The (unlinkable) OED defines "Dylanesque":
Resembling or reminiscent of Bob Dylan or his work, esp. his songs or records, which are characterized by poetic, often enigmatic, lyrics, a distinctive, abrasive vocal delivery, and music rooted in traditional American styles, such as folk, blues, and country; (sometimes) spec. typical or redolent of the folk music of his early records, which combined lyrics of social protest with acoustic guitar and harmonica playing.
I read that definition out loud to Meade and — saying I thought "poetic, often enigmatic, lyrics" got to the heart of it — asked him to dredge up a "Dylanesque" line from the junkpile of his memories. He said:
And she buttoned her boot
And straightened her suit
Then she said, “Don’t get cute”
That's
"Fourth Time Around."
I said the first thing that came to my mind
was:
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
But I knew I only thought that
because I remember Bob on "60 Minutes" saying:
I don’t know how I got to write those songs.... All those early songs were almost magically written. Ah… “Darkness at the break of noon, shadows even the silver spoon, a handmade blade, the child’s balloon…” Well, try to sit down and write something like that.
If I'd really consulted the junkpile of my memories, I'd have said:
You know it balances on your head
Just like a mattress balances
On a bottle of wine
So you can see how Meade and I go together — he's got the suit getting straightened and I've got the leopard-skin pillbox hat balancing on the head. There is order over chaos in the midst of the poetic, often enigmatic.
By the way, I'm working on writing up my post for the 1964 entry in my "imaginary music project," and by chance it contains
a ridiculous Dylan lyric:
Now the beach is deserted except for some kelp...
You always responded when I needed your help
Is that Dylanesque? It's not enigmatic. It's just a very ordinary statement about a relationship — "You always responded when I needed your help" — and daring to put the least possible effort into finding a rhyme for "help."
The best advice re song lyrics and "help" — which only has 2 other rhymes ("whelp" and "yelp") — is don't put it at the end of a line. When The Beatles wrote a whole song
"Help," they kept it at the beginning of lines, and made the words at the ends of lines all easy to rhyme ("down," "way," "ways," "insecure").
Do The Beatles have their own entry in the Oxford English Dictionary? Yes, but it's just "Beatle" — "Applied
attributively to the hair-style or other characteristics of ‘The Beatles’ or of their imitators." The examples — all from the mid-60s — are about things other than poetry: "the Beatle cut," "Beatle fans," "Beatle wallpapers," "Beatle wigs."
And that sends me back to the enigmatic junkpile of Dylan lyrics. Dylan has 5 song lyrics with "wig" (and if you can name all 5 you get a Bob Dylan merit badge):
1 & 2 (the same line is in 2 different songs): "... they’re beatin’ the devil out of a guy/Who’s wearing a powder-blue wig..."
3. "... Jezebel the nun she violently knits/A bald wig for Jack the Ripper..."
4. "I can write you poems, make a strong man lose his mind/I’m no pig without a wig/I hope you treat me kind..."
5. "She took off her wheel, took off her bell/Took off her wig, said, 'How do I smell?'"
I wish I
knew, but I've got this
anosmia/I wish I could wake up and smell the
cosmea...
IN THE COMMENTS: khematite remembers a 6th Bob Dylan "wig" lyric (which was obscured from my search because it's "wig-hat" (and I've always found that a funny expression, because a wig is a kind of hat, isn't it?))?
I sat with my high-heeled sneakers on
Waiting to play tennis in the noonday sun
I had my white shorts rolled up past my waist
And my wig-hat was falling in my face
But they wouldn’t let me on the tennis court
Hey! Man in shorts! Bob Dylan in shorts. Has that ever even happened?
I'm going to say no.
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