Favorite Dylan Line

[imsjry]

I don't even have the strength to get up and have another shot.

And my best friend the doctor won't even tell me what it is I got.

[Wailin]

I wish that for just one time, you could stand inside my shoes.

You'd know what a drag it is to see you.

 

 

 

 

I sat my monkey on a log in order for him to do the dog.

He wagged his tail and shook his head - and went and did the cat instead.

He's a weird monkey. Very funky.

[cooperissup3r]

right now, from Real Live 1984, Tangled Up in Blue:

 

And she turned around to look at him

as he was walking away.

She said I wish I could tell you all the things

that I never learned how to say.

He said thats alright babe I love you too,

but we were tangled up in blue.

 

also:

 

she knows there's no success like failure

and failure's no success at all

[Synthesizer Patel]

If the farmer has no silo

Then his fuel cost runs up very high

Well, that's just how much I would love you

If you'd just only let me try

[bigshoulders]

"He not busy being born is busy dying."

[MattZ]

Many of my favorites have already been said, but there's this one too:

 

I don't build up illusion 'till it makes me sick,

I ain't afraid of confusion no matter how thick

I can smile in the face of mankind.

Don't even remember what her lips felt like on mine

Most of the time.

[Sir Stewart]

There are some Dylan lines that are aided so much by his delivery, and they don't seem as good when read.

Like:

Shadows are falling

And I've been here all day

It's too hot to sleep

And time's running away

[mjpuczko]

There are some Dylan lines that are aided so much by his delivery, and they don't seem as good when read.

Like:

Shadows are falling

And I've been here all day

It's too hot to sleep

And time's running away

 

exactly. something so simple is made 1000x better by his delivery. i'd love to hear him read poems.

[LouieB]

"Brighton girls are like the moon..."

 

LouieB

[PopTodd]

I wish for just one time you could stand in my shoes

Then you'd know what a drag it is to see you

 

That, and:

I was so much older then

I'm younger then that now

 

EDIT:

And it's funny that I was actually listening to Nashville Skyline when I came upon this thread!

[DawgSong]

exactly. something so simple is made 1000x better by his delivery. i'd love to hear him read poems.

 

Do the link. Stream or download link as well.

 

Episode 52 - Poetry Readings with Your Host, Bob Dylan

[mjpuczko]

yeah, i realized after i posted, he did this on TTRH. oops

[you ever seen a ghost?]

ones that have stuck in my head recently:

 

Ain't nothin' left here partner, just the dust of a plague that has left this whole town afraid

From now on, this'll be where you're from

Let the dead bury the dead. Your time will come

Let hot iron blow as he raised the shade

 

On the rising curve

Where the ways of nature will test every nerve

 

In the valley of the giants where the stars and stripes explode

The peaches they were sweet and the milk and honey flowed

 

You've wasted all your power

You threw out the Christmas pie

Now you're withering like a flower

You'll play the fool and die

 

Should be the time of gladness

Happy faces everywhere

The mystery of madness

Is propagating in the air

 

I went down where the vultures feed

Woulda went deeper but there wasn't any need

heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of men

It all sounded no different to me

 

-justin

[miss jayne]

"Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people

They're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made

Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things

But you'd better lift your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe

You used to be so amused

At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used

Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse

When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose

You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal."

 

 

Like most of his songs a whole novel in one verse.

 

As to his delivery, one of the most powerful performances I have ever seen was Masters of War at the Bill Graham auditorium right before the War started you could hear a pin drop...

[Tanner]

It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) in its entirety, my favorite verse being:

 

You lose yourself, you reappear

You suddenly find you got nothing to fear

Alone you stand with nobody near

When a trembling distant voice, unclear

Startles your sleeping ears to hear

That somebody thinks

They really found you.

[mountain bed]

It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) in its entirety, my favorite verse being:

 

You lose yourself, you reappear

You suddenly find you got nothing to fear

Alone you stand with nobody near

When a trembling distant voice, unclear

Startles your sleeping ears to hear

That somebody thinks

They really found you.

No doubt that song is EPIC - in fact, it could be argued that all of side 2 of that record is Bob's greatest poetry. The imagery is just amazing, one song after another - Tambourine Man, Gates of Eden, It's Alright Ma, Baby Blue - wow. The lines that always stand out to me in Alright, Ma are:

 

Made everything from toy guns that spark

To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark

Easy to see without looking too far

That not much is really sacred

 

and, of course

 

Even the President of the United States

Sometimes must have to stand naked

[mfwahl]

The vagabond who's rapping at your door

Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.

 

Always thought this was a great image.

[bigshoulders]

Do the link. Stream or download link as well.

 

Episode 52 - Poetry Readings with Your Host, Bob Dylan

Thanks Dawg!

I'm enjoying this now...

 

 

Kevin

[mountain bed]

Here's an early one that always gives me the chills (from "Seven Curses"):

 

The gallows shadows shook the evening

In the night a hound dog bayed

In the night the grounds were groanin'

In the night the price was paid

 

The next mornin' she had awoken

To know that the judge had never spoken

She saw that hangin' branch a-bendin'

She saw her father's body broken

[redpillbox]

the "...heat pipes just cough" line from "Johanna" is one of my favorites as well...

 

Then there's this one:

 

And turn two kinds of doorknobs

You can either go to the church of your choice

Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital

 

And though it's only my opinion

I may be right or wrong

You'll find them both

In the Grand Canyon

At sundown

 

And then there's this one:

 

When you wake up in the mornin', baby, look inside your mirror.

You know I won't be next to you, you know I won't be near.

I'd just be curious to know if you can see yourself as clear

As someone who has had you on his mind.

[Sir Stewart]

Up on Housing Project Hill

It's either fortune or fame

You must pick one or the other

Though neither of them are to be what they claim

[LouieB]

Senor, senor, do you know where we're headin'?

Lincoln County Road or Armageddon?

Seems like I been down this way before.

Is there any truth in that, senor?

 

 

the "...heat pipes just cough" line from "Johanna" is one of my favorites as well...

Particularly when coupled with-

 

In this room the heat pipes just cough

The country music station plays soft

 

LouieB

[you ever seen a ghost?]

Senor, senor, do you know where we're headin'?

Lincoln County Road or Armageddon?

Seems like I been down this way before.

Is there any truth in that, senor?

 

LouieB

 

i always liked these lines from the same song:

 

the last thing i remembered before i stripped and kneeled

was a trainload of fools bore down in magnetic field

 

it specifies the apocalypse the song promises as something nuclear.

 

also, there is a story he would tell in '78 before he would play this song...something about a man he met on a train with burning eyes...really creepy.

 

-justin

[LouieB]

i always liked these lines from the same song:

 

the last thing i remembered before i stripped and kneeled

was a trainload of fools bore down in magnetic field

 

it specifies the apocalypse the song promises as something nuclear.

 

also, there is a story he would tell in '78 before he would play this song...something about a man he met on a train with burning eyes...really creepy.

 

-justin

yea, it is one of my favorite songs from that period. Tim O'Brien does a great version of it on Red on Blonde.

 

(hey do you know GregRVA?? you both live in Richmond....)

 

LouieB

[IATTBYB]

Somebody probably has already mentioned one of my favorites:

 

But to live outside the law, you must be honest.

 

And of course all of the lines quoted from Idiot Wind and Positively 4th Street are seconded. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, no one writes a "Fuck You" song quite as well as Dylan.