Will coincidences never end? A day or two ago I almost posted the lyrics from Bob Dylan's This Wheel's on Fire (see below). I had looked it up because I'm watching Absolutely Fabulous where it's the title song, and I got curious about the lyrics. Well, I got no wiser after looking them up.
Then yesterday I had reason to wisecrack about flower power.
I am sorry, but most music I hear from the late sixties and early seventies, like Dylan or The Who*, just says to me: "druuuuuugs"! The lyrics and even the sound itself just seem drug addled, I don't know how it's possible.
*update: I may have been thinking about The Doors here. I was only a wee bairn at the time, and nobody played that sort of music where I lived.
And to top it off, today I heard about Weird Al's song Bob, which at first glance seem to simply make fun of Dylan's incomprehensible lyrics, but then turns out to be entirely composed of palindromes (reads the same backwards and forwards):
BOB
I, man, am regal - a German am I
Never odd or even
If I had a hi-fi
Madam, I'm Adam
Too hot to hoot
No lemons, no melon
Too bad I hid a boot
Lisa Bonet ate no basil
Warsaw was raw
Was it a car or a cat I saw?
Rise to vote, sir
Do geese see God?
"Do nine men interpret?" "Nine men," I nod
Rats live on no evil star
Won't lovers revolt now?
Race fast, safe car
Pa's a sap
Ma is as selfless as I am
May a moody baby doom a yam?
Ah, Satan sees Natasha
No devil lived on
Lonely Tylenol
Not a banana baton
No "x" in "Nixon"
O, stone, be not so
O Geronimo, no minor ego
"Naomi," I moan
"A Toyota's a Toyota"
A dog, a panic in a pagoda
Oh no! Don Ho!
Nurse, I spy gypsies - run!
Senile felines
Now I see bees I won
UFO tofu
We panic in a pew
Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo
God! A red nugget! A fat egg under a dog!
Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog
-----
This wheel's on fire
If your mem'ry serves you well
We were goin' to meet again and wait
So I'm goin' to unpack all my things
And sit before it gets too late
No man alive will come to you
With another tale to tell
And you know that we shall meet again
If your mem'ry serves you well
This wheel's on fire
Rolling down the road
Best notify my next of kin
This wheel shall explode !
If your mem'ry serves you well
I was goin' to confiscate your lace
And wrap it up in a sailor's knot
And hide it in your case
If I knew for sure that it was yours ...
But it was oh so hard to tell
And you knew that we would meet again
If your mem'ry serves you well
This wheel's on fire
Rolling down the road
Best notify my next of kin
This wheel shall explode !
If your mem'ry serves you well
You'll remember you're the one
That called on me to call on them
To get you your favors done
And after ev'ry plan had failed
And there was nothing more to tell
You knew that we would meet again
If your mem'ry serves you well
This wheel's on fire
Rolling down the road
Best notify my next of kin
This wheel shall explode !
I quite like Siouxie's version, which was the first I heard of that song. It's seems everybody does the melody different, and I like this one.
9 comments:
How did he get so many palindromes! That's pretty awesome.
Sometimes psychedelic music can just fill you with calming rhythms, or flood you with feelings or ideas. Other times you just think WTF and skip to the next track.
There are some great moments from great artists probably under the influence. Wendy Carlo's "Sonic Seasoning" has both examples, as does Pink Floyd's "Piper at the gate of Dawn". I love the music of Tangerine Dream, but not the first two or three albums which are heavily psychedelic. "Atom Heart Mother" has to be one of the most listenable pieces, sounding drug induced for whole movement's. Then you go listen to John Adams, and you wonder if he is just being provocative or if a "respected" composer is also indulging.
As for hippie stuff, bands like The Birds, Traffic, Mamas and Pappas, they are a mix of happy hopeful jolly songs and the occasional twisted lyrical roller coaster.
I still don't get Janis though? Does soulful mean screaming into a microphone?
Is Carrols "Jabberwocky" any lesser poem because it's words are gobbledygook?
Okay, I can sorta kinda see how you might make that conclusion about Dylan, but I dunno about The Who. They never really sang about drugs. At least, I can't think of any songs off the top of my head by them that were. I really think it depends on what bands and stuff you're listening to. Yeah, there were a lot of drug-obsessed bands in that era, but also a lot that were singing about some really relevant stuff.
It's not so much what they sang *about*, it's just that the music has a weird, uncontrolled quality which just feels "druggy" to me.
Lewis Carroll's poems, quite the opposite, are wonderful and tightly controlled.
---
I know there's software which makes anagrams, perhaps there is some for palindromes too. They are hard to make otherwise.
Hm I dunno, they were always a pretty straightforward, power chord-driven rock band. Are you sure it's not a different band you're thinking of? I dunno, maybe you're hearing something that I'm not. I just have a hard time seeing them as a real drug-based band.
It's possible. To be frank, my knowledge of music from back then is rudimentary at best.
It was probably The Doors I was thinking about.
Lol, The Doors would make A LOT more sense.
i think most of dylan's work is drug induced confusion. no offense mr dylan. i like lyrics that make sense.
With Dylan, I think it kinda depends which record you're listening to. The meaning is pretty plain in some of his songs.
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