"I wrote that song at Ernest Hemingway's house. I think there's a lot of him in that song."
"I don't know for sure, but I suspect it."
Bob Dylan made this comment a few nights ago in Liverpool, after singing “Key West (Philosopher Pirate).” Should we take it at face value? Or does a bit of detective work and some active listening reveal more?
Hemingway had a house in Key West and lived there for about eight years, with his second wife and their children, from 1929 until 1937, when he left for Europe to report on the Spanish Civil War. He wrote To Have and Have Not in Key West and used the city and its characters in the novel’s setting. His home still stands as a museum, open 365 days a year. So I suppose it’s conceivable that Dylan sat in the garden one afternoon, hoodie pulled down low, and composed a song with Ernest in mind. Or, being who he is, was granted special dispensation to sit at Hemingway’s desk during hours closed to the public. It’s a nice thing to imagine.
We know that Bob admires Hemingway’s writing. Dylan researcher Scott Warmuth has turned up snippets of Papa’s prose in Chronicles Volume 1 and in the song “Summer Days.” Dylan praised Hemingway’s economical style in an early interview with Nat Hentoff. So I suppose we can see why Bob says that “Key West (Philosopher Pirate)” has a lot of Hemingway in it. Because it’s a song about the city of Key West!
Or not. “Key West (Philosopher Pirate)” is about an enchanted land. It’s about a place beyond L. Frank Baum’s “shifting sands,” a place we’ve never lived, like the land of Oz. A paradise divine of innocence and purity. A land where “death is on the wall” and if you’ve got something to confess, you’d better say it. In Dylan’s “Key West,” song is everywhere: a radio signal comes in from very far away, “clear as can be,” and makes you fall so deep in love you can hardly see. Even the wind, soft with “healing virtues,” carries traces of music; Dylan buries the titles of several old tunes within his lyrics.
So where can we find Hemingway in Dylan’s imaginary city? I see a couple things in the song that might relate to the writer’s life, but nothing obvious, no big-game hunting or sport-fishing, and no lines from his stories or novels. One connection is Hemingway’s Catholicism. Dylan’s version of “Key West” is a place of the convent home and the “bleedin’ heart disease”: the Sacred Heart of Jesus. And Hemingway, being neither innocent nor pure, had many reasons to “confess.” He abandoned his wife and children for the European war and another woman, and not long after that he married for a fourth time. Dylan also mentions “looking for immortality” twice in the song; Hemingway may have found a human version of eternity through his writing. So in a few simple ways we might hear allusions to the great novelist in Dylan’s song.
In any case, Dylan says he doesn’t know for sure about Hemingway’s presence in “Key West (Philosopher Pirate).” He “thinks” so. He “suspects.” Like a detective. Like maybe we should be detectives.
Like that perceptive Dylan sleuth, Scott Warmuth. He investigated how there is truly a lot of Ernest Hemingway in Chronicles Volume 1. Perhaps you’ve read that piece already, and maybe this one too. But if not, with all credit to Warmuth, and apologies if I’m getting anything wrong, let me attempt to summarize one (and only one) of his arguments: Bob Dylan borrows both language and ideas from Hemingway’s Snows of Kilimanjaro and transfers them to an episode in Chronicles. He uses the writer’s words about “telescoping” a life story “into one paragraph if you could get it right” while describing his own travails in the chapter on “Oh Mercy.” In this way, Dylan condenses major thematic points of Hemingway’s novel into his own biography. Warmuth, by comparing the shared context of the two manuscripts, along with related work by William Burroughs, discovers a specific intent in this borrowing: Dylan requires us to actively participate in his art. I encourage you to go to the source for a more detailed explanation.
Warmuth shows us that an entire book is “telescoped” into Chronicles Volume 1, along with lines from many more. His detective work demonstrates that if we read those additional texts, we find deeper layers of meaning.
Bob Dylan insists that we look under the surface of his words, if we don’t want to be like his old nemesis Mr. Jones.
I suggest that Dylan’s comment in Liverpool was not about Hemingway per se, but a clue about the buried treasure within the pirate’s song. I suggest it’s a reference to his previous work with Hemingway. I suggest he was telling his audience, all across the world on the wireless (Youtube) radio, that as with Snows of Kilimanjaro in Chronicles, another story is hidden within, telescoped within, “Key West (Philosopher Pirate).” Dylan “suspects,” I believe, that some detective work might help us find a stolen gem or two in the shadows of his song: on “Mystery Street,” perhaps.
One story lifted from obscurity and hidden inside “Key West (Philosopher Pirate)” is a forty page episode from my memoir: The Golden Bird.
If you’ve read some of my writing on this topic before, and not been sold, or even if you can kind of see it, but not completely, I invite you to try again. In my excitement to get my tale out into the world, I’ve published bunches of pieces, on my old blog and here on Substack, that required more editing, more revision, more clarification—really, just more understanding on my own part. I’ve now spent more than four years puzzling out what Dylan has done and why. I’ve made lots and lots of mistakes and in my detective work I’ve followed a few imaginative and false leads. But I believe the latest revision of Chapter One of my book, “I Don’t Love Nobody”: Hidden Stories from Bob Dylan’s Rough and Rowdy Ways, tells the story as best I can. My chapter is long and full of arcane facts, but logical and clear, and I think anyone interested in the late-period themes of Bob Dylan will have their attention rewarded. I am currently republishing all chapters of “I Don’t Love Nobody” on Substack, in advance of a paper edition in the new year. I have finally received permission from Universal Music to reprint Dylan’s lyrics.
I understand that many folks will think I’m “reading in” to what they perceive as a stray stage comment from Dylan. I can see why. On the surface, it might seem that way. Here’s what the great music critic Paul Nelson wrote in 1965, in Little Sandy Review:
In the mid-Sixties, Dylan’s talent evoked such an intense degree of personal participation from both his admirers and detractors that he could not be permitted so much as a random action. Hungry for a sign, the world used to follow him around, just waiting for him to drop a cigarette butt. When he did they’d sift through the remains, looking for significance. The scary part is they’d find it—and it really would be significant.
I am actually willing to permit Bob a random action. As a human. But on the stage, he is an artist, well aware of his place in history. Over all the years, on the stage, from Newport to Liverpool, he has given us new ways to hear song. His voice, his phrasing, and his lyrics have given us new ways of seeing the world. On the stage, he defies time by mingling sound and thought from the 1890s with the 1960s, by integrating ideas and melody from the 1920s with the 2020s. On the stage, he might improvise some jazz, he might create a new run on the piano, he might change the words and the tunes, he might tell a silly joke, but he doesn’t much do random. He plays and speaks with intent.
On the stage, near the end of his performing career, he is aware of our participation in his art.
To be clear, I’d like to point out that Dylan detective Scott Warmuth does not endorse my story. On the other hand, he does not not endorse my story. As far as I can tell, he is aware of it but does not wish to engage. My guess (just a guess) is that the End-of-Days Christian theme of the section of my book that Dylan borrows from is just too far gone, too far outside his range and comfort zone. I get that. It’s freaky. It’s religion. I personally abhor the role of religion in our current “political world.” But Bob Dylan has always had a religious bent, from way back until now. From “Goodbye Jimmy Reed”:
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory
Go tell it on the Mountain, go tell the real story
Also, although Dylan uses the technique of “telescoping,” he does wildly different things with my text than he does with Hemingway, Jack London, and Henry Timrod. Dylan’s art always changes, even as he returns to certain themes. I can’t expect that anyone except myself, the guy who lived the story Dylan replays in “Key West (Philosopher Pirate),” could really figure out what’s going on. I’m here to help you participate, to be an active listener, if you so choose.
I agree with Bob. There’s a LOT of Hemingway (a lot of hidden stories) in “Key West (Philosopher Pirate).”