Wagon Wheel – Bob Dylan, why didn’t you finish this masterpiece?
Chickens singing, cows mooing, a cowboy at sunset in a prairie setting… And then a voice: “Pick up that Wagon Wheel Bob Dylan and get him on that wagon! Dad’s going to town next week!” ” I imagine a scene like this has haunted Bobby D’s dreams a time or two since this little gem of an unfinished song fell out of his mouth during a jam session on the “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” recordings. It’s an excellent song, the melody is an extraordinary songworm, the harmony demands to be sung at the top of your lungs, and the words evoke a pastoral vision of the Old West. It is as if the song is an imaginary fragment of an old popular tune that Dylan never heard.
But, if the song is all of these things, why did he just walk away from it? The song has been heavily bootlegged, covered by numerous artists, and people like it! Although, maybe I should stop calling this a song for a bit. Really, this is not a song at all. Rather, this is a catchy and powerful chorus. It has been used, quite successfully, in this way by the New York acoustic quintet, “Old Crow Medicine Show”.
They recorded a four-minute version of the song (you can find it on YouTube) in which they wrote their own verses and used Dylan’s song as a chorus. The melody they use in their version is effective and blends well with the chorus; and the lyrics work, though for the most part it’s just a bunch of words like banjo, North Carolina, stringband, etc. stuck in a rhythm. The imagery, which is very “Woody Guthrie band, deep south country fair,” is a natural progression from working with the choir.
The problem is that the song and the recording that the band has is memorable, but only because of the Bob Dylan part. “Rock sucks me like the wind and rain, Rock sucks me like a southbound train, heyyyyy, Mama rock me.” It is pure and simple lyrical mastery. It’s not a story about a gambler coming home to see his queen. It is not about an old farmer who falls in the hay with the farmer’s daughter. He is not a bandit smoking his last cigarette before a train robbery. It is all these things at once. And I think writing this has helped me understand. I’m about to spill the beans, Bob, so I hope you’re listening:
The Wagon Wheel, Bob Dylan, is only part of the wagon. Therefore, you only give us part of a song!