When the Ship Comes In – Bob Dylan

When I hear When the Ship Comes In, I feel cast back to a centuries-old traditional English song, perhaps something Dylan might have covered on his 1992 record Good As I Been to You. No, instead he wrote this in August 1963 at just 22 years of age. Quite astonishing, since it evokes such elaborate allegory and images of seafaring that seem to come from the memory of someone old and distinguished, recalling tales from their days at sea.

What’s even stranger is that, according to Joan Baez in the 2005 documentary No Direction Home, Dylan’s inspiration came from the most unlikely of scenarios. He had been refused entry to a hotel by a clerk because of his unkempt appearance, and it was only after Baez vouched for him that he was allowed inside.

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The song has been linked by biographer Clinton Heylin to Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s Pirate Jenny in which an oppressed woman imagines a mysterious ship arriving and destroying those who have mistreated her. That makes the transformation from hotel insult to grand ship allegory seem rather less random.

Wikipedia:
Dylan’s former girlfriend Suze Rotolo recalls that her “interest in Brecht was certainly an influence on him. I was working for the Circle in the Square Theater and he came to listen all the time. He was very affected by the song that Lotte Lenya’s known for, ‘Pirate Jenny’.“

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The glorious moment in Dylan’s song when the ship comes in is so illustrious and grand that even “the fishes will laugh as they swim out of the path / And the seagulls, they’ll be a-smilin’. The fervent and prophetic atmosphere and setting feel most like an Odyssey-like homecoming, where everything seems to stand still, even the seas and winds, evoking images of an epic journey and triumphant return.

Even its foes submit and are conquered, with the grandiosity and scale taking on biblical proportions – “And like Pharaoh’s tribe, they’ll be drowned in the tide / And like Goliath, they’ll be conquered. The ship becomes a symbol of liberation and the arrival of a new order, embodying all that it has overcome as it comes into shore. The images are so vividly etched and have such a grainy, coarse quality that it’s almost like watching a painting come alive.

[Verse 1]
Oh, the time will come up when the winds will stop
And the breeze will cease to be breathin’
Like the stillness in the wind before the hurricane begins
The hour that the ship comes in

[Chorus]
And the sea will split and the ships will hit
And the sands on the shoreline will be shaking
Then the tide will sound and the waves will pound
And the mornin’ will be a-breakin’

[Verse 2]
The fishes will laugh as they swim out of the path
And the seagulls, they’ll be a-smilin’
And the rocks on the sand will proudly stand
The hour that the ship comes in

[Chorus]
And the words that are used for to get the ship confused
Will not be understood as they’re spoken
For the chains of the sea will have busted in the night
And be buried on the bottom of the ocean

[Verse 3]
A song will lift as the mainsail shifts
And the boat drifts onto the shoreline
And the sun will respect every face on the deck
The hour that the ship comes in

[Chorus]
And the sands will roll out a carpet of gold
For your weary toes to be a-touchin’
And the ship’s wise men will remind you once again
That the whole wide world is watchin’

[Verse 4]
Oh, the foes will rise with the sleep still in their eyes
And they’ll jerk from their beds and think they’re dreamin’
But they’ll pinch themselves and squeal and they’ll know that it’s for real
The hour that the ship comes in

[Chorus]
And they’ll raise their hands sayin’, “We’ll meet all your demands”
But we’ll shout from the bow, “Your days are numbered”
And like Pharoah’s tribe, they’ll be drownded in the tide
And like Goliath, they’ll be conquered

References:
1. When the Ship Comes In – Wikipedia