New Pony (1978) – Bob Dylan

New Pony is from Bob Dylan’s 18th studio album Street – Legal. I wrote in the post Changing of the Guards – ‘if I had to choose just one album from Dylan to take with me on a Desert Island, it would be Street Legal‘. New Pony is provocative, bawdy and bluesy. When I first heard New Pony, none of that probably occurred to me. I imagine in my younger years I was wondering, ‘what the heck is this‘?
This apparent sensory misalignment is comparable with the whole record, if you haven’t truly let it sink in. To say, Street – Legal is ‘complex’ is an understatement. To get my mind and ‘ear’ tuned to it, required a lot of time, but once my senses adjusted, I found it a treasure box of contemporary music – the likes, I realise I’m doubtful to ever hear again in one package.

To gauge a sense of how deep down the rabbit hole a Dylan fan has gone; ask them what they think of Dylan’s Street-Legal. Their answer will tell you a lot!
Now onto New Pony‘s background and interpretations.

According to Wikipedia:

The song, which superficially concerns a pony called Lucifer who has broken a leg and needs to be put down, but has been interpreted as concerning Dylan’s relationship with his backing singer Helena Springs…. Dylan told Jonathan Cott in 1978 that “the Miss X in that song is Miss X, not ex-“….David Yaffee notes that the backing singers include both Dylans’s girlfriend at the time, Springs, and his future wife, Carolyn Dennis…

The song probably draws on Son House’s “Black Pony Blues”, also recorded by Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, and on Charley Patton’s track Pony Blues. “Black Pony Blues” includes the lyrics “he can foxtrot / He can lope and pace, lope and pace”, whilst Dylan’s song has “I got a new pony, she knows how to foxtrot, lope and pace”. House performed “Black Pony Blues” at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, and Dylan may have seen the performance.

The following aligns with my interpretation of the song and it’s a fascinating read, but somewhat polemical in this day and age:

Stephen Scobie wrote that “The image of the woman as a horse needing to be tamed and broke, while undoubtedly problematic from any contemporary feminist view, is a traditional image, from a long line of blues songs”. Scobie suggested that the pony in the song appears in three different situations: “as victim, as aesthetic display and as the object of sexual desire”. The first of these is expressed in the opening verse about breaking a leg, the second in the verse about being able to foxtrot and lope, and thirdly when described in the lyrics as “bad and nasty”, after the song’s narrator has proclaimed that they want to “climb up one time on you”.

[Verse 1]
I had a pony, her name was Lucifer (How much longer? How much longer?)
I had a pony, her name was Lucifer (How much longer?)
She broke her leg and needed shooting
I swear it hurt me more than it coulda hurted her
(How much longer? How much longer?)

[Verse 2]
Sometimes I wonder what’s going on with Miss X (How much longer?)
Sometimes I wonder what’s going on with Miss X
(How much? How much? How much longer?)
She got such a sweet disposition
I never know what the poor girl’s gonna do to me next
(How much longer? How much longer?)

[Verse 3]
I got a new pony, she knows how to fox-trot, lope and pace
(How much longer?)
Well, I got a new pony, she knows how to fox-trot, lope and pace
(How much longer?)
She got great big hind legs
Long, black shaggy hair hangin’ in her face
(How much? How much? How much longer?)

Reference:
1. New Pony – Bob Dylan
2. Street-Legal (Album) – Wikipedia

About observationblogger

“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand