Posted on 12/31/2002 11:41:32 AM PST by dennisw
Dylan has some high points, true, and I don't mean to slam him generally. Two of my oldest friends played in his bands for a long time, and always said he was a great boss and great fun to play with.
Andrew Motion, the British poet laureate, created quite the stir this fall when he hailed Bob Dylan as one of the greatest artists of the century and proclaimed "Visions of Johanna," from Dylan's 1966 album "Blonde on Blonde," the best song lyric ever written.
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Visions of Johanna
Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet? We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it Lights flicker from the opposite loft In this room the heat pipes just cough The country music station plays soft But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off Just Louise and her lover so entwined And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman's bluff with the key chain And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the "D" train We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight Ask himself if it's him or them that's really insane Louise, she's all right, she's just near She's delicate and seems like the mirror But she just makes it all too concise and too clear That Johanna's not here The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously And when bringing her name up He speaks of a farewell kiss to me He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall How can I explain? Oh, it's so hard to get on And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues You can tell by the way she smiles See the primitive wallflower freeze When the jelly-faced women all sneeze Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze I can't find my knees" Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel The peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him Sayin', "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him" But like Louise always says "Ya can't look at much, can ya man?" As she, herself, prepares for him And Madonna, she still has not showed We see this empty cage now corrode Where her cape of the stage once had flowed The fiddler, he now steps to the road He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed On the back of the fish truck that loads While my conscience explodes The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain |
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Copyright © 1966; renewed 1994 Dwarf Music |
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I've seen him fifteen times, myself. Wish it was fifteen thousand.
Every Grain of Sand
In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed
There's a dyin' voice within me reaching out somewhere, Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair.
Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake, Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break.
In the fury of the moment I can see the Master's hand In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand.
Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear, Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer.
The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay.
I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame And every time I pass that way I always hear my name. Then onward in my journey I come to understand That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.
I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night In the violence of a summer's dream, in the chill of a wintry light,
In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space, In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face.
I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other times it's only me.
I am hanging in the balance of a perfect finished plan Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.
Tell your mama not to worry 'cause
Yes, they're just my friends...
St. Agnes' Eve--Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.
His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;
Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,
And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,
Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:
The sculptur'd dead, on each side, seem to freeze,
Emprison'd in black, purgatorial rails:
Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat'ries,
He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.
. . . .
Out went the taper as she hurried in;
Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:
She clos'd the door, she panted, all akin
To spirits of the air, and visions wide:
No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!
But to her heart, her heart was voluble,
Paining with eloquence her balmy side;
As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.
And for a strange take on Keats, read this Kipling short story. It may be a ghost story. I'm not entirely sure.
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