RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 319 Meet Mr.Dylan
Episode 319 of RevolutionZ, inspired by the release of "A Complete Unknown," seeks to assist in one wish for the film -- to introduce new audience to Dylan's work. It isn't mandatory to study history in order to enjoy today's tunes, but to do so with Dylan opens us to much edification and enrichment. I let the movie select many of the songs to present, but not all. From hundreds Dylan has done, I of course had to settle for less than the whole. So here is a sliver of Dylan, sadly without his vocals and his music, yet nonetheless I hope my clumsy recitation with some brief commentary will prove worth your time and provoke further attention.
Consider the feminist undertones in "All I Really Want to Do" and then the sharp critique of misogyny in "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" Consider "Mr. Tambourine Man" and its multiple possible meanings. Consider "Like a Rolling Stone," a song that. electrified the music scene and redefined industry standards with its challenging imagery, length, and focus. Consider Dylan's exploration of relationships and power dynamics, and assess if his messages continue to resonate today. Take special note of "Farewell Angelina," with its exit message that we on the left should have given more attention to.
And then there is Dylan's social commentary represented here with "Blowing in the Wind," "Only A Pawn in Their Game," "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)." "The Times They Are A Changin'," and "Dignity." For those familiar with all this, perhaps hearing it spoken with lyrics forefront and with some commentary, may prove inspiring. For those not familiar with Dylan, I offer this introduction to suggest that he is worth some of your attention.
And then, back to stopping Trump and winning a better world. Busy being born and not busy dying.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our 319th consecutive episode. Perhaps you're aware there is a new movie out, titled A Complete Unknown. It addresses the first five years, or thereabouts, in Bob Dylan's public musical life. I have not yet seen it. I have read some interviews with cast director etc. And have seen some excerpts, as well as heard from some friends who have seen the movie. Timothy Chalamet, who plays Dylan, has reported that he hopes that, among other outcomes, the movie will introduce Dylan and his words will introduce Dylan and his words to new generations. Regrettably, I can't now say my guest for this episode is Bob Dylan to talk about his words. I can't even say my guest is Timothee Chalamet to talk about Dylan's words.
Speaker 1:But well, I find it remarkable that high school kids, college kids, grown people in their 20s and 30s, even ones who listen to lots of music, often don't even know who Bob Dylan is. I've had two friends who have seen the movie tell me that the theater was full of people just like them, people just like me In the specific attribute that we share of having a shitload of lived birthdays, to our credit. We're old people, and those two friends reported that in the theater there were virtually no young people Incredible. And yet I also know it isn't incredible. After all, when I was a young person did I know performers, even incandescent performers from a half century earlier? Not a chance. I barely knew there had been life a half century earlier. And with music I think the situation is more true than in many other domains. Most of us get into listening to music when we are quite young, and as we get older we tend to listen less, and often what we listen to when we are older is in any case what we listened to when we were younger. So we don't know much music before when we got started, often not even 10 years before, much less from 50 or 60 years before we got started. And often we don't know much more music after our early days either as well, perhaps 20 years and then. Silence is not very golden. So it goes. It is not ideal, but I suspect as a broad, though of course not universal, phenomenon, this picture is probably pretty accurate. Thus few young people seeing a complete unknown is not surprising.
Speaker 1:Why should a teen now a 20-something adult now a 30-something adult now, hell, anyone less than 64 now take any time now to even know Bob Dylan, much less to seriously deep dive into his music. Of Bob Dylan, much less to seriously deep dive into his music. Some old folks might say well, because Dylan changed music into something it wasn't. I think it is absolutely true that he did just that regarding duration, focus, lyrics and more. But even so, some young folks might reply okay, great, I'll take your word for it. I'm happy to hear that he did that. But why do I need to explore it? Why do I need to deep dive into it? That is your pool, not mine. Well, I reply, the truth is you don't.
Speaker 1:I don't think that Dylan, having been historically pivotal to how music has developed, is sufficient reason for you to feel a great need to go back and listen, not for him or for Elvis Presley, chuck Berry, little Richard, patti Smith, joni Mitchell and so on. You may have historical interest in those who went before and transformed the discipline, and so you may choose to listen deeply, way back, and that is fine, of course, but I don't think it's essential that people go back because of prior historical impact. The same is true, and may make the point even more clearly, in many other disciplines. In physics, for example, you don't have to go back to read Einstein or Dirac, much less Newton and many others who changed the whole field. Yes, they did that, but that means that if you get up to date now perhaps physics being your thing then by being up to date now you are imbibing their effects on physics, along with more effects of others.
Speaker 1:Since, or say, you love basketball, do you have to watch old videos of Dr J Bill Russell, bill Walton and Oscar Robertson to be a fan who legitimately and intelligently enjoys basketball? Now the old-timers tend to say yes, but I don't think so. The predecessor's effects live on in the game. So for historical insights, for the fullest possible overview, yes, you would have to dig in, but not to enjoy next Tuesday's playoff game, which is quite alright to do.
Speaker 1:Is there some other reason to visit the past in diverse fields, including music? Yes, I think there is. For example, you may enjoy doing so. History is your drug of choice. Or time traveling back, you might be affected by the predecessor's style and particular genius. This, of course, applies most powerfully if you are active in the discipline or the art, whatever it may be. But what if you just dabble now and then, and you mostly enjoy what's happening, what's current, that's what you like to hear.
Speaker 1:I think there is still a reason to time travel in some fields, for some people Call the destination enjoyment, enrichment and edification. And so there is the case potentially accruing those things I claim for listening to Bob Dylan's music. But such a case requires evidence. No one had heard anything quite like Dylan before Dylan, and I would have to say we haven't heard overly much like him since him. Big deal, you might say. Everyone is different, yes, but some are differently different. That is the big claim. Rarely true, I admit. You can decide for yourself if it is true for Dylan, but you can't do that if you don't give his work some time.
Speaker 1:So with this episode, I admit that I am trying to provoke attention to Dylan from those who haven't yet given much. For the rest of you, those who have attended to his work, maybe this will be a reminder of why you cared, or just a familiar trip with a few little twists. I should perhaps say that partly for me at least, as a teenager hearing Dylan, what was mesmerizing and edifying, like with no other singer-songwriter, was his voice and the ebb and flow of the music under his songs. But beyond that and those don't universally appeal, even if I can't perceive why they don't for me, what was and is most mesmerizing and I would wager it could be for you too, with some effort to first get into something different is his incredible lyrics. So what can I say? Am I just a guy with roots way back then, who was forever young about this, which in this case could mean forever blind to the scale of subsequent accomplishments? Or am I correct that Dylan's lyrics, even taken alone, much less taken with the melodies and sonic and social emotions that accompanied them, stand out even today as wildly different than what is current and as, even after 60 years, still more enjoyable, enriching and edifying than most and perhaps even all of the rest?
Speaker 1:The movie A Complete Unknown addresses just five years of Dylan's emerging public life, and in those years it addresses just a few songs, with hundreds more to follow later. What more could the film do about him or his lyrics without becoming endless? The movie addresses some of his life too, but I will set that aside, and the movie doesn't have Dylan's voice, though Chalamet, I am told, does a profoundly good job, not Dylan, but very good. So I thought for this episode to take sort of a break from thinking about the deadly orange plague and how to erase it, that I would try and help along Chalamet's wish for the movie, that it bring new ears to Dylan's music, and to do that I would try to entertain and richen, edify by offering some Dylan lyrics, even without his voice and his music. Mostly I will let the movie largely choose which songs to present, but not entirely, and yes, I think this episode might get long.
Speaker 1:Finally, I hesitate to interject comments with the lyrics, but as I read the lyrics I suspect I may at times be unable to stop myself. If my comments help a little, great. If not, ignore my part, but take some time for Dylan's part. When Leonard Cohen, another incredible poet from the old days who is, I dare say, also worth some of your time, was asked about Dylan winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, he said quote to me the award is like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain. End quote. I will keep my comments on the mountain to an absolute minimum, not just relevant to its scales.
Speaker 1:I would wager that you all expect me now to offer up some of Dylan's more political early songs. But first, how about a quick foray into some of his version of what is so ubiquitous nowadays Four of his relationship songs even breakup lookback songs, his relationship songs even break-up look-back songs, but with an edge. It turns out Dylan is not only an observant troubadour, he's also a human. First consider Girl from the North Country. It goes like this Well, if you're traveling in the North Country fair, where the winds hit heavy on the borderline, remember me to one who lives there. She once was a true love of mine. Well, if you go when the snowflakes storm, when the rivers freeze and summer ends, please see if she's wearing a coat so warm to keep her from the howling winds. Please see for me if her hair hangs long, if it rolls and flows all down her breast. Please see for me if her hair hangs long. That's the way I remember her best. I'm wondering if she remembers me at all. Many times I've often prayed in the darkness of my night, in the brightness of my day. So if you're traveling in the North Country Fair, where the winds hit heavy on the borderline, remember me to one who lives there. She once was a true love of mine.
Speaker 1:Not complex lyrics, not mind-bending metaphors and images. No need to interject, but still he can write already. Or consider the song All I Really Want to Do, a song that's about him and her, and imagine that you heard it as a teenager, before feminism got your attention, in fact, before anything much got your attention. I ain't looking to compete with you, beat or cheat or mistreat you, simplify you, classify you, deny, defy or crucify you. All I really want to do is, baby, be friends with you. No, and I ain't looking to fight with you, frighten you or tighten you, drag you down or drain you down, chain you down or bring you down. All I really want to do is, baby, be friends with you. I ain't looking to block you up, shock or knock or lock you up, analyze you, categorize you, finalize you or advertise you. All I really want to do is, maybe, be friends with you. I don't want to straight face you, race or chase you, track or trace you or disgrace you or displace you or define you or confine you. All I really want to do is, baby, be friends with you. I don't want to meet your kin, make you spin or do you in or select you or dissect you or inspect you or reject you. All I really want to do is, baby, be friends with you. I don't want to fake you out, take or shake or forsake you out. I ain't looking for you to feel like me, see like me or be like me. All I really want to do is, baby, be friends with you.
Speaker 1:Again, there is nothing too hard to fathom in that song, and yet the sentiments, so succinct, are also so relevant for some, maybe even so emulatable. I want to do two more relationship songs, if you will, since even some old folks like me may not know this next one, and then I have to do one that everyone knows. First, here is a song you most likely have never heard. It's titled Can you Please Crawl Out your Window? It was not in the movie, but it was from the same period. It was the same time as the song Positively Fourth Street, another song that displays wit on top of acid, which I will add later if we have time. If you perhaps think I was over the top putting the word feminism in the same sentence as his song, all I Really Want to Do listen to this song from just before feminism freed countless minds. Indeed, before my generation had by and large heard a word about it.
Speaker 1:This was sung to a particular woman, but perhaps also to many women and I would say to all men so Can you please crawl out your window? Goes like this he sits in your room his tomb with a fistful of tacks, preoccupied with his vengeance, cursing the dead. That can't answer him back. You know that he has no intentions of looking your way, unless it's to say that he needs you to test his inventions. I will interject. I heard that and well, I wondered is that fair? Are we men that gross? Then came the chorus hey, crawl out your window, come on, don't say it will ruin you. Come on, don't say he will haunt you. You can go back to him anytime you want to. I interject. Think abused woman, not easy to move on. The song continues. He looks so truthful. Is this how he feels? Trying to peel the moon and expose it With his business-like anger and his bloodhounds that kneel. If he needs a third eye, he just grows it. He just needs you to talk or to hand him his chalk or to pick it up after he throws it. I have to interject.
Speaker 1:Is there a more militant critique of sexism that I missed? Caustic Dylan is very caustic indeed. How long did it take me before. I could even really hear what he's saying in this one. Surely not as a senior in high school, but maybe it planted some scenes. I have to wonder if Dylan himself heard this one, or just conveyed it from out of the skies. And tell me, do you not think the broad assessment of male misogyny, even with all the gains against it over the years, still resonates? Is the image you get listening much different than your picture of Donald Trump and Elon Musk?
Speaker 1:The song goes on hey, crawl out your window. Come on, don't say it will ruin you. Come on, don't say he will haunt you. You can go back to him anytime you want to. Why does he look so righteous while your face is so changed? Are you frightened of the box that you keep him in While his genocide fools and his friends rearrange their religion of little tin women to back up their views? But your face is so bruised. Come on out. The dark is beginning. I interject. I think perhaps it isn't surprising that this song is barely known at all. It ends ah, come on out your window. Come on, don't say it will ruin you. Come on, don't say he will haunt you. You can go back to him anytime you want to. Of course, the women who shortly later rebirthed feminism didn't need, and probably never heard, heard Dylan cajoling them, but I did, and I have to admit I wonder about the women who voted for Trump.
Speaker 1:Note, if it wasn't already clear Dylan's relationship to songs are in no way narrowly about narrow relationships, even if they ostensibly mainly aim to address just those. Is that true today too? And now comes Dylan's most famous song, like a Rolling Stone, which is the one that most immediately, most proximately, changed the whole industry. And now his words are somewhat more complex. Images pile on images and multiple listenings can yield new takes. This song and the choices to go electric at the time, is really the ending up point of the movie, dylan's move to rock from folk. But we have more to present from a bit earlier after this one. This time it is a wealthy, even a rich woman, or maybe all materially rich women, or maybe everyone who is materially rich Dylan is singing to and about. I'm not going to repeatedly include the chorus, save for one time.
Speaker 1:Once upon a time you dressed so fine, threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you? People call, say beware, doll, you're bound to fall. You thought they were all a-kidding you. You used to laugh about everybody that was hanging out. Now you don't talk so loud. Now you don't seem so proud about having to be scrounging your next meal.
Speaker 1:And now the chorus. How does it feel? How does it feel to be without a home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone? Ah, you've gone to the finest schools. All right, miss Lonely, but you know you only used to get juiced in it. Nobody's ever taught you how to live out on the street and now you're going to have to get used to it. You say you never compromise with the mystery tramp, but now you realize he's not selling any alibis as you stare into the vacuum of his eyes and say do you want to make a deal? I interject look up, get used in it. Which of three or four meanings do you think Dylan meant to evoke? Or all of them? About the finest schools? Ah, you never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns when they all did tricks for you.
Speaker 1:You never understood that it ain't no good. You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you. You used to ride on a chrome horse with your diplomat who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat. Ain't it hard when you discovered that he really wasn't where it's at After he took from you everything he could steal? I can't not interject Men again, rich ones, not where it's at. A princess on a steeple and all the pretty people. They're all drinking, thinking that they've got it made. Exchanging all precious gifts, but you better take your diamond ring, you better pawn it, babe. Gifts, but you better take your diamond ring, you better pawn it, babe. You used to be so amused at Napoleon and rags on the language that he used. Go to him. He calls you. You can't refuse when you ain't got nothing. You got nothing to lose. You're invisible. Now You've got no secrets to conceal. Okay, that one in hand. Time to go back a few years to directly consider society, what he called his finger-pointing songs. And I have to wonder would a young person listening to the following offerings now, with Trump in the societal saddle and us needing to do something about that, not hear these songs? Not exactly, but at least somewhat, like I and others heard them 60 years ago.
Speaker 1:First, blowing in the Wind. How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man? Yes, and how many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand? Yes. And how many times must the cannonballs fly before they're forever banned? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind. How many years can a mountain exist before it's washed to the sea? Yes, and how many years can some people exist before they're allowed to be free? Yes. And how many times can a man turn his head, pretending he just doesn't see? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind. How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky? Yes. And how many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry? Yes. And how many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind. No need to comment, no confusion.
Speaker 1:Next, we have, with God on Our Side, a song sung certainly to my generation. Oh, my name, it ain't nothing. My age, it means less. The country I come from is called the Midwest. I was taught and brought up there the laws to abide, and that the land that I live in has God on its side, oh, the history books tell it, they tell it so well the cavalry's charged, the Indians fell. The cavalry's charged, the Indians fell. The cavalry's charged, the Indians died. Oh, the country was young, with God on its side. The Spanish-American War had its day, and the Civil War too was soon laid away. And the names of the heroes I was made to memorize.
Speaker 1:With guns in their hands and God on their side, the first World War boys, it came and it went. The reason for fighting I never did get, but I learned to accept it. Accept it with pride, for you don't count the dead when God's on your side. The Second World War came to an end. We forgave the Germans and then we were friends. Though they murdered six million in the ovens, they fried. The Germans now too, have God on their side.
Speaker 1:I learned to hate the Russians all through my whole life. If another war comes, it's them. We must fight To hate them and fear them, to run and to hide and accept it all bravely, with God on my side. But now we've got weapons of chemical dust. If fire them, we're forced to then fire them we must. One push of the button and they shot the whole world wide. And you never ask questions when God's on your side.
Speaker 1:Through many a dark hour I've been thinking about this. That Jesus Christ was betrayed by a kiss, but I can't think for you. You'll have to decide whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side. So now, as I'm leaving, I'm weary as hell. The confusion I'm feeling ain't no tongue can tell. The words fill my head and they fall to the floor that if God's on our side he'll stop the next war.
Speaker 1:This is early 60s. The civil rights movement is quite real, but the anti-war movement is just getting going. Dylan is finger-pointing. So what should we feel? Heading off to school or off to war? Do you know the Langston Hughes poem Dream Deferred? What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun or fester like a sore and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load, or does it explode? The next song for our survey, still very straightforward, is Masters of War. It reveals quite graphically and unsubtly what Dylan felt.
Speaker 1:Then Come you, masters of war, you that build the big guns, you that build the death planes, you that build all the bombs, you that hide behind walls, you that hide behind desks. I just want you to know I can see through your masks. You that never done nothing but build to destroy. You play with my world like it's your little toy. You put a gun in my hand and you hide from my eyes and you turn and run farther when the fast bullets fly. Like Judas of old, you lie and deceive. A world war can be won. You want me to believe, but I see through your eyes and I see through your brain, like I see through the water that runs down my drain. You fasten all the triggers for the others to fire. Then you sit back and watch when the death count gets higher.
Speaker 1:You hide in your mansion while the young people's blood flows out of their bodies and is buried in the mud. You've thrown the worst fear that can ever be hurled, fear to bring children into the world For threatening my baby, unborn and unnamed. You ain't worth the blood that runs in your veins. How much do I know to talk out of turn? You might say that I'm young. You might say I'm unlearned, but there's one thing I know, though I'm younger than you, that even Jesus would never forgive what you do. Let me ask you one question Is your money that good? Will it buy you forgiveness? Do you think that it could? I think you will find when your death takes its toll. All the money you made will never buy back your soul, and I hope that you die and your death will come soon. I'll follow your casket by the pale afternoon and I'll watch while you're lowered down to your deathbed and I'll stand over your grave till I'm sure that you're dead. Imagine that you listened to that repeatedly and then went off to college or to work or wherever. What might happen next for you as the bombs blasted, indochina or today, gaza Sag or explode?
Speaker 1:I first got into Dylan, however, as did a great many people, via a song of his well, a part of it anyway that was sung by a group called the Birds, mr Tambourine man. So I think maybe why not include it? It introduces Dylan writing image after image, leaving the meaning sometimes hard to perceive, much less to hold on to. Hey, mr Tambourine man, play a song for me. I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to. Hey, mr Tambourine man, play a song for me In the jingle jangle morning. I'll come following you, though I know that even its empire has returned into sand, vanished from my hand, left me blindly here to stand, but still not sleeping. My weariness amazes me. I'm branded, and now the chorus which I won't keep repeating hey, mr Tambourine man, play a song for me. I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to. Hey, mr Tambourine man, play a song for me In the jingle jangle morning I'll come following you. Take me on a trip upon your magic swirling ship.
Speaker 1:My senses have been stripped. My hands can't feel to grip my toes, too numb to step. Wait only for my boot hills to be wandering. I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for it to fade into my own parade. Cast your dancing spell my way. I promise to go under it.
Speaker 1:Though you might hear laughing, spinning, swinging madly across the sun, it's not aimed at anyone, it's just escaping on the run. And but for the sky, there are no fences facing. And if you hear vague traces of skipping reels of rhyme to your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind. I wouldn't pay it any mind. It's just a shadow. You're seeing that he's chasing and take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind, down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves the haunted, frightened trees out to the windy beach, far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow. Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky, with one hand waving free, silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands, with all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves.
Speaker 1:Let me forget about today until tomorrow. Hey, mr Tambourine man, play a song for me. I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to. Hey, mr Tambourine man, play a song for me In the jingle jangle morning. I'll come following you. I won't burden you with how I thought about that song after feeling its verses, except, to say best I could estimate, you can't play a song on a tambourine. And since I thought the ancient empty streets were Dylan's mind at that moment, or perhaps the mind of the part of him that whispered the words to the rest of him, and since I thought his own parade in that case referred to his funeral, but then again, perhaps not. He is after all still alive and meanings abound.
Speaker 1:Now I'd like to offer two in-between songs, I guess in-between finger pointing and going way more poetic. This is where the Nobel Prize judges likely looked, I think, to see what this guy had to offer. Note though that, having forsaked finger-pointing and even ridiculing finger-pointing as he did. Certainly that didn't mean not taking on the world. Actually, it didn't even mean no more fingers aimed where he wanted. First there was a hard rains are going to fall I think he had partly in mind a nuclear rain, but then as a metaphor it works, if you take it that way now, but also for global storms. You know, high water rising and fascism prowling, really for whatever you want to insert, even though, again, this is 60 years ago that he wrote this and yet, even with quite monumental changes since then, it could also have been written 10 minutes ago, which is both amazing and rather sad, because it wasn't.
Speaker 1:It goes like this oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son? Oh, where have you been, my darling young one? I've stumbled on the side of 12 misty mountains. I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways. I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests. I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans, I've been 10,000 miles in the mouth of a graveyard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard and it's a hard. Rains are gonna fall. Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son? Oh, what did you see, my darling young one. I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it. I saw a highway of diamonds and nobody on it. I saw a black branch with blood that crept dripping. I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleeding. I saw a white ladder all covered with water. I saw 10,000 talkers whose tongues were all broken. I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children. And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard and it's a hard. Rains are gonna fall.
Speaker 1:And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son? And what did you hear, my darling young one? I heard the sound of a thunder. It roared out a warning. Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world. Heard 100 drummers whose hands were blazing. Heard 10,000 whispering and nobody listening. Heard one person starve. I heard many people laughing. Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter. Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley. And it's a hard, it's a hard and it's a hard rain that's gonna fall. Oh, who did you meet my blue-eyed son? Who did you meet my darling young one? I met a young child beside a dead pony. I met a white man who walked a black dog. I met a young woman whose body was burning. I met a young girl. She gave me a rainbow. I met one man who was wounded in love. I met another man who was wounded with hatred. And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard. Rains are going to fall.
Speaker 1:Oh, what do you do now, my blue-eyed son? Oh, what do you do now, my darling young one? I'm going back out before the rain starts falling. I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest, where the people are many and their hands are all empty, where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters, where the homes in the valley meets the damp, dirty prison, where the executioner's face is always well hidden, where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten, where black is the color, where none is the number. And I'll tell it and think it, and speak it, and breathe it, and reflect it from the mountains so all souls can see it. Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start singing, but I'll know my song well before I start singing. And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard. Rains are going to fall. Not bad advice about knowing our song well and reaching out widely with it, about knowing our song well and reaching out widely with it.
Speaker 1:Next is one I find my mind putting into my typing fingers lines from over and over right up to now. Images piled on images. The song is it's Alright, ma, I'm Only Bleeding, and it goes like this. Darkness at the break of noon shadows even the silver spoon, the handmade blade, the child's balloon eclipses both the sun and moon. To understand, you know too soon. There is no sense in trying.
Speaker 1:Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn. Suicide remarks are torn From the fool's gold mouthpiece. The hollow horn plays wasted words. Proves to warn that he, not busy being born, is busy dying. Temptations page flies out the door. You follow, find yourself at war Watch waterfalls of pity roar. You feel the moan but, unlike before, you discover that you'd just be one more person crying. So don't fear if you hear a foreign sound to your ear. It's all right, ma, I'm only sighing, as some want victory, some downfall.
Speaker 1:Private reasons, great or small, can be seen in the eyes of those that call to make all that should be killed to crawl, while others say don't hate nothing at all except hatred. Disillusioned words like bullets bark as human gods aim for their mark, make everything from toy guns that spark to flesh-colored Christ that glow in the dark. It's easy to see, without looking too far, that not much is really sacred. While preachers preach of evil fates, teachers teach that knowledge waits can lead to hundred dollar plates, and goodness hides behind its gates. But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked. And though the rules of the road have been lodged, it's only people's games that you got to dodge, and it's alright, ma I can make it. That you got to dodge, and it's all right, ma I can make it.
Speaker 1:Advertising signs that con you into thinking you're the one that can do what's never been done, that can win what's never been won. Meantime, life outside goes on all around you. You lose yourself. You reappear. You suddenly find you got nothing to fear. Alone, you stand with nobody near when a trembling, distant voice, unclear, startles your sleeping ears to hear that somebody thinks they really found you. A question in your nerves is lit, yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy. Ensure you not to quit, to keep it in your mind and not forget that it is not he or she, or them or it, that you belong to.
Speaker 1:But though the masters make the rules for the wise men and the fools, I got nothing, ma, to live up to. For them that must obey authority that they do not respect in any degree, who despise their jobs, their destiny, speak jealously of them that are free, do what they do, just to be nothing more than something they invest in. While some, on principles, baptize to strict party platform ties, social clubs in drag disguise, outsiders they can freely criticize Till nothing, except who to idolize and say God bless him, while one who sings with his tongue on fire gargles in the rat race choir, bent out of shape from society's pliers, cares not to come up any higher but rather get you down in the hole that he's in. But I mean no harm, nor put fault on anyone that lives in a vault. But it's all right, ma, if I can't please him.
Speaker 1:Lady judges, watch people in pairs. Limited in sex, they dare to push fake morals, insult and stare. While money doesn't talk, it swears Obscenity. Who really cares? Propaganda, all is phony. While them that defend what they cannot see with a killer's pride, security, it blows their minds most bitterly. For them that think death's honesty won't fall upon them.
Speaker 1:Naturally, life sometimes must get lonely. My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards, false goals. I scoff at pettiness which plays so rough. Walk upside down inside handcuffs, kick my legs to crash it off, say, okay, I have had enough. What else can you show me? And if my thought dreams could be seen, they'd probably put my head in a guillotine. But it's all right, ma. It's life and life.
Speaker 1:Only it turns out in the 50 or 60 years since all that Dylan has written hundreds more songs for dozens of albums and who knows how many consigned to a wastebasket. Just to make evident that, if you who are hearing this do get interested, there is more to explore. Remember what I said at the outset about how we get hooked on sounds when young and we don't really keep up. It applies to me too. I think one of the last songs I did notice was in the 90s and it is next, after that, one from still more recently, 2001. I think that I never heard until preparing for this, that I never knew existed, and yet he got an Oscar for it as best song.
Speaker 1:First, dignity Fat man looking in a blade of steel. Thin man looking at his last meal. Hollow man looking in a cotton field for dignity. Wise man looking in a blade of grass. Young man looking in the shadows that pass, poor man looking through painted glass. For dignity, somebody got murdered on New Year's Eve. Somebody said dignity was the first to leave.
Speaker 1:I went into the city, went into the town, went into the land of the midnight sun, searching high, searching low, searching everywhere I know, asking the cops wherever I go. Have you seen dignity? Blind man breaking out of a trance, puts both his hands in the pockets of chance, hoping to find one circumstance of dignity. I went to the wedding of Mary Lou. She said I don't want nobody see me talking to you. Said she could get killed if she told me what she knew about dignity. I went down where the vultures feed. I would have gone deeper, but there wasn't any need. Heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of men Wasn't any difference to me. Chilly wind, sharp as a razor blade, house on fire, debts unpaid. Gonna stand in the window gonna ask the maid. Have you seen dignity? Drinking man listens to the voice he hears in a crowded room full of covered up mirrors, looking into the lost, forgotten years.
Speaker 1:For dignity, met Prince Philip at the home of the blues. Said he'd give me information if his name wasn't used. He wanted money up front, said he was abused by dignity. Footprints running across the silver sand Steps going down into tattoo land. I met the sons of darkness and the sons of light in the border towns of despair. Got no place to fade, got no coat. I'm on the rolling river in a jerking boat to fade, got no coat. I'm on the rolling river in a jerking boat trying to read a note.
Speaker 1:Somebody wrote about dignity. Sick man looking for the doctor's cure, looking at his hands for the lines that were, and into every masterpiece of literature for dignity. English man stranded in the black heart wind combing his hair back. His future looks thin, bites the bullet and he looks within for dignity. Someone showed me a picture and I just laughed. Dignity never been photographed. I went into the end, went into the black, into the valley of dry bone dreams. So many roads, so much at stake, so many dead ends. I'm at the edge of the lake. Sometimes I wonder what it's going to take to find dignity. And for the last song in this episode I have to stop somewhere.
Speaker 1:At first I thought I would jump forward to 2000, to a song I already mentioned that Dylan wrote for the movie Wonder Boys. I guess he was about 60. I had never heard it. Despite that, it got the Oscar. It is called Things have Changed. But then I decided, since Dylan changed personas over and over, leaving one version of himself and stepping to another almost as his most constant attribute always changing, perhaps I ought to convey the song Positively Fourth Street, which displayed his fierce words again, but this time directed at those who wanted him to never change. It is called Positively Fourth Street, which refers to a street in Greenwich Village where he first joined folk singers and then, at least in their feelings about it, left them, though I would say he didn't really leave them.
Speaker 1:You've got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend. When I was down, you just stood there grinning. You've got a lot of nerve to say you got a helping hand to lend. You just want to be on the side. That's winning. You say I let you down. You know it's not like that. If you're so hurt, why then don't you show it? You say you've lost your faith, but that's not where it's at. You have no faith to lose, and you know it. I know the reason that you talk behind my back. I used to be among the crowd you're in with.
Speaker 1:Do you take me for such a fool to think I'd make contact with the one who tries to hide what he don't know to begin with? You see me on the street. You always act surprised. You say how are you? Good luck. But you don't mean it when you know as well as me. You'd rather see me paralyzed. Why don't you just come out once and scream it no, I do not feel that good when I see the heartbreaks you embrace. If I was a master thief, perhaps I'd rob them. And though I know you're dissatisfied with your position and your place, don't you understand? It's not my problem. I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes and just for that one moment I could be you. Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. You'd know what a drag it is to see you.
Speaker 1:That was Dylan saying goodbye to the folk music community. Next, in a song titled Farewell Angelina, he is saying goodbye to Joan Baez, I think, and as well to the then radical activist left community. Notice, there is nothing about Baez that repels him. Rather, it is something about the times, about our community that repelled him. I think we should have listened to Dylan, not only when he said what we liked, but also when he said what he tried to convey here, what he could no longer immerse himself in, what he had to escape.
Speaker 1:Farewell Angelina. The bells of the crown are being stolen by bandits. I must follow the sound. The triangle tingles and the trumpets play slow. Farewell Angelina, the sky is on fire and I must go. There's no need for anger. There's no need for blame. There's nothing to prove. Everything's still the same, just a table standing empty by the edge of the sea. Everything's still the same Just a table standing empty by the edge of the sea. Farewell Angelina. The sky is trembling and I must leave. The Jacks and the Queens have forsaked the courtyard. Fifty-two gypsies now file past the guards In the space where the deuce and the ace once ran wild.
Speaker 1:Farewell Angelina, the sky is folding. I'll see you in a while. See the cross-eyed pirates sitting perched in the sun, shooting tin cans with a sawed-off shotgun. And the neighbors? They clap and they cheer with each blast. Farewell Angelina. The sky is changing color and I must leave fast. King Kong, little elves. On the rooftops they dance Valentino-type tangos while the makeup man's hands shut the eyes of the dead not to embarrass anyone.
Speaker 1:Farewell Angelina. The sky is embarrassed and I must be gone. The machine guns are roaring. The puppets heave rocks. The fiends nail time bombs to the hands of the clocks. Rocks, the fiends nail time bombs to the hands of the clocks. Call me any name you like, I will never deny it. Farewell Angelina. The sky is erupting. I must go where it's quiet.
Speaker 1:And so not only Baez but also the movement lost Dylan, at least as someone intimately immersed. It was not her fault at all, but instead the movement's fault, as we shot tin cans and heaved rocks. And I say again, I think we should have heard Dylan not only when he sang what we were learning and trying to teach, but also when he sang about our not always wonderful effects on others. And next here is one song, not from Dylan, but from Baez to him. Well, after their split, dylan wasn't the only one who could write.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll be damned, here comes your ghost again, but that's not unusual. It's just that the moon is full and you happen to call, and here I sit, hand on the telephone, hearing a voice I'd known a couple of light years ago heading straight for a fall. As I remember, your eyes were bluer than robin's eggs. My poetry was lousy. You said when are you calling? From A booth in the Midwest, ten years ago, I brought you some cufflinks. You brought me something. We both know what memories can bring they bring diamonds and rust.
Speaker 1:Well, you burst on the scene already a legend, the unwashed phenomenon, the original vagabond. You strayed into my arms and there you stayed, temporarily lost at sea. The Madonna was yours for free. Yes, the girl on the half shell could keep you unharmed. Now I see you standing with brown leaves falling all around and snow in your hair. Now you're smiling out the window of that crummy hotel over Washington Square. Our breath comes out. White clouds mingles and hangs in the air.
Speaker 1:Speaking strictly for me, we both could have died then and there. Now you're telling me you're not nostalgic. Then give me another word for it, you who are so good with words and at keeping things vague, because I need some of that vagueness now. It's all come back too clearly. Yes, I loved you dearly and if you're offering me diamonds and ruffs, I've already paid. Okay, I know, I said that would be it, but I guess I lied. Dylan's life switching and tune tracking may be catching At any rate. I know I said that would be it, but I guess I lied. Dylan's life switching and tune tracking may be catching At any rate.
Speaker 1:I don't see how I can end this without this next song, the final one, I promise. It is called Chimes of Freedom. It's on the album titled Another Side of Bob Dylan from 1964. Dylan was born in 1941, six years before me, so he was at most 23 when he wrote this. Like I said in the beginning, he was differently different. The song goes like this Far between sundown's finish and midnight's broken toll, we ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing as majestic bells of boats struck, shadows in the sounds, seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing, flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight, flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight and for each and every underdog soldier in the night.
Speaker 1:And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing In the city's melted furnace. Unexpectedly, we watched with faces hidden while the walls were tightening, as the echo of the wedding bells before the blowing rain dissolved into the bells of the lightning Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake, tolling for the luckless, the abandoned and forsaked. Tolling for the outcasts burning constantly at stake. And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail. The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder that the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze, leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder striking for the gentle, striking for the kind, striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind and the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time.
Speaker 1:And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing Through the wild cathedral evening. The rain unraveled tails for the disrobed, faceless forms of no position, tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts all down and taken for granted situations. Tolling for the deaf and blind, tolling for the mute, tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute, for the misdemeanor outlaw Chasen cheated by pursuit. And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing, even though a cloud's white curtain in a far-off corner flashed and the hypnotic, splattered mist was slowly lifting, electric lights still struck, like arrows fired but for the ones condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting. Toiling for the searching ones on their speechless seeking trail. For the? L condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting. Toiling for the searching ones on their speechless seeking trail, for the lonesome hearted lovers with too personal a tale and for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail. And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing, starry-eyed and laughing, as I when we were caught, trapped by no track of hours, for they hanged, suspended, as we listened one last time and we watched, with one last look, spellbound and swallowed, till the tolling ended, tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed, for the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse, and for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe. And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Speaker 1:Whoops, I gotta change my mind again. When the pundits and critics called Dylan the voice of my generation, I think the song that they had in mind wasn't any of those I have cribbed above. I think the song that they had in mind wasn't any of those I have cribbed above. It was instead the times. They are a-changing, so surely I have to offer that one too.
Speaker 1:Come gather round people wherever you roam and admit that the waters around you have grown and accept it, that soon you'll be drenched to the bone if your time to you is worth saving, and you better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone, for the times they are a-changing. Come, writers and critics who prophesize with your pen, and keep your eyes wide. The chance won't come again. And don't speak too soon, for the wheel's still in spin and there's no telling who that it's naming, for the loser now will be later to win, for the times they are changing.
Speaker 1:Come, senators, congressmen, please heed the call. Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall, for he that gets hurt will be he who is stalled. The battle outside raging will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls, for the times they are a-changin'. Come, mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Your old road is rapidly agin'. Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand. For the times they are a-changin'. The line is drawn, the curse it is cast. The slow one now will later be fast, as the present now will later be past. The order is rapidly fading and the first one now will later be last, for the times they are changing.
Speaker 1:We still have to make that observation real, don't we? So that's it. I hope the words will cause you to try some albums. The music and his voice really do add to the brew, bringing it All Back Home. Highway 61, revisited and Blonde on Blonde were three albums done back-to-back and are as good as any three consecutive artistic achievements, at least in my mind as ever can be found mind as ever can be found and, at any rate, are as good a place as any to start navigating Dylan, unless, of course, you start earlier or later. So by all means, lend him your ear to help fulfill Chalamet's hope for the movie's effect, but do it please only as an adjunct to and maybe to help fuel giving Trump migraines and much worse. No-transcript.