“Subterranean Homesick Blues”
Bob Dylan received the Nobel Prize for Literature, although at the time of me writing this, he has yet to accept. Like many people, I’ve had moments of clarity borne from Dylan’s lovely lyrics. I went to see him play live 12 years ago or so and I wasn’t disappointed. I swayed with the audience to his beautiful blues and heartfelt verse. Always matching the words to my own life experience and coming away feeling lighter and happier.
“I want you, Baby I want you, I want you, so baaaad…”
“Hey Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me, I’m not sleepy and I have no place I’m going to….”
“Come in, she said I’ll give ya shelter from the storm….”
Dylan can sing us all through, he can get us through it all.
This last week I’ve found myself submerged in my own blues again, and as it happens, homesickness was one of the triggers. Feeling a day unfurl a little less easily than the day before, wondering if this is the start of another slip into blues then finding the next day is a little harder. I grasp at lyrics, poetry, a sympathiser that I don’t have to explain myself to.
Sometimes the lyrics aren’t enough but the melody takes you and the music is all you need.
Homesickness is true pain. It really is sickness, you feel it radiate throughout your body. It grips your stomach, it tightens your chest, it makes your limbs tingle and your head is light. Add to that the tears, the exhaustion and the adrenaline and you know the stress that homesickness imposes on your body.
I first felt it as a child, packed off to boarding school only a fortnight after our Father had died. It was obvious that I’d be a candidate, having suffered extreme separation anxiety from my Mother throughout childhood. Now I was homesick for a home that was miles away and not the same home I’d grown up in. Every night myself and other boarders would fall into restless exhausted sleep, tear soaked night dresses and pillow cases. I would lie on my side, teddy bear suffocating the sobs, little body shaking under the covers, hands clenched between my knees. Hoping for a smell from home in my covers but the snotty nose stifling any other scent.
Finally the room would quiet, shaking little bodies drifting away to safer dreams. I’d wake in the morning and the reality would hit like a lightening bolt as the lights were switched on and the get up call reverberated around the room. Another day of subterranean homesick blues. Bob Dylan’s lyrics may not fit the 10 year old girl in boarding school but the song did and it still gets to me today. Bob Dylan writes lyrics and music for the very purpose that we need it.
Subterranean Homesick Blues – Bob Dylan
Johny’s in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I’m on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in a trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he’s got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It’s somethin’ you did
God knows when
But you’re doin’ it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin’ for a new friend
A man in a coon-skin cap
In a pig pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten.
Maggie comes fleet foot
Face full of black soot
Talkin’ that the heat put
Plants in the bed but
The phone’s tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May
Orders from the DA
Look out kid
Don’t matter what you did
Walk on your tip toes
Don’t tie no bows
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Wash the plain clothes
You don’t need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows.
Get sick, get well
Hang around an ink well
Ring bell, hard to tell
If anything’s gonna sell
Try hard, get barred
Get back, write Braille
Get jailed, jump bail Join the army, if you fail
Look out kid
You’re gonna get hit
But losers, cheaters
Six-time users
Hang around the theaters
Girl by the whirlpool is
Lookin’ for a new fool
Don’t follow leaders
Watch the parkin’ meters.
Ah get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don’t steal, don’t lift
Twenty years of schoolin’
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don’t wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don’t wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don’t work
‘Cause the vandals took the handles.
