[continued from previous message]   
      
   >>> > ("Masters of War"). The United States, to Dylan, is the country that   
   >>> > enjoys watching boxer kill boxer ("Who Killed Davey Moore"), the   
   >>> > country where a judge can coerce a young girl to intercourse on the   
   >>> > false promise that he will save her father from hanging ("Seven   
   >>> > Curses"), the country where poor whites are taught by the rich to hate   
   >>> > negroes ("Only a Pawn in their Game"), and the country where mine and   
   >>> > factory are opened and closed with little thought to the welfare of   
   >>> > the worker ("North Country Blues"). To the young, in Dylan's eyes, the   
   >>> > United States is an absurd, surrealistic place:   
   >>> >   
   >>> > Ah get born, keep warm   
   >>> > Short pants, romance, learn to dance   
   >>> > get dressed, get blessed   
   >>> > try to be a success   
   >>> > Please her, please, him, buy gifts   
   >>> > Don't steal, don't lift,   
   >>> > Twenty years of schoolin'   
   >>> > And they put you on the day shift   
   >>> > Look out kid, they keep it all hid   
   >>> > Better jump down a manhole   
   >>> > Light yourself a candle, don't wear sandals   
   >>> > Try to avoid scandals   
   >>> > Don't wanna be a bum   
   >>> > You better chew gum.   
   >>> >   
   >>> > ("Subterranean Homesick Blues")   
   >>> > Dylan himself wants neither to chew gum nor please anyone. He is   
   >>> > against not only the kind of possessiveness and dominance of human   
   >>> > beings that the United States practices through its foreign policy,   
   >>> > its racial discrimination, its boxing syndicates, and its abuse of   
   >>> > workers, but also (at least until the recent album Nashville Sky-   
   >>> > line) against the possessiveness and dominance encouraged by romantic   
   >>> > love. In 'Don't Think Twice it's All Right" the speaker deserts a   
   >>> > woman because she required too much of him; "I gave her my heart but   
   >>> > she wanted my soul." In "It Ain't Me Babe" the speaker has encountered   
   >>> > a girl who wants "someone to close his eyes for" her, "someone to   
   >>> > close his heart. Someone who will die for" her, "and more." Again,   
   >>> > such demands, even though sanctioned by our culture, seem unreasonable   
   >>> > to him. Dylan expresses his own ideas on the ideal relationship   
   >>> > between people in his song "All I Really Want to Do." These ideas do   
   >>> > not apply merely to the relationship between man and woman, but in the   
   >>> > light of his other songs can be generalized to include the   
   >>> > relationship between worker and employer, citizen and policeman,   
   >>> > student and professor.   
   >>> >   
   >>> > I ain't lookin, to compete with you,   
   >>> > Beat or cheat or mistreat you,.   
   >>> > Simplify you, classify you,   
   >>> > Deny, defy, or crucify you.   
   >>> > All I really want to do   
   >>> > Is Baby, be friends with you.   
   >>> > Dylan seeks the destruction of what is to him an inhumanly   
   >>> > competitive, exploitive, classifying, and confining society. Because   
   >>> > his vision is apocalyptic, however, he does not foresee revolution   
   >>> > occurring other than spontaneously, without apparent cause, as if by   
   >>> > divine act. That our contemporary society, its institutions, and its   
   >>> > values should not only be criticized and rejected but also escaped   
   >>> > seems to be his major piece of advice to us all. But man's own means   
   >>> > of escape are limited: one can murder one's starving wife and chil-   
   >>> > dren and commit suicide oneself, like Hollis Brown, so that "some-   
   >>> > where in the distance/There's seven new people born" ("Ballad of   
   >>> > Hollis Brown"), or one can follow "Mr. Tambourine Man" and through   
   >>> > marijuana, LSD, or hard narcotics come "to dance beneath the diamond   
   >>> > sky" ("Mr. Tambourine Man"). For change that will affect everyone   
   >>> > something larger must occur. A song such as "The Times They Are   
   >>> > A-Changin' " contains only a hint of the coming apocalypse.   
   >>> >   
   >>> > The line is drawn   
   >>> > The curse is cast   
   >>> > The slow one now will   
   >>> > Later be fast.   
   >>> > As the present now   
   >>> > Will later be past   
   >>> > The order is rapidly fadin'   
   >>> > And the first one now   
   >>> > Will later be last   
   >>> > For the times they are a-changin'.   
   >>> > And yet it is clearly the Christian apocalypse, with its conventional   
   >>> > raising of the meek and toppling of the mighty, that Dylan is   
   >>> > suggesting. Songs such as "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" or "A Hard   
   >>> > Rain's A Gonna Fall" present the surrealistic rush and confusion of a   
   >>> > judgement day already at hand. The last scene of Bergman's The Seventh   
   >>> > Seal sends men everywhere scurrying for a pennyworth of salvation,   
   >>> > "The Saints are coming through,/And It's all over now, Baby Blue." In   
   >>> > "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine" the blessed saint himself comes down   
   >>> > to earth to offer man life after destruction. In four other songs   
   >>> > Dylan's vision of the all-arighting apocalypse is directly expressed.   
   >>> > In "Chimes of Freedom" Dylan pictures an exhilarating scene:   
   >>> >   
   >>> > Thru the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail   
   >>> > The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder   
   >>> > That the clanging of the church bells blew far into the breeze   
   >>> > Leaving only the bells of lightning and its thunder   
   >>> > Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind,   
   >>> > Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind   
   >>> > An' the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time   
   >>> > An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.   
   >>> > In "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" he reports:   
   >>> >   
   >>> > Struck by sounds before the sun,   
   >>> > I knew the night had gone,   
   >>> > The morning breeze like a bugle blew   
   >>> > Against the drums of dawn.   
   >>> > The ocean wild like an organ played   
   >>> > The seaweed's wove its strands,   
   >>> > The crashin waves like cymbals clashed   
   >>> > Against the rocks and sands.   
   >>> > I stood unwound beneath the skies   
   >>> > And clouds unbound by laws,   
   >>> > The cryin' rain like a trumpet sang   
   >>> > And asked for no applause.   
   >>> > In "The Gates of Eden" Dylan develops a clear dichotomy between what   
   >>> > is possible on earth and what is possible in eternity.   
   >>> > Meaningless noise, ownership, kingship, time, metaphysics, lawcourts,   
   >>> > science, the dream of an earthly paradise - all, Dylan tells us, can   
   >>> > exist only outside the gates of Eden.   
   >>> >   
   >>> > With a time rusted compass blade   
   >>> > Aladdin and his lamp   
   >>> > Sits with Utopian hermit monks   
   >>> > Sidesaddle on the Golden Calf   
   >>> > And on their promises of paradise   
   >>> > You will not hear a laugh   
   >>> > All except inside The Gates of Eden.   
   >>> > And some day, after the hard rain has fallen, perhaps - Dylan leaves   
   >>> > the entire physical circumstances of our society's cataclysmic   
   >>> > destruction intentionally vague-after the hard radioactive rain   
   >>> > following an atomic war, when indeed all is over for baby blue and   
   >>> > everyone else, these gates of Eden will open, and the hour will have   
   >>> > come, "the hour when the ship comes in."   
   >>> >   
   >>> > O the time will come   
   >>> > When the winds will stop   
   >>> > And the breeze will cease to be breathin'   
   >>> > Like the stillness in the wind   
   >>> > When the hurricane begins   
   >>> > The hour when the ship comes in.   
   >>> > O the sea will split   
   >>> > And the ship will hit   
   >>> > And the shoreline sands will be shaking   
   >>> > Then the tide will sound   
   >>> > and the wind will pound   
   >>> > And the morning will be breaking.   
   >>> > ("When the Ship Comes In")   
   >>> > The corpus of Leonard Cohen's songs is nowhere as large as that of Bob   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)