#330 / It's Sugar For Sugar And Salt For Salt

 

It seems to me, though I haven't done a rigorous check, that I am more and more importing little snatches of music into these blog postings. It is not always music associated with Bob Dylan, but oftentimes (and I'll admit it): yes; it is! 

This posting today was prompted by a short little verse (or part of a verse) from a Bob Dylan song called Crash On The Levee (Down In The Flood), dating from 1967.

Click right here if you'd like to hear Dylan sing that song. I'll put the complete lyrics at the bottom of this blog posting. 

At any rate, it's the following lines from the song that have been popping into my head, recently, with some significant regularity:

Well, it's sugar for sugar

And salt for salt

If you go down in the flood

It's gonna be your own fault...

In lots of ways, Dylan is quite comfortable (or so it seems to me) operating in "prophetic mode." Prophetic pronouncements, coming from the Bible, or found elsewhere, tend not to be completely clear and straightforward; they tend to be more allusive than exact. They're poetic, and they don't deliver their message in what we call "straight prose." 

So it is with that verse I just mentioned, which keeps emerging into my mind, unbidden, as I walk around town, or read the news. 

Flood reports and flood warnings (whether coming from the Bible or otherwise) are generally meant to indicate big problems, and Dylan's flood imagery is definitely consistent with this understanding. In A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, for instance, Dylan reports hearing "the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world." In Crash On The Levee, he is letting us know that we could go "down in the flood." 

But you know, the way Dylan is laying it out for us, in Crash On The Levee, if we do go down in the flood it's going to be our own fault! We are going to get what we give, is the way I am reading the prophecy in this song. 

Are we being generous to others, or are we doing them wrong, keeping the good stuff for ourselves? Individually, or collectively - either way - we had better be sure. However we are conducting ourselves, we are going to be getting "sugar for sugar," and it will be "salt for salt." 

If we go down in this flood that's coming, it's gonna be our own fault!

oooOOOooo  

Crash on the Levee (Down in the Flood)
WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

Crash on the levee, mama
Water's gonna overflow
Swamp's gonna rise
No boat's gonna row
Now, you can train on down
To Williams Point
You can bust your feet
You can rock this joint
But oh mama, ain't you gonna miss your best friend now?
You're gonna have to find yourself
Another best friend, somehow

Now, don't you try an' move me
You're just gonna lose
There's a crash on the levee
And, mama, you've been refused
Well, it's sugar for sugar
And salt for salt
If you go down in the flood
It's gonna be your own fault
Oh mama, ain't you gonna miss your best friend now?
You're gonna have to find yourself
Another best friend, somehow

Well, that high tide's risin'
Mama, don't you let me down
Pack up your suitcase
Mama, don't you make a sound
Now, it's king for king
Queen for queen
It's gonna be the meanest flood
That anybody's seen
Oh mama, ain't you gonna miss your best friend now?
Yes, you're gonna have to find yourself
Another best friend, somehow

Copyright © 1967 by Dwarf Music; renewed 1995 by Dwarf Music

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