Publicado por En las notas de The Freewheeling Bob Dylan aparece una palabra que engloba de forma profética el futuro del artista: Proteico. El artista cumbre del cambio en el que se cruzan los opuestos, las ideas y la fricción de las tradiciones con la velocidad revolucionaria del progreso. Para cada individuo que ama a Dylan, él es simultáneamente millones de cosas, todas diferentes y todas individuales desde el predicador hasta el bufón de la corte; del fiscal de distrito al jefe de Estado de un país que no existe; del misterio más absoluto al espíritu que siempre ha estado ahí. Este pequeño compilado se enfoca en una de sus facetas, el orfebre de palabras. Tomando única y exclusivamente mi criterio subjetivo he listado ochenta y un estrofas, líneas o palabras que ya sea por su belleza, contundencia o simplemente por la sensación que su unión transmite, son muestras del nivel de excepción que Dylan frecuenta entre mañanas y noches.
81
The only thing we knew for sure about Henry Porter is that his name wasn’t Henry Porter.
80
Don’t ask me nothin’ about nothin’
I just might tell you the truth
79
There must be some way out of here
78
I will bring someone to life in more ways than one
Don’t matter how long it takes, it’ll be done when it’s done
77
The man says, «Get out of here
I’ll tear you limb from limb»
I said, «You know, they refused Jesus, too»
He said, «You’re not Him»
76
And I’ve never gotten used to it
I’ve just learned to turn it off
Either I’m too sensitive
Or else I’m gettin’ soft
75
All you can do is do what you must
You do what you must do and you do it well
74
An’ the silent night will shatter
From the sounds inside my mind
As I’m one too many mornings
And a thousand miles behind
73
But lately I see her ribbons and her bows
Have fallen from her curls
72
I was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity
Someone had to reach for the risin’ star, I guess it was up to me
71
What good am I if I know and don’t do?
70
I’d just be curious to know if you can see yourself as clear
As someone who has had you on his mind
69
A worried man with a worried mind
No one in front of me and nothing behind
There’s a woman on my lap and she’s drinking champagne
68
The only thing I knew how to do
Was to keep on keeping on
67
Love is all there is, it makes the world go ’round,
Love and only love, it can’t be denied,
No matter what you think about it,
You just won’t be able to do without it,
Take a tip from one who’s tried
66
You’re right from your side, I’m right from mine
65
I can’t help it,
If you might think I’m odd,
If I say I’m not loving you for what you are,
But for what you’re not
64
Once I had a pony, her name was Lucifer
63
«Shut your mouth, » said the wise old owl
Business is business, and it’s a murder most foul
62
Meantime life outside goes on all around you
61
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun
Crying like fire in the Sun
60
The rats have got your flour
Bad blood it got your mare
If there’s anyone that knows
Is there anyone that cares?
59
They’re selling postcards of the hanging
58
One day you’ll be in the ditch
Flies buzzin’ around your eyes
Blood on your saddle
57
Dreams never did work for me anyway,
Even when they did come true
56
All my powers of expression and thoughts so sublime
Could never do you justice in reason or rhyme
55
I’m not sorry for nothin’ I’ve done,
I’m glad I fought, I only wish we’d won
54
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
53
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there
52
The kingdoms of Experience
In the precious wind they rot
While paupers change possessions
Each one wishing for what the other has got
51
The pump don’t work ‘cause the vandals took the handles
50
So when you see your neighbor carryin’ somethin’
Help him with his load
And don’t go mistaking Paradise
For that home across the road
49
Well, anybody can be just like me, obviously
But then, now again, not too many can be like you, fortunately
48
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hanging out
Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal
47
Every step of the way we walk the line
Your days are numbered, so are mine
46
Broken lines, broken strings
Broken threads, broken springs
Broken idols, broken heads
People sleeping in broken beds
Ain’t no use in jiving, ain’t no use in joking
Everything is broken
45
Do you want to make a deal?
44
Every man’s conscience is vile and depraved
You cannot depend on it to be your guide
When it’s you who must keep it satisfied
43
Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is to see you
42
Statues made of matchsticks crumble into one another
41
There’s too many people, too many to recall
I thought some of them were friends of mine, I was wrong about them all
40
If love is a sin then beauty is a crime
39
The priest wore black on the seventh day and sat stone-faced while the building burned
38
I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don’t mind
37
This is how I spend my days
I came to bury not to praise
I`ll drink my fill and sleep alone
I pay in blood, but not my own
36
Name me someone that’s not a parasite and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him
35
High water risin’, six inches ’bove my head
Coffins droppin’ in the street
Like balloons made out of lead
34
You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way
33
Yes, you,
You just sit around and ask for ashtrays, can’t you reach?
32
Ahh princess on a steeple and all the pretty people
They’re all drinking, thinking that they’ve got it made
31
Grandpa died last week and now he’s buried in the rocks
But everybody still talks about how badly they were shocked
But me, I expected it to happen, I knew he’d lost control
When he built a fire on Main Street and shot it full of holes
30
Well, my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there’s been some kind of pain
29
They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy
She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me
I can’t help it if I’m lucky
28
She knows there’s no success like failure and that failure’s no success at all
27
She was fifty-one years old and gave birth to ten children
Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage
And never sat once at the head of the table
And didn’t even talk to the people at the table
Who just cleaned up all the food from the table
26
Today and tomorrow, and yesterday, too
The flowers are dyin’ like all things do
25
She was born in spring, but I was born too late
24
She says, “You can’t repeat the past.”
I say, “You can’t? What do you mean,
you can’t? Of course you can.”
23
They say prayer has the power to help
So pray for me mother
In the human heart an evil spirit can dwell
I’m trying to love my neighbor and do good unto others
But oh, mother, things ain’t going well
22
I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it
21
Gonna take dancing lessons, do the jitterbug rag
Ain’t no shortcuts, gonna dress in drag
Only a fool in here would think he’s got anything to prove
20
And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
19
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows
18
And you say, “What’s mine?”
And somebody else says, “Where what is?”
And you say, “Oh my God
Am I here all alone?”
17
God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
16
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded with hatred
15
I would’ve gone on after you
But I didn’t feel like letting my head get blown off
14
My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming
13
And I hope that you die and your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket in the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave ’til I’m sure that you’re dead
12
The ghost of ’lectricity howls in the bones of her face
11
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred
10
Well, I try my best to be just like I am
But everybody wants you to be just like them
They sing while you slave and I just get bored
9
There’s seven people dead
On a South Dakota farm
There’s seven people dead
On a South Dakota farm
Somewhere in the distance
There’s seven new people born
8
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
7
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don’t steal, don’t lift
Twenty years of schoolin’
And they put you on the day shift
6
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth
You’re an idiot, babe
It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe
5
He not busy being born is busy dying
4
Half of the people can be part right all of the time
Some of the people can be all right part of the time
But all of the people can’t be all right all of the time
I think Abraham Lincoln said that
“I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours”
I said that
3
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
2
While money doesn’t talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony
1
And I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinking