Expecting Rain

well....the net versions, to my ears (and allow me to underline to my ears have never done justice to studio tracks, to my ears.
(had I already said *to my ears*?)

the only song which is better in the net live version than in its studio take is *spanish boots of spanish leather* in its marvellous LoveSick B side rendition.

(to my ears)

Eden always gives me chills whether hearing the studio take or any live version. It's a song of hope absolutely unique in Dylan's repertoire.

Eden hasn't been pulled out since 2001, per the Dylan, Inc. site. Has it been that long? What a song. Definitely NOT overrated!


Of war and peace the truth just twists
Its curfew gull just glides
Upon four-legged forest clouds
The cowboy angel rides
With his candle lit into the sun
Though its glow is waxed in black
All except when ’neath the trees of Eden

The lamppost stands with folded arms
Its iron claws attached
To curbs ’neath holes where babies wail
Though it shadows metal badge
All and all can only fall
With a crashing but meaningless blow
No sound ever comes from the Gates of Eden

The savage soldier sticks his head in sand
And then complains
Unto the shoeless hunter who’s gone deaf
But still remains
Upon the beach where hound dogs bay
At ships with tattooed sails
Heading for the Gates of Eden

With a time-rusted compass blade
Aladdin and his lamp
Sits with Utopian hermit monks
Sidesaddle on the Golden Calf
And on their promises of paradise
You will not hear a laugh
All except inside the Gates of Eden

Relationships of ownership
They whisper in the wings
To those condemned to act accordingly
And wait for succeeding kings
And I try to harmonize with songs
The lonesome sparrow sings
There are no kings inside the Gates of Eden

The motorcycle black madonna
Two-wheeled gypsy queen
And her silver-studded phantom cause
The gray flannel dwarf to scream
As he weeps to wicked birds of prey
Who pick up on his bread crumb sins
And there are no sins inside the Gates of Eden

The kingdoms of Experience
In the precious wind they rot
While paupers change possessions
Each one wishing for what the other has got
And the princess and the prince
Discuss what’s real and what is not
It doesn’t matter inside the Gates of Eden

The foreign sun, it squints upon
A bed that is never mine
As friends and other strangers
From their fates try to resign
Leaving men wholly, totally free
To do anything they wish to do but die
And there are no trials inside the Gates of Eden

At dawn my lover comes to me
And tells me of her dreams
With no attempts to shovel the glimpse
Into the ditch of what each one means
At times I think there are no words
But these to tell what’s true
And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden

Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music

You imagine anyone with half a brain hearing that for the first time, in early 1965. Everything stops.

I'd never underrate Gates of Eden, I just think that it's OK to mourn the loss of his narrative songwriting in the mid-60's. In fact, I wonder if the call for "protest songs" at that time was partially code for "storytelling" as much as "anti-war". Maybe some just wanted songs with a clear beginning, middle, and end, a la "Hattie Carrol". I could understand that.

There was some interview or another where Bob dismissed his songs like Hattie Carroll as 'bullshit songs' of the type when you sit down with a newspaper and extrapolate any old thing. Though it was probably useful to him when suddenly he got hot and needed new material (and attention.) Davey Moore and all those kind of things. Does he still play Davey Moore? Or Talkin' John Birch?

Bob has denounced everything he's ever written in the 60's at one point or another. He even once said that Nashville Skyline was more legitimate than anything he'd done up to then. I'm not saying that one period is better, just that I'd understand missing songs ending like "seven new people born". Lines that cap off a powerful, linear story.

Back to the original question - no.

Today, I have been listening to Bringing it All Back Home whilst driving around. It is still pure genius, as are Highway 61 and BOB.

You are correct. We might even call that era "The Skinny, Scruffy Folk Singer Who Shook the World".

Yeah, it's a true point. For the moment, I can't actually think of another song where Dylan has abandoned narrative as strongly as in Gates Of Eden - it seems to inhabit more worlds even than the free ranging It's Alright, Ma - certainly by the time of Desolation Row, a song Gates shares strong similarities with (including a final verse that sets out the song's methodology : "rearrange their faces, and give them all another name", "no attempt to shovel the glimpse into the ditch of what each one means"), he's incorporated his "chain of flasing images" into a more obvious overarching story.

In 78, Dylan sang Gates Of Eden so well, maybe even better than the awe-inspiring original.

I have always thought Gates Of Eden to be total pretentious bollocks. Tuneless, too. But there ya go.

I don't think Dylan performs it much because it's hard to do live because it's, erm, pretentious bollocks. With no tune.

But this is the thing....

I don't think Dylan's voice is shot at all. It's his SINGING voice that's shot. His SPOKEN voice is in fine fettle on his radio show.

I think Dylan should consider spoken word recordings of songs like Gates of Eden collected on a CD. No background music...just Bob's voice. Let the rhythm of the words be the music.

I really think he could pull it off. He always seems to have wanted to be an actor.

It would take some guts, though. Not sure if Dylan has them anymore.

interesting stance - i've always been a little suspicious of it - especially next to it's alright ma...

i took couple friends on a driving tour with the TTRH baseball episode playing in the background and they were cracking up every time he had something to say. the man has comedic expression written all under him...in the same way, i'm sure he could connect doing spoken word versions of his older works ... maybe with a little faux music in the background like Leonard Cohen does.

As Trouby points out, Leonard Cohen has gone down the recital route and it's proven very effective. I agree it could be great, especially with some judicious back up singing - you can hear on Brownsville Girl how interesting his timing is, and how he could sing-speak his work if he wanted to be a bit more lively than Cohen is.

With a time-rusted compass blade
Aladdin and his lamp
Sits with Utopian hermit monks
Sidesaddle on the Golden Calf
And on their promises of paradise
You will not hear a laugh
All except inside the Gates of Eden

Relationships of ownership
They whisper in the wings
To those condemned to act accordingly
And wait for succeeding kings
And I try to harmonize with songs
The lonesome sparrow sings
There are no kings inside the Gates of Eden

The kingdoms of Experience
In the precious wind they rot
While paupers change possessions
Each one wishing for what the other has got
And the princess and the prince
Discuss what’s real and what is not
It doesn’t matter inside the Gates of Eden

These verses are fairly clear I'd say, hardly pretentious bollocks. My main gripe is how unpoetic and awkward a fair bit of the song is, you know 'shovelling glimpses' and the like. Pales next to 'It's Allright Ma'.

I won't say it has no flaws but it's a profoundly beautiful song. Saying it pales next to "It's Alright Ma"- almost any song would.

Half digested Blake, so there's some awkwardness. It's a weird song, a moral injunction to ditch received morality, like an incantation to the self to overcome everything by a change of mind, really the 60's dream in one song. No surprise that one author used the song as a title of a sixties history (Morris Dickstein). I always heard Strawberry Fields Forever as an echo of this tune.

The experience, the joy of simply being is available to everyone, no need for any adjuncts such as materialism, meditation or abstination to achieve it - it's just there for all. Ideally.

That's what Bob's essentially trying to say, for me, so the sentiment carries the song, despite the bollocks about Lampposts If a Lamppost falls and there's no one around, does it make a sound?

The voice of reason.