Sunday Boring Sunday
At my window
I watch my neighbor with his lawn
mower
and it’s quiet in my room
The blinds are drawn as always
and I watch the movements of
that man in the stillness of this
Sunday morning
The walls just stand there
and it seems to me that even death
is
trivial like
love is trivial
and suddenly I understand the
meaning
of it all:
the bloody roses
the dim sun
the dark jails
the laughing hospitals
the mega-churches
the happy suicides
the big and heavy silence
and the question in this silence now
is
Bob Marley or
Bob Dylan?
Lawnmower Man -- David Reeves-Payne
Bob Dylan and Bob Marley, who began their careers simultaneously, are among the small number of musician/lyricists who rose to the status of “voice of their generation” in part due to the political nature of some of their material.
ReplyDeleteRobert Zimmerman began calling himself “Bob Dillon” when he started performing folk music as a student at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis but then, upon his discovery of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas who had died in 1953, decided on “Bob Dylan” instead. After a year he dropped out of school and decided to become a professional musician. Six months later he moved to new York and cut his 1st record a year later, in 1962. For the most part he was a solo performer (with backup musicians) but he briefly considered joining the Grateful Dead and then formed the Traveling Wilburys with Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and George Harrison. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. When asked in an interview whom he regretted not playing music with, he mentioned Bob Marley.
Marley was a Jamaican singer who became an international musical and cultural icon. He began as “Bobby Martell” in 1962, then joined Neville Livingston (Bunny Wailer), Peter McIntosh (Peter Tosh), Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, and Cherry Smith as the Teenagers. The group name became the Wailing Rudeboys and then the Wailing Wailers. By 1966 Braithwaite, Kelso, and Smith had left, leaving Marley, Wailer, and Tosh as the core group. The 3 had close ties beyond their music. Marley and Wailer had known each other since they were toddlers, and Wailer’s father later fathered a daughter with Marley’s mother, while Tosh and Wailer’s sister produced a son; all 3 were dedicated Rastafarians. In 1967 they named themselves the Wailers. During the 1970s Aston "Family Man" Barrett and his brother Carlton (Carly) Barrett left the Upsetters studio band to play backup for the Wailers, but the group disbanded in 1974 when Tosh and Wailer left to pursue solo careers. Marley formed Bob Marley & the Wailers (the Barrett brothers, Junior Marvin, Al Anderson, Tyrone Downie, Earl "Wya" Lindo, and Alvin "Seeco" Patterson), backed vocally by the I Three (his wife Rita Marley, Judy Mowatt and Marcia Griffiths). [“I Three” derived its name from the Rastafarian "I and I" concept of the Godhead within each person. Tony Medina used the phrase as the title of his 2009 biography in verse about Marley, and the title of a 1983 song by Bob Dylan.] After years of ill health, Marley died in 1981. In his eulogy Jamaican prime minister Edward Seaga declared, “His voice was an omnipresent cry in our electronic world. His sharp features, majestic looks, and prancing style a vivid etching on the landscape of our minds. Bob Marley was never seen. He was an experience which left an indelible imprint with each encounter. Such a man cannot be erased from the mind. He is part of the collective consciousness of the nation.” He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
I and I
ReplyDeleteBeen so long since a strange woman has slept in my bed
Look how sweet she sleeps, how free must be her dreams
In another lifetime she must have owned the world, or been faithfully wed
To some righteous king who wrote psalms beside moonlit streams
I and I
In creation where one's nature neither honors nor forgives
I and I
One say to the other, no man sees my face and lives
Think I'll go out and go for a walk
Not much happening here, nothing ever does
Besides, if she wakes up now, she'll just want to talk
I got nothing to say, 'specially about whatever it was
Took an un-trodden path once, where the swift don't win the race
It goes to the worthy, who can divide the word of truth
Took a stranger to teach me, to look into justice's beautiful face
And see an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth
Outside of two men on a train platform there's nothing in sight
They're waiting for spring to come, smoking down the track
The world could come to an end tonight, but that's all right
She could still be there sleeping when I get back.
Noontime, and I'm still pushing myself along the road, the darkest part
Into the narrow lanes, I can't stumble or stay put
Someone else is speaking with my mouth, but I'm listening with my heart
I've made shoes for everyone, even you, while I go barefoot