With God on our Side -- Bob Dylan

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1801) With God on our Side Oh my name it is nothin' My age it means less The country I come from Is called the Midwest I's taught and brought up there The laws to abide And that land that I live in Has God on its side. Oh the history books tell it They tell it so well The cavalries charged The Indians fell The cavalries charged The Indians died Oh the country was young With God on its side. Oh the Spanish-American War had its day And the Civil War too Was soon laid away And the names of the heroes I's made to memorize With guns in their hands And God on their side. Oh the First World War, boys It closed out its fate The reason for fighting I never got straight But I learned to accept it Accept it with pride For you don't count the dead When God's on your side. When the Second World War Came to an end We forgave the Germans And we were friends Though they murdered six million In the ovens they fried The Germans now too Have God on their side. I've learned to hate Russians All through my whole life If another war starts It's them we must fight To hate them and fear them To run and to hide And accept it all bravely With God on my side. But now we got weapons Of the chemical dust If fire them we're forced to Then fire them we must One push of the button And a shot the world wide And you never ask questions When God's on your side. In a many dark hour I've been thinkin' about this That Jesus Christ Was betrayed by a kiss But I can't think for you You'll have to decide Whether Judas Iscariot Had God on his side. So now as I'm leavin' I'm weary as Hell The confusion I'm feelin' Ain't no tongue can tell The words fill my head And fall to the floor If God's on our side He'll stop the next war. -- Bob Dylan

     (from the album The Times they are a-changin')

Reading the Star Spangled Banner [Poem #1730] on Minstrels made me think of
another song - one that does more justice, IMHO, to the 'glorious' history
of the United States. It's a song that's probably more chillingly apt today
than it was in 1963, when it was first written, if only because of the
increasing frequency with which religion is being invoked to justify acts of
mindless violence against other human beings. I, personally have no use for
religion, but I see how it can be a powerful force to unite and motivate
great masses of people - that it should be used for this purpose by evil,
power hungry men is at once one of the greatest ironies and one of the
greatest tragedies of our time.

'With God on our Side' is a wonderful illustration of the way that a
lifetime of indoctrination can make otherwise decent, clear-thinking people
support the most henious crimes against humanity in the name of some
imagined God. Dylan attacks the propaganda of God with conscious irony,
exposing again and again the hypocrisy that lies at the heart of much of the
history that a nation prides itself on. Going sequentially through war after
war in US History [1], Dylan, shows us the terrible pointlessness and waste
of war, forcing you to ask the question: Was it worth it? There are some
truly memorable lines here, and the conscious caricatures of the
justifications given for war would be hilarious if they were not both
incredibly tragic and frighteningly close to the truth (if there's one point
that both sides of the Iraq conflict would agree on, it's that "You don't
count the dead / When God's on your side").

I admit this isn't by any means one of Dylan's greatest poems - without his
flat, matter of fact delivery of the lines it may barely be a poem at all -
but as we struggle to come to terms with the bombings in London and the
continuing carnage in Iraq, I feel these are lines that are useful to
remember. There may be many things that you can believe in to justify the
West's intercession in Iraq (though I'm not sure I know what these might
be), but God cannot and should not be one of them. As the democracies of the
West prepare to face a determined assault from an enemy whose key weapon is
a religious fanaticism, it would be tempting to follow the path of their
opponents and sacrifice human life in the name of God, but that temptation
is precisely what they must guard against. God, in the final analysis, is
the one thing we should not trust in, because it is the one weapon and the
one justification that both sides will always have equal access to.
Besides, as Dylan so eloquently puts it "If God's on our side / he'll stop
the next war".

Aseem

[1] The one glaring ommission is of course, the war in Vietnam, which took
place largely after this song was written. Incidentally, the Star Spangled
banner makes interesting reading in the light of that war, with some of the
lines serving as a wonderful paean ("And where is that band who so
vauntingly swore / That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion / A home
and a country should leave us no more?" "Thus be it ever, when freemen shall
stand / Between their loved homes and the war's desolation / Blest with
victory and peace") to the eventual victory of the VietCong. Another apt
reminder of why it's dangerous to believe your own propaganda.

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall -- Bob Dylan

Guest poem sent in by "Aseem"

(Poem #1770) A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son? Oh, where have you been, my darling young one? I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains, I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways, I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests, I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans, I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard, And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard, And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. 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. And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son? And what did you hear, my darling young one? 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', Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter, Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley, 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. Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son? Who did you meet, my darling young one? I met a young child beside a dead pony, I met a white man who walked a black dog, I met a young woman whose body was burning, I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow, I met one man who was wounded in love, I met another man who was wounded with hatred, And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son? Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one? I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin', I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest, Where the people are many and their hands are all empty, Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters, Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison, Where the executioner's face is always well hidden, Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten, Where black is the color, where none is the number, And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it, And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it, Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin', But I'll know my song well before I start singin', And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. -- Bob Dylan

As the death toll from the recent flooding of Bombay climbed higher each
day, and I sat half way across the world, surfing the images of tragedy and
despair (feeling strangely guilty, somehow, for not being there) this is the
song that kept playing in my head.

There are many stories that came out of that fateful day - indeed, as
someone said, everyone has a story to tell. There are many different
emotions in these stories - some are filled with hope, others with despair;
some speak of small miracles, others of senseless misfortune; some allow us
to celebrate the brotherhood, the fundamental decency of man towards man,
others highlight the world's indifference to the plight of the victims.

Dylan's song captures perfectly that sense of a fractured world, the
reduction of the truth into a series of images, the impossibility of taking
in exactly what has happened. At one level this is a confused, restless
song. It moves from phrase to phrase, vision to vision, leaving you with the
sense of some sweeping, momentous message, combined with a sense of dread.
But it is also a song of great courage - a song that grits its jaw and braces
itself for the devastation it knows is coming. There are some beautiful phrases

here - lines that demonstrate how true, how fine a poet the young Dylan really
was - but the overall message of this song is that we shall face the whole of
our sorrow and not be defeated by it.

Aseem

Blowin' in the Wind -- Bob Dylan

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1707) Blowin' in the Wind How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man? Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail Before she sleeps in the sand? Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly Before they're forever banned? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind. How many years can a mountain exist Before it's washed to the sea? Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist Before they're allowed to be free? Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head, And pretend he just doesn't see? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind. How many times must a man look up Before he can see the sky? Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have Before he can hear people cry? Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows That too many people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind. -- Bob Dylan

If there's ever a song that cries out to be memorised - this is it. I
can still remember being nine years old and listening to it over and
over, trying to ensure that the words would stay in my head forever. It
wasn't just that the words were beautiful and moving (if anything the
message of war and oppression seemed far less relevant then - back in
the 80's, at the age of 9 - than it does now); it was that listening to
the rhythm of the questions and the soft strumming of the guitar and
that simple, weary, heartfelt and almost speaking voice that could only
be Dylan, I was discovering what poetry really was. Not just pretty
images and melodic rhymes, not just fine sounding words arranged in
neat stanzas, not just daffodils and boys on burning decks, but the
voice of a real person, an attitude, a way of looking at the world.

The folksy "Yes 'n"'s notwithstanding, this is a great poem. Not just
because the rhyme scheme works perfectly, and the pattern of three
repeated questions is brilliant and the metaphors are powerful and the
lines themselves are memorable; but because it's a collection of a few
simple words that has the power to reach out and grab you by the heart.
Because every time you see the war footage on CNN or the pictures from
Abu Ghraib or Sudan or 9/11, the words will come back to haunt you.
Because long after Dylan is dead generations of singers and activists
will find in these simple lyrics  a sense of understanding and the
courage to go on. Because this simple little song sums up the entire
history of the human endeavour: our struggle to define ourselves as
people, our quest for peace and our bewilderment at the world's
cruelty. Because there's something about this song that makes it an
authentic poetic experience, something that you can't pin down but
can't help feeling, something that is, well, "blowin' in the wind".

Aseem

The Death of Emmett Till -- Bob Dylan

The US has just celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. day; here's an appropriate
guest poem sent in by Rohit Grover

(Poem #1151) The Death of Emmett Till 'Twas down in Mississippi not so long ago, When a young boy from Chicago walked through a Southern door. This boy's fateful tragedy you should all remember well, The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till. Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up. They said they had a reason, but I disremember what. They tortured him and did some things too evil to repeat. There was screamin' sounds inside the barn, there was laughin' sounds out on the street. Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a blood red rain And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screamin' pain. The reason that they killed him there, and I'm sure it was no lie, Was just for the fun of killing him and to watch him slowly die. And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial, Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till. But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this awful crime, And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind. I saw the mornin' papers but I could not bear To see the smiling brothers walking down the courthouse stairs. For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free, While Emmett's body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea. If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that's so unjust, Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt, your mind is filled with dust. Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood it must refuse to flow, For you'd let this human race fall down so God-awful low! This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan. But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we give all we could give, We'd make this great land of ours a greater place to live. -- Bob Dylan

I just watched a PBS documentary on the death of Emmett Till. Emmett Till's
death sparked off the civil rights movement in the US. He was lynched for
whistling at a white woman, and the (white) killers were later acquitted by
an all-white jury in Mississippi. What made my blood boil was that the
killers *confessed* after being acquitted, but the case was not reopened.

Why does this bother me? Those not from India should read Rohinton Mistry's
'A Fine Balance' - there's a disturbing parallel in the Indian caste system.
My generation has grown up with the mantra of no casteism, secularism and so
on. But then I pick up a newspaper (or visit the website here) and read
about Dalit's being lynched, or raped. And it's not just villages - even in
cities like Mumbai caste becomes all-important. Among people from my
generation - engineers, doctors - well-educated, seemingly scientific
people.

Bob Dylan's song captures the frustration so well - and does so beautifully.
The few people who took the witness stand in the Emmett Till case in support
of the prosecution were brave beyond belief.

-rohit

[Martin adds]

An appropriate companion piece is Phil Ochs's "Too Many Martyrs":
  http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~trent/ochs/lyrics/too_many_martyrs.html

And here's Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech:
  http://bcn.boulder.co.us/government/national/speeches/spch3.html

All Along The Watch-Tower -- Bob Dylan

Guest poem sent in by Mohit

(Poem #890) All Along The Watch-Tower "There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief, "There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief. Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth, None of them along the line know what any of it is worth." "No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke, "There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke. But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate, So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late." All along the watchtower, princes kept the view While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too. Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl, Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl. -- Bob Dylan

             from "John Wesley Harding", 1967

I must admit that when i first heard the song back in college, the only line
that made any sense at all was -
  "There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke"
but in the aftermath of the events of the past week, it seems that the joke's on
 us! sadly no one is laughing.

Dylan's lyrics bear a stamp of timelessness. he briefly turns fortune-teller
through these words, but it's paradoxical that the setting spells gloom.
The last few words are eerie .when i heard Hendrix's version of the same song
earlier today, i was quite certain i heard the wind make noises.
  "Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl."

Mohit

Links:

We've run a few of Dylan's lyrics on Minstrels:
poem #112
poem #227
poem #832

Love Minus Zero / No Limit -- Bob Dylan

Guest poem submitted by Zenobia Driver:

(Poem #832) Love Minus Zero / No Limit My love she speaks like silence, Without ideals or violence, She doesn't have to say she's faithful, Yet she's true, like ice, like fire. People carry roses, Make promises by the hours, My love she laughs like the flowers, Valentines can't buy her. 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. The cloak and dagger dangles, Madams light the candles. In ceremonies of the horsemen, Even the pawn must hold a grudge. Statues made of match sticks, Crumble into one another, My love winks, she does not bother, She knows too much to argue or to judge. The bridge at midnight trembles, The country doctor rambles, Bankers' nieces seek perfection, Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring. The wind howls like a hammer, The night blows cold and rainy, My love she's like some raven At my window with a broken wing. -- Bob Dylan

There was this concert in Bombay on Dylan's birthday where a lot of Indian
artists sang his songs. Some of them were putrid singers but some were
really nice. There was someone called Geeta Raheja who sang Joan Baez's
'Diamonds and Rust' and it was brilliant - partly due to the atmosphere - it
was amazing, just when she began, this wind sprang up out of nowhere and the
leaves in the trees started rustling and suddenly the sky turned cloudy -
and there she was on stage, singing beautifully in a plain dark black saree.
Amazing effect. Just for that song alone the concert was worth it. Kim
Cardoz sang 'House of the Rising Sun' really well too. And someone whose
name I disremember sang 'love minus zero'. I had never heard the song before
and fell in love with it. I have no clue what the original is like and
whether he was mauling it, but I liked the way he sang it. Hence the hunt
for the lyrics and this poem.

Zenobia.

[Minstrels Links]

Bob Dylan:
Poem #112, Mr.Tambourine Man
Poem #227, Desolation Row

And the inspiration for his assumed name, Dylan Thomas:
Poem #14, Prologue
Poem #38, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Poem #58, The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower
Poem #138, Fern Hill
Poem #225, Poem In October
Poem #270, Under Milk Wood
Poem #335, After the Funeral (In memory of Ann Jones)
Poem #405, Altarwise by Owl-Light (Stanzas I - IV)
Poem #476, In my craft or sullen art
Poem #568, Especially when the October Wind

Desolation Row -- Bob Dylan

 Another species of Dylan...

(Poem #227) Desolation Row They're selling postcards of the hanging They're painting the passports brown The beauty parlor is filled with sailors The circus is in town Here comes the blind commissioner They've got him in a trance One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker The other is in his pants And the riot squad they're restless They need somewhere to go As the Lady and I look out tonight From Desolation Row Cinderella, she seems so easy "It takes one to know one," she smiles And puts her hands in her back pockets Bette Davis style And in comes Romeo, he's moaning "You Belong To Me I Believe" And someone says, "You're in the wrong place, my friend You better leave." And the only sound that's left After the ambulances go Is Cinderella sweeping up On Desolation Row Now the moon is almost hidden The stars are beginning to hide The fortunetelling lady Has even taken all her things inside All except for Cain and Abel And the hunchback of Notre Dame Everybody is making love Or else expecting rain And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing He's getting ready for the show He's going to the carnival tonight On Desolation Row 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 Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood With his memories in a trunk Passed this way an hour ago With his friend, a jealous monk He looked so immaculately frightful As he bummed a cigarette Then he went off sniffing drainpipes And reciting the alphabet Now you would not think to look at him But he was famous long ago For playing the electric violin On Desolation Row Dr. Filth, he keeps his world Inside of a leather cup But all his sexless patients They're trying to blow it up Now his nurse, some local loser She's in charge of the cyanide hole And she also keeps the cards that read "Have Mercy On His Soul" They all play on penny whistles You can hear them blow If you lean your head out far enough From Desolation Row Across the street they've nailed the curtains They're getting ready for the feast The Phantom of the Opera A perfect image of a priest They're spoonfeeding Casanova To get him to feel more assured Then they'll kill him with self-confidence After poisoning him with words And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls "Get Outta Here If You Don't Know Casanova is just being punished for going To Desolation Row" Now at midnight all the agents And the superhuman crew Come out and round up everyone That knows more than they do Then they bring them to the factory Where the heart-attack machine Is strapped across their shoulders And then the kerosene Is brought down from the castles By insurance men who go Check to see that nobody is escaping To Desolation Row Praise be to Nero's Neptune The Titanic sails at dawn And everybody's shouting "Which Side Are You On?" And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot Fighting in the captain's tower While calypso singers laugh at them And fishermen hold flowers Between the windows of the sea Where lovely mermaids flow And nobody has to think too much About Desolation Row Yes, I received your letter yesterday (About the time the door knob broke) When you asked how I was doing Was that some kind of joke? All these people that you mention Yes, I know them, they're quite lame I had to rearrange their faces And give them all another name Right now I can't read too good Don't send me no more letters no Not unless you mail them From Desolation Row -- Bob Dylan

Dylan captures the full sweep and flow of late 20th-century society in a way
that few other poets have even attempted, let alone accomplished. From start to
finish, Desolation Row is a brilliant tapestry of glory and decadence, cliches
and novelties, high art and pop culture. It's cynical and satirical and biting
and bitter, true, but it's also magical in the richness of its pageantry.
Dylan's montage is reminiscent of Eliot's "heap of broken images", but his
images are far from broken; rather, their whirling confusion reflects the
disorienting nature of the age we live in.

thomas.

[Links]

I've run only one Dylan song before, the hypnotically beautiful
'Mr. Tambourine Man', which you can read at poem #112.
In addition to the poem itself, my commentary includes a few thoughts on
Dylan's standing as a poet and social critic, and the feelings that run
through his work.

The Web, of course, has hundreds of sites devoted to the man himself; these
range from brilliantly informative and insightful to criminally incompetent.
I'll leave it to you to explore them on your own.

Mr.Tambourine Man -- Bob Dylan

(Poem #112) Mr.Tambourine Man Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me, I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to. Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me, In the jingle-jangle morning I'll come followin' you. Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand, Vanished from my hand, Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping. My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet, I have no one to meet And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming. Hey, Mr.Tambourine Man, etc. Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship, My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip, My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels To be wanderin'. I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way, I promise to go under it. Hey, Mr.Tambourine Man, etc. Though you might hear laughin', spinnin', swingin' madly across the sun, It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run And but for the sky there are no fences facin'. And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're Seeing' that he's chasing Hey, Mr.Tambourine Man, etc. -- Bob Dylan

What makes a poet great?

Is it sheer depth of emotion? Sensitivity and social conscience?
Honesty, both intellectual and moral? The ability to see the truth, and
the courage to recognize it for what it is? A knack for creating
resonant phrases and haunting images? There's all this and more, and all
these and more are present in the songs of Bob Dylan, who absolutely
rules my world :-)

No other poet - indeed, no other person - has managed to exemplify a
time, a place and a generation as completely as Dylan did his. (I know
that's a rather sweeping statement, but I'll stand by it. So there!). In
his lyrics, in his music, and most especially in his uncompromising
social stance, Dylan stood for the hopes and fears of an entire
generation of young Americans, not afraid to criticise the old, not too
cynical to embrace the new, both unrelentingly harsh and deeply
compassionate, biting, yet surprisingly vulnerable...

Today's poem is Dylan in a mellow, subdued mood. The lyrics are complex,
sophisticated - there's a keen and intense sensitivity underlying the
surface psychedelia. The internal rhymes, the repetitions of form, the
uneven metre (and the swirling harmonica music, though you can't hear it
by email) all combine to create a soft, surreal, hypnotic atmosphere...
"In the jingle-jangle morning I'll come following you".

thomas.