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
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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
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.
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.
Great stuff, Jack. Thanks. Sent in on to an old friends who plays the mandocello.
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.
A Bob Dylan tune….I know it thru Gordon Lightfoot