Happy Birthday, Bob

Music for the Week

From Blonde on Blonde (1966).

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 street 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,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

Now all 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 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,
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, though, because he lied
Because he took you for a ride
And because time was on his side
And because I . . .
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

Idiot Wind

‘Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game.’
- Hurricane, Bob, 1975

The statement by Sen. Obama’s wife, Michelle, that “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country,” has been invoked by Republicans in an effort to portray Mr. Obama as culturally unlike the people he is asking to vote for him—a historically potent line of attack.

This will continue, no matter if the Rev. Wright controversy dissipates.

“What pathetic, little, delicate flowers Americans and political pundits are," wrote the Liberal Street Fighter.

Amen.

Obama, an American success story if there ever were one, gets skewered for being associated in any way with anyone who ever said anything critical of American society.

But Obama need not apologize for anyone, or be on the defensive.

Obama needs to get on the offensive and challenge every moronic pundit that unity, rights, equality, liberty and freedom from economic want comprise the foundation upon which American society has progressed the last 75 years.

And fighting for this foundation ought be the basis of his campaign for the presidency.

A major address laying out a vision is called for as the corporate media remains obsessed with trivia, but not in front of a staid audience, but rather a loud, lively crowd of 1,000s of Americans to whom Obama presents his ideas for approval.