As I Went Out One Morning

Today, while preparing both for this evening's class on Romans 12 and the Sunday message, I've kept unaccountably hearing Bob Dylan's As I Went Out One Morning in my head.

The song appears on his 1967 LP, John Wesley Harding. (Dylan, who loves to riff off of and distort popular culture even as he remakes it, took the name from the Old West bad guy John Wesley Hardin. In his ode to a fictional Harding, Dylan sings of a kind of saintly Robin Hood "never known to kill an honest man.")

As I Went Out One Morning is a ballad. It has a fetching folk melody and is written in iambic pentameter, using the quatrain form. Simply put, each verse is composed of eight lines, each syllable having alternating accentuation. It fairly mimics the 1937/40 poem by W.H. Auden, As I Walked Out One Evening. Dylan's rhyme scheme is A-B-C-B-D-E-F-E for all three verses, each composed of two quatrains. It's a lyrical form that's particularly suitable to music.

But in listening to As I Went Out One Morning a few moments ago, I realized again that Dylan may have had more in mind than just creating a song or mimicking Auden.

Dylan presents us with three characters: the narrator, a damsel in chains, and Tom Paine. Paine, of course, was the famous writer whose pamphlet, Common Sense, George Washington ordered read to the suffering American troops at Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War.

According to Wikipedia, Dylan received the Thomas Paine Award from something called the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee in 1963. When, in his acceptance speech, Dylan said that he could understand the complaints about American society that JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had voiced, he was booed off the stage. The Wikipedia article suggests that As I Went Out One Morning is Dylan's response to that incident, apparently resenting what he saw as an infringement on his free speech by an organization that celebrated free speech.

That may be.

But Dylan isn't always that straightforward in what he writes and I wonder if there isn't another layer of meaning here, no matter what experience may have immediately triggered the writing of the song.

Auden's poem was spoken by three voices: that of a man; that of a woman, his love; and a clock. The poem is about the impact and inevitability of time and what it brings.

The narrator in Dylan's song is undoubtedly Dylan himself, still smarting from the controversy he created at the awards ceremony. I take "...the fairest damsel that ever did walk in chains" to be America. Dylan sees this damsel as he is out walking "to breathe the air around Tom Paine's."

Paine's Common Sense was an important and inspirational document for the American Revolution. It portrayed the Revolution as a war for liberty. Freedom would then be "the air around" Tom Paine.

But in 1775, Paine wrote another important essay in which he called for the abolition of slavery. He would become more vocal on this as time went on. The failure of the United States to see that the principle of freedom should necessarily mean the abolition of slavery embittered and angered him. The damsel in chains then is the United States, imprisoned by its failure to abide by its own founding principle.

As in 1963, America still bears the chains of its slave past. The chains still wrap us tightly with the continued existence of racial injustice.

At the end of the song, Dylan sings:

Just then Tom Paine, himself
Came running from across the field
Shouting at this lovely girl
And commanding her to yield
And as she was letting go her grip
Up Tom Paine did run,
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said to me
“I’m sorry for what she’s done”

I'm not a huge fan of Thomas Paine. He correctly enunciated the principle of liberty as foundational for the United States. But he failed to learn, as Washington, Hamilton, Jay, and others did, that liberty can't be maintained if there isn't mutual accountability. That's why after the United States tried to walk on the single leg of freedom as an operating principle under the disastrous Articles of Confederation, the Founding Generation (without Thomas Jefferson, who was in France) wrote the Constitution. That completed the American Revolution and ratified its principles, freedom and mutual accountability, the latter of which many seem to forget about today. The two together are needed to avoid the tyranny of the mob on the one hand and the tyranny of elites on the other.

But, if what I think Dylan is saying in this song is accurate, I believe that he's right. We will never breathe the air around Tom Paine's--the air of true freedom, if we don't finally and fully divest ourselves of racism. Otherwise the damsel in chains will keep imprisoning us all. Slavery and racial injustice are the things done by the damsel for which Tom Paine apologizes in the song. 

Dr. King was right when he said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”


Bob Dylan - As I Went Out One Morning from Rufus Corleone on Vimeo.

[According to Wikipedia, Dylan has performed this song only once since he recorded. For a guy who performs constantly, that's remarkable.]

Did Dylan Swipe from SparkNotes for His Nobel Lecture?

That's the question recently raised by Vox.

It's not implausible.

I love Dylan. But it must be conceded that he has always been a heavy borrower, sometimes it's said, plagiarist.

There are the whole-cloth thefts of a southern poet on an LP some years ago, then his "original" paintings which turned out to be Dylan's renderings of post cards. Those are just a few examples his alleged artistic thievery.

But this seems to take things to a higher order of magnitude. It's one thing to mimic the musical styles of Woody Guthrie and Chuck Berry, or to take the words of Rimbaud or Ginsberg as models for lyrics. It's another to swipe from an online equivalent of Cliffs Notes for a Nobel lecture.

Some will, I suppose, write this off as another example of Dylan's impish disregard for social norms and other people's opinions. But, this is actually serious business. Plagiarism is serious business, especially when it involves the most recent Nobel laureate for literature.

The irony here is that no artist I know of more jealously guards his copyrights. You can find some Dylan performances on youtube, but he routinely quashes a lot of videos of his performances from appearing there. And on Apple Play, Dylan's lyrics don't appear with his songs.

I still think that Dylan deserves his Nobel Prize for Literature. His body of work is filled with originality and daring re-imagining of old ways of writing and speaking.

Nonetheless, if this is all true, Bob, what were you thinking, resorting to thievery from an online source like some disinterested high school kid trying to make the deadline for a term paper?

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

"Let us not speak falsely now..." (Jimi Hendrix version of Dylan's 'All Along the Watchtower')

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

"Let us not speak falsely now..." (Nerdwriter explains why Dylan deserves that Nobel Prize)

From the moment I heard about Bob Dylan receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature, I thought that it was inspired and deserved. Nerdwriter agrees.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

"Let us not speak falsely now..." (Quiet Time Reflections)

The line above is from Bob Dylan's All Along the Watchtower, the fame of which was undoubtedly expanded by Jim Hendrix's driving cover of the tune.

"Let us not speak falsely now" crossed my mind after my quiet time with God this morning. In Quiet Time, I read a chapter from the Bible, asking God to show me the truth He wants to impress on me that morning. Today, I read Revelation 22 and was especially drawn to verses 14 and 15. (For more about Quiet Time and the "stop, look, listen, respond" format around which my daily encounters with God are built, see here.)

Here's an excerpt from my journal, some of what God told me today:

Look: “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.” (Revelation 22:14-15)

These verses are so freighted with meaning for me, I could write forever, I think, Lord. You speak somewhat crushing volumes to me through them.

Verse 14 says that we are blessed and “inside” God’s kingdom when we come to the river of life, the pure waters flowing from the throne on which You, God, and the Lamb, Jesus, sit, and wash ourselves.

This, I see, is about repentance, about “coming clean” with You and being “made clean” by You. Trusting repentance--sorrow for sin and faith in Christ--are the only way we gain entrance into the eternal kingdom. (This all reminds me of Jesus’ parable in Matthew 22:1-14, where a king throws people out of the wedding banquet because they aren’t wearing the wedding clothes.)

It shows how important genuine repentance and true trust are.

Verse 15 names a lot of clearly dark practices associated with those who are “outside.” But then there’s one that slams me in the jaw: “everyone who loves and practices falsehood.”

Listen: You know how I wrestle with this last one, Lord. I fall into falsehoods so easily, so thoughtlessly...

And, I think that, because I say so much, I sometimes lie to people without realizing it or intending it. This is especially seen in pledges I later think better of and walk back. Or ones I was unwise to make or incapable of making. [This has happened many times, as You know.]

Often, I think, I lie (I'm using that verb, lie, so as not to dodge responsibility, no matter how harmless the untruths I speak may be rationalized to be) to make unpleasant things palatable. I don’t want to be direct, so I take a passive-aggressive route or a route that makes me look like a victim of circumstance or seeks to obliterate the possibility of blame.

In Matthew, while telling disciples not to swear by anything to back up their statements, Jesus continues: “All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:37) Just yes or no...the simple truth.

And James 5:12 says: “Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ Otherwise you will be condemned.” Again, just yes or no...the simple truth.

More often than I like to me, especially for someone to whom words are so important, personally and vocationally, words are just words. But to You, Lord, words have power. Even my words. They aren't harmless. Neither is their misuse.

And when I use my mouth to speak falsely or to create false impressions or to artificially truncate unpleasant conversations that should happen, I create false worlds for my hearers, fantasy lands of expectations that I may or may not intend or, if I do intend, am unable to fulfill. I prove to be unreliable. I disappoint and hurt people who have trusted me. I tear down that trust. I harm relationships.

Respond: God, forgive me. Help me to speak the truth in love. Teach me to keep my mouth shut more often than not. Bathe me in the river of life and make me clean. Help me to be Your man, Lord. Help me to consistently speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). In Jesus’ name. "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer." Amen 

See also: Wrestling with a Lie (My Own).

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Dylan will be a no show...

...which is really no surprise, though in fairness to him, the Nobel Prize for Literature wasn't a gig he sought.

Dylan, the Bible, and the Nobel Prize for Literature

Poet and pastor Malcolm Guite applauds Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize for Literature and explains the connections between Dylan's body of work and his reading of the Bible.

Years ago, I read an article in Rolling Stone about Roger McGuinn, lead singer and lead guitarist of The Byrds, a band that successfully covered several Dylan songs. This was during Dylan's "Christian phase." But McGuinn explained that in the mid-60s, ten years before Dylan's "conversion," Dylan told McGuinn that he always turned to the Bible for song-writing inspiration. You can hear it on every Dylan LP. He's steeped in the Scriptures and they're apparent in his cadences, sensibilities, and imagery.

Dylan deserves his Nobel Prize and my life has been enriched by his work.



[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize for Literature

Bob Dylan is among the greatest wordsmiths of the past 50 years, which is why I think his Nobel Prize for Literature is so well-deserved.

Just consider these lines from his 1974 song, 'Shelter from the Storm':

I’ve heard newborn babies wailin’ like a mournin’ dove
And old men with broken teeth stranded without love
Do I understand your question, man, is it hopeless and forlorn?
“Come in,” she said, “I’ll give you shelter from the storm”

In just these four lines, he portrays the human condition and the need we all have of one to give us shelter from it all. He portrays love at its most basic and wondrous level.

Those four lines are sheer beauty, part of a lifelong corpus of beautiful, insightful, soul-stirring lyrics.

Dylan's music has always meant so much to me. I'm so happy about this recognition of his work I feel like I got the award myself. I don't know whether to laugh or cry from the joy of it. Probably, if I can get away with it, I'll do a little of both.

Handle with Care by The Traveling Wilburys

Just before reading The Economist's piece on George Frideric Handel (mentioned in the previous post), I read about another musician called George from across the pond and a trip he took to America before he became famous. That other George was George Harrison.

Harrison visited his sister Louise in Benton, Illinois, along with his brother Peter, a few months before the US was infected with Beatlemania. I was sent down the rabbit hole of reading about Harrison in Illinois by the announcement from a high school classmate, Peter Conrad, that a song of his is included in the soundtrack of a film about Harrison's visit to Benton.

Harrison wrote Handle with Care as a B-side and thought it would be fun to get some others involved in its recording, namely, Jeff Lynne (who was producing the LP on which the A-side of the single was to appear), Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, and Roy Orbison. After the recording proved to be satisfying and fun, the five musicians decided to do more tracks, resulting in the LP, The Traveling Wilburys.

Handel was unavailable to record with other five musicians at the time, though his name (sort of) appears in the title of this track.

You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go by Bob Dylan

Emotionally Yours by Bob Dylan

One I've posted before. But I love this song.

It's like my whole life never happened
When I see you, it's as if I never had a thought
I know this dream, it might be crazy
But it's the only one I've got, okay

Happy Birthday, Mr. Zimmerman

Bobby Zimmerman (aka, Bob Dylan), one of my all time favorites, is celebrating his seventy-fifth birthday today.

No, not the greatest voice in the world.

But yes, one of the greatest songwriters ever, in a pantheon that includes the likes of George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Carole King, Lennon and McCartney, Marvin Gaye, Bono and U2, Stevie Wonder, Steve Taylor, Bruce Cockburn, Holland, Dozier, and Holland, and Paul Simon, to name a few great popular music composers.

But there is only one Dylan. No one speaks to my heart or challenges my mind like Dylan. And no one so often speaks my heart or mind like Dylan.

The song immediately below originally appeared on Planet Waves, a constantly underestimated Dylan collection put out on David Geffen's label when Dylan was in a contract dispute with his label, Columbia. Love the song--Forever Young--posted earlier today by Howard Wilkinson over on Facebook. (But then I can say that about a lot of Dylan's music.)



I also love--and sing over and over to myself--this Dylan tune from Blood on the Tracks, If You See Her, Say Hello. I prefer the album version, but this one is better than the one Dylan's people let Youtube post as "official." I also prefer the words "If you get close to her..." to Dylan's replacement here of, "If you make love to her..."

But these varied versions just demonstrate how pliantly Dylan views his songs, as he constantly changes lyrics, tunes, tempos, and arrangements. To me, the willingness to change, even to the point of what would some call desecrating one's own work, is a hallmark of a great artist. I tell people all the time, "You're either growing or you're dying." That's why at age 75, Dylan is still younger than contemporary artists who churn out formulaic sounds. Because of this element of his artistry, Dylan can rightly say as he puts it elsewhere, "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

A Prince Biopic?

BET claims to give ten good reasons that it's not a good idea. (HT to Ann Althouse for putting me onto the BET slide show where they make their case.)

The two biggest reasons they give for not doing a Prince biopic is that biopics are generally not good and that Prince wasn't involved in the anti-hunger supergrouping of the 90's top US musical superstars, We Are the World. Althouse objected to the latter point as a good excuse for not portraying Prince's non-participation in that project, suggesting that exploring Prince's motives for saying no could be interesting.

I reacted over on Althouse's blog:

Movie biopics ARE generally, horrible though, as the BET slideshow points out.

Tonight, I watched the last half-hour of Jersey Boys. Horrible! (Of course, it might have helped if the Four Seasons' music, which I hated while growing up during the sixties, was good.)

But, in any case, the film industry has a way of butchering and pasteurizing their subjects, melding them into [indistinguishable] "musicaleverybodies." Didn't the Johnny Cash and Ray Charles biopics look like they were about the same person, that they led the exact same lives? Biopics have a way of disintegrating into kind of reality TV versions of 'Behind the Music,' every story the same.

When Hollywood went to work on telling George Gershwin's story (1945), almost none of it bore any resemblance to George Gershwin's story.

The same is true of 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' (1942), the biopic about George M. Cohan, which at least has the redeeming quality of being entertaining, spiced as it is by James Cagney's extraordinary, all-in dance stylings.

But there have been two more recent movie biopics that seem to have fairly hewn to the actual stories of their subjects' lives and careers.

The most creative of these is Kevin Spacey's 'Beyond the Sea' (2004). It's Spacey's telling of Bobby Darin's life story. There's little fiddling with the facts, though there are interesting flashbacks and flash forwards. You get a clear understanding of Darrin the man. Spacey, a terrific mimic, does a good job channeling his inner Darrin on the latter's catalog. A thoroughly enjoyable film.

Another successful recent music biopic is the 2014 release 'Ragamuffin,' focused on the life of Rich Mullins, an early practitioner of Christian contemporary music. Mullins' music was honest and so is this film. It shows the musician's quest to live a life of authentic Christian faith despite his rising fame. The music is great too. A film both enjoyable and deeply moving.

BET, I think, is wrong for suggesting that Prince's staying away from mass social activity renders him unfit for film treatment. His reasoning [as Althouse suggests] may warrant exploration. What were his reasons for doing big charitable events, while keeping his significant personal philanthropy quiet?

In fact, a similar shying away from association with big causes--in spite of appearances and reputation to the contrary and a few exceptions--will face any prospective producer of a Bob Dylan biopic. Dylan's 'Blowin' in the Wind' was an anthem for many in the 60's civil rights movement. But his connection to the movement or to the protests of the war in Vietnam were limited to non-existent. Dylan wasn't really a cause guy; he was more of a Dylan guy.

In the end, I think it's the music that matters most.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

Emotionally Yours by Bob Dylan

"It’s like my whole life never happened
"When I see you, it’s as if I never had a thought
"I know this dream, it might be crazy
"But it’s the only one I’ve got"

Shelter from the Storm (Understanding Revelation, Part 3)

Revelation 7:9-17
One of my favorite Bob Dylan songs is Shelter from the Storm. In it, Dylan's narrator remembers a friend or loved one from whom he has since been alienated. He recalls the shelter she once provided to him, from which he had once drawn hope. Dylan begins the song:

‘Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When darkness was a virtue, the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form
"Come in," she said
"I’ll give ya shelter from the storm.”

From the moment I first heard that song forty-one years ago, I resonated with its lyrics. Everyone of us, I believe, at one time or another, in one way or another, seeks shelter from the storm.

We long for that place and those relationships in which we are known and yet loved, imperfect and yet forgiven, broken and made whole.

In fact, I believe, seeking that shelter is the quest of our lives, whether we know it or not.

If we are wise though, we learn in the course of time, that no earthly place, person, elevated status, and no relationship can completely, fully shelter us from life’s storms, or assure us of our worthiness, or give us peace, or grant us life.

We learn that it’s too much to ask of any earthbound place, person, status, or relationship to give us these things.

We may be blessed with imperfect, temporary shelters from the storms around us and within us: marriages and friendships that last decades until death parts the partners; minds and bodies that serve us well until finally giving out. We should thank God for blessings like these.

But we hunger for more.

Why is that? Are we just inherently whiny, fussy, impatient, intent on having perfection as we define it? The short answer is, “Yes.” But there’s a deeper answer.

We were made for more.

And deep in our hearts, down in our guts, in every synapse of our brains, we know it! We were made for more.

The Bible says that you and I were created in the image of God. God’s imprint, His eternal nature, is written right into our DNA. God did not create us to sin, to hurt each other, to be hurt by each other, to age, to be limited by disease, to die. We’re right to feel that if the world was right, these things wouldn’t be part of our lives, that we would be sheltered from all storms.

We’re related to our Father in ways that no other creature is; He meant for us to share in His perfection, righteousness, love, and eternity. As Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He [God] has...set eternity in the human heart…” We know that we weren’t made to be exposed to the storms, the chaos, over which God’s Spirit first moved and by the force of His love carved out a perfect universe over which we were made to be the godly stewards.

But you know what happened. Adam and Eve, our great-ancestors, fell into sin, bringing all the sins (including our sins, yours and mine) and imperfections and storms that we know too well--into this world.

So, we look for the perfect shelter.

But unless we look for it in the God we meet in Jesus Christ, we will never find it!

As we continue our series, Understanding Revelation, today we encounter people who took shelter in Jesus Christ. And they found that despite the storms they encountered in this life, God sheltered them here in His grace, and when they passed from this life, they entered the eternal shelter for which all of us long and for which we were all made.

Revelation 7:9-17. Follow along with me, beginning at verse 7. “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.”

John is, as was true in last Sunday's message, still in the throne room of God. The robes worn by a crowd from every nation of the earth are white, symbolic of purity. They carry palm leaves, symbolizing victory.

Verse 10: “And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’ All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: ‘Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!’”

In the Old Testament and among Jewish teachers down to the time of Jesus and beyond, whenever you encounter a list with an odd-number of items, you look to the one that stands in the middle. That’s the most important item. What was this throng in white emphasizing? Their thanks to God for the gift of life, for the gift of Jesus, and for the eternal shelter He provides to those who put their trust in Him above all! They were filled with thanksgiving.

Verse 13: “Then one of the elders asked me, ‘These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?’” The elder asked this of John like a teacher using the interrogative method, helping his student own what it being taught.

But John initially only owns his ignorance. Verse 14: “I answered, ‘Sir, you know.’ And he said, ‘These are they who have come out of the great tribulation [That is, those who have lived faithfully in this world despite the obstacles, despite the difficulty of believing good news in a bad news world, despite shunning, dismissive disdain, or persecution.]; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb…’”

John saw many things in the revelation Jesus gave to him at Patmos. He saw God on His throne. He saw the crucified, risen, and ascended Jesus, the Lamb of God. He saw angels. All of that would have caused him--would cause us, were we to see it--to stand or fall on our faces in awe, hearts racing with the majesty and perfection of God.

But nothing John saw would have given him more assurance, more hope, more peace than seeing this throng of believers safely delivered into the perfect, eternal shelter of the God in Whom they put their trust.

John saw that the yearning we know from the moment we’re born--the yearning to live eternally, to live with purpose unencumbered by all the harsh realities of this world--is the yearning God wants to fulfill for us.

God wants to set us free from sin, death, futility, disease, discord, and separation from others.

God wants to set us free to live in loving relationship with Him, our families, our friends, the world.

God wants to banish sin’s power over our lives and actions and relationships for all eternity!

These blessings were meant to be the birthright of every child fashioned in God’s image. We sold off that birthright long ago when sin took us captive. But Jesus Christ has purchased us out of our slavery to sin and death and the devil with the expenditure of His blood.

It’s an inheritance that we can claim when we wash ourselves in the blood of the Lamb, committing ourselves to lives of turning from sin and trusting in Jesus Christ to be our Savior, our Lord, our King, our God, our shelter.

Like Jesus, we will die before we know this inheritance in full. (After all, we’re not better than Jesus and we shouldn’t expect to live or die better than Jesus! So, to each us, death will come.) But even now in this world, those who take shelter in Christ, find that though the storms of life buffet them, wound them, even take our lives, we have God’s peace. We live confident in God’s grace and provision and love.

When I had my heart attack and didn’t know whether they could salvage much of the 60% of my heart still functional, my son sat in the hospital room and read Psalm 46 to me: "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging…[And then] Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

The God revealed to all the world as Lord and Savior in Jesus was my shelter, not because I deserve His shelter (I know me very well and I know that I deserve no blessing God might give to me; I deserve only death and damnation.), but because God loves me and wants me now and for all eternity.

He wants you now and for all eternity too!

Go back to our lesson, starting at verse 14. The elder is still speaking to John about this multitude in white. “‘Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. [There’s the promise that will see us through every storm in this life. And there follows the promise of an eternal shelter through Christ.] ‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them,’ nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”’” What a promise! Eternal shelter!

In Dylan’s song, he says:
I’ve heard newborn babies wailin’ like a mournin’ dove
And old men with broken teeth stranded without love
Do I understand your question, man, is it hopeless and forlorn
"Come in, she said
I’ll give ya shelter from the storm.”

Dylan's narrator voice is wrong to think that the ultimate shelter of his life could be found in another human being, though other human beings who trust in Christ can be the instruments by which we trust that Christ can shelter us here and in eternity. (That’s why the great commission--making disciples of all nations, is the central mission and purpose of every Christian disciple!)

But he's right in believing that all is not “hopeless and forlorn.” We have Jesus Christ. All who trust in Him will share in the eternal blessings John saw in his vision of heaven. If we will remain steadfast in trusting in Jesus Christ with our whole lives, we will be part of the multitude John saw, those who repent for sin, take shelter in Christ, and know that they will live with God for eternity.

With the psalmist, through Jesus we can say of God: “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” Amen

[This was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, earlier today.]

Something There is About You by Bob Dylan

Emotionally Yours by Bob Dylan

The use of Elizabeth Taylor's image at the beginning and end of this music video is cryptic.

And the song would sound better sung by someone else, I suppose.

But I love this song from 1985 by Bob Dylan.

Never Say Goodbye by Bob Dylan

A great winter love song (at least at the start, though in a later verse, we're transported from a winter scene to warm and summery beach) from Dylan's Planet Waves, with The Band playing in the studio with him.

Twilight on the frozen lake
North wind about to break
On footprints in the snow
Silence down below

You’re beautiful beyond words
You’re beautiful to me
You can make me cry
Never say goodbye

Time is all I have to give
You can have it if you choose
With me you can live
Never say goodbye

My dreams are made of iron and steel
With a big bouquet
Of roses hanging down
From the heavens to the ground

The crashing waves roll over me
As I stand upon the sand
Wait for you to come
And grab hold of my hand

Oh, baby, baby, baby blue
You’ll change your last name, too
You’ve turned your hair to brown
Love to see it hangin’ down

Copyright © 1973 by Ram's Horn Music; renewed 2001 by Ram’s Horn Music

Planet Waves is one of the LPs Dylan recorded for David Geffen's label when he was in a dispute over a new contract with his longtime label, Columbia Records. It's often overlooked, though both versions of Dylan's widely recognized classic, Forever Young, appear on the album. 

The LP has little in common with his earlier folk or electric folk. The lyrics are more straightforward, less apparently political. Most of the songs are either just fun or simple love songs. I love it.

Of course, some people just can't get past Dylan's voice, which is far from pretty. That used to be an obstacle for me too. But the songs are the stars and with Dylan's catalog, there are lots of stars.

David Bowie was a cut-up

Yes, he could be funny. 

But that's not the kind of cutting-up I'm talking about. This past week, someone linked to a 2013 article from thehitformula that said that one technique David Bowie used to  get his weird and compelling lyrics. (The phrase "serious moonlight" is one of my favorite meaningless yet vivid and understandable lines ever, I think.)

The article goes back to a 2008 interview with Bowie:

In it he described how he often comes up with interesting lyric lines by employing the ‘cut-up’ writing technique used by postmodernist author William S. Burroughs in his controversial novel Naked Lunch. 

‘Cut-up’ is a literary technique designed to add an element of chance to the creative process. 

It involves taking a finished line of text and cutting it into pieces—usually with just one or two words on each piece. The resulting pieces are then rearranged to create a brand new text. 

The cut-up concept can be traced back to the Dadaists of the 1920s, but it was developed further in the early 1950s by painter, writer and sound poet Brion Gysin—and then popularized in the late 1950s and early 1960s by Burroughs. 

David Bowie explained: “You write down a paragraph or two describing several different subjects, creating a kind of ‘story ingredients’ list, I suppose, and then cut the sentences into four or five-word sections; mix ’em up and reconnect them. 

“You can get some pretty interesting idea combinations like this,” he said. “You can use them as is or, if you have a craven need to not lose control, bounce off these ideas and write whole new sections.”

I've always thought of Bowie as a dadaist, a musical heir to visual and other artists like Marcel Duchamp, who defied convention by creating works that refused to answer questions like, "What is it?" Or, "What does it mean?" 

In their way, the dadaists were the heirs of the "art for art's sake" movement that sought a purely aesthetic expression that counted on those who viewed or listened to a piece to decide on its meaning for themselves. 

James Abbott McNeill Whistler is maybe the most famous painter from this movement. Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Cremorne Lights is a great example of what Whistler tried to create and it reminds me a lot of what not only Bowie, but Bob Dylan and others, have often done with their lyrics since the 1960s. As in the Whistler painting (below), they fuzz things up, giving us a new vantage point on reality. 

Bowie was always creating and re-creating himself (though, of course, nobody can really be made new, except by Christ). But the cut-up method is a bit like upsetting an entire tray of Scrabble letters, then searching for the patterns...or defying them. Whatever, such a method does seem to have the potential of uncorking the imagination when it's grown cliche.

You Angel You by Bob Dylan

OK, get past the fact that Dylan doesn't have a great voice. This tune, from Planet Waves, which he recorded for David Geffen's label when he was in a dispute with Columbia Records, is not in the category of Like a Rolling Stone or Blowin' in the Wind. It's a simple, happy love song. And I'm good with that.

"You know I can’t sleep at night for trying
"Never did feel this way before
"Never did get up and walk the floor
"If this is love then gimme more
"And more and more and more"

Read more: http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/you-angel-you#ixzz3hj4bUGxX

[Note: At this moment, I can't get to sleep for trying.]