July 26, 2013
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Positively Juarez Revisited: Bob Dylan & Me
OK, this will be my first try at a ‘cross-post’. Yes, it’ll take me ten(10) minutes to perfect on Xanga, and then, if the creeks don’t rise and the poppies bloom, 19 hours on ‘Sword-press-ure’, or whatever they call that demon-site.
Basically, Mr Dylan seems to have had a less than perfect time on a trip South of the Border in the mid-sixties. I figure it’s never too late to revise the lyrics a bit.
For anyone too young to know the original words like the back of his/her hand, I’ll include his pessimistic version verse-by-verse.
Next Challenge, probably after I’m safe in a rest home, is to record my own version and upload it. I’ve sung my words and they work just fine, for meter, rhyme, and rhythm. Something to look forward to, huh?
JS/Lost in tel Aviv
‘Just Like Tom Thumb Blues’When you’re lost in the rain in Juarez And it’s Easter time too
And your gravity fails And negativity don’t pull you through
Don’t put on any airs when you’re down on Rue Morgue Avenue
They got some hungry women there And they really make a mess outta you/GPS on the train to Jaurez, and still on Eastern time too…
Four bars on the lap-top. Positivity, through and through
I’ll be putting on airs by tonight, down on Rue Morgue Avenue…
They got some Hungarian women, who say they’ll ‘Really make a man outa you..’Now if you see Saint Annie Please tell her thanks a lot
I cannot move My fingers are all in a knot
I don’t have the strength To get up and take another shot
And my best friend, my doctor Won’t even say what it is I’ve gotIf you see Saint Annie, please tell her ‘Thanks a lot!’
We both felt the Earth move; I’m thinking maybe tying the knot
Yeah I may have the strength, might even give it another shot.
And as Best man, my Doctor; he’ll surely tell me what a whiz I gotSweet Melinda The peasants call her the Goddess of gloom
She speaks good English And she invites you up into her room
And you’re so kind And careful not to go to her too soon
And she takes your voice And leaves you howling at the moonSweet Melinda, the Pheasants call her the ‘Goddess of Plume’
She speaks good Pidgin, and invites ‘em up into her room
And the hens are so kind, and careful not to lay their eggs too soon
just this one stupid rooster, who insists on crowing at the MoonUp on housing project hill It’s either fortune or fame
You must pick up one or the other Though neither of them are to be what they claim
If you’re lookin’ to get silly You better go back to from where you came
Because the cops don’t need you And man they expect the sameLook up ‘Housing Project Hill dot com…. check out ‘Fortune’ or ‘Fame’
You can choose one or the other, or click-on both; yeah they’re everything they claim
Get as silly as you want to, you can always click ‘Back’ to from where you came
Just say ‘Adios’ to the nice policemen, (they probably already said the same.
Now all the authorities They just stand around and boast
How they blackmailed the sergeant-at-arms Into leaving his post
And picking up angel who Just arrived here from the coast
Who looked so fine at first But left looking just like a ghostNow all of the authorities, they just stand around and boast
How you can e-mail the Sargent of Arms, a perfect man for the post
He’s the Gaurdian Angel of every newbie coming in from the coast
Who arrive looking so scared, and leave gushing ‘Man Ur da most!’I started out on Burgundy But soon hit the harder stuff
Everybody said they’d stand behind me When the game got rough
But the joke was on me There was nobody even there to bluff
I’m going back to New York City I do believe I’ve had enoughWell we started out at Burger-King, soon got their ‘harder stuff’
My friends said they’d watch me try to chew a meal that tough.
But the joke was on them; the Salad Bar was nothing more than fluff.
Still, why go back to new York City, when Mexico is …quite enough?
Comments (21)
Solberg, you tower above the competing beasts like a giraffe in a circus parade, except for the 40 foot whooping crane.
Funny you mention Hungarian women. I wonder if any of them would turn to phrasebooks to try and communicate with the locals.
Perhaps their reputation of making “a man outta you” is misplaced…?
you and Bob could make a song outta anything….
@Lakakalo - Good point. Poetic license both allowed and almost required that I re-create Dylan’s ‘hungry women’. I personally have zero experience with their particular powers, a black hole in my resume which I may sadly never fill.
The solution these days is Google translate. May very well be that their expression has a distinct dual meaning. The buyer be warned.
And thanks for the possibly last ‘tower above’. Somehow I feel like I’ll shortly tower above what’s left of the abandoned New York World’s fair grounds one sees driving out to JFK..
@jsolberg - Still. Towering is towering.
As for the women, I was thinking along the lines of this. http://youtu.be/G6D1YI-41ao
@mlbncsga - One of his gifts is/was air-tight rhythm and rhyme. And in those days we both would have felt a bit silly or bland being anything less than scathing about life. An ‘angry young man’s got a rep to uphold.
In my update I do try to suggest that an I-phone might have helped considerably, ha
@Lakakalo - Ahh yes, a style classic… which I’d never seen. Ha, now all that’s left is to try to maintain that my substitution was a witty cultural reference. Yeah, as Nixon said, I could pull it off. (“But it would be wrong!!”)
Do you remember “Deck Us All With Boston Charlie?” You have a knack for pogo-style lyrics. Walt Kelly would be proud of you.
Both versions are worthy! Consider yourself the Dylan of Xanga!!!
What’s the url for the cross-post? Just askin’.
@we_deny_everything - Ah, yet another hole in my once-expansive grasp of things cultural. Tim Roadkill is also a fan of kelly, but I suppose I was on the wrong drugs when i should have been reading him {Pogo}
Yes, I figured you might know the original, from Highway 51 revisited. It was fun re-stuffing Dylan as a fellow seeing the glass half-full at least.
@elgan - I’ll email the link, soon as the thing ceases to be an embarrassment.
@murisopsis - Well, I do, like him, pretend to have changed religions frequently. On Xanga though, for fun. I worked on fleshing out ‘Gnudism’ for months here a long while ago, posting enough details and bona fides to almost get a tax-free exemption, ha.
Thanks for the compliments/JS
@we_deny_everything - Do listen to this at least this one song on my Audio. I’ve got dozens posted there, all dying a slow quiet death, ha
http://jsolberg.xanga.com/audio/f947f1765356/
Please, please, please add me to the list you will email links to when you feel ready
Even though the world may be going to hell in a handbasket, positivity suits me much better than an angr pose. I love your reinterpretation.
Email me too, please. The race is still on, in my little world, to see which is worse, WP or LJ.
@scifiknitter - I added you, this AM before even coffee, to my ‘contacts’. Your warm thoughts inspire that human desire to respond in kind.
Even though you did cause me to lose two evenings of my life once attempting to understand ‘sailing’. gee, wuz I wrong! I’d thought the wind just pushes the boat from behind. And all the terms are ‘normal’ words, but with a new acquired meaning. God help the newbie, tossed bodily onto the nearest shore out of sheer exasperation, ha
@twoberry - have no fear, brother. Yes, blog-shopping reminds one of the choice between cholera and the plague. And the throes here like hospice care
Oh, my beloved Juaritos!
Next thing you know we’ll be calling you Weird J Solbergvic.
Have you seen Weird Al’s “Bob”?
@Roadkill_Spatula - Yes, ‘Bob’ is a masterpiece; I can only dream of matching.
I do *have* to get it together to record my version though. Not for naught I worked a week, albeit in the back of my mind, to make the words ‘synch’ with the rhythm and rhyme of the “old” version.
And by weird coincidence, i was in Juarez myself probably the time he wrote his. Yeah, with my mom, dad, two sisters and a brother in a Ford Econoline van, gawking at the spanish road signs. No whores for this teen, ha
Thanks for staying alive here, brother Tim
Very nice! An ambitious piece you should be proud of. Makes me see what I’ve been missing.In fact, after browsing here a bit I thought I’d find a young nordic girl to help me press the right buttons on her machinery to transfer a löad of my stuff öntö wörd press. Perhaps it will work. I see this site lööks very xangaesque but my wp site does not. It is all töö much foor me. Try “cabinramblings” as my site and Gelpy Myerding, possibly as gelpymyerding as my nom de plume.