≡ Menu

Ring them Bells, for Palm Sunday “Well it’s rush hour now, for the wheel and the plow, and the sun is going down upon the sacred cow.”

From the staunch Maggie’s Farm Via Bird Dog

Ring them bells, ye heathen

From the city that dreams

Ring them bells from the sanctuaries

’Cross the valleys and streams

For they’re deep and they’re wide

And the world’s on its side

And time is running backwards

And so is the bride

Ring them bells St. Peter

Where the four winds blow

Ring them bells with an iron hand

So the people will know

Oh it’s rush hour now

On the wheel and the plow

And the sun is going down

Upon the sacred cow

Ring them bells Sweet Martha

For the poor man’s son

Ring them bells so the world will know

That God is one

Oh the shepherd is asleep

Where the willows weep

And the mountains are filled

With lost sheep

Ring them bells for the blind and the deaf

Ring them bells for all of us who are left

Ring them bells for the chosen few

Who will judge the many when the game is through

Ring them bells, for the time that flies

For the child that cries

When innocence dies

Ring them bells St. Catherine

From the top of the room

Ring them from the fortress

For the lilies that bloom

Oh the lines are long

And the fighting is strong

And they’re breaking down the distance

Between right and wrong

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Missy April 5, 2020, 1:22 PM

    I didn’t get a lot of the references in this song, thick as a plank as I am, so I looked for and found a sort of Cliff’s notes.
    https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/1150

  • steve walsh April 5, 2020, 3:59 PM

    A beautiful song played and sung beautifully. As I’ve aged I’ve come to love an appreciate this sort of music and song.

    Is that some sort of mandolin she plays? An acoustic guitar body, but 8 doubled strings.

  • Jack April 5, 2020, 6:19 PM

    Sarah is a Belmont grad and is fluent in guitar, banjo and mandolin. This instrument is an octave mandolin. It’s got a guitar body and I believe it’s tuned a whole step (maybe two) below a regular smaller bodied mandolin.

    The 4 pairs of strings are tuned in unison to a an open tuning and they’re usually tuned in 5ths, viz G,D,A and d. Like banjos, there are a bunch of ways to tune them.

    I’ve never tried to play one because I have headaches a plenty with guitars and there are only so many things you can tackle and eventually become reasonably proficient, but in the hands of a young Sarah or another trained musician they’re a beautiful thing.

    As far as that song is concerned, I’m not aware that a whole lot of people have recorded it, least not in the last 20 years, but Lightfoot did a fine job on it. My fav actually.

  • Vanderleun April 5, 2020, 6:32 PM

    Great stuff, Jack. Thanks. Sent in on to an old friends who plays the mandocello.

  • Jack April 6, 2020, 9:07 AM

    After thinking about it I woke up realizing I made a mistake in saying that Sarah is a Belmont grad. My second thought was right and I apologize for the first.

    I forget where she graduated but I know that she does have some pretty grand educational and performance chops for one so young. I should have been so ‘lucky’, lol.

    The rest of the stuff I said is correct though.

  • Harry Sauls April 6, 2020, 12:19 PM

    A Bob Dylan tune….I know it thru Gordon Lightfoot

Next post:

Previous post: