Dylan Song by Song: "Chimes of Freedom" Quiz

Answer: Another Side of Bob Dylan

"Astral Weeks" is an album by Van Morrison. The other three are Dylan albums, but "Chimes of Freedom" appeared on "Another Side of Bob Dylan," which was released in 1964. It was Dylan's fourth studio album, following "The Times They Are A' Changin'" and preceding "Bringing it All Back Home."

Answer: They duck into a doorway

The couple watches the storm unfold from a doorway, which they duck into in order to take shelter from the rain:

"Far between sundown's finish an' midnight's broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing."

In his autobiography, American folk singer Dave Van Ronk claims the song was inspired when Dylan heard him singing one of his grandmother's favorite songs, "The Chimes of Trinity."

Answer: rake

This stanza ends with the refrain that recurs at the end of each of the six, seven-line stanzas of this song:

"An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing."

A live recording of this song at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival is included on "Bootleg Series Volume 7," which is the soundtrack to the documentary "No Direction Home."

Answer: poems

The song makes frequent use of alliteration, such as "mad mystic" and "hammering hail" in these lines. It also frequently employs assonance. This verse continues:

"That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder."

"Chimes of Freedom" was ranked number 32 on the "Rolling Stone" list of the "100 Greatest Bob Dylan Songs of All Time."

Answer: prostitute

Again, we see a great deal of alliteration in these lines: "mistreated, matless, mother, mistitled." Oliver Trager, in his 2004 book "Keys to the Rain," has suggested that Gerard Manley Hopkins's alliterative style of poetry may have inspired Dylan in this song.

This stanza continues:

"For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased an' cheated by pursuit
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing."

Answer: William Butler Yeats

In his poem "Vacillation," which was first published in 1932, Yeats writes:

"Test every work of intellect or faith,
And everything that your own hands have wrought
And call those works extravagance of breath
That are not suited for such men as come
proud, open-eyed and laughing to the tomb."

In his book "Song and Dance Man," Michael Gray writes: "Dylan's 'starry-eyed and laughing' from 'Chimes of Freedom' echoes W.B. Yeats' phrase 'open-eyed and laughing,' the one describing the stance of youth, the other the resolve of age."

A short-lived British band, Starry-Eyed and Laughing, which formed in 1973 and disbanded in 1976, took its name from this song.

Answer: painter

"Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
An' the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing."

"Rolling Stone" called this song "the most ambitious song Dylan had written to date."

Answer: For the unlucky losers who falter when they fail

The bells also toll for "the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed / For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse / An' for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe."

This long liturgy of people for whom the bells toll calls to mind the famous sermon of the English metaphysical poet John Donne, who wrote, "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. . . any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Answer: Arthur Rimbaud

Ian Bell, in "Once Upon a Time: The Lives of Bob Dylan," argues that the song echoes the imagery found in Arthur Rimbaud's "Le Bateau Ivre" ("The Drunken Boat"):

"I know skies split by lightning, waterspouts
And undertows, and tides: I know the night
And dawn exulting like a crowd of doves."

American folk singer Dave Van Ronk told Anthony Scaduto in an interview that he saw on the bookshelf in Bob Dylan's apartment "a volume of the French poets from Nerval to almost the present...and it was all well-thumbed...He never talked about somebody like Rimbaud. But he knew Rimbaud, all right." In his book "Decoding Dylan," Jim Curtis writes, "As is usual with Dylan, we will never know exactly when he discovered Baudeliare and Rimbaud, but the dramatic differences between 'Blowin' in the Wind' and 'Chimes of Freedom'...suggest that sometime in the summer of 1963, Dylan bought. . .' An Anthology of French Poetry from Nerval to Valery in English Translation.'"

Dylan does in fact mention the poet in a later 1974 song, "You're Gonna Make Me Loneseome When You Go" : "Situations have ended sad / Relationships have all been bad / Mine have been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud."

Answer: John F. Kennedy

In his biography of Bob Dylan "No Direction Home," Robert Shelton reports that Dylan took a detour from his touring route to visit Dallas three months after the assassination.

"That same year," the rock magazine "Rolling Stone" reports, "he released 'Chimes of Freedom.' While Dylan insisted it wasn't about Kennedy, the song closely follows the lines of poems he wrote in the aftermath of the assassination that clearly were about JFK."

Answer: Amnesty International

The 4-disc album honored 50 years of Amnesty International, which was founded in 1961 in the United Kingdom to fight human rights injustices worldwide. The album includes Dylan's original recording of "Chimes of Freedom" as well as 75 covers of various Bob Dylan songs, from artists ranging Johnny Cash, Patti Smith, and Pete Townsend to Elvis Costello, Lenny Kravitz, and Kesha.

Answer: The Byrds

This story is recounted in Marc Shapiro's book "Hey Joe: The Unauthorized Biography of a Rock Classic." He quotes the band manager Jim Dickson as saying, "At one point, I sat on David's chest and pinned his shoulders down, because David did not want to put a vocal on the song 'Chimes of Freedom', the last song on the first album." Crosby did eventually relent, and the song was included on The Byrds' debut album, "Mr. Tambourine Man." In his third year, David Crosby was kicked out of the band.

He went onto success with Crosby, Stills, & Nash.

Answer: Warren Zevon

Warren Zevon covered a few other Bob Dylan songs in the course of his career. He covered "Ring Them Bells" at a concern in Denver in 1996. He also recorded a version of "Knocking on Heaven's Door" on his album "The Wind" - prescient, considering the album was released in 2003, the same year he died.

Answer: Bruce Springsteen

The live EP (extended play record) was released in 1988 to benefit Amnesty International. It contained four tracks, but the song "Chimes of Freedom" was never released as a single. The song was recorded on July 3, 1988 at Stockholms Olympiastadion. Springsteen also led a group performance of the song as part of the Human Rights Now! tour with Sting, Tracy Chapman, Peter Gabriel, and the Senegalese musician Youssou N'Dou.

Answer: False

"Chimes of Freedom" peaked at number 43 on the U.S. Billboard Top 200 and at number eight on the UK Top 75 in 1964. The song has been covered by Jefferson Starship, Joan Osborne, and U2. The song is also thought to have inspired Neil Young's "Flags of Freedom."