| Bob Dylan – When the Ship Comes In Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
Surprised that in three pages work of comments, nobody has mentioned the lyrical inspiration for this, the "Pirate Jenny" song from Brecht and Weill's Threepenny Opera. That's about a hotel maid who dreams of the day a pirate ship comes in and kills all the people who have abused her over the years. The immediate inspiration of the hotel room may or may not be true, but it's obvious to me that the sentiments are just as much rooted in "Pirate Jenny" than anywhere else. Dave Van Ronk brought Brecht and Weill songs to the Village Folk Revival and Dylan most certainly knew about the song. I believe Dylan even mentions it in his autobiography as a general songwriting influence. |
|
| Bob Dylan – Only a Pawn in Their Game Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
Aaron3ous is correct. Dylan's analysis wasn't particularly new in academia - it was the Marxist standpoint for a very long time (rich people use racial divisions to distort class conflict), but this was pretty original in terms of putting this sentiment in art. I think fewer academics subscribe to this theory now, though. Newer works look at the ways in which white workers themselves inscribed meaning in their whiteness. In the context of the summer of 1963, it was very important to put this statement out there by the New Left. |
|
| Phil Ochs – Doesn't Lenny Live Here Anymore Lyrics | 14 years ago |
|
Phil wrote this song soon after Lenny Bruce died, possibly performing it for the first time in October 1966. Lenny Bruce accidentally killed himself via overdose, but Phil still used it as inspiration. Obviously the song switches times, counting down the final days of a suicidal man's life in the verses and the discovery by a former lover of this fact. There are a couple of additional verses that didn't make the studio recording, for fairly good reason, as they're pretty messy. The deep sea diver ignores the shark-skinned warning And the empty mailbox chews on your hand every morning The buzzards bend to fly, and you don't know why And the tears cannot appear so you can cry away The haggard ex-lover of a long-time loser Standing rejectedly by your door Doesn't Lenny live here anymore? Are you sure? Fiddler takes a sniff and picks up the fiddle As you race from wall to wall, stumble down in the middle Such a shadow scene from your movie dream When the silence of the load explodes the screen And the haggard ex-lover of a long-time loser Stands rejectedly by your door Doesn't Lenny live here anymore? Are you sure? The 3rd and 4th lines of that second verse actually went with the "You swore you'd store..." verse, though, with that verses 3rd and 4th lines with the "fiddler" verse. |
|
| Phil Ochs – Flower Lady Lyrics | 14 years ago |
|
This is actually based on a real person, a flower lady who used to habit the Greenwich Village coffee houses at which Phil and his buddies played. She never spoke a word to anyone - just walked in to a place like the Gaslight and went from table to table selling her flowers. It was pretty typical of the folkniks at the time to snicker at her, and I think this was a reaction by Phil to that experience, possibly a couple of years after the fact (written in the second half of 1965). Suze Rotolo mentions her in her memoir, A Freewheelin' Time. |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.