Monday's Long Songs

Mrs Swiss (real name Lou) and I (real name Adam) have been in the Lake District for the weekend and it's proved to be just what we needed- a break away from here and everything that goes with it in a place we hadn't been to before (The Western Lakes and Cumbrian coast, a bit further than the tourist honeypot places round Windermere) and a place that had no associations with Isaac. We'd been to the Lakes with Isaac several times, camping and visiting, but not the area round Whitehaven and St Bees.  Driving home down the M6 as we approached Preston I felt the knot of anxiety that I've had in my stomach on and off since Isaac died reappear for the first time since we left Manchester on Friday night. I've had a lot of physical symptoms of grief/ stress recently- tinnitus and clenching my jaw/ grinding my teeth being the two main ones with a more general physical feeling of tension and stress- and I've tried to accept them as a part of the process but I think I'm going to do something about them this week and see a doctor. The tinnitus and jaw clenching was still there this weekend but the anxiety left me for longer periods. The bracing winds at Ennerdale Water (above) blew the cobwebs out a bit. On Saturday afternoon at St Bees Head (below) the sun came out and we walked on the beach, climbed on the rocks and sat in the sun for a while, coats and scarves on but clearly feeling the sun for the first time since whenever, taking in the sound of the waves crashing on the beach. Walking up to cliff at St Bees in the March sunshine felt good and at the top looking north, over the headland, the Solway Firth and south west Scotland was visible. One of the cliches is that a change is as good as a rest. I think this weekend that was definitely true- being somewhere else, not at home, was good for us. Being somewhere else for a couple of days where nobody knew us was also good. 

We also took in a stone circle, the eleven stone ring called Blakeley Raise, sitting on a plateau above the village of Ennerdale Bridge. The circle was 'restored in 1925 after an 18th century farmer took many of the stones to make his gatepost and wall. The restorer, Dr Quine, claims to have replaced the stones in the holes left behind but the accuracy of this stone circle is open to debate. 

On Friday night in the cottage we were staying in, sitting by the log fire and flicking thorhg the channels I found a Bob Dylan documentary, Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963, 1964 and 1965. The 1965 appearance, Sunday 25th July, is legendary, the moment he went electric to the displeasure or fury of the crowd who had come to hear acoustic folk singer Dylan, not amped up, electrified Dylan accompanied by a band with Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield on board, snarling and ripping their way through Maggie's Farm, Like A Rolling Stone, Phantom Engineer and It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry. Dylan had made the decision on the Saturday afternoon, apparently on the spot after what he took to be condescending comments made by Alan Lomax about the Paul Butterfield Blue Band. According to roadie Jonathan Taplin, Dylan's attitude was 'well, fuck them if they think they can keep electricity out of here...' Like A Rolling Stone changed the world of popular music, a 7" single that clocked in at over six minutes long at a time when two to three minutes was the norm. It doesn't sound like a big deal now but fifty seven years ago it changed the format and ripped up the conventions. 

Maggie's Farm, not as long but thrillingly alive, five minutes of confrontation, Beat poetry, the art of wearing a leather jacket and holding a Stratocaster at exactly the right angle. Confidence, self assuredness, cocksure in the face of opposition. He ain't gonna work for Maggie's Pa no more. And Mike Bloomfield's guitar is as electric as it could be. 

Dylan was no stranger to the longer song, even in the mid 60s and on albums that came in at less than forty five minutes in total running time per disc he'd chuck in a longform song like Desolation Row (eleven minutes) or this one a year later on Blonde On Blonde- seven minutes of rhymes and riddles, with 'Shakespeare in the alley/ With his pointed shoes and his bells/ Speaking to some French girl/ Who says she knows me well', Grandpa, railroad men, Mona punching cigarettes, senators and preachers, Main Street, Ruthie, neon madmen and Bob, stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again. 

It all sounds like it was never quite finished, a song constantly in a state of flux, that more verses could be added or taken out, more characters put in or lines changed and switched around. The group are raucous and on fire, electrified and on the edge. In the end at some point, it had to be recorded and that was the finished version as it went down on tape there and then. 

Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again