Dylan was sure having fun on his Theme Time Radio Hour show today, attacking the subject of “TRAINS.” He was having so much fun he decided that next week’s theme will have to be more trains.

Before playing The Monkees doing Last Train to Clarksville Dylan made some interesting remarks. I don’t have the verbatim text at this point, so I’m relying on my memory. He said something to the effect of: “I’ve always felt the first rule of writing a subversive song is not to tell anybody that it’s subversive.” He went on to talk about how Last Train to Clarksville (written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart) was secretly about a Vietnam draftee on his way to the war. That’s what the refrain line, “And I don’t know if I’m ever coming home,” is referring to, according to Bob.

Now, some will predictably rejoice to hear Dylan seemingly make a comment about the Vietnam War, but, in reality, what he was talking about here was songwriting. He was appreciating and highlighting the craft present in what Boyce and Hart were doing — which is the kind of thing he does all the time on his radio show. However, his remark about writing songs that are subversive but which don’t explicitly give away their intent is very interesting indeed, because some of us would argue that Dylan has been doing precisely that, a whole lot of the time. Not by being “anti-establishment” or “anti-war” or any of those old labels that still get thrown around in the media — there would be nothing secret about that (were it even true) because that’s what a lot of people always liked to hear in his songs. That’s what the headlines told you. No, the ways in which a secretive kind of subversion has arguably been present in Dylan’s work include things like: asking questions to which no earthly mind could provide an answer; wielding an awareness of death as an omnipresent background; and writing songs that at first glance appear to be saying one thing but which contain some nagging clauses which undermine that assumption and undermine a listener’s own certainty.

The examples of all those things are too many to start cataloging in this little blog post — and it takes no time listening to Dylan’s songs before they start popping out at you. But the hinted confirmation on his show today that he’s aware of what he’s doing is a tantalizing tidbit indeed. And of-course he is aware of what he’s doing, although that’s not to belittle the role that inscrutable inspiration clearly plays in his work.

Speaking of trains …

People on the platforms
Waiting for the trains
I can hear their hearts a-beatin’
Like pendulums swinging on chains
When you think that you lost everything
You find out you can always lose a little more
I’m just going down the road feeling bad
Trying to get to heaven before they close the door

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