Bob Dylan - Masters Of War

Steven Collins · Post by **Steven Collins** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 5:05 am

I make no apologies if this has been posted before as it deserves to be heard again & again

www.prisonplanet.com/articles/march2007/020307War.htm

See also:

www.masters-of-war.org

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0ELgFGd2fs

John White · Post by **John White** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 11:45 am

Great stuff Steve, I've passed this on

Here's the lyrics for Dylan's classic song:

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

Linda · Post by **Linda** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:05 am

Thanks Steve for posting this it is brilliant.

Dylan at his best.

Thanks John for posting the lyrics. Brilliant.

Does anyone know what cd or record this song is on?
I would love to get a copy.

flamesong · Post by **flamesong** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:11 am

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Freewheelin-Bob ... B0001M0KDO

Linda · Post by **Linda** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:32 am

Thanks Flamesong,

Just bought it on ebay cheers

paul wright · Post by **paul wright** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:52 am

Isnt Dylan more into lingerie and commercial things nowadays
Hardly a big hope
There's an awful lot of good stuff back when
Dont we need some more recent support?
Someone really ought to draw Muse in, or someting of the ilk

QuitTheirClogs · Post by **QuitTheirClogs** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:13 pm

Changing Of The Guards

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azob0x2F3gc[/youtube]

http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/changing-guards

Some interesting interpretations at:
http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=157

Sixteen years,
Sixteen banners united over the field
Where the good shepherd grieves.
Desperate men, desperate women divided,
Spreading their wings 'neath the falling leaves.

Fortune calls.
I stepped forth from the shadows, to the marketplace,
Merchants and thieves, hungry for power, my last deal gone down.
She's smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born,
On midsummer's eve, near the tower.

The cold-blooded moon.
The captain waits above the celebration
Sending his thoughts to a beloved maid
Whose ebony face is beyond communication.
The captain is down but still believing that his love will be repaid.

They shaved her head.
She was torn between Jupiter and Apollo.
A messenger arrived with a black nightingale.
I seen her on the stairs and I couldn't help but follow,
Follow her down past the fountain where they lifted her veil.

I stumbled to my feet.
I rode past destruction in the ditches
With the stitches still mending 'neath a heart-shaped tattoo.
Renegade priests and treacherous young witches
Were handing out the flowers that I'd given to you.

The palace of mirrors
Where dog soldiers are reflected,
The endless road and the wailing of chimes,
The empty rooms where her memory is protected,
Where the angels' voices whisper to the souls of previous times.

She wakes him up
Forty-eight hours later, the sun is breaking
Near broken chains, mountain laurel and rolling rocks.
She's begging to know what measures he now will be taking.
He's pulling her down and she's clutching on to his long golden locks.

Gentlemen, he said,
I don't need your organization, I've shined your shoes,
I've moved your mountains and marked your cards
But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination
Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards.

Peace will come
With tranquility and splendor on the wheels of fire
But will bring us no reward when her false idols fall
And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating
Between the King and the Queen of Swords.

Lee · Post by **Lee** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 9:24 pm

Masters of War is such a good song.

Here's a vid to go with it. Enjoy.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=honkqqOZpLc[/youtube]

Alexander · Post by **Alexander** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 10:58 pm

Sad that Dylan would go onto write a song - Neighbourhood Bully - which defends Israel's aggressions over the last 60+ years.

Lee · Post by **Lee** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 11:25 pm

Alexander wrote:Sad that Dylan would go onto write a song - Neighbourhood Bully - which defends Israel's aggressions over the last 60+ years.

How could anyone get it so back to front...?

Alexander · Post by **Alexander** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 11:33 pm

Are you saying Neighbourhood Bully is not a defence of Israel? You cannot be serious my friend....

Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man,
His enemies say he's on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He's criticized and condemned for being alive.
He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin,
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He's wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He's always on trial for just being born.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He's the neighborhood bully.

He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won't be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, he's surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn't hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Every empire that's enslaved him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under no one's command.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He's the neighborhood bully.

What's anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin', they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He's the neighborhood bully.

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers?
Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jso ... dylan.html

Lee · Post by **Lee** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 7:39 am

Alexander wrote:Are you saying Neighbourhood Bully is not a defence of Israel? You cannot be serious my friend....

Well, I suppose I could have been saying that.

But as in the mindscape of lyricism, ambiguoity is often used to create debate.

Alexander · Post by **Alexander** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 12:39 pm

There's no ambiguity about that song unless you fail to understand that Dylan was being ironic or sarcastic in referring to Israel as the "neighborhood bully".

Bob Dylan's salute to Israel ...in fact, he hasn't written an anti-war song since 1964 as far as I can see....

http://ellissharp.blogspot.com/2005/09/ ... ng_25.html

xmasdale · Post by **xmasdale** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 2:06 pm

paul wright wrote: Isnt Dylan more into lingerie ... nowadays
Hardly a big hope.

What's wrong with lingerie, Paul? I don't mind if he dresses in it. He wrote excellent stuff back in the sixties and that's what's important.

paul wright wrote:There's an awful lot of good stuff back when
Dont we need some more recent support?
Someone really ought to draw Muse in, or someting of the ilk

Yeah! We need a new Dylan and a new John Lennon. Perhaps they're around but just not getting the publicity they deserve.

Noel

Linda · Post by **Linda** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 12:42 am

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=k4kTnP5VJ1k

LET'S IMPEACH THE PRESIDENT FOR LYIN'
Sleeping through history...
LWW
Now that the senate committee investigating the reasons given by Bush and Cheney for America to go to war has concluded that they lied, America is sleeping through it, distracted by high oil prices and campaign politics.
It seems easy to forget the war now, but as it continues taking lives everyday, let's remember how it started. For history's sake IMPEACH BUSH and set the record straight on what a president can and cannot do so that other presidents in the future will have a legal example to look to.
Look here: quicktime / windowsmedia

http://www.neilyoung.com/lwwtoday/index.html

paul wright · Post by **paul wright** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 1:27 am

xmasdale wrote:
What's wrong with lingerie, Paul? I don't mind if he dresses in it. He wrote excellent stuff back in the sixties and that's what's important.

paul wright wrote:There's an awful lot of good stuff back when
Dont we need some more recent support?
Someone really ought to draw Muse in, or someting of the ilk

Noel

Personally I dont give a sh*t what Dylan's into now. Of course I loved his material back then but I wouldn't look for a hero, ancient or modern, nowadays
Theres noone to lead us or show us the way other than ourselves

( ps substituting a 1 for an i gives a "nonsense" for the word s-h-i-t - what a crock of "nonsense" the censoring software is in to. Please let's grow up from tabloid-style asterisking of 'rude words' and accept them as just another part of the vocabulary)

Disco_Destroyer · Post by **Disco_Destroyer** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 2:20 pm

paul wright wrote:Personally I dont give a sh*t what Dylan's into now. Of course I loved his material back then but I wouldn't look for a hero, ancient or modern, nowadays
Theres noone to lead us or show us the way other than ourselves

There are thousands out there it seems my attempts over the years to post some on this forum have been in vain

I think even Cyndi Sheehan has co-writen some songs
Mind you musicias have never led all they can do is offer up ideas