The song Bob Dylan admits was a “real schmuck” move
Some of the greatest songs of all time have been written in the throes of passion. ‘Just Like Heaven’ by The Cure was inspired by Robert Smith’s truly dizzying love for his future wife. ‘Yesterday’ subconsciously grew out of Paul McCartney’s feelings of shame. The entirety of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours was spurred on by the band’s tumultuous relationships with one another. Channelling your heated emotions into song can be a rewarding endeavour, but it can also breed regret, as Bob Dylan knows all too well.
Dylan’s approach to songwriting has always focused on story, on airing his frustrations with the world through poetic weavings. Through enduring tracks like ‘Hurricane’ and ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’, he became well known for his prowess within the protest music realm, bringing anti-war sentiments together with harmonicas and humble strums.
However, not all of Dylan’s writings stemmed from his grievances with external forces. He took inspiration from the heated emotions that rose up in his personal life, too, sometimes to his detriment. In 1964, Dylan recorded and released a track titled ‘Ballad in Plain D’, which contained a flurry of feeling that he would soon regret sharing with the world.
The track starts out fairly tame, detailing Dylan’s early infatuations with his subject. “I once loved a girl, her skin it was bronze,” he sings. But their relationship quickly turns sour as Dylan begins to lash out at her so-called “parasite sister”. The pair have a vicious argument, vividly described as a “screaming battleground”.
The lyrics were inspired by Dylan’s real-life relationship with his girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, a subject he would soon regret pulling from so publicly. During a chat with Bill Flanagan, the folk legend spoke about his feelings towards ‘Ballad in Plain D’, declaring, “I look back and say ‘I must have been a real schmuck to write that”.
Dylan even implied that amidst the hundreds of songs he has penned throughout his career, ‘Ballad in Plain D’ is the one he wishes he had never written. “I look back at that particular one and say, of all the songs I’ve written, maybe I could have left that alone,” he surmised. It’s easy to see why – the song is far too candid about the details of his relationship at best and downright nasty at worst.
Dylan’s discomfort with the song seems to stem largely from the exploitative nature of it. Though the songwriter claims not to have realised that he was exploiting his relationship at the time of writing, he acknowledges now that he did. “At that time my audience was very small,” he added, “It overtook my mind so I wrote it. Maybe I shouldn’t have used that.”
Though he can’t go back and un-write ‘Ballad in Plain D’, Dylan has done his best to distance himself from the track since its release. Across almost 60 years of touring, he has never played the song live, demonstrating the very real regret he feels towards penning such an exploitative set of lyrics.
‘Ballad in Plain D’ is an example of how writing in the throes of passion can, sometimes, lead to more harm than good. While real emotion is often integral to the success of a song and its impact on listeners, the privacy of personal relationships should be protected first and foremost.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Bob Dylan Newsletter
All the latest stories about Bob Dylan from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.