Painting of Bob Dylan, by Richard Day
"We were born before the wind
Also younger than the sun
Ere the bonnie boat was won as we sailed into the mystic
Hark, now hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic"
Born before the wind, we sailed into the mystic. We were enchanted by the music that played its timeless sounds and rhythms, rocked by a raucous sea, and by the sparkling, jangling words of poetry and myth.
"And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burning coal
Pouring off of every page
Like it was written in my soul
From me to you
Tangled up in blue"
"And take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time
Far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees
Out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach
Of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea
Circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate
Driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today
Until tomorrow"
The poet musicians transported us to a place of solace, a haven of wonder, a sanctuary of peace, an oasis of deep love. And yet, they also haunted us with visions of terror, upheaval, dystopia, calamity and chaos. Before the deluge, all along the watchtower, a hard rain's a gonna fall. All these decades later, that same music and poetry still ring true. They stand testament to a time of youthful exuberance and primal innocence seeking an end to wars and civil strife. Our spirit is weathered and worn, remaining intact in pockets of resilience. Collectively, as a generation, we feel blessed by the awakening and traumatized by its evanescence as a zeitgeist, a political and very personal philosophy, a template for living. Not that it failed us, but that we failed it.
We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
There was a fanfare blowing to the sun
That was floating on the breeze.
Look at Mother Nature on the run
In the nineteen seventies.
Woodstock was a music festival held August 15–18, 1969, which attracted an audience of more than 400,000. Billed as "an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music", it was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York, 43 miles southwest of Woodstock. Woodstock was a seminal happening now fifty years ago - half a century in historical terms. A heady mix of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Canned Heat, the Grateful Dead, Santana, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, The Who and, oh, so much more, the event now encapsulates that wild Zeitgeist. My generation. Won't get fooled again.
Years later, the generational shift morphed:
Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools
They would need to make their journey back to nature...
All the people we used to know
They're an illusion to me now
Some are mathematicians
Some are carpenter's wives
Don't know how it all got started
I don't know what they do with their lives
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
... I've seen the future, baby
It is murder
And what'll you do now?...
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
And the executioner's face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
... And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
Where are the present-day voices, the reflective and explosive words to rock us through the night, herald the dawn, and help us negotiate the breaking waves, the jagged and disintegrating reefs of our time? After all, we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.
As a fresh young generation finds its voice:
... and you of tender years
Can't know the fears
That your elders grew by
And so please help
Them with your youth
They seek the truth
Before they can die
Teach your parents well
The children's hell
Will slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick
The one you'll know by
Don't you ever ask them why
If they told you, you would cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you
