Every hundred years or so, it seems the world produces a poet that represents the soul of an entire social movement. It seems that baton was passed to Bob Dylan, the famous folk singer turned rock legend. When I grew up, I disliked Bob Dylan but then one day I was travelling on a long road home and could only get one radio station. This station had an interview with a historian cataloging social movements in the 1960s. One segment featured Bob Dylan, and so for the first time I actually listened to one of his songs. From that point on I became a fan of both the words, but also the music. My absolute favorite is called Chimes of Freedom, which Dylan supposedly wrote while on a road trip across the country. They say he was heavily influenced by the tragic french poet Arthur Rimbaud and his use of symbolism. That maybe true, but regardless the feeling depicted by two people ducking into a doorway while taking shelter from a lightning storm is an incredible and genius way of expressing what a country based on freedom means for those that are less fortunate. This is the next poet in my list this week of poets that I am grateful for.
Chimes of Freedom by Bob Dylan
Far between sundown’s finish and midnight’s broken toll
We ducked inside the doorways, thunder went crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seemin’ to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
And for each and every underdog soldier in the night
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Through the city’s melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden as the walls were tightening
As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin’ rain
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, they abandoned and forsaked
Tolling for the outcast, burning constantly at stake
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leavin’ only bells of lightning and its thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
And the poet and the painter far behind his rightful time
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
And the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for-granted situations
Tolling for the deaf and blind, tolling for the mute
For the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chained and cheated by pursuit
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flared
And the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from driftin’
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
And for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Starry-eyed and laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time and we watched with one last look
Spellbound and swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse
And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashin’
