The Poetry of Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is more than a singer/songwriter.  He is an accomplished and gifted poet.  I bought my first Bob Dylan album when I was 10 years old.  Living in Seattle in 1963, a hotbed in the musical scene (even back then), not to mention birthing the first clamoring of the anti-war movement and pop-counterculture movement... I do believe I was one of the youngest kids on my block to buy his first album, Freewheelin'.

I used to sit and write out all the lyrics, then try to put in the chords, usually a simple 1-4-5 progression, then fitfully attempt to sing along.  I would always know when a new album was about to come out and run to the store to get the first copy.  I was not only attracted to the folksy strum of the guitar and the edgy lilt to his voice, but more so to the haunting lyrics, which spoke to me in many different ways.  What was it that drew me to Dylan's poetry?  Was it the protest, the angry voice, the romantic ballad, the mystical metaphors, the uneasiness, his own search for the truth... was it any one of these things?  Was it all of these combined into one unique voice, a voice in the "wilderness"?

Lately I've picked up my guitar and started singing some his older tunes (to my wife's and kids' horror).  I've taken a little time to cull through some of my favorite songs, ones that you may have never heard or read.  I wanted, especially, to give you excerpts that can be read as poetry, for that is exactly what they are, and in my view, what they were intended to be.  I'd love to hear what you all think.

Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, Blonde on Blonde, 1966
With your mercury mouth in the missionary times,
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes,
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes,
Oh, who among them do they think could bury you?
With your pockets well protected at last,
And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass,
And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass,
Who among them do they think could carry you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, Freewheelin', 1963
Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
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,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Desolation Row, Highway 61, 1965
Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid
To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row.

Farewell Angelina, first recorded 1963
The bells of the crown
Are being stolen by bandits
I must follow the sound
The triangle tingles
And the trumpet play slow
Farewell Angelina
The sky is on fire
And I must go.

I Shall Be Released, written 1967
They say ev'ry man needs protection,
They say ev'ry man must fall.
Yet I swear I see my reflection
Some place so high above this wall.
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.

Love Minus Zero, No Limit, Bringing it All Back Home, 1965
In the dime stores and bus stations,
People talk of situations,
Read books, repeat quotations,
Draw conclusions on the wall.
Some speak of the future,
My love she speaks softly,
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all.

My Back Pages, Another Side, 1964
Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin' high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
"We'll meet on edges, soon," said I
Proud 'neath heated brow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Simple Twist of Fate, Blood on the Tracks, 1975
A saxophone someplace far off played
As she was walkin' by the arcade.
As the light bust through a beat-up shade where he was wakin' up,
She dropped a coin into the cup of a blind man at the gate
And forgot about a simple twist of fate.

Slow Train Coming, 1979
Sometimes I feel so low-down and disgusted
Can't help but wonder what's happenin' to my companions,
Are they lost or are they found, have they counted                                 the cost it'll take to bring down
All their earthly principles they're gonna have to abandon?
There's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend.

Tears of Rage, Basement Tapes, 1975
We carried you in our arms
On Independence Day,
And now you'd throw us all aside
And put us on our way.
Oh what dear daughter 'neath the sun
Would treat a father so,
To wait upon him hand and foot
And always tell him, "No"?
Tears of rage, tears of grief,
Why must I always be the thief?
Come to me now, you know
We're so alone
And life is brief.

Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, Times They Are A-Changin, 1964
William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll
With a cane that he twirled around his diamond ring finger
At a Baltimore hotel society gath'rin'.
And the cops were called in and his weapon took from him
As they rode him in custody down to the station
And booked William Zanzinger for first-degree murder.
But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears,
Take the rag away from your face.
Now ain't the time for your tears.

I Pity the Poor Immigrant, John Wesley Harding, 1967
I pity the poor immigrant
Who tramples through the mud,
Who fills his mouth with laughing
And who builds his town with blood,
Whose visions in the final end
Must shatter like the glass.
I pity the poor immigrant
When his gladness comes to pass.

When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky, Empire Burlesque, 1985
For all eternity I think I will remember
That icy wind that's howling in your eye.
You will seek me and you'll find me In the wasteland of your mind
When the night comes falling from the sky.

Well, I sent you my feelings in a letter
But you were gambling for support.
This time tomorrow I'll know you better
When my memory is not so short.

This time I'm asking for freedom,
Freedom from a world which you deny.
And you'll give it to me now,
I'll take it anyhow
When the night comes falling from the sky.