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“The only person you have to think about lying twice to is either yourself or to God.”

— Bob Dylan to Ed Bradley, 60 Minutes            

A state of becoming

Shumway sees the phrase “he who is not busy being born is busy dying” as Dylan’s “artist’s creed.” He cites Dylan’s No Direction Home as evidence. Dylan says there, “An artist has to be careful never really to arrive at a place where he thinks he’s at somewhere. You always have to realize that you are constantly in a state of becoming.”

St. Paul’s passage about being “transformed by the renewing of your minds” and Dylan’s “busy being born” converged for me on that morning a few weeks ago on this “state of becoming.” Both lines resonated with my meditations on the direction of my life and work. Transformation calls. Renewal calls. This challenge keep forging into the new, into what theorist Hannah Arendt called natality, is a vital call. I need to get unstuck, and some of the getting unstuck involves figuring out the direction of this blog and my work on it. “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” therefore represents not only the subject of this post, but a thematic resource helping me think about how to write it and all the posts to follow.

Photo credit: John Shearer (source: Bob Dylan’s official Facebook page)

Most of my posts over the last eight months have pushed the boundaries of the murder ballad genre. We started to broaden our scope a while ago with “Conversations with Death” songs, moving on to “Disaster Songs” and songs that had the murder ballad “feel” while maybe not meeting the technical definition. By now, I’ve written about the murder ballads that really move me. I find that any post worth doing requires that I care about the song.

Previously, I’ve picked some songs I didn’t love but was curious about, and came to love many of them. I can’t pursue that approach as much now, as I’ve covered a lot of the main thematic territory. It doesn’t open new themes or questions for me, and if I’m not going on that journey, I can’t take you with me. It’s implicit in the work that we do here at the blog that we are meaningfully and often irretrievably convicted by this art, by these mortal songs that glimpse the transcendent.

This past summer, Dave Carter’s “When I Go” had me asking the urgent and important question of finding the important work that was mine to do. My recent post on Tom Russell’s “Blue Wing” had me considering the various virtual “cells” in which we confine ourselves. I attempted to write about several different songs for today’s post, but “It’s Alright Ma” kept pushing its way into my field of vision. When a song arrests me so insistently, I’m rarely able to push it out of my mind to write about something else. I can’t go around; I have to go through it. Posts on What’s Going On and “People Get Ready” allowed me to explore social justice questions. “When I Go,” “Blue Wing,” and now “It’s Alright Ma” allowed me to explore existential ones. They each asked in their own ways questions of life, death, and personal liberation.

“It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” insists on that constant state of becoming. What makes it resonate, though, is one of two things. Either it’s not for artists alone, or we are all artists. I have my guess which one is right. Whichever way we wind up going in crafting our posts, and even though Dylan denies offering us any advice, we’re going to stay busy being born.

Further reading and further listening

“It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” ranks highly in just about any “Best of Dylan” list you’ll find. In addition to Bob Dylan: All the Songs several of the quotes above came from The Cambridge Companion to Bob Dylan, edited by Kevin J.H. Dettmar. You may want to explore how it fares in the “Best of…” lists of American Songwriter and Rolling Stone.

Dylan returns to “It’s Alright Ma” in live performance on a regular basis. I’m sure the irony of this is not lost on him, but I’m equally sure that it doesn’t entrap him. We discussed some of Dylan’s performances in an earlier post that focused on Professor Steven Rings’s work addressing Dylan’s evolving voice and its relationship to artistic authenticity. Seeing Dylan live can be either disappointing or glorious, and for the same reason: You stand in the presence of an artist dedicated to re-invention. His performances of this classic, therefore, never fully ossify, even in rehearsal.

Dylan chose “It’s Alright Ma” to open his brief set at the celebrity-filled concert celebrating his 30 years in the recording industry. His performance followed a parade of artists covering his back catalog while Dylan sat in the audience, occasionally looking pained. Choosing this song presents a fairly obvious retort to the backward-looking exercise that preceded it.

Many other artists have taken a turn with the song. The Byrds offered an early cover of the song, if an abbreviated one. It served as part of the soundtrack for the film Easy Rider.

The Duhks provide a fantastic recent version. I’ll end with it, and provide you with a playlist below. Thanks for reading.

See here for an additional video with The Duhks discussing their process of recreating this song.