‘Come On in My Kitchen’: the blues classic Bob Dylan listened to again and again
At a benefit in his honor organised by the MusiCares Foundation in 2015, when discussing his influences and recognising those whose work paved the way for his, Bob Dylan said, “If you can’t hardly play the blues, and you don’t have the hillbilly feeling, you’re not really playing rock and roll. It might be something else, but it’s not that.”
The blues sits at the heart of rock and roll – a well-known fact, but also a key pillar of music theory. It provides the rhythm and feel needed to give a composition its energy. As Johnny Cash put it: “Get rhythm. Get rhythm when you get the blues,” and that authentic rock and roll sound will follow. Dylan echoed this idea when he said, “You can fake it, but you can’t make it,” meaning bands that aim for rock and roll without a foundation in the blues will always fall short. They might still make good music, but it won’t be true rock and roll.
When Dylan considers his music, he lists specific direct reference points, stating that because he listened to a specific song and sang it enough times, it was only natural he’d produce one of his tracks because of it. As far as the blues are concerned for Dylan, we need not look further than ‘A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall’. Characterised by a simple instrumental construction of an acoustic guitar and harmonica, coupled with his intricate lyricism, which communicates the fear he felt during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the song serves as a prime example of Dylan’s signature blend of folk and rock.
This song’s direct musical influence, as Dylan revealed, is Robert Johnson’s ‘Come On in My Kitchen’. When discussing the track, Dylan commented, “If you had listened to the Robert Johnson singing, ‘Better come on in my kitchen, ‘cause it’s gonna be raining outdoors’, as many times as I listened to it, sometime later you might just write, ‘A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall’.”
Officially released in 1937, Johnson’s song uses the same construction as Dylan’s. It’s a direct track with little flair, but it communicates perfectly with just a guitar backing his vocals, which, like Dylan’s, don’t try to impress. Lyrically, while it’s not as complex as Dylan’s work, it tells a story with clarity and detail. You might also notice that both songs share the motif of rain, but that’s beside the point.
Beyond these factors, the blues influence of Johnson peeks through in Dylan’s sense of rhythm, which helps the latter take the song from being another folk tune and dip it into the realm of rock. Dylan’s song possesses more grit than Johnson’s, which is the key factor in how they live in different genres, but it’s necessary to point out that in both tracks, the rhythm is steady and unwavering. Throughout the song, the guitars stay sure in their melodies and even in their volume, which complements the artists’ vocals and the story they’re telling.
It’s a unique process by which Dylan produced music, but an effective and intriguing one to be sure. By having such direct benchmarks and sources of inspiration, Dylan’s genre-bending and journey may be easily tracked through the music he engaged with outside of his own.
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