A song’s “re-performance” often diminishes the original’s zest and clouds its meaning, Bob Dylan scholar Christopher Ricks said Monday night.
About 60 Boston University students and members of the community gathered at Mugar Memorial Library to hear Ricks lecture on the political nature of Bob Dylan’s songs, in the second of four lectures each covering a different facet of Dylan’s music.
Ricks began the night by playing the album version of Dylan’s “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” a song that details the 1963 killing of an African-American bartender, Hattie Carroll, by a wealthy white man, William Zantzinger.
Ricks said although Zantzinger was convicted of manslaughter and served six months in a county jail, Dylan’s song continued to haunt Zantzinger up until his death.
After playing the first version of “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” Ricks said it was a “very direct” and “perfect song.”
“Dylan staves off sentimentality, but he never takes away [Hattie Carroll’s] individual moment in history,” he said.
While “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” is widely accepted as a political song, Ricks said it wasn’t a “general social indictment.”
However, he said the reverence with which Dylan discusses Hattie Carroll is lost in other versions of the song.
Ricks argued that the energy of the later versions “tyrannizes over the real life event and removes the poignancy.”
“Is this a re-performable song?” Ricks asked before playing multiple versions of the song in which Dylan alters the tempo and overall mood of the “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.”
Ricks used each different version to prove that “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” should not be re-performed.
“It’s a disgrace… anyone who wasn’t thrilled by it has something very wrong with him, but anyone who isn’t ashamed that he was thrilled by it has something even more wrong with him,” Ricks said in reference to a faster version of the song in which Dylan is accompanied by a band.
“It’s totally inappropriate and indifferent to Hattie Carroll,” Ricks commented on another version of the song that was also very different from the original.
Ricks playfully challenged members of the audience to defend the other versions of the song.
“Anyone want to defend it and earn my eternal hatred?” Ricks joked.
However, he conceded that “all revisions by geniuses have something to be said about them.”
Several audience members agreed with Ricks, saying the message and reverence was lost in the later versions and the subtlety was destroyed.
Many commented on the crisis of seeming indifference that could be heard in the song’s later versions.
“Certain songs aren’t re-performable,” said College of Fine Arts freshman Leslie Ochoa. “The message was lost. I got into the song and forgot about the actual story.”
College of Arts and Sciences freshman Christina Fonts said she disagreed.
“The first version was definitely the best and I hold professor Ricks in high regard, but I think all songs are re-performable,” Fonts said.
BU alumnus Allan Hutchison-Maxwell said he attended more out of respect for Ricks than Dylan.
“There was a loss of respect in the other versions. It’s not fair to play with that and use someone’s death for entertainment,” he said. “I’m more of a Ricks fan than a Dylan fan though.”
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