) is the center of Bob Dylan’s genius, and a part of the explanation that “Mississippi” endures for a lot of as a real masterwork.
In a tradition the place mental property has turn into a sort of sacred cow, Dylan doesn’t disguise behind nostalgia. He’s not shy about resurrecting the previous in lieu of worshipping it. He’s a strolling, speaking anachronism who is aware of that the perfect tales are those which can be at all times being retold.
And each efficiency of “Mississippi” since its launch has reshaped the that means slightly bit. He’s performed it loud, smooth, and loud once more, proving, as at all times, that his previous and new songs alike are gloriously and stubbornly alive.
A track this good, it seems, can by no means actually be completed. It may solely get higher.
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