You could say Bob is back on everything – including a roll!
Yep, at almost 80 Bob is still rolling out a new catalogue of hits.
After the shock release on the internet of Murder Most Foul, the enigmatic rock hero of two centuries then dropped I Contain Multitudes on a world in lock-down.
And I’ve just been listening to it again… I love it, it is another ruminative beautiful gravely clock-ticking mixture of hip memories, a trip through Americana and a sad love song.
He rumbles … Today, tomorrow and yesterday too
The flowers are dying
Like all things do
And he refers to a quaint element of his live performances … I fuss with my hair
And I fight blood feuds
I contain multitudes
He also recognises Edgar Allan Poe … Got a tell-tale heart
like Mr Poe
Got skeletons in the wall
of people you know
But obviously, the main debt is to Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself which is an eponymous work of power and beauty – and made in the folk tradition of ‘the borrowers’. But isn’t that what all writers, artists, performers, athletes and humans generally do? Borrow something, a word, a thought, an ambition, a decision, something that moves you?
And here Dylan does is brilliantly.
Here is the full lyric:
I CONTAIN MULTITUDES
Today, tomorrow, and yesterday, too
The flowers are dyin’ like all things do
Follow me close, I’m going to Balian Bali
I’ll lose my mind if you don’t come with me
I fuss with my hair, and I fight blood feuds
I contain multitudes
Got a tell-tale heart, like Mr. Poe
Got skeletons in the walls of people you know
I’ll drink to the truth and the things we said
I’ll drink to the man that shares your bed
I paint landscapes, and I paint nudes
I contain multitudes
Red Cadillac and a black moustache
Rings on my fingers that sparkle and flash
Tell me, what’s next? What shall we do?
Half my soul, baby, belongs to you
I relic and I frolic with all the young dudes
I contain multitudes
I’m just like Anne Frank, like Indiana Jones
And them British bad boys, The Rolling Stones
I go right to the edge, I go right to the end
I go right where all things lost are made good again
I sing the songs of experience like William Blake
I have no apologies to make
Everything’s flowing all at the same time
I live on the boulevard of crime
I drive fast cars, and I eat fast foods
I contain multitudes
Pink petal-pushers, red blue jeans
All the pretty maids, and all the old queens
All the old queens from all my past lives
I carry four pistols and two large knives
I’m a man of contradictions, I’m a man of many moods
I contain multitudes
You greedy old wolf, I’ll show you my heart
But not all of it, only the hateful part
I’ll sell you down the river, I’ll put a price on your head
What more can I tell you? I sleep with life and death in the same bed
Get lost, madame, get up off my knee
Keep your mouth away from me
I’ll keep the path open, the path in my mind
I’ll see to it that there’s no love left behind
I’ll play Beethoven’s sonatas, and Chopin’s preludes
I contain multitudes
#bobdylan #hisroyalboness #multitudes #80 #roughandrowdy
