It Ain’t Me, Babe meets the Devil (on a bad day)

Time for another track, perhaps.

This one is a long time coming as well. It started with the idea that this song has two faces.

One is the defiant, harsh, “screw you” character that puts it in the category with Positively 4th Street and Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat. The cocky, major-key bravado that says: “you may think we have something going here, but we don’t.”

But there is also a more mellow angle to the song. All those things that it ain’t me that’s going to put up with — it’s not that they’re all that unreasonable, really, as long as they don’t turn into a lifestyle or a pattern of empty habit. In this light, the song becomes more of a second cousin of Idiot Wind or Sara — and a minor key would be much more suitable.

So I played it in A minor instead of C major, with exactly the same melody — and it worked.

And thus transformed from a put-down song to a breakup song, other references offered themselves up: Sympathy for the Devil, “there must be some way out of here”, etc.

The track is highly unfinished. I’m going to record a more polished version eventually, so take it for what it is.

It Ain’t Me, Babe meets the Devil on a bad day

Jokerman

Jokerman is, without any doubt whatsoever, one of the great classics on a rollercoaster album such as Infidels. The single-guitar version on dylanchords, however, never really did it for me: great song, great harmonies, but so thin when you’re alone with your guitar, without the exquisite drums’n’bass work by Sly and Robbie.

Then, one day, on my way home from work, I was somehow humming Jokerman while thinking Moonlight (this was back when “Love and Theft” was recent news), and something clicked.

I’ve had it in the back of my head for some years now, so I figured it was time to record it.

Enjoy:

Jokerman meets Moonlight

I suppose one could say that where Dylan’s Jokerman tends towards the enigmatic, mine is more of a joker.

For those so inclined: here are the chords:

Chords:

Bbo      x12020
Co       x34242
A/c#     x42220  or x4222x with half-barre
D/a      x04232
E+       022110
A7/g     34222x
E7-9     076760
Bb       688700
G#+      476500


|: A . Bbo . Bm7 . E7 . :|

A               Bbo    Bm7          Co
Standing on the waters casting your bread
          A/c# /e     F#           Bm7   E7       A       D/a  A  E+
While the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing.
A       Bbo           Bm7      Co
Distant ships sailing into the mist,
          A/c# /e    F#                    Bm7      
You were born with a snake in both of your fists 
        E7            A       D/a  A  Bbo
while a hurricane was blowing.
Bm   /a-g#-f#   E     /f       /f#     /g#    A  D/a  A  Bbo
Freedom         just around the corner for you
         Bm     /a   -g#-f#  E   /f  /f#    /g#    A /g# A7/g F#7
But with truth so far off,    what good will it do?

Bm7                   E7-9
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,
A        G           F#           F#7
Bird fly high by the light of the moon,
Bm7    Bb  G#+  A
Oh,    oh, oh, Jokerman.

Edit: Oh, and my friend Lars thought I started out too negative here, with the “I don’t like this and I don’t like that” and all, and that I should at least liven it up with a picture of U2. Go figure.