Man in the Long Black Coat
I had never listened to the full album of O Mercy before I listened to it for our seminar, but I had heard “Man in the Long Black Coat” before. In fact, it was the very first Bob Dylan song I ever heard that I liked.
I don’t know if you guys remember this, but I mentioned at the beginning of the semester that I hadn’t ever really counted myself a Dylan fan. I used to be one of the people that said that I couldn’t stand him because I felt like he was a great songwriter, but an awful singer (cringe-worthy, I know; I have reformed my ways!). I think this was partially because the only CD of Dylan’s we had in my house for a long time was Blood on the Tracks, which is a great album, but a bit of a rough one to start off with as a new listener.
Anyway, when I was a senior in high school my English class was rather unorthodox (especially for a high school class), because we didn’t have to worry about SOL’s and it wasn’t an AP class–so our teacher pretty much taught us whatever she felt like teaching us as long as it pertained to Dante’s Inferno or Hamlet or some other book we were studying. At some point, I think when we were talking about Dante’s Inferno or about Milton’s Paradise Lost, and different views of the Devil, we listened to Man in the Long Black Coat. I don’t remember exactly what it was supposed to represent, but I do know that it struck me how perfect it was that Bob Dylan was singing it in such a choppy style, and with his rough, rocky voice. The music and the lyrics feel rough like that; rough and dark. Dylan captures this exactly right in his voice, and I immediately loved the song.
“Man in the Long Black Coat” was my gateway into Dylan in a way, and I’m not sure if I would have taken this course if I hadn’t known about it–I was skeptical about Dylan, but I knew that he had made one song that I absolutely loved, which made me figure there were probably more than that and I just hadn’t heard them before (ended up being true too).
The imagery in the lyrics is still fascinating to me. The Wikipedia page for Oh Mercy only talks briefly about it, but mentions the stormy scenery and the idea of a demon lover. This sort of thing goes through ‘scary’ stories in many cultures. The sort of creepy, but exciting feel to the song, while still staying so dark is what I enjoy so much about it. I think it’s still one of my favorite of Dylan’s songs, even though I have heard so many others that I really like now.
-Chelsea
