Sign on the Window isn't the Bob Dylan podcast you need, but it's definitely the one that you want! Each week we select a Dylan song at random, live with the song for a week (or two) and then get together to discuss. This week is karma for Daniel talkin' shit last episode, "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" from Blonde on Blonde.
In this episode, we discuss the usual:
Initial Thoughts (6:00)
Context (10:30)
Versions (18:00)
Song Itself — split in 6 ways to view this song [Rebelliousness, Protest, Religion, Random everyday events, autobiographical, its ties into Blonde on Blonde] (26:30)
Real podcast and Playlist (52:30)
Recommendations (1:06:00)
Endings (1:18:00)
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Next episode: My eyes danced a circle / Across her clear outline
Initial Thoughts (6:00)
Daniel confronts his biases with this song — mainly as it relates to Blonde and Blonde. Kelly thinks its fun, if antiquated.
Context (10:30)
"Rainy Day Women #12 and 35" was recorded March 10, 1966 in one take (with a rehearsal). Joining Dylan was Charlie McCoy (on trumpet), Wayne Butler (on trombone), Joe South, Al Kooper, Henry Strzelecki and Kenneth Buttrey.
There's tons of lore surrounding the recording of this record — from "Leprechaun cocktails" and copious amounts of weed — but the logs show this as the beginning of a long day of recording that probably wouldn't happen if everyone was wasted.
The song reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, #7 on the UK Singles Chart. Unlike "Like A Rolling Stone," the single edited out the third verse for time.
It's one of Dylan's most covered songs: the Beatles sang it, Simon & Garfunkel, My Morning Jacket, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Black Crowes, Sammy Hagar, Jimmy Buffet... you can see we're going...
Dylan has performed this song 963 times (as of recording): first at Isle of Wight on August 31, 1969 to October 14, 2016.
Versions (18:00)
Kelly and Daniel listened to the Blonde on Blonde version, the Cutting Edge rehearsal, Isle of Wight (again), Before the Flood, live from Toad's Place in 1990 and from Unplugged.
The thru-line for every version is the failure of replicating the trombone and trumpet.
Song Itself — split in 6 ways to view this song (26:30)
Last week, Daniel dunked on this song without realizing he's be talking about it next week and, like a lot of previous Dylan notions, he admits to be too hard on this song, but can't completely disagree that it's overhyped and still wishes it wasn't on Blonde on Blonde.
We broke down the song into its different elements to drill down on why it was created, what it was trying to say, and if this sentiment works today.
Rebelliousness
Daniel blows Kelly's mind with math (12 x 35 = 420!).
Robert Shelton, in his No Direction Home, writes:
This song, which charted at number two, satirizes the 1960s generation gap. Dylan at his most truculent—toying with the title, the raggle-taggle ensemble singing, the giggling, the manic instrumentation, and a variety of implied games about liquor or dope. 'Rainy Day Women' is an outburst of sheer joy. His drollness triggered a drug-song controversy so feverish that Dylan announced: 'I never have and never will write a 'drug song.'
[The full quote"I’m not going to play any more concerts in England. I’d just like to say that the next song is what your English musical papers would call a ‘drug song’. I have never and never will write a ‘drug song’. I just don’t know how to. It’s not a ‘drug song’. It’s just vulgar."]
'Rainy Day Women' was banned by American and British radio stations. Time, July 1, 1966: “In the shifting, multi-level jargon of teenagers, to ‘get stoned’ does not mean to get drunk, but to get high on drugs…a ‘rainy-day woman,’ as any junkie [sic] knows, is a marijuana cigarette.”
When former Vice-President Spiro Agnew attacked rock drug songs that were leading American youth toward the heroin needle, he included Valerie Simpson and Nicholas Ashford’s 'Let’s Go Get Stoned,' which Ray Charles performed widely. 'That’s really silly, isn’t it,' Valerie Simpson said. 'It was written so long ago, it was obviously about gin, not dope.'
Phil Spector was with Dylan in a Los Angeles hang-out, the Fred C Dobbs Coffee Shop, when they heard the Ray Charles 'Stoned' on a jukebox. Both of them, Spector told me later, 'were surprised to hear a song that free, that explicit.'
The best you can say is that the songs refrain invites you to have a new worldview:
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned
Protest
The song is definitely a protest against the mainstream. In April 1966, Dylan was asked about this song, he said it was about:
Well, you know my songs are all mathematical songs. Now, you know what that means so I’m not gonna have to go into that specifically here. It happens to be a protest song. …and it borders on the mathematical, you know, idea of things, and this one specifically happens to be … Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 happens to deal with a minority of, you know, cripples and Orientals and, uh, you know, and the world in which they live,…. It’s another sort of a North Mexican kind of a thing, uh, very protesty. Very, very protesty. And, uh, one of the protestiest of all things I ever protested against in my protest years…
There's a dark world this depicts and, in that way, feels close to ours in 2020.
Religion
The religious element is interesting. It's suggested the title could come from the Book of Proverbs 27:15
A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.
In 2012, Dylan was interviewed by *Rolling Stone.* Mikal Gilmore asked if worried about misinterpretations of his songs and uses "Rainy Day Women" as an example. Dylan responds:
It doesn’t surprise me that some people would see it that way. But these are people that aren’t familiar with the Book of Acts.
Random everyday events
Namely when a mother and daughter entered the studio who looked 12 and 35......
Autobiographical
Some see this as commentary on others reactions to his songs and his metaphorical stoning as he played his new songs as opposed to his folk songs.
Or does actually works for Blonde on Blonde?!
Do we focus too much on the everybody must get stoned instead of the "rainy day women" part. As Daniel sees it, maybe "Rainy Day Women" works as a primer for the record come, which is full of these women and the narrators reckoning with them.
From last week's "Most Likely You'll Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)," to Episode 84's "Just Like A Woman," or Episode 71's "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)," or Episode 28's "Fourth Time Around." (Hell, throw in Episode 103 this season, "She's Your Lover Now" for good measure.)
This also doesn't mention the songs we haven't encountered: we still have Louise, the Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, Sweet Marie, and our paramour in "Temporary Like Achilles" with its refrain of You know I want your lovin' / Honey, why are you so hard?
Does this song work in 2020?
Kelly enjoyed it. Daniel gives a reluctant yes after talking himself into Blonde on Blonde but fears this sounds so old because this rebellion isn't recognizable in 2020.
In a way, this song feels manufactured to be "shocking" and take the charts, which it did. (If it wasn't for the Mamas and the Papas "Monday Monday," it would've been #1.)
THE EPISODE’S BOOKLET & PLAYLIST (52:30)
RECOMMENDATIONS (1:06:00)
Kelly went back in time to itch two nostalgic itches. First, Supermarket Sweep is on Netflix now (for the reboot no one wants). Second, Defunctland on YouTube dives into the world of Disney in incredible ways (including a full documentary). She also listened to Punisher from Phoebe Bridgers and Rena Jones.
Daniel wants to reemphasize The Beths Jump Rope Gazers and a new podcast about one of my favorite bands, Propagandhi: Unscripted Moments.
ENDINGS (1:18:00)
There's 378 songs left. Kelly thinks she's smart picking #2. Would've been "Frankie and Albert." Will you believe this? It's #1 (!). "Eternal Circle" next time.
REFERENCES IN EPISODE
Every Ham in Supermarket Sweep | Netflix
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