The Star-spangled Banner by Bob Dylan

It was a dark day in Dallas, November '63
A day that will live on in infamy
Good day to be livin' and a good day to die
President Kennedy was a-ridin' high
He said, "Wait a minute, boys, you know who I am?"
Being led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb
Then they blew off his head while he was still in the car
"Of course we do, we know who you are" 

Shot down like a dog in broad daylight
Was a matter of timing and the timing was right 

You got unpaid debts, we've come to collect 

We're gonna kill you with hatred, without any respect 

The day they blew out the brains of the king
We'll mock you and shock you and we'll put it in your face 

We've already got someone here to take your place
Perfectly executed, skillfully done Thousands were watching, no one saw a thing 

It happened so quickly, so quick, by surprise
Greatest magic trick ever under the sun Right there in front of everyone's eyes 

Wolfman, oh Wolfman, oh Wolfman, howl 

Rub-a-dub-dub, it's a murder most foul

 

Hush, little children, you'll understand 

The Beatles are comin', they're gonna hold your hand 

Slide down the banister, go get your coat 

Ferry 'cross the Mersey and go for the throat 

There's three bums comin' all dressed in rags 

Pick up the pieces and lower the flags 

I'm goin' to Woodstock, it's the Aquarian Age 

Then I'll go over to Altamont and sit near the stage 

Put your head out the window, let the good times roll 

There's a party going on behind the Grassy Knoll 

Stack up the bricks, pour the cement 

Don't say Dallas don't love you, Mr. President 

Put your foot in the tank and then step on the gas 

Try to make it to the triple underpass

Blackface singer, whiteface clown 

Better not show your faces after the sun goes down 

Up in the red light district, they've got cop on the beat 

Living in a nightmare on Elm Street 

When you're down on Deep Ellum, put your money in your shoe 

Don't ask what your country can do for you 

Cash on the barrelhead, money to burn 

Dealey Plaza, make a left-hand turn 

I'm going down to the crossroads, gonna flag a ride 

The place where faith, hope, and charity died 

Shoot him while he runs, boy, shoot him while you can 

See if you can shoot the invisible man 

Goodbye, Charlie, goodbye, Uncle Sam 

Frankly, Miss Scarlett, I don't give a damn 

What is the truth, and where did it go? 

Ask Oswald and Ruby, they oughta know 

"Shut your mouth," said a wise old owl 

Business is business, and it's a murder most foul

Tommy, can you hear me? I'm the Acid Queen 

I'm riding in a long, black Lincoln limousine 

Ridin' in the back seat next to my wife 

Headed straight on in to the afterlife 

I'm leaning to the left, I got my head in her lap 

Hold on, I've been led into some kind of a trap 

Where we ask no quarter, and no quarter do we give 

We're right down the street, from the street where you live 

They mutilated his body and they took out his brain 

What more could they do? They piled on the pain 

But his soul was not there where it was supposed to be at 

For the last fifty years they've been searchin' for that 

Freedom, oh freedom, freedom over me 

I hate to tell you, mister, but only dead men are free 

Send me some lovin', then tell me no lie 

Throw the gun in the gutter and walk on by

 

Wake up, little Susie, let's go for a drive 

Cross the Trinity River, let's keep hope alive 

Turn the radio on, don't touch the dials 

Parkland Hospital, only six more miles 

You got me dizzy, Miss Lizzy, you filled me with lead 

That magic bullet of yours has gone to my head 

I'm just a patsy like Patsy Cline 

Never shot anyone from in front or behind 

I've blood in my eye, got blood in my ear 

I'm never gonna make it to the new frontier 

Zapruder's film I seen night before 

Seen it thirty-three times, maybe more 

It's vile and deceitful, it's cruel and it's mean 

Ugliest thing that you ever have seen 

They killed him once and they killed him twice 

Killed him like a human sacrifice 

The day that they killed him, someone said to me, 

"Son The age of the Antichrist has just only begun" 

Air Force One comin' in through the gate 

Johnson sworn in at 2:38 

Let me know when you decide to throw in the towel 

It is what it is, and it's murder most foul

What's new, pussycat? What'd I say? 

I said the soul of a nation been torn away 

And it's beginning to go into a slow decay 

And that it's thirty-six hours past Judgment Day 

Wolfman Jack, he's speaking in tongues 

He's going on and on at the top of his lungs 

Play me a song, Mr. Wolfman Jack 

Play it for me in my long Cadillac 

Play me that "Only the Good Die Young" 

Take me to the place Tom Dooley was hung 

Play "St. James Infirmary" and the Court of King James 

If you want to remember, you better write down the names 

Play Etta James, too, play "I'd Rather Go Blind"

 Play it for the man with the telepathic mind 

Play John Lee Hooker, play "Scratch My Back" 

Play it for that stip club owner named Jack 

Guitar Slim going down slow 

Play it for me and for Marilyn Monroe

 

Play "Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" 

Play it for the First Lady, she ain't feeling any good 

Play Don Henley, play Glenn Frey 

Take it to the limit and let it go by 

Play it for Carl Wilson, too 

Looking far, far away down Gower Avenue 

Play "Tragedy", play "Twilight Time" 

Take me back to Tulsa to the scene of the crime 

Play another one and "Another One Bites the Dust" 

Play "The Old Rugged Cross" and "In God We Trust" 

Ride the pink horse down that long, lonesome road 

Stand there and wait for his head to explode 

Play "Mystery Train" for Mr. Mystery 

The man who fell down dead like a rootless tree 

Play it for the reverend, play it for the pastor 

Play it for the dog that got no master 

Play Oscar Peterson, play Stan Getz 

Play "Blue Sky," play Dickey Betts

Play Art Pepper, Thelonious Monk 

Charlie Parker and all that junk 

All that junk and "All That jazz" 

Play something for the Birdman of Alcatraz 

Play Buster Keaton, play Harold Lloyd 

Play Bugsy Siegel, play Pretty Boy Floyd 

Play the numbers, play the odds 

Play "Cry Me a River" for the Lord of the gods 

Play Number nine, play Number six 

Play it for Lindsey and Stevie Nicks 

Play Nat King Cole, play "Nature Boy" 

Play "Down in the Boondocks" for Terry Malloy 

Play "It Happened One Night" and "One Night of Sin" 

There's twelve million souls that are listening in 

Play "Merchant of Venice", play "Merchants of Death" 

Play "Stella by Starlight" for Lady Macbeth 

Don't worry, Mr. President, help's on the way 

Your brothers are comin', there'll be hell to pay 

Brothers? What brothers? What's this about hell?
Tell them, "We're waiting, keep coming," we'll get them as well

Love Field is where his plane touched down

 But it never did get back up off the ground 

Was a hard act to follow, second to none 

They killed him on the altar of the rising sun 

Play "Misty" for me and "That Old Devil Moon" 

Play "Anything Goes" and "Memphis in June" 

Play "Lonely at the Top" and "Lonely Are the Brave" 

Play it for Houdini spinning around in his grave 

Play Jelly Roll Morton, play "Lucille" 

Play "Deep in a Dream", and play "Driving Wheel" 

Play "Moonlight Sonata" in F-sharp 

And "A Key to the Highway" for the king on the harp

 Play "Marching Through Georgia" and "Dumbarton's Drums" 

Play "Darkness" and death will come when it comes 

Play "Love Me or Leave Me" by the great Bud Powell 

Play "The Blood-Stained Banner", play "Murder Most Foul"

Weird Al Yankovic - BOB

I don't know how I've lived up 'til now without hearing this song! Weird Al has been around forever, my kids grooved to "Eat It" (his Michael Jackson parody of "Beat It"), and now my grandkids are digging him too. But I never dug QUITE this much dig in two and a half minutes. This is why it  is sometimes worth it to watch those "top ten artists who hate Bob Dylan"-type of things on YouTube, because, bad as they often are, they can lead you to to a musical Valhalla like this.

I've always loved palindromes, and I guess it was the sudden Zenlike realization that Bob IS a palindrome that set this thing in motion. Good palindromes almost make sense, or a kind of peculiar-to-the-palindrome-universe sense, a world alarmingly askance and atilt. There can be a sense of apocalypse in some of them, or an economy that is almost scary. Like Dylan, a palindrome can say so much with so little that they appear here as small lyric miracles.

"Bob"

I, man, am regal - a German am I

Never odd or even

If I had a hi-fi

Madam, I'm Adam

too hot to hoot

No lemons, no melon

Too bad I hid a boot

Lisa Bonet ate no basil

Warsaw was raw

Was it a car or a cat I saw?

Rise to vote, sir

Do geese see God?

"Do nine men interpret?" "Nine men," I nod

Rats live on no evil star

Won't lovers revolt now?

Race fast, safe car

Pa's a sap

Ma is as selfless as I am

May a moody baby doom a yam?

Ah, Satan sees Natasha

No devil lived on

Lonely Tylenol

Not a banana baton

No "x" in "Nixon"

O, stone, be not so

O Geronimo, no minor ego

"Naomi," I moan

"A Toyota's a Toyota"

A dog, a panic in a pagoda

Oh no! Don Ho!

Nurse, I spy gypsies - run!

Senile felines

Now I see bees I won

UFO tofu

We panic in a pew

Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo

God! A red nugget, a fat egg under a dog!

Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog

Wanted man (and woman)

Wanted man in California, wanted man in Buffalo
Wanted man in Kansas City, wanted man in Ohio
Wanted man in Mississippi, wanted man in old Cheyenne
Wherever you might look tonight, you might see this wanted man


I might be in Colorado or Georgia by the sea
Working for some man who may not know at all who I might be
If you ever see me comin’ and if you know who I am
Don’t you breathe it to nobody ’cause you know I’m on the lam


Wanted man by Lucy Watson, wanted man by Jeannie Brown
Wanted man by Nellie Johnson, wanted man in this Tex town
But I’ve had all that I’ve wanted of a lot of things I had
And a lot more than I needed of some things that turned out bad

I got sidetracked in El Paso, stopped to get myself a map
Went the wrong way into Juarez with Juanita on my lap
Then I went to sleep in Shreveport, woke up in Abilene
Wonderin’ why the hell I’m wanted at some town halfway between


Wanted man in Albuquerque, wanted man in Syracuse
Wanted man in Tallahassee, wanted man in Baton Rouge
There’s somebody set to grab me anywhere that I might be
And wherever you might look tonight, you might get a glimpse of me


Wanted man in California, wanted man in Buffalo
Wanted man in Kansas City, wanted man in Ohio
Wanted man in Mississippi, wanted man in old Cheyenne
Wherever you might look tonight, you might see this wanted man

Crazy cats!

In celebration of nothing in particular, except maybe having a better week than last, here are some of my favorite cat gifs, most of which I made myself. Oh, I know this blog gets silly sometimes. Once in a while it gets frightfully serious. I had three or four followers flee all at once after I wrote about climate change. It stunned me. So I don't write about climate change. I don't even know all the facts about it, and for the most part I can't even think about it. Sometimes I just want to post funny gifs of cats.

Funny video of Bob Dylan playing with words

I pounded on a farmhouse

Lookin’ for a place to stay

I was mighty mighty tired

I had come a long long way

I said, “Hey, hey, in there 

Is there anybody home?” 

I was standin’ on the steps 

Feelin’ most alone 

When out comes a farmer 

He must have thought that I was nuts 

He immediately looked at me 

And stuck a gun into my guts 

I fell down

To my bended knees

Saying, “I dig farmers

Don’t shoot me, please!”

He cocked his rifle

And began to shout

“Are you that travelin’ salesman

That I have heard about”

I said, “No! No! No!

I’m a doctor and it’s true

I’m a clean-cut kid

And I been to college too”

Then in comes his daughter

Whose name was Rita

She looked like she stepped out of

La Dolce Vita

I immediately tried to cool it

With her dad

And told him what a

Nice, pretty farm he had

He said, “What do doctors

Know about farms, pray tell?”

I said, “I was born

At the bottom of a wishing well”

Well, by the dirt beneath my nails

I guess he knew I wouldn’t lie

He said "I guess you’re tired”

He said it kinda sly

I said, “Yes, ten thousand miles

Today I drove”

He said, “I got a bed for you

Underneath the stove

Just one condition

You can go to sleep right now

That you don’t touch my daughter

And in the morning, milk the cow”

I was sleepin’ like a rat

When I heard something jerkin’

There stood Rita

Lookin’ just like Tony Perkins 

She said, “Would you like to take a shower? 

I’ll show you up to the door” 

I said, “Oh, no! no! 

I’ve been through this movie before” 

I knew I had to split 

But I didn’t know how 

When she said 

“Would you like to take that shower now?” 

Well, I couldn’t leave

Unless the old man chased me out

’Cause I’d already promised

That I’d milk his cows

I had to say something

To strike him very weird

So I yelled

“I like Fidel Castro and his beard”

Rita looked offended

But she got out of the way

As he came charging down the stairs

Sayin’, “What’s that I heard you say?”

I said, “I like Fidel Castro

I think you heard me right”

And ducked as he swung

At me with all his might 

Rita mumbled something 

’Bout her mother on the hill 

As his fist hit the icebox 

He said he’s going to kill 

If I don’t get out the door 

In two seconds flat 

“You unpatriotic 

Rotten doctor Commie rat” 

Well, he threw a Reader’s Digest

At my head and I did run

I did a somersault

As I seen him get his gun 

And crashed through the window 

At a hundred miles an hour 

And landed fully blast 

In his garden flowers 

Rita said, “Come back!” 

As he started to load 

The sun was comin’ up 

And I was runnin’ down the road 

Well, I don’t figure I’ll be back

There for a spell

Even though Rita moved away

And got a job in a motel

He still waits for me

Constant on the sly

He wants to turn me in

To the F.B.I.

Me, I romp and stomp

Thankful as I romp

Without freedom of speech

I might be in the swamp

Bob Dylan

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Bob Dylan on Nobel Prize

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Can Bob Dylan paint?

Trump's white trash army

A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers’ blood
A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man’s brain
But he can’t be blamed
He’s only a pawn in their game

A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain.
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
He’s taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
’Bout the shape that he’s in
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game

From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoofbeats pound in his brain
And he’s taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide ’neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain’t got no name
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.

The day Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They lowered him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He’ll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game

Copyright © 1963, 1964 by Warner Brothers

There were those, back in 1963-64, who felt Bob Dylan was being too sympathetic towards the "poor white man" who was indoctrinated into the ways of hate, so that he became a powerless, easily- manipulated "pawn in their game".

But look at the way it is.

If anyone believes Dylan did not deserve his Nobel Prize, they should LISTEN to the lyrics of something he wrote more than half a century ago.

These lines are eerily prescient:

A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain.
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game

If this bellowing tyrant actually wins, will the "poor white" ever reap the rewards they have been promised? Well, what do YOU think? Or are these people, like everyone else Trump engages with, merely pawns in his toxic, terrifying game?

It is depressing to me that after all the hard work of the 1960s, things could be even worse, all progress undone and kicked backwards. But how else would an evil man like this have ascended to gain control an entire political party?

"White trash"/ "trailer park trash" - poor whites, mostly men, mostly down South - are being blamed for this frightening ascendency. But is it their fault? Doesn't the rise of this despot indicate the desperation and powerlessness of his supporters? 

But if they think Trump is a remedy for all this, they had better guess again.

Trump exists only for himself, and does not give one good goddamn about anyone who does not further his single cause - which is Donald Trump. The day of reckoning is terrifyingly close, and at this point there is absolutely no getting away from it (and I live in Canada!). His win could be the death of democracy as we have known it. I never wanted to write about this! Never. I try not to let this blog get political, because in the best of times I am almost apolitical. But not now, no matter how much I long to be.

And even if the tyrant "loses", will he go away? He will whip up his ignorant forces with even more vehemence, urging his white trash troops onward to ever more heinous acts of violence, while Trump does not sustain so much as a single bruise.

Only a pawn in his game.

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Dylan's Nobel: what the fxxk is the MATTER with you guys?!

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Face-meld: I cannot believe this worked!

With all this Dylan-ish stuff in the air, I've been dipping back into some of the biographies, most notably Down the Highway by Howard Sounes. It has a modified version of this picture on the cover, a very famous (one might even say iconic, if one could stand that word) image of Dylan from the mid-'60s:

At this point in his career, Dylan had become a piece of art, a very fashionable Warhol-esque figure with pouty lips and supermodels like the doomed Edie Sedgewick lopped onto his arm. Not long after that he had his celebrated Motorcycle Accident (which some claim didn't exist, but was an excuse for getting out of record contracts/concert obligations for a while). He came back a changed man.

But never mind all that.

When my novel The Glass Character came out, I was a bit gobsmacked to see the cover. In spite of what the reading public thinks, authors have little or nothing to do with cover art, and the several suggestions I gave my publisher (because they asked me) had been completely disregarded. So I was left with half a green Harold-face with his hair standing up. The hair-on-end picture is almost as iconic (forgive me) as the man-on-the-clock shot, but on my novel it simply doesn't work. I don't think it represents the story very well, if at all. But the novel still holds up, as far as I am concerned, just waiting for that elusive movie deal.

So today I got looking at that half-a-Dylan face, and wondered how it might look put together with MY book's half-a-Harold-face. After all, these are both world-famous images of world-famous men from wildly different times/places.

What did I have to lose? Oh, a couple of hours I'll never get back. But I had to try it!

First I had to split the Dylan face so that it looked like this:

Then I had to convert my book cover to black and white, an easy task. I didn't have to worry about cutting faces in half because my publisher had already done it for me.

Can you see it, is it starting to take shape? But it was not as easy as it sounds. Face-scanning equipment can tell you that even if two faces look similar, features can be totally different in relation to each other. I'd never get an exact match.

But the results surprised me.

Creepy-looking, I know! But take another look at it. The hairline is very close, though it's hard to see under Bob's curly thatch.  If Bob bugged out his sleepy eyes a little, they'd align almost perfectly. The nose - just look at how that nose matches up! It's incredible. And the upper lip is so exact that it scares me. I swear I did not retouch this thing in any way, just tried to match photo sizes. The biggest discrepancy is in the jaw and chin. Harold had a sort of leading-man jawline, and Bob does not. His facial features back then were almost childlike. But just look at the rest of it!

So what's the point of all this? I just had to find out what it would look like. 

And take a look at this. Since the chin is the feature that matches the least, I decided to crop it out. Now you see the close harmony between eyes, nose and mouth in two men who look not even remotely like each other. 

And for one more little Dylan treat, here's the back cover of Down the Highway:

This is a negative of the original cover photo. Here is the same effect with the black-and-white of my cover:

I once had an editor who liked to say, "It doesn't matter what they say about you, so long as they spell your name right on the cheque." And I guess it doesn't matter how bad a book cover is, so long as they can still read your name.