Born-in-Time Keynote for the Seventh Age of Bob: the Namby-Pamby Christmas Story of How Lubavitch DylanChrist Came

Down to Earth to be Human Just Like NurseryRhyme Scholar Michael Gray Grizzle
A nursery-rhyme riddle-parable spoken, by unavoidable critical default, against the twofold critical beast Messrs Michael Gray and Andrew Muir the nursery-rhyme builder(s) of Dylanology under the red sky: in (inverted) Monty Pythonesque mockery of the Incarnation (of the dark side of [dramatic] irony in Eric Idles disingenuous introduction of the very wonderful Mr Bob Dylan on Saturday Night Live in 1979) and tribute to blow-hot-blow-cold Shelleyesque ice maiden and Scandiwegian hoot Karl Erik Andersen, webmaster (and complacent toastmaster) of www.expectingrain.com in snowy rainy aurora-enshrouded fairy-tale Norway feeding all the obsessivecompulsive-disorder drainpipe-sniffing Dylanological trolls across the muddiest superhighway in the universe. (When he gonna wake up?) Youll pay the price. Adamantly dedicated to Professor John Bryant and the ape-men in his ancestry and in his furry Saviours Mitochondrial Eve-to-Virgin-Mary ancestry: the evolution of the pre-Don Was BORN IN TIME into its full-blown nosacrifice Kol Nidre-parodying Messianic version under the red sky of Ronnie Keohanes, Arnold Fruchtenbaums and, unbeknown to them, P B Shelleys Petra. (But theres nothing Darwinistic about it, John or Scott. Not sure Darwinistic is a real word, Bob.) John A Bryant, evolutionary (old-earth) creationist, is the worlds greatest Dylanologist, the professorial finger of the new Bobological wisdom, and the Mr Jones of Human Origins: he knows the very mitochondrial DNA of Dylan lyrics and Jesus Christs, er, paternal ancestry. (He misquoted me as having called him a devil Darwinian when in fact Id called him a Darwinist devil. Literalism indeed.) Indeed, the new Dylanology already hurts, as indicated by the arrow on the doorpost condemning the Old Guard: all the way from New Orleans (Dahomey of voodoo) to New Jerusalem. The unatoned-for breadcrumb sins of the Dylan literati: cast them on the waters like the implicit good deeds of Ecclesiastes 11:1 to see what (grotesque parodies of) Dylanological paradoxes may come back at you (with a vengeance). So many nuances to pick up on. John pronounced to me in 2004, He [Michael Gray] is wrong about Jokerman being Jesus. Bob and the professors and birds of prey.
Tangled up in Bob: Leading Dylanologist Christopher Ricks concludes his obsessive pursuit of an elusive quarry in Dylan's Visions of Sin Sean O'Hagan Sunday September 14, 2003 The Observer

Dylan's Visions of Sin by Christopher Ricks Viking 25, pp517 Bob Dylan is fast becoming rock's equivalent of James Joyce, his singular and continuing body of work increasingly picked over by academics and biographers.

(Or by what nobodys-come-close Mick Brown calls home theorists. Would Scott Warmuth, whom the Dylan academics and biographers read and to whom they refer, even in writing, yet without explicitly naming him, be one of these?) Like breadcrumb sins of critical omission? If nursery-rhyme expert Michael Gray can read this riddle, under the red sky, Ill give him a groat (or a handful of breadcrumbs to perform tashlich at Passover, using Ecclesiastes 11:1 as pretext inside the Tangled Gates of Yudelson with Larry Sloman resting in the fields). The Bob Dylan magazine with the pretentious title of The Bridge writes, in the early 00s, at http://www.two-riders.co.uk/jotting13.html:
Perhaps it's time to call a moratorium on critical books about old Bobby. The Dylan critical genre is safe in the capable hands of Michael Gray, Paul Williams or (forthcoming) Christopher Ricks, but such premiership division Dylan writers are few and far between.

Resting in the fields. The complacent should beware of the mysterious and revolutionary Prof John Bryant:
Im only the professorial finger of the new Dylanological wisdom. I want a little conversation with your gray matter. MICHAEL: Away!

How could Dylan, in spite of a certain Super-Mitzvah encrypted within BORN IN TIME, ever make atonement for falling short of the critical glory of Michael Gray? In Song & Dance Man III (2000) p 672 barking Michael wields his big critical stick to beat Bob at the game of nursery rhyme:
The mere inclusion of Born in Time disrupts. It belongs to another album1. Empire Burlesque, perhaps. Being charitable, Knocked Out Loaded. At any rate it has nothing to do with the use of nursery rhyme or fairy tale, and little to do with anything beyond the marketing notion that there ought to be a Seductive Big Ballad on each Bob Dylan album. It has two wonderful lines youre comin through to me in black and white, youre blowin down the shaky street but in the end its opaqueness exasperates and smacks of pretension: not only does the title provoke the question Born in time for what? and then fail to answer it, but it leaves you feeling that Bob Dylan doesnt know what he means either.

(Would that be reeling with this feeling?) Dylan had so little time to fail. James Orchard Halliwell in The Nursery Rhymes of England p 187, a pre-twentieth-

Like Jesus does to a religion other than Judaism?

century collection (and, it turns out, a book referenced by Gray in a footnote) p 229, no. 598:
There was a little nobby colt, His name was Nobby Gray; His head was made of pouce straw; His tail was made of hay; He could ramble, he could trot, He could carry a mustard-pot, Round the town of Woodstock, Hey, Jenny, hay!

In Chronicles pp 115-116 Dylan, ironically, seems to conflate, quite bizarrely, the antithetical Christian and Jewish models of Messiahship:
I found myself stuck in Woodstock . . . It seems like the world has always needed a scapegoatsomeone to lead the charge against the Roman Empire. But America wasnt the Roman Empire and someone else would have to step up and volunteer.

Compare the interview exclusive with John Preston in 2004:

I wasnt the toastmaster of any generation and that notion had to be pulled up by the roots.

(But many contributors to www.expectingrain.com just arent getting the message.) Matthew 21 New International Version - UK (NIVUK):
1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away. 4 This took place to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet: 5Say to the Daughter of Zion,'See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.' 6The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

Hosanna in the highest!

Rosh Hoshanah (Song & Dance Man III p 663; compare Mark Landiss Rosh Hoshanna at the Tangled Up in Jews website) to him who comes riding on a donkey in the name of nursery rhyme under the red sky, leaving tell-tale breadcrumb si[g]ns all the way back to the Tangled Up in Jews website. Michael, like the high priest Caiaphas, presses Dylan-Christ once, presses him twice: tell us [plainly] (John 10:24).
You pressed me once, you pressed me twice You hang the flame, youll pay the price Oh babe, that fire Is still smokin

GOD KNOWS why exasperated Michael, left reeling with this feeling, behaves with a petulance, reminiscent, (ill-)fittingly, of Caiaphas himself. Matthew 26:62-64 (New International Version):
Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, "Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?" 63. But Jesus remained silent. The high priest said to him, "I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, [5] the Son of God." 64. "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. "But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven." 65. Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, "He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. 66. What do you think?" "He is worthy of death," they answered.

In the moderately uncompelling Michaels footnote to p 566:

An artist as immoderately compelling as Bob Dylan is to those he gets his hook into inevitably attracts oceans of this specious amateurish commentary, as you will know if you have ever wandered through the websites and newsgroups devoted to him the muddiest superhighway in the universe or the deliberately unedited pages of the Dignity magazine.

Or filched Eccles cakes Larry Yudelson didnt even know hed dropped breadcrumbs from. Not this time, Michael. Intertextuality on the muddiest superhighway in the universe. Lets get some specious amateurish commentary: Chad Chandler writes of Born In Time Lyrics (Oh Mercy Outtakes) at his web blog:
One of my favorite Bob Dylan songs is the original recording of Born In Time, an outtake from the vaunted Oh Mercy sessions. As Wikipedia notes: Two more outtakes, Born In Time and God Knows, were set aside and later rewritten and re-recorded for Dylans next album, Under the Red Sky. Versions of both songs from the Oh Mercy sessions were also included on The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs. The Oh Mercy outtake of Born In Time was one of those Dylan

performances that so surrendered itself to the moment that to decry the lyrical slips would be to mock sincerity itself, wrote an enamored Heylin. The stripped-down bootleg of Born In Time is a classic. Though the audio quality is pretty poor, the depth of emotion in Dylans voice soars above the scratches and hisses on the tape. The later version of the song that appeared on Under The Red Sky was a soulless iteration. Its almost comical in comparison. Dylan tried to rectify his error by releasing an earlier recording of the song on Tell Tale Signs: the Bootleg Series Vol. 8. It came pretty close to capturing the passion of the original, but its just not the same. Because there are several versions of the song floating around, including Eric Claptons decent cover, it can be hard to track down a proper set of lyrics for the original recording. The words differ from the lyrics on Bob Dylans official website, so I thought Id post them here for posterity.

David Bowling writes at The Discographer on the web sometime in 2008:

I have now listened to Under A Red Sky four times in the last two days and frankly I dont get it. I also have the feeling that this may have been Dylans intent. On the surface it appears to be a childrens album of nonsensical nursery rhymes or possibly The Brothers Grimm on crack. Dylan had been busy working on the Traveling Wilburys second album with George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty and Roy Orbison. Looking back it seems that Dylan enjoyed his time with The Wilburys as he appeared relaxed and happy. It may have been that for once all the focus and expectations were not solely on him. It was basically a fun time for all involved. I think that some of that whimsy carried over to Under A Red Sky. The problem was that only Dylan was in on the joke. Don and David Was were hired to produce the album. This was not a good choice as they were much to pop oriented and slick for Dylans sound. Im not sure that they really understood him or his music. Then there was the whos who of musicians making contributions to this project: George Harrison, Slash, David Crosby, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Elton John, and a host of others. I find that the music itself is fine and fairly melodic. It is the incomprehensibility of the lyrics that is the problem. Dylans gravelly voice does not help matters either.

Dylans intent (in exasperating Michael) may be why in, or accompanying, the liner notes (containing only song lyrics) further explanatory notes on the songs were offered. I knew the offer was totally disingenuous so I never bothered to waste postage and admin time following such a hopeless and forlorn thing up. But, as I read in THE TELEGRAPH fanzine in the early 90s, plenty of fans did: to the inevitable non-reply. In the mid-00s I emailed foggy, alias Dan Levy, through the bobdylan.com website, in response to the ubiquitous and disingenuous Do I understand your question man? concerning the fate of the extra notes. His reply: Nobody ever did know what became of those. I wrote back, knowing I wouldnt get a reply, saying that this was beside the point and that the real point was whose brainchild was the actual idea in the first place. Was Dylan a little anxious? One of the comments under Bowlings review - from Dave Of Tas, Oct 12, 2008 at 8:18 pm:

Not only a grandchild, but as was revealed a couple of years ago, Bob was actually newly a father around this time. Under The Red Sky is one of my favourite Bob Dylan albums ever and I'm always disapointed that more people don't 'get it'. It seems ellusive to listeners, I'm not sure why, I think perhaps it speaks to a mood that, like Street Legal, people don't find themselves in too often. People often say it came right after Oh Mercy, but according to Chronicles, all but two songs from Oh Mercy were written in early 1988, so there is a pretty substantial time difference. Songs like TV Talking Song and Unbelievable are perfectly good Dylan protest rock songs, nothing out of the ordinary, and some damn good players on these tracks. Born In Time and God Knows are two songs from Oh Mercy that are undeniable classics, I actually prefer the Under The Red Sky version to the melodrama of the Oh Mercy outtake version, . . .

Clay Clifton writes at his Meet Me in Montauk web blog on 11 July 2010:
Song of the Day #721: Born in Time Bob Dylan The best-known, and best-loved, track on Under the Red Sky is Born in Time. This song contains one of Dylans most soaring melodies and its touching to hear him sing it in his diminishing voice. This album was the first time, to my ears, that Dylans voice turned a corner from just being creaky and unusual to actively failing him. On his albums in the 90s and 00s, his range would become smaller and smaller and his voice would break on some notes. That started here. But despite that limitation, he manages to deliver a sublime vocal performance of Born in Time.

Then a commenter calls him a total amateur. From an UNCUT interview I located on the web (Tell Tale Signs Special, The Real Dylan, Rob Hughes, date unclear), album producer Don Was:
At the time, I didn't even know that "Born In Time" was left over from Oh Mercy. Id never even heard that version til someone played me a bootleg copy a few years ago. At the session, he just sat down at the piano and played it for everyone. Once the groove was established, Bob yielded the piano bench to [Bruce] Hornsby and picked up an acoustic guitar for the take. There was so much going on at that moment that I didn't really focus properly on the lyrics as they were going by. It took years for me to realize how deep that song is. I mean, really fucking deep. For a while, I felt that we didn't do it justice in the studio. I've listened to it recently though and it's right on the money. There is a world-weariness in Bob's vocal that is integral to the song, you know..."You can have what's left of me". Getting that point across is more important than any little 'production' gimmicks that may have been overlooked. It 's a mood that foreshadows the sensibility of Time Out Of Mind. It's certainly the crown jewel of Under The Red Sky.

From www.8notes.com:

Dylan's 1990s began with Under the Red Sky (1990), an odd about-face from the serious Oh Mercy. This album, dedicated to Gabby Goo Goo, puzzlingly consisted of childish songs, including 'Under the Red Sky', 'Wiggle Wiggle', and 'Cat's in the Well', all recorded straight-on without any of the studio wizardry of 'Oh Mercy'. A later discovery by biographer Howard Sounes of Dylan's concealed 1985 marriage and child makes sense out of the nonsense songs. They seemingly were written for the entertainment of Dylan's five year old daughter, Desiree Gabrielle (Gabby Goo Goo?) Dennis-Dylan. Beside these songs sits 'Born in Time', regarded as one of his most sincere love songs.

So sincere it makes a twin with SWEETHEART LIKE YOU (1983) to charm the panties off Michael Gray on p 466:
In fact the sham is so transparent that you feel the only reason for such songs existing at all is that Dylan has decided that each of his albums should have at least one of these charm-the-pants-off-em Big Ballads, as part of a commercial formula. A revolting decision, a defeat of the integrity, from the artist who overturned all these awful formulae in the first place. This phoney Crusty Charm derives not from observation of real feeling or real speech but straight from the ad-men.

Chris Gregory was left, on the foggy web, with this feeling:
Born In Time is a kind of experiment in romanticism. It juggles a kind of poetic mysticism with romantic clich in ways that are sometimes quite striking.

(In this respect its Shelleyan.) Great piece charting Dylans lyrical evolution, or de-evolution, from the mid-Eighties onwards: the very thing Gray decries. But, indeed, getting back to professional Dylan criticism, Michael Grays critical poodle Andrew Muir in Troubadour: Early & Late Songs of Bob Dylan (2003), taking his cue from Gray (to whom he regularly sent by email rec.music.dylan posts that Michael would, officially, never soil his eyes by reading of his own original volition):
Born in Time has two problems; it is the wrong version and it is on the wrong album. The song comes from the Oh Mercy sessions, where it was a plain, unadorned version relying on Dylans vocal performance alone to make it a thing of majesty and splendour. This is self-consciously trying to be that very thing and therefore completely failing. It is most insensitively placed on the album, and may as well have had a voiceover introducing it: heres the big ballad, folks, wait until you hear the sumptuous backing Even in its preferable state it would not have fitted on under the red sky, but would then have at least been a thoroughly welcome visitor rather than this egomaniac limelight hogger.

Majesty and splendour? Muirs tone is Messianic although, notwithstanding his apocalyptic (unveiling of secrets) observation that CATS IN THE WELLs servant is at the door alludes to the Parousia, by snubbing BORN IN TIME from his otherwise extensive treatment of under the red skys nursery-rhymesoaked lyrics, in a way that actually doesnt parrot his hero, he effectively takes the same stance as Gray by default; and this is laden with dramatic critical irony. An egomaniac limelight hogger had to stoop down in lowly manner to be Born in Time just like me [the Saved-lampooning Michael

Gray]. But when and how? Chris Gregory, From The Pen Of Chris Gregory, on the foggy web:
The relationship being described arguably needs to be anchored more clearly in a specific time and place to engage the listener. Born In Time thus never really delivers what the intriguing nature of its refrain and the evocative quality of its earlier verses promises us.

Ronnie Keohane and John D Williams, boy and girl under the red sky, coauthored some essays around 1999 on under the red sky in the foggy web of destiny (overall title not clear, but currently located here: http://www.alilyamongthorns.8m.com/2rkUTRSjdw.html). Williams writes on the fearful symmetry of the album in a way that passed Michael Gray by:
As Unbelievable seemed to return to the world of Wiggle Wiggle, a public life of society, so then does Born In Time return to the boy and girl to parallel the song Under The Red Sky. Of course, Born In Time is a love song but it too takes place under the red sky - the truth is eternal but here in place of the eternal boy and girl -outside of time -- are these two - more fleshly than the semaphores of Under the Red Sky - because these two are as the title says - Born In Time.

The Word became fleshly: the Oh Mercy out-take version became incarnated, via the ways of nature, in the full-blown Messianic version of the next album. Keohane, a Messianic Jewess from a family whose ancestors converted from Judaism to Catholicism two-hundred years ago (a direct line of descent without any Tucson Arizona hotel-room visions then or since as far as I know), missed, with utmost dramatic irony, the opportunity to toot the horn of her own, presumably papal, tradition. From The Crossroads Initiative, a ministry of Dr Marcellino DAmbrosio (on the worldwide web; I had been searching for BORN IN TIMEs allusion to the Incarnation since time out of mind):
The Incarnation: The Creator of Time is Born in Time St. Leo the Great Early Church Father and Doctor of the Church This excerpt from a Letter by St. Leo the Great (Ep. 31, 2-3: PL 54, 791-793) is used in the Roman Office of Readings for December 17. Saint Leo emphasizes the meaning of the genealogies of Jesus given us in Luke and Matthew's gospels--that Jesus was truly one of us, possessing a complete human nature. He did not merely appear in human form, as in the biblical types and scriptural symbols of the Old Testament. The mystery of our reconciliation with God recorded in the Bible could not have occurred unless he had stooped to assume our lowly nature even while fully possessing the divine nature of his heavenly father.
To speak of our Lord, the son of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as true and perfect man is of no value to us if we do not believe that he is descended from the line of ancestors set out in the Gospel. [Take note,

Professor John Bryant of Christians in Science]

Matthews gospel begins by setting out the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham, and then traces his human descent by bringing his ancestral line down to his mothers husband, Joseph. On the other hand, Luke traces his parentage backward step by step to the actual father of mankind, to show that both the first and the last Adam share the same nature.

No doubt the Son of God in his omnipotence could have taught and sanctified men by appearing to them in a semblance of human form as he did to the patriarchs and prophets, when for instance he engaged in a wrestling contest or entered into conversation with them, or when he accepted their hospitality and even ate the food they set before him. But these appearances were only types, signs that mysteriously foretold the coming of one who would take a true human nature from the stock of the patriarchs who had gone before him. No mere figure, then, fulfilled the mystery of our reconciliation with God, ordained from all eternity. The Holy Spirit had not yet come upon the Virgin nor had the power of the Most High overshadowed her, so that within her spotless womb Wisdom might build itself a house and the Word become flesh. The divine nature and the nature of a servant were to be united in one person so that the Creator of time might be born in time, and he through whom all things were made might be brought forth in their midst. For unless the new man, by being made in the likeness of sinful flesh, had taken on himself the nature of our first parents, unless he had stooped to be one in substance with his mother while sharing the Fathers substance and, being alone free from sin, united our nature to his, the whole human race would still be held captive under the dominion of Satan. The Conquerors victory would have profited us nothing if the battle had been fought outside our human condition. But through this wonderful blending the mystery of new birth shone upon us, so that through the same Spirit by whom Christ was conceived and brought forth we too might be born again in a spiritual birth; and in consequence the evangelist declares the faithful to have been born not of blood, nor of the desire of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Quite some unwelcome visitor. John 1 (New International Version):

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it. 6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husbands will, but born of God.

M F Unger in Demons in the World Today p 167:

By rejecting Jesus Christ, God incarnate, Judaism temporarily forfeited its high calling and place in Gods purpose in history, until the Jews turn to Christ at his second advent (Zechariah 12:1013:1; Romans 11:25-36). Then their spiritual blindness shall be lifted and they shall be delivered from the demonic delusion that has rested upon them (Matthew 12:43-45) since they recklessly cried, His blood be on us, and on our children (Matthew 27:25).

Dylan-Christ became namby-pamby kindergarten flesh, this time, babe, to be human just like rebellious hip Zen Michael at Sunday school; and, as narrator of BORN IN TIME, straddles Messianic time, like a code in the lyrics, from Gethsemane, this time, babe, to the Parousia, next time (Rebbe), addressing the Jewish people including Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky of the ChabadLubavitch sect of Judaism over dinner or otherwise. Indeed, BORN IN TIME is IN THE GARDEN Revisited; but just like the Jews missed the prophetic

meaning of their own scriptures this time, Michael Gray (along with his cybermut Andrew Muir, aka Homer) missed the prophetic meaning of the capstone of under the red sky by rejecting it, at least in its album, er, incarnation, as irrelevant to the albums central theme (though they didnt know what it was). So it is monstrously ironic that Gray and Muir myopically mistook nursery rhyme to be the albums central theme when in fact nursery rhyme, apocalyptic or otherwise, is but the vehicle of the albums real central theme: Atonement. There are none so blind as those disbelieving adults and nursery-rhyme scholars who wont see with or without Bruno Bettelheims help. Michael. Gray p 641, quoting, apparently, Bettelheim: But a voice used to repent . . . and state the truth, redeems us. Truer words have never been spoken or broken. See also Gray p 641 footnote 9 on Andersen (Hans Christian, not Karl Erik) as: an author of stories not at all for children but for unbelieving adults. Although critical dog-in-a-manger Michael had, in his second edition at least (1980 or 81), found the Incarnation to be a little too babyish and Sunday schoolish for his personal critical taste, he failed in his babyish scholarly preoccupation (for most of the Nineties) with under the red skys apocalyptic nursery rhymes, with the utmost dramatic irony, to discern the babyish adult theme of the very song he rejected as if in very fulfilment of scripture itself. Luke 20 (NIV):
Jesus looked directly at them and asked, Then what is the meaning of that which is written: 'The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone'?
18 17

Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed. 19 The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people.

And this is supremely underlined by Grays inimitable oversight of BORN IN TIMEs parodic allusion in the lyric spoken or broken to Kol Nidre, Yom Kippur Eve, in spite of having himself, as Dylan scholar feelin kinda lazy, quoted the Opies on the very role of nursery rhyme and riddle in poking fun at religious practices of the day without even offering any example of such on the very album on which he purported to present the definitive exhaustive treatment (but really only of nursery rhyme and fairy tale), having himself already rejected BORN IN TIME as having nothing to do with the use of nursery rhyme or fairy tale (but, tellingly, not or riddle). Falser words have never been spoken or broken on Kol Nidre or outside it, or more ironically.
Oh babe, truer words Have not been spoken or broken.

For Dylans formulaic allusion to Kol Nidre compare Eleazar Segal on Kol Nidr at a website that has disappeared since I saved this on hard disk in the early 00s:

My friend Thomas is so upright and honest that all year long he never breaks a promise. Not everyone's so good at doing what they've spoken. Many vows and promises get overlooked or broken. So... Let all of our pledges, our oaths and our vows, the promises that get neglected somehow, commitments we make without serious thought. words that we uttered and later forgot-Let them all be abolished, deleted, erased, canceled and vanished without any trace. May they all be considered as totally dead, extinct, non-existent, and never-been-said, gulped-down and gobbled by hungry piranhas plunged in a pit in remote Indiana, renounced and relinquished, abandoned, undone. And may God grant forgiveness to everyone. Gulped-down and gobbled by hungry piranhas. (c) 2000 by Bonnie Gordon Lucas

Jewish Encyclopedia on Kol Nidre:

The connection with the Day of Atonement is difficult to establish clearly, but the prayer has become firmly rooted in Jewish tradition (the eve of the Day of Atonement being popularly called K.N.) . . .

Most of us, including Bob Dylans theme-time disc jockey and bloodhound of Jack London with a Van Ronk-like dont-give-a-damn attitude, will be curious to know the text of this melody. It is in the Aramaic language and reads:
All vows, obligations, oaths, and anathemas, whether called 'konam', 'konas', or by any other name, which we may vow, or swear, or pledge, or whereby we may be bound, from this Day of Atonement unto the next (whose happy coming we await), we do repent. May they be deemed absolved, forgiven, annulled, and void, and made

of no effect; they shall not bind us nor have power over us. The vows shall not be reckoned vows; the obligations shall not be obligatory; nor the oaths be oaths.

Compare Michael quoting the Opies with regard to echoes and vestiges in nursery rhyme of the extravagant devotional language in ancient Jewish and Medieval Adoration (Song & Dance Man III p 637) such as is found in the Talmud and the Chaldee Ode:
If all the seas were ink and all the rushes pens / and the whole Heaven parchment, and all sons / of men writers, they would not be enough / to describe the depth of the Mind of the Lord.

World-leading Dylanologist, expert on the blues and nursery rhyme under the red sky Michael Gray says, in Song & Dance Man III p 14:
Its a pity Dylan pads out the album with some substandard rockism (Wiggle Wiggle and Unbelievable) and the ill-fitting2, foggy pop of Born in Time, because the core of the album is an adventure into the poetic possibilities of nursery rhyme that is alert, fresh and imaginative, and an achievement that has gone entirely unrecognized.

By who? Michael cut to the core. Indeed atonement has gone entirely unrecognized by Messrs Gray and Muir in their treatment of the album. And their critical achievement in failing to see this is one that has gone entirely unrecognized by the Dylan world (so far as Im aware). So while Gray notes on pp 636 and 637 that some nursery rhyme contains vestiges of 'poking fun at religious ritual' (Opies), he characteristically fails to identify a single song on the album doing any such thing and categorically rejects the very song that does and in a way that uses nursery-rhyme riddle highly effectively. To quote Michael in his Jokerman chapter quoting Alexander Popes An Essay on Criticism (early 1700s): a little learning is a dangerous thing. Indeed, you wont get anything you dont deserve where we were born in time. But Gray and Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky could well interpret this lyric in different ways; after all, its a Dylan song. Gray p 247 on the evangelistic period:
. . . and that what makes these Born Again albums so flawed and shallow in the context of Bob Dylans whole catalogue is that he has been satisfied, on these records, to assert and argue and declaim but he has hardly bothered anywhere on them to fulfil the more important tasks of the artist: he has not created worlds here, he has only argued about them.

Dylans thoughts and Michael Grizzle Grays thoughts. Michael p 700:

And as I hope to have shown, Dylan uses this nursery rhyme and fairy tale with an imaginative adult intelligence, to re-walk the corridors of childhood psyche, to

As ill-fitting as Suzie Pullens outfits?

liberate some vivid imagery from under the bushel of superficial riddle, and to give his songs the same underpinning in eternal verities that he gets from folk and blues.

To quote some eternal verities from Michaels favourite version of the bible, the KJV Isaiah 55:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: 11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
8

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are Bob Dylans ways higher than Michael Grays ways, and Bob Dylans thoughts higher than Michael Grays thoughts. Now for some achievements of the Jewish people entirely unrecognized by Michael under the red sky. From BELIEF IN MOSHIACH POSSIBILITY OR CERTAINTY (c) 1992 Wellsprings, an interview with Dylans Lubavitch buddy Rabbi Manis Friedman:
FRIEDMAN: That's not faith at all. To say that there's a possibility - there are all sorts of possibilities. That's not "complete faith" - emunah shleimah. Emunah shleimah means you cannot conceive of a world today without Moshiach. Not that he could come, but that he must come . And Moshiach's coming is dependent on our doing God's will. We did his will; I did my best today; what else does He want?

Oh, Jokerman, you know what he wants. Oh, Jokerman, you dont show any response.
HANDELMAN: Maybe you did your best in fulfilling the mitzvos today, but not everybody did. Does the promise, that Moshiach will come today, "if you do My will" mean that everyone must do G-d's will? FRIEDMAN: That's a genuine point of contention. Are we good enough? Have we done enough? Are we ready for Moshiach? The Rebbe says we are. HANDELMAN: Why does he think so? FRIEDMAN: Because the Rebbe looks at us as a historical collective, not just as one generation. And the Jewish people, having gone through 2,000 years of this horrible exile, are more than ready, and more than deserving. HANDELMAN: Why, because we have suffered?

FRIEDMAN: Yes, not only suffered, but we have suffered well. We have excelled in suffering, without losing our faith.

Indeed. BORN IN TIME:

On the rising curve Where the ways of nature will test every nerve You wont get anything you dont deserve Where we were born in time

The Atonement: an achievement that has gone entirely unrecognized under the red sky and not just by Muir-Gray. It went down like a lead balloon. What? The notion of Messiah hanging on a tree: its UNBELIEVABLE. Romans 10, King James Version (KJV):
1Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. 2For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. 3For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. 4For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. 5For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them. 6But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) 7Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) 8But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; 9That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. 12For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. 13For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

14How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? 15And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! 16But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? 17So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. 18But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. 19But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you. 20But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. 21But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.

Larry Yudelson at the Tangled Up in Jews website, standing on the waters casting his breadcrumb sins of atonement:
The followup album, Saved, was as self-righteous as its title.

Isaiah 53 King James Version (KJV):

1Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? 2For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. 3He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Gray on fairy tale in BORN IN TIME (p 672):

The fairy tale that comes to mind here is The Emperors New Clothes. Pity that little boy wasnt in the studio to tell Bob to come off it. Instead we have the betraying3 declamatory tone that is never necessary when a Dylan song is real. Born in Time is a slippery Ill Remember You.

Whos Who in Jewish History on a footnote called Jesus:

Having failed to gain general Jewish recognition of Jesus as the crown and fulfilment of Judaism, the sect remained isolated and rejected until it broke away. Between the parent creed and its offshoot there remained bitterness and tension. The Jews had become the antagonists, symbolized by the role attributed to them as the Christkillers. In the centuries to come, they were to pay the price in blood and suffering.

The Emperors new clothes: striped pyjamas in Auschwitz and Belsen.

You were snow, you were rain You were striped, you were plain Oh babe, truer words Have not been spoken or broken

Eternal verities indeed. Michael is the sun and the moon of nursery-rhyme scholarship like a spoon in June. Had most-of-the-Nineties Michael never seen Schindlers List (1993)? Hed look good reading apocalyptic nursery rhymes in striped pyjamas. How much poison [can he] inhale from the albums wider code in the lyrics that he overlooked? Its comin through to Michael in black and white just in time for the Messianic era. Gray p 697:
. . . while Born in Time offers a lovely off-kiltering of the standard poetic You are the sun and the moon that concertinas nicely the ambivalence between the elemental/eternal, in You were snow, you were rain and the quite literally material4 You were striped, you were plain, this is diminished by his having been down this way before, in 1981s Lenny Bruce, in which They stamped him and they labelled him like they do with pants and shirts.

No one likes a smartypants (Michael p 267). If Michael can tell me this elemental riddle, Ill give him a groat. Halliwells The Nursery Rhymes of England p 97 no. 221:
3 4

betrayed surely? cambric shirt?

There was a man rode through our town, Grey Grizzle was his name,

Babyish nursery rhyme is the scholarly blind horse that led Michael around for most of the Nineties. Recall:
At any rate it has nothing to do with the use of nursery rhyme or fairy tale . . .

No more of this! The Opies Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes p 65, no. 13:
Hush-a-bye a baa-lamb, Hush-a-bye a milk cow, Well find a little stick To beat the barking bow-wow.

In that early unadorned version of BORN IN TIME to which Muir refers occur these lyrics:
You were high, you were low You were so easy to know Oh, babe, now it's time To raise the curtain, I'm hurtin'

Compare Halliwells The Nursery Rhymes of England p 130 no. 320:

Cuckoo, cherry-tree, Catch a bird, and give it to me; Let the tree be high or low, Let it hail, rain, or snow.

Even were Grays critical snort true, what about riddle? Halliwells Popular Rhymes & Nursery Tales of England p 185:
HUGH OF LINCOLN He tossed the ball so high, He tossed the ball so low; He tossed the ball in the Jews garden, And the Jews were all below.

Balls in Michaels court now. Or in the garden? Compare (my selection from) the Contents page of the Opies Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book:
i. iii. v. viii. ix. Baby Games and Lullabies Little Songs A Little Learning Riddles, Tricks and Trippers Ballads and Songs

The Contents page of Halliwells Popular Rhymes & Nursery Tales of England

contains Riddle Rhymes p 131. From BORN IN TIME (1990):

Not one more night, not one more kiss, Not this time baby, no more of this, Takes too much skill, takes too much will, It's revealing. You came, you saw, just like the law You married young, just like your ma, You tried and tried, you made me slide You left me reelin' with this feelin'.

Luke 22 (New International Version):

While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, 48. but Jesus asked him, "Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?" 49. When Jesus' followers saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, should we strike with our swords?" 50. And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. 51. But Jesus answered, "No more of this!" And he touched the man's ear and healed him.

Suffer ye thus far with Michael Grays (unauthorized) Authorized (King James) version and his Zen sensitivity and reel feeling for language, which left him reeling with this feeling of exasperation:
51 And Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far. And he touched his ear, and healed him.

Gray p 404 note 7:

. . . Dylans overwhelming preference shared, you might presume, by anyone with a real feeling for language is for the Authorized Version.

Suffer Michael and his damned Authorized Version thus far. No more of this! RSV:
51 But Jesus said, "No more of this!" And he touched his ear and healed him.

NASB:
51 But Jesus answered and said, "Stop! No more of this." And He touched his ear and healed him.

Michael J. Gilmour, Assistant Professor of New Testament Providence College, Otterburne, MB, writes (discussing the song ANGELINA) in They Refused Jesus Too: A Biblical Paradigm in the Writing of Bob Dylan in Journal of Religion and Popular Culture: Vol. I: Spring 2002 (available on the web):

Feeling is important and there must be caution against trying to explain the use of biblical imagery at every turn.

So lets not. Gray relied too heavily on Bert Cartwright, author of a booklet called The Bible in the Lyrics of Bob Dylan, published by the late John Bauldies Wanted Man outfit in 1985. It is also surprising that Gilmour treats Michael Gray almost like a fellow professor of NT studies when he makes the characteristic slips of someone who, like Richard Dawkins, uses what he is best known for as a springboard to pontificate suddenly on areas entirely outside his expertise. Just one example of this would be his hilarious reference (p 482) to JOKERMANs allusion to the casting out of their [Jews] [breadcrumb] sins having confused casting sins off with casting demons out: a fundamental NT distinction. And in any case Grays bumping together and melding is in fact a multilayered critical gaff in that he further confuses (the non-biblical) Rosh Hashanahs (unbiblical) tashlich ritual with (the biblical) Passover; GATES OF EDEN with JOKERMAN; Ecclesiastes 11:1 with Micah 7:19; pretext with source text (textual basis for the Jewish Passover ritual); and what Jewish Dylan scholar and rams-horn trumpet-stonewalling Larry Yudelson of Tangled Up in Jews avoids saying (about JOKERMAN) with what in fact he does say, albeit equivocatingly, about GATES OF EDEN. And to cap it all, Gray effectively if unconsciously tries to pin (extra-biblical) Jewish ritual that he has entirely confused on Jesus Christ without even attempting to justify the merely inferential connection he makes (by omission) when in fact rabbinic authorities, though they may well be wrong, tend not to trace tashlich further back than the fourteenth century. Now that is a dramatic critical irony if ever there was one, which only further deepens with regard to the fact that Grays very confusion of context has, by default, left shofar off one of Dylans most overlooked cryptological ciphers: mimicry of the Rams Horn Music in JOKERMANs closing instrumental, which, by definition, is never blown on Passover. A quotation for Michael to follow the breadcrumb trail of: a text without a context is a pretext. Central to Dylans Jew baiting, as the Jewish Encyclopedia puts it, in JOKERMAN is the implication that what is ultraJewish is not Jewish at all, an obvious point that makes Jews so comically Yiddiotic to the rest of the world. But only the likes of Norman Raeben or Dylan, the last of the Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment), can get away with pointing out what Larry Yudelson clearly did see at the end of his nose without so doing. So, getting back to Professor Gilmour, lets not try and try too hard to explain Dylans use of biblical imagery at every turn, which must imply, by default, deviation from Gilmours conventionally scholarly abstract-subject-conclusion approach. (Try Robert Gravess analeptic?) In short: no more of this! Isaiah 54 (New International Version) on The Future Glory of Zion:
1 "Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband," says the LORD.

2 "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. 3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities. 4 "Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. 5 For your Maker is your husband the LORD Almighty is his name the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. 6 The LORD will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit a wife who married young, only to be rejected," says your God. 7 "For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. 8 In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you," says the LORD your Redeemer. 9 "To me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again.

Not this time, babe, Gethsemane, but rather next time. Fire next time; GOD KNOWS when. Part of the under the red sky code in the lyrics, a term Dylan used of Blood on the Tracks with Jonathan Cott in the Rolling Stone interview published 16 November 1978.
Everybody agrees that that was pretty different, and whats different about it is theres a code in the lyrics and also theres no sense of time.

Fearful (a)symmetry. Why not this time? Because, like Muir-Gray, you came, you saw, just like the law. IN THE GARDEN revisited. When they came for Him in the garden, did they know? Compare Ronnie Keohane on Hebrew Messianic scholar Arnold Fruchtenbaums elucidation of the first-century Sanhedrins two-stage interrogation procedure for Messianic pretenders. Keohane, from somewhere on the web in the 00s, on IN THE GARDEN:
From the Life of Christ from a Jewish perspective class taught annually at Ariel Ministries Camp Shoshanah by Dr Arnold Fruchtenbaum, I was taught the following:

According to the Jewish procedure that is reflective in the New Testament, if there was any kind of messianic movement, the Sanhedrin had to investigate the situation in two stages. The first stage was the stage of observation. A delegation was formed to investigate only by way of observation. They had to observe what was being said; what was being done; and what was being taught. They were not permitted to ask any questions or raise any objections. After a period of observation they were to return to Jerusalem, report to the Sanhedrin and give a verdict: was the movement significant or was the movement insignificant? If the movement was decreed to be insignificant, the matter would be dropped. Dr Fruchtenbaum: But if the movement was declared to be significant, there would then be a second stage of investigation, the stage of interrogation. In this stage, they would interrogate the individual or members of the movement. This time they would ask questions and raise objections to discover whether the claims should be accepted or rejected. The leadership learned several things. The crucial thing that they realized was that Jesus was not going along with Pharisaic Judaism. He was not accepting the Pharisaic authority. He was teaching things which contradicted the Pharisaic interpretation of the Mosaic Law. In the Sermon on the Mount, He had repudiated Pharisaism on two accounts: First, as a proper interpretation of the righteousness which the Law of Moses demanded; and second, as the righteousness necessary for entering the Kingdom.

You came, you saw, just like the law. But got conquered by the Romans. Ken Brooks writes in Bob Dylan: the Man in Him p 208:
Bob resists the obvious when he writes you came, you saw but he doesnt let her conquer.

Who is her? Babe. Who is babe? Ask Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky. Or Rabbi Manis Friedman. Under the red sky criticism has two problems that leave the albums reel meaning and feeling foggy: Messrs Gray and Muir, the two Sanhedrin-like nursery-rhyme wits. As for Michael Gray and Ronnie Keohane, experts on nursery rhyme and Arnold Fruchtenbaum respectively, they are two hearts living in two separate worlds yet paradoxically one in having let go entirely unrecognized the fact that the albums lead guitarist Don Was no sacrifice in time at all on Yom Kippur or its Eve, Kol Nidre. Why Wasnt he? Because Don Was not born sinless of a virgin in time. Again, for next time and Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky blowing in the wind over whether he likes Dylans music (and for the sake of fearful symmetry), M F Unger in Demons in the World Today p 167:
By rejecting Jesus Christ, God incarnate, Judaism temporarily forfeited its high calling and place in Gods purpose in history, until the Jews turn to Christ at his second advent (Zechariah 12:1013:1; Romans 11:25-36). Then their spiritual blindness shall be lifted and they shall be delivered from the demonic delusion that has rested upon them (Matthew 12:43-45) since they recklessly cried, His blood be on us, and on our children (Matthew 27:25).

(Wish wed all been ready, Larry for the Moshiach) John 19 (NIV):

"Shall I crucify your king?" Pilate asked. "We have no king but Caesar," the chief priests answered. 16. Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

On the rising curve of Moshiach-Caesar (666): the analeptic story of a 2000year exile. In Chronicles p 92 Dylan says of Ray:
At times he could say things that had way too much edge. Once he said that President Kennedy wouldnt last out his term because he was a Catholic. When he said it, it made me think about my grandmother, who said to me that the Pope is the king of the Jews.

(She paid the price and Prof Christopher Ricks overlooked something that is no self-indulgent pun.) Heavy stuff. But Dylan, Dylan-Christ, is so subtle too subtle for Caiaphas. New Zealander Rob Zorn, in a less humble approach than Michael, wrote in 1996 these words now disappeared in the foggy web of destiny:
I have to confess that this one beats me. Perhaps it's about something very personal to Dylan, and he just isn't giving us enough to let us get inside5. Someone with greater knowledge and interpretive skill may be of more help. Nevertheless, there do appear to be lurking apocalyptic images present:

Indeed. Zorn continues:

You don't get anything you don't deserve. You hang the flame, you'll pay the price. Oh Babe, that fire is still smokin'.

By rejecting BORN IN TIME (Dylan-Christ, nursery rhyme, fairy tale and riddle incarnate), Muir-Gray temporarily forfeited his high calling and purpose in Dylanological history as a twofold critical beast, until he turns at the Parousia to play ball with the stone he rejected at under the red skys first Advent. Then his Caiaphas-like critical blindness and exasperation shall be lifted and he shall be delivered from the intellectual handy-dandy delusion that has rested upon him since he recklessly cried, BORN IN TIME has nothing to do with the use of nursery rhyme or fairy tale and doesnt fit on under the red sky. For all his lip service to the Chaldee Ode, the Talmud and parody of religious practices (Opies Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes p 526), implicitly Jewish, Gray in fact ironically made no connection between the actual lyrics of under the red sky and Jewish ritual in any form (apart from, with multiple dramatic irony, the rams horn on p 663, which in reality is not an exception). Why? Because the album is, implicitly and ironically, only about nursery rhyme even though nursery rhyme may poke fun at religious practices. And this oversight has echoes for me of why an A-level English-literature tutor (in the British schooling system) would deny an A grade to the literary and erudite Grays chapter on under the red sky: theres always something you
Inside Michaels critical pants? Compare the lyric I think of you from deep inside of me from the earlier version
5

didnt quite get right for a literature tutor or professor, some further insight they were waiting for you to spot. I wonder what grade Prof Daniel Karlin, an administrator of the Seven Ages of Dylan conference, would give Grays keynote treatment of nursery rhyme under the red sky. Again (like drinking the wine in 2 X 2), p 185 of Popular Rhymes & Nursery Tales of England:
HUGH OF LINCOLN He tossed the ball so high, He tossed the ball so low; He tossed the ball in the Jews garden, And the Jews were all below. Oh, then out came the Jews daughter, She was all dressed in green; Come hither, come hither, my sweet pretty fellow, And fetch your ball again.

Suffer ye thus far Michael left reeling without much wiggle room. Suffer ye shofar Michael. Suffer he till thither (supping sour milk from a rams horn with Memphis Minnie). Not this time; next time. Wycliffe New Testament (WYC):
47 Yet while he spake, lo! a company, and he that was called Judas, one of the twelve, went before them; and he came [nigh] to Jesus, to kiss him. 48 And Jesus said to him, Judas, betrayest thou man's Son with a kiss? 49 And they that were about him, and saw that that was to come, said to him, Lord, whether we smite with sword? 50 And one of them smote the servant of the prince of priests, and cut off his right ear. 51 But Jesus answered, and said, Suffer ye till hither. And when he had touched his ear, he healed him.

Michael you bin refused: you and your reel feeling for language until the conversion of the Jews at the breaking forth of the Levee (which will drown A J Weberman at the fire next time). Andrew Marvell in To His Coy Mistress:
I would Love you ten years before the Flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews.

(Thanks to the somewhat coy and laconic John Gibbens in the often intriguing The Nightingales Code: a Poetic Study of Bob Dylan, 2001.) Shamanic whitegypsy-Jewess Zen Sara Dylan never mentioned the capstone one time. Michael came, he saw. Just like the law. (Did he marry Sarah Beatty young?) Isaiah 54, King James Version (KJV):

6For the LORD hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God. 7For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.

No more water but fire next time; GOD KNOWS when. Robert Graves in The White Goddess p 259 quoting Nennius on the Seven Ages of the World:
In the seventh Age our Lord Jesus Christ will come to judge the living and the dead, and the world with fire.

GOD KNOWS:
God knows it's a struggle, God knows it's a crime, God knows there's gonna be no more water But fire next time.

Hither till thither; not this time, babe. Michael wont get anything he dont deserve, where he was born in time. Born in time for the Messianic era. Again, Michael quoting the Opies quoting the Talmud:
If all the seas were ink and all the rushes pens / and the whole Heaven parchment, and all sons / of men writers, they would not be enough / to describe the depth of the Mind of the Lord.

Bobs thoughts higher than Michaels thoughts. Michael Caiaphas Gray, high priest of Dylanology, tried and tried then rent his garments in despair; BORN IN TIME (IN THE GARDEN Revisited) made him slide. How many trials did Jesus have? John 18 King James Version (KJV):
24Now Annas had sent him bound unto Caiaphas the high priest. 25And Simon Peter stood and warmed himself. They said therefore unto him, Art not thou also one of his disciples? He denied it, and said, I am not. 26One of the servants of the high priest, being his kinsman whose ear Peter cut off, saith, Did not I see thee in the garden with him? 27Peter then denied again: and immediately the cock crew. 28Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover. 29Pilate then went out unto them, and said, What accusation bring ye against this man?

Whos Who in Jewish History:

The accounts in the Gospels of the trial and death of Jesus are at variance with each other. For instance, the Gospel of John discounts6 the story of the three earlier
6

or simply assumes as read?

Gospels concerning an actual prior trial by the Jewish Sanhedrin in the house of the High Priest, Caiaphus. But all of them have in common the urge to hold the Jewish religious authorities responsible, and to depict Pilate as reluctantly yielding to Jewish pressures.

You tried and tried. I highly recommend the Annas-leptic method of thought to the Dylan literati to try and try. Robert Graves in The White Goddess (p 336) on his own particular slant on 666, the number of the (Neronic or Domitian[an?]) Beast in Revelation:
Poets will know what I mean by slantwise: it is a way of looking through a difficult word or phrase to discover the meaning lurking behind the letters.

(This is required for identifying the Jokermans sister, who then proves the identity of the Jokerman: symbiosis) Page 339:
The proleptic or analeptic method of thought, though necessary to poets, physicians, historians and the rest, is so easily confused with mere guessing, or deduction from insufficient data, that few of them own to using it. However securely I buttress the argument of this book with quotations, citations and footnotes, the admission that I have made here of how it first came to me will debar it from consideration by orthodox scholars: though they cannot refute it, they dare not accept it.

Recall Rob Zorn:

Perhaps it's about something very personal to Dylan, and he just isn't giving us enough to let us get inside.

(Charm Michaels pants off, sweetheart.) Recall Ken Brooks:

Bob resists the obvious when he writes you came, you saw but he doesnt let her conquer.

But Keohane, with some help from Arnold Fruchtenbaum as ever (under Petras [grey] red sky on the album cover), could not resist the obvious:
The leadership learned several things. The crucial thing that they realized was that Jesus was not going along with Pharisaic Judaism. He was not accepting the Pharisaic authority. He was teaching things which contradicted the Pharisaic interpretation of the Mosaic Law.

(Enter Professor John Bryant) Muir-Gray failed to undertake a proper twostage investigation of BORN IN TIME like the Sanhedrin did with Jesus. Feelin kinda lazy? (Yet in the most monstrous irony of her scriptural under the red sky essays on the web, Messianic Jewess Keohane barely did a onestage one.) Prof Daniel Karlin in an intertextual email, on the muddiest superhgiway in the universe, to me the day before the Seven Ages of Dylan conference for Dylans seventieth birthday in May 2011:
You will not be allowed into the conference if you show up.

Psalm 118:21-23 New International Version (NIV):

21

I will give you thanks, for you answered me; you have become my salvation.

22

The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; 23 the LORD has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

Matthew 21 (NIV) on the parable of the tenants:

37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. 'They will respect my son,' he said. 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him and take his inheritance.' 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? 41 He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, they replied, and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time. 42 Jesus said to them, Have you never read in the Scriptures: 'The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvellous in our eyes'?

Luke 20:
[Dylan-Christ] looked directly at [Muir-Gray] and asked, Then what is the meaning of that which is written: 'The stone the [nursery-rhyme] builders rejected has become the capstone'?
18 17

Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed. 19 The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people.

Would Jakob and Jesse Dylan like to fall on that stone like their father did or have it fall upon them perhaps with some help from biographer and religious guardian of the Dylan children Howard Sounes? 'The stone which Michael, with (t)his unauthorized reel feeling for language, refused is become the head stone of the corner' . Michael Gray and Caiaphas: alter egos like Dylan and Lenny Bruce intertextuality on the muddiest superhighway in the universe. The stone which Muir-Gray rejected has become the capstone of Messianic Dylanology;

and it is marvellous in Bobs sight. Building a richer house, Scott Warmuth (on Greil Marcus)? The house that Michael built out of nursery rhyme. Finally, there is likely a very personal dimension in which BORN IN TIME is a childrens song: if Dylan had recently become a father to Gabby Goo Goo. Now as this was apparently with one of his various Carol(e)(ynn)s (even if not the Childs who was ultimately responsible tor Dylans lyrical epiphany that bassist and producer Don Was no Eltonesque sacrifice on Kol Nidre), then we certainly have an apt pun: for Christmas carols, notwithstanding pagan accretions as Incarnation-mockers love to point out, celebrate the coming of the Creator of Time to be Born in Time. See also my An Open Letter to Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky of the ChabadLubavitch Movement Concerning Messianic Dylanology. The Incarnation of Dylan-Christ born in time? Not such Chabad idea sweet Daddy. Wishing the Lubavitch-Chassidim, across the foggy web of destiny, a merry lead-balloon Christmas 2011 (or should that be 5772?) . . . What Can Michael Do for Yehuda Krinsky on Jesus (Miscalculated) Birthday (see notes in Gray pp 240 and 457) - be this 17 or 25 December? No one likes a smartypants, Michael: striped or plain. Fire next time. The Scribdures, or Scribdlings, cannot be broken, Karl Erik. In the foggy web of destiny youre so deep inside of me, where we were born in time . . . Copyright 2011 Paul Kirkman, Messianic Dylanologist. All rights reserved 2 Peter 3 King James Version (KJV):
1This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: 2That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: 3Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 5For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 6Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: 7But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

8But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 10But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. 11Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, 12Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?