Tangled up in Lyrics

I am busting with ideas about a book I just read and a movie I just saw, and what the two pieces of art mean to me, and how to express any of it in a post. One interesting thread I’d like to pull is using other people’s lyrics to tell a story. Oh, how I love to do that. And right now my favorite pieces of art are doing it, too, in ways that weave in and out of each other.

The book is called (improbably, for a recommendation from me), The Book of Love, by first-time novelist Kelly Link. There’s one detail in it that I’ll tell you about. Right after I returned this book to the library, I became fixated on trying to remember what a character named Laura writes on her guitar before she gives it away. It’s a clever reference to Woody Guthrie’s “This Machine Kills Fascists”; he sometimes carved that into his instruments before giving them away. (I wear a shirt with that message on it from the Woody Guthrie museum, and I wore it to the Bob Dylan movie, which you probably guessed is what this post is about.)

Since I returned that book, I’ve been searching online for the exact guitar message in it, and my difficulty in finding that has turned up new things to look into and think about. For example, when I google, “the book of love” and “guitar,” it turns out there’s a song called The Book of Love, and that connection makes sense: the four main characters in the book are young musicians. (Their band is called Our Two Hands Knowe You, with Hands being the last name of the two sisters, on drums and guitar, and Knowe being the last name of their lifelong friend, on bass. Our Two Hands Knowe You.) When I try to find what message Laura put on her guitar by googling, “Laura’s guitar,” turns out there’s a Laura in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, which has a similar surreal feel to it, and both Lauras are associated with the moon.

Exactly what The Book of Love’s Laura wrote on her guitar is still a mystery to me (if you read it, please let me know), but now I need to listen to the song with the same title and re-read American Gods and re-read The Book of Love. Oh, and re-visit the Woody Guthrie museum to worship at the alter of the man who scratched into his guitar, “This Machine Kills Fascists,” as Bob Dylan does in the beginning of A Complete Unknown.

That message is more like a slogan than a lyric, but Guthrie blurred that line. For him it was all message, sometimes easier to get to the public in one form, sometimes in another.

Let’s talk lyrics, though. Both the Dylan movie and the Love book use lyrics in their character’s lives and as means to move the plots forward. The book’s band uses the two sisters’ (who are always at odds with each other) lyrics in the same song, one sweet and one screaming in anger, weaving in and out. The Dylan movie uses lyrics to augment a scene, over and over.

It’s beautiful timing, The Book of Love juxtaposed beside A Complete Unknown. I’ve always wondered how Dylan could write with such emotion, and sometimes sing that way, too, but come across so hardened. I learned some about his struggles and rejection of fame at the Dylan museum—next door to the Guthrie museum—but it wasn’t until seeing this movie that I thought about how you can have all of it inside you. All the heartbreak and tenderness and spite and lightness I find in his lyrics and couldn’t imagine in one man.

You know I like to make imprecise references to lyrics here in this blog to move my story forward. When I did a search through my entry titles, I found two separate references to Woody Guthrie’s son’s song, Alice’s Restaurant. I’ve used two Jimmy Buffet lyrics as titles in Florida, an REM song in Montana, the Doors in Iowa and in Arkansas. Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 worked so well for me in a Las Vegas retrospective. Turns out I’ve done the lyrics-as-a-title thing 15 times. Lyrics are what’s in my brain as I’m experiencing things and they’re my first tool in writing.

How do you talk about Bob Dylan lyrics without quoting his songs, though? He considers his lyrics as being natural outcomes of a life of paying attention, but how do you discuss that without lengthy Dylan quotes? I can’t help myself. (Each of these works better without the last line, if you’re quoting them out of context, but I can’t bring myself to do that.

In the middle of Don’t Think Twice as he’s enumerating all the reasons a former lover has wasted his time:

When your rooster crows 
at the break of dawn
Look out your window and 
I'll be gone
You're the reason I'm a-traveling on.
But don't think twice, it's all right. 

The last verse of Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You, after he says he’s going to throw his train ticket out the window to spend one more night with his lover:

I can hear that whistle blowing
I see that stationmaster, too.
If there’s a poor boy on the street
Then let him have my seat
‘Cause tonight I’ll be staying here with you.

The middle verse of Buckets of Rain as he’s expressing that his feelings are so strong in so many ways:

I like your smile and your fingertips
I like the way that you move your hips
I like the cool way 
you look at me.
Everything about you is bringing me misery.

I tried to post clips of my singing just these lyrics, but YouTube won’t cooperate. Consider listening to a Dylan album tonight. Or go see the movie. Or, read that Love book. Or, imagine seeing My Two Hands Knowe You. Or, best yet, learn about Woody Guthrie.