***Those Oldies But Goodies- Folk Branch- Bob Dylan’s “Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues”-With Juana In Mind 

 

Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues Lyrics

When you're lost in the rain in Juarez

And it's Eastertime too

And your gravity fails

And negativity don't pull you through

Don't put on any airs

When you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue

They got some hungry women there

And they really make a mess outa you.

 

Now if you see Saint Annie

Please tell her thanks a lot

I cannot move

My fingers are all in a knot

I don't have the strength

To get up and take another shot

And my best friend, my doctor

Won't even say what it is I've got.

 

Sweet Melinda

The peasants call her the goddess of gloom

She speaks good English

And she invites you up into her room

And you're so kind

And careful not to go to her too soon

And she takes your voice

And leaves you howling at the moon.

 

Up on Housing Project Hill

It's either fortune or fame

You must pick up one or the other

Though neither of them are to be what they claim

If you're lookin' to get silly

You better go back to from where you came

Because the cops don't need you

And man they expect the same.

 

Now all the authorities

They just stand around and boast

How they blackmailed the sergeant-at-arms

Into leaving his post

And picking up Angel who

Just arrived here from the coast

Who looked so fine at first

But left looking just like a ghost.

 

I started out on burgundy

But soon hit the harder stuff

Everybody said they'd stand behind me

When the game got rough

But the joke was on me

There was nobody even there to bluff

I'm going back to New York City

I do believe I've had enough.

******
“United States," answered Fritz Taylor to the burly “la migra” U.S. border guard who was whip-lashing the question of nationality a mile a minute at the steady stream of border-entering people, and giving a cursory nod to all but the very most suspect looking characters, the most illegal Mexican- looking if you want to know. Yes, American, Fritz thought, Fritz John Taylor if they looked at his passport, his real passport, although he had other identification with names like John Fitzgerald, Taylor Fitzgerald, and John Tyler on them, as he passed the huge "la migra” U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint at El Paso on the American side across from old-time Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. Juarez, a city in passing that March, 1972 day that looked very much like something out of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, except the automobiles were smaller and less flashy and the graft now more expensive, and no longer guaranteed to grease the rails, the illegal rails; drugs, women, illegals, gambling, fenced goods, you name it. But just then he didn’t want to think about greasing any rails, or anything else illegal for that matter.

Fritz thought again, this time with easier breathing, whether "la migra” had looked at his passport or not, he was glad, glad as hell, to be saying his nationality, his American, gringo, Estados Unidos, call it what you will citizenship, something he never thought possible, not after Vietnam, not after all the shooting and killing of his thirteen month tour of hell (one month R&R included, a month where he thought he must have set the world record for boozing, dope-sniffing from opium to cocaine to brother and sister, reefer was the least of it, whoring, some paid some free what did it matter when a man had  his wanting habits on, whoring running through the Kama Sutra and a couple of other tricks not listed in that volume that one of the girls, a white girl too from respectable parents back on the mainland who was looking for kicks, odd-ball kicks and found a partner, for a while, willing to indulge her, Angelica her name, ask her how she got that tattoo on her upper inner thigh and why, if you ever run across her in Lima, Ohio) except these last three weeks down south of the border had been almost as bad, and no more profitable, Fritz profitable. Now that he breathed gringo air, American air he could tell his story, or tell parts of it because he was not quite sure that parts might not still be inside the statute of limitations, for him or his former confederates. So some stuff was better left unsaid.

Yah, it started in ‘Nam really, Fritz thought, as he traced his life-sized movements back in time while he started for a bus, a gringo bright yellow and green El Paso Transit bus that would take him to a downtown hotel where he could wash the dust of Mexico, wash that clotting dust of the twenty hour bus ride from Cuernavaca off his body, if not his soul. Hell, he confessed to himself, a thing he would be very reluctant to mention to others, others impressed by his publicly impervious persona, if it hadn’t been 'Nam, it could have been any one of a thousand places, or hundred situation a few years back, back when he first caught the mary jane, ganga, herb, weed, call your name joy stick delight habit, tea was his favorite term of rite though. Or, maybe, it really started in dead-end Clintondale when he graduated from high school and with nothing particular to do, allowed himself, chuckling a little to hear him call it that way now, allowed himself to be drafted when his number came up. And drafted, 1960s drafted, meant nothing but 'Nam, nothing but 'Nam and grunt-hood, and that thirteen months of hell, minus one. And maybe, just maybe, it was even earlier than Clintondale high school days, and the hard fact that he grew up, grew up desperately poor, in the Clintondale back alley projects and so had spent those precious few years of his life hungry, hungry for something, something easy, something sweet, and something to take the pain away.

But mainly he was looking for something easy. And that something easy pushed him, pushed him like the hard fates of growing up poor, down Mexico way, down Sonora way, mostly, as his liked to hum from a vaguely remembered song on any one of his twenty or so trips down sur. Until, that is, this last Cuernavaca madness, this time there was no humming, no sing-song Mexican brass band marching humming. But stop right there, Fritz said to himself, if he was ever going to figure what went wrong, desperately wrong on this last, ill-fated trip, he had to come clean and coming clean meant, you know, not only was it about the get to easy street, not only was it to get some tea delight to chase the soul pain away, but it was about a woman, and as every guy, every women-loving guy, even honest women-loving guy, will tell you, in the end it is always about a woman.

Hard-hearted Irish Catholic Cecilias like he knew, backwards and forwards, from kid time or some other combinations foxed out later but a woman, no question. Although not always about a woman named Juana, his sweet Juana. Although, maybe the way she left him hanging by his thumbs in Mexico City before the fall, not knowing, or maybe caring, of his danger, he should be a little less forgiving. Yah, that’s easy to say, easy off the hellish now tongue, but this was Juana not just some hop-head floozy.

Jesus, he could still smell that sweetness, that exotic Spanish sweetness, that rose something fragrance she always wore (and don’t tell her if you run into her down Sonora way, and you will if you are looking for grade A dope for sure, drove him as crazy as a loon), that smell of her freshly-washed black hair which got all wavy, naturally wavy, and big so that she looked like some old-time Goya senorita, all severe front but smoldering underneath. And those big laughing eyes, yah, black eyes you won’t forget, or want to. Yes, his thoughts drifted back to Juana, treacherously warm-blooded Juana. And it seems almost sacrilegious thinking of her, sitting on this stinking, hit every bump, crowded, air-fouling bus filled with “wetbacks,” sorry, braceros, okay, going to work, or wherever they go when they are not on these stinking buses.

Yah, Juana, Juana whom he met in Harvard Square when he first got back to the world and was looking to deep-six the memories of that 'Nam thing, deep-six it with dope, mope, cope, and some woman to chase his blues away. And there she was sitting on a bench in Cambridge Common wearing some wild seventy-two colored ankle-length dress that had him mesmerized, that and that rose something fragrance. But that day, that spring 1970 day, what Juana-bonded him was the dope she was selling, selling right there in the open like it was some fresh produce (and it was). Cops no too far off but not bothering anyone except the raggedy drunks, or some kid who took too much acid and they needed to practically scrape him off the Civil War monument that centered the park and get him some medical attention, quick.

See Juana, daughter of fairly well-to-do Mexican “somebodies,” needed dough to keep herself in style. Fritz never did get the whole story straight but what was down in Sonora well-to-do was nada in the states. She needed dough, okay, just like any gringa dame. And all of that was just fine by Fritz but Juana was also “connected,” connected through some cousin, to the good dope, the Acapulco Gold and Colombian Red that was primo stuff. Not the oregano-laced stuff that was making the rounds of the Eastern cities and was strictly for the touristas, for the week-end warrior hippies who flooded Harvard Square come Saturday night. So Juana was to good tea like Owsley was to the acid scene, the maestro.

Fitz thought back, as that rickety old bus moved along heading, twenty-seven-stop heading, downtown trying to be honest, honest through that dope-haze rose smell, that black hair and those laughing eyes (and that hard-loving midnight sex they both craved when they were high as kites) about whether it was all that or just the dope in the beginning. Yah, it was the Columbia Red at first. He was just too shattered, 'Nam and Clintondale shattered, to know when he had a woman for the ages in his grasp. But he got “religion” fast. Like every religion though, godly or womanly, there is a price to pay, paid willingly or not, and that price was to become Juana’s “mule” on the Mexico drug runs.

To keep the good dope in stock you had to be willing to make some runs down south of the border. If not, by the time it got to say some New York City middle man, it had been cut so much you might as well have been smoking tea leaves. He could hear himself laugh when she first said that tea leave thing in her efforts to enlist him. But Fritz had religion, Juana religion, and he went off on that first trip eyes wide open. And that was probably the problem because it went off without a hitch. Hell, he brought a kilogram over the border in his little green knapsack acting just like any other tourist buying a cheap serape or something.

And like a lot of things done over and over again the trips turned into a routine, a routine though that did not take into consideration some of the greater not-knowing, maybe not knowable things, although he now had his suspicions, things going on, like the cartelization of the international drug trade, like the squeeze out of the small unaffiliated tea ladies and placing them as mere employees like some regular corporate structure bad trip. But the biggest thing was Juana, Juana wanted more and more dough, and that meant bigger shipments, which meant more Fritz risk, and later Fritz and Tommy risk (rest his soul down in some Cuernavaca back alley). And on this last trip it mean no more friendly Sonora lazy, hazy, getting high off some free AAA perfecto weed after the deal was made and then leisurely taking a plane (a plane for chrissakes) from some Mexican city to Los Angeles, or Dallas, depending on the connections. And then home.

This time, this time the deal was going down in Cuernavaca, in a church, or rather in some side room of a church, Santa Maria’s Chapel, in downtown Cuernavaca, maybe you know it if you have been there it's kind of famous. Fritz didn’t like the switch, but only because it was out of the routine. What he didn’t know, and what his connections on the other side should have known (and maybe did, but he was not thinking about that part right that minute) was that the Federales, instead of chasing Pancho Villa’s ghost like they should have been doing, were driving hard (prompted by the gringo DEA) to close down Cuernavaca, just then starting to become the axis of the cartels further south.

And what he also didn’t know, until too late, was that Juana, getting some kind of information from some well-connected source in the states, had fled to Mexico, first Mexico City where he met here to make connections further south, and then to her hometown of Sonora he heard later. So when the deal in Cuernavaca went sour, after he learned at the almost the last minute that the deal was “fixed,” he headed Norte on the first bus, first to Mexico City and then to El Paso. And here he was, now alighting from that yellow green bus, ready to walk into that fresh soap. And as he got off he staggered for a minute, staggered in some kind of fog, as he “smelled,” smelled, that rose fragrance something in the air. Fritz said to himself, yah, I guess it's still like that with Juana. If you see her tell her Fritz said hello.

 

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-When Bob Dylan Ruled The Rolling Stone Folk- Rock Universe

Adam Evans was restless, restless in 1971 like he had never been before.  Just out of the military service (Army, 1968-70, one ‘Nam hell year, thirteen months with R&R, and some tough “real world” adjustments), just out of a war marriage not made in heaven (made a week before he got orders for ‘Nam in the summer of 1968 in stupid haste because she, Delores, wanted them as one, to have been married,  whatever happened , and she, hell, she sent that Dear John letter about her and some old flame rekindled about three months after he was in-country, jesus), just out of an unsettled love with a woman, Abigail, whom he had met in Cambridge (rebound short love all tied up, and all mixed up with, his public anti-war G.I. stance, his veteran for peace stance, and all tied up with her trying on a peace soldier boy for size and then back to some up and coming professor where she came from, him, like he said, just a rebound love and he had smoothed, he thought when they parted,  too many things over that didn’t click to make the rebound work), just out of dough since his savings had been depleted to nil (trying, if you can believe this, not to seriously work in the system that “fucked” him over and finding little dough in the off-hand dishwasher, store clerk, bracero-like day labor that had previously kept him afloat), just out of luck, good luck anyway since he got back to the “real world.”  

He decided he had to drift, drift west into that good night. Drift west in search of that almost childlike belief in what he called the blue-pink Great American West night. The night when he could rest his mind and his dreams out there maybe in some pacific coast cave around Big Sur playing mad hatter hermit, some Steppenwolf  (not the death to American war murder rock group, Herman Hesse’s), filling up his lungs with fresh pacific air, some books, and a little acapulco gold to keep the blues away (and the food hungers down, a little, at least for expensive food), north up the Pacific Coast highway to the heaven-bound cliffs of  Mendocino and some friends doing bracero work, good paying work they said, in wine country, or some ghost chance thunder road (maybe down Joshua Tree way that some freaked-out ex- Marine who had been stationed  at Twenty Nine Palms had told him about, and about ghost dances coming out of the caverns so that wasn’t some metaphor stuff about the damn thunder road). The vagaries of the road would determine where he fell off first when he hit the coast (hell, no vagaries b.s., just who, mainly lonesome long-haul trucker s looking for white line lonesome road company, and where they were headed with those overloaded sixteen billion-wheeled semi’s).   

In 1971, however, the roads west, the main highways and back roads too, were clogged full of lonesome pilgrims seeking their own blue-pink nights. And so he found before he was long out of Boston where he started his trip that he was among kindred angels more often than not on the great hitchhike road dream brought by forbears like old okie hills Woody Guthrie and Lowell mill boy Jack Kerouac. So he walked roads, grabbed rides, got picked up for “vag” a couple times (including a couple of days courtesy of Yuma County out in the Arizona zombie night with bologna sandwiches and bilious water three times a day, Christ),  went hobo jungle railroad tracks more than once  (and worthy of recounting although not here , here we speak of heroic roads west, grail- seeking roads west)headed south a little to avoid the cold, then west landing just off  Indio next stop in sainted ghost-ridden Joshua Tree on some wayward  sixteen-wheeled giant green monster explosion.      

Carrying his life-line (and life’s full possessions at just that moment) bed-roll knapsack combination Adam headed into the park. Walked some dusty stone-etched miles to one of the camping sites expecting to find some more kindred and stews against some hunger. Sundown was approaching as he fixed up his assigned site when he heard a loud blast of Bob Dylan’s youth nation national anthem, Like A Rolling Stone, coming from, coming from somewhere. Maybe it was the dust of the road, too many roads, maybe it was his time, maybe it was some tumbleweed passing by remembrance, but at first he could not fathom where such music would be coming from in the high desert.

Then he saw it. Saw the biggest yellow brick road school bus now all painted in the six hundred swirled asymmetric colors of psychedelia (metallic purples as if to mock purple, mauves, fruit-tasting  oranges, seven sun yellows all aglow, sea blues, sea-green blues, sea- blue greens , none mocking King Neptune for fear of bad karma, no, better, bad vibes, ordinary blues, vanilla whites, and death blacks) with a huge speaker mounted on its top and about sixteen crazed lunatics (although that information was only confirmed later) dancing in various conditions of  dress, and undress.  He approached, someone passed him a joint, good stuff fresh from a Mexicali run, another some cheap ripple thunderbird boone’s farm wine, and another pointed him to the fireplace stew broth. All without a word. Home, home among the rolling stones.

Later, after he bid good-bye to those fellow-travelers who were heading south to Mexico, down Sonora way and cheap, cheap everything and sun but mainly cheap and righteous herb (ganga, mary jane, sister, marijuana whatever you call it in your neighborhood), after he had moved on from that site, the park, and finished that last leg to the ocean, as he settled into oceanside LaJolla working his way up the coast, as he settled in on this “new groove” (ancient hippie word, quaint, quaint even then), and as the day’s smoke ( stash provided by that strange yellow brick road bus, and still primo Mexicali stuff too) went all up and down his brain and some music came booming out of the magical yellow brick road bus, some Doors cry from the thunderous heavens about shamanic nights, incest, death,  and westward ho, get here and we’ll do the rest, and  snuggled (quaint again) against some serape-draped  dark- haired, dark-skinned, dark-eyed mex girl who made eyes, made sparkling dancing eyes at him (made eyes she said later because she had in her brown  world never seen such fierce blue eyes, such anglo blue like the pacific azul eyes even on that damned anglo “bus,” north from Tijuana, and he let her see them up close, real close, and she shuttered a little nodding softly that they could either be devil fierce or gentle good night fierce and she wasn’t sure which she preferred) he proffered (nice, right)  the following story to her about the road west as he had travelled it and about what happened one night out in Joshua Tree :          

Enough of muddy, rutted, always bum-busting rutted, country back roads, enough of breathless scenic vistas and cows,  enough of trees dripping sap, rain, and bugs, strange bugs, not city bugs, that was for sure,  but biting frenzy worthy anyway. Enough of all that to last a life-time, thank you. Enough too of Bunsen burners (last seen in some explosive chemical flash-out flame out in high school chemistry class and, maybe, they have rebuilt the damn lab since then, maybe though they have left it “ as is” for an example), Coleman stoves (too small for big pots, stew worthy, simmering pots to feed collective hungry bus campers and hard, country hard, to light)  wrapped blankets (getting ever mildewed ), second-hand sweated army sleeping bags (in desperate need of washing after a month) , and minute (small, not speed in throwing up, especially when rains came pouring down and he was caught out  without shelter from the storm, a metaphor maybe) pegged pup tents too (ironic army surplus although World War II, not his war, ‘Nam poncho stuff, no way). And enough too of granolas, oatmeals, desiccated eastern mountain stews, oregano weed, mushroomed delights (okay, not enough), and nature in the raw. Cities, please. Large Pacific-splashed roar of ocean cities with life in sheltered caverns and be quick about it. This was after that Yuma County courtesy “vag” bit of the road, cleared the dust and stink of that dead-ass town heading up to Flagstaff and ways west.

Right then though he had sighted his first connection hitchhike ride heading out of Flagstaff  and as luck would have it this big bruiser, full tattoo armed with snakes, roses, and lost loves names, truck driver who was obviously benny-ed, benny-ed to perdition and would wind up talking a blue streak was heading to some motorcycle jamboree, heading to Joshua Tree in California, Adams’s want to west destination since he was this far south  (although the trucker did not call it a jamboree and I had better not either as I write this unless I want to risk offending the entire Hell’s Angels universe at one stroke. Let’s call it a tumble-rumble-stumble and be done with it. They’ll like that.).

All Adam wanted was to have silence, to be silent company on the ride that day and think unfettered thoughts of that Cambridge woman, that Abigail, who he had smoothed over some rough spots with and was thinking about more frequently, especially about how he could have played it differently, or better, but he knew enough of the road, enough of the truck driver come-on part of it anyway to know that this guy’s blue streak was a small price to pay for such companionship. See, some guys, some trucker guys like Denver Slim, who had left him off at some long ago (or it seemed like long ago, really only a couple of months) Steubenville truck stop  on his way American south one time wanted to talk man to man. Back and forth like real people, especially as Adam reminded him of his errant (read: hippie –swaying) son. Other guys were happy for the company so they could, at seventy or seventy-five miles an hour with the engine revved high and where conversation is made almost painful and chock-filled with the “what did you says?”, spout forth on their homespun philosophy and their take on this wicked old world. With these guys an occasional “Yah, that’s right,” or a timely “What did you mean by that?” would stand you in good stead and you could nod out into your own thoughts. Forlorn sunshine and downy billow Cambridge woman thoughts, Abigail thoughts.

And that was exactly where he wanted be, as old Buck (where do they get these names) droned on and on about how the government was doing, or not doing this or that for, or to, the little guy who helped build up, not tear down, the country like him. Just then Adam  though was thinking about what Aunt Betty, sweet Neola (Iowa)cornfields grandmotherly Aunt Betty (everybody called her Aunt Betty, even guys who were older than she was, after the name of her sweet Neola diner), said a month or so back when he had  pitched his tent for a few days in her backyard, he did some chores in kind, and she fed him, royal Midwest fed him, still rung in his ears when he told her his story (or the latest part of it, the after ‘Nam part ). He was good for Abigail.  Hell, he knew he was. Hell, if he had had any sense he would have admitted what he knew inside. She, Delores, ’Nam rebound or not, was good for him too.

But see the times were funny in a way. No way in 1962, or ‘64, or ’66, let’s say [those are the specific numbers he gave according to my notes although the importance of those dates in now unknown], that Adam would have run into a Cambridge upscale kind of straight-laced woman. In those earlier days he had been strung out, strung out hard, on neurotic, long black-haired (although that was optional), kind of skinny (not thin, not slender, skinny, wistfully skinny, he said half-laughing , bookish, Harvard Square, maybe a poet, kind of girls. He said beatnik girls, and not free-form, ethereal, butterfly breeze “hippie” girls so you’d know what he meant. As a kid he was cranked up on pale, hell, wan was more like it, dark-haired, hard Irish Catholic girls, and he meant hard Irish Catholic girls with twelve novena books in their hands, and chaste lust in their hearts like his ex-wife Delores. So when Cambridge woman Abigail’s  yankee goodheart number turned up, he was clueless about how to take a just  plain-spoken, says what she means, means what she says young woman who had dreams (unformed, mainly, but dreams nevertheless) that also were plain-spoken. Ah, Adam said he couldn’t explain it, and he doubted that he ever would.  Just say, like he told it to me, he was stunted, stunned, and smitten, okay and be done with it.

Here is where things got kind of screwy though. He had put many a mile between him and Flagstaff and was well clear of that prairie fire hellhole bologna sandwich Yuma madness and well into sweet winter high desert night California (still hot during the day, jesus, one hundred at Needles, although not humid, thank Christ) had encamped at his site, and met up with the yellow brick road school bus which both were not far from some old run down, crumbling Native American dwellings on Joshua Tree reservation that keep drawing his attention (and  the mad lunatics on the bus as well).

Sitting by Joshua tree night camp fires casting weird ghost night-like shadows just made his new Abigail hunger worst. And old “on the bus” well-traveled fellow ex-soldiers turned “hippies,” Jack (something out of a Pancho Villa recruitment poster and, in another age, the look of a good man to have beside you in a street fight) and Mattie (some Captain America easy rider poster boy brimming with all that old long gone Buck found ugly in his America although Mattie did two hard tours in ‘Nam), playing their new-found (at least to him) flute and penny whistle music mantra to set the tone. Jesus, and here they were only a few hundred miles from the ocean. He could almost feel back to eastern seas, atlantic swirls-clutching, could almost smell, smell that algae sea churned smell, and almost see the foam-flecked waves turn against the jagged-edged La Jolla rocks and mad, aging surfer boys , golden boys a decade or so ago, as if from another time, eden time, looking for that perfect wave. Yah, another more innocent time before all hell broke loose on us in America and crushed our innocent youthful dreams in the rice paddies of Asia, our Abigail (or name her, or him) plain-spoken dreams, but not our capacity to dream. That only made the Abigail hurt worst as he remembered that she had never seen the Pacific Ocean, the jagged edged, foam-flecked ocean that Adam  went on and on about and he  was to be her Neptune on that voyage west to the rim of the world.

And so here he was  making that last push to the coast but not before he  investigated those near-by Native American lands that, as it turned out, he, Jack and  Mattie had all been interested in ever since their kid days watching cowboys and Indians on the old black and white 1950s small screen television. You know the Lone Ranger, Hop-A-Long Cassidy, Roy Rogers and their sidekicks fake, distorted, prettified Old West stuff. Stuff where the rich Native American traditions got short shrift.

Earlier on this day Adams was referring to they had been over to Black Rock (still in the high desert but only reachable by some forsaken road although every Native American seemed to know how to get there, and get out of there too, no mean trick when whiskey or peyote high, for an Intertribal celebration, a gathering of what was left of the great, ancient warrior nations that roamed freely across the west  not all that long ago but who were now mere “cigar store” Indian characters to the public eye. The sounds, the whispering shrill canyon sounds and all the others, the sights, the colors radiant as the collective warrior nations pulled out all the stops to bring back the old days when they ruled this West, the spirit, ah, the spirit of their own (Jack, Mattie, Adam) warrior shaman trances were still in their heads on that now blazing camp fire night. Adam was still in some shamanic-induced trance from the healing dances, from warrior tom-tom dances, and from the primal scream-like sounds as the modern warriors drove away the evil spirits that gathered around them (not hard enough to drive the marauding “white devil” who had broken their hearts, if not their spirits though). Not only that but the trio had scored some peyote buttons (strictly for religious purposes, as you will see) and the buttons had started to kick in along with the occasional hit from the old jerry-bilt bong hash pipe (strictly for medicinal purposes as well).

Just then in this dark, abyss dark, darker than Adam had ever seen the night sky in the citified East even though it is star-filled too, million star-filled, in this spitting flame-roared campfire throwing shadow night along with tormented pipe-filled dreams of Abigail he was embedded with the ghosts of ten thousand past warrior- kings and their people. And if his ears didn’t deceive him, and they didn’t, beside Jack’s flute and Mattie’s penny whistle he heard, and heard plainly, the muted gathering war cries of ancient drums summoning paint-faced proud, bedecked warriors to avenge their not so ancient loses, and their sorrows as well.

And after more pipe-fillings that sound got louder, louder so that even Jack and Mattie seem transfixed and begin to play their own instruments louder and stronger to keep pace with the drums. Then, magically, magically it seemed anyway, Adam  swore,, swore on anything holy or unholy, on some sodden forebear grave, on some unborn descendent that off the campfire- reflected red, red sandstone, grey, grey sandstone, beige (beige for lack of better color description), beige sandstone canyon echo walls he saw the vague outlines of old proud, feather-bedecked, slash mark-painted Apache warriors beginning, slowly at first, to go into their ghost dance trance that he had heard got them revved up for a fight. Suddenly, the trio, the three television-sotted Indian warriors got up and started, slowly at first so they were actually out of synch with the wall action, to move to the rhythms of the ghosts. Ay ya, ay ya, ay ya, ay ya...until they sped up to catch the real pace. After what seems an eternity they were ready, ready as hell, to go seek revenge for those white injustices.

But then just as quickly the now flickering camp fire flame went out, or went to ember, the shadow ghost dance warriors were gone and they crumbled in exhaustion to the ground. So much for vengeance and revenge. They, after regaining some strength, all decided that they had better push on, push on hard, to the ocean. These ancient desert nights, sweet winter desert nights or not, would do them in otherwise. But just for a moment, just for a weak modern moment they, or at least Adam knew, what it was like for those ancient warriors to seek their own blue-pink great American West night.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-When Bob Dylan Ruled The Folk Rock Universe, Circa 1965

F

CD Review

The Essential Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan, Columbia Records, 2000

Peter Paul Markin was restless, restless like he had never been before.  Just out of the military service (Army, ‘Nam, 1969-70), just out of a war marriage not made in heaven, just out of love with a woman he had met in Cambridge, just out of dough since his savings had been depleted to nil, just out of luck, good luck anyway since he got back to the “real world” he decided he had to drift, drift west into that good night. Drift west in search of that almost childlike belief in what he called the great blue-pink Great American West night. The night when he could rest his mind and his dreams out there maybe in some pacific coast cave around Big Sur, north to Mendocino, or some ghost chance thunder road. 

In 1971, however, the roads west, the main highways and back roads too, were clogged full of lonesome pilgrims seeking their own blue-pink nights. And so he found before he was long out of Boston where he started his trip that he was among kindred more often than not on the great hitchhike road dream brought by forbears like old okie hills Woody Guthrie and Lowell mill boy Jack Kerouac. So he walked roads, grabbed rides, got picked up for “vag” a couple times, went hobo jungle railroad tracks more than once , headed south a little to avoid the cold, then west landing just off  Los Angeles in sainted ghost-ridden Joshua Tree National Park on some wayward Volkswagen minibus explosion. He bit good-bye to those fellow-travelers who were heading south to Mexico and cheap, cheap everything and sun but mainly cheap and righteous herb (ganga, mary jane, sister, marijuana whatever you call it in your neighborhood).      

Carrying his life-line (and life’s full possessions at just that moment) bed-roll knapsack combination he headed into the park. Walk some dusty stone-etched miles to one of the camping sites expecting to find some more kindred and stews against some hunger. Sundown was approaching as he fixed up his assigned site when he heard a loud blast of Bob Dylan’s youth nation national anthem,  Like A Rolling Stone, coming from, coming from somewhere. Maybe it was the dust of the road, too many roads, maybe it was his time, maybe it was some tumbleweed passing by remembrance, but at first he could not fathom where such music would be coming from in the high desert.

Then he saw it. Saw the biggest yellow school bus now all painted in the six hundred colors of psychedelia with a huge speaker mounted on its top and about sixteen crazed lunatics (although that information was only confirmed later) dancing in various conditions of  dress, and undress.  He approached, someone passed him a joint, another some cheap fine wine, and another pointed him to the fireplace stew broth. All without a word. Home, home among the rolling stones.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-When Bob Dylan Ruled The Folk Minute, Circa 1962

CD Review

Bob Dylan: The Best Of The Original Mono Recordings, Bob Dylan, Columbia Records, 2010

“Hey, Peter Paul, help me out tonight will you? Jenny’s cousin Joslyn is in town. Lynette promised her she could go with us to the Oleo Coffeehouse tonight and she needs a date. She is supposed to be nice and since she is from New York City she knows all about the folk scene there and about all the latest folk singers and poems and stuff,” Jeff Murphy quick-talked (the only way he knew) over the phone to his high school friend Peter Paul Markin. Peter was intrigued by this prospect for he had over the previous several months got caught up in the emerging folk wave then splashing through young 1962 America so he said sure.

Peter Paul, as was his way in those days around girls (and around his more intellectual friends) dug into his pile of folk music, folk records and folk newsletters in order to be able to carry on a civil conversation with Joslyn that night. He was especially nervous that he know every arcane fact in the folk world to impress a New York City girl who had actually been to Mecca, the Village, his idea of folk chic. Funny, he thought to himself, a year or so before he used to laugh at what he called “beats,” guys with beards, bad hair, bad breathe, baggy pants and brown flannel shirts when he took his midnight swings through Harvard Square.

He was strictly a rock and roll man, or maybe a little, be-bop blues as they filtered out of Mister Lee’s Blues Hour from Chicago on the radio on Sunday nights when the wind was right. One Sunday he was trying to get that station (always a fickle proposition on his transistor radio) when he heard this gravelly-voiced guy singing something out of some old mountain hollows or something like that, a song called Come All You Fair And Tender Ladies. The guy singing it, whom he later found out was Dave Von Ronk from Brooklyn, sounded like some latter day Jehovah calling his flock home. Peter Paul was hooked and listened to the whole show. He didn’t remember all the names of the songs or performers but the next day he went to Charlie’s Records over in Adamsville Center and picked up what that shop considered folk, some Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie stuff and he was double-hooked.

That date night he went with Jeff, Lynette and Joslyn and had a good time. Although she was indeed as nice as advertised she had a problem, a Peter Paul eyes problem. She was way too knowledgeable about the folk scene for Peter. At one point he was sitting there in silence as she went on and on about the Village. Mostly what she said was that a new wave was coming, we, meaning them, the kids then, were ready to bust out and make a newer world and folk music would be the cement that united us. Powerful stuff.

She said that a young guy, a young guy hanging around the bars and coffeehouses, places like Geddes Folk City, was writing up a storm, a storm to make a storm. She asked Peter Paul if he had heard Bob Dylan ‘s latest Blowin’ In The Wind that was becoming a national anthem for the youth who wanted to change the world and change it now. Peter Paul blushed, blushed crimson red or redder maybe. He had never heard of Bob Dylan. Next day though he was at Charlie’s Records .

P.S. Peter Paul and Joslyn would meet again a number of times over the next several years, dated sometimes, lived together a couple of times, and each time she got the chance Joslyn would “remind” Peter Paul of that first Oleo coffeehouse date and his lack of knowledge of Bob Dylan then. Later Peter Paul lost contact with Joslyn after she went underground with the Weathermen in the late 1960s to try to create her version of that newer world she talked about that first night.

Once Again, The Voice of The Generation Of '68?- Bob Dylan Unplugged

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Bob Dylan performing "Blowin' In The Wind" in 1963.

CD REVIEW

The Times They Are A-Changing, Bob Dylan, Columbia, 1963

In this selection we have some outright folk classics that will endure for the ages like those of his early hero Woody Guthrie have endured. "The Times They are A-Changing" still sounds good today although the generational tensions and the alienation from authorities highlighted there is markedly less now than than in those days-not a good thing, by the way. "The Ballad of Hollis Brown" is a powerful tale out of John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" about the plight of an up against the wall family farmer out on the then hardscrabble prairies (and it has only gotten worst since and Dylan made one of his periodic 'comebacks' doing this song at a Farm Aid concert in the 1980's).

"With God On Our Side" like "Masters of War" is a powerful anti-war song although some of the tensions of the Cold War period in which it was written have gone (only to replaced today by the fears generated by the `war on terrorism'). "Only A Pawn In Their Game" was a powerful expression of rage after the murder of civil rights worker Medgar Evers. The "Hattie Carroll" song shows Dylan's range by dealing with injustice from a different perspective (and a different class) than "Only A Pawn In Their Game". But with no let up in highlighting blatant discrimination and animus in either case. Finally, in reviewing these early Dylan albums (and some of the later ones, as well) I have noticed that they are not complete without at least one song about lost love, longing or perfidy. Here, there is no exception to that rule with the haunting, pleading voice of "Boots of Spanish Leather".

posted by markin at 10:49 AM

7 Comments:
Kim said...
The problem is that Dylan himself clearly states that Masters of War is not an anti-war song:

Q: Give me an example of a song that has been widely
misinterpreted.

A: Take "Masters Of War." Every time I sing it, someone writes
that it's an antiwar song. But there's no antiwar sentiment in
that song. I'm not a pacifist. I don't think I've ever been one.
If you look closely at the song, it's about what Eisenhower was
saying about the dangers of the military-industrial complex in
this country. I believe strongly in everyone's right to defend
themselves by every means necessary... you are affected as a
writer and a person by the culture and spirit of the times. I was
tuned into it then, I'm tuned into it now. None of us are immune
to the spirit of the age. It affects us whether we know it or
whether we like it or not.

from http://expectingrain.com/dok/int/2003tour.html

And I think to say that "With God on Our Side" is an anti-war song is reducing the song to something topical. The idea that it is simply an anti-war song really ignores the last verse in the piece regarding Judas Iscariot. Judas Iscariot fought in no war, so then, if this is an anti-war song why is he even in the picture?
I believe it is far less an anti-war song and far more a song about asking the question: what does it mean to believe in God? To me, it's more about asking the question: shouldn't we be on God's side and not He on ours?

THIS question then throws into the spotlight the idea that God is on the side of America and that she is always right. Dylan, it seems to me, is not quite buying into that. None of us should. But he's not an either/or kind of a guy. He's not an "America is all bad or all good" kind. Hattie Carroll bites into two groups, and both come out severly wounded: the racists and their racist application of "justice" AND the liberals who decry injustice but do nothing about it.

7:10 PM
markin said...
When I used the term ‘anti-war’ in relationship to Bob Dylan’s song Masters of War I meant that in a generic sense rather than giving it some specific political or pacific meaning. According to the Dylan quote that Kim cited in her comment there is a tendency, including by Dylan, to equate the terms ‘anti-war’ and ‘pacifist’. I would not give such a narrow meaning to the term ‘anti-war’. In Dylan’s context it is essentially anti-militarism, especially the dramatically American militarism of the time by the Brecht-like phrases that he uses. That concept does not preclude the concept of just wars against the escalation of such militarism. Leftists except probably Quakers, as a rule, subscribe to some form of just war theory. Certainly in my youth the concept of just war meant supporting the struggle of the Vietnamese against the American presence.

One need not go back that far for an example, though. Much closer in time is the current ‘struggle’ by Iraqi forces against the American presence there. Although the situation is definitely murkier than in Vietnam, to the extent that any one is fighting directly against the American presence (as opposed to indiscriminately bombing everything that moves), theirs is an example of just war. Hell, in 2003 the simple act of the Iraqis, with or without Sadaam, defending themselves against the American invasion was an example of a just war. So Kim, you see that ‘anti-war’ is a pretty elastic term and that brother Dylan and I are, after all, not so far away in our idea that everyone has a right to defend themselves. It is a question of whose right to such defense is supported at any given point that is at issue.

After the above rather abstract discussion, let us cut to the chase about whether Masters of War is an ‘anti-war’ song. During the Vietnam War I was involved with a group of active duty anti-Vietnam War G.I.s (Army soldiers, in this case) who faced court-martial for disobeying lawful orders. Those orders being refused were orders to go to Vietnam, a rather serious offense for a soldier. As part of their defense at the court-martial a few of them, when they got on the stand to make statements, started reciting Master of War in order to have it placed in the transcript of trial. The colonels and majors who made up the court-martial board tried to, red-faced with anger, stop them. Those officers, at least, knew what ‘anti-war’ lyrics were when they heard them. Enough said, I think.

11:01 AM
markin said...
The question of whether “With God On Our Side” is an anti-war song is a little more problematic than that of “Masters of War”. I would only comment that one should not get hung up on the ‘god’ part as I consider this more a common political convention of the time in order to get a hearing for your song (a not unimportant consideration, by the way) that a universalistic appeal to for America to get “on the right side of god”. In the 1960’s, an age wedded to existential concepts, references to god could be as directed to the void as they could to some religious supreme being. Later, as Dylan entertained more religious feelings in his life and in his work that argument might make more sense but certainly not in the early 1960’s. If one did not have a sense of irony then, one was ‘lost’. That ironic sense is why we listened to Dylan and others. They expressed in song things about the world that disturbed us at the time.

What really interests me today about Dylan’s lyrics on this song is how passive they are in relationship to the task that he has presented. In those days, the threat of nuclear annihilation was palpable as things like the Cold War –driven nuclear arms race and the Cuban Missile Crisis made plain. Dylan was apparently entirely willing to let some ultimately ‘just’ god pull the chestnuts out of the fire for us. Alternately, in those days a number of us preferred to take to the streets to organize the fight for nuclear disarmament. “God” could come along if he/she wanted to-no questions asked. Hell, we were so desperate for recruits that Judas Iscariot was welcome if he wanted to turn over a new leaf.

11:12 AM
markin said...
Here are the lyrics to Masters of War and you can make your own judgment about whether it is an anti-war song or not. I have given my opinion above. Markin

Masters Of War

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

Copyright ©1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

7:31 AM
markin said...
A Voice Of His Generation

Nod To Bob: An Artists’ Tribute To Bob Dylan on his Sixtieth Birthday, various artists, Red House Records, 2001

A musical performer knows that he or she has arrived when they have accumulated enough laurels and created enough songs to be worthy, at least in some record producer eyes, to warrant a tribune album. When they are also alive to accept the accolades as two out of the four of the artists under review are, which is only proper, that is all to the good (this is part of a larger review of tributes to Greg Brown, Bob Dylan, Mississippi John Hurt and Hank Williams). That said, not all tribute albums are created equally. Some are full of star-studded covers, others with lesser lights who have been influenced by the artist that they are paying tribute to. As a general proposition though I find it a fairly rare occurrence, as I noted in a review of the "Timeless" tribute album to Hank Williams, that the cover artist outdoes the work of the original recording artist. With that point in mind I will give my "skinny" on the cover artists here.


It seems hard to believe now both as to the performer as well as to what was being attempted that anyone would take umbrage at a performer using an electric guitar to tell a folk story (or any story for that matter). It is not necessary to go into all the details of what or what did not happen with Pete Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 to know that one should be glad, glad as hell, that Bob Dylan continued to listen to his own drummer and carry on a career based on electronic music.

Others have, endlessly, gone on about Bob Dylan’s role as the voice of his generation (and mine), his lyrics and what they do or do not mean and his place in the rock or folk pantheons, or both. I just want to comment on a few songs and cover artists on this 60th birthday album. Overall this Red House Records (a well-known alternate folk tradition recording outfit) production is a true folkies’ tribute to old Bob where the artists while well-known in the folk field probably as not as familiar to the general listener. Nevertheless several covers stick out: John Gorka’s rendition of the longing that pervades “Girl Of The North Country" is fine, as is the desperate longing of Martin Simpson’s “Boots Of Spanish Leather”. Greg Brown does a rousing version of “Pledging My Time” and the long time folk singer Rosalie Sorrels does a beautifully measured version of “Tomorrow Is A Long Time”. The finale is appropriately done by old time folkie, and early day Dylan companion on the folk scene Ramblin’ Jack Elliot with “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” Solid work here. Kudos.

3:32 PM
markin said...
In the interest of completeness concerning my earleir evaluation of the Dylan songs "Masters Of War" and "With Good On Our Side" on his early albums here are the lyrics to the latter song.

Interestingly, except for changing the Cold War theme against the Russians then to the so-called War On Terror now against seemingly every Moslem that any American presidential administration can get it hands on (Bush in Iraq and Afgahnistan) and Obama (same and, maybe, Pakistan) these lyrics "speak" to me today. The word they speak is hubris, American hubris, that the rest of the world has had reason to fear, and rightly so. What do they "speak" to you?

"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 the 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.

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 on their hands
And God on their side.

The First World War, boys
It came and it went
The reason for fighting
I never did get
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 then 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 comes
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.

11:32 AM
markin said...
Guest Commentary

I have mentioned in my review of Martin Scorsese's "No Direction Home; The Legacy Of Bob Dylan" (see archives) that Dylan's protest/social commentary lyrics dovetailed with my, and others of my generation's, struggle to make sense of world at war (cold or otherwise)and filled with injustices and constricting values. Here are the lyrics of three songs-"Blowin' In The Wind", "The Times They Are A-Changin'" and "Like A Rolling Stone" that can serve as examples of why we responded to his messages the way we did. Kudos Bob.


The Times They Are A-Changin'

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it 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'.

Copyright ©1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

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,
Pretending 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.

Copyright ©1962; renewed 1990 Special Rider Music


Like A Rolling Stone

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall"
You thought they were all kiddin' you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you're gonna have to get used to it
You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain't no good
You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain't it hard when you discover that
He really wasn't where it's at
After he took from you everything he could steal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made
Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things
But you'd better lift your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Copyright ©1965; renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- The Endless Bob Dylan Bootleg Series - With “Boots Of Spanish Leather” In Mind

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bob Dylan performing his classic early lament, ‘Boots of Spanish Leather.”

CD Review

Bob Dylan: The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964, The Bootleg Series –Volume 9, 2 CD set, Bob Dylan, Sony Records, 2010

I have often joked with other early 1960s folk revival minute Bob Dylan aficionados that, now past seventy, he continues on a never-ending concert tour that will only end, and maybe not then, when his voice that gave out decades ago (that fresh twenty-something gnarly voice anyway), leave him whispering, or some such thing. Apparently the same fate is in store for every known song that he has written, stolen (that’s okay in folk land), duded up, or changed a word here or there too. And copyrighted too. Well, okay Bob.

And like the never-ending concerts and song transcriptions it has become obvious that the Bob Dylan enterprise will keep endlessly releasing items in the bootleg series. So by the time it is over, in our grandchildren’s late adulthood by my current projections, we will have been subject to every creative cough, hum, retake, out-take ,remake, can’t fake, sour note, beautiful note, gussied up lyric, and breathtaking lyric too that he ever touched . For those with less than 1% resources this will mean going hungry, going on welfare, going to the streets, selling the children into indentured servitude, and whatever other demon demands an aficionado can place on others to get his or her “one last fix.”

Funny though this Volume 9 –Witmark Demos bootleg actually has some very good versions of his classics (without coughs, hums, etc.) like Boots Of Spanish Leather, and a reworking of some traditional tunes like Leaving of Liverpool (here called Farewell). And then there is some stuff that is of historic interest like Masters of War and his Ode to Emmett Till that are always welcome. And, of course, stuff that in cinema is called “better left on the cutting room floor.” Overall though this two CD set is one of the better bootlegs. So start hiring out the kids so you can get it for your now overflowing collection.

Where Were You On May 10, 1963? - Bob Dylan In Concert: Brandeis 1963- A CD Review (Of Sorts)

Click on the headline to link to a review of “Bob Dylan In Concert: Brandeis University 1963” so I can move on to the more “pressing” issue of answering the question posed in the above headline>

CD Review

Bob Dylan In Concert: Brandeis 1963, Bob Dylan, Sony Music, 2011

“Where were you on May 10, 1963?” bellowed a voice from the crowded back of the room of the conference, another one of those “save the world” gatherings that I was attending recently.

“Well, who is asking and why?” I replied, turning around to see who posed that odd-ball question.

Jesus, of course it was my compadre, Joshua Lawrence Breslin, the old- time radical journalist who has fouled up the left-wing and radical public prints of this country for the past forty years (until he recently, praise be, retired), a man who I met back in the summer of love, 1967 version. And a man who has asked me more silly questions like the one above than I can ever come close to recalling. So my answer to his question is a simple “I don’t’ know.”

Except old Josh (everybody calls him Josh, not that nonsensical Joshua Lawrence Breslin breeze publication by-line thing , except in that very brief summer of love night when he went, un-self-consciously, under the name The Prince of Love. But that is a story for another day.) had some ulterior motive, knowing my history, knowing where I was raised, knowing that I was just enough older than him to have been somewhere other than at home in 1963, and knowing that I had immersed myself in that Harvard Square-etched 1960s folk revival minute.

Of course he did have his motive, having recently purchased a copy of the elusive, rare, Bob Dylan In Concert: Brandeis 1963, and so he wanted the ‘skinny’ on my doings or not doings at the time. Needless to say he did not want, after him and then I listened to the thing later, to know what I thought of the CD. Frankly the material in the album recorded live in some fiendish college gym cum folk club was done in other early Dylan studio- produced albums much better at the time. No, what he wanted to know is why I was, or was not, at the concert (or really at the Brandeis Folk Festival) that weekend.

Well, number one, I was not just at that faux beat checked flannel shirt, black chino, chuck taylor sneaker (with genuine logo, thank you) midnight sunglasses high school moment familiar with the local folk scene beyond Back Bay and Harvard Square. Number two I had not the faintest notion where Brandeis was, or the city where it was located, Waltham, although it was only about seven or eight miles from Harvard Square. And as part of number two I had no way, no way in hell, to get there if I had known since being strictly from hunger over on the North Adamsville side of town I had no wheels, no prospects of getting wheels, and just then was in a dispute with Frankie Larkin, the one guy I knew who had wheels. And number three, well, let me explain number separately, okay?

Josh-jogged memory reveals that I knew exactly where I was on May 10, 1963 (or that weekend anyway). I was sitting at the Joy Street Coffee House on Beacon Hill in Boston (another budding, if less well-known, folk revival hang-out spot). And I was sitting with one, Diana Dubois, a fellow junior classmate of mine at North Adamsville High School trying to “convince” her that this new guy, Bob Dylan, was worth listening to if she wanted to get an idea of how we could get out of our fix. That fix being, we both agreed,
that we were growing up in a world that we had not created, had not been asked about, and had no apparent way of changing. Enter Bob Dylan (and others but everybody, including me, called him our muse).

See Diana and I had a "Problems in Democracy" class together and I, naturally, was all over the current events of the day and stuff like that. Sincerely, no question, but mainly acting “smart” to impress the girls, and to impress one Diana Dubois, in particular. And I did, did at least get her attention, after about two weeks of talks and walks and, finally, finally a date. Of course a no dough guy could go pretty far with a cheapo coffee house date. A little carfare from Podunk to Boston, a couple of bucks for coffee and cakes (she had tea, mint tea, I believe, but don’t quote me on that my memory is NOT that good). And a fist full of coins to play the jukebox at Joy Street. See the other beauty of the place, unlike the Harvard Square clubs was there was no “live” entertainment so there was no cover charge. Just a jukebox, juiced up with nothing but folky stuff. And the king pin max daddy of the box was one Bob Dylan with almost all his stuff on the playlist.

Naturally that playlist included “Masters Of War” that I played a few times for Diana, giving my interpretation as the lines flowed by. See, just then I was in the throes of a high anti-war dudgeon. No, not Vietnam like you might think, that was nothing on my radar except maybe we had to stop the commies, but nothing very deep. What was deep (and impressed the hell of Diana) was my opposition to nuclear weapons, especially as just a few months before we were on the edge, the deep edge, with the Russians. From there I worked my “magic” going on endlessly about the John Birch Society and its threat to democratic practices that Dylan lampooned in “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues,” and then on to “Bob Dylan’s Dream.” I made her laugh like crazy when I parodied his voice on that one.

Now to the big moment. There was more calculation that I let on before about why I invited Diana out to this coffeehouse. See what I was really angling for was a date the next week-end to the North Adamsville High Spring Swing (name going back to some hokey, then hokey, Benny Goodman thing, when the school first opened I heard). It was a big junior bash and I had heard through my grapevine (finely-tuned to such intelligence, after all what was high school except to learn these social arts) that Diana was not dated up. So I asked her, and she said, she said, well, after this big build-up you know it was yes.

So you might as well say that Bob Dylan got me that date with Diana (and some more too but that is not part of this story). And so how do I know where I was on May 10, 1963? Well that Spring Swing was held on May 17, 1963. I have saved the ticket up in the attic. Do the math. Thanks, Bob.

Bob Dylan’s Royal Albert Hall Concert of 1966- You Do Need The Band To Play The Last Waltz- The Band's Levon Helms Passes At 71

Click On Title To Link To A YouTube Film Clip Of Bob Dylan And The Band Performing Like A Rolling Stone.

CD REVIEW

Bob Dylan Live 1966: The Bootleg series, Volume 4, “The Royal Albert Hall” Concert, Bob Dylan and The Band, Columbia Records, 1966.

Of all the bootleg, genuine basement tapes, fake basement tapes, etc. that have come out of over the years detailing the career of the premier folk troubadour of his times, Bob Dylan, this volume that contains the bulk of the famous (or infamous, if you are one of those old folk traditionalists who never moved on) English "Royal Albert Hall" Concert of 1966 may be historically the most valuable. Certainly after Martin Scorsese used the concert as a central backdrop to his Dylan documentary "No Direction Home" the argument for its importance in the folk pantheon has been enhanced. The CD issued many years ago prior to Scorsese's effort only confirms that judgment.

Here, in a quick summary, is what the hullabaloo was all about. Many early 1960's folkies were looking for a new "king of the hill" to continue the tradition established by the likes of Woody Guthrie (an early Dylan hero, by the way) and Pete Seeger. Certainly off the first few years of Dylan's rise it looked to one and all, including this reviewer, that Dylan would fill the bill. Then, he switched gears and started to write more starkly personal songs (rather than quasi-political songs like "Blowing In The Wind") and, oh lord here it comes, to use the electric guitar as backup. And worst of all, an electric backup band (the now immortal The Band). You know, with drums and all. "Albert Hall" was one of the first major venues where he presented both concepts, acoustic and electric. The British traditionalists (or at least some of them) were not pleased. But as I have noted elsewhere in earlier reviews of Dylan's work everyone else should be glad, glad as hell, that he made that move.

Needless to say this concert is divided into an acoustic section where he plays some great numbers like "Visions Of Johanna", "Mr. Tambourine Man" and the like. His highlight here is "Desolation Row" an incredible almost surreal use of words and phrases that read more like a poem than a mere song. If I had not been a Dylan fan before this song then the first time I hear "They are selling postcards of the hanging. They are painting the passports brown. The beauty parlor is filled with sailors. The circus is in town" would have caught my attention for life right then and there.

The second, more controversial electric part includes the 1960's semi-national anthem for the counter cultural generation "Like A Rolling Stone" and a good literary companion piece to "Desolation Row" the very fine "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.” Finally, as an extra bonus if you want to hear Dylan without the slurs that make understanding some of the lyrics in other albums hard this is one for you.

LIKE A ROLLING STONE

Words and Music by Bob Dylan
1965 Warner Bros. Inc
Renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall"
You thought they were all kiddin' you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you're gonna have to get used to it
You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain't no good
You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain't it hard when you discover that
He really wasn't where it's at
After he took from you everything he could steal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made
Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things
But you'd better lift your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

DESOLATION ROW

Words and Music by Bob Dylan
1965 Warner Bros. Inc
Renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

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 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 Outa 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

JUST LIKE TOM THUMB'S BLUES

Words and Music by Bob Dylan
1965 Warner Bros. Inc
Renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

When you're lost in the rain in Juarez
And it's Eastertime too
And your gravity fails
And negativity don't pull you through
Don't put on any airs
When you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue
They got some hungry women there
And they really make a mess outa you

Now if you see Saint Annie
Please tell her thanks a lot
I cannot move
My fingers are all in a knot
I don't have the strength
To get up and take another shot
And my best friend, my doctor
Won't even say what it is I've got

Sweet Melinda
The peasants call her the goddess of gloom
She speaks good English
And she invites you up into her room
And you're so kind
And careful not to go to her too soon
And she takes your voice
And leaves you howling at the moon

Up on Housing Project Hill
It's either fortune or fame
You must pick up one or the other
Though neither of them are to be what they claim
If you're lookin' to get silly
You better go back to from where you came
Because the cops don't need you
And man they expect the same

Now all the authorities
They just stand around and boast
How they blackmailed the sergeant-at-arms
Into leaving his post
And picking up Angel who
Just arrived here from the coast
Who looked so fine at first
But left looking just like a ghost

I started out on burgundy
But soon hit the harder stuff
Everybody said they'd stand behind me
When the game got rough
But the joke was on me
There was nobody even there to call my bluff
I'm going back to New York City
I do believe I've had enough


BALLAD OF A THIN MAN

Words and Music by Bob Dylan
1965 Warner Bros. Inc
Renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say, "Who is that man?"
You try so hard
But you don't understand
Just what you'll say
When you get home

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

You raise up your head
And you ask, "Is this where it is?"
And somebody points to you and says
"It's his"
And you say, "What's mine?"
And somebody else says, "Where what is?"
And you say, "Oh my God
Am I here all alone?"

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

You hand in your ticket
And you go watch the geek
Who immediately walks up to you
When he hears you speak
And says, "How does it feel
To be such a freak?"
And you say, "Impossible"
As he hands you a bone

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

You have many contacts
Among the lumberjacks
To get you facts
When someone attacks your imagination
But nobody has any respect
Anyway they already expect you
To just give a check
To tax-deductible charity organizations

You've been with the professors
And they've all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have
Discussed lepers and crooks
You've been through all of
F. Scott Fitzgerald's books
You're very well read
It's well known

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you
And then he kneels
He crosses himself
And then he clicks his high heels
And without further notice
He asks you how it feels
And he says, "Here is your throat back
Thanks for the loan"

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Now you see this one-eyed midget
Shouting the word "NOW"
And you say, "For what reason?"
And he says, "How?"
And you say, "What does this mean?"
And he screams back, "You're a cow
Give me some milk
Or else go home"

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Well, you walk into the room
Like a camel and then you frown
You put your eyes in your pocket
And your nose on the ground
There ought to be a law
Against you comin' around
You should be made
To wear earphones

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

A British Guy From Texas, Okay- The Music of Doug Sahm-CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Doug Sahm performing back in the day, his British invasion day.

CD Review

Dough Sahm: Juke Box Music, Doug Sahm, Antone’s Records, 1988


A British guy from Texas? Oh, ya, that. See one Doug Sahm, a mad monk, a Texas-bred mad monk, of musical talent wanted to ride the wave, the 1960s British invasion wave led by the Beatles that changed the face of rock and roll more than somewhat. Just like Elvis, Chuck and Jerry Lee did a generation before, a rock generation that is, and , strangely, brought blues, big heartland, butcher to the world, industrial city hard life electric blues via Chicago and Memphis and country harder life acoustic blues via the Delta cotton field broiling sun sweats and Saturday night no electricity jukes, mainly, back to America. So ride the wave, take the ride and pay for the ticket, to paraphrase the late gonzo journalist, Doctor Hunter S. Thompson a kindred, here comes none other than the Sir Douglas Quintet no less high and hard in the 1960s American post-invasion hip-hop night.

Well that bluesy rock minute passed but Doug Sahm’s attachment to music, to roots music, apparently never vanished as this CD testifies to in a big way. So back in Texas he made something of a legend for himself in the emerging Austin musical scene. And while I don’t know the all the particulars of the late Brother Sahm’s later career I know two things, well, actually three things. When Bob Dylan wanted to taste, musically taste, all things Texan, particularly that Tex-Mex roots sound that permeated some of his music during his “western outlaw” period (hey, maybe his whole career, at least in his mind) he slip-shot himself by Brother Sahm and they became fast friends.

And Dough Sahm was instrumental in preserving that Tex-Mex sound as it got preserved in old Antone’s, a blue club very closely associated with the blues in Texas and, well, that big heartland, butcher to the world, industrial city hard life electric blues Chicago too, as that storied (and chronicled, on film chronicled) barroom locale provided a final home for many of the Windy City blues greats as they fell on Maxwell Street hard times. And lastly, well lastly Brother Sahm KNEW, knew in his bones and deep in his musical soul, just like Dylan, the American songbook, the generation of ’68 section that he is paying tribute to on this album. Feast on.