This is a young man’s song. The personal made universal as a 23-year-old Dylan tried to make sense of the kaleidoscope world he witnessed and his efforts to find his way in that world. The false leaders become clear, the bromides repeated by parents and teachers fall apart and he fights at the efforts to restrict him, to force him on a path that is not his:
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
“It’s Alight Ma” is not merely a rant, it reaches deeper, it’s a howl, the prophet disgusted by what he sees and unloading on anyone who can hear. Reminiscent of “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall,” I think more of Alan Ginsberg’s Howl and its unrelenting long lines. Dylan recorded this seven-minute song in one take, word after word, line after line pouring out in a barely controlled frenzy. Along the way, we hear some of his most memorable lines.
It’s a dark song – one critic called it a “grim masterpiece” – and fits with some of his earlier protest songs. He is not a protest singer. He is not a folk singer. He is a songwriter trying to find his way, offering no answers. It is not the poet’s job to offer solutions, the poet needs to help us see the world in a different way. This song as much as any other Dylan wrote up to that point unleashed a different type of songwriting: everything was fair game.
Grabbing the Lapels to Make Us Pay Attention
The opening lines let us know the ride that will follow:
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying
Yes, the first line echoes Arthur Koestler’s novel Darkness at Noon about the atrocities of Stalinist Russia, but this is more than political commentary. Dylan would reject all systems and set the stage with apocalyptic images, the world upside down. By the second line he makes clear that nothing, especially your money (silver spoon), can shield you from the torrent to come.
Others hear the Book of Ecclesiastes, “I observed all deeds beneath the sun, and behold all is futile.” And as the song goes on, it sounds as if Dylan has spent his time reading Sartre as the song dives into existential quandaries.
The fury only builds after this first verse, with Dylan singing the words as if he cannot get them out fast enough. He takes on the government, corporations, capitalism, religion, sexual morals, schools and anything else in his sight.
Listening as a teenager, this song had a lasting impact. It gave a voice to the hypocrisy that we could all see, but pretended did not exist. It gave music to anger and doubts. It showed what language could do. There was no turning back.
Quotable Lines
This song probably has more quotable lines than any other Dylan song. In high school, I heard a priest build a sermon around the line:
He not busy being born is busy dying
Jimmy Carter cited that line in his inaugural address and Al Gore used it too.
When Dylan toured with the Band in 1974 not long after Richard Nixon’s resignation, many people focused on these lines and they brought down cheers in concert:
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked
And that may make it relevant today with the inauguration of another president.
Other lines make clear the disdain for the inequality and consumerism built into society:
money doesn’t talk, it swears
and
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred
And if you think you are special, that you can stand apart from the chaos, the singer warns you:
Advertising signs they con
You into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you
Seeing the schools as nothing more than feeder systems for the corrupt economic machine:
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Writing and Recording the Song
Dylan wrote the song in the summer of 1964 while vacationing in Woodstock. He first performed it on October 10, 1964, in Philadelphia. Dylan took it into the studio on January 15, 1965, made one false start (Spotify YouTube) and then recorded the seven minute, twenty-nine second song in one take.
Dylan Loves this Song and Marvels Over It
On several occasions, Dylan has looked back with wild surmise that he wrote this song. In a 2004 interview with Ed Bradley for 60 Minutes, he said, “‘Darkness at the break of noon / Shadows even the silver spoon / The hand-made blade, the child’s balloon . . .’ There’s a magic to that, and it’s not Siegfried and Roy kinda magic. It’s a different kind of penetrating magic. And I did it at one time. . . I did it once, and I can do other things now. But I can’t do that.” (The Bradley interview is fascinating. YouTube)
He told Robert Hilburn, “I don’t think I could sit down now and write ‘It’s Alright Ma’ again. I wouldn’t even know where to begin, but I can still sing it.”
In 1997, he told Jon Pareles “Stuff like, ‘It’s Alright, Ma,’ just the alliteration in that blows me away. And I can also look back and know where I was tricky and where I was really saying something that just happened to have a spark of poetry to it.”
Live Performances
Dylan has played this song live 772 times in concert (for those who like math: that’s nearly 100 hours playing one song). He has played it throughout his career. Here’s a live version from London in 2000. YouTube
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YouTube: https://youtu.be/_CJHbfkROow?si=bN79TTPK_wJi1rZL
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/5Oer8yskMaCGXwGSfM7xr9?si=f54e296da65d49ca