aj wrote:
DYLAN TO ENGLISH DICTIONARY

By A.J. Weberman

DYLANOLOGY AND THE DYLANOLOGICAL METHOD

The term Dylanology, which this author invented, is finding its way
into the American lexicon defined as the generic study of Bob Dylan. Dylanology is exclusively concerned with digging behind the text of
Dylan's poetry to find the subtext. If you feel that Dylan's poetry
does not merit this sort of exhaustive analysis, put this dictionary
down now.

As you might have guessed from its title, this dictionary translates
Bob Dylan's poetry into everyday English. Some term this process interpretation - a conscious act of mind that illustrates a code
derived using certain rules of extrapolation and means isolating a set
of elements (the X, the Y and the Z and so forth) from the whole work
- but the way I see it the task of interpretation is virtually one of translation. The interpreter says, 'Look don't you see that X
really means A'" just as a translator would. This is the basis of
the Dylanological Method - a technique I invented in early 1970's,
and perfected in 2004. This method has revealed three levels of meaning
in Dylan's poetry: the literal, the latent allegorical and the
"moral." In order to arrive at the allegorical level the first
thing that is necessary is that you memorize all of the lyrics to
Dylan's songs. This will serve as a backup to any database of
Dylan's words that you create later on and will help you find words
that embody the same concept but are much different from one another
such as "high wire walker" and "tightrope walker." Next, the
Dylanological Method requires a working knowledge of the life and times
of Bob Dylan. When looking at a poem or verse in question it should be
placed into the broad context of what was happening to Dylan at this particular period in his life. This is invaluable in trying to
formulate a hypothesis of what the poem or verse might possibly be
about - for example if Dylan is being hastled by his former folk fans
at the time the poem was written, perhaps the poem concerns this
conflict? The next step is to look at the individual words in the poem
or verse of the poem. Because the Dylanological Method is based on the premise that there is a consistency to the way Dylan uses words, the
only way to find out what a word signifies in Dylanese is to look at
the word in all of its contexts in which it appears in chronological
order.

This requires the compilation of a Dylan Data Base so that the word can
be located within the body of his work. In 1971 I developed a
computerized Dylan Word Concordance, a 4,000-page printout of every
word in Dylan's poetry in alphabetical and chronological order along
with a line of context in order to do this. More recently I created a
Dylan database in Microsoft Word. I have included songs not attributed
to Dylan in this database, because Dylan is a musicologist who has a repertoire and knowledge of thousands of songs. This gave him the
ability to take music and lyrics written by other artists or songs from
the public domain, and either leave them intact or alter a few words,
and when he sings them they make perfect sense within the logic of the language he has created. Additionally, it is my belief that many of the Band's (Dylan's primary back-up group) songs were actually written
by Dylan so I have also included one or two of these poems in the
database.

As you examine the word in each context in which it appears, look for
the LEAST AMBIGUOUS USAGE: (LAU) by looking at the words that cluster
around the word in question. The LAU is an excerpt from a poem in which
the meaning Dylan has assigned to a word is the most apparent. It is
similar to trying to find a backdoor into a program such as Internet Explorer. A LAU for road is found in The Ballad of Donald White written
in 1962: "Life's hurried tangled road." The LAU is especially
helpful because there are instances in Dylan's poetry when it is
impossible to ascertain the meaning of a symbol by any other means,
such as determining the words LESSER-USED MEANING (LUM) since the
symbol has no LUM. For example the dictionary only gives one meaning
for the word Texas yet it represents Europe in Dylan's language,
judging from the words used in their primary sense that surround it.
See TEXAS. Some of Dylan's symbols don't even appear in a
dictionary - for example "Buick." These words may have a special
meaning for Dylan, as he freely associates them with a particular thing
or phenomenon. In Chronicles 2004 Dylan implied that his poetry was
composed of, "free association, sparkling allegories, big-ass truths
wrapped in the hard shell of nonsensical abstraction - themes that flew through the air with the greatest of ease." Ease for Dylan, not for
his translator.

Generally speaking, the LAU is found in Dylan's earlier song-poems,
before he became totally indecipherable. Dylan's Christian Period
poems often provide LAUs since during this interlude he was trying to
get a simplistic message across in relatively literal terms. The liner
notes to Dylan's recordings are extremely helpful in facilitating the interpretation of his lyrics. The best examples of LAUs, however,
appear in Dylan's autobiography, Chronicles 2004. In Dear Landlord, a
song addressed to someone who was attempting to understand the
underlying meaning of his poetry back in 1967, Dylan wrote that "When
that steamboat whistle blows (when he retires, stops writing poetry) /
I'll give you all I got to give (he will transmit all that is
necessary for someone to understand the way in which he uses words) /
And I do hope you receive (to learn of something or be informed of
something) / it well (in good health since this will be many years off
and are ready for a plentiful source of it) / Depending on (contingent
on, if you continue to have excessive reliance on) / the way (if the
route, road or direction in life) / that you feel (provides you with an instinct, touch or knack) / that you live (that you exist in accordance with)." Based on this and the context of the rest of this poem, Dylan
is giving up the meaning of at least some his words in Chronicles 2004.
A LAU for road is also found in Chronicles 2004, "I knew I was doing
things right, was on the right road." When Dylan lapses into poetic
language or minute detail such as in this passage, when he relates what
he observed during a short period when poet Archibald MacLeish excused himself from Dylan's presence, "A jackrabbit scampered past the
scattered chips by the woodpile. When he returned things fell back into place" Dylan is making a metaphorical poetic statement in the midst
of his prose. No LAU can be observed. In this case aside from trying to figure out the meaning of jackrabbit, chips, woodpile etc we should
ask, "When who returned, MacLeish or the jackrabbit or was MacLeish
the jackrabbit?"

The Dylanological Method is partially based on precedence, an earlier, contemporaneous or even later occurrence of a similar or identical
usage. This, in a legalistic sense, is Dylanological Case Law. Build up
a number of LAUs and keep them in your mind, because they will help in defining more complex words, if these already-defined words appear next
to or near the word in question. If there is no LAU apparent from words
where the word in question is surrounded by prose - words that Dylan
uses in their primary of frequently used meaning - it is necessary to
define the Lesser-Used Meanings (LUMs) of the key words used
surrounding the word in question. Forget prepositions and conjunctions.
A through knowledge of the English language is indispensable in this
aspect of Dylanology as are several Internet or standard dictionaries
of the English language. I employed three online dictionaries: Merriam-Webster (m-w.com) for contemporary meanings, die.net for
literary meanings and allwords for idiomatic meanings. All quotations
from these dictionaries were used by way of review and constitute less
than 10% of the entire publication. When these were inadaquate I used
my knowledge of idiomatic expressions, colloquialisms, sayings,
proverbs, traditional American slang, hipster and drug slang, beatnik
slang, hippie slang, well-known metaphors in literature (in defining
the word turtle in Million-Dollar Bash I refered to Aesop's fable,
The Tortoise And The Hare) or I consulted specialized dictionaries.
The Internet is helpful in defining words or phrases. Go there and type
in the expression in question in quotation marks and see if and how
others use it or type the word idiom after it and determine whether it appears in a dictionary of idiomatic expressions.

Next we will apply this method to a verse in Dylan's Million Dollar
Bash that makes no sense on its literal level. This poem was part of
the basement tapes that were recorded after Dylan became a big rock and
roll star. By looking at the entire poem we note that it contains words
like dumb blonde, Stones, Cream, Mashed Potato (a popular dance at the
time). We can formulate a tentative hypothesis that perhaps the poem
has something to do with the pop music scene. Next let's look at the
LUMs in this poem and see if we can find a common thread. If not, we
will formulate a different hyphothesis and appy it. This is equivilent
in the Dylanological Method to hacking the meaning of a Dylan poem.

The verse begins "That big" (the dictionary revealed big's LUM is
conspicuous in position or importance; "a big figure in Hollywood")
/ dumb blonde (dumb blonde means a stupid beautiful woman or a
Hollywood movie star who fits this description or portrays someone like
this. Dumb can also mean someone who cannot express themselves in
words) / with her wheel (wheel's LUMs - "a person of prominence"
and "an imaginary turning wheel symbolizing the inconstancy of
fortune." Wheel and deal means to make deals or do business
especially shrewdly or briskly - this seems like the dumb blonde's
agent) / in the gorge (Gorge's LUM, "consume greedily" which a
lot of "big wheels" do and can also refer to the Hollywood Gorge,
which relates back to dumb blonde. One must pay special attention to
those words that on a lesser-used level of meaning relate to
literature, music and the entertainment business in general) / Turtle
(a slow mover or thinker from Aesops's The Tortise and the Hare) /
friend (LUM: an admirer, booster or fan) / with his checks (LUM: a
standard for testing and evaluation criterion) / all forged (primary
meaning: to make or imitate falsely especially with intent to defraud.
LUM: Also to form or bring into being especially by an expenditure of
effort) / With his cheek's (LUM: "self assurance, cool
self-confidence" which a lot of "big wheels" possess) / in a
chunk (LUM: a large amount of money, "a chunk of change." This can
also relate to "big wheel") / And his cheese (LUM: "someone
important") in a cash (LUM: use something to your advantage - as in
cash in) / They're all gonna be there / At that Million Dollar Bash
(bash - primary meaning, a social gathering - LUM: to attack a famous
person - celebrity bashing)." A pattern, a thread, has formed since
there is an obvious relationship between the lesser-used meanings of
these words. This indicates we are on the right track in understanding
what Dylan is trying to say in the allegorical level of this verse.

When A.J. Weberman posted on Usenet, definitely a classic from the archives.


This is a response to the post seen at: http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=683431626#683431626

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