The autumn is beautiful with a big blue sky almost everyday and cool weather relieving us from the hot humid summer. I wonder how anyone could go a day without taking a few minutes to contemplate their own existence.
Young Bob Dylan seems best when listened to on an autumn afternoon. Bob Dylan's music should be required listening and reading for language arts class in middle school. He takes a hard truthful message and portrays it through heartfelt metaphors.
The songs he writes don't shove an answer in your face, but often offers a question or tell a story that would otherwise not be heard. His songs are like a voice in the wilderness.
A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall
I can listen to this song again and again. I can draw pictures and paint the words that come out of this song.
It's not clear who sent the "blue eyed" son or who is the "blue eyed son", but the "blue eyed son" has a view of the world that the Father knows but has never seen with his own eyes.
The son not only sees but he also hears. We should not be surprised what he sees and hears. The world is going this way. The oceans, the mountains and the forest are the lifeline of this planet. He saw them become angry and sick. He heard "the sound of thunder that roared without warning". In all this calamity he heard the injustice of the world.
In his time on earth the son met sorrow and tragedy. Perhaps the rainbow from the girl was a sign of hope or a sign of lost hope. Finally when asked, "What will you do?" the son says that he will walk into the depths of despair to be with the souls that are "forgotten" then he will speak and then he will sink in the ocean and then it will be too late. He says, "Then I'll stand in the ocean until I start sinking... But I'll know my song well before I start sinking." It's the song of a hard rain and it will be falling.
Subterranean Homesick Blues
This song seems so random yet it all comes together in a story of street life. There are definitely some references to the drugs kids got into, but also how they were hunted down for it (Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes). Mostly this is a hip poem about life in the city. The end is cute:
"The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handles"
Reminds me of some hot summers we had on the West Side of Chicago.
By Kwanesum - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3825903
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol
Bob Dylan used the melody of a previously existing folk song "Mary Hamilton" to create a current affairs song. The song doesn't directly say, but it implies that Zantzinger killed Hattie Carrol and got a six months sentence because he was white and she was black.
The effect of the song was that Zantzinger although given an easy sentence never got away with the crime. The truth was exposed. In 1963 in the US this was not a topic that people wanted to bring out into the open but there was injustice and the song brought it into the light.
The song ends with:
Oh, but you who philosophize, disgrace and criticize all
Fears,
Bury the rag deep in your face, for now's the time for your
Tears.
It was not a time to strike back, but a time to mourn and consider the depths of one judge's decision.
Today some are quick to take drastic actions and then forget about the mess they made, but Dylan's suggestion in the song is for us to think and to repent and mourn.
Perhaps this medicine would go a long way today.
Sorry I don't have any hip hoppiddy bib bobobitty jumpy wumpy music for Three for Tuesday, but this is the music I have on my mind today. In Korea the Autumn is time for poetry and deep thinking.
I had wanted to get some work done today but I changed my mind. I'd rather just sit here and stare out the window.
All photos here belong to me unless they are marked otherwise.
