The Chameleon Poet: Bob Dylan's Search For Self

by John Bauldie

On his untimely death at 47 years old in October 1996, not only did John Bauldie sit at the what could be called the high table of Dylan Studies, but from the early nineties, when he was invited by Dylan's management to write the liner notes that accompanied the Bootleg Series Volume 1-3 , many would attest that he was chairman of the board.

In his lifetime, John Bauldie was a giant amongst Bob Dylan fans and collectors. As the editor of The Telegraph , he was a voracious advocate for Dylan to be afforded the respect of a major artist and an early lobbyist for him to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Yet, despite creating the Wanted Man Study Series to encourage analysis of Dylan's work, Bauldie never published his own full critical study, though regular subscribers to The Telegraph knew he had completed one. A few teasing extracts and a handful of mysterious mentions revealed the existence of this fabled manuscript, The Chameleon Poet , which has remained unpublished until now.

Covering the formative span of Dylan's career from his emergence in the early sixties to his conversion to Christianity in the late seventies, The Chameleon Poet traces each step in the development of the artist and man from youth to maturity. With scholarly precision and vivid clarity, Bauldie's analysis of Dylan's work reveals a continuous journey.

Forty years on, as a Nobel Laureate, Bob Dylan's position as one of the great artists of the age is secure, fulfilling Bauldie's vision. Now it is time to read the only full-length critical study by the foremost champion of Dylan's art. The Chameleon Poet is a book of its time, but such is its focus on the inner journey of everyman, it's as relevant today as it was yesterday, and will be tomorrow.

Bill Allison's introduction sketches a portrait of Bauldie's life and his ascendancy in the world of Dylan Studies.

287 pages, Hardcover

Published May 17, 2021

Reviews

[Mat · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Bauldie was one great writer and based on the dozen or so books I have read on Dylan so far, I feel that he understood Dylan probably better than almost any other Dylanologist out there. Clinton Heylin, one of the leading Dylanologists in the world today, was a friend of Bauldie's and encouraged him to publish this work, which is essentially a thesis on Dylan.

This book delves deeply into Dylan's psyche, especially from a Jungian angle. The basic premise of the dissertation, from what I understood, was that there are (at least) three parts to the person we know of as 'Bob Dylan' but who was born as 'Robert Zimmerman'. There is 1) the public persona which we know of as 'Bob Dylan'; 2) there is the alter-ego or inner poet; and 3) there is the man as a performer on a stage. I often wondered what the difference between 1 and 3 were but I slowly came to realize a few subtle differences. And the title of the book is an excellent one - The Chameleon Poet. Indeed. Dylan, as folksinger friend Liam Clancy once described is like a 'shapechanger.' Constantly changing, constantly evolving, and as Bauldie points out quite convincingly constantly looking for his 'true self'.

Some of the analysis was really fascinating and has made me completely rethink some of Dylan's songs. For example, in 'All Along the Watchtower' we have the joker and the thief. Bauldie says that the joker represents the public persona of Bob Dylan and the thief is used symbolically for the inner poet, who like Rimbaud, steals the 'poetic fire' of the muses, and is therefore a thief. Bauldie really did much research and much thinking behind what Dylan was trying to say between the lines, or possibly behind the lines. The song 'The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest' is another similar idea in which the two characters represent the 'new Dylan' and the 'old Dylan' whose ego got too bloated and 'betrayed' who he originally was (hence 'Judas'). The most interesting one was perhaps his analysis of 'Isis' from his best-selling album, Desire. The part where Dylan throws the body down into a tomb and rides back to Isis is interpreted as the new Dylan burying the old Dylan (which fits in, obviously with the whole premise of him being a 'chameleon poet' who continually sheds his old skin for a new one). I could go on for hours and give MANY examples of Bauldie's fine analysis BUT I won't; it's better if you read it for yourself.

Now to the few points that I didn't like about the book. I found his analysis of Blonde on Blonde a little too simplistic. He argues that the whole album, with the exception of 'Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again', is about sex and Dylan's obsession with it. Sex is definitely ONE of the themes to that album but I wouldn't say it's the only one, especially on such a slick and sophisticated album as that one, nor even the predominant theme. But I did agree with his analysis of it as a kind of 'nigredo' (a new word for me, which means something like 'a dark night of the soul' [St. John of the Cross] or more simply, a 'spiritual crisis').

Secondly, Bauldie clearly misses some drug references in Dylan's songs which were pretty obvious to me. He interprets the song 'Absolutely Sweet Marie' as a song about a girl, and of course that is not entirely wrong, but the fact that the title might refer to sweet 'Mary Jane' seemed to escape Bauldie as does Dylan's clear reference to heroin in the song 'Senor' when he sings 'I can smell the tail of the dragon'. To me these are all forgivable 'flaws' to the book. However, what disappointed me especially was how he wrote off 'Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' and 'Ballad in Plain D' as rather poor songs, when they are both bloody masterpieces in my opinion! It's true that Dylan regretted writing 'Ballad in Plain D' because a few lines are a little vicious (especially at Suze Rotolo's sister) but to me, it is Dylan at his most open, raw and vulnerable - a rare thing to behold.

These gripes aside, I still highly recommend this book. It's very well-written, thoroughly researched, and the basic underlying arguments from a Jungian psychological angle were all convincing and have made me appreciate Dylan's songwriting even more (if that is possible). In fact, it has made me want to check out some of Jung's books. Highly recommended for all Dylan fans, especially those who want to read an intelligent and highly astute critical analysis of the lyrics of his songs.

[Andy Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This my video review of two great books about Bob Dylan that focus mainly on the artist’s work from the 1960s. ‘Wicked Messenger’ locates Dylan within the political context of the times (which were a-changin’) whereas ‘The Chameleon Poet’ examines his songs more from a literary perspective:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA3V5...

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

We live in an an age when Taylor Swift markets her work as eras and Beyoncé defines her output in terms of identity defining albums. Both artist play with creating art that is a projection of a public persona that is malleable, contains multitudes, is mercurial. Of course David Bowie famously did it before them literally taking on characters like Ziggy Stardust and the Thin White Duke. But before all of that was Dylan who has been following his muse for over sixty years now into realms of identity searching and defining art. “He not busy being born is busy dying.”

In steps, this excellent little book by John Bauldie analyzing Dylan’s output from 1961 to 1978 with an eye to uncovering Dylan’s search for meaning and his play with his identity. Drawing on comparative analysis to Shakespeare, primarily King Lear; Hermann Hesse; and Arthur Rimbaud, Bauldie argues that Dylan’s restless creation as a poet, songwriter, and performer are in sum, expressions of the human search for meaning. A meaning which is complicated by Dylan’s biography as a middle class Jewish boy from Minnesota who end up becoming what many of his fans and the media brand , “the voice of his generation, “ a heavy burden indeed, and one he rejected.

Bauldie examines each Dylan release as a window into the artists psyche including his creation of a public persona. Informed by Jungian theory, he makes the case that Dylan has been on a heroes journey in his life mirrored in music and other art work. Beginning a naive, idealistic kid who strives for social justice, becomes disillusioned as his star rises and embraces a prophetic stance outside of society, crashes and burns in 1966, only to reemerge a moderate family man, until the call of his muse and the call of the road pull him away again, leaving him bereft and searching still, and ending with his embrace of evangelical Christianity. It is a compelling story, and Bauldie is clear and precise in his argument.

The best bits of analysis here to me are connected to particular albums and thus periods in Dylan’s creative life, Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blood on the Tracks, and Desire are high points in Dylan’s career and Bauldie does them justice.

I found his arguments about the more symbolic filled albums of John Wesley Harding and Street Legal as less compelling if not less convincing. For example, I don’t read All Along the Watchtower as primarily about two sides of Dylan’s identity as the joker and the thief.

That aside this is a tremendous piece of work and stands with Paul Williams’ Performing Artist books and Michael Gray’s Song and Dance Man as the best book length analysis of Bob Dylan’s output.