Another Night, Another Message...

Getting a good night's sleep, restful and restorative, has become a bit of a crap-shoot, the luck of the draw. There's a good chance that when I awake, my bed will look like a war-zone.  Lately, my nights seem as eventful as my days. I chalk it up to the pandemic, we are rounding up to nearly one year of "home arrest," laying low, hanging out at home, trying our best to hide from our fellow humans and the deadly virus.

Days blend into days, nights blend into nights, days blend into nights. It's all one experience. My days and nights are an adventure, even though my day to day existence isn't all that adventurous. Just staying alive, not falling down, not coming down ill, not losing hope, not turning to despair, is an adventure.

So, anyway, Dylan came to me last night. His great song, "I and I" rolled around in my head. A voice in the dark, that grizzled, expressive, Old Testament voice reverberated in my head. A song from his great record, "Infidels" (1983). I haven't played it in a long time now. So this was a blast from the past. Alive in my warring mind in the middle of a deep sleep. 

"Infidels" is a strange record, a rare beast in Dylan's long, astonishing catalog. Post-Evangelical. Recorded after the Christian/Gospel trilogy of records. Back to a bit less preachy, more mysterious & enigmatic song-writing. Dylan in fine voice. A fabulous, and pretty weird band: Sly Dunbar on drums, Robbie Shakespeare on bass, Mick Taylor and Mark Knopfler on guitars. They rock hard. Two stone-cold classic songs: "Jokerman" and "I and I."

I'm spinning the record this a.m. It's like an old friend that I haven't heard from in awhile. Dylan's voice, his intelligence, his wit and insight nearly always takes my breath away. Such a brilliant mind and man. Anyway, another night, another song in my head, another cryptic message. What's it's all mean? Hmmm...

"Think I'll go out and go for a walk

Not much happenin' here, nothin' ever does

Besides, if she wakes up now, she'll just want me to talk

I got nothin' to say, 'specially about whatever was

I and I, in creation where one's nature neither honors nor forgives

I and I, one say to the other, no man sees my face and lives

Took an untrodden path once, where the swift don't win the race

It goes to the worthy, who can divide the word of truth

Took a stranger to teach me, to look into justice's beautiful face

And to see an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth

I and I, in creation where one's nature neither honors nor forgives

I and I, one say to the other, no man sees my face and lives"

- Bob Dylan