Try not to drive, y’hear?

What can I tell you? What can I possibly say? Oh, no, that’s Leonard Cohen, and I’m thinking of Bob Dylan.

It was good to see the movie “No Direction Home” on PBS tonight. I saw the first half of it anyway, and I’ll be watching the second. Fragments of the old and the contemporary – it all made me feel an odd mixture of hopefulness and sadness. Bob Dylan seemed so very fragile in his strength, no definitive person, yet very singular – what a figure. I used to read Dylan’s lyrics as poetry, at first because I sometimes couldn’t understand the words he was singing unless I could see his face. It used to annoy me when he’d sing songs differently each time, but now I enjoy it. I suppose I’ve heard enough versions of many of them for there to be a widely varying one in my memories – a good effect of its own.

It struck me that there are some similarities between the American mental landscape now and that time in the fifties and very early sixties – the fear of nuclear war, but still riding on the tail end of post-WWII prosperity, the conformity, the deadness. Is there anywhere in America now like New York’s Greenwich Village was then, I mean, in its essence? How did all these amazing people find their way there? Where is the place in America now? Where are the young people of such promise now? Please comment if you know. They all seem so young.

In the film, Liam Clancy says that Dylan was able to articulate “what the rest of us wanted to say — but couldn’t.” I had never heard Masters of War. It goes well with Only a Pawn in their Game) (then and now). Here it is, for some small comfort to those taken hostage by masters of war and deceit, in America, again.

Masters of War, Bob Dylan

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big 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 nothin’
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 the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As 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
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’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
‘Til I’m sure that you’re dead

Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music