I’ve been reading a lot of Wallace Stevens in the past few days, and I keep coming back to a poem called The House Was Quiet and The World Was Calm (opposite to current experience) and this bit in particular: “The words were spoken as if there was no book, Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom,The summer night is like a perfection of thought. The house was quiet because it had to be.”
I love this image of leaning into something that you know will lead to growth, something true. I won’t wax on about Bob Dylan’s impact on my love for lyrics — endless others have expressed what he’s given to us far more eloquently than I ever could — but the leaning reader in this poem pretty well describes how I have always listened to him. Like reading a great book — that rush of receiving a perfect string of words. I always lean in.
“Knockin‘ On Heaven’s Door” (Written by Dylan)
Tanya: vocal, guitar
Russell Chudnofsky: acoustic guitar
Joe McMahon: piano
Dean Fisher: snare, tambourine
Lilia Halpern: vocals, guitar
