Slicer's Slivers of Being

Watching The River Flow - a review of Yellow (the novel) by Dave Thompson

It takes a lot these days to pull me away from other activities and post a new blog. I've reviewed books in the past but only summon up the energy to do so when I'm really taken with one. This one had me hooked from the get-go, and reeled me to the finish, laughing all the way.

"People disagreeing everywhere you look
Makes you wanna stop and read a book" 
Watching The River Flow, Bob Dylan.

According to the Amazon description, " 'Yellow' is a romantic comedy about the big themes in human experience: connection and separation; risk and reward; crowd control and finding the nearest toilet." Yep, that's pretty much on target.

The book is littered with colourful characters and their interactions, with the constant and, it seems to me, novel back-drop of work as a steward at public events, unapologetically in (post-troubles) Northern Ireland. It's all very "real" - right down to Fundamentalists protesting events, often on the basis of misunderstanding - but not at all gritty. Like happens reading other good novels, I began to forget these weren't real people and I missed them at the end of the novel. I guess one reason it's so relatable is that it's likely informed by observing a river of people flowing into various entertainment venues and those policing them. Stewarded events range from line-dancing in Ballyclare (where Robbie the central character watches the actual river flow) to posh folk tasting posh food in a field near Hillsborough, to arena tours of some of the biggest rock and pop artists on the planet. It's the best of "reality TV" (can't believe I wrote that phrase) without the silicone cleavages, pouting of excessively injected lips, or male chests fresh from liberal application of depilatory cream, and too much time on a sunbed. On reflection, maybe the author will be troubled by such a comparison! At the risk of keeping digging, I'd say it's much more Gogglebox (with some of the colourful strong language) than Love Island. I hope the novel travels as well as Derry Girls. It is worthy of a much wider audience than Ulster.

Confession - I know the author personally but this review was unsolicited and, regardless of who was the book's author, simply wouldn't have appeared if I didn't love the book. The biggest problem I had reading it was seeing the central character and narrator as a fictional individual since (apart from marriage break-up in the novel) that character, Robbie, seems perilously close in personality, sense of humour, warmth, observational prowess, empathy (and experience as a steward in hi-viz) to the author I know. Robbie is a Dylan fan. If books were albums, I'd say this is Dave Thompson's Blood on the Tracks, only fuelled by encounters whilst stewarding and in other settings, rather than by personal relationship breakdown. It's like he has skipped the dubious tentative debut album, gone straight for the classic, and done it as an Indie artist to boot. Like Dylan's colourful naming of people in his songs (or Bob Mortimer's hilarious accounts on UK TV panel game Would I Lie To You), Robbie applies a variety of monikers to fellow stewards. There is a warm and astute observational humour throughout.

Of course as well as Dylan, Robbie, in his early fifties, likes lots of other musicians of long-standing, and discussions with others about music permeate the book. In places it reminds me of Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity," but it's not derivative.



Like Hornby, there are quotable observations in the context of relationships, or would-be romances. One of my favourites from Hornby is "It's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party." I'm pretty sure Robbie would agree. In Yellow, Robbie inherits a turntable (record player) from his deceased father and fondly describes the ritual of carefully taking a vinyl record out of its sleeve, placing it on the turntable and lowering the stylus.  He describes it as "an act of remembrance" but that it's even more than that, it's like the deceased is present in the room. (Must have a good amp and speakers too, heh heh). Robbie is looking for "communion" with a particular girl who's somewhat out of reach. There are themes of relationship breakdown, separation, restoration, redemption and new beginnings.

Apart from the hi-viz jackets, a few other things that are yellow get a mention - ranging from Coldplay's song to bodily fluids. One of the characters in Dylan's "Tombstone Blues" asserts "The sun's not yellow, it's chicken." Well, when it comes to offering opinions, Robbie ain't chicken. He often regrets not taming his tongue more. Like the recent Rolling Stones world tour (where yellow was the dominant colour branding), too often he has #nofilter. However, in pursuing his girl, he often does find himself tongue-tied.




Dave Thompson deserves a contract from a publisher with all the benefits that come with that (pay and professional proof-readers and editor). This is a very fine debut despite lacking those advantages. Just. Get. It. It's available on that big river, Amazon. Once it's a best seller, I look forward to it being snapped up, High Fidelity-style, by the movie industry. It's that good.

Lockdown Part 2. The "Skeleton Key" to Unlock "False Prophet" and other Dylan Songs?

Bob Dylan has often been a seemingly reluctant interviewee. And from the early days when he achieved public notice, he has been asked about the "meaning" of his songs. Sometimes the questions have been inane, sometimes pertinent. He rarely gives a straight answer when asked about the meaning of lyrics. He famously responded to the question "What's your real message?" with the answer "Keep a good head and always carry a light bulb."

The meaning of some songs has been self-evident (think Hurricane, Ballad of Hollis Brown, Only a Pawn in Their Game, and whole albums of his overtly Christian-themed songs), some fairly transparent (think Masters of War, and many of the songs on Blood on the Tracks), and some downright obscure (Jokerman, and several of his stream-of-consciousness era songs). Some likely have no "meaning" to be discerned but are works of artistic merit, playing with language and imagery. Regardless, his fans often engage enthusiastically with attempts to analyse every release. I am no different. No doubt he (and others) laugh at many of our failed attempts. 

NME has published an analysis of False Prophet and I reckon that it's way off the mark:

"Some unknowable, dark-eyed devil stalking the land serves as an allegory for an age that puts industry before humanity, commerce before life." The author, Mark Beaumont, reads the current situation on lockdown into the song as enthusiastically as some deluded apocalyptic nuts are currently claiming "track and trace" efforts to limit the impact of COVID-19 as a "deep state Luciferian/Illuminati/UN/WHO/Bill Gates-led New World Order" and reading that notion into the Book of Revelation... It is a dark song, like much of Dylan's latter day songwriting, and no doubt the death imagery fits with societal fears at the moment so of course it, and the skeleton graphic, resonate. Still, I think Beaumont's interpretative effort is half-baked, at best.

Beamont calls the main character in the song "Dylan's Devil." I imagine Bob having a little chuckle to himself over that. The devil in the song is the “enemy of the meaningless life” who delivers vengeance/justice; as Beaumont puts it, this devil is "choking the greedy with gold, shackling poisonous rulers and generally delivering retribution to the wicked." I'm puzzled by this. I haven't come across this as the function/role of a devil before. I'm more used to the notion of a devil tempting us to reach for what isn't ours, to pursue greed, to use power selfishly, and the devil ultimately being on the receiving end of retribution/justice rather than delivering it. Beaumont also suggests an autobiographical element in the song, with Dylan declaring himself "first among equals, second to none / Last of the best, you can bury the rest." This would be more than a little boastful, and doesn't sit particularly easily with Dylan's more obvious referral to himself elsewhere in his canon, for example in "What Good Am I?" and where he chides against hubris in "Foot of Pride."

The best interpretation Beaumont comes up with for “I sing songs of love, I sing songs of betrayal... can’t remember when I was born and I forget when I died” is that Dylan is referring to himself. It seems to me that the lack of a memorable beginning and end might refer to another. That would also sit better with "Not Dark Yet", a song which is certainly getting dark lyrically and which many have seen as Dylan musing on his age, but the light hasn't gone out yet. It certainly seems odd to me to conclude with Beaumont that, all in the same song, Dylan is boasting about his songwriting prowess and at the same time noting that he had died (in some sense - clearly it can't refer to his actual death) at some point in the past. I can agree with Beaumont on his final sentence "Something darkly wonderful this way comes."

Are there lenses we can use to help to see what inspires and motivates Dylan? To use a metaphor from "Visions of Johanna" is there a skeleton key which helps unlock common motivations in his song-writing? I believe there is one tool which, if not a skeleton key, frequently helps us unpick the lock. I also believe he sometimes deliberately leaves locks easy to pick. Many observers concluded that he ditched Christian motivation and lyrical content after his 3 so-called "God-awful" albums between '79 & '81. My initial (but very temporary) conclusion regarding his subsequent album "Infidels" was the same, with perhaps a "return" to Judaism. It wasn't long before, I think, the scales fell off. Looking back it's hard to imagine how I reached that conclusion, given the content eg Man of Peace. Maybe some of us were so distracted but the apparent Zionism of "Neighbourhood Bully" that we missed the 'God incarnate' theme central to "I and I," with its reference to a mysterious woman who in another lifetime must have owned the world or have been faithfully wed; or the possibility of autobiography in
"Somewhere Mama’s weeping for her blue-eyed boy
She’s holding them little white shoes and that little broken toy
And he’s following a star
The same one them three men followed from the East..."

It is notable that Bob has continued to sing songs like In the Garden and I Believe In You long after his so-called "Christian phase" was claimed by the critics to be over. He's also repeatedly covered other Christian songs live in concert, like "I am the man, Thomas" and "Glory, Glory, Glory, Somebody Touched Me."

Whilst Dylan has always meticulously controlled his privacy, and we can't possibly know what's in his mind at any particular time - his apparently autobiographical book Chronicles seems filled with false trails, and truly remarkable omissions such as the huge contribution of Victor Maymudes - there is no doubt that many of his original songs from the nineties to the present have contained strong Biblical allusions (as did songs from his pre-"born-again phase", demonstrating his familiarity with Biblical text - he's reported to have used the King James Version to aid his songwriting). When asked on tips he's received on songwriting from his father, Jakob Dylan said something to the effect of the benefit of ambiguity, of layers of meaning, of a 'keep-em-guessing' approach. I take that as a bit of a licence to keep guessing...

I have presented on this blog in the past a suggested interpretation of one of his more popular songs in recent decades (albeit popularised by another artist). Many will have thought that interpretation merely the product of my vivid imagination, or wishful thinking. I am not so sure. Dylan knows many of the lenses we use to view his songs through, and I doubt he wouldn't be aware of them when writing. Whether I'm right or wrong on this, if you're interested in the possibility of what I'm inferring being correct, read on.

There are lots of others but here I offer 2 main pieces of evidence for my suggested skeleton key: 
(a) his True Confessions tour with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in 1986, when he played a rocked-up version of "In The Garden" from his Saved album, introducing it with the comment that this was a song about his "Hero." In his 2017 interview with Bill Flanagan (reproduced on bob dylan.com), Flanagan asks "Which one of your songs do you think did not get the attention it deserved?" Dylan's response?  “Brownsville Girl, or maybe In the Garden.” Maybe Bob was just referring to the tune... but being a guy whose meticulous lyrical crafting has earned him a Nobel prize, I don't think so.

(b) for a man often reluctant to be interviewed, the "60 minutes" interview he agreed to do with Ed Bradley (EB) in 2004. Here are a couple of excerpts:
    "I realized at the time that the press, the media, they’re not the judge – God’s the judge. The only person you have to think about lying twice to is either yourself or to God. The press isn’t either of them."
        EB: it’s lasted a long time for you. I mean you’re still out here doing these     songs, you know. You’re still on tour.
        BD: I do, but I don’t take it for granted.
        EB: Why do you still do it? Why are you still out here?
        BD: Well, it goes back to that destiny thing. I made a bargain with it, you know, long time ago. And I’m holding up my end…
        EB: What was your bargain?
        BD: …to get where I am now.
        EB: Should I ask who you made that bargain with?
        BD: [laughs] With the chief commander.
        EB: On this earth?
        BD: [laughs] In this earth and in the world we can’t see."

With the above in mind, let's see what happens if we try to use that skeleton key to unlock or unpick "False Prophet." Obviously the term itself has Old and New Testament connotations, although by no means confined to that collection of books. The first thing to note is that the song's title derives from its character's recurring statement, 3 times, "I ain't no false prophet". Now a devil would claim that anyway, of course... so maybe Bob's playing with us...

Nonetheless, let's stick on a Christian lens and see what jumps out.
(Lyrics and verse sequence are sourced from bobdylan.com, but on the released recording verses 6 and 7 are swapped). My suggestions for the first few verses may seem a stretch but stick with me, they may seem more probable by the time you get to the end and come back again and look at them after that. The song becomes more transparent as it progresses.

Verse 1
Another day without end - another ship going 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

This introductory verse is hard to pin down. Another day without end sounds like eternity but it also is how many of us feel when things aren't going well. I speculate that there may be Creation references in this. There at the start of things, seeing not only how things came to be in the first place, but also what went wrong. God spoke, in order to bring a world and humankind into existence and into communion with him. He opened his heart to the world and events followed, not "all good" (as cited ironically by Dylan on the condition of the world in the song of that name on Together Through Life, in fact ultimately deteriorating to a point where "Everything is Broken"), and where death stalks us all.

Verse 2
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

Perhaps the "guides from the underworld" reference is where the devil notion first begins to take root. I think there is deliberate ambiguity here. This can be read either as Mary Lou and Pearl are guides who are from the underworld OR that they lead the way from the underworld i.e. from death to life. I wonder if this is a Trinitarian reference (which would follow on nicely from a creation one in verse 1). I think Dylan has used relationship with a woman in the past in his songs to signify a relationship with God. I figure "What's a Sweetheart like You Doin' in a Dump Like This" is a reference to the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian. Dylan certainly has muddied the waters back even as far as Shelter From the Storm, when he suggests a woman was born around the same time as God ("If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born") and that, following crucifixion of the innocent Christ, the woman took his crown of thorns and gave him shelter:
"In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes
I bargained for salvation an’ they gave me a lethal dose
I offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn
“Come in,” she said, “I’ll give you shelter from the storm”.

So if Mary Lou and Pearl are references to the other persons of the Trinity, that leaves the main character in the song none other than Jesus himself. According to Christian creed, following his death, Jesus descended to the underworld/place of the dead, and "led captivity captive". Ultimately, He was resurrected by the Spirit, was the firstborn of the dead, after whom those who trust in him are led from death to life. "And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you." (Romans 8 v 12). 

It's important to note that this lyrical idiom of "fleet-footed guides" is strongly classical in origin - Hermes was the fleet-footed son of Zeus, messenger of the gods (whose name has been adopted by a modern day courier company), and the guide of travellers, particularly those journeying to the underworld. Dylan seems to have cleverly inverted the notion here. These fleet-footed guides lead in the opposite direction. There is a similar classical parallel with the "daystar", Venus, the bringer of light or dawn - so bright as to be visible when other 'stars' aren't. The same notion is referenced in Job 3 and in 2 Peter 1, although Jesus the Son is presented as the morning star in Revelation. Interestingly the Latin name for Venus is Lucifer... although this name was originally used in the King James Version (KJV) Bible and Vulgate (Isaiah 14) in reference to the tyrannical King of Babylon as the morning star brought low, rather than to the later tradition of attributing it to the Devil. Of course Dylan may be referencing entirely different bright stars. Mind you in classical mythology, Venus was considered a god... 
The last line of this verse suggests a unity of purpose and resolve between the main character, Mary Lou and Pearl. It may recall Jesus' statement (as phrased in the KJV) of "being about my Father's business."

I think Verse 3 is where things start to get a little more transparent in meaning, though seemingly this has been missed by the NME article:
I’m the enemy of treason - the enemy of strife
I’m the 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

Treason is an act of disloyalty to King or country/governing authority. The enemy of treason is therefore someone who works against that notion, in favour of re-establishing loyalty or obedience to the King/ruler (or maybe "Chief Commander"). The enemy of strife must be one who acts as a mediator, a peacemaker; someone engaged in the business of reconciliation. The enemy of the unlived meaningless life must be one who restores life to be lived, full of meaning and value. Jesus Christ meets these descriptors, the sole person to live a life fully obedient to God the Father, who was foretold as the Prince of Peace, who came to restore relationships between God and man and between man and man (and woman), and who said (John 10 v 10) "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." Jesus was accused by the religious leaders of the day of being a false prophet, and asserted that He wasn't and that He had knowledge from the Father. Note however the form of words here (and later in the song). I know what I know has a strong echo of the form of words "I Am Who I Am" (Exodus 3 v 14 and John 13 v 19). Jesus was also known for identifying with the outcast.

Verse 4
I’m first among equals - second to none
I’m last of the best - you can bury the rest
Bury ’em naked with their silver and gold
Put ’em six feet under and then pray for their souls

Yet again we have a reference which has a classical origin (Primus inter pares). With a Christian lens this could potentially refer to Christ with regard to his pre-eminence (second to none) as per Colossians 1 v 18, and also that through him those who trust in him are "adopted sons" (treated as equals) - Ephesians 1 v 5, where the Greek for adoption to sonship is a legal term referring to the full legal standing of an adopted male heir in Roman culture. The last of the best could refer to Christ being the last of the prophetic line. There's a contrast here between the character being the first and best, and others dying and being buried. Then again this could merely be a verse of bluesy idioms with rough justice being meted out. It has the feel of a Clint Eastwood Western movie.

Verse 5
What are you lookin’ at - there’s nothing to see
Just a cool breeze encircling me
Let’s walk in the garden - so far and so wide
We can sit in the shade by the fountain side

For me this is reminiscent of the angels at the Garden tomb, speaking to the women who had come to prepare Jesus' body for burial, and saying pretty much "Move along, nothing to see here..." ("Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here..." Luke 24 v 5), and an encounter with "the gardener" (John 20) at the same spot. If that's so, the cool breeze could be a reference to the work of the resurrecting Spirit (Greek πνεῦμα =wind), and the fountain being the fountain of the waters of life, linking the Garden of Eden, the Gospels, and Revelation.

Verse 6
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 here to bring vengeance on somebody’s head

My reading of this verse is that it relates to the fact that, post-resurrection, Mary, and other disciples did not always recognise Jesus (Luke 24 vv 15-16). There was something different about his resurrected body. When they did recognise him, they thought He was a ghost (Luke 24 vv 37-39), and he reassured them that He wasn't. "I just said what I said" - there's that form of words again. And the final line brings to mind Genesis 3 v 15 (the seed of the woman who would ultimately come and crush the serpent's head).

Verse 7
I’ve searched 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 a mountain of swords on my bare feet

I concede that Mark Beaumont may be correct that Dylan is referring to himself in the first half of this verse at least. Yet love and betrayal is common to many, not least Jesus, who arguably also "crawled across cut glass to make a deal", or climbed a mountain of swords in his bare feet. I and I contained the sacrificial line "I’ve made shoes for everyone, even you, while I still go barefoot."

Verse 8
Put out your hand - there’s nothin’ 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

There's definitely a sense of justice, a notion that the instructions are being made to someone concerned with greed, who is now not going to benefit from that greed. I'm reminded a little of Hans Gruber in Die Hard, as he falls to his death from the Nakatomi Plaza tower, reaching out for something to grasp but there's nothing to hold onto. There are echoes of storing up treasure on earth versus treasure in heaven (Matthew 6 vv 19-20), you can't take it with you when you go. What follows this is, I suggest, the unveiling of what the song is ultimately about - Christ's victory over death and Satan, and the validation that He ain't no False Prophet. There is no doubt whatsoever that the City of God on a hill is the picture from Hebrews (Hebrews 11 vv 13-16 & Hebrews 12 v 22) and from Revelation (Revelation 21 vv 1-7) of the heavenly city on Mount Zion, God's Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, God's original plan to live with man restored, the time when justice has been meted out, treason excluded, wrongs righted, and no more suffering:

"Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’... I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death” or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.' He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ He said to me: ‘It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children."

And in the midst of that very passage, there's that fountain ("spring of the water of life"), and the wedding metaphor...
The chapter immediately preceding this (Revelation 20) has the Devil being bound, thrown into the abyss (a bit like Hans Gruber), meeting his ultimate fate, and Hades (the underworld) giving up its dead. "Oh you poor Devil, look up if you will, the City of God is there on the hill."

Verse 9
Hello stranger - Hello and goodbye
You rule the land but so do I
You lusty old mule - you got a poisoned brain
I’m gonna’ marry you to a ball and chain

In Revelation 20, the Devil gets released for a short time before being "sent down" - could that be a "Hello and goodbye"? The book of Revelation also suggests (eg chapter 13) that the Devil and his minions were given temporary authority over every tribe people language and nation. And the Gospel according to Luke (4 vv 5-6) states that one of the Devil's temptations of Jesus in the wilderness was as follows:
"The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, ‘I will give you all their authority and splendour; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.’

The Devil in Revelation is presented as stubborn and deceitful, leading the nations astray - poisoning the minds of mankind with the poison in his own. Subsequently in Revelation, as we've seen, the Devil is subdued and bound. A ball and chain seem to be a suitable metaphor. I think Dylan has mirrored the positive marriage metaphor between Christ and his Church in Revelation with a marriage of the Devil to a ball and chain.

I said earlier that I think these later verses point to what the song is all about. If the above isn't enough evidence, how about the name for one of the Devil's partners that Revelation 20 passage (v 10, and also Revelation 16 v 13 & 18 v 20)? None other than the False Prophet..

Verse 10
You know darlin’ the kind of life that I live
When your smile meets my smile - somethings got to give
I ain’t no false prophet - I’m nobody’s bride
Can’t remember when I was born and I forgot when I died

This verse wraps up the song. If the main character is, as I've suggested, Christ, we do know the kind of life he lives. He lived it amongst us. "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." Truth not falsehood. The Church, Christ's darling, with its smile meeting his. I mentioned Sweetheart Like You above. The coming of the Spirit to the Church was marked by the appearance of tongues of fire coming to rest on the Apostles' heads. "By the way that's a cute hat, and that smile's so hard to resist..." Christ is the groom not the bride. Christianity has it that He's God, "eternally begotten" - no memorable birth, but a relationship of Son to the Father within the Trinity. He did die but his death is eclipsed by resurrection, such that none of us need focus on death again.

Finally the graphics posted along with the song - there's that cross sign (featured on previous album covers) appearing again on the package the skeleton is carrying... the skeleton whose shadow is an executed man...

One question remains, what's in the syringe?

"We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it..." (Part 1)

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!"

The Reef

A set of lyrics from over 30 years ago. Obvious influence from the Mighty Zim. Never did get a tune put to them. Tunesmiths knock yourselves out...



A crowd gathers 'round some hero
Motionless upon the reef
Made up of skeletons and vultures
A strange mix of sport and grief
The hero's silence breaks the clamour
The noise of those inflicting pain
The hurt inside by far's the greater
He hardly notices the shame

You weep for all the wrong reasons
Weep for yourselves and not for me
You women just don't understand it
Are you ever gonna see?
Oh yeah you will but you don't know it
You'll see me in a different light
The sun and moon can give no guidance 
When mountains hide them from your sight

The thief was waiting for the ferryman
To come and take him on his way
Didn't know when he was coming
What he looked like he couldn't say
But he could recognise injustice
And saw before him the Accursed
The servant said "I'll see you later,
I've got some things to finish first."

He paid a visit to the graveyard
Just for the record and to strike
A blow for freedom for the prisoners
With blood that flowed from 'round the spikes
Now no more visits to the graveyard
Let's walk around it to the Hill
Where blows a gentle wind to cool us
And runs a crystal river still

© T J Trinder, 4 May '87

These Are The Days of Miracle and Wonder

Slicer loves physics, and the window it opens on the cosmos and the world we inhabit  [Did I mention that before? ;-)]. In my excitement, I even momentarily reverted to that old 3rd person thing...

I don't understand the maths, and have only a cursory understanding of the significance, but even that's enough to get me REALLY excited about the confirmation yesterday of the existence of gravitational waves, predicted by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. Non-scientists please note that, alongside Quantum Theory, Microbiology Theory, and Evolutionary Theory, the scientific term Theory does not mean either a hypothesis or a speculative notion, but rather a concept which is hugely validated by existing data, and forms the best picture revealed by the existing data. Importantly scientific Theory makes predictions and these predictions can subsequently be demonstrated to be true (or false), further consolidating the Theory. General Relativity was already extensively validated and this is just further validation by confirmation of one more of its predictions.

The excitement is palpable because the discovery is comparable to the invention of optics that paved the way for telescopes and microscopes to explore and help us appreciate the wonder of the universe on a grand scale and at a microscopic level. Alternatively it could be compared to the recognition of electromagnetic radiation which encompasses visible light, infra-red, ultraviolet, x-rays, gamma rays, microwaves and radio waves. Who knows what we will be able to use this particular tool for? However, there are some clues already. The further we look out into the universe using telescopes, the further we are looking back in time because of the time it takes light to travel across the vast distances. Improved technology has reached further and further back.


There is a brick wall, however, relating to how far we can look back in time using electromagnetic radiation, as current understanding is that, prior to 380,000 years after the big bang, the universe was not transparent to photons. Nevertheless, gravitational waves are considered to have been generated by a period of inflation of space-time, a process thought to have been completed 10^-32 seconds after the Big Bang, and the universe has been transparent to their propagation since then. As a result, if we can utilise gravitational waves, we may be able to look back to within 1/10... (with another 32 zeros)th of a second after the Big Bang. Given that the universe is 13.8 Billion years old, and the Earth 4.5 Billion years old, the Black Hole merger 1.3 billion years ago isn't really that far back in time :-). We can go a whole lot further with existing telescopes. However, the potential is immense. How amazing that insignificant little creatures like us get to build a few lasers, and see across such amazing distances and so far back in time, as well as the opportunity to understand...

Why are we not just unconscious replicators? Evolution needn't have equipped us to do this...

"These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long-distance call...
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby don’t cry
Don’t cry

It’s a turnaround jump shot
It’s everybody jumpstart
It’s every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical and magical is art
Thinking of the Boy in the Bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart

And I believe
These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information..."


 

How else might we represent the nature of this discovery artfully?
I couldn't aspire to do this as well as my Facebook friend & musician Peter Mulvey already has, although he misses something in his pronouncement that the poets have failed us - only up to the point that he produced this. Reproduced here with permission:

 

"A century ago, Einstein does the math (!) and the math says that gravitational waves create ripples in spacetime. Fifty years later, Rainer Weiss asks pragmatically: how would we detect these waves? And he (and many, many others) work it out: two and a half mile L-shaped lasers. 

When space time ripples, one beam will be two and a half miles. The other beam will momentarily be two and a half miles plus or minus the width of a frickin' proton. And how do you know it's not a tree falling or a seismic shift? Build a second L-shaped array, thousands of miles away. A ripple in space time, traveling at the speed of light, would trip them both. Anything else would not. So you get your 1.5 billion dollars in grants (!), you build these things, you staff them, you listen for 10 agonizing years... and... last September, William Parker is at the controls and... we get the ping.

FROM BLACK HOLES. COLLIDING ONE POINT THREE BILLION YEARS AGO. THEY WARPED SPACETIME. IN LOUISIANA!

How very beautiful. How extraordinary. The poets fail us here. The saints fail us. There's no way to describe how profound this event is. The universe coughed up primates, and those primates built machines to know the universe. The universe is knowing itself, and we are the infinitesimal vehicle of that knowing.

Think of that the next time you're watching coverage of a Trump rally.

No seriously, go with me on this: we've always been what we are now. Nothing much changes. Every island in Polynesia is peopled because, thousands of years ago, there were a bunch of people living on them. And most of those people were gathering food, and building homes, and making love and making babies- what we all do. And some of them were singing songs and some were dreaming, and some were holding forth about what the gods intend for us, and whom the gods hate, and some of them were bloviating in a clearing and stirring up anger (that's the Trump rally)...

But some of them were standing at the water's edge, and thinking "Wait a minute. When the winds are from over there, the waves are this far apart. When the winds are from over THERE, though, the waves are much further apart. You know what.... I think there's another WORLD over there." And they built a bigger canoe, and they went. And some of them died, and some of them got to the island, and their descendants people the island, and the imaginative ones stood at another world's edge, and imagined...

It's all happening at once. And the ocean is a much bigger ocean than we ever thought. And we are beautiful, and venal, and kind and destructive and vulgar and foolish, and... and...

And William Parker and Rainer Weiss and Szabolcs Marka and so many others stood at the edge of the greatest ocean we know and they studied the waves."

Bravo LIGO.

 

A Minnie Slice

 

If I'm not mistaken, Minnie Marks hadn't yet cleared 20 years on the planet when she travelled from her native Oz to Ireland to be introduced and interviewed by this cringey Balcony presenter... But the meat in the sandwich is worth waiting for. Funny how the blues can cause a smile to sneak out. A song of faithfulness and unfaithfulness.

 

Here's another vid when she was back on home turf, playing the title track of her 2012 album.

 

The girl has attitude.