“Beyond me”: The song Bob Dylan didn’t want anyone to understand
Bob Dylan has always been an artist who hasn’t shied away from mystery. His music’s poetic and mythic style, paired with his stand-off approach to interviews and general interaction, means many people’s stories about him or ideas about who he is are largely based on fiction. This makes his work easy to add to your won stories and ideas, and that’s what a lot of fans have ended up doing.
Leonard Cohen was always a big fan of Bob Dylan, but even he couldn’t help but feel confused when he saw him live. The folk singer’s odd approach to playing his shows and interacting with his audience is the perfect example of the mystery that consistently surrounded him.
In a gig where Dylan had his back turned to the audience and played his songs in an incredibly loose manner, Cohen described it as “A celebration of some kind of genius that is so apparent and so clear and has touched people so deeply that all they need is some kind of symbolic unfolding of the event.” He continued, “It doesn’t have to be the songs. All it has to be is: remember that song and what it did to you. It’s a very strange event.”
Fans loved this area of mysticism that surrounded Bob Dylan and used it as a means to try and better understand the artist who moves so many. When he released his album, Tempest, many people thought they had Dylan figured out. Given his way with words, Dylan was often compared to Shakespeare, so people thought the album title was his way of revealing that this would be his last record, given that Shakespeare’s last play was The Tempest. However, Dylan was quick to dismiss these rumours.
“Shakespeare’s last play was called The Tempest. It wasn’t called just plain Tempest,” he said, “The name of my record is just plain Tempest. It’s two different titles.”
Fans continued to speculate over what the album may be about, but Dylan confirmed it wasn’t a project worth reading into. The titular track is a 45-verse depiction of what happened on the Titanic inspired by an old folk song. It certainly doesn’t reference Dylan’s work or hint at the album being his last; in fact, it doesn’t hint at anything. It turns out this was all completely intentional, as Dylan merely enjoyed the melody and wrote something intentionally haphazard just so it fits the rhythm of the track.
“I was just fooling with that one night,” he said, “I liked that melody – I liked it a lot […] But where would I go with it?” He confirmed the end result isn’t something deep and layered; instead, it’s some disconnected lyrics done in a style he thinks sounds pleasant. “I’m just interested in showing you what happened, on the level that it happened on,” he said, “That’s all. The meaning of it is beyond me.”
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