Bob Dylan – The Human Rights Warrior

Farmland near Nerstrand, Minnesota
October, 2013

Recently, our family took a daytrip down to visit some friends who live near the town of Nerstrand, MN about an hour outside of the Twin Cities. When I first moved to Minnesota, I was struck by the fact that people here always give you directions in north, south, east or west – as in “Go two blocks north and then turn west”. I had never before used the cardinal directions as a point of reference, so this was confusing to me at first. But I soon discovered that it makes sense in a Plains state where you can actually see the horizon. It becomes only natural to use the horizon and the sun’s relation to it as a frame of reference, a way of understanding the natural order of the world. When I took this picture, for example, I knew that I was facing north because it was afternoon and the sun was clearly in the west.

We happened to visit the country on a glorious fall day. The kids rode the horses (and pony) through the fields and down the road to an old graveyard that is populated by German and Norwegian immigrants to the area who settled here beginning in the 1850s. Some of the gravestones were so old that the carved names and dates had been all but erased by the elements. Others were propped against a birch tree. Having lost all connection to the graves that they once marked, they now appeared to gaze out beyond trees and fields and farms to whatever lies beyond the horizon.

Gravestones in Wheeling (German) Evangelical Cemetary
Nerstrand, MN

It reminded me of the melancholy, nostalgic-sounding song Beyond The Horizon by Minnesota’s own Bob Dylan.

Beyond The Horizon

by Bob Dylan

Beyond the horizon, behind the sun
At the end of the rainbow life has only begun
In the long hours of twilight ‘neath the stardust above
Beyond the horizon it is easy to love

My wretched heart’s pounding
I felt an angel’s kiss
My memories are drowning
In mortal bliss

Beyond the horizon, in the Springtime or Fall
Love waits forever for one and for all

Beyond the horizon across the divide
‘Round about midnight, we’ll be on the same side
Down in the valley the water runs cold
Beyond the horizon someone prayed for your soul

I’m touched with desire
What don’t I do?
I’ll throw the logs on the fire
I’ll build my world around you

Beyond the horizon, at the end of the game
Every step that you take, I’m walking the same

Beyond the horizon the night winds blow
The theme of a melody from many moons ago
The bells of St. Mary, how sweetly they chime
Beyond the horizon I found you just in time

It’s dark and it’s dreary
I ponder in vain
I’m weakened, I’m weary
My repentance is plain

Beyond the horizon o’er the treacherous sea
I still can’t believe that you’ve set aside your love for me

Beyond the horizon, ‘neath crimson skies
In the soft light of morning I’ll follow you with my eyes
Through countries and kingdoms and temples of stone
Beyond the horizon right down to the bone

It’s late in the season
Never knew, never cared
Whatever the reason
Someone’s life has been spared

Beyond the horizon the sky is so blue
I’ve got more than a lifetime to live lovin’ you

(If you don’t know the tune, you can listen here)

This post is a response to Weekly Photo Challenge: Horizon.

Sunset after a storm in the Sandwich Ridge mountains, New Hampshire — Sunset after a storm in the Sandwich Ridge Mountains, New Hampshire

I took this photo last year during a family vacation in Center Sandwich, New Hampshire. A thunderstorm raged all afternoon, but just as we were finishing dinner the storm suddenly ended. Three generations of extended family went out into the still-damp field to watch the sunset reflected on the lifting storm clouds. As often happens in the mountains, it was a dramatic change. At the time, and ever since, the play of setting sun on passing thunderheads makes me think of Sam Cooke and “A Change is Gonna Come“. Recorded in January 1964, the song became one of the greatest anthems of the Civil Rights Movement.

A Change is Gonna Come

I was born by the river in a little tent.

Ohh and just like the river,

I’ve been running ev’r since.

It’s been a long time, a long time coming

But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

It’s been too hard living, but I’m afraid to die

‘Cause I don’t know what’s up there, beyond the sky

It’s been a long, a long time coming

But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will.

I go to the movie and I go downtown.

Somebody keep tellin’ me don’t hang around.

It’s been a long, a long time coming

But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will.

Then I go to my brother

And I say brother help me please.

But he winds up knockin’ me

Back down on my knees, ohh

There have been times that I thought

I couldn’t last for long

But now I think I’m able to carry on

It’s been a long, a long time coming

But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will.

A singer who blurred the lines between gospel, R&B and pop, Cooke was reportedly inspired to write “A Change is Gonna Come” by Bob Dylan and “Blowin’ In The Wind”. While on tour in October 1963, Cooke and his band were turned away from a “whites only” motel in Shreveport, Louisiana where they had a reservation. When they protested, they were arrested and thrown in jail for disturbing the peace. Not long after, Sam Cooke wrote “A Change is Gonna Come”

“Sam as a writer saw himself almost as a reporter,” said biographer Peter Guralnick said in one interview. “He took all of those experiences[of racism],” Guralnick says, “but he enlarged upon them and he broadened them to the point that the song… becomes a statement of what a generation had had to endure.”

The song was only a modest commercial success and Sam Cooke only performed it live once. Yet “A Change Is Gonna Come” has become an iconic symbol of triumph over adversity. It has been called Sam Cooke’s legacy and “heralded as his magnus opum”. In 2005, it was voted number 12 in Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It has also been selected National Public Radio (NPR) as one of the 300 most important songs. In 2007, it was added by the Library of Congress to the National Recording Registry. Bettye LaVette performed “A Change Is Gonna Come” with Jon Bon Jovi, at the Lincoln Memorial during the first inaugural concert for President Obama, introducing a new generation to Sam Cooke. (Watch the video here .)

Sam Cooke died on December 11, 1964 in a shooting at a Los Angeles motel. He was 33 years old.

***

Today is a gray and cold day where I live – a day on the tipping point between winter and spring. To fight the doldrums, I took my two youngest children swimming at the our local YMCA pool. As I looked at all the kids laughing and playing in the pool, the splashing water sparkling on skin that was black and white and every shade in between, I realized that this was a scene that wasn’t even possible in most of the United States when Sam Cooke wrote “A Change Is Gonna Come” in 1964. And while we still have a ways to go, Sam Cooke was correct. The storm clouds will pass and the sun will come out.

“But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will.”