Where you're going has no signs
And you're not going in a straight line
You ought to have me on your mind
I dare you to think otherwise
One day the water, more water
You keep diving and you won't be recovered
You need a clue, I'll come in closer
I want to tell you, you've had it coming
Eyes on the prize, reboot the mission
I've lost my sight, but not the vision
. . .
No matter how you use it, which way you swing
Even the longest day at some point ends
I'll throw your shoes off, hat in the ring
Show me a hook shot, the whole thing
~ Jakob Dylan (The Wallflowers, featuring Mick Jones)
When I first heard this song five years ago, I was immediately thrown back a couple of decades to the music of The Clash (the only band that matters). And sure enough, that's Mick Jones' distinctive sound on the recording. That was no accident. Jakob Dylan wrote the song deliberately trying to capture that reggae-infused addictive music and then asked Mick Jones, after the fact, if he would play on it. Jones obliged. The song appears on 2012's Glad All Over, the first Wallflowers' release in seven years.
Dylan, who grew up listening to The Clash, makes no secret of tipping his hat to the influential band. Welcome Jack, the new drummer / He jammed with the mighty Joe Strummer. (Jack Irons, the drummer, did not play with The Clash, but he drummed for Strummer on his 1989 solo effort, Earthquake Weather. But really, how convenient is it that "drummer" rhymes with "Strummer"?) "Reboot the Mission" has been compared to "The Magnificent Seven," a Clash masterpiece.
It is interesting to note that Dylan wrote the lyrics after the song had already been arranged by the band. I always assumed that it worked the other way around, and perhaps it usually does. It may explain why some of the lyrics, at least to me, do not make great sense. (I've left those out above; you can google them yourself if you are interested.)
I have a tendency these days to study lyrics through the lens of the current political climate. In my imagination, the song is being addressed to a leader, one who is screwing things up. Of course, that was not Dylan's intention, but nonetheless, I am ready for the mission to be rebooted. I have not lost the vision.
One day soon, I hope to say to that screw-up leader, "You've had it coming."
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