“That’s my story, but not where it ends.” — Bob Dylan, “Key West (Philosopher Pirate)”
Fitzgerald said there were no second acts in the American story. But it is, of course, a narrative of second chances. And there’s no more of an American story than Bob Dylan, whose second act may be more memorable than his first.
Robert Polito — poet, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning biographer, and former director of creative writing at the New School — has written what may be the (anti) definitive book on Dylan’s second act. After the Flood: Inside Bob Dylan’s Memory Palace covers the years from “Time Out of Mind” in 1997 through “Rough and Rowdy Ways” in 2020. It’s structured as an abecedarium — twenty-six chapters, A to Z — because Polito explains, he wanted a form that acknowledged the limits of what anyone can know about Dylan. There is no rosebud sled buried in the Tulsa archive. So an alphabet book as good as we are gonna get.
Digging into Dylan’s Tulsa archive, Polito found much blood on the tracks — multiple drafts for every work, songs ripped up and redistributed line by line. The freewheeling spontaneity of Dylan’s first act, Polito suggests, was replaced by something more deliberate: an American folk process merging into literary modernism. A hostage to his own memory palace, Dylan weaves Civil War poetry, Ovid’s exile poems, Homer, and nineteenth-century speeches into songs that know more than any single listener can interpret.
Polito argues that “Rough and Rowdy Ways” is Bob Dylan’s real Nobel Prize speech — his self-reflection on his own art, delivered in his own forms and idioms. This pinnacle of Dylan’s second act is his story, but not where it ends.
Five Takeaways
• Rough and Rowdy Ways Is the Real Nobel Speech. Every song addresses his craft, his legacy, his audience. Dylan’s self-reflection in his own forms and idioms.
• Dylan Works Harder Than Anyone Expects. The Tulsa archive: multiple drafts, songs ripped up, lines redistributed. The spontaneity gave way to something deliberate.
• The Memory Palace Is the Art Itself. Civil War poetry, Ovid, Homer embedded in the songs. No rosebud sled. The songs know more than any listener can hear.
• That’s My Story, But Not Where It Ends. The last line of Key West. Dylan subverts his own definitiveness in the very next breath. Tentativeness all the way through.
• The Police Didn’t Believe He Was Bob Dylan. New Jersey, rain, looking for Springsteen’s house. The more precisely he told the truth, the more they thought he was lying.
About the Guest
Robert Polito is a poet, critic, and biographer. After the Flood is published by FSG.
References
After the Flood: Inside Bob Dylan’s Memory Palace: https://www.amazon.com/After-Flood-Inside-Dylans-Memory/dp/0374610924
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.
Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow
Chapters:
00:00:31 Introduction: Fitzgerald, second acts, and A Complete Unknown
00:02:57 Team Dylan? No — tentativeness and self-skepticism
00:04:00 The abecedarium: twenty-six chapters, A to Z, no rosebud sled
00:06:13 Dylan the movie guy: always watching films on the tour bus
00:07:13 The memory palace: how much those late songs know
00:09:26 The interlude: the Grammy lifetime achievement speech and starting over
00:12:11 Time Out of Mind and the Tulsa archive: how hard Dylan works
00:15:55 Folk process meets literary modernism: Eliot, Joyce, Stein
00:18:34 Lanois, the spoken vs. written word, and why albums are just a stage
00:21:41 Rough and Rowdy Ways as Dylan’s real Nobel Prize speech
00:24:19 Key West: that’s my story, but not where it ends
00:26:04 The sacrificial quality: he was given something and shouldn’t squander it
00:30:24 Race, the civil war, and Love and Theft as minstrel acknowledgment
00:34:32 Murder Most Foul: take me back to Tulsa, to the scene of the crime
00:40:56 Picked up by police in New Jersey looking for Springsteen’s house