I'll put flowers at your feet,
And I will sing to you so sweet,
And hope my words will carry home to your heart.
You left us marching on the road,
And said how heavy was the load -
The years were young, the struggle barely at its start.
Do you hear the voices in the night, Bobby
They're crying for you
See the children in the mrning light, Bobby
They're dying
No one could say it like you said it;
We'd only try and just forget it.
You sood alone upon the mountain 'til it was sinking,
And in a frenczy we tried to reach you
With looks and letters we would beseech you -
Never knowing what, where or how you were thinking.
Do you hear the voices in the night, Bobby
They're crying for you
See the children in the morning light, Bobby
They're dying
Perhaps the pictures in the Times
Could no longer be put in rhymes,
When all the eyes of starving children are wide open.
You cast aside the cursed crown,
And put your magic into a sound
That made me think your heart was aching, or even broken
But if God hears my complaint He will forgive you,
And so will I, in all respect, I'll just relive you
And likewise you must understand the things we give you:
Like these flowers at yur door,
And scribbled notes about the war.
We're only saying that time is short and there is work to do.
And we're stilll marching on the streets
With little victories and big defeats,
But there is joy, and there is hope, and there's a place for you.
Do you hear the voices in the night, Bobby
They're crying for you
See the children in the morning light, Bobby
They're dying
And I will sing to you so sweet,
And hope my words will carry home to your heart.
You left us marching on the road,
And said how heavy was the load -
The years were young, the struggle barely at its start.
They're crying for you
See the children in the mrning light, Bobby
They're dying
We'd only try and just forget it.
You sood alone upon the mountain 'til it was sinking,
And in a frenczy we tried to reach you
With looks and letters we would beseech you -
Never knowing what, where or how you were thinking.
They're crying for you
See the children in the morning light, Bobby
They're dying
Could no longer be put in rhymes,
When all the eyes of starving children are wide open.
You cast aside the cursed crown,
And put your magic into a sound
That made me think your heart was aching, or even broken
And so will I, in all respect, I'll just relive you
And likewise you must understand the things we give you:
And scribbled notes about the war.
We're only saying that time is short and there is work to do.
And we're stilll marching on the streets
With little victories and big defeats,
But there is joy, and there is hope, and there's a place for you.
They're crying for you
See the children in the morning light, Bobby
They're dying
Add your song meanings, interpretations, facts, memories & more to the community.
i've never heard this song, but i'll bet you it's about bob dylan.
yeah, about bob. its about the times when the activists were walking the streets, protesting against the war. the reference to the mountain- bob standing as saviour/comforter/the one who sees in a light that he wants us to see and follow too? The 3rd verse gives me a picture of bob writing lyrics to the feelings that are deeply affecting him, of what he sees in the news about the ongoing war, and he realises no more can be said when you see the images of the results and effects of war on the wider community of the countries being blasted away, especially the children of war. And the songs written were so full of his heart, and everybody else could feel it to.
i think this song is about bob dylan but in a different way - joan baez has said how she tried to get dylan involved in her causes but he was more concentrated on his personal career. i understand this song as criticism to him - he made everyone believe that he cared but he didnt: "That made me think your heart was aching, or even broken But if God hears my complaint He will forgive you"
Joan knows that the people want to hear dylan and they want to follow him. he was the best at that. but he didnt care as much as she did.
@midnight_listener Dylan did really care - at first. Then he came to the conclusion that doing so was a mistake, and he wrote "My Back Pages" to say so.
@midnight_listener Dylan did really care - at first. Then he came to the conclusion that doing so was a mistake, and he wrote "My Back Pages" to say so.
I bought a Joan Baez album in Cambridge MA the winter of 1973-4. I thought it was about Bobby Kennedy. It sounded like it could be about someone who had died.
Curiously, in late USSR (1970-1980) there was a Bob Dylan follower Boris Grebenschikov, who had been vaguely revolutionary in his songs, distributed unofficially - but then, under Gorbachev-Yeltsin-Putin, he became published, rich, still avant-gardist, but politically over-conformist dinosaur. When I hear this song, I think of "the Great BG", who used to mean so much and now is so little.
i think bob was afraid toshow he cared because he knows like the rest of us that wars will never cease to exist and he would feel like a failure for rallying against it (and other human rights causes) because they would still be there. joan is such a beautiful person i read her biography and i have such a new appreciation for her music and her