Bob Dylan turned 70 and my Bakery Boy Blog turned 1 the same week recently. I’m a big fan of both Bob and baking, so for me his lyrical references to baking or baked goods or even basic ingredients commonly used in baking always stand out. Okay, so these aren’t songs actually about baking, just songs with key words that, for me at least, invariably trigger thoughts about baking, my favorite subject. Here are a few tasty Dylan lines, listed alongside the albums on which they first appeared. If you know of others, please tell me (leave a comment) so I can include them on a mix CD I’m pulling together to listen to when I travel to visit more bakeries.
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Well, it’s sugar for sugar/ And salt for salt/ If you go down in the flood/ It’s gonna be your own fault
– from Crash on the Levee (Down In The Flood) (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2, 1971)
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Why wait any longer for the world to begin/ You can have your cake and eat it too/ Why wait any longer for the one you love/ When he’s standing in front of you
– from Lay, Lady, Lay (Nashville Skyline, 1969)
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She’s a junkyard angel and she always gives me bread/ Well, if I go down dyin’, you know she bound to put a blanket on my bed
– from From A Buick 6 (Highway 61 Revisited, 1965)
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Sold my guitar to the baker’s son/ For a few crumbs and a place to hide/ But I can get another one/ And I’ll play for Magdalena as we ride
– from Romance in Durango (Desire, 1976)
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I been to Sugar Town, I shook the sugar down/ Now I’m trying to get to heaven before they close the door
– from Tryin’ To Get To Heaven (Time Out of Mind, 1997)
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Might like to wear cotton, might like to wear silk/ Might like to drink whiskey, might like to drink milk/ You might like to eat caviar, you might like to eat bread/ You may be sleeping on the floor, sleeping in a king-sized bed/ But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
– from Gotta Serve Somebody (Slow Train Coming, 1979)
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Listen to the fiddler play/ When he’s playin’ ’til the break of day/ Oh me, oh my/ Love that country pie/ Raspberry, strawberry, lemon and lime/ What do I care?/ Blueberry, apple, cherry, pumpkin and plum/ Call me for dinner, honey, I’ll be there
– from Country Pie (Nashville Skyline, 1969)
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Standing on the waters casting your bread/ While the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing
– from Jokerman (Infidels, 1983)
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He drank Coca-Cola, he was eating Wonder Bread/ Ate Burger Kings, he was well fed…/ They took a clean-cut kid/ And they made a killer out of him/ That’s what they did
– from Clean Cut Kid (Empire Burlesque, 1985)
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I like to do just like the rest/ I like my sugar sweet
– from Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn) (Self Portrait, 1970)
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You can’t live by bread alone, you won’t be satisfied/You can’t roll away the stone if your hands are tied
– from Something’s Burning, Baby (Empire Burlesque, 1985)
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Looking in the window at the pecan pie/ Lot of things they’d like they would never buy
– from Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum (“Love And Theft,” 2001)
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Miss Delilah is his, a Philistine is what she is/ She’ll do wondrous works with your fate, feed you coconut bread/ Spice buns in your bed/ If you don’t mind sleepin’ with your head face down in a grave
– from Foot of Pride (Bootleg Series 1-3, 1991)
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As he weeps to wicked birds of prey/ Who pick up on his bread crumb sins/ And there are no sins inside the Gates of Eden
– from Gates of Eden (Bringing It All Back Home, 1965)
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They brag about your sugar/ Brag about it all over town/ Put some sugar in my bowl/ I feel like laying down
– from Spirit On The Water (Modern Times, 2006)
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I woke up this morning, butter and eggs in my bed/ I ain’t got enough room to even raise my head
– from The Levee’s Gonna Break (Modern Times, 2006)
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She promised this a-lad she’d stay/ She’s rollin’ up a lotta bread to toss away
– from Sante Fe (Bootleg Series 1-3, 1991)
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You drink bitter water/ And you been eating the bread of sorrow/ You can’t live for today/ When all you’re ever thinking of is tomorrow
– from Ye Shall Be Changed (Bootleg Series 1-3, 1991)
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Yea! Heavy and a bottle of bread
– from Yea! Heavy And a Bottle of Bread (The Basement Tapes, 1975)
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I’m a good ol’ boy/ But I’ve been sniffin’ too many eggs
– from Please Mrs Henry (The Basement Tapes, 1975)
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I got the porkchops, she got the pie/ She ain’t no angel and neither am I
– from Thunder On The Mountain (Modern Times, 2006)
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I’m singin’ love’s praises with sugar-coated rhyme
– from Bye And Bye (“Love And Theft,” 2001)
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Let the wind blow low, let the wind blow high/ One day the little boy and the little girl were both baked in a pie
– from Under The Red Sky (Under The Red Sky, 1990)
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They said it was the land of milk and honey/ Now they say it’s the land of money/ Who ever thought they could ever make that stick/ It’s unbelievable you can get this rich this quick
– from Unbelievable (Under The Red Sky, 1990)
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Now you see this one-eyed midget/ Shouting the word “NOW”/ And you say, “For what reason?”/ And he says, “How?”/ And you say, “What does this mean?”/ And he screams back, “You’re a cow/ Give me some milk/ Or else go home”
– from Ballad of a Thin Man (Highway 61 Revisited, 1965)
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Father of grain, Father of wheat/ Father of cold and Father of heat
– from Father of Night (New Morning, 1970)
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Now, pull that drummer out from behind that bottle/ Bring me my pipe, we’re gonna shake it/ Slap that drummer with a pie that smells/ Take me down to California, baby
– from Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread (The Basement Tapes, 1975)
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The bakery truck stops outside of that fence/ Where the angels stand high on their poles/ The driver peeks out, trying to find one face/ In this concrete world full of souls
– from Three Angels (New Morning, 1970)
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And it ain’t in the cream puff hair-do or cotton candy clothes/ And it ain’t in the dime store dummies or bubblegum goons/ And it ain’t in the marshmallow noises of the chocolate cake voices
– from Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie (Bootleg Series 1-3, 1991)
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In the valley of the giants where the stars and stripes explode/ The peaches they were sweet and the milk and honey flowed
– from Angelina (Bootleg Series 1-3, 1991)
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Now his bread it was corn dodger/ And his meat you couldn’t chaw/ Nearly drove me crazy/ With the waggin’ of his jaw
– from Diamond Joe (Good As I Been to You, 1992)
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Pick that drip/ And bake that dough/ Tell ’em all/ That Tiny says hello
– from Tiny Montgomery (The Basement Tapes, 1975)
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The rats have got your flour/ Bad blood it got your mare/ If there’s anyone that knows/ Is there anyone that cares?
– from Ballad of Hollis Brown (The Times They Are A-Changing, 1964)
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’Twas there by the bakery/ Surrounded by fakery/ Tell her my story/ Still I’m still there
– from Sign Language (in the book Bob Dylan Lyrics 1962-2001)
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HOW DOES IT FEEEEL?
Can you think of any more Bob Dylan baking lyrics? Or do you have favorite songs with baking references by other popular singers? Please leave a comment below to let me know.
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Bakery Boy Blog 
The waitress he was handsome He wore a powder blue cape I ordered some suzette, I said “Could you please make that crepe”
– Marc de Oliveira
Good one, Marc. From “Bob Dylan’s 115 Dream” on Bringing It All Back Home, 1965. I’m now inspired to make pancakes this morning and listen to that entire album in celebration. – Bakery Boy
you’ll find it’s “sold my guitar to the BANKERS son……”
Official website says “baker’s son.” Not “bankers.”
Thank goodness. I was about to say: “Tell me that it isn’t true.”
Yes, baker makes more sense, since the next line is, “…for a few crumbs and a place to hide.”
I loved reading all those sugar-coated rimes from The Old Master. With many of them, I’d hear his voice singing. Makes me feel warm and snuggled. The peaches they were sweet, and the milk and honey flowed.
Can’t remember the song just now, but from the last decade or so:
“she been cookin all day, gonna take me all night.
I can’t eat all that stuff in a single bite.”
That’s from “Nettie Moore” on Modern Times, 2006. I too, when reading such words, find myself thinking them in the pace from the recording and hearing that hypnotic gravelly tone in my head. Always a pleasure. Thanks, Roseanne. – Bakery Boy
Just thought of the waitress vignette from “My Heart’s in the Highlands:”
“Tell me what I want. You probably want hard boiled eggs.”
Yeah, from “Highlands” on Time Out of Mind, 2001. Of course, when he asks her to bring him some she replies, “We ain’t got any, you picked the wrong time to come.” – Bakery Boy
Little piece o’ cornbread layin’ on the shelf/ if you want anymore you can sing it yourself — from Froggie Went a-Courtin’ (Good As I Been To You, 1992)
“Gonna buy me a sack of flour/Cook hoecakes by the hour” – from Diamond Joe, Masked and Anonymous OST