Marbletown... what is the meaning of this song?

[dmg]

I wasn't at the Dylan/Knopfler concerts in Glasgow but maybe MK said something similar at other shows on the tour.

I was but memory fails me - I can't remember!

A good detailed piece twm, I was about to mention Hobo's Lullaby myself but the difference being that I actually enjoy that song;  they don't stretch a little "three minuter" to breaking point and MK plays a beautiful solo in the middle.

[superval99]

2011, Mark used to introduce this song with "a song about sleeping rough..."

For me, it has some deeper meanings about restlessness versa having a home. To rest at sleep at a cemetery says a lot - very morbid. The hunted hobo only finds rest at a place where the dead ones are. (In the movie "Once Upon A Time In the West" it's part of the story that a town AT THE railroad is planned. These plans bring a lot of terror and hatred and death. Plus it is just easy to put the heavy marble that is used to build a great palace the same as for tombstones next to the tracks...).  So being settled is bad, being on the road is also bad, because if you are hunted or a displaced person, all you want to have is a home - the dream of the ragpicker if you like, the theme of the complete great album, every song is about not being at home, check it out, it's a concept... even Quality Shoe!
The hobo himself is restless, he just takes a little rest and then has to keep on going...

In the live version this part is excellently represented. Exhausted and depressed because of being put off the train (again), he just looks for a place to rest and be safe. That would be the very silent and sad fiddle part, or also the picking nowadays. During the 2010 versions, the was absolutely clear for me when the hobo spotted another train coming up on the horizon - maybe at the crack of dawn - he now has to hurry up to catch it... Here is hope again, and confidence - the tension rises when the train comes closer and closer and he has to run next to it to jump onto it... and 2010 this was really awesome played - you can hear the moment when he finally got onto it! (Locarno 2010 good example).
So that's what he wants. He doesn't want to stay at the same place because he HAS to go on and on. Lots of allegory in it, same as in Speedway if you ask me.

Cain and Abel, the settled Cain and the nomad Abel, can't be happy toghether... and so on. So that is a universal theme, put into a simple Bob Dylan-style melody. But the big efforts on the live versions are telling me that Mark sees a lot of potential in it obviously...

Just my 2 cent

LE

Hi LE!   I like your interpretation of the instrumental part of Marbletown - it makes perfect sense to me.  I hadn't really thought about it this way before, eg the slow middle part where he is lying in the cemetery, exhausted and then the frantic part, beginning with that fantastic down-stroke on the fiddle, when he hears the next train coming and he has to run to catch it!   Thanks!   

[tunnel85]

I wasn't at the Dylan/Knopfler concerts in Glasgow but maybe MK said something similar at other shows on the tour.

I was but memory fails me - I can't remember!

A good detailed piece twm, I was about to mention Hobo's Lullaby myself but the difference being that I actually enjoy that song;  they don't stretch a little "three minuter" to breaking point and MK plays a beautiful solo in the middle.

Also added somethin "nobody's gonna bother you".
He said indeed many times, at least both Glasgow shows. Probably during the first UK shows or first NA shows as well and then reduced the sentences when the tour goes on.
He doesn't chat a lot out of UK. Ok we don't understand every word but it adds a lot when he talks during a show. 

[ingridswing]

Brilliant LE. I will never listen to these songs like I did before. Thanks, this makes the whole picture complete  and now you say it, yes it looks like a theme, the whole album

[dmg]

I wasn't at the Dylan/Knopfler concerts in Glasgow but maybe MK said something similar at other shows on the tour.

I was but memory fails me - I can't remember!

A good detailed piece twm, I was about to mention Hobo's Lullaby myself but the difference being that I actually enjoy that song;  they don't stretch a little "three minuter" to breaking point and MK plays a beautiful solo in the middle.

Also added somethin "nobody's gonna bother you".
He said indeed many times, at least both Glasgow shows. Probably during the first UK shows or first NA shows as well and then reduced the sentences when the tour goes on.
He doesn't chat a lot out of UK. Ok we don't understand every word but it adds a lot when he talks during a show.

You're right, he does talk more during the UK shows obviously because of the language issue and he will feel more comfortable being on home soil.  I suppose talking a lot when in a foreign land when a part of the audience don't understand isn't very wise.  Even I struggle sometimes when Mark goes into his mumble mode!

[surferboy]

Thanks LE and others for your help to understand this song.
As this song takes such a prominent place in Mark's set for the last few tours it is well worth digging into its meaning and thanks to your input I can now listen to it with much more interest than before.
I appreciate now how meaningful the speed changes within the song are from slowness (to be able to jump on a train) and almost silence (sleeping in a graveyard) and the rapidness of a train that runs like a cannonball. Absolutely brilliant!
The fear of being detected (we got a man down here) returns even stronger in Redbud Tree.
And despite all the hardships of beeing a hobo (or a ragpicker or the guy in Get Lucky), there is an adventurous element within this life style of travelling on cannonball trains that seems to appeal to MK (like Privateering, Border Reiver, ...).
Thanks everybody

[Lis]

2011, Mark used to introduce this song with "a song about sleeping rough..."

For me, it has some deeper meanings about restlessness versa having a home. To rest at sleep at a cemetery says a lot - very morbid. The hunted hobo only finds rest at a place where the dead ones are. (In the movie "Once Upon A Time In the West" it's part of the story that a town AT THE railroad is planned. These plans bring a lot of terror and hatred and death. Plus it is just easy to put the heavy marble that is used to build a great palace the same as for tombstones next to the tracks...).  So being settled is bad, being on the road is also bad, because if you are hunted or a displaced person, all you want to have is a home - the dream of the ragpicker if you like, the theme of the complete great album, every song is about not being at home, check it out, it's a concept... even Quality Shoe!
The hobo himself is restless, he just takes a little rest and then has to keep on going...

In the live version this part is excellently represented. Exhausted and depressed because of being put off the train (again), he just looks for a place to rest and be safe. That would be the very silent and sad fiddle part, or also the picking nowadays. During the 2010 versions, the was absolutely clear for me when the hobo spotted another train coming up on the horizon - maybe at the crack of dawn - he now has to hurry up to catch it... Here is hope again, and confidence - the tension rises when the train comes closer and closer and he has to run next to it to jump onto it... and 2010 this was really awesome played - you can hear the moment when he finally got onto it! (Locarno 2010 good example).
So that's what he wants. He doesn't want to stay at the same place because he HAS to go on and on. Lots of allegory in it, same as in Speedway if you ask me.

Cain and Abel, the settled Cain and the nomad Abel, can't be happy toghether... and so on. So that is a universal theme, put into a simple Bob Dylan-style melody. But the big efforts on the live versions are telling me that Mark sees a lot of potential in it obviously...

Just my 2 cent

LE

Many, many thanks, LE!!

I completely agree that when performed live, there is so much more to the "story"!  I was repeatedly frustrated, because I just didn't "get it" -- the lyrics are so minimal (and for me the subject matter didn't draw me in), that I could not appreciate what was going on in the song, even though I enjoyed the music.  Thank you for explaining!!!

And yes, I also agree on the theme for the album -- it all fits.  And seems to fit in with MK's desire to move forward, his thirst for adventure, and his compassion for the underdog. 

I am already looking forward to hearing Marbletown at my upcoming concerts!! 

[Lis]

I just wrote a longish piece on "Marbletown" but it's never appeared here. Odd!

Here's the short version.

The song is about a hobo (a poor, itinerant migrant worker) who hops freight trains (waits at places where a train moves slow, spots a box-car with an open door and jumps aboard for a free ride). The railroad companies employed men to stop this practice. They were known as bulls and were rough and violent. Hobos usually carried their own bedrolls, rolled up on their backs.  In the song, the hobo has rolled out his bedroll to rest in  a cemetery, having got off the train because he had been spotted by the bulls ("There's a man down there"). He intends to sleep the night in the open air, hoping it doesn't rain overnight. In the morning, he'll try to catch a "cannonball" - a train that travels fast and far, doesn't stop so often and is less likely to be boarded by other bulls. "Marbeltown" is a place of relative peace and quiet - a respite from his tough life. The song is likely set in the USA in the 1920s or 1930s.

There's similar theme in "Hobo's Lullaby", the song Brendan Croker used to sing on the NHB tours.

Woody Guthrie sometimes hopped freight trains and the opening chapter of his book "Bound For Glory" is set in a box-car filled with hobos. The song "Wabash Cannonball" has been said by some to refer to a train that takes dead hobos to heaven - though this interpretation is disputed.

Gordon Lightfoot's mid-1960s song "Early Morning Rain" finds the singer, a long way from home, wistfully watching a Boeing 707 take off and due to fly over his home in "about 3 hours time". The song contains the lines, "You can't hop a jet plane / Like you can a freight train". Time moves on.

And thank you twm!!!   This is very helpful and I will look for the recordings!

The interest/appreciation for the simplicity and the adventure of the hobo life is something that seems to be slowly fading away.  When I was much younger, it was somewhat common to have kids dress-up as hobos for Halloween.  I do not know if most young kids would even know what a hobo is ...these days.   

[dmg]

And thank you twm!!!   This is very helpful and I will look for the recordings!

The interest/appreciation for the simplicity and the adventure of the hobo life is something that seems to be slowly fading away.  When I was much younger, it was somewhat common to have kids dress-up as hobos for Halloween.  I do not know if most young kids would even know what a hobo is ...these days.   
[/quote]

I thought it was a dog that travelled America rescuing children from mines and other such dangerous situations?

[Lis]

I thought it was a dog that travelled America rescuing children from mines and other such dangerous situations?

Hahaha!!  Was that the name of a dog in a TV show???   

[dmg]

I thought it was a dog that travelled America rescuing children from mines and other such dangerous situations?

Hahaha!!  Was that the name of a dog in a TV show???   

The Littlest Hobo.  Sunday afternoon childhood memories.  It had a memorable theme tune, in fact that was the best part!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Littlest_Hobo

[Lis]

I thought it was a dog that travelled America rescuing children from mines and other such dangerous situations?

Hahaha!!  Was that the name of a dog in a TV show???   

The Littlest Hobo.  Sunday afternoon childhood memories.  It had a memorable theme tune, in fact that was the best part!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Littlest_Hobo

Nice that Marbletown ultimately helped us reminisce on some fun childhood memories!!  A hobo-costumed kid and an ownerless hero-dog!