to me this song is right up there as some of Bob's best work, another "masterpiece".....UnforGiven, i like what you had to say about this songs, makes good sense to me.
This song seems to allude to practice an old worn faith (long abandoned) with ocassional prayer (power to heal), on a road with no altars, in a mystic garden where the gardener seems to have disappeared, or is gone - whether for good, or temporarily, we don't know. Is the gardener possibly a reference to Christ (Book of John), who is the 'heavenly aid' even though he knows he's not practicing the faith (fire gone out but light is burnin), in his struggle he is trudging to the edge of his existence, very alone and conflicted, but with a dim...
This song seems to allude to practice an old worn faith (long abandoned) with ocassional prayer (power to heal), on a road with no altars, in a mystic garden where the gardener seems to have disappeared, or is gone - whether for good, or temporarily, we don't know. Is the gardener possibly a reference to Christ (Book of John), who is the 'heavenly aid' even though he knows he's not practicing the faith (fire gone out but light is burnin), in his struggle he is trudging to the edge of his existence, very alone and conflicted, but with a dim hope that there is still a purpose and a possible divine presence, in spite of the absence in the garden (light still burnin in the midst of his own burnin'). Life doesn't get easier as you get older, it's tougher, weirder, more discordant, and he he is not about to be giving answers to make sense of his fatigue. But the only beacons seem to be his enduracne to keep walkin in the midst of sorrow and pain, and the hope that the light won't dim out altogether, which is not a light his own making as I think he's resigned from that option (i.e. self genrated light) by the confessions he makes concerning neightbours and those who have hurt him.
to me this song is right up there as some of Bob's best work, another "masterpiece".....UnforGiven, i like what you had to say about this songs, makes good sense to me.
This song seems to allude to practice an old worn faith (long abandoned) with ocassional prayer (power to heal), on a road with no altars, in a mystic garden where the gardener seems to have disappeared, or is gone - whether for good, or temporarily, we don't know. Is the gardener possibly a reference to Christ (Book of John), who is the 'heavenly aid' even though he knows he's not practicing the faith (fire gone out but light is burnin), in his struggle he is trudging to the edge of his existence, very alone and conflicted, but with a dim...
This song seems to allude to practice an old worn faith (long abandoned) with ocassional prayer (power to heal), on a road with no altars, in a mystic garden where the gardener seems to have disappeared, or is gone - whether for good, or temporarily, we don't know. Is the gardener possibly a reference to Christ (Book of John), who is the 'heavenly aid' even though he knows he's not practicing the faith (fire gone out but light is burnin), in his struggle he is trudging to the edge of his existence, very alone and conflicted, but with a dim hope that there is still a purpose and a possible divine presence, in spite of the absence in the garden (light still burnin in the midst of his own burnin'). Life doesn't get easier as you get older, it's tougher, weirder, more discordant, and he he is not about to be giving answers to make sense of his fatigue. But the only beacons seem to be his enduracne to keep walkin in the midst of sorrow and pain, and the hope that the light won't dim out altogether, which is not a light his own making as I think he's resigned from that option (i.e. self genrated light) by the confessions he makes concerning neightbours and those who have hurt him.