![]() ![]() The footnote attached to that paragraph includes this: “The clutch of such songs reflected African-American delight at the sinking of the Titanic, because it signified whitey’s come-uppance, pride coming before a fall and so on. ![]() ![]() but to the group of blues songs that arose to express it decades before Dylan first uses its symbolic clout himself in 1965’s ‘Desolation Row’: a group of songs which includes Hi Henry Brown’s ‘Titanic Blues’: ‘Titanic sinking in the deep blue sea / And the band all playing ‘Nearer My God To Thee’.' " “In 1981’s ‘Caribbean Wind’ (issued on Biograph, 1985).the ‘Street band playing ‘Nearer My God To Thee’' is not only an allusion to the meaning-loaded event of the sinking of the Titanic. Then there is Dylan's evocation of this same sense of foreboding in a rather later song. That summarises concisely the tone and colouring of the whole song." “The most striking evocation of impending catastrophe achieved very simply - in the one arresting line ‘The Titanic sails at dawn'. As I wrote in Song & Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan, he first mentions the Titanic in ‘Desolation Row': Not that it would be Dylan's first allusion to this maritime disaster. ![]() But if it turns out to be true, it's surely a very rare example of his releasing something to tie in so handily with the centenary of a famous event. I know no more - and I can't really “know" even that much. My sources suggest that the forthcoming Bob Dylan album may well include a song about the Titanic: a song that is about 14 minutes long. ![]()
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