41. Mississippi

I thought I could make it to the end of the list without another occurrence of MQS, but here we go, the syndrome strikes again... I don’t know where, but I remember once reading an account of the “Love And Theft” sessions written by someone who was present. Somebody—a friend? a band member? an engineer?—convinced Dylan to listen to one of the versions of Mississippi that had been recorded with Daniel Lanois for Time out of Mind. The song was played through the studio speakers, and everyone, including Dylan, listened to it in silence. An air of awe settled in the room. When the playback was over, someone told Dylan, “Holy hell! You’ve gotta put that song on this album,” and he said, “Yeah, you’re right, I do… but the sound wouldn’t work with these other tunes. Let’s just record a new one.” And so the “Love And Theft” version came to be.

Apparently the reason Mississippi was left off of the 1997 album had more to do with Dylan and Lanois being at loggerheads about the arrangement than with the tone of the song, but it was a fortuitous omission, since I can’t see how Mississippi, so content with its troubled lot, would have fit alongside the dismal, spiritually gutted Time out of Mind songs. It’s like a happy Highlands. That very attitude, though, which would have jarred so on Time out of Mind, fits perfectly on “Love And Theft”. See Floater, for instance, whose narrator says about “dreams and hopes” that “I had them once, though, I suppose… to go along with all the ring dancing, Christmas carols on all the Christmas Eves. I left all my dreams and hopes buried under tobacco leaves.” Then, with a shrug, and having returned to the cheerful melody of the song's verses, the narrator starts singing about a completely different topic.

That’s how Mississippi looks at desolation, too, with a grin and a sigh that I thought about calling “courageous,” except that would be patronizing, and of all Dylan’s narrators this is not one I have the inclination to say a single ambivalent word about. This man is incredible. How else can I describe someone who comes out with this, one of my all-time favorite verses in Dylan’s work: “Well, my ship’s been split to splinters / And it’s sinking fast / I’m drowning in the poison / Got no future, got no past / But my heart is not weary / It’s light and it’s free / I’ve got nothing but affection for those who’ve sailed with me.”

Mississippi is packed with legendary lines: “Stick with me, baby / Stick with me anyhow / Things should start to get interesting right about now.” Or this one, which reminds me that I am as much a sucker for Dylan singing about autumn leaves as I am for Dylan playing reggae: “Walking through the leaves falling from the trees / Feeling like a stranger nobody sees / So many things that we never will undo / I know you’re sorry / I’m sorry too.” The first time that I heard Mississippi, those last three words made tears spring into my eyes.

Mississippi is great as track two of “Love And Theft” , where it serves as a brief, semi-serious interlude between the playfulness of Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum (“Looking at a window with a pecan pie: lot of things they’d like they would never buy”) and the Summer Days party (“I’m standing on the table! I’m proposing a toast to the king!”). But just as wonderful are the versions on Disc 1 and Disc 3 (some say Disc 2; I don’t connect with that one quite so well) of Tell Tale Signs.

The quiet, roomy Disc 1 version is what I picture Bob & band listening back to in 2001. On the version from Disc 3, my personal favorite, we get some great alternate lyrics, like “everybody’s moving—God knows where…” and “Winter goes into summer, summer goes into fall / I look into the mirror, don’t see anything at all,” which puts me in mind of the chapters concerning Friend’s childhood in the sixteenth volume of Urasawa Naoki’s tale 20^th Century Boys.

What I like best about the Disc 3 version are the amazing lead guitar breaks. Given how abrasive they sound, they must be Dylan’s work. At first I found them merely unpleasant. Several listens later, when I realized that it was hard for me to get enough of the light, reggae-reminiscent arrangement, the alternate lyrics, and Dylan’s singing, the guitar parts began to seriously annoy and grate on me. But because those other elements were so addictive, I kept on listening: and that’s the story of how I fell in love at last, and eternally, with Bob Dylan the lead guitar player.

It would be pretty ironic if those breaks aren’t actually Dylan! But I figure they must be. Who else would dare play that brashly on a Dylan song, and under Daniel Lanois’s supervision, no less?