Bob Dylan - "Tears Of Rage" (recorded 1967, released 1975)

Twenty years. That's how long I've been trying to figure it out.

"Tears Of Rage" was recorded with the Band, still known at the time as the Hawks, while Dylan was ensconced with them in Woodstock in 1967, recovering from his motorcycle accident. History has it that this was one of the first songs Dylan wrote to someone else's music - the Band's pianist Richard Manuel - but actually, that's a lot of crap because Dylan ripped off dozens of melodies in his day, it was just that this time he had to give proper credit because the Band released their own version years before his saw the light of day. And anyway, that's all besides the point because his singing style makes the specifics of melody superfluous.

In the version released by the Band on Music From Big Pink, Manuel sings as though waking up from a bad dream. Dylan, however, stared the nightmare down and what he sees is his own private version of King Lear.

Oh what dear daughter 'neath the sun
Would treat a father so
To wait upon him hand and foot
And always tell him, "No"?

There is every indication that Dylan never fully planned out song topics in advance (until "Hurricane" anyway) and the way I always heard this song, I suppose Dylan came up with a few choice images and a few catchy lines and using them, built up this impressionistic tale as a metaphor for rejection and loss of direction (much like many other songs on the Basement Tapes).

We pointed out the way to go
And scratched your name in sand
Though you just thought it was nothing more
Than a place for you to stand

Dylan almost always keeps a certain emotional distance from his best songs, jabbing with a snarl or a leer, then moving in close, bearing down on a few choice words and backing off to circle again. That's what we love best about him, after all. But there's a line at the emotional heart of this song where he's about as naked as he ever was, and you can feel him rasping against the microphone as he sings

But, oh, what kind of love is this
Which goes from bad to worse?

Though there's still an echo of the sarcastic hipster of Blonde On Blonde in the way he starts to sneer on "worse", the ache and fear in that short couplet forecast the long road from John Wesley Harding through Blood On The Tracks all the way to Modern Times. And that fear is worth spending twenty years trying to understand and come to terms with.

Lyrics copyright 1967 Bob Dylan