You got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend
When I was down, you just stood there grinning
You got a lotta nerve to say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on the side that's winning
You say I let you down, you know it's not like that
If you're so hurt, why then don't you show it?
You say you lost your faith, but that's not where it's at
You had no faith to lose, and you know it
I know the reason that you talk behind my back
I used to be among the crowd you're in with
Do you take me for such a fool to think I'd make contact
With the one who tries to hide what he don't know to begin with?
You see me on the street, you always act surprised
You say, "How are you?" "Good luck," but you don't mean it
When you know as well as me you'd rather see me paralyzed
Why don't you just come out once and scream it?
No, I do not feel that good when I see the heartbreaks you embrace
If I was a master thief, perhaps I'd rob them
And now I know you're dissatisfied with your position and your place
Don't you understand, it's not my problem?
I wish that for just one time, you could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment, I could be you
Yes, I wish that for just one time, you could stand inside my shoes
You'd know what a drag it is to see you
~ Bob Dylan
So two days ago, in the aftermath of the tragedy in Charlottesville, I posted Jakob Dylan's "6th Avenue Heartache" and suggested that perhaps I should change the title to "4th Street Heartache" in recognition of the street where Heather Heyer was killed by a domestic terrorist. At the time, I never even thought about Jakob's father's song, "Positively 4th Street." Weird how that stuff happens, isn't it? Although Bob Dylan's famous song was only released as a single, it does appear on his Greatest Hits album, released in 1965. Although I recall being aware of Bob Dylan in his early career (mostly because everyone laughed at his voice), his Greatest Hits album was the one that really captured my attention. A little late to the game, but I've never stopped paying attention to Bob Dylan, even when he acts like . . . well, like Bob Dylan. For me, that was last on display at Red Rocks in Colorado last summer. He was kind of stiff, and of course, there were no big screens, as he will not allow them at his shows. But his voice was good, and he had a good back-up band. I don't think he will ever excite me as much as he did back in the day, but I still have a lot of respect for him and always will.
Dylan lived for a time on 4th Street in Greenwich Village, but there was also a 4th Street at the University of Minnesota where Bob also lived for awhile. So which one is it? The answer to that might be as elusive as the answer to, "Who was his target in the song?" There are more than a few theories, and you need only find the song on Wikipedia to learn of the many contestants. I always imagined it to be a female, but that may simply be because most of the songs we heard back then were male singers addressing female love interests. In any case, it doesn't really matter. Dave Marsh, who is probably the most knowledgable critic of rock and roll, referred to the song as "an icy hipster bitch session." Okay. He further said it was "Dylan cutting loose his barbed-wire tongue at somebody luckless enough to have crossed the path of his desires." Oh, if only that man living in our White House could write poetry instead of tweets . . .
So by now, you know where I will be in four days. Right now, the weather forecast for Clayton GA on August 21 calls for showers and thunderstorms, but surely that can change, right?
Positively.
No comments:
Post a Comment