Nevertheless

Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby’s song closes side one of Dylan’s 2016 album Fallen Angels. The second in a trilogy of albums uncovering songs from the Great American Songbook, it seemed to share the response given to another middle album of a trilogy, 1980’s Saved. A common opinion at the time their releases was, “well the first one was nice, but this again?” The titles of the albums create their own juxtaposition. Unlike the surety evident in the title of “Solid Rock”, the side one closer of Saved, it’s counterpart “Nevertheless” waffles; right/wrong, weak/strong/, win/lose, give/get. It says “maybe” 11 times. It’s sung by Dylan at a time when he has the wisdom of many years to know that nothing is ever as straightforward as it may seem. By contrast, Saved embodies the time when things appeared to be most clear to Dylan. Yet even then, Dylan wasn’t afraid to take someone else’s song to capture the mood he was after. The lead track of that album is Joe “Red” Hayes and Jack Rhodes country classic “A Satisfied Mind”.

Back to Kalmar and Ruby, the songwriting team of “Nevertheless.” There is a comic flair to the song, and Dylan’s own sense of humor is legendary. The songs that made them famous were all of the musical-comedy variety. They wrote the songs for several Marx Brothers movies.

(The guitar toss at the end is very rock n’ roll!)

The themes underpinning these songs mirror some of Dylan’s own, since “love fades” is one of his recurrent motifs, and he can often appear to be a contrarian just because. In “Po’ Boy”, Dylan sings “calls down to room service, says, ‘send up a room’", which echo’s a line from one of the Marx Brothers’ most famous set pieces; the state room scene in A Night at the Opera (1935). As numerous requests for additional services fill the room literally to the ceiling, Groucho makes the request to “send up another room.” Give the anarchist a cigarette, indeed!

“Nevertheless” was recorded by Johnnie Ray. For more on what Johnnie means to Bobby, see this entry from Shadow Chasing by the always brilliant Graley Herren. Harry Nilsson also recorded “Nevertheless” for his album of standards, A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night. The album cover of which references a famous gag from comedic genius Stan Laurel. Inside many a comedian is a frustrated musician (e.g. Sandler, Fallon etc.), and many musicians imbue their art with comedy.

Back to Nilsson’s album, of which a quarter of the songs were also covered in Dylan’s trilogy of standards. Nilsson was 32 when the album was released in 1973, at the height of his critical and commercial success as a songwriter for himself and others. It was a bold and pioneering move, made in part by Nilsson’s feeling that his voice was just right at that moment for that material. So too was Dylan’s voice, particularly by the time of Triplicate, the rough edges smoothed away.