Maverick Life

Maverick Life

A tribute to Bobby D

A tribute to Bobby D

ROSS HARVEY tries to make sense of South Africa’s idiosyncratic politics through the songs of Bob Dylan.

We have a Neighborhood Bully, runs the place like his personal fiefdom.

Steal a little and they put you in jail; steal a lot and they make you king.

If Pravin gets arrested, there will be no Chimes of Freedom,

only A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.

The students say they ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s Farm no more,

But I fear an Idiot Wind is blowing down Desolation Row,

While the Jokerman with white privilege says It Ain’t Me Babe,

Actually it’s a Hurricane if you think about it.

Doesn’t it make you feel ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game?

Like a Rolling Stone the cabal goes.

Spending their Licence To Kill on Marikana.

And our money on getting juiced in it.

Saxonwold is home to Louis the king, and out on Highway (M)1 you’ll find the predators circling.

One day they won’t talk so loud, or seem so proud.

About having to be scrounging for their next meal.

The new Masters of War are going to have a tough time convincing me that God’s on (their) Side.

Oh South Africa, your Times They Are a ’Changing.

But please Don’t Fall Apart on Me Tonight.

Photo: Books Bob Dylan are on display at the bookstore Donner in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 14 October 2016. Dylan won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy announced in Stockholm on 13 October 2016. EPA/LEX VAN LIESHOUT

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