"The sun's not yellow - it's chicken."
It's a line from Bob Dylan's "Tombstone Blues" that stuck with me as I was listening to Highway 61 Revisited on the way to work this morning.
The line was spoken by a military leader, a "Commander-in-Chief" after berating one of his generals for weakness when the general expressed disgust at having to carry out an order to torture a captive. "Tell me great hero, but please make it brief/Is there a hole for me to get sick in?" he asks.
The Commander-in-Chief's reply is mixed in with the narrator's voice: "Death to all those who would whimper and cry/And dropping a bar bell, he points to the sky/Saying, the sun's not yellow, it's chicken."
It's more than a fantastic play on words. This whole section of the song has so many contemporary parallels, not the least of which is that last line, where, after the leader dismisses ethical concerns, and motions with a pointless show of strength (the bar bell), he issues the ultimate, useless gesture, calling the sun chicken.
The swagger and hubris involved in that challenge are both revealing and utterly unbelievable.
This is the power of Bob Dylan, and of this record in particular. His words cut deeper and more true than any straightforward newspaper editorial, protest or political accusation.
It's a line from Bob Dylan's "Tombstone Blues" that stuck with me as I was listening to Highway 61 Revisited on the way to work this morning.
The line was spoken by a military leader, a "Commander-in-Chief" after berating one of his generals for weakness when the general expressed disgust at having to carry out an order to torture a captive. "Tell me great hero, but please make it brief/Is there a hole for me to get sick in?" he asks.
The Commander-in-Chief's reply is mixed in with the narrator's voice: "Death to all those who would whimper and cry/And dropping a bar bell, he points to the sky/Saying, the sun's not yellow, it's chicken."
It's more than a fantastic play on words. This whole section of the song has so many contemporary parallels, not the least of which is that last line, where, after the leader dismisses ethical concerns, and motions with a pointless show of strength (the bar bell), he issues the ultimate, useless gesture, calling the sun chicken.
The swagger and hubris involved in that challenge are both revealing and utterly unbelievable.
This is the power of Bob Dylan, and of this record in particular. His words cut deeper and more true than any straightforward newspaper editorial, protest or political accusation.
posted by isaacjosephson at 6:51 AM
1 Comments:
To ronwoman: yeah, I read your interpretation in a "Song Meaning" page...
To Issac:I usually interpret it as a stupid attempt at challenging greater authority, the Commander in Chief challenges the sun as if to say: "I am the ultimate, no one is superior, and I am always correct" a way of justifying his actions in the war as correct...
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