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Thirty and Seven Years Gone By

12/8/2017

1 Comment

 

Living is Easy with Eyes Closed, Misunderstanding All You See

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By Caitlin Hawke

I am going to keep it simple today.  December 8th is seared into many a New Yorkers' mind.  I got a chill looking at the front page above. The GOP was prepping a transition to the White House.  There were Russian hijinks on the international stage.  A man was shot in New York City.

John Lennon. Gunned down outside the Dakota.  If you were a New Yorker, you can't forget it. If you weren't yet a New Yorker, you know exactly where you were when you heard the news 37 years ago.  It doesn't matter. We were all New Yorkers that day.

I don't want to get too heavy. But we still need elegies in the face of senseless violence. I am reminded of a statistic I read in the paper: since the song below was written in '68 we've lost more Americans to gun violence than to the battlefields of all the wars in our history. Then again I suppose it's all in how you define "battlefield."

In remembrance of 12/8/80, I offer up an extremely rare gem: Clydie King and her husband Elston Gunn (aka Blind Boy Grunt, aka Robert Zimmerman) covering Dion's 1968 hit "Abraham, Martin and John" by Dick Holler.  A stripped down, harmonic, elegiac duet.  I mean for it to stop us all in our tracks.

On this raw day, thirty seven years late, I give you a power couple and a song I dedicate to the memory of a long lost neighbor.   

Roll on, John.


[If you are reading this post in an email subscription, to load the video you'll need to click on the photo or go directly to the blog page.]
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Clydie King and her husband Bob Dylan in a rare duet at the piano bench

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1 Comment
TERENCE HANRAHAN
12/8/2017 10:35:16 am

well you hit the ball right out of the park with this blog post Caitlin...wow...roll on John and Bob!

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