No one ever asked me to write ‘What Bob Dylan means to you in 25 words or less.’  But inspired by his two most recent releases, I wrote it anyway, and it comes to about 9 pages.  Here are my…

Last Thoughts on Bob Dylan’s Homebound Covid Blues

By Brent Ewig

‘When yer head gets twisted and yer mind gets numb,’

When you think you’ve been home too long, too bored, too much time out of the sun.

Think of Bob Dylan, at some farm or maybe out in Malibu,

Says to himself, “I know exactly what I’ll do.”

I’ll put out a new song, a cryptic comment on the times,

More a spoken poem really – about 17 minutes of rhymes.

I’ll put out Murder Most Foul about the JFK assasination,

The most traumatic event of my generation.

Make a connection to something with an impact so gigantic,

Like the bombing of Pearl Harbor, or the sinking of the Titanic.

Let people know, we’ve seen this in our history,

A turning point where we can’t go back to how it used to be.

People might say, “Bob, that’s so morbid.  What’d you do that for?”

I’ll say, “C’mon friends, I’ve been telling you all along about Heaven’s Door.”

Take a look at my debut, the album Bob Dylan – ‘though not critically vaunted,

If you read the liner notes, it says right there I am “death-haunted.”

Though I was only 20, you could see what I mean,

It’s in the titles of the songs like Fixin’ to Die and See That My Grave is Kept Clean.

Right from the start, I tried to pay my dues,

And honor Leadbelly and Woody and all those guys who played the blues.

But I had to move on fast, and write my own songs,

I was thinking ‘bout our country, and all of its wrongs.

So in the song Blowin’ in the Wind, you can see how I tried,

By asking ‘how many deaths it will take ‘til he knows too many people have died?’

Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan, ‘he’s speaking in tongues,

He’s going on and on at the top of his lungs.’

For sixty years, with many an inspired breath,

He’s been singing songs that try to tell us something about life and something ‘bout death. 

So play me a song, Mr. Dylan,

Play me something to explain all that dyin’ and killin’.

Play Masters of War, ‘bout lookin’ ‘down to their death bed,

And standing over their grave, to make sure they are dead.’

Play Oxford Town, and play it soon,

So they don’t forget the ‘men who died ‘neath the Mississippi moon.’

Play A Hard Rains A ’Gonna Fall, with every line that could be its own song,

Even if people thought you meant atomic fallout, and got that part wrong.

Let people know you can have fun, so spread some clues,

Play a song like Talkin World War III Blues.

Play The Times They Are A Changin’ with ‘the wheel still in spin’ on that ride,

Play something else profound, like With God on Our Side.

Tell it and speak it, how even in a great democracy,

Our history is sometimes littered with mournful hypocrisy.

Play those finger pointing songs, about our country’s shame,

Play The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, play Only a Pawn in Their Game.

Play The Death of Emmet Till, play George Jackson,

Play Hurricane and play When The Ship Comes In.

Play something from your first transformation when poetic surrealism was seething,

Play that line about men who can’t die inside the Gates of Eden.

Play that line about how it might be fun,

To set up bleachers to watch World War III on Highway 61.

Loan me a buck, so I can buy a thrill,

It Takes a Train to Cry if you die on that hill.

Play that song where you first mention how the Titanic – like our country – was laid low,

Play it for me, play Desolation Row. 

Play some of those Basement Tapes from the Aquarian Age,

Play Too Much of Nothing.  Play Tears of Rage.

Tell how you could’ve died when you went over that motorcycle tire,

If you’re memory serves you well, play This Wheel’s on Fire. 

Play those Old Testament songs from John Wesley Harding,

Is this where your fascination with murderous outlaws was startin’?

Tell about the joker and thief riding All Along the Watchtower,

Play The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest, tell about the devil’s power.

Tell how people can be guilty of things they didn’t do, like you put it on tape,

Play that harmonica and play Drifter’s Escape. 

Mr. Dylan, give us a break from all these death songs you do,

Play something lovely from Nashville, play Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You.

Take a break, play Blue Moon and Minstrel Boy if you can afford it,

Play all that shit from Self Portrait. 

Give us a New Morning.  Let’s Watch the River Flow. 

Take time to Paint Your Masterpiece, we’ve got nowhere to go.

But we know it’s hard for you to keep away the doom – it’s so in your blood,

So play Crash on the Levee (Down in the Flood.)

Play that whole soundtrack to Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

Play Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, let ‘em see what they did.

Share some hope on Planet Waves, before you and Sara were done,

Play Wedding Song.  Play Forever Young.

We need that hope, because here comes a hard part,

With Blood on the Tracks, and ‘a corkscrew to the heart.’

You’re not singing about the end of a life; rather the end of a marriage we know,

Even though you denied that – still, If You See Her, Say Hello.

Play Tangled Up In Blue, play Simple Twist of Fate,

Play Jack of Hearts, with Lily and Rosemary caught in that deadly debate.

Play You’re a Big Girl Now.  And who can ever forget,

That Idiot Wind that blows us all down the highway of regret.

We try imagining a temple before the veil was torn,

And we always know where we can find some Shelter From the Storm.

And you always end with a good last line, even if all that gets you is diamonds and rust,

So Play Buckets of Rain, cause ‘life is sad’ but you ‘do what you must.’

Play some of those mythical, mystical songs from Desire,

Play Black Diamond Bay, destroyed by volcano fire.

Play Isis, with the guy who died robbing the grave,

Play Oh, Sister where they ‘died and were reborn and then mysteriously saved.’

Play One More Cup of Coffee before you go to the Valley Below,

Ask who held the gun in that Romance in Durango.

There seems to be more deaths on Desire than in a Tarantino movie,

It even has a song about a murderous gangster named Joey. 

Thank heavens for all the harmony with Emmylou – the sweetest voice of any era,

And ending on a nice note, with the song dedicated to Sara.

Get up your courage for the Changing of the Guards and more talk of mortality,

You have to put down a New Pony, and have No Time to Think about life’s duality.

Your Baby Won’t Stop Crying for even an hour,

And you’re on the road to Armageddon, with Senor and his Tales of Yankee Power.

Your Love is in Vain, it Tends to Forget when you are beat,

You wonder Where Are You Tonight? as you Journey Through Dark Heat.

And here’s a key line, pointing to where you’ll soon arrive,

In that final song, you sing: “I can’t believe it.  I can’t believe I’m still alive.”

It’s a big sign of an approaching transformation,

Where Bob becomes born-again, a Christian confirmation.

He said someone threw a cross to him on a stage in San Diego,

He put it in his pocket, and it pointed to the way he would go.

He said “The glory of the Lord knocked me down…. and Jesus put his hand on me.”

The change was complete, he choose to serve the Lord, so play Gotta Serve Somebody.

Play Precious Angel, and ‘shine your light.’

Play I Believe in You, because faith is worth the fight.

Play Slow Train, cause ‘it’s coming up around the bend,’

Play Gonna Change My Way of Thinking, with Jesus saying be ready for the end.

Play Do Right To Me Baby all about the rule to treat people the same,

Play When You Gonna Wake Up, and ‘strengthen the things that remain.’ 

Play Man Gave Names To All The Animals, with that snake in the grass,

Play When He Returns, because the gate is narrow through which we all must pass.

There’s two more album’s in Bob’s gospel trilogy,

In which he shares his faith, evangelism, and theology.

So play the song about how to leave this world with A Satisfied Mind,

Play Saved to show what the blood of the lamb will help you find.

Play What Can I Do For You, about how Jesus laid down his life,

Hold on to a Solid Rock to be spared from trouble and strife.

Keep Pressing On, and ask why a man must be born again.

Tell how He was arrested then resurrected, play In the Garden.

Play Saving Grace where you say you thought you’d already be dead for eternity,

Tie it all together with the coming of Armageddon, and the question: Are You Ready?

Next get set up for a Shot of Love; and declare yourself the Property of Jesus.

Play Dead Man, Dead Man, asking when he will arise and lead us?

Play Every Grain of Sand, give us eternity in an hour,

Play the left-off tracks like Angelina, with subpoenas and four-faced angel’s power. 

Play Caribbean Wind, with dreams of Paradise Lost coming down to the wire,

And that hot wind ‘blowing everything that’s near to us closer to the fire.’ 

Infidels marks another shift, after evangelizing lost you many a fan,

But ‘it’s a shadowy world,’ and ‘you rise up and say goodbye to no one,’ so play us Jokerman.

It takes a Sweetheart Like You to show who the Neighborhood Bully is still,

‘How man has invented his doom’ and won’t give up his License to Kill. 

Satan appears again as a Man of Peace, with all kinds of deadly deceptions to give.

So play I and I where God is in us all, but no man can see His face and live. 

And again, some of the best songs were the ones you left on the side,

So play Lord Protect My Child, and play Foot of Pride. 

Play the best one of all, with the view from the Saint James Hotel,

Tell everyone about the martyrs.  Play Blind Willie McTell.

Play it to the tune of Saint James Infirmary.

Play it so everyone who has eyes and ears can see.

Comes the mid 80’s, and maybe your songwriting hit a skid,

But you’re still death-haunted, like the killer they made in Clean Cut Kid.

The fireplace is still burning, and you still have smoke in your eye,

Either freedom or the end times are near, when The Night Comes Falling From The Sky.

There’s the tribute to martyred heroes on that song They Killed Him,

Although everyone seems to agree, adding the children’s choir was rather grim.

Brownsville Girl is surely the masterpiece of this run,

With that unforgettable image of the gunfighter dying in the sun.

I can see how it reminded you of you, relatin’ to that the hungry kid ‘til you got older,

When you knew exactly what it felt like, to always have to look over your shoulder. 

But I keep seeing that cinematic stuff and it just keeps rolling through my sights,

Someone should make a movie ‘bout it, if they could get the appropriate rights,

I can see a guy driving all over the Southwest, looking for Henry Porter with that girl,

You could hire me to write the screenplay, I’d give it a whirl.

And just like you waiting to see Gregory Peck anytime,

I’ll buy my ticket to your show, and won’t complain while I stand in line.

But then we get stuck Down in the Groove, at a crossroads we can’t comprehend,

So play that song with the repeating reminder that Death Is Not The End.

Tell us about the valley where you need to go,

And how money can’t save your life, so play Silvio.

The mid 80’s were rough, we wondered if your stamina might give,

It took some time with the Dead, to make your old songs again live.

Then we could see the sparks fly, and the fun you were havin’

When you joined Nelson, Otis, Lefty and Charlie – and with the Wilburys were travelin’.

So play Tweeter and the Monkey Man, with echoes of the Boss,

Play Congratulations, ‘bout another heartbreakin’ loss,

Play Dirty World, make it sound like Prince,

Play Handle With Care, ‘cause we’ve missed your buddies Roy, George and Tom ever since.

Sometimes we all feel lost and lonely, walking down that highway at night,

So play End of the Line, and play Heading For The Light.

It was about this time you started the so-called Never-Ending Tour,

It’s been over 30 years of hard travelin’ for you to endure.

You’ve been at it nearly non-stop, with a magic that’s alchemic,

The only things to slow you down was a little heart trouble and a global pandemic.

Your bands have been fantastic with so many great guys to play,

There too many to mention, ‘cept the one with you the longest, Mr. Tony Garnier.

We go now where the arrow points to New Orleans, we all want to go with you,

And of all the places I like, I like it better there too.

Give us a great album, leave behind the controversy,

Play that distinctive sound, play us Oh Mercy.

Add that reverb-sonic-dream-haunted atmosphere and voila,

It’s that swamp-bayou ambience from your friend Daniel Lanois.

Play Political World, ‘where peace is not welcome at all,’

Tell us why Everything is Broken, and show us Where Teardrops Fall.

Ring Them Bells in the city that dreams under a yellow moon,

Watch out for the Man In The Long Black Coat; he might be coming soon.

What Was It You Wanted?  Have I taken it too far?

Do I read too much into the meaning of that brilliant Shooting Star?

Is it about a lost love?  It’s hard to tell?

Or is it the end of time, with the last temptation and that firetruck from hell?

We know you’ll never say, you’re not that kind of guy,

So put on some nursery rhymes, play Under The Red Sky.

The playful words make it seem so under-rated,

But the world will end under a red sky, as the Bible stated.

‘It’s Unbelievable it would go down this way,’

But God Knows it will be fire next time, and we will all have to pay.

That song is particularly poignant, with Stevie Ray’s guitar makin’ a splash

It wouldn’t be long ‘for he was gone too soon, in that Alpine Valley crash.

And all the while ‘the world’s being slaughtered’ while the Cat’s In The Well,

And Bob’s still singing ‘bout being caught between heaven and hell.

Turn to the 90’s, and you’re about to change gears,

Releasing some of your strongest music in years.

The renaissance starts with a return to your roots, of old blues and folk song,

So play ‘em back to back, play As Good As I Been to You and play World Gone Wrong.

Play me some old murder ballads, enter the mystery,

Play Frankie and Albert, play Love Henry, play Delia and Stack a Lee.

Play the one I’ve requested for my funeral when my time has come,

To ‘tell my loved ones not to weep,’ play Lone Pilgrim.

Incidentally this is where I joined the scene and first saw you live,

At a rippin’ double bill with the Dead at RFK Stadium in June, 1995.

I’ve been to over 6o more shows since then, I’ll always pay to hear you sing,

Like you said about Peck, I’ll stand in line to see you play anything.

And here comes some of the best meditations on time passin’ you will find,

After you heal your heart, play us all of Time Out of Mind. 

It starts in the dark, ‘walking through streets that are dead,’

So play Love Sick when you can’t get her out of your head.

When you’re Standing In A Doorway, ‘watching the last rays of light go down,’

You know she’s a Million Miles away, and you’re Cold Irons Bound.

And ‘every day her memory grows dimmer,’ and you’ve finally gotten out of Missouri,

You keep Tryin’ to Get to Heaven, after you shake it, and play Shake Sugaree.

In the 60’s you might have died when your motorcycle fell,

Or that time you almost drowned off the coast of Carmel.

And before Time Out of Mind, you got that bat-shit histoplasmosis,

It swelled the sac around your heart; you said it hurt most ferocious.

I read it’s common in Mississippi – although I could be wrong,

But I guess it goes to show, you really did stay a day too long.

You said you thought you might be seeing Elvis much sooner than you planned,

But you came out of it ok, and gave us sixteen minutes of bliss in the Highland.

At the Grammys you said Buddy was with you, and your stuff will ‘bust your brain,’

So play It’s so Easy and Rave On, play True Love Ways and Learning the Game.

Comes a new millennium, and even though Things Have Changed,

You’re still singing about the world exploding and it’s becoming even more strange.

The Oscar you won for that song goes with you under every stage lamp,

Standing in a place of honor on top of that ringing guitar amp.

Love and Theft came out on September 11^th – we remember that terrible day,

When almost 3,000 innocent souls perished away.  

You sang about a ‘sky full of fire and pain pouring down.’

You went back to New York City, no one has to ask how you feel about that town.

You also sang High Water for Charlie Patton, with it risin’ everywhere,

It’s like you knew Katrina was coming, somehow sensed it in the air.

Think of the sadness from those days, when we didn’t know how much we could lose,

Now the virus is taking so many, so play Lonesome Day Blues.

Yet there’s still a place it’s going on, in Summer Days, ‘you can repeat the past’

With a wink to your fellow Minnesotan, and a nod to Mr. Jones at last.

It’s time to move on, you’ve got to carry that load,

So get ready to meet your maker, thinkin’ of your Sugar Baby as you head down the road.

We’re Rollin’ and Tumblin’ into Modern Times, with songs flowin’ from the fountain,

So play Spirit on the Water.  Play Thunder on the Mountain.

New Orleans had flooded, they knew the Levee’s Gonna Break at the river’s bend,

And still you Ain’t Talkin’.  You’re just walkin’ at the world’s end.

Some more songs are offered to get us Together Through Life,

Because Beyond Here Lies Nothing, and Life is Hard and full of strife.

So play Forgetful Heart, while you’re looking for that door,

Play I Feel A Change is Comin’ On, for all the good that might be in store.

Next Tempest came out, with a name close to Shakespeare’s last play,

People wondered if this was it, would it be The Night We Called It A Day?

Some were afraid this might be your last recorded recital,

But you put fears to rest, pointing out yours was called The Tempest, a totally different title.

It starts with Duquesne Whistle and a train song once more,

Then it’s Soon After Midnight, and you’re back on the killing floor.

The songs here again are dark, with lots of violence in play,

You’re taking us down a long road, tryin’ to find the Narrow Way.

So play Long and Wasted Years, with so many tears not yours alone,

Play Pay in Blood, with it clear it will not be your own.

Play that song with sweet William dyin’ down in Scarlet Town,

Play forty-five verses from Tempest, ‘bout the night the Titanic went down.

We’re glad you ‘ain’t dead yet and your bell still rings.’

So play that song about the gangs, play Early Roman Kings. 

There’s tragedy in Tin Angel, but the album’s end hints that we all shine on,

With a tribute to your old friend, so play Roll On John. 

Your songs were so different from Tin Pan Alley, so it was a bit of a gotcha,

When you put out three albums of songs made famous by Frank Sinatra,

So play Shadows in the Night, play Fallen Angels, play all the Trilogies,

Play Hard Rain, Before The Flood, At Budokan, and Real Live. Play allthe Bootleg Series.

Those official bootlegs are so good, we wonder what else unreleased can be chosen?

Whatever it is, we know your legacy is in good hands with your people and Mr. Rosen.

But we wonder sometimes, is the well dry?  Is there anything in the vaults to remain?

And just then, you tweet out another surprise, ‘cause it’s multitudes you contain. 

It’s come to time to ask, what’s it all for?  What’s it all mean?

But you know Bob will never give you an answer that is clean.

He said he’s been transfigured; and no man can know his history,

Through many a dark hour, I’ve been thinking about that mystery.

Just like your search for Henry Porter with the Brownsville Girl on the border,

Will we ever know what it was you left behind in the French Quarter?

Bob has expressed discomfort with those who get hung on the mortality theme,

Said ‘death’s part of life,’ and we’re all bound to leave this scene.

It’s inevitable and unavoidable, part of the human condition,

And ‘every other song is about death, in the folk and blues Tradition.’

So before I offer more opinions, I ask your forgiveness if you could see how,

And ‘if there’s an original thought out there, I could use it right now.’

But if you look in his back pages, before anyone ever heard of a corona,

He opened that beautiful song that he wrote To Ramona,

Sayin’ ‘the flowers of the city, though breath-like get death-like sometimes,

But it’s no use in tryin’ to deal with the dyin’, though I cannot express that in lines.”

Then in Multitudes, the lines say ‘the flowers are dyin’, like all things do,’

Two simple reminders that it’s inescapable, death comes someday to flowers, and to me and to you.

But remember BB King played Lucille ‘til he was 88, and Picasso painted ‘til he was almost 93,

We all hope you will be blessed with the at least the same productive longevity.

You said the songs are meant to be performed ‘cause words on the page are just dull,

So you keep on the road, heading for another joint and pondering poor Yorick’s skull.

You said the never-ending touring will have to end one of these days,

But the songs will live on, like Picasso’s Old Guitarist, Chaplin’s City Lights, and Shakespeare’s plays. 

It just keeps coming back to me, using this image of dyin’ flowers twice,

And in between you wrote volumes of great lines, so I’m glad you ignored your own advice.

Though you did lean sometimes on the folk tradition of quotation, and gave some critics a prod,

By weaving your texts with the likes of Virgil, Ovid, Saga, and Timrod.

You said those critics could ‘rot in hell,’ and ‘try it’ if it can improve your work somehow,

I don’t want to brag, but dag, how do you like me now?

I note that along the way I’ve gained some insights now and then,

From some writers and critics who examined your prophecies with their pen.

So here’s to Shelton and Gray, Williams, Marcus, and Heylin too,

and Bauldie, Muir, Sloman, Dundas, Kinney, Bjorner and Cott,

For Sounes, Wilentz, Ricks, Thomas, Andersen and all the others who write about you.

Their work is the syllabus for a great Dylan class,

So before I go, I raise to them a parting glass. 

Yet despite all the listenin’ and talkin’ and detectin’ and dissectin’,

The only thing we know for sure about Bob Dylan is that his name isn’t Bob Dylan.

But maybe the meaning’s so simple, if we remember what the Ballad of Frankie Lee told:

Stay where you belong; help your neighbor; ‘and don’t go mistakin’ Paradise for that home across the road.’

So rave on Bob, just like Buddy, and your friend Van with Walt Whitman and John Donne,

Rave on from the ‘Redwood Forest to the New York Island,’ and everywhere else under the sun,

Rave on from the Grand Coulee Dam to Hibbing and the end of your run.

‘Rage on against the dyin’ light,’ and until kingdom come.  

And now’s time to seal up this poem and not write anymore,

But there’s one last question, before someone comes knocking on your door.

Where do you look for this hope you know is out there?

When you’re in social isolation, and You Ain’t Going Nowhere. 
You can either go to the on-line church of your choice,
Or you can go to Bob Dylan Songbook.
‘You’ll find God in the church of your choice,’
You’ll find some dyin’ flowers – and a multitude of masterpieces in Bob’s book.

And though it’s only my opinion, 

It may or may not be wise.
You’ll find them both
In the Grand Canyon
At sunrise. 

Postscript:

If you reached this end, you’re probably wondering by now,

What all this talk of Dylan and dying flowers is about?

What’s probably got you baffled even more,

Is just what this here poem is for,

It’s nothing, just a little something I did,

When I was under quarantine, supposed to be home schoolin’ my kid.