Well, was he?
Maggie comes fleet foot, face full of black soot
Talkin’ that the heat put, plants in the bed but
The phone’s tapped anyway, Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May, orders from the DA
Look out kid, don’t matter what you did
Walk on your tip toes, don’t tie no bows
Better stay away from those that carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose, wash the plain clothes, you don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows
See it that way and a lot falls into place. Like the way one set of well informed folk calls him a poet, up there with Donne and Shakespeare, while another says he can’t even write doggerel. They’re talking of different things: in the first case, gems of penetrative eloquence amid sloppy filler and rhythmic nonsense from amusing to pretentious; in the second, of the technicalities of sonnet and iambic pentameter. That’s why both cite the same evidence to back diametrically opposed views.
Take It’s Alright Ma, which opens with the underwhelming …
Darkness at the break of noon shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon, eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon, there is no sense in trying
… but which also houses:
You lose yourself, you reappear, you suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near when a trembling distant voice unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear that somebody thinks they really found you
A question in your nerves is lit yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy, insure you not to quit, to keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it that you belong to.
If this isn’t eloquent and insightful then I don’t know what either term means. Given that such a verse tosses in, F.o.C, pretty good advice on how to live a spirited life, we may think the Dylan deriders a tad up their own arses with narrowly technical views of what poetry is …
… or that Dylan’s a master craftsman of the blues who should leave poetry to the poets.
A minor side effect of thirty years of rap and hip-hop is the shedding of light on the is Dylan a poet? debate. Eminem – like Tyson Fury, a white man excelling in a black man’s game – has a command of language and rhythm which, alongside genre-bustingly intelligent if vicious content, would surely draw the admiration of a Heaney or Armitage. I guess the latter can speak for themselves but I did once hear Leonard Cohen, a man I and many others regard as the most accomplished poet in rock, speak with deep respect of “the ryhming forms these rap artists are coming up with”. Without to my knowledge making a Rap-Dylan connection, Cohen has over the years paid glowing tribute to his songster colleague and rival, Freewheeling Bob.
So maybe we need to redefine poetry, or at least give it a sideways knock to open up space for johnny come latelies who mightn’t know roundel from rubaiyat, sonnet from sextain, but for all that give us blistering word-music to astonishing rhythms while in some cases diving deep into the human experience for good measure.
rapster… how silly
The earliest rap songs extant are the earliest black recordings from the 10,s and 20, themselves shadows of the pattin’ jubba, (pre-cursor to the Bo Diddley rythm) slave, corn shuckin’, field holler work and play songs.
It’s even on You Tube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kcbHMKAbv8
and the popular favourite
Cross down Miss Lucy had a baby
His name was Tiny Tim
She put him in the bath tub
To see if he could swim
Cross down behind the elevator
There was a piece of glass
Miss Lucy fell upon it
And it went straight up her ass
The background to Bo Diddley:
https://youtu.be/v8r5wxpa3hg
HAMBONE (Example #2)
Hambone! Hambone!
Hambone, hambone
Where you been?
Round the world and I’m going again
What you gonna do when you come back?
Take a little walk by the railroad track
Hambone
Hambone, hambone
Have you heard?
Papa’s gonna buy me a mocking bird
And if that mocking bird don’t sing
Papa’s gonna buy me a diamond ring
And if that diamond ring don’t shine
Papa’s gonna take it to the five and dime
Hambone
Hambone, hambone
Where you been?
Round the world and I’m going again
I just skinned an alley cat
To make my wife a Sunday hat
Took the hide right off a goat
To make my wife a Sunday coat
Hambone, hambone
Where’s your wife
Out to the kitchen, cooking beans and rice
Hambone
Hambone
Hambone, hambone
Trying to eat
Ketchup on his elbow, pickle on his feet
Bread in the basket
Chicken in the stew
Supper on the fire for me and you
Look at him holler, look at him moan
That hambone just can’t hambone
Hambone :
the wonderful Charlie Patton reworks in 1929:
You can shake it, you can break it, you can hang it on the wall
Throw it out the window, catch it ‘fore it roll
You can shake it, you can break it, you can hang it on the wall
…it out the window, catch it ‘fore it falls
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don’t let it fall
Everybody have a jelly roll like mine, I lives in town
I, ain’t got no brown, I, an’ I want it now
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don’t let it fall
You can snatch it, you can grab it, you can break it, you can twist it,
any way that I love to get it
I, had my right mind since I, I blowed this town
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don’t let it fall
Jus’ shake it, you can break it, you can hang it on the wall
.. it out the window, catch it ‘fore it falls
You can break it, you can hang it on the wall
…it out the window, catch it ‘fore it…
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don’t let it fall
I ain’t got nobody here but me and myself
I, stay blue all the time, aw, when the sun goes down
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don’t let it fall
You can shake it, you can break it, you can hang it on the wall
… it out the window, catch it ‘fore it fall
You can break it, you can hang it on the wall
…it out the window, catch…
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don’t let it fall
You can snatch it, you can grab it, you can break it, you can twist it,
any way that I love to get it
I, had my right mind, I, be worried sometime
‘Bout a jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don’t let it fall
Just shake it, you can break it, you can hang it on the wall
… it out the window, catch it ‘fore it falls
You can break it, you can hang it on the wall
…it out the window, catch it ‘fore it falls
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don’t let it fall
I know I been to town, I, I walked around
I, start leavin’ town, I, I fool around
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don’t let it fall
Just shake it, you can break it, you can hang it on the wall
… it out the window, catch it ‘fore it falls
You can break it, you can hang it on the wall
…it out the window, catch it ‘fore it…
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don’t let it fall
Jus’ shake it, you can break it, you can hang it on the wall
… it out the window, catch it ‘fore it…
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don’t let it…
Nuff’ said