Upon the 80th birthday of Bob Dylan post a favorite song

[mia]

He turns 80 today, the Master does. By my count, he has had at least seven different careers, something that Todd Haynes captured brilliantly in his movie, I’m Not There. (And on his latest album, he cops a little somethin’-somethin’ from Walt Whitman, a direct literary ancestor, and titles a song, “I Contain Multitudes.” He’s not kidding.) For so many years, he captured the moment and bottled it in words, and now he seems to be writing from some timeless place of myth and story. He’s the Norse skald, telling the stories of forgotten kings. He’s the Irish seanchai, singing around the fire of the deeds of Cuchulainn. He’s Virgil. He’s Homer. He turns 80 years old today. His soul is infinitely older.

America prides itself on being a land of constant reinvention but, very often, that’s a sleepy old-wine-in-new-bottles exercise. Dylan is someone who’s been calling that bluff since he rolled into Greenwich Village from the rusted hills of Minnesota’s Iron Range. For example, imagine if that motorcycle had rolled a few more times over him in 1966, if he ended up underneath it the way Duane Allman did. We would have lost them all—John Wesley Harding, the joker and the thief, Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts—all of the characters that came later, including everyone he name-checks in “Murder Most Foul,” even the killers of JFK. The extraordinary richness of his catalogue is a direct result of the fact that he was never content with one persona telling one kind of story. He contains multitudes and he shares them with all of us.
-- Charles P. Pierce, today, upon the 80th birthday of Bob Dylan

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a36517062/bob-dylan-80th-birthday/

[rzemanfl]

1. Love Minus Zero/No Limit

[Ptah]

2. Forever Young

[mia]

47. "Written as a lullaby for his eldest son Jesse.... Dylan's song relates a father's hopes."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_Young_(Bob_Dylan_song)

[multigraincracker]

3. The Story of Hurricane,

[happybird]

15. It's a tough call

but that might be my favorite

[mia]

19. Thank you. First time hearing this. Looking for meaning in the lyrics.

23
[Verse 1]
Pistol shots ring out in the barroom night
Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall
She sees the bartender in a pool of blood
Cries out, “My God, they killed them all!”

[Hook]
Here comes the story of the Hurricane
The man the authorities came to blame
For something that he never done
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world

[Verse 2]
Three bodies lyin' there
Does Patty see
And another man named Bello
Moving around mysteriously
“I didn’t do it,” he says
And he throws up his hands
“I was only robbin' the register
I hope you understand

[Verse 3]
I saw them leaving,” he says, and he stops
“One of us had better call up the cops”
And so Patty calls the cops
And they arrive on the scene
With their red lights flashin'
In the hot New Jersey night

[Verse 4]
Meanwhile, far away in another part of town
Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are drivin' around
Number one contender for the middleweight crown
Had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down

[Verse 5]
When a cop pulled him over to the side of the road
Just like the time before and the time before that
In Paterson that’s just the way things go
If you’re black
You might as well not show up on the street
Unless you want to draw the heat

[Verse 6]
Alfred Bello had a partner and he had a rap for the cops
Him and Arthur Dexter Bradley were just out prowling around
He said, “I saw two men running out
They looked like middleweights
They jumped into a white car with out-of-state plates”

[Verse 7]
And Miss Patty Valentine just nodded her head
Cop said, “Wait a minute, boys, this one’s not dead”
So they took him to the infirmary
And though this man could hardly see
They told him that he could identify the guilty men

[Verse 8]
Four in the morning and they haul Rubin in
They take him to the hospital and they brought him upstairs
The wounded man looks up through his one dying eye
Says, “Why did you bring him in here for?
He ain't the guy!”

[Hook]
Here’s the story of the Hurricane
The man the authorities came to blame
For something that he never done
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world

[Verse 9]
Four months later, the ghettos are in flame
Rubin’s in South America, fighting for his name
While Arthur Dexter Bradley’s still in the robbery game
And the cops are putting the screws to him
Lookin' for somebody to blame

[Verse 10]
“Remember that murder that happened in a bar?”
“Remember you said you saw the getaway car?”
“You think you’d like to play ball with the law?”
“Think it might-a been that fighter that you saw
Running that night?”
“Don’t forget that you are white”

[Verse 11]
Arthur Dexter Bradley said, “I’m really not sure”
The cops said, “A poor boy like you could use a break
We got you for the motel job
And we’re talking to your friend Bello
Now you don’t want to have to go back to jail
Be a nice fellow

[Verse 12]
You’ll be doing society a favor
That sonofabitch is brave and gettin' braver
We want to put his ass in stir
We want to pin this triple murder
On him
He ain’t no Gentleman Jim”

[Verse 13]
Rubin could take a man out with just one punch
But he never did like to talk about it all that much
"It’s my work", he’d say, "and I do it for pay
And when it’s over I’d just as soon go on my way"

[Verse 14]
Up to some paradise
Where the trout streams flow and the air is nice
And ride a horse along a trail
But then they took him to the jailhouse
Where they try to turn a man
Into a mouse

[Verse 15]
All of Rubin’s cards were marked in advance
The trial was a pig-circus
He never had a chance
The judge made Rubin’s witnesses
Drunkards from the slums
To the white folks who watched
He was a revolutionary bum

[Verse 16]
And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger
And though they could not produce the gun
The D.A. said he was the one
Who did the deed
And the all-white jury agreed

[Verse 17]
Rubin Carter was falsely tried
The crime was murder “one,”
Guess who testified?
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers, they all went along for the ride

[Verse 18]
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool’s hand?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn’t help but make me feel ashamed
To live in a land
Where justice is a game

[Verse 19]
Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink Martinis
And watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha
In a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell

[Outro]
Yes that’s the story of the Hurricane
But it won’t be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he’s done
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world

[multigraincracker]

21. It's like nothing has changed in

in 40 years.

I got lucky at a garage sale and found an early Dylan complete songbook for 2 bucks. Traded it to a luther to do some repairs. He said it was better than money. Like 65 songs, music and lyrics.

[mia]

23. What a find. The lyrics of a poet.

Here's another version of the song. I've listened to it three times now and still playing....

Someone should make a movie.

[ybbor]

37. They did

In 1999, The Hurricane starring Denzel Washington

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0174856/

[mia]

43. Thank you!

Just saw that it's free on Amazon and HBO.

[happybird]

39. They did, in the late '90s

Denzel plays Rubin Carter. It’s a damn fine movie.

[dmoyer]

4. tangled up in blue

[rzemanfl]

5. Here you go-

[IcyPeas]

50. Tangled Up in Blue is probably my fav also.

[ariadne0614]

6. Series of Dreams

[rzemanfl]

10. Great choice! n/t

[ariadne0614]

20. Thanks. It gets me every time. n/t

[Hoyt]

7. Considering the time, this is my favorite:

[patphil]

8. You know, that's an impossible task. So many favorites.

But I submit:

and one more:

And now a little blasphemy...a great cover of Highway 61 Revisited

[voteearlyvoteoften]

18. That Johnny Winter jam

One of my all time favorites!

[njhoneybadger]

9. My back pages

https://m.

[Cartoonist]

11. Favorite cover

[Pisces]

12. If Not For You

[voteearlyvoteoften]

13. Don't Think Twice it's Alright

Sunset song for my friends

[Generic Brad]

14. Knocking' On Heaven's Door

[CaliforniaPeggy]

16. Get thee to the Greatest Page RFN! ♥

[voteearlyvoteoften]

17. Rainy Day Woman #12 &35

Everybody must get stoned ...

[ShazamIam]

22. "Shelter from the Storm," Dylan is a great American poet and I am so glad he was awarded the Nobel.

[housecat]

30. Absolutely!

[greatauntoftriplets]

24. Probably Sara.

It's the one I play repeatedly in the car. There are so many to choose from....

[dweller]

25. To remember Bob

https://m.

✌🏻

[Gaugamela]

26. Working Man's Blues.

[dianaredwing]

27. And what about

The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll?

[blm]

28. Good as I Been to You album

Because it was produced by my dear friend, Debbie, who passed away in 2016.

https://www.peterstonebrown.com/2020/07/01/good-as-i-been-to-you-debbie-gold/

[housecat]

29. I was at a concert in 1966, one of the first with electric -- blew me away

[ellie]

31. We're watching No Direction Home, right now!

I think my favorite Dylan song is Shelter from the Storm.

Edited it to add, Isis is right up there, too. I think they are tied.

[randr]

32. Did a 3 hour tribute to Bob

Today. Play list at www.kvnf.org. calls came in from across the nation as well as Mexico.

[70sEraVet]

33. Chimes of Freedom

[scipan]

55. Mine too.

Far between sundown's finish and midnight's broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashin'
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seemin' to be the chimes of freedom flashin'
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
And for each and every underdog soldier in the night
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashin'

In the city’s melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched

With faces hidden while the walls were tightening

As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin’ rain

Dissolved into the bells of the lightning

Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake

Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned an’ forsaked

Tolling for the outcast, burnin’ constantly at stake

An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing


Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail

The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder

That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze

Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder

Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind

Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind

An’ the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time

An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing


Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales

For the disrobed faceless forms of no position

Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts

All down in taken-for-granted situations

Tolling for the deaf an’ blind, tolling for the mute

Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute

For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased an’ cheated by pursuit

An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing


Even though a cloud's white curtain in a far off corner flashed
And the hypnotic, splattered mist was slowly liftin'
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from driftin'
Tolling for the searching ones on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
And for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashin'

Starry-eyed and laughin', as I recall when we were caught
Kept by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time and we watched with one last look
Spellbound and swallowed till the tollin' ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse
And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashin'

[70sEraVet]

60. Thanks much for that

A bit of a different experience listening to the song while following along with the written words.

[scipan]

61. You're welcome!

[wnylib]

34. Too many to choose from.

But, for an anti war song, I like With God on Our Side. Some of the lyrics are time specific, but others, and the theme itself, transcend time.

For humor, I love John Birch Society Blues. Those of us who lived through the Cold War can especially appreciate this one. You could substitute other words besides "communist" in the song to update it to modern conspiracy nut cases.

And, Positively 4th Street (You've Got a Lot of Nerve)

[Politicalgolfer]

35. Had no idea that I shared a birthday with Dylan!!!

Cool.....I will lift a glass to him tonight🎂🍸

[mia]

45. Happy birthday!

Tonight, and for all of your birthdays, forevermore!

[Politicalgolfer]

59. Thank you mia.....not much younger than him

😊

[whopis01]

36. Duquesne Whistle.

[Devilsun]

38. Tangled Up In Blue

[ybbor]

40. Isis

[speak easy]

41. They're seeing postcards of the hanging ...

[Bev54]

42. I am not as old as Bob Dylan

But damn; 80? I am starting to feel old.

[BobTheSubgenius]

44. Charles Pierce.

I was not at all surprised to see his name at the bottom. What a great and literate tribute!

[WiseElder]

46. Desolation Row

[lpbk2713]

49. Yes

With lyrics ... https://vimeo.com/11222889

[TexasBushwhacker]

48. I like it when he rocks out

A lot of people have covered this one, but RL Burnside's version is my favorite

[Beausoleil]

51. Even his obscure songs are great

Even after all these years listening to Dylan, I still run across songs I had no idea he wrote.

[Tommy Carcetti]

52. Lay Lady Lay

Love the steel guitar hook in it.

[Upthevibe]

62. Tommy_Carcetti......

Lay, Lady, Lay is also my favorite and I LOVE many of his songs. There's just something so special about this one....

[AuntieKatie]

64. Same here!

I remember the day I bought the album and rushed home to play it!

[Danmel]

53. Shelter From the Storm

[Tikki]

54. Maggie's Farm

Tikki

[Brother Buzz]

56. Bob Dylan's favorite cover of one of his songs

[rzemanfl]

57. Hey Buzz. Thanks for the Weird Al. n/t

[Brother Buzz]

58. It was Allen Ginsberg's favorite, too

He wore out his VCR tape watching it over and over again, "Genius. Pure genius, even the title is a palindrome!".

[zanana1]

63. Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again

Personal favorite.