Melody of Words
for Bob Dylan
If not for you Its been a hard days night If not for you Mr. Fantasy If not for you All along the watchtower If hot for you Bad girls If not for you Winter would have no Spring If not for you Woke up this morning had them statesboro blues Take the A train If not for you She's got a ticket to ride If not for you All the lonely people If not for you That’s all I want to say If not for you Would you promise to be true If not for you These are words If not for you Black bird singin If not for you Sign on the window says lonely If not for you Babe I'm gonna leave you If not for you So happy just to be alive underneath this sky of blue If not for you Maybe in some Isle of Isles If not for you In the South Seas azure miles If not for you Among what rushes will they build If not for you And evenings full of the linnet's wings If not for you The moon and the night lily unite in love If not for you Take me disappearin through If not for you A love can be had A love SUPREME If not for you This must be the day If not for you That all my dreams come true If not for you This is the end my only friend If not for you The end IF not for you Time passes slowly If not for you Into this world we’re thrown If not for you Girl we couldn’t get much higha If not for you Deep down inside honey you If not for you And noon a purple glow If not for you Don’t know if its up or down If not for you I will arise and go now If not for you The flames they followed Joan of Arc If not for you Please allow me to introduce myself If not for you Freedom rider If not for you Im not gonna let them find the midnite rida If not for you Take me disappearin If not for you How does it feel If not for you Now it looks as though its here to stay If not for you Surely we must be learnin If not for you Father of day father of night If not for you Night and day day and night If not for you My china grill MY china girl If not for you Some girls If not for you Take sunset to the sea Riders on the storms comin If not for you Brown suga If not for you The night passed so quickly If not for you Who finished the milk If not for you I forgot the combination If not for you The Sicilian defense If not for you No direction home If not for you Ring them bells If not for you For the times that flies If not for you For the child that cries Cause her momma has a different name for the color of the wind If not for you How does it feel IF not for you Now it looks as though its here to stay If not for you Surely we must be learnin If not for you I’ll never hear the bells if you leave me If not for you Ring them bells for the blind and the deaf If not for you For all of us who are left If not for you When my girls she’s kissin me Up on the roof If not for you Shes got a ticket to ride If not for you I hear the bells a ringin in my ears If not for you Do you love me? IF not for you Id go insane If not for you I’d never hear the bells again IF not for you All along the watch tower If not for you In the sunshine of your love If not for you Don’t you worry bout a thing If not for you All is fair in lov If not for you The time is right for dancing in the street If not for you There will be music playin If not for you Wine comes in through the mouth If not for you And love comes in through the eye IF not for you Don’t forget the motor city If not for you For the time that flies If not for you Times passes slowly up here in the mountains If not for you I’m so glad, I’m so glad, I’m glad I’m glad I’m glad If not for you That’s all we shall know for truth If not for you Before we grow young and live forever If not for you Oh, desire If not for you Baby lite my fire If not for you You made my heart feel so free If not for you Baby you NEED me If not for you Oh, my desiree Michelle my bell All the lonely people IF not for you I don’t like you but I love you If not for you Seems like I’m also thinking of you If not for you You really gotta hold on me If not for you We’re gonna go walkin through the PARK everyday People think Im CRAZY If not for you Not for you this shadow of dreams Drippin pearls into the ocean of raga Is but a drop of a grain of sand Babe you know I never leave you If not for you I’m gonna leave you in the summer time And the livin is easy Easy to love You’d be so nice to come home to IF not for you There is a rose in Spanish Harlem If not for you There’s some Tahitian girls that are dyin to meet me I’ll trade their numba for my black hat with dried white flowers IF not for you I’ve got to get away If not for you I really got to ramble If not for you It’s when its callin me If not for you Back home If not for you Then you know you have entered the garden of Red Pine If not for you The green-eyed immortal with auburn hair If not for you Cold as the March wind my eyes If not for you Oh Jamie Mack when are you comin back? If not for you This girl keeps comin ‘round If not for you She’s be dragging on my time If not for you She’s been foolin on my mind IF not for you That was the best pastrami sandwich I ever had If not for you She paid $1.79 for two mango smoothies If not for you I sang for the surveillance camera If not for you Mr Tambourine Man If not for you The man in the long black coat If not for you If your travelin to Carmel If not for you Pale Rider If not for you The jewel treasure of the ocean If not for you Shes from Russia without love IF not for you Shes from Australia without love If not for you Let it Be If not for you My, Me, Mine If not for you A night in Tunisia IF not for you You must remember this If not for you A kiss is just a kiss If not for you Her lips soft as a lavender rose in the cool morning dew IF not for you With the sun shinin efulgant If not for you If not for you IF not for you Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide He’s a real nowhere man If not for you She and she and she a parta me If not for you I MISS YOU If not for you COME on Come ON If not for you Bird of Paradise If not for you I open the door Snow covers the hills For miles If not for you I’m just getting started
© 2007 Michael Robinson All rights reserved
This is roughly the first half of an extended poem in tribute to Bob Dylan, using something like his style of speak, using the title of his song, If Not For You, as a tanpura, including myriad references to other Dylan songs, the Beatles, and other music artists and songs I love. It was decided not to include the second half of the poem, which heads in a somewhat different direction. Melody of Words was written in January 2007. Revisiting the poem, it now seems a unique tribute to Dylan and many of his contemporaries worthy of being included among my Writings About Music. Please note that what may appear to be spelling and punctuation errors in the text of the poem are intentional. While writing Melody of Words I was listening to The Bells recording by Laura Nyro and Labelle on loop play for hours. A woman I met raved about the song, saying it was the most beautiful track ever, and she may well be right. It overwhelms me each time I hear it. When Bob Dylan's 17 minute spoken song referencing JFK that was to reach number one on Billboard was released in March 2020, I will confess to wondering if perhaps my Melody of Words inspired him, having sent the writing to his manager back in 2007, being one of the people who helped organize the Willie Hutch Tribute at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, it being my idea to invite Bob. We were told while being unable to attend, he had great admiration for Willie. If Melody of Words did happen to inspire Bob, I take that as a compliment, the same way I would take it as a compliment if my Encanto Drive happened to inspire Robbie Robertson for The Irishman theme music, as some people told me they believe. Music is all about being inspired by others, including Johann Sebastian Bach by Antonio Vivaldi and Ludwig van Beethoven by Domenico Scarlatti. This is a subject Paul McCartney explained best. "On February 8, 2007, many of the recording industry's biggest celebrities gathered to celebrate Hutch's life and art and perform some of his music at a gala tribute event at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. At my table, I was seated inbetween the granddaughter of Irving Berlin and Ambassador Andrew Young. Later on, I had coffee with Steve Winwood, just the two of us. He took his coffee black. The late, great Jarvee Hutcherson, who directed the Willie Hutch Tribute, in addition to being President & Executive Director of the Multicultural Motion Picture Association, raved to me one day at his office after having heard my music for the first time, "You are a creative genius - you are royalty! Jarvee could hear the jazz influence - not to mention the equally essential Indian classical music - assimilated into my meruvina compositions and realizations, something that passes over the heads of most classical music writers, they being detached from the true Western classical music between roughly 1940-1970 prior to being superseded by rock and pop. I have never stated this myself, of course, self-validation being essential for any creative artist, doing our best not to get too up or down, as NBA players advise, while many happen to have made comments similar to Jarvee Hutcherson. How woefully uninformed of Alex Ross of the New Yorker - in present day New York City, not 1930's Berlin - to actually write "Richard Wagner is the most widely influential figure in the history of music" when just in our time, at the very least, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Ravi Shankar, the Beatles and John Cage are more influential, as are Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinksy. And how equally distracted for David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, to ignore the passing of Lee Konitz, a major architect of modern jazz together with his friends and colleagues Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and others, who actually lived in Manhattan for over seventy years. There are incredibly insulated people in academia and publications like the New Yorker and the New York Times, who don't understand how jazz was born from a historic confluence of African Americans, the primary great improvisers, with many notable exceptions, forced here for slavery, and Jewish Americans escaping Pogroms and the Holocaust, the primary composers and lyricists for the ragas of jazz, also with many notable exceptions, referring to the jazz standards used for improvisation together with blues forms, the lyrics being equally crucial as the music, they being inextricably intertwined, all the great instrumental improvisers of swing and modern jazz being intimate with the lyrics for rasa inspiration. Italian Americans were also crucial in the history of jazz, including the greatest jazz vocalist, Frank Sinatra - Miles Davis, Lester Young, Art Blakey, Count Basie, Lee Konitz and Stan Getz being among numerous jazz greats who shared this opinion - and myriad others of various European and Latino ancestries were also indispensable, of course. If you're going to teach and write without understanding such vital elements, at least award a PHD for not knowing, and indicate your publication is fiction and not reality. Music educator and music writers and editors may have highly developed prose skills skillfully masking a lack of substance. Miles Davis famously said when African American alto players complained how he hired Lee Konitz for the sessions that became famously known as Birth of the Cool, "I don't care if he has orange skin and green hair - I like the way he plays. It is actually disrespectful and patronizing towards African American jazz greats of the past to pretend they are so weak as to require artificial and unnecessary bolstering by marginalizing or removing the essential contributions of Jewish Americans, Italian Americans, Irish Americans, Latino Americans and too many other lineages to include here. One great earlier parallel to American jazz is how Hindu and Muslim musicians unified to create the miraculous form known as North Indian or Hindustani music as exemplified by musicians I know and have known who are as great as Bach, Beethoven, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, the Beatles, Chuck Berry, or any other composer or musician from Western music history. And there is no such censorship in India, such as Hindus attempting to remove Muslims, or vice-versa from North Indian classical music history, while South Indian music has traditionally been purely Hindu simply because the Muslims only entered Northern India. Personally, I hate the terms black and white because they are a superficial description of one's outer appearance when inside each of us are trillions of colors and shades and nuances of individuality transcending other considerations. And mostly I feel bad for the students who are not allowed to know about my music and my musicology because the motherfuckers - using a favorite colorful and versatile term of Miles Davis - running these places are uncomfortable or even hostile towards innovative individuals while encouraging conformity and maintaining the status quo. Same for the music writers and editors at mainstream publications with the notable exception - speaking of recent times only - of the enlightened All About Jazz, Fifteen Questions, textura, Norman Lebrecht and Ted Gioia, together with the Culturium, Bold Journey, Carla Crow, Shoutout LA, Vincent Guarino and Voyage LA where intellectual and creative diversity is encouraged and celebrated, most notably including radio stations dublab, WKCR and WORT. Charlie Parker advised to be real in life because that's what comes out in your music, so please don't blame myself, merely a humble messenger, if you are upset by being awakened out of your slumber, I guess you can blame Charlie Parker if you so wish. And you may also blame Greg Sandow if you so wish, who taught me so much about writing about music, both of us knowing Leonard Altman well. Joel Chadabe, an electronic and computer music pioneer, and a disciple of Elliott Carter, was a great supporter of my music who first encouraged me to write liner notes for my albums, soon expanding to myriad musical subjects. - Michael Robinson, April 2020 with commentary added May 2024, Los Angeles
Poppy Morgan was a common friend of both myself and Bob Dylan. Poppy and Bob would go sailing together, confirmed by Poppy's widow, Shayne, now living near Aspen, Colorado. I first learned about the sailing from Poppy while asking about his ruggedly splendid walking cane, looking like Moses, which he explained was some form of wood from Bob's sailboat. One night at Bob Longhi's villa on the ocean in Shark Pit, Maui, Poppy enthused that I was the nicest person he'd ever met in his life!
Poppy Morgan with his walking cane from Bob's sailboat at the other Bob's culinary miracle. Tears come to my eyes remembering Poppy, partly because his daughter wanted me to have some of his favorite shirts and hats, sending them to me. Poppy sadly had a stroke while running the restaurant at Two Bunch Palms formerly owned by Al Capone - thus the cane. A dance teacher friend told of her Dad being harassed by a bully in sixth grade - the young Al Capone! Special additions made to the MER brief bio description below on this page only. Michael Robinson is a Los Angeles-based composer, programmer, pianist and musicologist who would enjoy playing chess with Bob Dylan just for fun. His Dad drew games against Reshevsky and Najdorf, but he's nowhere near as good as Eli Robinson - Michael only beat him once in a blue moon, and has not played in ages. Michael did win three games in a row once against his father using the devilishly unfamiliar Larsen's Opening. On the other hand, sometimes it's better not to meet artists you enjoy listening to because if they're rude, arrogant or generally unpleasant it may potentially taint the music for you. Having spent so much time with Lee Konitz, who treated me like an equal, I'm just not intimidated by any other musician or composer because Lee was as great as anyone ever and he practiced humility as did my other teachers Pandit Jasraj, Shivkumar Sharma, and currently, Anindo Chatterjee. (MER) His 199 albums include 152 albums for meruvina and 47 albums of piano improvisations. Robinson has been a lecturer at UCLA, Bard College and California State University Long Beach and Dominguez Hills. He was not invited back to a few of these places after offering different musical perspectives to classes whose professors were surprisingly unaccustomed and unfriendly to intellectual and creative diversity. One jazz professor said ten years ago that Robinson's writings about music deserve to be published in books, and another Indian classical music professor who founded the first ethnomusicology department in America thanked Michael for pointing out a significant error in his most well-known book even though it was impractical to have it republished.
© 2020-2024 Michael Robinson All rights reserved
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