"the times they are a-changin": Bob Dylan, 1963/1964

"the order is rapidly fadin And the first one now Will later be last For the times they are a-changin"
Bob Dylan, 1963/1964

so we thought. but now look.
yes, Jim Crow laws are gone but racism is alive and well; women want to be droids like Barbie, clicking along in those shoes whose points rival the Empire State Building's antenna and money is the coin of men, men who can buy anything and their deity is sports

Diogenes where are you? Searching for an honest man were you not? Is that why you became a Cynic, you old dog.

"Tangled up in Blue" : Bob Dylan

the first is too literal, the second is the "idea," perhaps


1975, "Blood on the Tracks"

"Well the future for me is already a thing of the past" Bob Dylan

line from Bye and By

"Well the future is already a thing of the past
You were my first love and you will be my last"

"blowin in the wind" Bob Dlan, variant 2

"blowin in the wind" Bob Dylan

what to do with Dylan's texts? translate? but translate how? literallly? metaphorically? by a sensation excited in the person listening, in me to be precise? I have thought about this problem for some time and it seems that there is no one "way." Some images may work, but then dim, they lose their lustre/luster; others are seemingly compelling, but do they really correspond to "the idea"?

The idea is a moving target, witness the variations that Dylan extracts from the original text and the initial rendering of the music. While the text remains intact apparently, sound does not. Tempi, inflections, musicians, and so forth change over time and each change inspires new reflections and responses. She ages, he ages; the musician is not petrified nor is the listener--we hope--but living causes change and its effects are apparent in accumulated residues, in strata. And so it will be for those who hear a piece of music for the first time.

Translation is not the thing itself. a visual artist drawing a mountain does not move the mountain to the paper; she does not move the sitter to the canvas. Translation is a re-presentation of observation and perception, of idea above all. First came the idea or was it first came the sensation or first came a color or a note?

To take the line I selected, one that is beyond reproach, that is iconic, is so very difficult.
What agency set the choice in motion; it was a natural form observed. Nothing should be made of the choice of this plant. The image is not a translation but one of innumerable ways of translating this phrase. while it may work for me today, I do not know if I will perceive it the same way at a future date. Time alone will authenticate it or not.

a change in the weather is known to be extreme: Bob Dylan

Little Rooster Crowing: Bob Dylan imagined

Spinning Time: Happy Birthday Bob Dylan, one day late

"i am sorry too" heard as" I was savaged too"

the heart pierced, again

The Weaponry of Nature: behind every beautiful face . . .