For Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan, troubador sublime, just turned 68 a few weeks ago. That's 68 in human years, and I, like a faithful dog, went out and fetched his latest CD offering, Together Through Life. It's true that his voice is a raspy skeleton of its former raspy self, yet the cutting edge irony that pervades his best lyric writing is still there after all these years. I particularly like the last track, "It's All Good," which satirizes the sugar-coated sunny optimism that much of popular media and Madison Avenue will shower the public with, especially through the use of trite cliches (like that of the title) for soundbytes.

In tribute to Bob Dylan's moving one step closer to septagenarianism, I offer up this blackly humorous blues lyric (to the tune of "Meet Me in the Morning," c. 1974 Blood on the Tracks). Or in tribute to Quentin Tarantino.

I Save My Tenderness

Well I’m getting awfully hungry
And there’s a pig out in the street
Said I’m getting awfully hungry
And there’s a pig out in the street
Think I’ll just take him with my bare hands
So I have something to eat

They tell me that I’m vicious
To think up the thoughts I do
They tell me that I’m vicious
To think up the thoughts I do
But I fire back I ain’t so vicious
I save my tenderness for you.

I live in a downtown dungeon
There’s a bank just round the block
Yes I live in a downtown dungeon
There’s a bank just round the block
But I’ll have me some that money
I’ll crack the safe, I’ll smash the lock

They tell me that I’m vicious
To think up the thoughts I do
They tell me that I’m vicious
To think up the thoughts I do
But I fire back I ain’t so vicious
I save my tenderness for you.

Well I’m jobless fifty weeks now
And any day they’ll stop the check
Said I’m jobless fifty weeks now
And any day they’ll stop the check
I’ll just go get work as a bouncer
Or a hit man, what the heck.

They tell me that I’m vicious
To think up the thoughts I do
They tell me that I’m vicious
To think up the thoughts I do
But I fire back I ain’t so vicious
I save my tenderness for you.