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Like a Rolling Stone

"Like a Rolling Stone" Dylana z 1965 roku to jedna z najbardziej znanych piosenek rockowych w historii - w 2004 roku znalazła się na szczycie listy 500. utworów wszech czasów magazynu "Rolling Stone". Podobno wytwórnia nie chciała wypuścić sześciominutowego utworu, ale piosenka wyciekła i stała się hitem.

W 2014 roku słowa piosenki napisane ręką Dylana zostały sprzedane na aukcji za 2 miliony dolarów.

Once upon a time you dressed so fine

You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?

People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall"

You thought they were all kiddin' you

You used to laugh about

Everybody that was hangin' out

Now you don't talk so loud

Now you don't seem so proud

About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

How does it feel

How does it feel

To be without a home

With no direction and home

Like a complete unknown

Like a rolling stone?

You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely

But you know you only used to get juiced in it

And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street

And now you find out you're gonna have to get used to it

You said you'd never compromise

With the mystery tramp, but now you realize

He's not selling any alibis

As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes

And ask him do you want to make a deal?

How does it feel

How does it feel

To be on your own

With no direction home

Like a complete unknown

Like a rolling stone?

You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns

When they all come down and did tricks for you

You never understood that it ain't no good

You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you

You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat

Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat

Ain't it hard when you discover that

He really wasn't where it's at

After he took from you everything he could steal.

How does it feel

How does it feel

To be on your own

With no direction and home

Like a complete unknown

Like a rolling stone?

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people

They're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made

Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things

But you'd better lift your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe

You used to be so amused

At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used

Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse

When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose

You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.

How does it feel

How does it feel

To be on your own

With no direction and home

Like a complete unknown

Like a rolling stone?

Mr. Tambourine Man

Niektórzy doszukują się w tej piosence aluzji do narkotyków, ale Dylan zawsze temu zaprzeczał. "Mr. Tambourine Man" jest uznawany za jeden z jego najlepszych wierszy. Utwór po raz pierwszy można było usłyszeć na płycie "Bringing It All Back Home" z 1965 roku.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,

I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,

In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand,

Vanished from my hand,

Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.

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.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,

I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,

In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship,

My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip,

My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels

To be wanderin'.

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.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,

I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,

In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Though you might hear laughin', spinnin', swingin' madly across the sun,

It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run

And but for the sky there are no fences facin'.

And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme

To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind,

I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're

Seein' that he's chasing.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,

I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,

In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,

Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,

The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,

Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,

Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,

With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,

Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,

I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,

In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

The Times They Are a-Changin'

Protest-song, który jest jednym z najbardziej znanych utworów Dylana. Nagrał go w 1963 roku. Była wiele razy wykonywana na różnych wiecach, choć autor próbował odcinać się od interpretacji mówiących, że ma to być np. próba opowieści o pokoleniu lat 60. i polityce tamtych czasów.

Na język polski słowa  "The Times They Are a-Changin'" przetłumaczyła Agnieszka Osiecka. Piosenkę pod tytułem "Czas wszystko zmienia" śpiewała m.in. Maryla Rodowicz.

Come gather 'round people

Wherever you roam

And admit that the waters

Around you have grown

And accept it that soon

You'll be drenched to the bone.

If your time to you

Is worth savin'

Then you better start swimmin'

Or you'll sink like a stone

For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics

Who prophesize with your pen

And keep your eyes wide

The chance won't come again

And don't speak too soon

For the wheel's still in spin

And there's no tellin' who

That it's namin'.

For the loser now

Will be later to win

For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen

Please heed the call

Don't stand in the doorway

Don't block up the hall

For he that gets hurt

Will be he who has stalled

There's a battle outside

And it is ragin'.

It'll soon shake your windows

And rattle your walls

For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers

Throughout the land

And don't criticize

What you can't understand

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

Your old road is

Rapidly agin'.

Please get out of the new one

If you can't lend your hand

For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn

The curse it is cast

The slow one now

Will later be fast

As the present now

Will later be past

The order is

Rapidly fadin'.

And the first one now

Will later be last

For the times they are a-changin'.

Visions of Johanna

Piosenka z albumu "Blonde on Blonde" z 1966 roku, przez wielu recenzentów jest uznawana za jedno z największych dokonań literackich Dylana. Narrator opowiada u o trudnym związku z kobietą o imieniu Louise. Partnerka go przytłacza, więzi, ale jego umysł pozostaje wolny i szuka tytułowej Johanny, wyobrażenia.

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?

We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it

And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it

Lights flicker from the opposite loft

In this room the heat pipes just cough

The country music station plays soft

But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off

Just Louise and her lover so entwined

And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind

In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman's bluff with the key chain

And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the "D" train

We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight

Ask himself if it's him or them that's really insane

Louise, she's all right, she's just near

She's delicate and seems like the mirror

But she just makes it all too concise and too clear

That Johanna's not here

The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face

Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place

Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously

He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously

And when bringing her name up

He speaks of a farewell kiss to me

He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all

Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall

How can I explain?

Oh, it's so hard to get on

And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial

Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while

But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues

You can tell by the way she smiles

See the primitive wallflower freeze

When the jelly-faced women all sneeze

Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze

I can't find my knees"

Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule

But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel

The peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him

Sayin', "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him"

But like Louise always says

"Ya can't look at much, can ya man?"

As she, herself, prepares for him

And Madonna, she still has not showed

We see this empty cage now corrode

Where her cape of the stage once had flowed

The fiddler, he now steps to the road

He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed

On the back of the fish truck that loads

While my conscience explodes

The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain

And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain

All Along the Watchtower

Dylan napisał tę piosenkę po wypadku motocyklowym, któremu uległ w 1966 roku. To wydarzenie wpłynęło na jego twórczość - zaczął często sięgać po Biblię, wielu interpretatorów jego tekstów doszukuje się w "All Along the Watchtower" wątków apokaliptycznych.

"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief,

"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.

Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,

None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."

"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke,

"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.

But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,

So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view

While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,

Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

Blowin' in the wind

Dylan napisał ten utwór w 1962 roku, stał się jednym z najbardziej znanych protest songów w historii amerykańskiej muzyki, właściwie zapoczątkowała ten nurt. Chętnie sięgali po nią Amerykanie walczący o prawa obywatelskie i ci, którzy sprzeciwiali się wojnie.

How many roads must a man walk down

Before you call him a man?

How many seas must a white dove sail

Before she sleeps in the sand?

Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly

Before they're forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,

The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many years can a mountain exist

Before it is washed to the sea?

Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist

Before they're allowed to be free?

Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,

And pretend that he just doesn't see?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,

The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes, 'n' how many times must a man look up

Before he can see the sky?

Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have

Before he can hear people cry?

Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows

That too many people have died?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,

The answer is blowin' in the wind.

It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

Olivier Trager, autor "encyklopedii" poświęconej Bobowi Dylanowi, napisał, że ta piosenka jest "monumentalnym osiągnięciem". Nie miał na myśli długości, ale jej wartość - mimo tego warto zauważyć, że to aż 15 zwrotek! Dylan atakuje w nich m.in. korporacje. Niektórzy doszukują się w sposobie jej wykonania inspiracji dla artystów... hip hopowych.

Darkness at the break of noon

Shadows even the silver spoon

The handmade blade, the child's balloon

Eclipses both the sun and moon

To understand you know too soon

There is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn

Suicide remarks are torn

From the fool's gold mouthpiece

The hollow horn plays wasted words

Proves to warn

That he not busy being born

Is busy dying.

Temptation's page flies out the door

You follow, find yourself at war

Watch waterfalls of pity roar

You feel to moan but unlike before

You discover

That you'd just be

One more person crying.

So don't fear if you hear

A foreign sound to your ear

It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.

As some warn victory, some downfall

Private reasons great or small

Can be seen in the eyes of those that call

To make all that should be killed to crawl

While others say don't hate nothing at all

Except hatred.

Disillusioned words like bullets bark

As human gods aim for their mark

Made everything from toy guns that spark

To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark

It's easy to see without looking too far

That not much

Is really sacred.

While preachers preach of evil fates

Teachers teach that knowledge waits

Can lead to hundred-dollar plates

Goodness hides behind its gates

But even the president of the United States

Sometimes must have

To stand naked.

An' though the rules of the road have been lodged

It's only people's games that you got to dodge

And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.

Advertising signs that con you

Into thinking you're the one

That can do what's never been done

That can win what's never been won

Meantime life outside goes on

All around you.

You lose yourself, you reappear

You suddenly find you got nothing to fear

Alone you stand with nobody near

When a trembling distant voice, unclear

Startles your sleeping ears to hear

That somebody thinks

They really found you.

A question in your nerves is lit

Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy

Insure you not to quit

To keep it in your mind and not fergit

That it is not he or she or them or it

That you belong to.

Although the masters make the rules

For the wise men and the fools

I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

For them that must obey authority

That they do not respect in any degree

Who despise their jobs, their destinies

Speak jealously of them that are free

Cultivate their flowers to be

Nothing more than something

They invest in.

While some on principles baptized

To strict party platform ties

Social clubs in drag disguise

Outsiders they can freely criticize

Tell nothing except who to idolize

And then say God bless him.

While one who sings with his tongue on fire

Gargles in the rat race choir

Bent out of shape from society's pliers

Cares not to come up any higher

But rather get you down in the hole

That he's in.

But I mean no harm nor put fault

On anyone that lives in a vault

But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.

Old lady judges watch people in pairs

Limited in sex, they dare

To push fake morals, insult and stare

While money doesn't talk, it swears

Obscenity, who really cares

Propaganda, all is phony.

While them that defend what they cannot see

With a killer's pride, security

It blows the minds most bitterly

For them that think death's honesty

Won't fall upon them naturally

Life sometimes

Must get lonely.

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards

False gods, I scuff

At pettiness which plays so rough

Walk upside-down inside handcuffs

Kick my legs to crash it off

Say okay, I have had enough

What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen

They'd probably put my head in a guillotine

But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.