Songs for Melvyn’s Sixties Class

Oh! Carol, I am but a fool
Darling, I love you, though you treat me cruel
You hurt me and you make me cry
But if you leave me, I will surely die

Darling, there will never be another
Cause I love you so
Don’t ever leave me, say you’ll never go

I will always want you for my sweetheart
No matter what you do
Oh! Carol, I’m so in love with you

Oh Carol, 1959

For the times they are a-changin’

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’

’

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’

Peter, Paul and Mary version. A favorite.

Nov. 1963, the same month of November, and  guess what?

Oh, yeah, I’ll tell you somethin’
I think you’ll understand
When I say that somethin’
I want to hold your hand
I want to hold your hand
I want to hold your hand

F     C

Dm A

F    C

Dm  A7

Bb C F Dm

Bb C  F

Dylan was a student of Woody Guthrie. You might think you know this song, but do you? 

This land is your land, this land is my land

From California to the New York Island

From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters  This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking that ribbon of highway

I saw above me that endless skyway

I saw below me that golden valley

This land was made for you and me.

Verse 2: G C G I roamed and I rambled and I followed my footsteps D G To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts G7 C G While all around me a voice was sounding D7 G This land was made for you and me.

Verse 3: G C G When the sun came shining, and I was strolling D G And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling G7 C G A voice was chanting, As the fog was lifting, D7 G This land was made for you and me.

Verse 4: As I went walking I saw a sign there

And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”

But on the other side it didn’t say nothing, 

That side was made for you and me.

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;

By the relief office, I’d seen my people. 

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking, 

Is this land made for you and me? 

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirling ship
My senses have been stripped
My hands can’t feel to grip
My toes too numb to step
Wait only for my boot heels to be wandering
I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fade
Into my own parade
Cast your dancing spell my way, I promise to go under it

Though you might hear laughing, spinning, swinging madly across the sun
It’s not aimed at anyone
It’s just escaping on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facing
And if you hear vague traces of skipping reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time
It’s just a ragged clown behind
I wouldn’t pay it any mind
It’s just a shadow you’re seeing that he’s chasing

And take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time
Far past the frozen leaves
The haunted frightened trees
Out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky
With one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea
Circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate
Driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow

My dialogue with Bob Dylan

The Sound of Silence (Original Version from 1964)

THE SOUND OF SILENCE LYRICS

[Verse 1]
Hello, darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

[Verse 2]
In restless dreams, I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

c

[Verse 3]
And in the naked light, I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

[

Verse 4]
“Fools,” said I, “You do not know
Silence, like a cancer, grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words, like silent raindrops, fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

[Verse 5]
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silen

A somewhat controversial, but thought-stimulating and exciting approach to our musicalness: