Love Minus Zero/No limit

Bob Dylan, Copyright © 1965; renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

My love she speaks like silence,
Without ideals or violence,
She doesn't have to say she's faithful,
Yet she's true, like ice, like fire.
People carry roses,
Make promises by the hours,
My love she laughs like the flowers,
Valentines can't buy her.

Once labeled as a great American poet, Robert Allen Zimmerman (Jewish name: Zushe ben Avraham) has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. His music started more than ten years before I breath the first air on my nostrils.

On my early childhood days, growing up on a poverty stricken suburb, it’s very unusual for me to grow up with his songs reverberating on the four corners of our house, all coming from an old turn table which I used to play with my sesame street toys. Even after a good spanking from tatay, I had the signs of stubbornness at a young age, I still put my two inches Bert and Ernie toys opposite each other and just be amazed as they go round in circles. Eventually messing up my tatay’s” LP.

In the dime stores and bus stations,
People talk of situations,
Read books, repeat quotations,
Draw conclusions on the wall.
Some speak of the future,
My love she speaks softly,
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all.

Only a few of his followers know his real name, but to the rest of us he is known as Bob Dylan. As far as I can remember, I often loath hearing his songs, which for me was nothing but noise. And at a young age, though exposed to reading English books, I could not fathom why a singer could write songs almost the size of a book.

Yes, for me he was just a singer then. One of those whom I hear over the radio, almost everywhere. But I was not aware, parallel to me growing up on different challenges of life, this complicated crooner is shaping up the history of music.

The cloak and dagger dangles,
Madams light the candles.
In ceremonies of the horsemen,
Even the pawn must hold a grudge.
Statues made of match sticks,
Crumble into one another,
My love winks, she does not bother,
She knows too much to argue or to judge.

Fast forward to the years where there was a bulging fascination in my heart to poetry, I slowly began to appreciate the stroke of his pen, the imagination of beauty that Bob has, that I believe no one else among his echelon could match.

Pure art, that’s the best way I could describe his songs. Long before I started listening to Steven Curtis Chapman’s anointed lyricism, I was already deep into Bob’s lyrical genius.

The bridge at midnight trembles,
The country doctor rambles,
Bankers' nieces seek perfection,
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring.
The wind howls like a hammer,
The night blows cold and rainy,
My love she's like some raven
At my window with a broken wing.

To my surprise, on one of John Piper’s book that I just recently finished (Don’t waste your life) He quoted Bob’s song in the early chapter. Which only proves that Bob Dylan’s music traverses different cultures, anyone does not need to be someone to be able to appreciate his music. His contributions to popular music and the words he penned for five decades has inspired people from different races.

On my way to sleep, I just got reminded of this song, searched for the complete lyrics and while reading and listening to it. I got inspired to write about his music.

So if you’re into definitive poetry and music, key in these words on the search box of YouTube and Google and just try to check out a few of his songs – Bob Dylan.