Untagged, I Tag The World (Under That Apple Suckling Tree, Oh Yeah)

As a kid, I loved playing sports, and while I may not have been all-world, I held my own. Rarely if ever the first one picked in pick-up games, I don't think I ever suffered the cliched cruel fate of the last one picked, either. Thus, my bemusement at not being a part of the cyber game of tag that's lately been going on. It seems that among music bloggers, a game of tag has broken out. You post a song that makes you happy and write some glowing words about a blog you like, thus "tagging" that blog(ger), who in turn does the same and tags another blog(ger). I've been waiting, but, alas, the game seems to have passed me by.


But I will not weep! If the world of bloggers will not have me in their game, I will tag the world, Mother Earth, this mortal coil, third rock from the sun, our gorgeous home this spinning orb. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I give thanks for this extraordinary planet, the best I've ever known. I thank it for flat ground, which always amazes me when I realize it's really rounder than Santa's belly. How does it do that?

I thank it for the (literally) thirty minutes a year I get to stand in an ocean's surf, never failing to remember Melville's claim in the first chapter of Moby-Dick that all men are drawn to the sea.

I thank it for being the only place I know with guys named Gary and gals named Dottie: I've never met an unpleasant Gary or Dottie.

I thank it for wind.

I thank it for spinning madly and never making me dizzy, unless cotton candy and rollercoasters are involved.

I thank it for clouds.

I thank it for the words "open late nite."

I thank it for the holy gulps of orange juice it provides.

I thank it for all its various musics.

Speaking of which, this song here, Bob Dylan and The Band's "Apple Suckling Tree" is, or me, the antithesis of sadness. It's been on the top of the charts of my funeral dance songs list forever (I call it this because I think the songs should be played at my funeral, just to make sure I'm truly gone, because upon hearing them, I cannot keep still).

Most people, probably none of them named Gary or Dottie, tend to pass the song off as a mere nonsensical trifle, which, unapologetically, it is, but nonsensical trifles as joyous as this demand to be celebrated. Listen how Bob's primitive, percussive piano baits the others for a long ten seconds at the start, tempting them to join him in exploring just how ebullient music-making can be. You hear Garth Hudson (organ) and (probably) Richard Manuel (tambourine) kick the dirt a little, maybe shy about hitching a ride on this crazy train. But then daring Rick Danko revs up his bass like a bull scratching in the dirt and the whole thing sets sail (I know I'm mixing metaphors, but with nonsense like this, you have no choice). And the drums. Most people seem to agree that Robbie Robertson, guitarist by trade, is the one pounding and kicking, though Manuel and even the long-absent Levon Helm get some votes, too. Whoever, praise be. He sounds either like Adam discovering percussion before he's even named the animal, or a drunk fumbling for a misplaced bottle, pounding on a set of drums that sounds more like a collection of boxes the boys rummaged from the garage (or, if you prefer, the Basement) of Big Pink, the house at 2188 Stoll Road in West Saugerties, New York, where in the summer and fall of 1967 Dylan, recovering from his motorcycle crash of the year before, and the Hawks, soon to be The Band, were making daily music for the best reason: for the sheer exuberant hell of it.

Dylan, "always the thief," adapts the tune from the ancient mind-blower "Froggie Went A-Courtin'"--which he then waited 25 years to record in its own right quite wonderfully. And the words, well, yes there are words, not that it makes much difference. I've seen about seven completely different transcriptions of what Bob is supposedly singing here, and none of them make complete sense, probably because Bob didn't know what he was singing half the time. It's holy gibberish that makes you sing along with your own noises and half-words. I prefer to hear one word as "Bartholemew," maybe the only Bartholemew in popular song, though you're free to hear anything you want. All that matters is the inviting, salacious, raucous, innocent, humane wish/desire/prayer/insistence that just "you and me" are going to be "underneath that apple suckling tree." Oh yeah, don't forget those "oh yeahs" with Rick and Richard joining in, the foam on the tall cold draft beer of this song. The rest is just snatches of coherence: "take a look," "on the avenue," "seven years." But hear, oh please hear, the ecstatic glee with which Bob sings, on the verge of cracking up throughout, cracking up not into laughter, really, but out of sheer delight. Ululation, speaking in tongues, what have you, deliriously.

The Bird Flu, H1N1, any old mere virus you can muster can't hold a candle to infectiousness this potent. And then, nearly two minutes into the two-minute, forty-nine-second song, when you realize you'll be happily sick with this song for the rest of your life, it leaves the stratosphere entirely. Garth Hudson, ladies and gentlemen, on organ. What, you need words? This is beyond verbal. How about a lone skater on a frozen country lake basking in the realization that he is indeed the happy genius of his own world? Sam Phillips famously once said of the music/voice of the legendary Howlin' Wolf, "This is where the soul of man never dies." Well, Garth Hudson's organ solo, from 1:58 to 2:22 on my digital counter, is where the soul of man dances endlessly, completely inebriated with love, life, solitude--all the old verities. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, if reincarnation is our fate, I want nothing more than to come back as this organ solo; 24 seconds of sheer bliss, replayed forever through headphones, car radios, bedroom boomboxes, and living room speakers, beats nirvana every time. And then the singing comes back for one more chorus, with a couple Garth fills just to remind you, yes, that was me granting you a glimpse of heaven. And then Robbie, or whoever, packs up the song with a few more feral beats, and we're back to the humdrum of our lives.

Thank you, Bob, Rick, Richard, Robbie, (maybe Levon), and especially Garth. On behalf of the whole world, thank you. Oh yeah!

Bob Dylan and The Band-Apple Suckling Tree