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PERFORMANCES 1999.04.07, LISBOA, PORTUGAL 1999.04.30, VIENNA, AUSTRIA 1999.05.02, MUNICH, GERMANY 1999.06.11, VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA 1999.07.03, DULUTH,MINNESOTA 1999.07.04, MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN 1999.07.13, VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA 2000.05.21, HORSENS, DENMARK |
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TRYIN' TO GET TO HEAVEN The air is getting hotter There's a rumbling in the skies I've been wading through the high muddy water With the heat rising in my eyes Every day your memory grows dimmer It doesn't haunt me like it did before I've been walking through the middle of nowhere Trying to get to heaven before they close the door When I was in Missouri They would not let me be I had to leave there in a hurry I only saw what they let me see You broke a heart that loved you Now you can seal up the book and not write anymore I've been walking that lonesome valley Trying to get to heaven before they close the door People on the platforms Waiting for the trains I can hear their hearts a-beatin' Like pendulums swinging on chains When you think that you lost everything You find out you can always lose a little more I'm just going down the road feeling bad Trying to get to heaven before they close the door I'm going down the river Down to New Orleans They tell me everything is gonna be all right But I don't know what "all right" even means I was riding in a buggy with Miss Mary-Jane Miss Mary-Jane got a house in Baltimore I been all around the world, boys Now I'm trying to get to heaven before they close the door Gonna sleep down in the parlor And relive my dreams I'll close my eyes and I wonder If everything is as hollow as it seems Some trains don't pull no gamblers No midnight ramblers, like they did before I been to Sugar Town, I shook the sugar down Now I'm trying to get to heaven before they close the door |
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I have been lucky enough to witness Bob's third performance of this superb song in Munich. I even was given a tape recording of this one as well as of the Vienna performance.
Five out of eight times this song has been performed outside the US. Only once it has been sung this year. Thus far!!! I don't know how many of the few hundred lucky people, who witnessed Bob performing it amid other gems in Horsens, agreed with Bob's message that night: "Hallelujah, I'm ready to go, it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall, you're gonna have to serve somebody, I'm trying to get to heaven before they close the door." The door will be closed, so serve the Lord, no matter who you are; the final rain will be hard and certain, so be ready to go. It is a lonesome valley at times Bob Dylan is walking through on his way to the Highlands, but he "shook the sugar down", "got new eyes" and "the sun is beginning to shine on" him. He has been on the "highway heading down below", "down on the bottom of a world full of lies", but now he is "ready to go", warning his listeners not to "wait before it's too late", convinced that one day "they close the door". |
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