FIRST PLAYED Jun 09, 1988
LAST PLAYED Oct 09, 1994
TIMES PLAYED 24
Bob Dylan – Two Soldiers (trad.) [Brisbane, 28 March 1992]
Bob Dylan 1991 – Two Soldiers
BOB DYLAN:
Jerry Garcia showed me TWO SOLDIERS (Hazel & Alice do it pretty similar) a battle song extraordinaire, some dragoon officer’s epaulettes laying liquid in the mud, physical plunge into Limitationville, war dominated by finance (lending money for interest being a nauseating & revolting thing) love is not collateral. hittin’ em where they aint (in the imperfect state that theyre in) America when Mother was the queen of Her heart, before Charlie Chaplin, before the Wild One, before the Children of the Sun–before the celestial grunge, before the insane world of entertainment exploded in our faces–before all the ancient & honorable artillery had been taken out of the city, learning to go forward by turning back the clock, stopping the mind from thinking in hours, firing a few random shots at the face of time…
Jerry Garcia showed me TWO SOLDIERS (Hazel & Alice do it pretty similar) a battle song extraordinaire, some dragoon officer’s epaulettes laying liquid in the mud, physical plunge into Limitationville, war dominated by finance (lending money for interest being a nauseating & revolting thing) love is not collateral. hittin’ em where they aint (in the imperfect state that theyre in) America when Mother was the queen of Her heart, before Charlie Chaplin, before the Wild One, before the Children of the Sun–before the celestial grunge, before the insane world of entertainment exploded in our faces–before all the ancient & honorable artillery had been taken out of the city, learning to go forward by turning back the clock, stopping the mind from thinking in hours, firing a few random shots at the face of time…
“ABOUT THE SONGS (what they’re about)”, Liner notes for “World Gone Wrong”, 1993
LYRICSHe was just a blue-eyed Boston boy,
His voice was low with pain.
“I’ll do your bidding, comrade mine,
If I ride back again.
But if you ride back and I am left,
You’ll do as much for me,
Mother, you know, must hear the news,
So write to her tenderly.”She’s waiting at home like a patient saint,
Her fond face pale with woe.
Her heart will be broken when I am gone,
I’ll see her soon, I know.”
Just then the order came to charge,
For an instance hand touched hand.
They said, “Aye,” and away they rode,
That brave and devoted band.Straight was the track to the top of the hill,
The rebels they shot and shelled,
Plowed furrows of death through the toiling ranks,
And guarded them as they fell.
There soon came a horrible dying yell
From heights that they could not gain,
And those whom doom and death had spared
Rode slowly back again.But among the dead that were left on the hill
Was the boy with the curly hair.
The tall dark man who rode by his side
Lay dead beside him there.
There’s no one to write to the blue-eyed girl
The words that her lover had said.
Momma, you know, awaits the news,
And she’ll only know he’s dead.