CHIMES OF FREEDOM...Dylan...WAR in the 60's/70's...What Were They Thinking? Ahead of His Time!
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="
?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Chimes of Freedom Lyrics
from Another Side Of Bob Dylan
http://www.metrolyrics.com/chimes-of-freedom-lyrics-bob-dylan.html
ther Side Of Bob Dylan
Far between sundown's finish an' midnight's broken toll
We ducked inside the doorways, thunder went crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming 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, the abandoned and forsaken
Tolling for the outcast burnin' 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
Leaving 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
In the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For the 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 flashed
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 drifting
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 hang suspended
As we listened one last time and we watched with one last look
Spellbound and swallowed till 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 flashing
http://www.metrolyrics.com/chimes-of-freedom-lyrics-bob-dylan.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Days? Even my Bookmarked Faves....end up with Commercials.
I'm not as savvy as many Techie DU'ers...to find the correct "Embed" to get a You Tube to Play on DU... I often put three or more and try to see what works.
Anyway...that Said....I had a friend in NYC who was a huge Dylan Fan way back...and my ambitions at that point in my life diverged from hers at that time. But, her love for Dylan has come back to me. I don't know where she is at this point in her life...but I would want to do a TOAST to HER...because she was Way Left at that point in her life...and I was NO WAY THERE...BUT...she turned out to be Correct in her Views.
A TOAST TO RICKY! Wherever you are.... I didn't see it then ...but I do see it now.
to you for my memory of what you tried to say...that was ahead of it's time and why you heard from Dylan what I didn't at that time (I didn't like his whining voice) ...being into "other music" ...but now Dylan haunts me.
...although there are still some great lines in the song that express sentiments about warriors and war. Since the song was composed in late 1963/early 1964 (first performance was in Feb 64) the lyrics were certainly not based around growing protests about U.S. involvement in Vietnam, which did not really become mainstream until 1965. Even Masters of War, written over the winter of 1962-63, was not about Vietnam, but about the Cold War.
Here are some comments from Wikipedia about Chimes of Freedom:
<snip>
Music critic Paul Williams has described the song as Dylan's Sermon on the Mount. The song is a lyrical expression of feelings evoked while watching a lightning storm. The singer and a companion are caught in a thunderstorm in mid-evening and the pair of them duck into a doorway, where they are both transfixed by one lightning flash after another. The natural phenomena of thunder and lightning appear to take on auditory and ultimately emotional aspects to the singer, with the thunder experienced as the tolling of bells and the lightning bolts appearing as chimes. Eventually, the sights and sounds in the sky become intermixed in the mind of the singer, as evidenced by the lines:
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds,
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing.
Over the course of the song the sun slowly rises and the lyrics can be interpreted as a proclamation of the hope that as the sky clears after a difficult night, all the world's people will rise together to proclaim their survival to the sound of the church bells.
<snip>
The assassination of U.S. President, John F. Kennedy, is one possible inspiration for Dylan starting the song. Although Dylan has denied that this is the case, he did draft a number of poems in the fall of 1963 in the aftermath of Kennedy's death and one of those poems in particular, a short six line piece, appears to contain the genesis for "Chimes of Freedom":
the colors of friday were dull
as the cathedral bells were gently burnin'
strikin for the gentle
strikin for the kind
strikin for the crippled ones
and strikin for the blind.
Chimes of Freedom was chosen for the title of a 4 CD collection of Dylan covers that was released in 2012, with proceeds going to Amnesty International.
There are a lot of diverse, great versions of Dylan songs on the album. Dylan closes out the set with, you guessed it, Chimes of Freedom.
The following cover is not from the album, but is one of my favorite videos of the song, by the Boss, Sting, Tracy Chapman, Peter Gabriel and Youssou N´Dour at an Amnesty International concert in 1988.
Thanks for the post, KoKo.
...was released.
So, his music wasn't particularly relevant to me at the time. However, my brother who was 6 years older went off to college at the University of Colorado a few years later and collected a lot of great music, including all the Dylan albums (vinyl) as they came out. I suspect his Dylan interest was inspired by all the Byrds' covers of Dylan songs - shortened to fit on a 3 minute 45 and done with a Beatle beat. Doesn't matter, I got sucked into all the music and it has stuck with me. When politics, racism, and war became important to me at age 15/16, Bob's songs and lots of others shaped my passion.
I've been to about a dozen Dylan concerts. Last one in Portland, OR, a little less than a year ago. It was shortly after the release of the Tempest album. That's a pretty dark album and I was concerned the concert would focus on the new material. I was dead wrong. Here's the set list, including at #8
1. the River Flow
2. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
3. Things Have Changed
4. Tangled Up in Blue
5. Cry a While
6. Spirit on the Water
7. High Water (For Charley Patton)
8. Chimes of Freedom
9. Highway 61 Revisited
10. Desolation Row
11. Thunder on the Mountain
12. Ballad of a Thin Man
13. Like a Rolling Stone
14. All Along the Watchtower
Encore:
15. Blowin' in the Wind
I couldn't have been happier.
While we're on the topic of Chimes of Freedom, here's a live version from the Byrds. Note the omission of verses to shorten the song. David Crosby really gets into the vocals at the end.
I will check it out... And for your personal experience with Dylan's music!