Lyric Analysis, "Lay Down Your Weary Tune"

"I had broken myself of the habit of thinking in short song cycles and began reading longer and longer poems ... I read all of Lord Byron's 'Don Juan' ... also, Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan.' I began cramming my brain with all kinds of deep poems. It seemed like I'd been pulling an empty wagon for a long time and now I was beginning to fill it up and would have to pull harder. I felt like I was coming out of the back pasture."
--Bob Dylan: Chronicles, volume one.

Bob Dylan pulled popular music out of the back pasture. He replaced cheap sentiment and claptrap melodrama with poetry. Without Bob Dylan, Bono wouldn't be singing about streets with no names, and Alison Krauss wouldn't implore "don't try to open my door with your skeleton key." All popular music would be "Tooty Fruity, O Rooty." Not that there isn't room for that fun sort of thing every now and then, but Dylan brought the beauty of words and the strength of meaning into music.

This week we examine one of his simplest (but not simplistic) examples of sheer poetry, a little-known song from 1964 called "Lay Down Your Weary Tune," an ode to nature, and to rest. Here it is:

Lay down your weary tune, lay down,
Lay down the song you strum,
And rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum.

Struck by the sounds before the sun,
I knew the night had gone.
The morning breeze like a bugle blew
Against the drums of dawn.
Lay down your weary tune, lay down,
Lay down the song you strum,
And rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum.

The ocean wild like an organ played,
The seaweed wove its strands.
The crashin' waves like cymbals clashed
Against the rocks and sands.
Lay down your weary tune, lay down,
Lay down the song you strum,
And rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum.

I stood unwound beneath the skies
And clouds unbound by laws.
The cryin' rain like a trumpet sang
And asked for no applause.
Lay down your weary tune, lay down,
Lay down the song you strum,
And rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum.
The last of leaves fell from the trees
And clung to a new love's breast.
The branches bare like a banjo played
To the winds that listened best.

I gazed down in the river's mirror
And watched its winding strum.
The water smooth ran like a hymn
And like a harp did hum.
Lay down your weary tune, lay down,
Lay down the song you strum,
And rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum.
c. Bob Dylan

The melody runs through a 14-bar structure which repeats nine times, with slight variations throughout. This simple, light yet haunting melody covers chorus and verses, bringing a tranquility and unity of effect to the piece. Like creation.
He has borrowed from an old hymn to come up with his title, "I Heard The Voice Of Jesus Say." Here is the relevant portion of that song:

"Lay down thy weary one, lay down / Your head upon His breast"

This British hymn was familiar to Dylan, a voracious student of folk music, through its inclusion on a Folkways Records anthology.

As to the melody, Dylan is on record as saying he based it on an old Scottish song:

"I wrote that ... at Joan Baez's house. I had heard a Scottish ballad on an old 78 record that I was trying to really capture the feeling of, that was haunting me. I couldn't get it out of my head. There were no lyrics or anything, it was just a melody ... I wanted lyrics that would feel the same way."

This marriage of lyrics to melody is an important ingredient that many writers never master.

As to other influences, the song bares the stamp of Wordsworth in its mixture of poetry with philosophical musing, and its theme is similar to the work of Coleridge.

Note the use of onomatopeia throughout the song: strum, hum, drums, bugle, crashin', crashed, moaned, smooth.

What does the chorus mean? It's not hard, when we contextualize it with the verses. Dylan wants us to lay down the drama, the baggage, the frustration of the day. He wants us to rest beneath an oak, to sit beside a stream, to somersault in a field. He wants us to experience the peace of creation, a peace that no human devise (TV, for instance) can duplicate.

Such great word pictures, straight from his mind (he doesn't borrow everything from older sources, of course). Who else would think to compare the wild ocean's rolling waves to the physical act of pounding an organ in some tense opera scene. And of course the words have a similar sound, so it shouldn't have been so hard to come up with.

There are plenty of end rhymes and a ton of alliteration, as well. You people know you love it when I tell you to print out the lyrics and circle examples of poetic devises, so do it. Circle the alliterative words. You know you love it.

Look for more about Mr. Bob Dylan on Jive To The Monkey in the weeks to come, as we head into his concert (along with Willie Nelson) in Louisville on June 29. Tickets are on sale this weekend, Monkey Maniacs, so don't be left out!