Mick Hartley

Further to my post on Dylan’s Theme Time Radio shows….Something I didn’t mention is the way Dylan will play songs that were clearly inspirational in his own work. Interestingly – maybe as a teaser – the very first record he played, on the first show, Weather, was Muddy Waters’ “Blow Wind Blow”, with the lines:

Don’t the sun look lonesome
Shading down behind the trees?
Don’t the sun look lonesome
Shading down behind the trees?
But don’t your house look lonesome
When your baby’s packed to leave.

Compare Dylan’s “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry“:

Don’t the moon look good, mama,
Shinin’ through the trees?
Don’t the brakeman look good, mama,
Flagging down the “Double E”?
Don’t the sun look good
Goin’ down over the sea?
Don’t my gal look fine
When she’s comin’ after me?

There are numerous others – for instance Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Nine Below Zero”, which Dylan played on his Countdown show (Outlaw Blues – “when it’s nine below zero and three o’clock in the afternoon“). But listening to the Fathers show again this evening, I was struck by the Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell song, “Papa’s on the Housetop”. It’s a fabulous song, which I’d never heard before. Dylan even quotes the lyrics of the chorus:

Baby’s in the cradle, brother’s on the town,
Sister’s in the parlour, tryin’ on a gown,
Mama’s in the kitchen, messin’ all around,
Papa’s on the housetop, won’t come down.

Right there you’ve got the inspiration for a whole load of Dylan lyrics. Tombstone Blues, obviously:

Mama’s in the factory
She ain’t got no shoes
Daddy’s in the alley
He’s lookin’ for food
I’m in the kitchen
With the tombstone blues

[bobdylan.com has the lyrics:

Mama’s in the fact’ry
She ain’t got no shoes
Daddy’s in the alley
He’s lookin’ for the fuse
I’m in the streets
With the tombstone blues

but that’s plain wrong.]

Or Maggie’s Farm, where Dylan runs through Maggie’s brother, pa and ma, who he ain’t gonna work for no more. Or On the Road Again, where Mama, Daddy, Grandpa and Grandma all get walk-on parts. A run through the family is a Dylan staple, and you’ve got to think that Leroy Carr song is a major influence.

Michael Gray’s “Song and Dance Man 3: The Art of Bob Dylan” (at 900 odd pages I should say magisterial, but really, indigestible’s more like it) has plenty of references to Leroy Carr, but not to this particular song. But, referring back to It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry, he quotes Carr’s “Alabama Woman Blues”, with the lyric:

Don’t the clouds look lonesome across the deep blue sea
Don’t my gal look good when she’s coming after me.

which I suppose just goes to show that influences are multiple and complex.

After Dylan’s played the song, he quotes the line again: “Papa’s on the housetop, won’t come down”. “Well”, he says, “I guess we’ve all had days like that.”