How Does Dylan Write His Songs? Dylan's Own Masterclass (Dylanology 28, part 4)
There is a very simple way to answer the question about how Dylan writes his songs: Watch him do it, live. We have it on tape, and it answers all the questions.
“On a Rainy Afternoon” is a masterclass, a look into the Master’s laboratory. I don’t think there is a stronger evidence anywhere in all the thousands of hours of recordings of how Dylan writes songs: how his musical brain works, and what he actually does to get from musical idea to finished song.
The sources
First a few words about the sources to this song, and its history as a “hidden gem”.
1. In Eat the Document – Dylan’s weird memorial from the 1966 UK tour, the follow-up to the slightly less weird semi-documentary Don’t Look Back – there is one minute and eighteen seconds of serene, musical calm amid the cinematic and biographical chaos the film depicts:
Dylan and Robbie Robertson are sitting all by themselves in a hotel room, working out an arrangement to a song that is unlike anything Dylan has ever written, and fathoms away from the turbulent music they were playing on stage every night.
2. For a long time, the short clip was all there was. Then, in 1995, the second 3CD set of the breathtaking Genuine Bootleg Series (GBS) was released, and among the gems was a five-minute track called “Does She Need Me I–II”, which sounded suspiciously similar to what was heard in Eat the Document, although none of the music was the same:
The track begins with some loose banter, possibly about a pipe, and a fragment of a melody hummed to a couple of related chord sequences. Then begins the real song, first in a swinging rhythm, then with straight eights.
3. The eighteenth and last disc of the deluxe version of The Bootleg Series vol. 12: The Cutting Edge (2015) (CE) contains three tracks from the session. Track 11 is called “On a Rainy Afternoon”. It contains the beginning of the GBS track, minus the initial banter. It ends just before the bridge section.
Track 9–10 are labelled “I Can’t Leave Her Behind”. The first of these (hereafter CE9) contains the end of a verse, this time with the triplet ending, but not yet the “can’t leave her behind” lyrics. Then follows a full verse (“Tell me why / does she leave me, I do not know”), and a lengthy series of attempts at the bridge.
The second track (CE10) begins with a full verse as well (“Well, she needs me here”), which does end with the “leave her” refrain. Again, there are attempts at a bridge, the last of which is successful enough (“That’s it! What was that?!”) that Dylan continues with another verse, then another brief stab at the bridge. The clip ends with another full verse:
With these full tracks available, it becomes clear that the scene in Eat the Document is a splice of the first half of a verse from the beginning of CE9 followed by the first verse from CE10. Martin Scorsese’s The Band documentary, Once Were Brothers (2019), also contains two short clips from the same scene.
4. Lastly, there is a file on YouTube called “Bob Dylan Composing ”On A Rainy Afternoon” & ”I Can’t Leave Her Behind” [Glasgow 1966 RARE]”. It seems to be a splice of the GBS version (minus the first twenty seconds) and CE9.
That’s all, as far as I know: three separate segments of what is presumably a single sitting, thirteen minutes of music making in total, covering four plus four verses and an endless series of attempts at working out the bridge.
A brief note about the order and the titles: The Cutting Edge (and popular tradition before that) list them as two separate songs, and places “A Rainy Afternoon” last. It seems clear, however, that all these clips are from the same session, and that it is one and the same song that is being worked on throughout the session. The chord sequence for most of the verse is the same in both versions, melodic ideas are tossed around, and the order in which the clips appear has to be the opposite of what is implied by the ordering on The Cutting Edge. This is clear, among other things, from the “twice as slow” interjection.
A Couple of Disclaimers and Clarifications
Chords. In the charts below, I transcribe the song according to the sounding key, F major. This is also the chord family that Robbie Robertson plays in, which means that his playing is based on barre chords high up on the neck, and generally no open strings. Dylan, on the other hand, plays with a capo on the fifth fret, with chords from the C major family. This difference eventually becomes a creative element in the development of the song.
Lyrics. The music examples include the lyrics, throughout. Since the song, including the lyrics, is apparently improvised, the words don’t make much sense all the time, even without the added layer of my own misunderstandings. In other words: I know the transcriptions are wrong.
Melody. The same could be said about the musical transcription, although here I’m on a lot firmer ground. As always when transcribing Dylan’s melody lines, it’s the rhythmic side that is difficult, since he floats so perfectly between vocal/musical and verbal phrasing. So all the transcriptions should be taken with a small grain of sand, although for a different reason than with the lyrics.
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