- Part 1: Bob Dylan: Fearful Symmetry
- Bob Dylan And Fearful Symmetry (Part II)
- Bob Dylan And Fearful Symmetry (Part III)
- Bob Dylan And Fearful Symmetry (Part IV)
- Bob Dylan And Fearful Sympathy (Part V)
- Bob Dylan And Fearful Symmetry (Part VI)
- Bob Dylan And Fearful Symmetry (Part VII)
- Bob Dylan And Fearful Symmetry (Part VIII)
- Bob Dylan And Fearful Symmetry (Part IX)
By Larry Fyffe
Poet William Blake presents his readers with a rather dark Existentialist point of view – bound we be in Poe-like chains of circumstance – even before the experience of adulthood has a chance to cloud up the innocent sunshine days of childhood:
My mother groaned, my father wept Into this dangerous world l leapt Helpless, naked, piping loud Like a fiend hid in a cloud Struggling in my father's hands Striving against my swaddling bands Bound and weary, I thought it best To sulk upon my mother's breast (William Blake: Infant Sorrow)
Akin to the sentiment expressed in the following song lyrics:
If I had some education To give me a decent start I might have been a doctor or A master in the arts But I used my hands for stealing When I was very young And they locked me down in jailhouse cells And that's how my life begun (Bob Dylan: The Ballad Of Donald White)
Less serious other artists be as they attempt to lighten up the sorrows that exist in the human condition by cooking up a batch of dark humour – as pointed to by Jochen Markhorst:
I took me a wife 'bout five years ago We got one kid, he's just about four He gets up at the table, and slaps his ma Rubs flashes in my hair, says:"ain't you my pa?" Runs string beans up my nose Sticks potatoes in my head (Chris Bouchillon: New Talking Blues)
Likewise dark-humouredly done so in the song lyrics quoted below:
She said that all the railroad men Just drink up your blood like wine And I said, "Oh, I didn't know that But then again there's only one I met And he just smoked my eyelids And punched my cigarette" (Bob Dylan: Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again)
There be these lines as well:
Mama's in the pantry, preparing to eat Sister's in the kitchen, a-fixing for the feast Papa's in the cellar, a-mixing up the hops Brother's at the window, a-watching for the cops (Chris Bouchillon: New Talking Blues)
Echoed in the song lyrics below:
Johnny's in the basement Mixing up the medicine I'm on the pavement Thinking about the government (Bob Dylan: Subterranean Homesick Blues)
In these ones too:
Well I rung the fallout shelter bell And I leaned my head, and I gave a yell "Give me a string bean, I'm a hungry man" A shotgun fired, and away I ran (Bob Dylan: Talking World War III Blues)
Poet William Blake never has to worry about the Atomic Bomb:
Go away, you Bomb, get away, go away Fast, right now, fast, quick, you get me sick My good gal don't like you none And the kids on my corner are scared of you (Michael Montecossa : Go Away You Bomb ~ Dylan/Montecossa)
Untold Dylan
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