Music Arcades: Bob Dylan: Planet Waves

I know you always saw this as the beginning of the return from the wilderness from Bob. You're in pretty good company on that front, but all I can say is, It's pretty early on in the beginning. Two good songs do not an album make. And yes, you could argue the toss about whether to add Something There is About You or Going, Going, Gone as third one, but really it's only Dirge and Wedding Song that count in my book.

I my habitually messy way, I still haven't got round to putting Paul Williams' Watching the River Flow back on the shelf. He's one of those who counts Going, Going, Gone as a decent song, but I remember he got The Wedding Song "wrong". "Clearly for Sara" is the simple verdict in Williams' reading of Bob's life-as-chronicled-in-his-songs. Well, it's called Wedding Song, Sara was his wife at the time — Q.E.D., non? Non. Just look at the words. I've been to two weddings now this month, and in both cases there was an exchange of vows. In Wedding Song the vow-traffic is all one way, and it has that desperate "can't you see?" pleading that you don't often hear at the altar. They say love is an obsessive disorder. The obsession here has cut loose from its moorings, and it's Old Testament language comes across more like a thinly-veiled threat than a love song:

Eye for eye and tooth for tooth, your love cuts like a knife
My thoughts of you don’t ever rest, they'd kill me if I lie
I’d sacrifice the world for you and watch my senses die

What's lost is lost, we can't regain what went down in the flood
But happiness to me is you and I love you more than blood

It's never been my duty to remake the world at large
Nor is it my intention to sound a battle charge
'Cause I love you more than all of that with a love that doesn't bend
And if there is eternity I'd love you there again

Not much "honour and obey" in that unbending, unblinking, all-consuming love. And never mind "till death do us part," this vow carries on into the afterlife. You're never going to be rid of me. This marriage partner comes on like a stalker, or an avenging angel.

I've heard that some people actually do choose to have this played at their wedding. I'd say that was Exhibit A when it comes time to sue for divorce: "Look at this song he dedicated to me, your honour — can I have a restraining order now?"

I don't know, perhaps it is for Sara. But either way, as a portrait of a relationship, it seems every bit as harsh and scabrous as Idiot Wind — and just as good a song.