In ‘Went To See The Gypsy’ on New Morning, Dylan recalls how he went to see Elvis Presley in a hotel room. Did that meeting really take place?

IIRC, in the ‘Careless Love‘ Elvis biography, Dylan and Lennon went to see Elvis play live in the 70s. Not a mention of Elvis meeting Dylan though. Considering the huge entourage Elvis carried in those days, it is unlikely that happened and hasnt been widely spread.

Well…well…well…bob went to see the gypsy on many occasions…hotels…family get together’s with sarah and the kids bobs mum and her second husband…bob and elvis were very close…elvis cherished bob songs…though much was said about his voice elvis thought “it was terrible”…elvis covered some of bobs songs…he even did a version of bob’s version of house of the rising sun…we all know bob loved elvis thru his child hood…we even have an early recording of bob doing blue moon with echo (bob’s girlfriend from Hibbing)…one of bob’s early teenage goals was to be as good and as well known as elvis (that’s what he told echo’s mum)…some goal that was…who would have ever thought that he would equal or even surpass a legendary status figure such as elvis at the time…we all know bob took elvis’s death badly…he mourned in silence…never said a word for a week…bob was accused for going vagas elvis style soon after elvis’s death…with back up singers and a big band…elvis style get ups (costumes) with glitter and glam…

precinct14 wrote:

It would have been interesting to have observed Dylan on film with Elvis- given that Dylan has never allowed another star to steal his thunder, while in his presence. .

wouldn’t you guys love to hear the elvis and bob sessions…wouldn’t the world love to hear them…though there are no Dylan or elvis fanatic sources to state or proof that footage exists…what I can tell you is that audio of the sessions are in existence and only rumors of film footage…the first Dylan-presley session was recorded in may 1971…in Nashville!…what happened is elvis booked a recording studio to do some Christmas songs with of all people Dylan…yes with Dylan…to get bob in the mood elvis went to extremes…elvis was hoping for a Christmas lp to be recorded in may and released for Christmas of that year…like I said he (elvis) went to extremes…to encourage bob to do Christmas songs elvis actually transformed the recording studio into a christmas affair…he had santa’s everywhere big sanata’s small santa’s…angels…white cotton under all the Christmas trees…christmas tree lights Christmas tree decorations he even had holly scattered round everywhere…bob walked in and to his surprise he stepped into this atmosphere the cried out for Christmas songs…the first song they did was silent night…they followed with “my garden of prayer” and “satisfied”…this was all to much for bob as these were the only Christmas songs they did in the session…no Christmas lp as we all now ever surfaced…but the session did take place…here is the track list…

silent night…

my garden of prayer…

satisfied…

all I really want to do…

blowin’ in the wind…

carolyne…

house of the rising sun…

it aint me babe…

Jodie and the kid…

Like a rolling stone…

Me and bobbie mcgee…

Mr tambourine man…

The ghetto…

One to many mornings…

She belongs to me…

Say you love me one more time…

Subterranean homesick blues…

Walking down the line…

Also bob and elvis managed to get together again for a second recording session some time in 1972…they only managed to cut one song “if not for you”

You may read this stuff and think what a lot bull…but my sources are genuine…

You can find the above references in “all across the telegraph” a bob Dylan handbook…the late john bauldie to me is one of the most respected dylanologists in the world also Michael gray is another highly respected Dylan source…(”all across the telegraph” was written by Michael gray and john bauldie)…

or Dylan, the very fact that Elvis had recorded versions of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” “Tomorrow Is a Long Time” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” remains mind-boggling. Dutifully, as if returning a favor, Dylan recorded Elvis’ hit “(Now and Then There’s) A Fool Such As I” during both the Basement Tapes and Self-Portrait sessions.

But that was about as close as they ever got. “I never met Elvis,” Dylan says. “I never met Elvis, because I didn’t want to meet Elvis. Elvis was in his Sixties movie period, and he was just crankin’ ’em out and knockin’ ’em off, one after another. And Elvis had kind of fallen out of favor in the Sixties. He didn’t really come back until, whatever was it, ’68? I know the Beatles went to see him, and he just played with their heads. ‘Cause George [Harrison] told me about the scene. And Derek [Taylor], one of the guys who used to work for him. Elvis was truly some sort of American king. His face is even on the Statue of Liberty. And, well, like I said, I wouldn’t quite say he was ridiculed, but close.

You see, the music scene had gone past him, and nobody bought his records. Nobody young wanted to listen to him or be like him. Nobody went to see his movies, as far as I know. He just wasn’t in anybody’s mind. Two or three times we were up in Hollywood, and he had sent some of the Memphis Mafia down to where we were to bring us up to see Elvis. But none of us went. Because it seemed like a sorry thing to do. I don’t know if I would have wanted to see Elvis like that. I wanted to see the powerful, mystical Elvis that had crash-landed from a burning star onto American soil. The Elvis that was bursting with life. That’s the Elvis that inspired us to all the possibilities of life. And that Elvis was gone, had left the building.”

So there we are. He told the guitarist, he told the journalist. How do we reconcile the two?

Simple – the story in the song is about an imaginary meeting – about what it might have been like to go and see Elvis or some similar pop idol from the old days who is still churning the songs out but no longer relevant. Which explains the invention of Elvis as the gypsy. It is an imagination of Elvis, as per the description in the Rolling Stone article. The traveller who moves on, but is now no longer relevant.

This explains the music too for what hits one about the music is not any sign of typical gypsy rhythms, but the fact that this is rock music, nothing else. There are no tempo changes, no modulations of key, no booming double bass, no two string harmonies, no accordion… I could go on but you get the idea. This is rock music, not gypsy music.

But still Dylan gives us something different and unexpected. The song has, at one level, a standard structure known in the trade as strophic – which basically means having an opening section, a middle section and the opening section again. In a lot of music, especially pop, the opening section (usually called A) is repeated so what we get is this.

Section A

Section A

Section B

Section A

What makes us sit up and take notice here however is that the second verse has two extra lines in it that the first and last verse don’t have. Listening to the piece you may not even notice this, but it just feels as if “something” happened. What that “something” is, is not clear, but it is there. It is unexpected, and odd.

This is by no means the first time Dylan uses such a device – the last verse of Visions of Johanna does the same thing (and if you listen carefully you can hear the bass player forgets about the extra two lines and makes a mistake, playing it as if it is a standard verse).

Added together, the extra lines and the ABA structure gives us a feeling that the song seems to keep changing – but the change is marginal. It is a clever musical trick.

And here’s a thought. If you start from the premise that Dylan quite often uses words just because they come to him and seem to fit (rather than because they have a deeper meaning or significance, or refer to anything), then “gypsy” could be just that. Dylan just called the Elvis character the gypsy. And who knows, maybe the writers of that strange 2008 British publication read that “Went to see the gypsy” was about Elvis, and so made up a weird theory about Elvis’ racial identity.

Writers eh! Who’d trust them?

As for the story in the song, the backstage chat with “Elvis” doesn’t actually go very far…

Went to see the gypsy

Stayin’ in a big hotel

He smiled when he saw me coming

And he said, “Well, well, well”

His room was dark and crowded

Lights were low and dim

“How are you?” he said to me

I said it back to him

In terms of profundity, this ain’t much. I remember, in my early days as a journalist, reviewing a series of books called “In his own words” for a magazine, and really feeling rather sad when I got to the Elvis Presley In His Own Words volume, because in honesty the guy didn’t seem to say much at all, and certainly not much that was at all insightful.

Then the brief non-chat is over and Dylan leaves.

I went down to the lobby

To make a small call out

A pretty dancing girl was there

And she began to shout

“Go on back to see the gypsy

He can move you from the rear

Drive you from your fear

Bring you through the mirror

He did it in Las Vegas

And he can do it here”

And that means?

One explanation is that Dylan has been reading Hesse’s Steppenwolf, the novel that looks at the personality split between humanity and aggression with a fair deal of homelessness thrown in as a side order. I have to say I just don’t see that and I really don’t know where that takes us. Yes, the Magic Theatre has a giant mirror but…

So I’ll pass on the detail of the meaning and go to the “B” section – the middle part of ternary form. Is Dylan expressing sadness for what Elvis (or who he symbolises here) was?

Outside the lights were shining

On the river of tears

I watched them from the distance

With music in my ears

Certainly the last verse sees the gypsy character as being ephemeral, moving on, with no permanent mark left, and that does accord with how Dylan talks about Elvis. No one talked about him any more, but the old Sun records were still there, and people still jived to them.

So (and this is a bit of a wild punt) Dylan goes back to listen to Elvis one more time, to see if there is anything in his more recent recordings, but finds there isn’t.

I went back to see the gypsy

It was nearly early dawn

The gypsy’s door was open wide

But the gypsy was gone

And that pretty dancing girl

She could not be found

So I watched that sun come rising

From that little Minnesota town

I love that throw away at the end. Dylan’s not going to see the fallen, irrelevant god of an Elvis-type figure. Elvis had become pointless, past it, nothing, whereas the kid from Minnesota still has a lot to say. (The kid who first heard all the early Elvis music that influenced his writing, in that little town).

The world that Elvis embodied in his prime has gone. Elvis is a sad character that no one takes any notice of now. Time to go home folks.

All the songs reviewed on this site.

Yeah it would have been cool if they had met. Elvis appreciated Bob’s songwriting and Bob was a big fan. always wondered what meetings with people like Jimi Hendrix or Jim Morrison would have gone. u think Jim would have been on his best behavior? lol he was a big Elvis fan too.

Sources: http://www.expectingrain.com/discussions/viewtopic.php?p=1679267&sid=2fbdcfff321df14752aa91e7035c4022

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