“Simple Twist of Fate”

They sat together in the park
As the evening sky grew dark,
She looked at him and he felt a spark tingle to his bones.
'Twas then he felt alone and wished that he'd gone straight
And watched out for a simple twist of fate.

They walked along by the old canal
A little confused, I remember well
And stopped into a strange hotel with a neon burnin' bright.
He felt the heat of the night hit him like a freight train
Moving with a simple twist of fate.

A saxophone someplace far off played
As she was walkin' by the arcade.
As the light bust through a beat-up shade where he was wakin' up,
She dropped a coin into the cup of a blind man at the gate
And forgot about a simple twist of fate.

He woke up, the room was bare
He didn't see her anywhere.
He told himself he didn't care, pushed the window open wide,
Felt an emptiness inside to which he just could not relate
Brought on by a simple twist of fate.

He hears the ticking of the clocks
And walks along with a parrot that talks,
Hunts her down by the waterfront docks where the sailers all come in.
Maybe she'll pick him out again, how long must he wait
Once more for a simple twist of fate.

People tell me it's a sin
To know and feel too much within.
I still believe she was my twin, but I lost the ring.
She was born in spring, but I was born too late
Blame it on a simple twist of fate.

Bob Dylan
“Simple Twist of Fate”

These lyrics are not the exact same lyrics Dylan sings
in this performance. Dylan did stuff like that.
Changing lyrics, sometimes even the verses.
Nonetheless, these are the canonical lyrics
from BobDylan.com.


* * *


I posted this for a few reasons.

One is that this is real. This isn’t people
parodying folk singers. I can’t imagine
anyone performing like this today,
but not all that long ago this was real.

This is not Taylor Swift pretending
to be a country singer or some
out of work Hollywood actor
or actress pretending to be
a pop star.

This is real and there was a time
when people had real entertainment
all the time. Bob Dylan. Steve Goodman.
Joni Mitchell. So many others. Gone now.

Lost.

And more than the people are gone. Lost.

The whole context is gone, lost. The whole
notion of people being real is gone, lost.

A silly looking guy like Bob Dylan,
sounding silly, would be a joke
on YouTube today and that’s
the only place he’d be able to appear.

The whole notion that beauty
and art are things beyond
the look and sound of a performance
has no place in today’s world.

I’m afraid beauty and art
have no place in today’s world.

Lost.

More than lost. Not even
thought about.

Old acquaintances.

Forgot.

Never brought to mind.