"No Time To Think" / "Bob Dylan goes to see us"

In death, you face life with a child and a wife
Who sleep-walks through your dreams into walls
You’re a soldier of mercy, you’re cold and you curse
“He who cannot be trusted must fall”

Loneliness, tenderness, high society, notoriety
You fight for the throne and you travel alone
Unknown as you slowly sink
And there’s no time to think

In the Federal City you been blown and shown pity
In secret, for pieces of change
The empress attracts you but oppression distracts you
And it makes you feel violent and strange

Memory, ecstasy, tyranny, hypocrisy
Betrayed by a kiss on a cool night of bliss
In the valley of the missing link
And you have no time to think

Judges will haunt you, the country priestess will want you
Her worst is better than best
I’ve seen all these decoys through a set of deep turquoise eyes
And I feel so depressed

China doll, alcohol, duality, mortality
Mercury rules you and destiny fools you
Like the plague, with a dangerous wink
And there’s no time to think

Your conscience betrayed you when some tyrant waylaid you
Where the lion lies down with the lamb
I’d have paid off the traitor and killed him much later
But that’s just the way that I am

Paradise, sacrifice, mortality, reality
But the magician is quicker and his game
Is much thicker than blood and blacker than ink
And there’s no time to think

Anger and jealousy’s all that he sells us
He’s content when you’re under his thumb
Madmen oppose him, but your kindness throws him
To survive it you play deaf and dumb

Equality, liberty, humility, simplicity
You glance through the mirror and there’s eyes staring clear
At the back of your head as you drink
And there’s no time to think

Warlords of sorrow and queens of tomorrow
Will offer their heads for a prayer
You can’t find no salvation, you have no expectations
Anytime, anyplace, anywhere

Mercury, gravity, nobility, humility
You know you can’t keep her and the water gets deeper
That is leading you onto the brink
But there’s no time to think

You’ve murdered your vanity, buried your sanity
For pleasure you must now resist
Lovers obey you but they cannot sway you
They’re not even sure you exist

Socialism, hypnotism, patriotism, materialism
Fools making laws for the breaking of jaws
And the sound of the keys as they clink
But there’s no time to think

The bridge that you travel on goes to the Babylon girl
With the rose in her hair
Starlight in the East and you’re finally released
You’re stranded but with nothing to share

Loyalty, unity, epitome, rigidity
You turn around for one real last glimpse of Camille
’Neath the moon shinin’ bloody and pink
And there’s no time to think

Bullets can harm you and death can disarm you
But no, you will not be deceived
Stripped of all virtue as you crawl through the dirt
You can give but you cannot receive

No time to choose when the truth must die
No time to lose or say goodbye
No time to prepare for the victim that’s there
No time to suffer or blink
And no time to think

Copyright © 1978 by Special Rider Music

What a woman who works the tunnel between the buses and the backstage area at an arena outside of Atlanta remembers about Dylan is not that she saw him; what she remembers is "I was not allowed to look at him."

He was, of course, on his way to the stage when he passed her averted eyes—on his way to be looked at and listened to. It sounds like a paradox typical of Bob Dylan, worthy of Bob Dylan, but it's really pretty straightforward as an exercise of star power. The crossed relationship between Bob Dylan and his audience is the most enduring one in all of rock 'n' roll, and it keeps going—and will keep going to the last breath—because from the start he laid down a simple and impossible rule:

We don't go to see Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan goes to see us.

(quoted from here)

("Flashback," linocut by am, 1970s and "I Watch Movies," drawing made with computer trackpad by am, 2007)