For B&P’s Shadorma and Beyond – Dedicated to Dylan – October 26, 2016

This week when I went to see what Paloma had decided to write about on Mindlovesmisery’s Menagerie I was delighted to see she was asking us to write a shadorma or series of shadorma inspiring ourselves from Bob Dylan who this year  was awarded the Nobel for Literature 2016.

Listening to his music once again brought me back to my adolescence.  I was not a bright and chirpy teenager I’m afraid.  Due to my personal problems with my parents I’d turned towards the darker side of life, the futility and hopelessness of a world without reason and love at least so it was then in my mind.  I would sit for hours, music full blast in a candle lit room listening to the angry and often obscure lyrics of the music of my age …  Bob Dylan was one of my favourites with his flat smoky voice and gut moving lyrics.

 

Things Have Changed

A worried man with a worried mind
No one in front of me and nothing behind
There’s a woman on my lap and she’s drinking champagne
Got white skin, got assassin’s eyes
I’m looking up into the sapphire tinted skies
I’m well dressed, waiting on the last train

Standing on the gallows with my head in a noose
Any minute now I’m expecting all hell to break loose

People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

This place ain’t doing me any good
I’m in the wrong town, I should be in Hollywood
Just for a second there I thought I saw something move
Gonna take dancing lessons do the jitterbug rag
Ain’t no shortcuts, gonna dress in drag
Only a fool in here would think he’s got anything to prove

Lotta water under the bridge, lotta other stuff too
Don’t get up gentlemen, I’m only passing through

People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

I’ve been walking forty miles of bad road
If the bible is right, the world will explode
I’ve been trying to get as far away from myself as I can
Some things are too hot to touch
The human mind can only stand so much
You can’t win with a losing hand

Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet
Putting her in a wheel barrow and wheeling her down the street

People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

I hurt easy, I just don’t show it
You can hurt someone and not even know it
The next sixty seconds could be like an eternity
Gonna get lowdown, gonna fly high
All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie
I’m love with a woman who don’t even appeal to me

Mr. Jinx and Miss Lucy, they jumped in the lake
I’m not that eager to make a mistake

People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

Bob Dylan

Everything changes and sometimes that’s for the best and sometimes for the worse … but usually  it’s just what it is…  here’s my attempt at a shadorma (3/5/3/3/7/5) based on the above lyrics of one of Dylan’s more recent songs (2009).  I’m not quite the same as I was in the 60s and can’t really get into that darkness … but oh well … there’s worse things that can happen:

The change of a Phoenix dying

time’s passin’
and when I look ’round
ideals gone
fires quenched
inside the secret mirror
well, everything changed

no lost loves
full of brave new words
time just passed
leaving me
dry-eyed and disillusioned
with my should have beens

time drifts on
getting through a day
imagining
a new way
without hurting, pain and you
just floating along

illusion
change that isn’t change
antique pain
obsolete
weeds – grown in a potter’s field
over my childhood grave

everything
seems to change but me
loneliness
craziness
hidden in this music box
filled up with truth’s lies

maybe love
(that illusive flower)
and ideals
have a place
in this crazy wonderland
of amazing grace

let me fly
(though you can ask why)
just because
I was born …
and now everything changes
as the Phoenix dies

© Gsk ‘16

It seems to me whilst I’m listening to Dylan’s music that his subject matter hasn’t really changed all that much throughout his life – his songs are often about his perception of the dark side of life.  Here he isn’t speaking of masters of war or walking around a watchtower that is life but it’s still the desperate insight into life itself,  this time growing older and losing ones ideals to a reality painted without hope, where one doesn’t care,  where one is easily hurt but hides it and hurts others without being aware of doing so.

Here’s another of my favourites –  Mr. Tambourine Man to take us onto another trip 😉 the music is bright and peppy but if you think this is chirpy song … think again, here are the LYRICS.