Three days ago I wrote about Patti Smith singing Bob Dylan’s song “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”.  So surely I’m not going to write about the same thing so soon.  That would be weird, irrational, boring.  Well … I’m willing to be all those things!

Most months I sing at two open mic sessions – at Salvatore’s and at Minard.  But in April I’m in Canada for those times.

So … my eyes narrow and my lips purse at the thought of Friday, May 2 at Salvatore’s.

“Rain” is a seven-minute song.  How can I memorize something that long?  I don’t know about the “how”.  I just know about the “do”.  There’s no way I’m going to stand there looking down at the words on a screen.   My eyes belong to the audience.

Last night I started.  I watched Bob on YouTube, singing the song as a young man in the 1960’s.  I watched other artists cover his work.  And I began memorizing.

The lyrics take up six pages in the Samsung Notes app.  Yesterday I completed Level One memorizing of the first page.

Here it is:

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?

Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?

I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains

I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways

I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests

I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans

I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard

And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard

And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Level One memorizing is that I can sing all these lines without any assistance.  But an hour later, many of the words have floated away.  I don’t know how many levels there are on the way to mastery, but that word is also elusive.  It’s one thing to be smooth and free as I sing in my living room … and entirely another when faced with many eyes looking at me.

Still, I’m thrilled with my early progress.  I’m imagining walking down the streets of Toronto singing page three out loud, or even page six!  If Torontonians find that strange, too bad for them.

I felt the surges of Dylan’s melody last night.  And even completing a few lines gave me a sense of the accumulating power of his words.  Feeling this for seven minutes?  Woh!

My next memorizing session will be tomorrow.  Who knows what will be unleashed?

Thank you, Bob