Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts - interpretations

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by MisterBritt, Apr 4, 2006.

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  1. lschwart

    lschwart Senior Member

    Location:
    Richmond, VA
    Just a little robbery, murder, and an execution....:D

    L.
     
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  2. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    Interesting that Dylan called Joan Baez (recounted in her Diamonds And Rust) and read her the lyrics of this song down the phone. Is there any significance in that?
     
  3. onlyconnect

    onlyconnect The prose and the passion

    Location:
    Winchester, UK
    Yet :)

    Tim
     
  4. The Elephant Man

    The Elephant Man Forum Resident

    This is it! St. Augustine hid the knife under the blanket. He tore through the quarters trying to make sure he left no evidence!
    Thank you, thank you!
     
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  5. JamieC

    JamieC Senior Member

    Location:
    Detroit Mi USA
    Just saw this old thread, and must say I knew that verse very well, and was shocked it was not on my BOTT album. I finally figured it out, Joan Baez did it on the Live From Every Stage LP, an album I played to death.
     
  6. JamieC

    JamieC Senior Member

    Location:
    Detroit Mi USA
    Now that figures.
     
  7. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    According to Heylin, Bob also phoned Suze Rotolo out of the blue around this time, and then wrote a song (at least partly) about her - '4th Street Affair', later retitled 'Simple Twist Of Fate'.

    It appears that 'the past was close behind' indeed during this time.
     
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  8. Malcolm Crowne

    Malcolm Crowne Forum Habitue

    Location:
    Portland OR
    I will only say that while the Beatles-linked interpretation above is brilliant (as many things are which are in fact contrary to fact) I myself initially, years ago, assumed the Jack of Hearts was Dylan and Lily was Joan Baez. I have no idea why.
     
  9. Vinyl Socks

    Vinyl Socks The Buzz Driver

    Location:
    DuBois, PA


    New York A & M Studio take of "Lily, Rosemary & the Jack of Hearts"
     
  10. Rukiki

    Rukiki Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madrid, Spain
    Surprising how many of you guys love this song. I never liked it, and usually skip that track when I play Blood on the Tracks.

    I´m gonna go and give it another try. I might be missing something or didn´t pay that much attention to the lyrics.
     
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  11. stewedandkeefed

    stewedandkeefed Came Ashore In The Dead Of The Night

    One of the big surprises I found out from coming on the SHF is that some people do not really care for "Lily" and consider it a weak song on a classic album. Blood On The Tracks was the first Bob Dylan studio record I ever heard (I was fourteen). I didn't understand the relationship songs at that point but boy was "Lily" a hoot. I still love it but as I have learned, it is not everyone's cup of tea (I suppose I should have known that).
     
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  12. The Absent-Minded Flaneur

    The Absent-Minded Flaneur Forum Resident

    Location:
    The EU
    My interpretation -

    Dylan is applying to the western genre something like the operation which Raymond Chandler performed on the classic whodunnit.

    In whodunnits such as the Agatha Christie novels a crime (usually of little intrinsic interest) is solved by a process of logical deduction (the real interest of the story) in which the author must not cheat and no loose ends may be left untied. In Chandler the very idea of logical deduction has become suspect - Chandler himself famously couldn't remember who committed one of the murders in The Big Sleep - and the real interest of the story is an evocation of mood and milieu, of human failings and little victories.

    In the classic western the standard premise is a violation of social order which the hero, in a sort of latter-day quest, must heal. But in Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts it isn't clear what if any violation has preceded the arrival of the hero and the usual western motives (honour vs selfishness) are hopelessly muddied. Two stereotypical alpha males (Big Jim the bully and Jack the Joker) are pitted against each other. The love interest, as embodied in Lily and Rosemary, is a fairly non-specific compound of jealousy and embittered faithfulness.

    As in Chandler, the basic principle of the quest has become suspect. If your "hero" is the joker (and the leader of a gang of bankrobbers) the plot is hardly likely to allocate responsibilities or tie up the loose ends. What's left is a wonderful maze of betrayal, lost love and rough justice.

    The song anticipates the preoccupation with narrative forms on Desire. To my mind it does so much more interestingly than any of the Desire lyrics. It leaves interpretation wide open where a song like Joey simply slams it perversely shut (what would have made them NOT want to come and blow the punk away!?!). It's knowingly self-referential (Dylan as joker) but without the too-cute-for-its-own good sting in the tail of Black Diamond Bay.

    Great song.
     
  13. revolution_vanderbilt

    revolution_vanderbilt Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    I like the interpretation I read where Lily and the Jack Of Hearts are one in the same and is Big Jim's daughter.

    Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts by Bob Dylan Songfacts

    On that site, user Doug wrote the following:

    It works for me!
     
  14. I've heard BOTT (both versions) literally hundreds of times in my life and I've never liked the song. I still don't and consider it to be the one serious weak link in an otherwise stellar album. It's far too long and although it has the replaced take from Minnesota with instrumental backing, it is plodding and repetitive. If I was to play BOTT now, I'd choose the CD and skip that particular song.

    This is the song which makes me reconsider the quality of the instrumental backing on the non-NYC tracks. The critic, Dave Marsh, once cited BOTT and Desire as evidence of how Dylan's spontaneous approach to recording didn't work for him in the 1970's (compared to the sublime results he achieved in the 1960's) as he was working with relatively inexperienced musicians at the time and the production is lacking. I wonder what The Band might have done with this song?
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2018
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  15. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    Another Joan Baez connection: I can't remember exactly where I read it, but didn't Dylan request a small Martin acoustic guitar (the 'Joan Baez model') when he recorded this (Minneapolis session, I think)?
     
  16. When In Rome

    When In Rome It's far from being all over...

    Location:
    UK
    I always get lost about half way through the and just enjoy the tune. Not a big fave to be fair...
     
  17. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    It must have been in another thread where I mentioned seeing a film on TV years ago. I only had one eye on it but remember being struck by certain similarities with the Dylan song. It's too long ago for me to remember exactly what those similarities were (names/plot/both?), but it *may* have been this one:

    "Rose Marie"

    There are 3 versions of the film (1928, 1936, 1954). I'm sure the one I saw (if it really was this film) must have been the 1954 version, as I recall it was in colour.

    I can't find the complete film to watch online. But here is a list of some of the characters:

    1954
    Ann Blyth as Rose Marie Lemaitre
    Fernando Lamas as James Severn Duval


    Characters from the earlier films:

    1928

    Joan Crawford as Rose-Marie
    James Murray as Jim Kenyon

    1936

    Jeanette MacDonald as Marie de Flor
    James Stewart as Jack Flower

    So there is a Rose Marie (Rosemary) and a James/Jim (and a Jack listed for the 1936 film), though no Lily...

    The films are based on a 1924 stage production:

    Rose-Marie is an operetta-style musical with music by Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart, and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II. The story takes place in the Canadian Rockies and concerns Rose-Marie La Flemme, a French Canadian girl who loves miner Jim Kenyon. When Jim falls under suspicion for murder, her brother Emile plans for Rose-Marie to marry Edward Hawley, a city man.

    It sounds like it may be the film I remember seeing, but maybe not... I wish I'd taken note at the time!

    EDIT: Also, from here: Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts: revealing the source of this and other Dylan songs. | Untold Dylan

    The fictional storyline involves a wild-living miner named Jim, who has a partner, ‘Hard-Boiled’ Herman. Jim reforms because he loves the French-Canadian stage-singer Rose-Marie – ‘I choose you to rule me’ -, and Rose-Marie loves Jim.

    A wealthy businessman wants to marry Rose-Marie though he’s involved with a ‘half-breed’ Indian gal; she stabs her jealous boyfriend to protect the businessman, who then claims Jim is the murderer.

    Rose-Marie decides to marry the deceitful businessman. As the ceremony is about to take place, the ‘half-breed’ confesses that she is the real murderer. Jim and Rose-Marie are happily reunited.

    In the following song, Bob Dylan changes the names as well as the character of the actors involved in the storyline – Rose-Marie and Jim become Rosemary and Big Jim.
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2018
  18. Wugged

    Wugged Forum Resident

    Location:
    Warsaw, Poland
    To understand the meaning, remember...… there are seven levels………..


    ;)
     
  19. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    I managed to find and watch the 1954 film of 'Rose Marie' (a kind of Canadian western musical) online.

    I'm pretty sure this must be the film I remembered (half) seeing around 25 years ago. But maybe my memory has slightly tricked me into thinking it was even more like the Dylan song than it actually is.

    Having said that, I can see why I saw a connection at the time, especially once I had heard the names.

    The main characters are Rose Marie and Jim.
    There is a love triangle (actually turns out to be a quadrangle).
    Someone is killed by a knife (after Jim almost gets a 'knife in the back').
    There is a hanging scene at the end (it doesn't happen as Jim is found at the last minute to be innocent of the murder, which is discovered to have been committed by his jealous ex, who 'has Jim's ring').

    Might Dylan have seen this film and used some of the details for his song? I think it's possible (there is evidence of him doing this elsewhere). A lot more happens in Dylan's song than in the film, however.
     
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  20. lschwart

    lschwart Senior Member

    Location:
    Richmond, VA
    Sounds likely that Dylan had the film rattling around in his storeroom when he wrote the song. I'm not sure, however, that that tells us much more than we already knew about how the song makes use of tropes from a host of westerns.

    I'll check out the film though! Maybe there's more.

    L.
     
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  21. revolution_vanderbilt

    revolution_vanderbilt Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    It's always thrilling to see where Dylan was pulling from, of course with a healthy dash of his own filter distorting the final product. I believe a film was found that could perhaps have influenced the imagery of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest. And of course the smash film Titanic certainly inspired Dylan's Tempest. That film also nearly quotes Dylan too!
     
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  22. Wright

    Wright Forum Resident

    Two mysteries for me...

    1) Why is Lily's father, who otherwise has no role in the song, suddenly mentioned in the last verse?

    2) Why was Joan Baez so quick to record the song? Just because Dylan shared the song with her, or because she somehow understood that it was partly about her?
     
  23. lschwart

    lschwart Senior Member

    Location:
    Richmond, VA
    1) It's a detail that fleshes out her character a little more at that moment, giving her a more textured past. I don't see any other reason for its being there, and I don't think it needs any other function to justify its presence. I think it works beautifully. There are some clunky bits in the song (luckily the story bounces along so well that none of them sink it), but this is not one of them.

    2) Who knows. My guess is that she simply liked it and thought she could perform it well, but I'm sure there were personal undercurrents, too.

    L.
     
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  24. I always thought that "Lily, Rosemary" is ideal for a trio or quartet of singers, trading verses on it. It's a pity the Willie/Waylon/Haggard/Cash (or Campbell) Highwaymen never did it.
     
  25. Lemon Curry

    Lemon Curry (A) Face In The Crowd

    Location:
    Mahwah, NJ
    #2 is easy. Dylan and Baez, those crazy kids, never got out of each other's heads. They were bonded. I think they both knew who was who in the song, that's why he read it to her. And that's why it blew her mind.
     
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