2020 Semester 1 Entry 9: Pledging My Time

This week I ended up doing a big dive into Bob Dylan’s seminal album Blonde On Blonde, and attempted to mine as much lyrical wisdom as I could from one of the great modern poets. It’s almost silly to say this given it’s been said a billion times, but I love his use of imagery – these biting lines from “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” for example:

“Yes it balances on your head like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine
Your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat“¹⁰

This conjures the instability of the hat – disparaging the ‘balance’ of the subjects head, implying an instability of judgement. Furthermore, the chosen imagery has sexual overtones given its mention of a mattress and wine – which together creates the full picture of the subject making poor sexual choices, which ties in to a broader theme of the song – Dylan is frustrated that an old flame is seeing other men.

Now I can’t claim to achieve Dylan level lyricism, but I attempted to use cohesive imagery in a song I wrote this week. Here’s the first verse for example:

Raindrops on roses she keeps in a vase
Lipstick collages that strangle my gaze
Watching her sway as she paints the town red
These are the things that are stuck in my head

In this affectionate description, I used roses and lipstick as imagery because they are often red, so that the next line’s mention of the colour red ties into the broader picture painted by the verse to achieve greater lyrical cohesion.

Song Of The Week is “Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again” by Bob Dylan. My favourite bit is Dylan’s vocal delivery on the line: “She says, “Your debutante just knows what you need – but I know what you want,”¹¹ which is at 5:39 here:

¹⁰Bob Dylan. “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat”. Blonde On Blonde. Columbia Records, 1966.
¹¹Bob Dylan. “Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again”. Blonde On Blonde. Columbia Records, 1966.