The Bob Dylan masterpiece written in the back of a taxi
Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
--
Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, Professional Fellow of Institute Of Information Management Africa, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador, Registered Freight Forwarder and Editorial Adviser at News Updates.
More about him here: https://independent.academia.edu/ChidiAnthonyOpara
cornelius...@gmail.com
Back in the day: Paul Mccartney: The back seat of my car
Back in the day, the Beatles anthem that ended
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
Bob Marley’s “Could You Be Loved”
Was written on board an aeroplane
Dylan Thomas, have you heard about him?
His Fern Hill was composed in New Quay, Cardiganshire,
and at Blaencwm, the family cottage in Carmarthenshire, Wales.
The list is long :
for god sake
Add William Blake
Add the Irish ( + Seamus Heaney and the other Great Irish Poets
The German language poets, the Spanish-speaking,
Add The French - fast forward and don’t forget 👍
My favourite: Derek Walcott
As my mother used to tell me,
“despise not the day of humble beginnings”:
Rumour has it that Chidi Anthony Opara’s
magnum opus and his complete oeuvre
were composed at the Motor Park at Owerri
Van Morrison: Poetic Champions Compose
cornelius...@gmail.com
Re - “ It’s a cliché thrown around a lot to compare artists to God. It’s often suggested that some musicians serve as merely a mouthpiece as if messages are sent through them by some higher power that rules over creativity” - just as Marvin Gaye sang in Life Is For Learning
I thought the Dylan masterpiece in question was “ Mr.Tambourine Man” - there was some magic there. Dylan supposedly did his Desolation Row in the backseat of a New York yellow cab, but flying a few miles higher, Bob Marley & the Wailers did their “Could You Be Loved” above the clouds on an aeroplane, circa 10, 000 metres above sea level whilst Moses the Grandmaster flash of them all was taught to sing Torah & Talmud by Almighty JAH himself the Highest, at Mt. Sinai :
“And he said: "Show me, now, Your glory!"
He said: "I will let all My goodness pass before you; I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you, and I will favour when I wish to favour, and I will have compassion when I wish to have compassion."
And He said, "You will not be able to see My face, for man shall not see Me and live."
And the Lord said: "Behold, there is a place with Me, and you shall stand on the rock.
And it shall be that when My glory passes by, I will place you into the cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with My hand until I have passed by.
Then I will remove My hand, and you will see My back but My face shall not be seen." (Torah: Exodus 33: 18 - 23
We also have Solomon roaming the Jerusalem Hills and coming up with what the Mormons deem an erotic song: Shir Hashirim
It’s a pity that the first men on the moon didn't compose a few heavenly rock n roll songs, whilst they were over there …in vile contrast, there’s the poster of Frank Zappa - sitting on the toilet seat
Of course, near the top of the reading and appreciation agenda, we could have ( in Alphabetical order) the likes of Robert Burns, Hafiz, Mayakovsky, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Rimbaud. I hear Chidi crying, "Colonial Complex!" Why are there no Africans on the list? OK, so I appoint Chidi and Dennis Brutus to represent Africa South of the Sahara….
What has not been written about Bob Dylan, by the idolaters and the idol worshippers?
Apart from his songs, and several biographies and books about Dylan, there’s the self-introduction in his one-volume Chronicles and his novel Tarantula. The best short book about Dylan is by Sara Danius in Swedish, Om Dylan which I read at the Alvik Library whilst waiting for my Better Half who was at the hairdresser. The book deserves to be translated into English, Yoruba, Chinese etc. There was Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour and I highly commend and recommend Peter Holst’s ever tantalising and ever-present THE BOB CATS NEWSLETTER which I started following in June 2012…