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Bob Dylan plays “It’s Alright, Ma” @ Birmingham, England 5 May 1965 (video)

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bob dylan birmingham 1965

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying

Town Hall
Birmingham, England
5 May 1965

Bob Dylan (guitar, harmonica & vocal)

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying

Temptation’s page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you’d just be one more
Person crying

So don’t fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It’s alright, Ma, I’m only sighing

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don’t hate nothing at all
Except hatred

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked

An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it

Advertising signs they con
You into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks they really found you

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy, insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something they invest in

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn’t talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer’s pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death’s honesty
Won’t fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough, what else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only

–

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-Egil

8 thoughts on “Bob Dylan plays “It’s Alright, Ma” @ Birmingham, England 5 May 1965 (video)”

  1. Confusing the 1965 English tour with 1966 tour of the British Isles.

    That’ll teach me not to post late on Friday evening.

    (But the question about out-takes from the tour of 1966 remains both valid and fascinating. Though not perhaps “right here.”)

  2. Splendid.

    Out-takes from “Eat The Document.”

    If that’s all you have from Birmingham, what do you have from other shows?

    Edinburgh on Friday 20th May was the most extensively filmed of the tour, I remember, with Dylan “turning his back on the audience to play to the cameras filming for a US tv special for ABC tv ” according to contemporary Scottish press reports.

    Though Glasgow on Thursday 19th May, Ascension Thursday, “when the camera team rejoined (sic) the tour,” was the standout performance of the tour. Or is my memory, “just like the night” playing tricks?)

    1. Well it was an outtake from “Don’t Look Back” (“Eat the document” was about the 66 tour).

      There might be a couple of more videos coming up.. we’ll see 🙂

  3. Brilliant, many thanks.

    I’ve seen the Film of “It’s Alright Ma” described as being from Leicester De Montfort Hall !
    Never been to De Montfort Hall, but there is definitely a look of Birmingham Town Hall about the film.

    1. Was that the concert he started by running his finger along the floor and saying : “Dirt ! Dirt on the stage !” Where the second half was electric ; a large section of the audience protested by leaving ; and my friend, Bear, hollered out “I’m still here, Bob !!!” while I shrank with embarrassment next to him ?

      1. …second half electric certainly wasn’t Birmingham Town Hall in 1965. There was that sort of response at the 1966 concert in Birmingham (and others, I guess). If memory serves it was at the Old Odeon Cinema/Theatre in New Street.

  4. I was there ! In the audience at the Town Hall Birmingham.
    Great footage, why’ve I never seen that before?
    Anything else from that show?

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