My first real interest in Bob Dylan came in 1987 when I was pursuing my MM in Trombone Performance at Northwestern University. I decided to squander a little of my student loan money and buy a decent stereo-a turntable, amp and speakers. I bought two albums. Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits and Neil Young's Harvest. It seemed like a good place to start. That was the start of it. I currently have everything Dylan has released commercially as well as a number of bootlegs. Thousands of Dylan (and The Band) recordings. Some songs really stick. Songs like Desolation Row, Shooting Star, Sign on the Window, Visions of Johanna and many others. I put one song on my phone the other day and it reminded me of the power of a singular song. The song is an outtake from the Blood on the Tracks sessions called Up to Me. It was finally included on the Biograph box set. My discover of that song came on an Air Force Band tour bus in 1988 when we had made a short stop for lunch at a shopping mall in North Dakota. I bought Biograph and put the CDs in my diskman player. Up to Me immediately struck me for all kinds of reasons. I found part of my own story in the song-after all, who doesn't when they find a song that speaks to them? I found Dylan's use of language and form stunning. There was so much to take in. A great deal is made of Dylan's selection of songs for his albums. After all, how could you leave Blind Willie McTell off of Infidels? How does Mississippi not make it on to Time out of Mind and has to wait for release? Up to Me falls into that category of song. My personal read of Blood on the Tracks is that it is a plea from a man to his wife to reconsider...to stay with him. Transgressions be damned. Stay. It worked for a while, but didn't take in the long run. There are other albums in this genre, but this one is my favorite. Back to Up to Me. Rolling Stone magazine postulated that "It's possible that "Up to Me" was simply too personal for Dylan to release at the time. "And if we never meet again, baby, remember me," he sings in the song's last verse. "How my lone guitar played sweet for you that old-time melody." Of course, he denied that interpretation. "I don't think of myself as Bob Dylan," he told Cameron Crowe. "It's like Rimbaud said, 'I is another.'"
Maybe so. All I care about is that it was eventually released as was Blind Willie McTell. The verse that affects me most is this one:
If I’d thought about it I never would’ve done it, I guess I would’ve let it slide
If I’d have paid attention to what others were thinkin’, the heart inside me would’ve died
I was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity
Someone had to reach for the risin’ star, I guess it was up to me
I was subconsciously rebelling against the structure of being in the military. I think that I knew that it was a bad fit and I was trying to figure out a rational way of getting out of the first and only full-time gig I had ever won. Enforced insanity. It was wearing on me. I am certain that this is not Dylan's meaning, but that's not really important to me. It was my meaning and it's what a great song can do. I have so many Dylan songs that mean so much to me for this very reason. Thanks Bob.
