When the Ship Comes In

When the Ship Comes In

written and performed by Bob Dylan

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
'Fore the hurricane begins
The hour that the ship comes in.

And the seas will split
And the ship will hit
And the sands on the shoreline will be shaking;
Then the tide will sound
And the waves will pound
And the morning will be breaking.

Oh the fishes will laugh
As they swim out of the path
And the seagulls they'll be smiling
And the rocks on the sand
Will proudly stand
The hour that the ship comes in.

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 will be buried at the bottom of the ocean.

A song will lift
As the mainsail shifts,
And the boat drifts on to the shoreline;
And the sun will respect
Every face on the deck
The hour that the ship comes in.

Then 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'.

Oh the foes will rise
With the sleep in their eyes
And they'll jerk from their beds and think they're dreamin'
But they'll pinch themselves and squeal
And know that it's for real
The hour that the ship comes in.

Then 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 Pharaoh's tribe
They'll be drownded in the tide,
And like Goliath, they'll be conquered.

Wikipedia says that this is a “folk music song by Bob Dylan, released on his third album, The Times They Are a-Changin in 1964.” And I know, I know of the hotel scene that supposedly inspired the composition. ¹

In the early 1960’s I was thoroughly entrenched in the “folk music” craze sweeping the country.  I had played the guitar for six or so years and finally I could listen to newly released songs in which I could actually hear the guitar being played. My first affections went to Peter, Paul & Mary. From them I gravitated to Joan Baez and read on the back of one of her albums about this young mover and shaker named Dylan. I bought his first album, then his second and memorized all the songs I could. Wrote them in my spiral bound notebook. I bought his third album. Felt so in tune with the outside world. One of the many songs I memorized was “When the Ship Comes In.” I carried my guitar pretty much everywhere I went ready to play at a moment’s notice. Through four years in the USMC and into Vietnam.

When you memorize a song, and sing it long enough, it becomes your song. I always liked “When the Ship Comes In.” It played well. It sang well. Notice I didn’t say I sang well, but Dylan had proved that singing well was not necessary in the delivery of a song. I really didn’t understand the song, except maybe in a large overall picture that someday, not sure when, but someday, the oppressed would come out on top and wrongs would be righted.

In 1972, I read a book called “The Great Controversy.” It is a history of God’s church during the past 2000 years, and ends with a vivid biblical account of the second coming of Jesus. It is in some cases a life-altering book and it was so in my case.

Sometime afterward, I don’t remember exactly when, it occurred to me that my song “When the Ship Comes In,” was a remarkable allegory of Christ’s second coming. I have not since been able to shake that little revelation. Now I don’t push that around and I would never sing it for special music in church. It’s just my little thing.

Very little in the 60’s was as it seemed to be. P, P & M, put it well in I Dig Rock n Roll Music when they said “But if we really say it, the radio won’t play it, and so we lay it between the lines.” Many wordsmiths of the time employed this concept and their ever-so-hip audiences ate it up and spent much time looking for hidden meanings.

“When the Ship Comes In” is not about a young man being treated badly at a hotel. It probably was inspired by the incident but the song has a universal appeal that transcends pettiness and triviality.

When pressed for the “secret” meanings of his songs, Dylan would often withdraw as if he himself was not sure of the meanings. “Dylan himself has commented on more than one occasion that he felt the songs were coming through him as if he were channeling them, as if they were arriving from somewhere else.”²  Thomas Larson wrote, “They came to him with ease, as if he was channeling them from some unknown source. Tom Paxton said, ‘He felt he wasn’t writing songs, he was [just] writing them down. They were there to be captured.” ³

As a Christian, I believe that there are two powers on earth vying for my attention. Only two. Christ, for good; Satan, for evil. With Christ living in me, my thoughts are directed by Him. There is no middle ground. If one chooses to live without Christ, he has made a choice. If he rejects good, he has by default accepted evil. His thoughts are then directed by the evil one.

I do believe that there was a great deal of “channeling” going on during the 60’s and since the great majority of the so-called “folk music” of the period was promulgated by non-Christians, I have to assume that Christ was not doing the channeling.

That leaves me with two possibilities regarding my theory. When the Ship Comes In was either an overblown Calvinesque (re. Calvin & Hobbes) reactive fantasy toward an elitist hotel manager, or maybe God does have a sense of humour and occasionally does a little channeling Himself, sometimes even if the channelee doesn’t even understand what’s going on.

Chapter 40 of the Great Controversy can be found on the web.  

http://www.whiteestate.org/books/gc/gc40.html

I may be the only one that sees and feels the similar mood, sequence of events and the message “between the lines.” And I could be wrong. I've been wrong before - a couple of times.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Ship_Comes_In

2. http://open.salon.com/blog/mjwycha/2010/02/20/the_dylan_files_2_-_folk_years_1961-1964

3. Larson, Thomas History of Rock and Roll p. 78