Brevity by Dan Thompson for February 17, 2012

There’s too much confusion!

Where are the watch towers?

All along, I’d guess.

Joker…leaf…..Robin Hood…..nope, I don’t get this strip at all :P

probably not a lot of bare foot servants or women coming and going there..Cue the wildcat, cue the riders…cue the wind…

For those unfamiliar, the lyrics……the lyrics.

“There must be some kinda way out of hereSaid the joker to the thiefThere’s too much confusionI can’t get no relief

Businessmen, they, they drink my winePlowmen dig my earthNone will level on the lineNobody of it is worth, hey

No reason to get excitedThe thief, he kindly spokeThere are many here among usWho feel that life is but a joke

But you and I, we’ve been through thatAnd this is not our fateSo let us not talk falsely nowThe hour is getting late, hey

Hey

All along the watchtowerPrinces kept the viewWhile all the women came and wentBarefoot servants too

Outside in the cold distanceA wildcat did growlTwo riders were approachingAnd the wind began to howl, hey

All along the watchtowerAll along the watchtower

There is a reason for Bob Dylan’s voice sounding the way it does. If you understood the lyrics, most of his songs wouldn’t make any sense.

Dogsniff, yeah, I was working on that one too.

And I guess because of all the “confusion”, the joker starts talking to the Leaf, instead of the Thief, as Radish said earlier, and I think crweaver was alluding to it too, but I didn’t get it.

Not even after what Varnes said. Sigh….

I recognised the connection with the Dylan song….. but I thought the leaf and Robin Hood meant there was another song or plot mixed in….Maybe the “leaf” also represents the “herb” that I think Hendrix added to the lyrics.Honestly, I don’t partake but, as you can see, I don’t need to!

Susan, that does explain the Joke’rs confusion…Yeah, both Bob and Jimi enjoyed the leaf…….Hey….wait a minute….He’s a joker….you don’t think he was making a joke do ya?…

Maybe Bob should update that song…..change it to "said the broker to the thief…’ Works for me…

OK, I’m done. I read these comics first thing in the morning before heading off to the office, I want a chuckle, a smile, a laugh. I don’t want to have to try and remember a song from 1967 by a singer and writer I didn’t care for then and care for less now. When I have to read the “COMMENTS” to make the connection I have gone way over my budgeted time. Thanks to all of you for your knowledge and your senses of humor. You folkjs are wittier than the Brevity strip, Thanks for the memories. See you down the line. I’m out.

Maybe Bobby should update that song, change it to, “There must be some way out of court, said the broker to the thief..”Just for the record, the line is:Businessmen drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth, Non of them along the line, know what any of it worth..I’ve always got a kick out of the line “plowmen dig my earth” I always hear a hippie voice saying, “I dig your earth, man. It’s really cool…”,

Leaf me alone.

A more traditional thief, maybe with the black-and-white shirt, may have made it a little easier to get without giving it away. I got Dylan/Hendrix, leaf, and Robin Hood right away, but it took a while for the pieces to fall together.

OK, I still don’t get it because the song makes no sense,either. I gave up on pop music about the time of the Beatles.

I don’t know whether to be concerned that I couldn’t figure this out on my own or to be concerned for those that did. I totally agree with tagteam. Dylan singing is like the adults talking in a Charlie Brown cartoon.

Enough! Cant we just leave it alone.

hell, no! we won’t go!hell, no! we won’t go!

one two three four , we don’t want your …uh…darned old war!

Brevity is a thinking man’s comic, I have an inkling why you may not like it.

WONDERFUL! You owe Dylan royalties!!!

I couldn’t understand Dylan 50 years ago. Guy & Rodd & Dan didn’t help now

This strip is getting stranger by the day. Not saying that’s bad. Just saying.

mythreesons: I tried to learn his Hallelujah, but kept forgetting the lyrics.

It helps if you are a certain age. I noticed on Jeopardy some days I can answer most of the clues and some days only a few.

??????

Cute take on the maestro. But, there should be a watchtower somewhere in the panel. Blowin in the wind.

For once, my age and wayward youth gave me an advantage. I got the comic, appreciate it, and will treasure it.

Whether you “get” the Brevity humor today or not, pretty much all here have heard of Bob Dylan, whether you care for his music or not. “All Along The Watchtower” was a hit for two artists, and has long been a radio mainstay. So I think that Dylan and this tune are fair subject matters for a cartoon.

there’s too much confusion

Robin Hood is, when you get down to it, a thief — he robs the rich and gives t the poor. So that fits, along with the mismatch on “leaf”.

Thank god for my fellow readers. I knew the reference was familiar, but I couldn’t get the whole picture till I read the comments.

I am so glad Guy Rodd & Dan have never pitched an artistic sissy-fit and forbade us to talk to each other like some other hyper-sensitive cartoonists I could name.

They are funny occasionally, today is not on of those occasions.

I didn’t get the strip today, until it was explained. And now I’m rather embarrassed that I don’t know my Bob Dylan (or Jimi Henrix) tunes better. I recently took a pair of guitar classes were all Bob Dylan tunes – he did some really interesting stuff that most people don’t know about, in many different traditional styles. For example “Girl from the North Country”, which is a modernization of “Scarborough Fair” (vldazzle – you might be interested in that kind of thing, because it is drawing on old folk tunes from the British Isles from the Middle Ages essentially – Bob Dylan drew upon that from time to time, though obviously not with everything). He did have some really interesting music that rarely gets played on the radio. Sometimes Dylan’s lyrics truly don’t seem to make any sense, but often they are metaphore…. (Sorry about saying the obvious to people who already know that.)

Number six, I think information just out one THROUGH the back of the net! Good one info!

Dogsniff, Tangled up in Blue, On a Night Like This, If You See Her Say Hello, Lilly, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts, Forever Young, Lay Lady Lay. I can’t vouch for the timber of his voice, but it’s not garbled….Besides, nobody writes as well. (Although if you haven’t listened to Elvis Costello’s National Ransom over and over again, you’re missing out, jusayin…).

I’m with Varnes on most of his last post.

I never argue about who’s “best” at songwriting, because one person might be talking about lyrics, another melody…. one looks for perfect rhyme, great emotional insight, or deep thinking, while another values poetic imagery, or simply “catchiness” or “danceability.”

But on balance, Bob Dylan – AND Elvis Costello — score very high for me!

There are many “poetic” songwriters whose lyrics I love — from Frank Zappa (yes, Dogsniff) to Jonathan Meiburg (I know…who?)….

but sometimes I need another kind of tune….

Or at a given moment I might connect more to the simple emotion of an old ballad or a Stone’s song..

or even…. I dunno…. the drunken goofiness of the idiotic “Red Solo Cup.”

No, no….NOT a great bit of songwriting but it expresses a moment — and sure has a lot of people singing it…which does count for some thing!

i find it sad how many people don’t get this.. people need to listen to when rock n roll was actually good and innovative.

Meanwhile…. I love Brevity.

You might or might not.So what?

If you didn’t like Mahler would you stand up at a symphony performance and announce in a loud voice that you were walking out?

Do you really think it matters to anyone, or that the audience would be more inclined to follow, or be annoyed?

Especially if it were an artist who is still alive, and present….

Yes, this is a “forum” but it’s on the pages where the syndicate displays the artists’ work, and we discuss it.

There are a few hundred comics here… you don’t need to read or analyse any you dislike….buh bye.

mythreesons: You are aware that Mozart’s Hallelujah lyrics consists of “hallelujah” repeated over and over throughout with no other words?

If you have to explain a joke… I thought someone admitting to some familiarity with Mozart would have gotten it, even if most would not. Kiri Te Kanawa sang it at Charles and Diana’s wedding and it is one of his better known non-operatic vocal works. Oh well!

Hello! I know no one is reading this anymore, but I thought the first person’s reference to Hallelujah was intended to refer to Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen is another great songwriter, so the confusion is understandable). What is commonly referred to as the “Hallelujah Chorus” is from Handel’s Messiah (written by George Frideric Handel, who was slightly before Mozart’s time, and lived much of his life in England). The Hallelujah chorus contains many sentences other than the word “Hallelujah” (i.e. “For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth”).

Sorry – I know it’s too late and no one cares anymore, but I’m into music, so I just can’t help myself.