Bob Dylan’s Great Travel Song
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In the Bob Dylan lexicon, I think it’s fair to say that “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” a song originally performed by The Band and which first appeared in Dylan’s own voice on 1971’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2, is not generally regarded as his “masterpiece.” It may not even be regarded as a masterpiece, which is as it should be given its title, although I beg to differ. It is a masterpiece in the genre of what you could call the “travel song,” or perhaps the “time-travel song,” depending on how you view it. However you look at it, it is a great summer vacation song — particularly if you’re heading to Europe, as right about now, a lot of Americans are.
Clocking in at 3 minutes and 22 seconds, “When I Paint My Masterpiece” comes crammed with a traveler’s itinerary. There are names of much-visited cities (Rome, Brussels, Venice), popular tourist sites (the Spanish Steps, the Coliseum), transportation (planes, trains, gondolas), travelers’ bugaboos (crowds, bumpy flights, muscle-strains), as well as the usual standbys (hotel rooms, cameras, sex). And all in three verses plus a two-line bridge! Dylan even sounds as if he has a cold (more than he usually does, that is), another problem that tends to afflict travelers.
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