‘Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts’: The Bob Dylan song he only played live once
Bob Dylan has earned the right to do whatever he wants whenever he walks onstage these days. He has been the fixture of what classic songwriting looks like, and with each stop of his Neverending Tour, he always makes sure that whatever performance he puts on reflects how he feels at the moment rather than the cheap half-hearted setlist that most nostalgia work their way through on the summer shed circuit. Of all the fantastic tunes to come out of Dylan’s catalogue, though, certain masterpieces didn’t deserve to be played as much as others.
Then again, that might have more to do with how many of his songs are reflections of his time. No one imagined him making the same anti-war songs that he wrote in the 1960s by the time he reached his 60s, and since he made a living of going against the grain, that normally meant pulling out surprises that no one in the audience expected.
In fact, Dylan seems to be one of the only artists who managed to survive killing his own career on purpose. He never anticipated records like Self Portrait to be treated the same way that The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan was, but if you have a record like that in your back catalogue and are still treated like a god, there’s a good chance that you’ve ascended to a higher plane of existence as an artist.
But Dylan was much more than this musical god that everyone saw him as. He never claimed to be the voice of a generation like everyone thought that he was, and by the 1970s, most people were getting a much better look at the real Dylan who got out of bed every morning rather than the wise sage of music that told everyone how they were going to live their life.
All signs had pointed him towards more personal music, but no one was prepared for the album Blood on the Tracks. Anyone is going to have a messy entanglement when going through a divorce in the public eye, but Dylan saved all of his venom for his songs, whether that was being cynical on ‘Idiot Wind’ or detailing the genuine hurt in his heart when singing ‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go’.
Even for someone as rambling as Dylan, though, ‘Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts’ was going to be a tough song to get through. Outside of it being one of the longer cuts on the record, Dylan’s metaphorical account of a group of people not communicating properly was one instance where he had to admit defeat playing it live, only going through one version of the tune in his prime and never playing it again.
When looking at the mechanics behind the recording, though, it’s no surprise that Dylan abandoned the tune. The acoustic guitar strumming can do a number on one’s forearm if they’re not properly practised, and having to worry about both strumming and breath support that much would have been an impossible task, especially for someone who’s trying to remember every word in the tune.
Hell, considering how open and honest Dylan could be on the album, audiences should count themselves lucky that they managed to see the one version of the tune. Because listening to the entire movie going on in your head in the lyrics, ‘Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts’ feels like a musical museum piece rather than a song now.
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