Dreamin'

Old friends slide away from me and I slide the other way. It is difficult, if not impossible,, to hang onto one's old life or to one's old friends. I don't mind so much that the life is gone, but the friends do bother me. I saw a news article on CBS the other night about a group of old geezers who had been playing poker together for over 50 years! One old fella even had Alzheimer's, but it didn't matter, the others played his cards for him, and every once in a while the old man would smile! It made all the other old men feel pretty good when he did. It was a great story. I don't think I know of anything to compare to it, not in my life or my acquaintance. Everyone who isn't gone is at a distance. Some died, some moved, some drifted away on the breeze. Is it perhaps that none of them were ever friends? No, you can't say that, or I'd have to conclude that I've never had any friends. It's more complicated than that, but even if I could untangle it, it wouldn't matter. This is how things have gone, and there's no putting the egg back in the shell.

Bob Dylan's Dream

While riding on a train goin' west,
I fell asleep for to take my rest.
I dreamed a dream that made me sad,
Concerning myself and the first few friends I had.

With half-damp eyes I stared to the room
Where my friends and I spent many an afternoon,
Where we together weathered many a storm,
Laughin' and singin' till the early hours of the morn.

By the old wooden stove where our hats was hung,
Our words were told, our songs were sung,
Where we longed for nothin' and were quite satisfied
Talkin' and a-jokin' about the world outside.

With haunted hearts through the heat and cold,
We never thought we could ever get old.
We thought we could sit forever in fun
But our chances really was a million to one.

As easy it was to tell black from white,
It was all that easy to tell wrong from right.
And our choices were few and the thought never hit
That the one road we traveled would ever shatter and split.

How many a year has passed and gone,
And many a gamble has been lost and won,
And many a road taken by many a friend,
And each one I've never seen again.

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain,
That we could sit simply in that room again.
Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat,
I'd give it all gladly if our lives could be like that.


Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

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