Ah get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don’t steal, don’t lift
Twenty years of schoolin’
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don’t wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don’t wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don’t work
’Cause the vandals took the handles
–
Bob Dylan. Recorded January 14, 1965. “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” Track 1 on Bringing It All Back Home. Columbia Records of Sony Music Entertainment Inc, March 8, 1965.
It was very early in the morning, the streets clean and deserted, I was on my way to the station. As I checked my watch against the tower clock I realized it was much later than I had thought and that I had to hurry, the shock of this discovery made me feel uncertain of the way, I wasn’t very well acquainted with the town as yet, fortunately there was a policeman nearby, I ran up to him and breathlessly asked him the way. He smiled and said: “You asking me the way” “Yes,” I said, “since I can’t find it myself.” “Give it up! Give it up!” he said, and swung around, like someone who wants to be alone with his laughter.
–
Franz Kafka, “Give it Up!” in The Complete Stories (Schocken Paperback, 1976).
Written between 1917 – 1923 and first published posthumasly in Beschreibung eines Kampfes (1936).
Bob Dylan: Central/Eastern European absurdist?
(I can’t help but think Bob and Franz would have been friends)
Four Point Font 