Here’s the first song of the year!
Bob Dylan’s New Year’s Day. Wrote this mostly on the subway on the way home from Dowker’s place, having spent New Year’s Eve there. This will be many years ago now, before 1985 most likely.
The song. Which I recorded on New Years Day, even if I made the blog post a week ago.
The lyrics:
Oh I am a mote in a weary eye that only longs for sleep
I have asked my journeying questions and they don’t now seem that deep
At least I asked, I’m proud of that, and the memories I keep
Though they’ve lost the weight to wound me now, the power to make me weep
Bob Dylan is your bible and you’re ready with a quote
You do not listen for the echo of a sweet or sour note
Poet, sage or prophet, desert voice or vote
On this New Years Day he seems to me another wind driven mote
Peace is available upon demand but the price tag seems so high
Thought I’d something I could trade for it when the limit was the sky
Our grownup occupations have tripped us, you and I
And reality’s a leg hold trap, we’ll get free when we die
We’re all conscripts every one of us, but we act like we’re volunteers
Meant to be here somehow, and joking back our fears
We speak our lines with conviction that deepens with the years
As we take our cues and pay our dues, playacting with our peers
O my Muse is a jukebox, and she plays what I select
Background noise for the girls and boys who want to act and not direct
I look around, hoping someone nods, and the words had some effect
When you quote Bob Dylan one more time, the answers all connect.