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Bob Dylan 70 v. 24.5. 2011
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Maggie's Farm
'Maggie's Farm' is a song written by Bob Dylan, recorded on January 15, 1965, and released on the album Bringing It All Back Home on March 22 of that year. Like many other Dylan songs of the 1965-66 period, "Maggie's Farm" is based in electric blues.
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The lyrics of the song follow a straightforward blues structure, with the opening line of each verse ("I ain't gonna work...") sung twice, then reiterated at the end of the verse. The third to fifth lines of each verse elaborate on and explain the sentiment expressed in the verse's opening/closing lines.
"Maggie's Farm" is frequently interpreted as Dylan's declaration of independence from the protest folk movement. Punning on Silas McGee's Farm, where he had performed "Only a Pawn in Their Game" at a civil rights protest in 1963 (featured in the film Dont Look Back), Maggie's Farm recasts Dylan as the pawn and the folk music scene as the oppressor.
The middle stanzas ridicule various types in the folk scene, the promoter who tries to control your art (fining you when you slam the door), the paranoid militant (whose window is bricked over), and the condescending activist who is more uptight than she claims ("She's 68 but she says she's 54"). The first and last stanzas detail how Dylan feels strait-jacketed by the expectations of the folk scene ("It's a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor" and "they say sing while you slave"), needing room to express his "head full of ideas," and complains that, even though he tries his best to be just like he is, "everybody wants you to be just like them".
The song, essentially a protest song against protest folk, represents Dylan's transition from a folk singer who sought authenticity in traditional song-forms and activist politics to an innovative stylist whose self-exploration made him a cultural muse for a generation. (See "Like a Rolling Stone" and influence on The Beatles, etc.)
On the other hand, this biographical context provides only one of many lenses through which to interpret the text. While some may see "Maggie's Farm" as a repudiation of the protest-song tradition associated with folk music, it can also (ironically) be seen as itself a deeply political protest song. We are told, for example, that the "National Guard" stands around the farm door, and that Maggie's mother talks of "Man and God and Law." The "farm" that Dylan sings of can in this case easily represent racism, state oppression and capitalist exploitation.
In fact this theme of capitalist exploitation came to be seen by some as the major theme of the song. In this interpretation, Maggie's Farm is the military industrial complex, and Dylan is singing for the youth of his time, urging them to reject society.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyZS0aCIYIk
Bob Dylan performs "Maggie's Farm" with Willie Nelson and Tom Petty at Farm Aid in Champaign, Illinois on September 22, 1985.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O29WvCcp7zY
Blues Band - 'I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more' 1979 - [Paul Jones laulaa Maggie's Farm'in kenellekäs muulle kuin Maggie Thatcherille]
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In 1980, The Blues Band recorded a version as a commentary on Margaret Thatcher's government. The line, "The National Guard stands around the door" being replaced with a line about the Special Patrol Group (SPG), the controversial unit of the London Metropolitan Police then being used to quell protests.
[The 2-Tone ska band The Specials also recorded a version, again relating to then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, replacing the words "National Guard" with "National Front."]
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I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
I wake in the morning,
Fold my hands and pray for rain.
I got a head full of ideas
That are drivin' me insane.
It's a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor.
I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
I ain't gonna work for Maggie's brother no more.
I ain't gonna work for Maggie's brother no more.
He hands you a nickel,
He hands you a dime,
He asks you with a grin
If you're havin' a good time,
Then he fines you every time you slam the door.
I ain't gonna work for Maggie's brother no more.
I ain't gonna work for Maggie's pa no more.
No, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's pa no more.
Well, he puts his cigar
Out in your face just for kicks.
His bedroom window
It is made out of bricks.
The F P G stands around his door.
That's why I ain't gonna work for Maggie's pa no more.
(Instrumental)
I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more.
No, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more.
Well, she talks to all the servants
About man and God and law.
Everybody says
She's the brains behind pa.
She's sixty-eight, but she says she's twenty-four.
I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more.
I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
We ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
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http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blues_Band
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggie's_Farm
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Maggie's-Farm-lyrics-Bob-Dylan/496738C03C71D4984825696900290245 {Dylanin alkuperäiset sanat, joista Blues Bandin versio siis eroaa vain parissa kohdassa]
http://www.vizcarra.info/english/caricaturasmusicales/index.htm
http://www.redmolotov.com/catalogue/tshirts/all/maggiesfarm.html
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