Ignored Obscured Restored
It’s Boston in the early ‘80s and I’m in my mid-20s… Maybe I’ve been out at The Seven’s draining a few pints of Guinness over heavy, deep, and real discussions with close friends. Maybe I just got home from hearing some great live music at The Rat or The Paradise, or from partying at a wildly fun house party.
I’m on a work assignment that has me taking a 3-hour drive, back and forth between Albany every Sunday night, and Boston each Friday evening. I’m spending a lot of hours with my Alpine cassette player, in my car – alone – in the dark.
It’s at times like these that I most enjoy The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. The album always fits the mood when you are having quiet time, alone – physically or in your own head space.
So, I honor this album, today, on
the 60th anniversary of its release.
Two of the five songs Dylan chose to play at The Concert for Bangladesh (1971) were from The Freewheelin’… Let’s let them be the SotW.
And how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take ’til he knows
That too many people have died?
Sadly, today’s plague of gun violence makes these lyrics as relevant now as they were 60 years ago.
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
And where have you been, my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
Sadly, it too has lyrics that still apply today!
BTW, that cassette I was playing in my late-night car drives had The Freeewheelin’ Bob Dylan on one side, and Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska on the other. A perfect combo. Just like rice and beans.
Enjoy… until next week.