I can hear you honey coming my way, I
remember how you used to speak my name
I saw you walking long the river to my garden
Your hair shone like the milky way
Lamplight glowed down in St. Germain
Day is gone and we’re only getting started
I hear the music like I always have
won’t force you none, though I’m moving fast
what’s done is done
what’s past is past
You are the angel
breathing in my dream, you can
Call me goblin
Call me the creep
You know who I am
You know I never sleep
How much longer shall we dance this dance, we’ve been
waltzing all along the Cumberland
you’ve called my name
and baby I’m your man
I saw you rise as the desert sun
I was born, we were one
heard ‘em say we were old
and today we are young
I hear you walking through my secret garden
the music through you and calling my name
the world’s changed
and I don’t feel the same
But I can sing and you know I can dance
I’m making way through this cold and damp
day’s breaking, as I take your hand
Let me lie back in sweet surrender
Let me honor, cherish and defend her
I lost my track again but I know I can remember
Is this life lady, and life only?
Well your beauty took me
honey, it stoned me
I think I’ve been here baby
Yea I know how you told me
Come you princes and gamblers
And I’ll tell you a tale
About an unborn world
From the cold winds of hell
I think you will find
That my story’s been told, indeed it’s centuries old
And though I am young,
You may know me quite well.
They may call me king bishop,
They may say I’m unkind
That I’m a blue-tuned sailor,
Got a simple mind
Tell me, when you look in the mirror
Or through your window view
Do you see a stranger’s eyes
Staring straight at you?
All you big-wigs and con-men
Who stole from my town
How’s the blood in your coffee,
Soaked in your nightgowns?
And how does it feel
To live behind a wall?
They may call you rich men,
But you don’t know wealth at all.
To the big who are small,
Self-proclaimed greats of all time
Who sweat over accolades,
Wasting their rhymes
Man, they couldn’t pay me
To put on your shoes
Held down by the weight
Of having something to prove.
To those who march through the wild,
Along the borderline;
To the persecuted and exiled,
I’m yours and you are mine
And to every shade of oppressor,
Your day will come soon
But in the end, just remember,
You are me and I am you.
You may quote from the wise,
Or your scriptures of old
But when you spill the blood of my brother,
Call the prophets your own,
In the eyes of the Lord,
You cast every stone
To twist the good word
In your own quest for the throne.
And so to all those
Who’ve taught me to love
Who in the same second,
Flaunt their handguns
Your sons and your daughters
Look to you every year
As you preach of peace
In the cold fortress of your fears
Come you princes and gamblers
And I’ll tell you a tale
About a battle-scarred world
That’s seen some serious hell
I think you will find
That my story’s been told, indeed it’s centuries old
And though I am young,
You ought to know me well.
Yea, along life’s ladder,
You may recognize every rung
And though you may feel real old;
Know today, we are young.
fire at the Bastille
bringing death to all your woes
I’ll break from these chains
and claim my mind as my own
the winds are blowin’ strong
the night is getting cold
I’d like to see America
before I get too old
I marched for our lives
I occupied the streets
I gave you all my love
in the time of COVID-19
I was born to run
Maybe I’m a rolling stone
I ain’t letting go of rock n’ roll
No I just don’t wanna be alone
the tune’s as smooth as wine
we’re crooning in time
I’m patching up matchboxes, now
and blue valentines
the winds are blowin’ strong
the night is getting cold
I’d like to see America
before I get too old
I’ve got Beethoven to my left
Robert Johnson on my right
I can hear the blues playing
on the river Danube tonight
I see Jimmie Rodgers on the coastline
And the Carter family too
Train whistle’s blowing
Neath an Appalachian Moon
I’m no beast of burden, and
I don’t shoot to thrill
I wanna see Rita Hayworth
on every hundred dollar bill
I’d like to read Walt Whitman
William Blake and Danté
You can take Jackie Robinson
Cause I’ve got Willie Mays
I swam ninety miles
of a blue crystal sea
I reached the rocky shores
of the Florida keys
we’ll raise a toast to the road
a toast to you and me
we’ll raise our glass
at Half Dome over
Yosemite Valley
rise of the cotton gin
death to my woes
I’ll break from these chains
and claim a house as my own
you wanna hear that I resist?
say my life is hard?
How long can I go
before they say I’m playing any card?
with rhythm and rhyme
like fruit of the vine
I’m patching up matchboxes
and blue valentines
In a home of the brave
where together we are saved
I’ll be your man
baby, we’ll be
American made
I don’t dwell on immortality, no
Legacy from me to you
I’m a guest here, I know
Only passing through
the winds are blowin’ strong
the night is getting cold
I’d like to see America
before I get too old
Lately I’ve been thinking about the song Blowin’ in the Wind.
Like many millions of people, when I first heard it I was moved; and I appreciated the depth and meaning in every line, every question posed by the author, each one pertaining to a fact of human history consistently revealing itself for each new generation.
I couldn’t help but be a little disheartened by the fact that these questions are still so relevant, so many years later.
Yet in the years following my first encounter with the song—for all it’s undeniable eloquence and power—the chorus still struck me as frustratingly flat.
To ask questions like “How many years can some people exist before they’re allowed to be free?” only to say that the answer is blowin’ in the wind, felt a little bit cheap, as though each of us might as well throw up our hands and just say ‘oh well.’
It was the only thing about the song that bugged me. However, lately I’ve been looking at it differently.
Maybe I’m just slow and people have been hip to it all long, or maybe I’m taking shots in the dark and totally inserting my own meaning into the song, but that chorus means far more to me now than it did before.
What I think now is that if it feels underwhelming and flat to the listener, then that’s a good thing, because it should feel underwhelming and unsatisfying.
The song was never about spoon-feeding us the answers to age-old questions anymore than it was pointing its finger at any one group of people. If it’s pointing its finger at anybody, then it’s doing so at everybody.
The real subject of scrutiny isn’t any one country or group or individual, but something deeper and typically more silent, something to which all of us are vulnerable.
Apathy. The very thing that bothered me about the song might actually be the main point of the song in the first place.
The answer, actually, is not blowing in the wind. If it is, it’s only because we’ve given into the same apathy, hopelessness, bitterness and fear that convinces people to throw up their hands and give up right from the start, and leave it to some unseen force outside of their control.
In the last verse, Dylan writes “How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky?”
There could be a lot of ways to interpret that line, but for me, it’s the one time throughout the song in which the author winks at us, as if to undermine that seemingly disappointing chorus.
As far as we know, there is only a sky above us, and it seems to care little if at all about the affairs of men and women. It will provide no answer to our problems, beyond the possibility of serving as a mirror. One that allows us to recognize that the answer to these questions is in our hands. It always has been and always will be.
To me, that’s a timeless truth. Elemental as the wind.
Quinby & Co. 