Paul Williams Gives Mercy To Judas!
by Paul Williams

Returning again to Dylan's 1988 essay for the Hendrix exhibition, the triumph of Oh Mercy is that as a whole and track by track it serves as a splendid demonstration of what he meant when he wrote: ‘my songs are different & i don't expect others to make attempts to sing them because you have to get somewhat inside & behind them & it's hard enough for me to do it sometimes & then obviously you have to be in the right frame of mind. but even then there would be a vague value to it because nobody breathes like me so they couldn't be expected to portray the meaning of a certain phrase in the correct way without bumping into other phrases & altering the mood, changing the understanding & just giving up so that they then become only verses strung together for no apparent reason.’

Nobody breathes like Bob Dylan. He seemed to be referring to this same basic principle of how his songs come to mean what they mean when he said to Paul Zollo (in a 1991 interview in which he was asked to talk about his songwriting and comment on specific songs) about ‘Ring Them Bells’: ‘It stands up when you hear it played by me. But if another performer did it, you might find that it probably wouldn't have as much to do with bells as what the title proclaims.’ In other words, it is the nuance and totality of the vocal (or vocal-and-instruments) performance that gives the words of a song their meaning or semblance of meaning, their message, their sentiment.

‘Ring Them Bells’, the fourth track on Oh Mercy, is a superb performance, a terrific song which one can easily imagine having become the anthem of a historical moment (and a million personal moments) if some other performer had happened to rebreathe it at the right time as skillfully (and luckily) as Peter, Paul & Mary did ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ and the Byrds did ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’. It is an excellent example of a singer/performer getting inside and behind a song and portraying the meanings of certain phrases in the ‘correct’ way (i.e., a way that is powerful and effective for the listener, and that ultimately allows him or her to hear these verses as being strung together for an intuitively evident reason that is very satisfying and stimulating and uplifting). And if we listen carefully, it's not hard to see how this is accomplished by the way the singer breathes.

The Heylin Interview: Clinton Heylin talks
to Ellen Bernstein

...every gorgeous woman in Marin County was there for this party for Bob Dylan.

So I didn't figure I would even meet him that night. It's not that I thought I was an unattractive girl, but it was like, 'this is major league here, major league stuff.'

I remember getting a little bit drunk, not like plastered or anything, but I was sitting with some friends, you know. I can't remember what I was drinking, maybe wine or mixed drinks... And it was literally like he kind of just appeared sitting next to me, just kind of showed up. And I was a little out of it and so I didn't really realise that it was him sitting next to me. I just started talking with someone who was talking to me, but I wasn't so out of it that it didn't dawn on me that this was Dylan. I have no recollection whatsoever of what he said or I said or anything like that. All I know is that the next thing that happened is that we were walking up to my house, which was up the hill.

It was a beautiful night in Sausalito, it was cold, but it was nice. I do remember that we stayed up all night playing backgammon.

CH: Was he any good (laughing)?

EB: He was very good, yeah, very good - but I was good too. He was great fun, lots of fun, much funnier than I thought he would be, and a really good backgammon player. I was a single, 24 year-old girl - and obviously the attention was very flattering. The next day was the concert at Oakland, and we’d literally stayed up all night, so I couldn't figure out how he was going to play a concert, and I don't remember how he got back into town - whether I took him or not - but he said, ‘You should come, be with me at the show tonight.’ I don't remember the particulars of it but I do remember being on-stage. Not, like, in centre-stage of course but at the side and it was great.

Writers & Critics by Alan Davis

A couple of weeks later, starting to get just a little excited about Dylan’s Spring UK tour, but feeling a bit under the weather and looking for something distracting to read, my gaze fell on the discarded Judas!, lying neglected in the middle of a little heap of books and papers on the table. Picking it up and turning to John Gibbens’s article Bow Down to Her on Sunday (for no particular reason except that it had a few interesting pictures), I began to read – idly at first, and then with increasing interest. When I reached the end, I immediately started back at the beginning again and read it a second time with still greater fascination. It wasn’t that I was particularly convinced by the argument that ‘To Ramona’ owed its title to Dylan's acquaintance with the Tarot; in truth, I found that on a purely rational level I couldn't decide one way or the other. But something significant had happened to me during my reading of the article. I knew that I’d probably never see ‘To Ramona’ in quite the same way again.

Sam Shepard, in the quotation at the head of this article, refers to the magical way in which words can generate pictures (and vice versa) and draws attention to the mystery of how that transforming ability makes us feel something. Similar observations can be made, not just about art (I use the word in its broadest sense), but about art criticism. What mysterious quality is it about the best critical writing which can help us to see art in a new light, and make us feel differently? For mystery it is. It isn’t a rational thing. It’s not just a matter of the critic’s being informed, or being in command of the methods of scholarship. Some of the most detailed and thorough critical analysis can have an entirely negative effect.

I found John Gibbens’s article to be the best type of criticism. He’s done some research; he knows about the Tarot; he knows about Dylan’s interest in it. But the persuasive power of his article doesn’t really lie there. It lies in the sense of enlightened companionship enjoyed by his reader. He’s an engaging authorial presence. I found it very pleasant to be with him as he pointed at this, and pointed at that; as he asked me to consider such-and-such a possibility. I was sceptical, but enjoyed having my scepticism stretched, because John Gibbens has seen something, and was trying to help me to see it too. It isn’t, ultimately, the facts he presents that are likely to transform my perception of Dylan’s art. It’s his vision. John Ruskin, perhaps the greatest of all critics and a powerful transformer of perception in his own right, wrote about this very thing back in 1856. His words are no less valuable, no less penetrating, today:

‘The greatest thing a human soul can do in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see.’

I've always found this to be at the heart of the most effective critical writing. ‘I've seen this,’ says the helpful critic. ‘Here's how you can see it too.’