A Song For You

I thought I would have a new post finished today, but I had to stop. I’m on a roll trying to pump out some compelling anti-Trump essays inclined toward changing the minds of reasonable Republicans who still think Trump could do some good. I posted some on ltRRtl and stacked them on Notes, Substack’s version of Musk’s X, hoping to get some independent voter eyes.

It’s hard to write an unbiased essay when you believe you are right, and the audience pisses you off with their obtuseness. My Trump-inspired wrath is boiling over, clouding my judgement. I can handle the lunacy when I write about SoR. SoR is such as easy target. My last two posts on Trump’s climate policy history and his indifference to public schools were well-reasoned, I thought. What happened to Hunter Biden today was obscene, and I had to stop. So I played music.

I started to practice a Dylan song I haven’t played for quite a while rather than practice with recorded backtracks for the markets. “I Want You” is a tough cover for me with just a guitar and a voice, mainly because the lyrics run on emotions while the guitar, at least the way I play it on the 12 string, for me requires disciplined focus, almost like playing drums. The melody is pretty simple, but phrasing and breathing are tricky. After an hour or so I got back in the saddle of the song from past experience with it and recorded a live take on my phone. I listened to it through headphones and decided “well, this might be listenable.” Interpretations of the meaning of the song agree on one thing: It has some lust in it. The rest is up for grabs.

I Want You

(a Bob Dylan cover)

The guilty undertaker sighs
The lonesome organ grinder cries
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn
But it's not that way
I wasn't born to lose you

I want you, I want you
I want you so bad
Honey, I want you

The drunken politician leaps
Upon the streets where mothers weep
And the saviors who are fast asleep
They wait for you
And I wait for them to interrupt
Me drinkin' from my broken cup
And ask me to open up the gate for you

I want you, I want you
Yes, I want you so bad
Honey, I want you

How my fathers, they've gone down
True love, they've been without it
But all their daughters put me down
'Cause I don't think about it

Well, I'll return to the Queen of Spades
And talk with my chambermaid
She knows that I'm not afraid to look at her
She is good to me
And there's nothing she doesn't see
She knows where I'd like to be
But it doesn't matter

I want you, I want you
Yes, I want you so bad
Honey, I want you

Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit
He spoke to me, I took his flute
No, I wasn't very cute to him, was I?
But I did it because he lied
And because he took you for a ride
And because time was on his side
And because I

Want you, I want you
Yes, I want you so bad
Honey, I want you