Dylan of the Week, Mk. 4

"Never Say Goodbye"
Bob Dylan
Planet Waves - 1974



HA HA HA! Never say goodbye!? Always say goodbye. To what? To people. They come and go. Family is effervescent. Friends are transitory. Lovers are necessary. But Dreams! Ah! Those remain. Those are the things “made of iron and steel”. You can hear the wistfulness, especially that “turned your hair to broooowwn!” that arches up like his vocal chords slipped on a banana peel. (Like the wildness in his voice on the '66 UK tour, especially “Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues”, perhaps one of the greatest vocal performances in the rock cannon.) There's some understanding that he possesses that only experience, mistakes, and a hefty past can legitimate. The poet. The poet in me, the poet in you, working like a conscience, working at justice. We learn to understand it, to become friends with rogues (memories). Allowance of evolution, things that change and pass. Bye-bye.