Bob Dylan - Song to Woody (I’ve been hittin’ some hard travelin’ too)

Bob Dylan - Song to Woody (I’ve been hittin’ some hard travelin’ too)


SONG TO WOODY

I’m out here a thousand miles from my home
Walkin’ a road other men have gone down
I’m seein’ your world of people and things
Your paupers and peasants and princes and kings

Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song
’Bout a funny ol’ world that’s a-comin’ along
Seems sick an’ it’s hungry, it’s tired an’ it’s torn
It looks like it’s a-dyin’ an’ it’s hardly been born

Hey, Woody Guthrie, but I know that you know
All the things that I’m a-sayin’ an’ a-many times more
I’m a-singin’ you the song, but I can’t sing enough
’Cause there’s not many men that done the things that you’ve done

Here’s to Cisco an’ Sonny an’ Leadbelly too
An’ to all the good people that traveled with you
Here’s to the hearts and the hands of the men
That come with the dust and are gone with the wind

I’m a-leavin’ tomorrow, but I could leave today
Somewhere down the road someday
The very last thing that I’d want to do
Is to say I’ve been hittin’ some hard travelin’ too

Dylan kwam aan in NY City op 24 January 1961. Hij was 19.

Ongeveer drie weken later schreef hij “Song to Woody” (24 Februari 1961).

De Gleasons hebben een vergeeld papiertje waarom Dylan de tekst van “Song to Woody” schreef. Daaronder heeft Dylan geschreven : “Written by Bob Dylan in Mills Bar on Bleeker [sic] Street in New York City on the 14th day of February, for Woody Guthrie.”

“I just thought about Woody,” zegt Dylan.  “I wondered about him, thought harder and wondered harder. I wrote this song in about five minutes.”

De melodie is “geleend” – zoals Guthrie het hem trouwens zelf had geleerd – van diens “1913 Massacre”. Je moet het echter zien als een soort eerbetoon aan Woody.
In deze song betuigt Dylan verder eer aan die andere helden van hem : “Cisco Houston, Sonny Terry and Leadbelly too”

De tekst van de song heeft nog een paar andere verwijzingen naar Woody Guthrie :

Eerst naar “Pastures of Plenty” :
“Here’s to the hearts and the hands of the men
That come with the dust and are gone with the wind”

En dan naar “”Hard Travellin”
“The very last thing that I’d want to do
Is to say I’ve been hittin’ some hard travelin’ too”

In de biografie van Anthony Scudato staat verder :

“Joanie wants to sing my ‘Song to Woody.’ But I ain’t gonna let her. Don’t like her. Don’t want her to do any song about Woody because she don’t know Woody.”

Anthony Scaduto, Bob Dylan, London, 1973, pp. 56-57.

Hier zijn :

Woody Guthrie – 1913 Massacre

Bob Dylan – 1913 Massacre



Bob Dylan – Song to Woody