| Bob Dylan – It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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@[MichaelAdams81:177] I agree with a lot of your analyses, though clearly those aren't the only meanings behind Bobby's lyrics (if any...I feel there's plenty of stream of consciousness going on.) I do have to disagree with you on the chorus: “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.” If you look at the verses that precede this particular chorus, they all speak of authority figures and the narcissistic nature of humans that cause us to look down on others less intelligent or less capable: "As some warn victory some downfall...To make all that should be killed to crawl" "Human gods ...made everything from toy guns that spark to flesh-colored Christs" "Preachers preach of evil fates and teachers teach that knowledge waits" And I think we can agree that in all of these verses, Bobby certainly sheds a negative and very manipulative light on these authority figures. As if these authority figures, whose intelligent opinions drip with arrogance, were trying to manipulate (or perhaps teach) their own social and moral values to the fools and the young and the general masses. And remember, historically speaking, this song was written at a time when the young generation was establishing they're own set of values, creating friction between the older and the younger generations. In light of all of this, however inaccurate or accurate my analyses may be, it seems that Bobby is trying to say that we have to be wary of what others may have to teach us because some values we have to find ourselves and their circumstances may be far more different than your circumstances, giving way to a separate, much more individual set of values. |
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