Bob Dylan Is Such a Pain
There they are on the shelf,
snugly packed together,
my thirty-two Bob CDs.
And, besides those, the one and only vinyl,
the fabulous The Times They Are A-Changin',
which made me long for a pair of Spanish leather boots [1]
that, as it turned out, were made of Portuguese cowhide
— damn it, much uglier than his.
Ah! Ah! Ah! That face of a half-dead sheep,
and that pointed cap on the first album,
surpassed by the tenderness of the second cover,
with Suze Rotolo about to leave him,
though I only found out who she was decades later.
The entwined couple, in the city's freezing cold,
seemed to be speaking of their love,
in fact, running wild (or something like that),
just as the title announced.
And then all the other records
(what a pity I'm missing a few),
which I won't mention, lest I sound like a pedant,
right up to my latest one, the album of nocturnal shadows,
with songs by Sinatra, Prévert, Berlin, Gillespie and others.
Good for you, Bob, singing like a crooner,
with such an American America in your voice,
and bygone times coming into my ears,
while I think, "You're still in fine form, mate!"
And he couldn't care less about me,
not giving a damn what I think…
And all those stories about him? So many of them.
The motorcycle crash that gave his voice its nasal twang,
the shady arms deals,
the rows with his folk partners, provoked by the iconoclastic rebellion
of his Fender Stratocaster electric guitar,
which he wielded as though it were part machine gun, part harp,
while the purists mistakenly thought
his name was Bob Guthrie…
But he was just Bob, and always has been Bob.
Before, afterwards, and always, always Bob.
He didn't even want to be Zimmerman,
just Bob and Dylan,
the boy from Duluth, Minnesota.
Bob grew old with me (or I grew old with him).
Here at home, he turns up all the time,
like an old friend dropping in for a drink:
in the morning, around coffee time,
at five in the afternoon, bullfights and gin time,
or at night, keeping me company while I write,
in poems like this one, made with him.
Or listening to him on his radio show,
which begins with the sweet voice of the announcer:
"It's night time in the big city…"
and then carries on with his,
presenting the most deeply, earthily musical America there is,
chosen by him,
chosen well,
picked out
by him.
There he is now, singing those five minutes of Duquesne Whistle,
the groove making me sway in my chair,
accompanied by Tony Garnier's bass.
And I think: Bob, you're the greatest,
but you're such a, such a pain,
oh hell, you're a proper old pain in the arse.
What a daft idea, failing to show up to receive the Nobel,
what an utterly ridiculous piece of nonsense.
What a pain, what a pain you are.
Come on, mate, you just don't do that!…
Nobody understood you, you came off badly,
and poor Patty even got A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall wrong,
and believe me, she represented you more than well,
but she knew it was you
who should have been standing there.
Your friend knew.
And you gave us the slip,
you bastard.
What a fiasco you made of it that day, what a fiasco!…
There's no doubt about it, Bob, you're a right pain,
you simply don't do that…
And then you came to Lisbon
and sold out the place they call the "gladiators' arena".
But you didn't say so much as "Hello!" or "Goodbye!" to the crowd!
And I was actually thinking of going to see you…
Good thing I backed out at the last minute,
because if I'd gone, I'd have given you a whistle,
that's for sure.
Pfttt!, Bob, you're such a pain.
But even so, Bob,
you're the greatest.
[1] An allusion to the track Boots of Spanish Leather from that 1964 album.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário