Bob Dylan
American folk and rock singer-songwriter, born in Duluth, Minnesota.
I had ambitions to set out and find, like an odyssey or going home somewhere… set out to find… this home that I’d left a while back and couldn’t remember exactly where it was, but I was on my way there. And encountering what I encountered on the way was how I envisioned it all. I didn’t really have any ambition at all. I was born very far from where I’m supposed to be, and so, I’m on my way home, you know?
And if I don't make it, you know my baby will.
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
Someone handed me Mexico City Blues in St. Paul [Minnesota] in 1959 and it blew my mind. It was the first poetry that spoke my own language.
Bob Dylan took a lot of air out of the room when it came to songwriters. Everybody had a tough row to hoe distinguishing themselves once Bob invented our job.
Somebody's got to cry some tears, I guess it must be up to me.
And you say, Oh my God, am I here all alone?
Well, God is in His heaven
And we all want what's his
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is
I'm gazing out the window
Of the St. James Hotel
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
You sound like a hillbilly; We want folk singers here.
The first two lines, which rhymed 'kiddin' you' and 'didn't you,' just about knocked me out, and later on, when I got to the jugglers and the chrome horse and the princess on the steeple, it all just about got to be too much.
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their marks.
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark.
It's easy to see without looking too far that not much is really sacred.
All and all can only fall with a crushing but meaningless blow.
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it.
Oh God said to Abraham, Kill me a son.
Abe says, Man, you must be puttin' me on.
God say, No. Abe say, What?
God say, You can do what you want Abe, but
the next time you see me comin' you better run.
Well Abe says, Where do you want this killin' done?
God says, Out on Highway 61.
Yesterday's just a memory; tomorrow's never what it's supposed to be.
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot fighting in the captain's tower while calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers...
Chaos is a friend of mine.
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it.
Go away from my window,
Leave at your own chosen speed,
I'm not the one you want, babe,
I'm not the one you need.
You say you're looking for someone,
Who's never weak but always strong,
To protect you and defend you,
Whether you are right or wrong,
Someone to open each and every door,
But it ain't me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain't me, babe,
It ain't me you're looking for, babe.