TALKIN' DEVIL (Bob Dylan) (1963)

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Now, suddenly, shoving out pleasures and games and stinging questions come the TERRORS: the Ku Klux Klan and the lynchings I did not see but recreated from whispers of grownups . . . the gentle back-door cruelties of 'nice people' which scared me more than the cross burnings. . . and the singsong voices of politicians who preached their demonic suggestions to us as if elected by Satan to do so: telling us lies about skin color and a culture they were callously ignorant of -- lies made of their own fantasies...
Lillian Smith, "Foreword: A Letter to My Publisher", Killers of the Dream, "revised and enlarged," Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1963 (originally published in 1949), p. 2

recorded by Bob Dylan for "Broadside" magazine, Jan-Feb 1963
released on "Broadside," (BR 301), 1963 (as "Blind Boy Grunt").
© by author, 1963
Lyrics as reprinted in liner notes.

SPOKEN: This is all about where the devil is. Some people say there's no devil.

Well, sometimes you can't see him so good,
When he hides his head 'neath a snow white hood,
And rides to kill with his face well hid,
And then goes home to his wife and kids.
Wonder if his kids know who he is?

Well, he wants you to hate and he wants you to fear,
Wants you to fear something that's not even there.
He'll give you your hate, and he'll give you his lies,
He'll give you the weapons to run out and die.
And you give him your soul.

SPOKEN: That's just two verses to it.

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