To Ramona and Robert Zimmerman, To the Past, the Future is Present
A friend of mine is with child, and if it’s a girl, she wants to name her Ramona. Hearing this, I instantly thought of Bob Dylan’s “To Ramona,” one of the most beautiful and evocative songs he ever wrote. Because I could only remember the first couple of lines off the top of my head, I googled the lyrics. Rereading these stanzas, each line as familiar to me as any in my entire music collection, I just about wept. No, seriously. Read it, slowly… S-L-O-W-L-Y …savor each line, this marrow of life:
Now go back and read it again.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read a poem that has affected me like this is affecting me right now. I don’t know what it is, but it is.
Long before the blogging, long before my days as a record critic, I fancied myself a poet, and no single person inspired my gloriously naïve pretensions of poesie more than this man. Well, maybe Kerouac—I did read On the Road three times in the span of a year and a half. But I spent my entire junior and senior years of high school tangled up in one Dylan record or another, and, while these days, months may pass between spins through his catalog, he’s never left me and never will.
Bobby D. and I have quite a history. The man’s tatted on my arm, foremost. My first inking. It’s a terrible one too, as any of my friends could attest. When I first showed my mom, she thought I was joking, licked her finger and tried to rub it off, before stone-cold flipping out on me. The guy who gave me it? I’ve heard he’s legally blind now. No joke. Yet I made the front page of the entertainment section of the local paper with that shit, my shirt sleeves all hitched up, the better to showcase. I told the reporter I got it so I wouldn’t grow old and jaded.
I couldn’t begin to recount all of my memories that have some connection or another with Dylan. Certainly I recall bonding with the noiseboy over him, ages ago, walkin’ round my conservative town in women’s clothing, with lampshades on our heads, thinkin’ we were being provocative. I remember vividly the first time I saw him in the flesh—April 13th, 1994, at the Civic Center Theatre in Peoria, front row center—I smuggled a tape recorder in my pants and bootlegged the show. And still have the tape.
When I graduated high school, a couple of friends and I took off on a weeklong pilgrimage to the upper reaches of Minnesota to pay homage to the master. Canvassed his hometown of Hibbing, saw his tiny boyhood home, photocopied his yearbook pictures at the public library.
God, I could go on and on, but I’ll spare you the rest. I’m well aware that I’m not the only idealistic young lad to have been shaped and seduced by this man and his work, yet it doesn’t make my connection any less meaningful or relevant.
So thank you, Ramona, for prompting this reverie.
And thank you, Cool Hand Bak, for alerting me to his latest tour dates, in which the Bobster hits the road with Merle muthafuckin’ Haggard! If there’s a show near Colorado, I’m thinkin’ I need to be there.
The Evening Playlist:
Gene Clark – No Other
Ornette Coleman – Crisis
Animal Collective – Sung Tongs
Bob Dylan – Another Side of Bob Dylan
Amon Duul – Paradieswarts Duul
Organisation – Tone Float
“To Ramona”
by Bob Dylan
Ramona, come closer,
Shut softly your watery eyes.
The pangs of your sadness
Shall pass as your senses will rise.
The flowers of the city
Though breathlike, get deathlike at times.
And there's no use in tryin'
T' deal with the dyin',
Though I cannot explain that in lines.
Your cracked country lips,
I still wish to kiss,
As to be under the strength of your skin.
Your magnetic movements
Still capture the minutes I'm in.
But it grieves my heart, love,
To see you tryin' to be a part of
A world that just don't exist.
It's all just a dream, babe,
A vacuum, a scheme, babe,
That sucks you into feelin' like this.
I can see that your head
Has been twisted and fed
By worthless foam from the mouth.
I can tell you are torn
Between stayin' and returnin'
On back to the South.
You've been fooled into thinking
That the finishin' end is at hand.
Yet there's no one to beat you,
No one t' defeat you,
'Cept the thoughts of yourself feeling bad.
I've heard you say many times
That you're better 'n no one
And no one is better 'n you.
If you really believe that,
You know you got
Nothing to win and nothing to lose.
From fixtures and forces and friends,
Your sorrow does stem,
That hype you and type you,
Making you feel
That you must be exactly like them.
I'd forever talk to you,
But soon my words,
They would turn into a meaningless ring.
For deep in my heart
I know there is no help I can bring.
Everything passes,
Everything changes,
Just do what you think you should do.
And someday maybe,
Who knows, baby,
I'll come and be cryin' to you.
Copyright © 1964; renewed 1992 Special Rider Music
Now go back and read it again.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read a poem that has affected me like this is affecting me right now. I don’t know what it is, but it is.
Long before the blogging, long before my days as a record critic, I fancied myself a poet, and no single person inspired my gloriously naïve pretensions of poesie more than this man. Well, maybe Kerouac—I did read On the Road three times in the span of a year and a half. But I spent my entire junior and senior years of high school tangled up in one Dylan record or another, and, while these days, months may pass between spins through his catalog, he’s never left me and never will.
Bobby D. and I have quite a history. The man’s tatted on my arm, foremost. My first inking. It’s a terrible one too, as any of my friends could attest. When I first showed my mom, she thought I was joking, licked her finger and tried to rub it off, before stone-cold flipping out on me. The guy who gave me it? I’ve heard he’s legally blind now. No joke. Yet I made the front page of the entertainment section of the local paper with that shit, my shirt sleeves all hitched up, the better to showcase. I told the reporter I got it so I wouldn’t grow old and jaded.
I couldn’t begin to recount all of my memories that have some connection or another with Dylan. Certainly I recall bonding with the noiseboy over him, ages ago, walkin’ round my conservative town in women’s clothing, with lampshades on our heads, thinkin’ we were being provocative. I remember vividly the first time I saw him in the flesh—April 13th, 1994, at the Civic Center Theatre in Peoria, front row center—I smuggled a tape recorder in my pants and bootlegged the show. And still have the tape.
When I graduated high school, a couple of friends and I took off on a weeklong pilgrimage to the upper reaches of Minnesota to pay homage to the master. Canvassed his hometown of Hibbing, saw his tiny boyhood home, photocopied his yearbook pictures at the public library.
God, I could go on and on, but I’ll spare you the rest. I’m well aware that I’m not the only idealistic young lad to have been shaped and seduced by this man and his work, yet it doesn’t make my connection any less meaningful or relevant.
So thank you, Ramona, for prompting this reverie.
And thank you, Cool Hand Bak, for alerting me to his latest tour dates, in which the Bobster hits the road with Merle muthafuckin’ Haggard! If there’s a show near Colorado, I’m thinkin’ I need to be there.
The Evening Playlist:
Gene Clark – No Other
Ornette Coleman – Crisis
Animal Collective – Sung Tongs
Bob Dylan – Another Side of Bob Dylan
Amon Duul – Paradieswarts Duul
Organisation – Tone Float
posted by Jonathan Wright at 12:39 AM EMAIL POST
