Share Your Current Significant General Insights

[Mark7]

I started this thread months ago and I am feeling guilty that I have not really come up with any insights that I want to post here. But I do want to post an insight that I have had for a long time and I would like some feedback - am I onto something or no?

Ok, so the thesis of this post is that Bob Dylan is a deep thinker, something of an esotericist. I have been a big fan of Dylan almost all my life. He's been compared to Shakespeare and has compared himself to Shakespeare in his remote acceptance speech for the Noble Prize.

Bob Dylan likens his experience to Shakespeare in Nobel speech

Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan compares the pressures he faces when writing lyrics to those that confronted literary great William Shakespeare 400-plus years ago, in his Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech.

www.abc.net.au

Dylan said he sold his soul to the devil in an interview. I wonder if he agreed not to write any songs that were too 'controversial'.

Dylan wrote a song that suggests he read some Castenada:
Cryptic song.

Dylan wrote 'Jokerman' - a song I think contains some esoteric knowledge.

Standing on the waters casting your bread
While the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing - Jesus?
Distant ships sailing into the mist
You were born with a snake in both of your fists while a hurricane was blowing - knowledge of our being trapped here by sex?
Freedom just around the corner for you
But with the truth so far off, what good will it do?

[Chorus]
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman

[Verse 2]
So swiftly the sun sets in the sky
You rise up and say goodbye to no one
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread
Both of their futures, so full of dread, you don't show one
Shedding off one more layer of skin
Keeping one step ahead of the persecutor within

[Chorus]
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman

You're a man of the mountains, you can walk on the clouds
Manipulator of crowds, you're a dream twister
You're going to Sodom and Gomorrah
But what do you care? Ain't nobody there would want to marry your sister - always liked this.
Friend to the martyr, a friend to the woman of shame
You look into the fiery furnace, see the rich man without any name

[Chorus]
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman

[Verse 4]
Well, the Book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy
The law of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers - thought provoking
In the smoke of the twilight on a milk-white steed
Michelangelo indeed could've carved out your features
Resting in the fields, far from the turbulent space
Half asleep near the stars with a small dog licking your face

[Chorus]
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman
[Verse 5]
Well, the rifleman's stalking the sick and the lame
Preacherman seeks the same, who'll get there first is uncertain
Nightsticks and water cannons, tear gas, padlocks
Molotov cocktails and rocks behind every curtain
False-hearted judges dying in the webs that they spin
Only a matter of time till night comes stepping in

[Chorus]
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman

[Verse 6]
It's a shadowy world, skies are slippery grey
A woman just gave birth to a prince today and dressed him in scarlet
He'll put the priest in his pocket, put the blade to the heat
Take the motherless children off the street
And place them at the feet of a harlot
Oh, Jokerman, you know what he wants
Oh, Jokerman, you don't show any response

[Chorus]
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman

This is another song that seems to reflect some deep thinking - "The Changing of the Guards".

Sixteen years
Sixteen banners united over the field
Where the good shepherd grieves
Desperate men, desperate women divided
Spreading their wings 'neath the falling leaves

Fortune calls
I stepped forth from the shadows to the marketplace
Merchants and thieves, hungry for power, my last deal gone down
She's smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born
On midsummer's eve, near the tower

The cold-blooded moon
The captain waits above the celebration
Sending his thoughts to a beloved maid
Whose ebony face is beyond communication
The captain is down but still believing that his love will be repaid

They shaved her head
She was torn between Jupiter and Apollo
A messenger arrived with a black nightingale
I seen her on the stairs and I couldn't help but follow
Follow her down past the fountain where they lifted her veil

I stumbled to my feet
I rode past destruction in the ditches
With the stitches still mending 'neath a heart-shaped tattoo
Renegade priests and treacherous young witches
Were handing out the flowers that I'd given to you

The palace of mirrors
Where dog soldiers are reflected
The endless road and the wailing of chimes
The empty rooms where her memory is protected
Where the angels' voices whisper to the souls of previous times

She wakes him up
Forty-eight hours later, the sun is breaking
Near broken chains, mountain laurel and rolling rocks
She's begging to know what measures he now will be taking
He's pulling her down and she's clutching on to his long golden locks

Gentlemen, he said... Written in 1978, precient now? Eden is burning?
I don't need your organization, I've shined your shoes
I've moved your mountains and marked your cards
But Eden is burning, either getting ready for elimination
Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards

Peace will come
With tranquility and splendor on the wheels of fire
But will bring us no reward when her false idols fall
And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating
Between the King and the Queen of Swords

So am I onto anything or am I just too much of a Dylan fanboy? He really does have a fantastic muse I think. Wonder where it came from. Perhaps a question for the Cs?

 

[Mark7]

The official video for "Jockerman", has some creative images to go along with the song. Was he saying something about the LGBT community?

 

[Mark7]

Bob Dylan's real last name was Zimmerman, German for carpenter.