I know I’ve noted it before, and it’s a pretty obvious thing to note, but the set list from the first night of Bob Dylan’s tour of Japan is another reminder of how often Dylan uses water as an image and/or metaphor in his songs. (The fact that it’s been raining heavily in my locality for the past few days adds to the timeliness of this observation.)

The show kicked off with Watching the River Flow. The fifth song of the night was High Water (for Charley Patton), followed consecutively by Spirit On the Water and The Levee’s Gonna Break. The tenth tune of the night was A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall. You can listen to a clip of that one at this link. Bob sings the final verse in a manner which may or not be pleasing to a given listener’s ear, but is certainly unlike how I’ve ever heard him sing it before.

I know I’m not unique in how — when I attend one of Bob’s concerts — the songs in succession often seem to create a narrative. I’m sure it’s completely subjective; my mind picks out certain phrases and feelings and strings them together in a way that seems coherent. The person beside me is likely to be hearing something else (which doesn’t mean, mind you, that what I’m hearing isn’t there).

In any case, I thought I’d idly string together some lines from all of these water songs that appeared in that first set of this tour, and see if there’s any kind of narrative in it. At a minimum, the words can speak for themselves in terms of how Dylan has used these watery metaphors down all these many days and decades.

Oh, this ol’ river keep on rollin’, though
No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow
And as long as it does I’ll just sit here
And watch the river flow

And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

I would say that there’s a certain continuity that’s perceptible in those lines, a flowing stream of sorts. It’s not one-dimensional, however: You can see how water goes back and forth between being the water of life versus the destructive flood. A dichotomy like this gives a poet a lot with which to work, and Dylan hasn’t been shy about bathing in such tensions.

Pray that I don’t die of thirst / Baby, two feet from the well. On the other hand, a teacup of water is enough to drown. It’s biblical, but then most things are, especially when you’re in Bob’s territory. Deuteronomy, chapter 30:

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

There’s no conclusion here; I’m just going leave it as a fleeting reflection on the surface of Bob’s musical waters.

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