I was looking forward to September 11th for weeks. I planned to make the most of it. I put in for the day off from work, and that morning, I was getting ready for my leisurely stroll across town and through Central Park, to pick up the new Dylan album at Tower, and then to return to the park to hear it under God’s gleaming sunshine.

In my apartment on First Avenue in the 80’s, I turned on the local news channel just after 9 o’clock to check the temperature before I left, and …

The next day, I remembered what I had been planning to do on the 11th, and I thought, well, maybe I should. I wasn’t of a mind to listen to music, but then Dylan has never exactly been just music to me. The local record store was open, and I made a point of thanking the cashier just for showing up to work that day, as I bought the CD. I listened to it once that day, and my ears understood that it was good and honest music, but I had too many other sounds and images in my head and it couldn’t find any room. I listened more in the following days, and it found its way in, and many of the tears I cried found their release alongside those songs, coaxed by Bob’s barrage of too-telling couplets … “Every moment of existence seems like some dirty trick; Happiness comes suddenly and leaves just as quick.”

In the weeks that followed, it was about all I listened to - all I could listen to. Two songs in particular lived even in my dreams, and still do: Mississippi, and High Water. In some way, they both seemed to be telling the same story, from different angles. A story of a moment of truth; the moment when the veil is lifted, all pretense is dropped, and all is revealed for the chaos and violence at its core … leaving only what remains eternal.

High Water (For Charley Patton), is a humorous, though very dark ride, through an apocalyptic American landscape.

High water risin’, six inches ‘bove my head,
Coffins dropping in the street like balloons made out of lead.
Water pourin’ into Vicksburg, don’t know what I’m gonna do!
‘Don’t reach out for me ,’ she said, ‘Can’t you see I’m drownin’ too?’
It’s rough out there -
High water everywhere.

Illusions are shattered and people are revealed for who they are and what they truly care about.

As the water rises, night and day, “all the gold and silver being stolen away…”

Laws dissolve and violence rules: “You dance with whom they tell you to, or you don’t dance at all.”

The singer in this song is cracking jokes and rollicking through the devastation (”Jump into the wagon, love, throw your panties overboard!”), but there’s a deep recognition that everything that seemed to matter once, matters no more. The only thing certain is the certain end that’s coming.

Things are breaking up out there -
High water everywhere.”

In Mississippi, there’s an unexplained though deep dislocation of life taking place. It’s a situation faced with a certain bravery and faith, as well as sadness, walking through the physical and spiritual conflagration all around.

Got nothing for you, I had nothing before,
Don’t even have anything for myself anymore.
Sky full of fire, pain pourin’ down
Nothing you can sell me; I ‘ll see you around.

Last words are spoken. There’s no time to go over the past, and no need to go over it either.

So many things, that we never will undo,
I know you’re sorry - I’m sorry too.

Inner cruelties are revealed in some, and love revealed in others.

Some people will offer you their hand and some won’t,
‘Last night I knew you - tonight I don’t.’
I need something strong to distract my mind -
I’m gonna look at you till my eyes go blind.

There’s something going on bigger than anyone can understand and plot out. It’s a twist of fate with no escape, but the singer reaches for an explanation that only sums up his (and our) powerlessness …

Only one thing that I did wrong,
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long.

Ultimately, somehow, this is a song of courage and a performance filled with hope, but not hope for the ephemeral kinds of human successes and pleasures that are busy disintegrating around us.

Anyone who’s really listened to Dylan would know that these are not new themes for Bob, yet, in the weeks and months since that Tuesday in September, it’s fair to say that the voice singing in the wilderness has struck a lot of chords in a lot of hearts that badly needed it. Many have remarked and written about the uncanny poignancy of this record released on that day. An interviewer in Rolling Stone quoted the “sky full of fire” line to Bob and seemed to be pleading for Dylan to give some kind of answer that made some kind of sense; to explain maybe, how did he know …? Bob mainly quoted a 6th century military philosopher and said it’s a time for great men to step up. As always, Dylan leaves it to his songs to explain themselves, one soul at a time. And they do a pretty good a job, at that.

And at Madison Square Garden on November 19th, Dylan gave New York City another gift, a rare mid-concert statement. “Most of these songs were written in New York, and the ones that weren’t written here were recorded here … so no-one has to ask me how I feel about this town.”

Thanks Bob, for everything.

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