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Do you still sing of the mountain bed we made of limbs and leaves?
Do you still sigh there near the sky where the holly berry bleeds?
You laughed as I covered you over with leaves
Face, breast, hips, and thighs
You smiled when I said the leaves were just the color of your eyes
Rosin smells and turpentine smells from eucalyptus and pine
Bitter tastes of twigs we chewed where tangled wood vines twine
Trees held us in on all four sides so thick we could not see
I could not see any wrong in you, and you saw none in me
Your arm was brown against the ground, your cheeks part of the sky
Your fingers played with grassy moss, as limber you did lie
Your stomach moved beneath your shirt and your knees were in the air
Your feet played games with mountain roots as you lay thinking there
Below us the trees grew clumps of trees, raised families of trees, and they
As proud as we tossed their heads in the wind and flung good seeds away
The sun was hot and the sun was bright down in the valley below
Where people starved and hungry for life so empty come and go
There in the shade and hid from the sun we freed our minds and learned
Our greatest reason for being here, our bodies moved and burned
There on our mountain bed of leaves we learned life's reason why
The people laugh and love and dream, they fight, they hate to die
The smell of your hair I know is still there, if most of our leaves are blown
Our words still ring in the brush and the trees where singing seeds are sown
Your shape and form is dim but plain, there on our mountain bed
I see my life was brightest where you laughed and laid your head
I learned the reason why man must work and how to dream big dreams
To conquer time and space and fight the rivers and the seas
I stand here filled with my emptiness now and look at city and land
And I know why farms and cities are built by hot, warm, nervous hands
I crossed many states just to stand here now, my face all hot with tears
I crossed city, and valley, desert, and stream, to bring my body here
My history and future blaze bright in me and all my joy and pain
Go through my head on our mountain bed where I smell your hair again.
All this day long I linger here and on in through the night
My greed's, desires, my cravings, hopes, my dreams inside me fight
My loneliness healed, my emptiness filled, I walk above all pain
Back to the breast of my woman and child to scatter my seeds again
Do you still sigh there near the sky where the holly berry bleeds?
You laughed as I covered you over with leaves
Face, breast, hips, and thighs
You smiled when I said the leaves were just the color of your eyes
Rosin smells and turpentine smells from eucalyptus and pine
Bitter tastes of twigs we chewed where tangled wood vines twine
Trees held us in on all four sides so thick we could not see
I could not see any wrong in you, and you saw none in me
Your arm was brown against the ground, your cheeks part of the sky
Your fingers played with grassy moss, as limber you did lie
Your stomach moved beneath your shirt and your knees were in the air
Your feet played games with mountain roots as you lay thinking there
Below us the trees grew clumps of trees, raised families of trees, and they
As proud as we tossed their heads in the wind and flung good seeds away
The sun was hot and the sun was bright down in the valley below
Where people starved and hungry for life so empty come and go
There in the shade and hid from the sun we freed our minds and learned
Our greatest reason for being here, our bodies moved and burned
There on our mountain bed of leaves we learned life's reason why
The people laugh and love and dream, they fight, they hate to die
The smell of your hair I know is still there, if most of our leaves are blown
Our words still ring in the brush and the trees where singing seeds are sown
Your shape and form is dim but plain, there on our mountain bed
I see my life was brightest where you laughed and laid your head
I learned the reason why man must work and how to dream big dreams
To conquer time and space and fight the rivers and the seas
I stand here filled with my emptiness now and look at city and land
And I know why farms and cities are built by hot, warm, nervous hands
I crossed many states just to stand here now, my face all hot with tears
I crossed city, and valley, desert, and stream, to bring my body here
My history and future blaze bright in me and all my joy and pain
Go through my head on our mountain bed where I smell your hair again.
All this day long I linger here and on in through the night
My greed's, desires, my cravings, hopes, my dreams inside me fight
My loneliness healed, my emptiness filled, I walk above all pain
Back to the breast of my woman and child to scatter my seeds again
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For those not in the know, Woody Guthrie was one of Bob Dylan's heroes growing up and you can really see the influence. Although written all the way back in 1944, these lyrics still resonate strongly as the themes are timeless and universal.
"Remember The Mountain Bed" is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the quintessential poems about love and life, taking on the whole scope of life and loss of it, moments op passion and the memory of it, pain and the passing of it,...
...and add to that whatever other images this dreamy melody and melancholy lyrics awaken in you.
This is one of those lyrics that's so objectively good it should be on a lot of people's tip of the tongue when they try to name the best lyrics ever entrusted to paper.
"Remember The Mountain Bed" is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the quintessential poems about love and life, taking on the whole scope of life and loss of it, moments op passion and the memory of it, pain and the passing of it,...
...and add to that whatever other images this dreamy melody and melancholy lyrics awaken in you.
Then I was called upon the "Remember The Mountain Bed". Of course I jumped at the chance cuz I would have done just about anything for this guy. For one year, I went through a process of reflecting on the past and trying to convey to him exactly HOW much he meant to me. I went there to try to prove to him that my love for him was definitely very real and extremely important to me, even though we could not be "together" in life. So maybe that's the "stomach moved beneath your shirt" part cuz not to be dramatic but for me- it was a MFing labor of love. I dealt with lots because (if nothing else) he was my friend.
This song will always remind me of him and the love and pain I experienced. He was well worth it.
The song has two obvious parts.
The first part describes a past loving experience taking place during the narrator's youth. The narrator escapes in the wood with his girlfriend to share some intimacy. Several hints suggest that the two lovers are inexperienced, probably still teenagers. In the first stanza, they play around, he tickles her. The second stanza concludes that "they don't see any wrong in each other". This could simply mean that they feel they fit each other, but the reference to morality suggests a deeper sense. These events take place in the 1920-1930s, a period where making love before wedding is considered sinful. But the two young lovers "freed their minds" (fifth stanza) and go forward as they don't see themselves as sinful persons to do so. In the third stanza, the narrator describes how the girl is nervous, which hints again to their relative unexperience. She plays with grassy moss, her legs fly all around, and "her stomach moves beneath her shirt", which I interpret to mean no more than she breathes deep and fast as she is nervous, waiting for the making love. The making love, the fifth stanza suggests, is a learning experience.They learn something about the adult world. The young couple probably experienced their first love making experience.
The second part is in sharp contrast to the first one. The young boy is no more. The narrator is an experienced adult who understood from working and travelling around that life can get tough. The man experiences a struggle, well summarized by BetsysBurrows: <
As one falls in love, they are immersed in world that is comparable to a utopian society. The first few verses illustrate this, but unfortunately for all involved, the couple's euphoria in love and nature cannot last. Either the woman leaves with their child or she dies along with the child and the utopia falls apart. The man is crushed as this unfolds and is filled by emptiness. I'm sure that we all have faced moments like this in our lives, but the important thing is that we inevitably move on. But while we move away from damaging events, a little part of them lingers inside of us. The man realizes that this part of his past is staying in his mind and getting in the way of his present life. So in order to put this relationship to rest, he comes back to the mountain bed and faces his memories and finally puts them to rest. Because he is able to confront and deal with his past, the man can finally move forward unhindered in his life.
We all love and lose in our lives, but after all is said and done, we usually grow from the experience. Guthrie is trying to tell it is ok to be distraught about damaging events, but it is never ok to leave them alone. They will only tear at your soul until you confront them.
In my opinion, the lyrics "your stomach moved beneath your shirt", illustrates she was pregnant with the hopes, dreams and possibilities of their love. When this "pregnancy" or "seed" dies, the loss is immense. My experience and this song, both confirm for me "it is greater to have loved and lost than to never have loved before".
The grieving process is different for everyone. While I know anger is a part of it, (and I have gone through that stage-a few times,) I particularly love this song for its absence. Reaching a point of acceptance and being thankful for the experience is crucial in order to move forward, unburdened by the loss.
The person that I loved, will always be hugely important to me. Whatever it was we "shared" was a beautiful thing.
Back to the breast of my woman and child to scatter my seeds again)
Back to the breast of my woman and child to scatter my seeds again
key words being...scatter my seeds again. and im guessing they might have already had another kid. but yeah. analize ppl.