DESOLATION ROW
Via della Povertà
They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row
Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says," You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave"
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row
Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortunetelling lady
Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row
Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid
To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row
Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words
And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outa Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row"
Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row
Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row
Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row
ROMANCE IN DURANGO
Avventura a Durango
Hot chili peppers in the blistering sun
Dust on my face and my cape,
Me and Magdalena on the run
I think this time we shall escape.
Sold my guitar to the baker's son
For a few crumbs and a place to hide,
But I can get another one
And I'll play for Magdalena as we ride.
No llores, mi querida
Dios nos vigila
Soon the horse will take us to Durango.
Agárrame, mi vida
Soon the desert will be gone
Soon you will be dancing the fandango.
Past the Aztec ruins and the ghosts of our people
Hoofbeats like castanets on stone.
At night I dream of bells in the village steeple
Then I see the bloody face of Ramón.
Was it me that shot him down in the cantina
Was it my hand that held the gun?
Come, let us fly, my Magdalena
The dogs are barking and what's done is done.
No llores, mi querida
Dios nos vigila
Soon the horse will take us to Durango.
Agárrame, mi vida
Soon the desert will be gone
Soon you will be dancing the fandango.
At the corrida we'll sit in the shade
And watch the young torero stand alone.
We'll drink tequila where our grandfathers stayed
When they rode with Villa into Torreon.
Then the padre will recite the prayers of old
In the little church this side of town.
I will wear new boots and an earring of gold
You'll shine with diamonds in your wedding gown.
The way is long but the end is near
Already the fiesta has begun.
The face of God will appear
With His serpent eyes of obsidian.
No llores, mi querida
Dios nos vigila
Soon the horse will take us to Durango.
Agárrame, mi vida
Soon the desert will be gone
Soon you will be dancing the fandango.
Was that the thunder that I heard?
My head is vibrating, I feel a sharp pain
Come sit by me, don't say a word
Oh, can it be that I am slain?
Quick, Magdalena, take my gun
Look up in the hills, that flash of light.
Aim well my little one
We may not make it through the night.
No llores, mi querida
Dios nos vigila
Soon the horse will take us to Durango.
Agárrame, mi vida
Soon the desert will be gone
Soon you will be dancing the fandango.
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JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY
well I was feeling low down and blue
i didn't know in the world what I was gonna do
them commies they were coming around
they were in the air
they were all over the ground
they wouldn't give me no peace
well i run down most hurriedly
and joined the john birch society
get me a secret membership card
started walking off down the road
oh biy I'm a real john bircher now
look out you commies
well we agree all with hitler's views
altough he killed six million jews
it don't matter too much if he was a fascist
al least you can't say he was a communist
that's to say like if you got a cold
take a shot of malaria
oh I was looking everywhere for them reds
I got up in the morning
looking under my bed
looked in the stove behind the door
looked in the glove department of my car
couldn't find them
well I looked underneath everything
behind the chair
looking for them reds everywhere
I even looked up my chimmey hole
looked down deep inside my toilet bowl
they got away
I was home I started to sweat
I figured they was inside my tv set
peeked behind the picture frame
got a shock from my feet right to my brain
them red caused it
I know they did them hard core ones
well I quit my job so I could work all alone
and I changed my name to sherlock holmes
follow some clues from my detective bag
I doscovered there was red stripes
in the american flag
oh betsy ross
investigated all the books in the library
ninety percent of those gotta be thrown away
investigated all the people that I knowed
ninetyeight percent of them gotta go
the other two percent are fellow birchers
just like me
now eisenhower he's a russian spy
rooselvet lincoln and that jefferson guy
to my knowledge there's just one man
that's really a true american george lincoln rockwell
I know for a fact he hates commies
because he picketed the movie exodus
well I finally started thinking straight
when I ran out of things to investigate
couldn't imagine anything else
so now you find me at home investigating myself
hope I don't find out nothing
good god
LA SOCIETÀ JOHN BIRCH
[RV]
Bè, mi sentivo abbattuto e triste,
Non sapevo che cazzo fare al mondo.
Quei comunisti stavano per aarrivare
Eran nell'aria, in terra,
Erano da tutte le parti
Non mi davan pace un secondo
Allora corsi di volata
A iscrivermi alla Società John Birch [*],
Mi diedero una tessera segreta
E me ne andai in giro per le strade.
"Minchia, ora sono un vero gionbirciano,
State attenti, comunisti."
Noi approviamo tutto quel che diceva Hitler,
Anche se ha ammazzato sei milioni di ebrei;
E non me ne frega se era un fascista,
Almeno non si può dire che era comunista.
Come dire, se hai preso il raffreddore
Fatti una puntura di malaria
Cercavo dappertutto rossi su rossi,
Mi alzavo la mattina
E guardavo sotto il letto,
Dentro la cucina, dietro la porta,
Nel portaoggetti della macchina;
Ma non ce la facevo a trovarli
Insomma guardavo sotto ogni cosa,
Dietro la sedia, cercando
I rossi dappertutto,
Guardai persino nella cappa del camino
E giù dentro al waterclose:
Eran scappati
Ero a casa e cominciai a sudar freddo
Pensando che fossero dentro la tivvù,
Diedi un'occhiata dietro al pannello
E mi presi una scossa diritta al cervello
Erano stati loro, i rossi,
Li conosco quelli duri e puri
Mi licenziai per far tutto da solo,
Cambiai il mio nome in Sherlock Holmes,
Cercavo coi trucchi della mia borsa da investigatore
Scoprii che c'eran strisce rosse
Nella bandiera Americana
Cazzo di budda
Analizzai tutti i libri della biblioteca,
Il novanta per cento era spazzatura
Investigai tutti quelli che conoscevo
Il novantotto per cento eran da buttar via
L'altro due per cento erano camerati birciani
Proprio come me
Eisenhower è una spia dei russi,
E anche Roosevelt, Lincoln e pure Jefferson
Che io sappia ce n'è uno solo
Che sia un vero americano, George Lincoln Rockwell [**]
Lui sì che odia i comunisti,
Persino al film "Exodus" ha fatto il picchettaggio [***]
Ora, alla fine, mi è apparso tutto chiaro:
Non avevo più niente da investigare.
Non sapevo più che pesci pigliare,
E ora sto qui a casa a investigare me stesso
Sperando solo di non scoprire
Che sono rosso.
(1963)
[*]
Società di estrema destra, antisemita, fortemente anticomunista,
imperialista in politica estera e reazionaria in quella interna. Fu
fondata nel 1958 prendendo il nome da John Birch, una spia americana in
Cina durante la II guerra mondiale. Nel 1961 divenne famosa per una
campagna di stampa dove sosteneva che Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry
Truman e Dwight Eisenhower erano stati degli agenti segreti delle
"potenze comuniste". La Società John Birch era formalmente condannata da
più o meno tutte le forze politiche USA, ma era abbastanza potente da
impedire, all'epoca, che Bob Dylan cantasse questa canzone in TV.
[**]
George Lincoln Rockwell (1918-1967) fu il fondatore del Partito Nazista
Americano (National-Socialist American Party; si noti che la sigla,
NSAP, ricorda da vicino quella del partito Nazista hitleriano, NSDAP). I
fini immediati del NSAP di Rockwell erano quelli di contrastare con
bombe e omicidi il movimento dei diritti civili ai negri. Nel 1967,
George Lincoln Rockwell fu assassinato, pare da un killer pagato dal suo
successore alla presidenza del partito. Ricordiamo che la sua figura fu
interpretata da Marlon Brando in un serial televisivo di qualche anno
fa.
[***]
Ovviamente perché è una storia di ebrei.
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