Thursday, February 08, 2007
Not-So-Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Trying to force myself to stretch my back more often, I've turned to my record collection (yes, the vinyl pizzas!) as motivation: One side of an album gets me through my stretches. Today, I put on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released May 27, 1963, when I was five months old.
Hearing the old words after so long, I tried to really listen, rather than just have the familiar tunes pour over me. And here's what I heard, from A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall -- prophetic, seems to me:
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin',
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin',
I saw a white ladder all covered with water,
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children...
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin',
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin',
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin',
