Back Pages - Brown Notebook - Bright Summer Night 1967

          I see a light come shining

          From the summer unto the winter.

          To be here and then

          After decades and now

          Sharing the brightness of a star.   

Back pages – Brown Notebook (d) Early June 1967

There are some things not spoken about,

and others
that are spoken about without being things ...

That caravan parked behind the house

- when I arrive the sun shines just above it

and I see it shine

and I stay for a while watching it

(narrowed eyes)

and I know there's someone (on the) inside,

who I still don't know

                              :

the caravan

as a metaphor for myself

in these spring days

as my Olivetti takes up

some old rhythms

- yes, I'm thinking in terms of rhythm, too, these days-

and at the same time

it accompanies with a corn-spike-green torrent

from which joy and reaction keep rising,

the complicity of a band

that is myself before and myself now

If we talk about it,

or better yet play it together,

perhaps,

what I still don't know

could join us any afternoon now,

in the basement

Who is it that inhabits that "metaphorical caravan"?  

                               ( psychedelic pillows:

                                     why should surrealism be

                                            the patrimony of a single side? )

Talk to me, Nar!

- the guys told me you have this name,

sort of Shakespearean jester style ...

… Now I wonder how might your voice sound like .

Caravan (6) Early June 1967

   

     

     I get back to the caravan and Richard is sitting on the steps, still finishing his coffee. He smiles at me, doesn´t ask me where I’ve been, but I explain anyway by answering the question he´d asked himself earlier, including a reminder that I am still waiting.

      - I´ve been thinking that maybe you´ve told me about the “Upstairs, Downstairs” thing only because you want to share it with someone who is not on the “inside”, because you are interested in my perspective from the “outside”. I´ve not been invited down to the basement yet, so I haven´t got that image of Dylan on the basement stairs going up and down, then up again, engraved in my mind. You must be truly obsessed with it if you take it with you to dreamland …

       - OK.  You know I mentioned to them the other day that you might  join  us  any  afternoon  now  in  the  basement  to watch us play  - ´cause we all know you listen to us anyway, from the outside – but it´s not my fault they haven´t brought the idea up again. Anyway, I´m not talking about dreams in other people´s hands – your fault, Nar- but of an image of uncertainty – I don´t know if you get it- which has something to do with the feeling I´m getting as I try to write this song…

    - What are you unsure about? Is it more the words or the music?

   - Well, I´ve been talking about uncertainty, actually, which is more suggestive than the word ´unsure´… But since you ask, it is the words I´m most hung up on … The chords I´m clear enough on, you´ll see.

 

    Leaping up, he disappears into the caravan and emerges holding one of my guitars. He plays five chords, droning random words to a descending melody which at times recovers its verticality, climbing sharply alongside his burning voice. When he finishes, we sit in silence. He breaks it himself:

 

    - From now on, Nar, I´ll be coming to your caravan every Wednesday at 9:30 so we can discuss the matter further - he says putting his hand on my shoulder, looking rather serious.

      - I don´t believe you, Richard

      - You´d be wise not to.

 

      Getting up, he leaves his empty coffee cup on the bottom step and sets off towards the forest, waving goodbye with his hand. I watch him head off, barefoot, and somehow I know I have just heard the untaken photograph of a legend: with my ears, with my eyes, with my anticipatory love for myths in the making   .-.-.-

 

      If you find me in a gloom or catch me in a dream

                                                                                                                             .-.-.-

Caravan (5) Early June 1967

“Yesterday, I decided to sleep in the basement, you know? The vibe had been especially good, real good vibrations all evening long – the Voice of Conscience microphone was connected and the light felt like a gift from heaven on his birthday. I thought I might just keep the vibes alive if I went to sleep ...

     ... And there, on the basement sofa, I had a dream, you know? I dreamt I could see Dylan like I do most days, on the stairs, just there, as if suspended between levels of reality, like he´s looking at something no-one else can see …

     ... But I also saw him as inside a song, or the idea of a song, and now that is harder to explain … though I´ll try anyway.

      I´ve been thinking about this stuff for weeks: “Downstairs, Upstairs” or “Upstairs, Downstairs”, as you like. How when you see Dylan on the basement stairs you have no way of knowing if he´s going up or down. Sometimes, he does both things at once (I swear, Garth said so the other day too). And when he´s in this trance, the guy always has a piece of paper in his hand, sometimes a whole bunch, and it´s from there that stories and sounds seem to come during our sessions, and they amaze us all, starting with him.

      And I want to make a song with all this, you know? And I´m writing it, though it´s hard to do. Maybe that´s why I still haven´t talked about it with anyone, not even Rick. I don´t know what the hell I´m doing telling you here, now, when I haven´t woken up properly from the dream ..."

     Richard is telling me this the next morning, on the caravan steps, where we are sitting cradling mugs of coffee and something to smoke in the other hand. Suddenly, he stops talking, his gaze fixed in the distance, and it´s like he has gone.

 

     I get up slowly, leave him to his thoughts for a while.