Lockdown hasn't been easy. Going to work in healthcare to face COVID-19 up close and personal has been tough for many. Death has been dangling over us like the sword of Damocles. Many of us have tried to make the best of it at home with loved ones, reading more, playing games (even inventing some), watching movies together, dressing up for "restaurant meals" at home. Some have had to don PPE, some have been sent home from work for their own physical or mental health protection.
Nevertheless, whether at home or at work, the (dark) humour of some Richard O'Brien lyrics from Rocky Horror have been what many have felt:
"The Sword of Damocles is hangin' over my head
And I've got the feelin' someone's gonna be cuttin' the thread
Oh! Woe is me! My life is a misery
Oh! And can't you see
That I'm at the start of a pretty big downer.
I woke up this mornin' with a start when I fell out of bed (that ain't no crime)
And left from my dream it was a feelin' of un-nameable dread (that ain't no crime)
My high is low, I'm dressed up with no place to go!
And all I know
Is I'm at the start of a pretty big downer."
In Cicero’s version of the classical moral fable of Damocles, Dionysius II was a king who once ruled over the city of Syracuse in Sicily during the fourth and fifth centuries B.C. Dionysius, although rich and powerful, failed to find happiness. His tyrrannical rule made him many enemies, and he was consumed by fear of being assassinated. He wouldn't trust anyone but his daughters with a razor to trim his beard. Short of meeting Sweeney Todd, who amongst us before 2020 would have thought that fear of death would prevent a trip to the barbers? Yet here we are in these days of "lockdown haircuts", some of them hilarious.
Anyway, in the fable, a courtier named Damocles commented how wonderful, luxurious and enviable Dionysius' life was. Dionysius took offence and suggested Damocles shared the royal experience. He set him on a golden couch and had him waited upon by servants. He had succulent cuts of meat set before him. Damocles was loving it until he noticed that Dionysius had hung a sharp sword over his head, held there by just a single strand of horsehair. From then on, the courtier’s fear for his life made it impossible for him to enjoy the decadent excesses of royal life, and he asked to be relieved of the experience.
For some, life under lockdown has felt a little like that; for some, sadly, the sword has fallen. The threat and fear take a toll, even if we ourselves escape having to pay one to cross the Styx. The toll may be paid in terms of mental health. We need a good and weighty tune for the times, weightier stuff than the fluff but fun Rocky Horror song - maybe one where "The harmonicas play the skeleton keys".
What a joy it is in this context to have a new bluesy original song drop today from the Mighty Zim! (The observant among you will have spotted the Dylan source in the title of this blog post). The visual aid accompanying "False Prophet" intriguingly is a skeleton in a top hat, whose shadow is that of an executed man, and who carries a syringe, poised to give a shot of whatever it contains - some kind of reddish liquid... or is the red colour a reflection/consequence of the red "Rough and Rowdy Ways"? The song title seems to be from the main character's assertion in it, made 3 times, that "I ain't no false prophet".
At this time there are many false prophets out there, some with seeming (if discredited) credentials - and no end of conspiracy theories ranging from "Deep State" plans, claims that Bill Gates patented SARS-CoV-2 and seeks to become rich by selling a vaccine we don't need, to it being virus deliberately manufactured by the Chinese to bring down the West (spectacular, and entirely predictable, own goal then!), to COVID-19 being due to 5G technology. It seems some are happy to believe all these mutually conflicting notions at the same time, and peddle them on the internet. When misinformation is taken down by (belatedly) responsible online agencies, these deluded folk yell "There! See?! Deep State at work!"
On this new Dylan song, the 1st person main character seems to have a struggle to get folk to trust him over competing prophetic voices.
In the absence of a set of official lyrics yet on bobdylan.com, here's a set which sounds mostly correct to me (alternative to my ear is presented in brackets), sourced from Far Out Magazine:
"Another day that don’t end
Another ship goin’ out
Another day of anger, bitterness, and doubt
I know how it happened
I saw it begin
I opened my heart to the world and the world came in
Hello Mary Lou
Hello Miss Pearl
My fleet-footed guides from the underworld
No stars in the sky shine brighter than you
You girls mean business and I do too
Well I’m the enemy of treason
Enemy of strife
Enemy of the unlived meaningless life
I ain’t no false prophet
I just know what I know
I go where only the lonely can go
I’m first among equals
Second to none
Last of the best
You can bury the rest
Bury ’em naked with their silver and gold
Put them six feet under and pray for their souls
What are you lookin’ at
There’s nothing to see
Just a cool breeze that’s encircling me
Let’s go for a walk in the garden
So far and so wide
We can sit in the shade by the fountain-side
I search the world over
For the Holy Grail
I sing songs of love
I sing songs of betrayal
Don’t care what I drink
Don’t care what I eat
I climbed the mountains of swords on my bare feet
You don’t know me darlin’
You never would guess
I’m nothing like my ghostly appearance would suggest
I ain’t no false prophet
I just said what I said
I’m just here to bring vengeance on somebody’s head
Put out your hand
There’s nothing to hold
Open your mouth
I’ll stuff it with gold
Oh you poor devil look up if you will
The city of God is there on the hill
Hello stranger
A long goodbye
You ruled the land
But so do I
You lost your mule (or You lusty old mule)
You got a poison brain
I’ll marry you to a ball and chain
You know darlin’
The kind of life that I live
When your smile meets my smile something’s got to give
I ain’t no false prophet
No I’m nobody’s bride
Can’t remember when I was born
And I forgot when I died"
Like many of Dylan's lyrics before, these will send his fans scurrying to interpret them - and, like his previous lyrics, they may well bear multiple interpretations and/or meanings. That's the nature of genius art. Yet some Dylan songs are only thinly veiled and perhaps we just need a skeleton key to unlock them - a key which unlocks many other of his songs as well. In part 2 of this blog, I'll indulge myself (and you if you let me) with my own interpretation. Feel free to drop by.
In the meantime it is natural, like Damocles, to want a return to "normal life" and have the threat of COVID-19 taken away. When lockdown is relaxed, and certainly before it is, let's behave responsibly. Let's not create a situation where it's thought or said of us, in the words of Frank N Furter at the end of the Rocky Horror song, "Well, really, that's no way to behave on your first day out!"
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