Bruce Cockburn's "Pacing the Cage": I Hear Rilke Echoes

Photo by mana5280 on Unsplash

Driving home from the pharmacy last night I was listening to The North 103.3 when a song came on that compelled me to listen. Each verse ended with the line "pacing the cage." The accompaniment was haunting and, for me, it brought to mind Rilke's The Panther. As the song was ending I was just pulling into my driveway. The radio host, thankfully, shared the title of the song and its creator, Bruce Cockburn.

As soon as I got in the house I looked to see if the song were on YouTube. After finding it I listened again while looking online for the lyrics. Then I listened yet again.

* * * * *

The power of Rainer Maria Rilke's The Panther is that it becomes a metaphor that most of us can relate to. It is a poignant portrait of something magnificent that has become impotent after being caged. There are all manner of ways in which we can become caged. How that affects us may not readily be recognized. When the loss of freedom becomes the loss of hope, we are doomed.

The Panther

His vision from the passing of the bars
is grown so weary that it holds no more.
To him it seems there are a thousand bars
and behind a thousand bars no world.

The padding gait of flexibly strong strides,
that in the very smallest circle turns,
is like a dance of strength around a center
in which stupefied a great will stands.

Only sometimes the curtain of the pupil
soundless parts--. Then an image enters,
goes through the tensioned stillness of the limbs
--and in the heart ceases to be.

* * * * 

It is against this backdrop, Rilke's Panther, that I share Bruce Cockburn's poignant piece.

Pacing the Cage

Sunset is an angel weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it's pointing toward
Sometimes you feel like you live too long
Days drip slowly on the page
You catch yourself
Pacing the cage

I've proven who I am so many times
The magnetic strip's worn thin
And each time I was someone else
And every one was taken in
Powers chatter in high places
Stir up eddies in the dust of rage
Set me to pacing the cage

I never knew what you all wanted
So I gave you everything
All that I could pillage
All the spells that I could sing
It's as if the thing were written
In the constitution of the age
Sooner or later you'll wind up
Pacing the cage

Sometimes the best map will not guide you
You can't see what's round the bend
Sometimes the road leads through dark places
Sometimes the darkness is your friend
Today these eyes scan bleached-out land
For the coming of the outbound stage
Pacing the cage
Pacing the cage

© Rotten Kiddies Music Llc, Bro N Sis Music Inc

* * * * 

Here's the song on YouTube so you can appreciate the mood it creates.

URL:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNIFFZBfewo

According to Wikipedia, Bruce Cockburn was born three days after Bob Dylan's fourth birthday, May 27, 1945. Like Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, Cockburn is a Canadian-born singer/songwriter and guitarist. He's written more than 350 songs for 34 albums.

For poetry lovers, here's a web page that has assembled a variety of alternative translations for Rilke's Der Panther. Enjoy! http://www.thebeckoning.com/poetry/rilke/rilke3.html

Looks Like I Have To Buy Another Dylan CD Set

Many of my blog readers know I am a long, longtime listener to KUMD’s Highway 61 Revisited program hosted by John Bushey. Two features of Bushey’s Saturday evening program make it especially worthwhile. First, he has such a vast collection of live and rare recordings of live Dylan concerts and studio outtakes that never went public. And second, he frequently intersperses Dylan’s takes with variations performed or recorded by other artists.

One of the most frequent sources of such recordings is the 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration that Neil Young called BobFest just before weighing in on his own interpretation of All Along The Watchtower. (For anyone to tackle Watchtower after Hendrix slammed it out of the park is a gutsy move that says much about Neil Young.) The event brought together an incredible collection of hall of fame caliber artist/superstars including including Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, Lou Reed, The Clancy Brothers, Richie Havens, Johnny Winter, Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Ron Wood, Chrissie Hynde, The O'Jays, Eddie Vedder, Sinead O'Connor, Tracy Chapman, George Harrison and more.

I mention all this because yesterday my inbox included an email from BobDylan.com noting that on March 4, a new deluxe 2-CD set capturing this special evening of music and affirmation is being released. If you prefer, you can purchase a more comprehensive Blu-Ray version that includes 40 minutes of previously unreleased material from that event including backstage rehearsals, the concert’s sound check, Sinead O’Connor singing "I Believe In You" and Eric Clapton's interpretation of "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright."

Here's the full lineup...

Disc 1
1. Like a Rolling Stone - John Mellencamp
2. Leopard-skin Pill-box Hat - John Mellencamp
3. Introduction by Kris Kristofferson
4. Blowin' in the Wind - Stevie Wonder
5. Foot of Pride - Lou Reed
6. Masters of War - Eddie Vedder & Mike McCready
7. The Times They Are a-Changin' - Tracy Chapman
8. Introduction by Kris Kristofferson
9. It Ain't Me Babe - June Carter Cash & Johnny Cash
10. What Was It You Wanted - Willie Nelson
11. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight - Kris Kristofferson
12. Highway 61 Revisited - Johnny Winter
13. Seven Days - Ron Wood
14. Just Like a Woman - Richie Havens
15. When the Ship Comes In - The Clancy Brothers and Robbie O'Connell with special guest Tommy Makem
16. Introduction by Johnny Cash
17. You Ain't Goin' Nowhere Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Rosanne Cash & Shawn Colvin
18. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (Rehearsal - October 15, 1992) - Eric Clapton

Disc: 2
1. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues - Neil Young
2. All Along the Watchtower - Neil Young
3. I Shall Be Released - Chrissie Hynde
4. Don't Think Twice, It s All Right - Eric Clapton
5. Emotionally Yours - The O'Jays
6. When I Paint My Masterpiece - The Band
7. Absolutely Sweet Marie - George Harrison
8. License to Kill - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
9. Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
10. Mr. Tambourine Man - Roger McGuinn
11. It's Alright, Ma (I m Only Bleeding) - Bob Dylan
12. My Back Pages - Bob Dylan, Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Eric Clapton & George Harrison
13. Knockin' on Heaven s Door - Everyone 14. Girl from the North Country - Bob Dylan
15. I Believe in You (Afternoon Rehearsal - October 16, 1992) - Sinead O Connor

February has 28 days this year, so... by my count we're 40 days away. "Time passes slowly..."

On the Home Front, don't forget tonight's opening for the Duluth Art Institute Membership Show at the Depot, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.  

Featured Ed Newman Book-of-the-Week: Unremembered Histories.

Talkin' Neil and Bob with Bill Maxwell of Cowboy Angel Blue

Earlier this fall I heard some people from the Duluth Dylan Days team talking with unrestrained enthusiasm about a group that was playing in Superior called Cowboy Angel Blue. I was out of town that weekend, and as luck would have it, the following month I was again out of town on other business. This past week I was reminded that John Bushey, host of KUMD's Highway 61 Revisited, and some others would be heading to VIP Pizza on Tower Avenue in Superior to hear Cowboy Angel Blue as they were back in town. This time, I had the good fortune of checking in and checking them out. I was not disappointed.

Bill Maxwell under the lights.

Their first set began with I Walk the Line and included a whole lot of Neil Young and Dylan favorites including Old Man, You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go, Ramona, Heart of Gold, Forever Young and Buckets of Rain among others. At which point I stopped my note taking and just enjoyed the music.

James Paavala, who has been a cement finisher much of his career, now makes music for a living. Bill Maxwell, originally from Fargo, is an attorney by day in Virginia, MN.

Ennyman: How long has Cowboy Angel Blue been performing together? And tell us a little about the band.
Bill Maxwell: James Paavala and and I have been playing together since late fall 2003--a bar owner in Virginia asked if her two favorite guitar players/singers could play together one night. It went well with no rehearsal--we knew a lot of the songs we both did and started playing jobs as they came up. We didn't start calling ourselves Cowboy Angel Blue until about a year or two later--I was playing benefits and church services with another group called Bill Maxwell and Friends (not my idea for the name). I wanted a way to distinguish the two groups which has not been entirely successful to this day.

James has a unique lead/rhythm style that sounds very full and lively and I believe fits well with what we do. About 7 years ago, John Ely joined us on steel guitar and plays with us when the money is there for a 3 piece. John is a world class steel guitarist (toured with Asleep at the Wheel for over 8 years) who is very versatile on the steel--can play it as a bass/rhythm instrument as well as a solo instrument.

EN: Where does the name Cowboy Angel Blue come from?
Bill Max: I first came in contact with the name Cowboy Angel Blue from Dylan's book "Tarantula" which I believe is the title of a chapter in that book. Later I became aware of a bootleg album of his called "Cowboy Angel Blues." Something about those words together caught my fancy and I had it in my head that if I ever had the right group I would like it to be called Cowboy Angel Blue. (I remember discussions at some point in my life regarding the phonoaesthetics of the words "cellar door" and it seems Cowboy Angel Blue had some hold over me for a similar reason.

EN: Why the fascination with sharing Neil Young and Bob Dylan songs?
Bill Max: I think the fascination with Neil Young and Bob Dylan comes from the songs both these artists have created. They evoke in us performing them -- and to the right audience listening -- a shared experience, thought or emotion that affirms what we consider to be important as being human.

EN: You must get asked this a lot: what is your favorite Dylan album?
Bill Max: My favorite Dylan album is "Blood on the Tracks"- and in general I like his songs about relationships and dealing with or observing inevitable change in life--be it love, art, politics, or religion.

James Paavala (left) does some nice work on the blues harp as well.

EN: Dylan songs that most significantly speak to you personally would include...
Bill Max: The songs of Dylan that speak to me as I write this are You're a Big Girl Now, My Back Pages, Tangled Up in Blue, Tomorrow is a Long Time, Desolation Row (MTV unplugged version), Shelter from Storm, Sweetheart Like You, I and I, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, All Along Watchtower, Idiot Wind, Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again.

EN: When’s your next gig in the Twin Ports? 
Bill Max: Upcoming dates around Duluth are...
December 27--Beaners w/John Ely and Bill Bulinksi on bass/guitar (birthday party for Lisa Radosovich Craig) 7-10pm
December 28--Players, 8-12pm
VIP Pizza-Superior: January 24, February 14, March 14, April 11, and May 9; 8-11pm

EdNote: Mark your calendars and check 'em out. 

Authenticity: Who Are You, Really?

“How slow and slow and slow it goes to mend the tear the always shows…” ~Neil Young

I woke this morning with a theory about the people who write books about Bob Dylan. Upon waking I riffed through the bibliography sections of Robert Shelton's No Direction Home (current bedtime reading) and Lee Marshall's book that I finished last week. One of the titles that caught my attention in Marshall's bibliography was a book by David Boyle titled Authenticity: Brands, Fakes, Spin and the Lust for Real Life. It brought to mind book concept I once outlined 15 years ago titled Boomer, Do You Know Who You Are?

My book for the baby boom generation was intended to be an antidote to some of the maladies friends of mine and I had noticed in our peers (and ourselves): a feeling of superficiality and fakiness, of having to play games; creeping deadness... lack of enthusiasm for life, work, etc.; aimlessness, lack of direction; weakness, helplessness to change situations, powerlessness; aware that we are not changing the world, our lack of social impact.

In response to these I'd hoped to strike a chord and re-affirm the ideals our generation once professed way back when: Authenticiy, Passion (Motivation, Enthusiasm), Purposefulness, Personal Power, Social Consciousness.

Boyle's book focuses only on the first of these, in a comprehensive manner that dissects everything. What's amusing to me is the opening line of the book's overview at Amazon.com:

"David Boyle guides us through the next big thing in Western living -- the determined rejection of the fake, the virtual, the spun and the mass-produced, in the search for authenticity."  

To call "Authenticity" the "next big thing" is to have forgotten what the Sixties was all about. Young people were realizing that their perceptions about how things are was being crafted. Have we come full circle?

As far as being authentic ourselves -- authentic to who we really are -- it's not as easy as it appears. Two decades ago I participated in a Meyers-Briggs personality workshop at a company where I formerly worked and learned a lot about how differently we are wired in many fundamental ways. As anyone who knows me knows, I am an extrovert, but in one exercise where I was to solve a problem with four other extroverts I became more introverted. Being thus out of sync with myself made me uncomfortable. What it also showed me is that who we are is often determined by context.

Since who and what we are seems to be in flux and is to some extent defined by our relationships, this may be why our lives sometimes feel like a quest to find relationships that bring out the best in us. Not every relationship or set of circumstances does this.

If we step back to the big picture, there's a historical context, a genealogical context and a global context worth noting... and then there's DNA and the imago dei. That's a whole 'nuther story.

I'm still looking forward to reading Boyle's book.