Note that, like most of the Desire songs, “Joey” has lyrics co-written by Jacques Levy, so it’s not strictly a Dylan lyric.
Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.
But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we’re forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God’s on your side.
I’m not going to thread crap and you can count me in with the “doesn’t get” crowd but still I can acknowledge greatness when I see it.
From memory, Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice - It’s Alright reaches the sublime with:
I once loved a woman, a child I’m told,
I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul.
The whole song is great but those lines stand out. That is when it’s sung by anyone but…NO, I’m not going down this path.
Out.
I guess I’ve been exposed to the wrong subset of his songs previously. A lot of this is quite good.
I got a friend who spends his life
Stabbin’ my picture with a Bowie knife,
Dreams of stranglin’ me with his scarf,
When my name comes up he pretends to barf.
– I got a million friends!
(“I Shall Be Free No. 10”)
My personal favorite Dylan song (right now) is Ballad Of A Thin Man (link to a live version of the song). It has so much fantastic lyrical imagery, bordering on (or crossing into) surrealistic nonsense, yet repeating a contemptuous, snarled and increasingly hostile refrain (to a slow, almost dirgelike blues beat) about a bewildered “Mr. Jones” who continues not to understand what it all means. In a way, it’s an excellent metaphor for life in turbulent times.
*You raise up your head, and you ask, “Is this where it is?”
And somebody points to you and says, “It’s his!”
And you say, “What’s mine?”
And somebody else says, “Where what is?”
And you say, “Oh my God, am I here all alone?”
But something is happening, and you don’t know what it is…
Do you, Mister Jones?
…
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!”
And you KNOW something is happening,
But you don’t know what it is…
Do you, Mister Jones?*
Oh God said to abraham kill me a son
Abe said man you must be puttin me on
God said no, abe said what
God say you can do what you want but…
The next time you see me comin you better run
Well abe said where do you want this killin done
God said out on highway 61
How good ,how good does it feel to be free
I answer quite mysteriously ,are the birds free from the chains of the skyway
From here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24000483/
He has also been nominated for the Nobel Prize many times.
So I think it is safe to say if you don’t like the guy’s music your taste is for shit. That or you are under 30…
The Official Bob Dylan Site Hard rains gonna fall lyrics from a site that has them all .
A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.
He was 23 when he wrote that.
[ETA: I see askeptic mentioned Highway 61 Revisited while I was editing this posting … great minds think alike, and random minds sometimes do too, I guess!]
I’ve decided my favorite Dylan album (even more so than Blonde On Blonde) is Highway 61 Revisited. Both albums are just about perfect from beginning to end, and it’s simply astounding to me that he made both albums in the same calendar year. The songs have great hooks and manage to have elements of lyrical beauty yet also sardonic, even black humor – all things I greatly enjoy and that are hard to combine well.
Highway 61 Revisited (the song itself) kicks off with him blowing a “siren whistle” (that “wheeeee!” whistling sound a la The Three Stooges), of all things, and the following funny yet bitingly satirical lyrics:
God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son!”
Abe said, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on.”
God said, “No”, and Abe said “What?!”
God said, “You can do what you want to, but
The next time you see me comin’, you better run!”
So Abe said, “Where d’you want this killing done?”
And God said, “Out on Highway 61!”
Is “Highway 61” a metaphor for 20th Century America, which in the mid-1960s was seeing its first generation grow up in the post-war era of Interstates and Highways? Is this a biting attack on the very core of all Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – how incredible is it that an Almighty God is good when his original covenant with Abraham is based on getting him to accede to human sacrifice of his only child to prove his obedience?
Or is it all, as indicated by that incredibly silly whistle, just Dylan having fun pulling beards? Especially when the lyrics get progressively more surreal!
*
Now the Rovin’ Gambler, he was very bored
Tryin’ to create a next World War
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor,
He said, “I never engaged in this kind of thing before –
But yes, I think it can be very easily done…
We’ll just put some bleachers out in the sun,
And have it on Highway 61!”
*
Is that some kind of clever commentary on how some Cold War hawks seemed to treat the prospect of war as a game, even a sports event of sorts? Is the phrase “bleachers in the sun” evoking both a high school football game, and bones bleached bare in a desert sun? Or – there’s that silly whistle again – is Dylan just having fun with people who take him, his lyrics and life in general wayyy too seriously?
hey dont insult us younguns, some of us have good taste.
Some of Dylan’s work is amazing.
Most of it actually.
He is not a technically proficient singer, or guitarist, but his music holistically becomes art.
robardin: You know that Dylan’s music career began in New York in…1961.
I’m not sure how to parse this. It’s true that Dylan arrived in New York in 1961, but his music career began in the 1950s.
And I’m another one who saw the title and thought, “which aren’t”? How could the OP have been exposed to enough of Dylan to know who Dylan is without hearing the magnificent early albums, essentially everything through Blonde on Blonde, which are individually and collectively astonishing, beyond any other collection of works in popular song history. For someone in his 20s to do this work can only be explained by genius. There is nothing to compare with this achievement in lyrics.
Paladud, get hold of Dylan’s memoirs Chronicles, volume 1. The man can write. Probably the best rock memoirs of all time, and one of the finest memoirs of any kind of all time.
I remember now a phrase that perfectly captures the spirit of this period of Dylan’s lyrics: Ha Ha, Only Serious. The best irony has truth in it, and my world view is basically that reality and existence itself is some big joke that one is fated never to fully appreciate, but is lucky even to only “get” every now and then in bits and pieces.
I recall reading about some rapper (was it a guy with NWA?) whose older brother said, “You think you write poetry? Bob Dylan writes poetry,” and sat down and listened to that old Jew with new ears, and saw his brother was right. The thing with Bob is that he writes music, not tunes with lyrics, but what a rapper can identify as “holistically,” to quote bobthebuilder, music. Not a lot of people have successfully covered his songs, and those that had commercial success did it by watering down the emotion (usually anger: see Peter, Paul and Mary), because Bob did them right the first time.
The first verse is:
My love she speaks like silence,
Without ideals or violence,
She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful,
Yet she’s true, like ice, like fire.
People carry roses,
Make promises by the hours,
My love she laughs like the flowers,
Valentines can’t buy her.
Which seems like a love song, but is it really? By the last verse we have some very poetic and cryptic lines:
The bridge at midnight trembles,
The country doctor rambles,
Bankers’ nieces seek perfection,
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring.
The wind howls like a hammer,
The night blows cold and rainy,
My love she’s like some raven
At my window with a broken wing.
Complete lyric and discussion is here.
It should also be mentioned the siren whistle was often used by Spike Jones. I’m pretty sure that was reference Dylan was going for when he used it.
I don’t see how that follows. I could find critics and judges/awards panels that rave about countless musical artists - that doesn’t mean you have no taste if you don’t agree with them. Pretty lame argument.
Having taking my username from a somewhat obscure but wonderful little Dylan ditty, I think it’s obvious on which side of the lyrical fence I stand. But I’ll add my $.02:
Early Bob:
*Masters of War, 1963
*
You fasten on the triggers for the others to fire.
Then you sit back and watch while the death count gets higher.
Well, this one thing I know though I’m younger than you:
Even Jesus would never forgive what you do.
Not Dark Yet, 1997
Shadows are falling and I’ve been here all day.
It’s too hot to sleep and time is running away.
Feel like my soul has turned into steel.
I’ve still got the scars that the sun didn’t heal.
There’s not even room enough to be anywhere.
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.
TV Talkin’ Blues, 1990
One time in London I’d gone out for a walk,
Past a place called Hyde park where people talk
'Bout all kinds of different gods, they have their point of view
To anyone passing by, that’s who they’re talking to.
There was someone on a platform talking to the folks
About the T.V. god and all the pain that it invokes.
“It’s too bright a light”, he said, “For anybody’s eyes,
If you’ve never seen one it’s a blessing in disguise.”
No one can turn a phrase or set the stage or deal with so many subjects as well. He is amazing. He is basically a channel of Something Higher. Unbelievable.
JK