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I'm a Minnesota Girl, living in the south. I tell my friends I try not to talk and think like a Yankee, but sometimes I slip up!

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Songwriters as poets














BORN IN TIME



In the lonely night

In the blinking stardust of a pale blue light

You're comin' thru to me in black and white

When we were made of dreams.





You're blowing down the shaky street,

You're hearing my heart beat

In the record breaking heat

Where we were born in time.





Not one more night, not one more kiss,

Not this time baby, no more of this.

Takes too much skill, takes too much will.

It's revealing.





You came, you saw, just like the law

You married young, just like your ma,

You tried and tried, you made me slide

You left me reelin' with this feelin'.






On the rising curve

Where the ways of nature will test every nerve,

You won't get anything you don't deserve

Where we were born in time.







You pressed me once, you pressed me twice,

You hang the flame, you'll pay the price.

Oh babe, that fire

Is still smokin'.






You were snow, you were rain

You were striped, you were plain,

Oh babe, truer words

Have not been spoken or broken.







In the hills of mystery,

In the foggy web of destiny,

You can have what's left of me,

Where we were born in time.



~Bob Dylan 1989





I was never as much of a fan of poetry in song lyrics as my friend Dragonfly. Those song lyrics, well, they rhyme much of the time. That's not a good thing in quid's world of poetry. And yet, as I've listened to Dragonfly theorize about this, I realize that every once in awhile there's a song that stops my heart. And sure enough, when you look closer, when you get a chance to peruse those liner notes.... it's all about the symmetry of thoughts strung together.. what those words meant to the one who wrote them, and how you translate them into your own existence.



"Under the Red Sky" is a little known, kinda self-indulgent Dylan album from a period where he struggled with his own fame. He wrote this particularly beautiful song, "Born In Time" for the album somewhere around 1989. I came across the song in 1990.. it had some particular testing notes for me when I was struggling with my marriage. At 11 years old, with big changes coming around the corner of our union, we pulled it out of the flames. Only to extinguish it later. I still can't hear this song without instantly being transported back to that time.

1 comment:

Pam said...

I've always been a bit of a Dylan fan.