Why does that image evoke fond memories for me?
Sitting comfortably,
Look quietly at mind and other,
in 20 minute segments.
A last piece of incense ash falls.
Talking heads on TV
Professors in Ivory Towers
Deadheads going to Furthur
Prisoners hanging with gangs
Junior High students snortin' heroin
Narcissistic social media fanatics
Politicians (less than nothing)
Ban Kyi Moon & the whole UN
Gangsters on Federal Hill
People wasting time playing video
With a few exceptions
It's quite depressing
a truly twisted species
slicing and dicing their own planet
Then creating better weapons
To defend or keep the spoils
Amidst overflowing paranoia.
A cruel heart won't share
But hires some soldiers
to guard the parapet
That is always over-run
And in between they talk about nothing
was inadvertently included.
By: Lou Reed
They say he didn't have an enemy
his was a greatness to behold
He was the last surviving progeny
the last one on this side of the world
He measured a half mile from tip to tail
silver and black with powerful fins
They say he could split a mountain in two
that's how we got the Grand Canyon
Last great American whale
last great American whale
Last great American whale
last great American whale
Some say they saw him at the Great Lakes
some say they saw him off of Florida
My mother said she saw him in Chinatown
but you can't always trust your mother
Off the Carolinas the sun shines brightly in the day
the lighthouse glows ghostly there at night
The chief of a local tribe had killed a racist mayor's son
and he'd been on death row since 1958
The mayor's kid was a rowdy pig
spit on Indians and lots worse
The old chief buried a hatchet in his head
life compared to death for him seemed worse
The tribal brothers gathered in the lighthouse to sing
and tried to conjure up a storm or rain
The harbor parted, the great whale sprang full up
and caused a hugh tidal wave
The wave crushed the jail and freed the chief
the tribe let out a roar
The whites were drowned, the browns and reds set free
but sadly one thing more
Some local yokel member of the NRA
kept a bazooka in his living room
And thinking he had the chief in his sight
blew the whale's brains out with a lead harpoon
Last great American whale
last great American whale
Last great American whale
last great American whale
Well Americans don't care for much of anything
land and water the least
And animal life is low on the totem pole
with human life not worth more than infected yeast
Americans don't care too much for beauty
they'll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream
They'll watch dead rats wash up on the beach
and complain if they can't swim
They say things are done for the majority
don't believe half of what you see and none of what you hear
It's like what my painter friend Donald said to me
"Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over, they're done"
Send "Last Great American Whale" Ringtone to your Cell
Rolling Stones
Well, when you're sitting there
In your silk upholstered chair
Talking to some rich folks that you know
Well I hope you won't see me
In my ragged company
You know I could never be alone
Take me down little Susie, take me down
I know you think you're the Queen of the Underground
And you can send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flower by the mail
Send me dead flowers to my wedding
And I won't forget to put roses on your grave
Well, you're sitting back
In your rose pink Cadillac
Making bets on Kentucky Derby Day
I'll be in my basement room
With a needle and a spoon
And another girl can take my pain away
Take me down little Susie, take me down
I know you think you're the Queen of the Underground
And you can send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flower by the mail
Send me dead flowers to my wedding
And I won't forget to put roses on your grave
Take me down little Susie, take me down
I know you think you're the Queen of the Underground
And you can send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flower by the US mail
Say it with dead flowers at my wedding
And I won't forget to put roses on your grave
No I won't forget to put roses on your grave
Rolling Stones
Back to zero
So you wanna blow us all to pieces
Go meet your maker, head hung down
And give him all your explanations
Go ahead, throw down
Back to zero, back to nothing
Straight to meltdown, back to zero
That's where we're heading
It's a monkey living on my back
I can feel my spine begin to crack
I'm looking to the future
I keep on glancing back
I prefer to rot
I don't want to pop
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/r/rolling_stones/back_to_zero.html ]
I think I'll head back to the jungle, alright
Don't want to see no big bad rumble, too fright
Back to zero, that's where we're going
Back to nothing, right now, right now
No heroes? No more heroes
Back to meltdown
That's where I'm going, back to zero
My whole life is hanging on a thread
I'm the fly inside the spider's web
I'm looking to the future
I keep on glancing back
I prefer to rot
I don't want to pop
I worry about my great grandchildren
Living ten miles beneath the ground
I worry about their whole existence
The whole damn thing's in doubt
Back to zero, that's where we're going
Back to nothing, that's where we're heading
Straight to meltdown, that's where we're going
Back to zero, right now, right now
We're going nowhere
Right now, right now
Back to zero, that's where we're heading
Back to zero
Searching for answers,
Of how we lost our way,
Forgot how to play,
You open a door,
And at the end of the hall,
There stands a ten foot wall.
As you approach,
You become blinded for a few,
Your nostrils become filled with the scent of dew,
When you listen for an all unforgettable tune,
You flash back to old days,
Filled with wondrous haze,
With loved ones and praise,
You awake on the shores of that black muddy river,
And realize,
He’s come to take his children home.
Lyrics By: Bob Dylan
Music By: Bob Dylan
They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor's filled with sailors
The circus is in town
In walks the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row
Now Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in walks Romeo, he's moaning
"You belong to me I believe"
And someone says, "You're in the wrong place, my friend (note 1)
You better leave"
And the only sound that you can hear
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row
Now Ophelia, she's neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid
To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her gaze is fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spend her time peeking in
On Desolation Row
Einstein disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row
Now the moon is almost hidden (note 2)
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortune telling lady
Has already taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row
Doctor Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
And all his sexless patients
They're all trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have mercy on his soul"
They all play on the penny whistle
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
On Desolation Row
Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
In the perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words
And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get out of here if you don't know"
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row
Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
They go and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
They take them to the facory
Where the heart attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Make sure nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row
Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
Everybody's shouting
"Which side are you on?"
And Ezra Pound and T.S.Eliot
They're fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen throw flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And no one has to think too much
About Desolation Row
Yes I received your letter yesterday
About the time the doorknob broke
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mentioned
Yes I know them they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read so good
Don't send me no more letters, no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row
Played by Bob Weir with the Grateful Dead from the mid-1980s, as well as with Ratdog and Weir/Wasserman.
(1) this line is as Weir sings it (and as on the 'official' Dylan lyrics). But I recently heard Chris Smither do a great (if truncated) version where he sang "... you're in the wrong play my friend" which is a great variant.
(2) Bob Weir misses out this verse on the version on "Postcards Of The Hanging." He includes it on the version on "Downhill From Here" - but note that in the original Dylan version it's the third verse not the fifth. Thanks to Tim Cahalane for clearing this up for me.
On the open sea
two freighters approach
passing almost silently
Two sailors wave