Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Huck's Tune

A queen in Bob's deck
Might make a good hand, but he
Folds early and leaves.

I don't care much for movies and songs about baseball, horse racing, boxing, billiards and cards. I know that there are exceptions, but these are worlds outside my area of interest, at least in entertainment. I also don't care much about gambling. "Huck's Tune" is a song that rests, in the end, on a deck of cards, and was used in a movie about poker, "Lucky You," with Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore and Robert Duvall.

My aversion to all these things got in the way of my enjoyment of "Huck's Tune," and if the haiku comes off as uninvolved, that's probably not an accident. The song, at least to me, gets lost in the midst of gentle country sway that fills up most of volume 8 of the Bootleg series.

Anyway, here are my thoughts:

Rolling hills of symbolism, as identified verse by verse:

- Desert of stone. Wandering. Dreaming of future wife. Sword in hand. Life IS death. Plate and cup are up. Kiss your lips, honey drips, but "I'm gonna have to put you down for a while). (These are almost certainly tarot symbols.)
- I see you on the street, looking good. All sizes of people come to the ball. I do too, regularly. Something to see behind the tree. Big river. Been with you twice, but you can't be nice. So... 
- Nurse/money/purse. Ladies and men. You bet all your money on cards while I'm getting a tan in the sand. You knock me dead. But...
- I'm not crying over the past and what I lost. I like nature. You're fine like wine, and I'm serious, but...
- No faith. I'm blue. Gonna have to put you down again...



1 comment:

  1. Hello there Robert, Thank you for posting this analysis of a song from Bob Dylan's Music Box: http://thebobdylanproject.com/Song/id/259/Hucks-Tune Come and join us inside and listen to every song composed, recorded or performed by Bob Dylan, plus all the great covers streaming on YouTube, Spotify, Deezer and SoundCloud plus so much more... including this link.

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