The Minimalism of Rough and Rowdy Ways II: The Melodies (Dylanology 31)

I continue the exploration of the minimalism of Rough and Rowdy Ways with a closer look at the song melodies – if that's indeed the right word for it.

Minimalism II: Monotonous and “Polytonous” Recitative

The restrained expression on Rough and Rowdy Ways is most evident in the melodic area. Many of the songs on the album consist mainly of recitatives that are monotonous, both more specifically, in that they stay on a single tone, and more generally, in that the range of expression is limited.

Monotony

“Murder Most Foul” is the most extreme example. Throughout the full seventeen minutes the song lasts, Dylan recites mostly on one single tone, with only occasional excursions to one of the neighbouring tones, or with speech-voice-like outbursts with no more precise pitch content, let alone melodic contents. The “Hush little children” verse is one of the “cleanest” examples:

But “I Contain Multitudes” also sticks to the keynote. Two of the phrases ends on the third above the keynote, but that’s all. In the first verse, there are only two tones that are not c:

The same goes for “My Own Version of You”: most of the song is recited on a single note, which happens to be a semitone higher than the c of the two other songs.

There are two further observations to be made based on these three songs and their use of recitative.

First, these three songs, “Murder Most Foul”, “I Contain Multitudes”, and “My Own Version of You”, represent a rising curve of harmonic complexity and activity.

• “Murder” alternates, in a strikingly simplistic manner, between two chords and virtually nothing else.

• “Multitudes” is far more varied harmonically, with spicy and symbol-laden chord types like diminished chords, augmented chords and ninth chords.

• This could also be said about “My Own Version”, which additionally has a much more active and energetic harmonic pulse; there is so much going on that one hardly notices the monotonous melody at all.

In other words: the same feature – monotonous recitative – has a very different character depending on the context it appears in.

Secondly, these are long songs. Two of them are played in the key of C major, one in C sharp minor. The total playing time of Rough and Rowdy Ways is 70 minutes. In other words: for 31 of 70 minutes, Dylan sings the same tone, more or less, and nothing else, more or less.

This extreme recitativic character is probably the most characteristic aspect of the album, musically speaking, and these 31 minutes are remarkable in themselves but also a representation of the minimizing tendency of the album in general.