Bob Dylan Song #46: Ballad in Plain D

Those of you that have read this blog from the beginning (you lucky ducks!) know that I have taken a jab or two at "Ballad in Plain D", a song that I have never cared for from the moment I heard it. I'm sure I'm not alone in this sense; to be honest, it's not a good song at all. It goes on for eight (eight!) solid minutes, full of acidic vitriol and mawkish sentimentality, and not even in an interesting way ("Idiot Wind", for example, has its share of vitriol and is also quite lengthy, but never ceases to be interesting and remains a highlight of Blood on the Tracks). You get the feeling that Dylan used his song writing power basically to insult Suze Rotolo's sister, possibly unfairly, and pay fawning tribute to Suze herself. Even the last line, "are birds free from the chains of the skyway?", isn't so much mysterious or thought-provoking as it is something of a head-scratcher; it's hard not to hear it and tilt your head like the RCA dog. It's the kind of thing somebody says at the end of a poetry slam in the hopes of getting extra snaps of applause from the audience.

So, yes, I have nothing good to say about the song; it's a millstone tied around Another Side's neck that keeps the album from reaching another level. Need I remind you the songs left on the wayside for this album? Bob could've sang "Mr. Tambourine Man" blackout drunk, forgetting the chords and lyrics, and stumbling around the studio so that the microphone only picks up every 3rd line, and it would've been a better choice than this song. That seems harsh, I know, but admit it: the humor that would be gleaned from hearing a loaded Bob try to get through the "deep beneath the waves" verse would make its inclusion worth it. There is virtually nothing that makes "Ballad in Plain D" worth inclusion, unless you want to hear Bob setting a page of his diary to music without any particular worry about who would possibly find it the least bit entertaining to listen to.

All the same, the song's out there and will be out there forever, and it's still iuteresting to consider why it was included and what it means in the canon of Bob's work. From the standpoint of 1964, we have a document of how Dylan perceived his breakup with Suze, with all the biases and emotional outpourings you would expect from a man who considers himself unfairly jilted (even when he says he's not to blame, there's a sense that he still feels wronged by that evil harpie controlling her sweet little sister). Even more so than "I Don't Believe You", which still could have been a fictional tale, "Ballad in Plain D" hides its emotions in plain sight, so that it's almost a dead certainty that Dylan is singing about himself, even if you didn't know that in advance. And, I suppose, there is a fascination from listening to that kind of hurt, so potent that even Dylan's semi-literary wranglings doesn't begin to hide it, and feeling almost voyeuristic in peeking into Dylan's innermost thoughts, albeit his innermost thoughts pressed onto vinyl for public consumption. It's a trainwreck fascination, but fascination nonetheless.

And then there's the modern perspective on "Ballad in Plain D", when we have Bob's entire career to consider. "Ballad in Plain D", when you get down to it, is the sound of a man mature beyond his years reacting to something in a very immature way. Think about this - Dylan's not even 25 years old yet, and yet he has had incredible pressure placed upon his head, coupled with the fact that he has grown immeasurably from a creative standpoint in only a few years, to the point where he has to be considered one of the best in the world at that time, even in his young age. This is a man wiser than the 23 years he'd lived when he recorded Another Side, a man that has lived more lifetime between 1962 to 1964 than many of us could ever dream of living in all our years, who has demonstrated a power over his vocabulary, over the ideas in his head, and over the metier of songwriting that is absolutely astonishing. And here he is, using that incredible talent and ability to string words together, and he's writing something akin to an emo tune, like he's Dashboard Confessional or something. It's actually a little endearing, when you stop to think about it - even the strongest and most mature of us can be rattled by something like lost love, and that lost love had led Dylan to (metaphorically) flip his wig. I guess he was still just a 23-year old after all, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.

With all of that said, I still don't think "Ballad in Plain D" has any place on that album; for an album so full of ideas, brilliant notions and concepts, and remarkable language, to stick on an overlong English 425 workshop piece does it absolutely no favors. Then again, with the frame of mind Dylan must have been in to write and record that song in the first place, it seems apparent that the song was making it on no matter what. And it's too late to tell him "no, think about it, you're making a mistake", although I'd bet that he wouldn't have listened anyway. So we have "Ballad in Plain D" forever, and we have a song that exists more as a curiosity and a marker in Dylan's career than anything that exists on artistic merit. Given Dylan's career, that's perfectly okay. If you want to see Dylan as brilliant musician, as shaper of ideas, as lyricist without peer, you have plenty of songs to choose from. If you want to see Dylan the man, growing up and maturing, you could do worse than give this song a listen. Just don't be surprised if that first listen is also your last.