Dylan Lines for Our Covid Times

This spring I was planning to write about the song "The Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar" because sometime in the past year I saw another "Top 50 Dylan Songs" and this song was on that list. That intrigued me because I have seen seemingly dozens of Top Dylan Songs lists and can't ever recall this tune from Shot of Love being included. It is, however, a real rocker and does indeed have a nice intensity. 

Last night when I was reading through the lyrics at the Bob Dylan site, I noticed that the words there did not match the lyrics as I remembered them (the ones implanted in my head from countless listenings.) So I went and played the song while reading the lyrics there. Sure enough, he twiddled some lines in several of the choruses. 

Ironically, what threw me off from writing about the song earlier this year was this lline here: 

Put your hand on my head babe, do I have a temperature?

It's a pandemic type of line. All over the world there are places where people are taking monitoring other peoples' temps. My brother-in-law said they measured the temperatures on his forehead before he could go into the market, (or was it a school where he taught) in Thailand.

This led to me assembling some other lines for our Covid times. 

The song title "Things Have Changed" can certainly be applied to 2020. Especially these lines from the chorus: People are crazy, times are strange

Speaking of change, the chorus of this classic is still relevant: The times, they are a-changin'

The title of his 2003 film was Masked and Anonymous. Was it a prophecy?

Then there's this line from "Visions of Johanna" that applies to the lockdown and especially it's impact on people who were traveling this spring and couldn't get home.

We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it.

The Apocalyptic "All Along the Watchtower" begins with a nod to our strange times:

“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief

From that same album (John Wesley Harding) we have yet another relevant song. With so many people being laid off, there have no doubt been many appeals like this one:

Dear landlord
Please don’t dismiss my case I’m not about to argue I’m not about to move to no other place

On Love and Theft the song "Sugar Baby" has a line that is totally relevant here:

You always got to be prepared but you never know for what

Life can sometimes hit you like a roundhouse right. You really don't see it coming.

The opening stanza from that same song has always be a favorite, and also applies.

I got my back to the sun ’cause the light is too intense I can see what everybody in the world is up against You can’t turn back—you can’t come back, sometimes we push too far One day you’ll open up your eyes and you’ll see where we are

Are you a snowbird who goes South for the winter? This is a warning from "Slow Train Coming":

You could die down here and be just another accident statistic.

This may be out of context but it applies, as well. 

I can make it all match up, I can hold my own
I can deal with the situation right down to the bone
I can survive, I can endure...

Most of the time

How about you?

OK, that's enough. Most of these are off the cuff. Have you had any lines especially jump to mind this year? 

The Empty Space, Part 1

Short Story Monday. I've still not decided what the right length for a a story should be on a blogspot. Nor have I decided whether it is best to build the setup and link to the rest of the story elsewhere. This morning I will evade making a permanent decision and set down for you here the intro to something of a haunted house story, except it is a haunted apartment. Enjoy...

The Empty Space

I heard this story from Stuart M----, caretaker of an apartment complex on Stevens Square in South Minneapolis in the early 80's when I made my living as a painting contractor. After a fire in one of the buildings Dennis, my painting partner, and I spent quite a few of weeks there painting walls, ceilings, stairwells and doors. On the surface the likeable and loquacious Stu appears eager to engage in the typical banter one expects from those elaborately involved with a public. I soon perceived that this was all an act and thereafter I determined to respect his privacy.

At the end of a particularly busy week I was washing out paint rollers and brushes in the laundry room when Stu came in. "You got plans for dinner?" he asked. It surprised me, though I appreciated his thoughtfulness. I assumed it was because he was lonely. His wife was out of town. Having no other plans I felt inclined to accept the offer. Dennis had taken off early to go camping with his family or something like that.

At some point during the meal Stu told me his wife had taken a one year journalism position in St. Louis in order to get newspaper experience. He made contradictory remarks about her absence, saying that it felt good to be alone, and then again saying that he missed her terribly.

Over dinner we shared a bottle of wine, and through the course of the evening a second. It was late when I realized the evening had fled. He asked me not to leave. I reminded him that it was almost midnight and made a lame joke about turning into a pumpkin. He said he had something he needed to talk about.

Evidently he had wanted to be certain about me before he could share what was really on his heart. Perhaps the wine added to his courage. As near as I can reproduce it, this is the story Stuart told that night. To my shame I pretended to believe every word.

Stuart's story:

I owe the discovery of the 'empty space' to the death of my father. Within a week after the funeral I began searching for an apartment in South Minneapolis to be near my ailing mom and came upon an available efficiency just off Hennepin in the Uptown district.

While the manager was showing the room I asked questions. He spoke in short, dramatic bursts in a manner I found unsettling, so I probed more deeply and learned that the apartment had been let to at least four tenants in the previous year. When he asked me to sign a year's lease, I was surprised that four successive tenants would break that kind of a contract. You can tell how badly I wanted the place since I went ahead anyways. Later I learned that as many as six tenants had occupied the apartment that year.

The efficiency was located in one of those old-fashioned buildings built in the 1890's with exaggerated baseboards, a murphy bed, and ten layers of wallpaper. While moving in I learned from a woman across the hallway that the room was haunted. When I asked in what way, the lady couldn't explain.

"Is it ghosts? Was someone murdered here?"

She said that wasn't it, but didn't offer any more than that.

The very first night I became aware of it but didn't know what it was. After all the commotion of moving in I put the radio on till late, pulled the bed out of the wall and turned in. It's a downtown apartment complex, so one expects a certain amount of noise. While lying in bed I kept hearing the sound of a breeze blowing, crickets, and the rustling of leaves. What was strange about all this is that the windows were closed. Furthermore, there were no trees alongside the apartment building. The nearest tree is across the square. The noise seemed as if it were right there in the room.

I was too exhausted to investigate the source of the sound and fell off into a deep sleep. The following morning I was awakened by the singing of birds and the loud cawing of a crow. I sat up with alarm, again noting that the windows were closed. The birdsongs came from somewhere within the room. It was as if there were a speaker in the room playing one of those nature recordings. I was confused, walking about from here to there in my small space, unable to see anything, but clearly recognizing that the noises were vividly present. Upon more serious investigation I was able to determine that the sound was most prominent in a region approximately two feet from the ceiling and three feet
from the corner furthest from the bed.

Throughout the day I told myself it was not too late to break the contract and find another place, but I demurred. A week passed. Occasionally I heard the lowing of cattle. On other occasions the voice of a woman. Once I heard children playing a game. Several times the distant barking of a dog. Most of the time it was the wind, and a few birds. Early evenings, the cattle. After nightfall, the crickets.

I consulted with a friend who believes in all kinds of strange phenomenon. He was an avid sci fi fan and had all those Frank Edwards books like Stranger Than Science, things like that. I told him it seemed as if there were a microphone somewhere picking up sounds and projecting them into my room. He found it 'interesting.'

I wouldn't tell my mother about the room. She doesn't like things she can't control or explain.

Occasionally I would catch my neighbor across the hall studying me. She was watching to see when I would start acting funny. The old man next door also asked how I felt about the room. I got that fishbowl feeling about my neighbors and it made me want to withdraw.

While doing laundry, a white-haired lady from the third floor said that she heard I had the room with the empty space in it. I asked what an 'empty space' was and she said she didn't know. That's just what she was told it was called.

I consulted with my friend again -- Michael Tucci is his name -- and asked what an 'empty space' is. He said he'd talk to a woman who works at the food co-op. 'She's into all that occult stuff,' he said. 'If it's weird she's into it.'

CONTINUED NEXT WEEK ON SHORT STORY MONDAY