Dylan got it first, as he often did,
That American youth were ignorant kids,
Betrayed by the things our parents hid.
And we were insulted just a little bit
But we listened and took the plunge,
Determined to expunge
The poison and let out the Id.
It was up to us not heed the call up
And as one voice we stood up,
Saying, shouting NO!
Twenty or so legendary years for some;
While others sold out, we beat the drum.
Our peers oddly died around us but….
Even as we ‘felt those cold hands’ touch our skin,
As The Capitalists were closing in—
& Some of them were us…
We sounded the drum.
Later on some hippie-punks or is it the other way(?)
Sang about extraordinary girls & then took a fall.
Sometimes begged for Novocain
Which wouldn’t relieve psychic pain,
Like being Ramonely sedated in a concert hall.
Nobody knew what to do with them.
Except to give them fame.
(It was just as bad for them as for the Clash)…
Hell, they almost invented the mash-up.
And too many anti-hippie punks
Loaded on cheap ****** or always drunk,
Claimed all those heroes had sold out.
But Ziggy would’ve known Ash from Ash.
Then came their Blood on the Tracks;
They finally saw what Dylan saw,
Or, if they saw it before,
They got some Real Emotion back.
Nothing has changed and everything has changed,
Said The Heathen…and he should know.
But how do we see, stuck here ‘so far below’,
Not remotely in the know;
They might be on an intergalactic trip
Or as in “A.I”, nothing more than a binary blip?
But encased in virtual ice, how can we live?
Until the end…and even then…
As John wrote, we only get the love we give.
This is my homage to a generation, and the ones after it, who rock and rebel, who never give up, with some cheeky references for fun. I imagine Green Day meeting Dylan in a darkened pub, as he did the Beatles so many years before...exchanging views and if we're lucky, collaborating on a song.
