Al hilo de la más rabiosa actualidad (como ya se habrá percatado el curioso lector de estas páginas, estar al cabo de la calle es el propósito fundamental de este blog) tenemos que celebrar la concesión a Bob Dylan del Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes 2007. El jurado se lo ha concedido por su carácter de “mito viviente de la música popular y faro de una generación que tuvo el sueño de cambiar el mundo”.
Menos ambiciosos, nosotros queremos resaltar la afición de Bob Dylan por el ajedrez y ofrecerle un puesto destacado en nuestra galería de hombres ilustres por su álbum de 1964 The Times They Are A-Changing. Sobre todo por la canción Only a Pawn in Their Game en la que usa una metáfora ajedrecística en un contexto de crítica política y cuya letra, en versión original sin subtítulos, ofrecemos a continuación:
A bullet from the back of a bush
took Medgar Evers' blood.
A finger fired the trigger to his name.
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man's brain
But he can't be blamed
He's only a pawn in their game.
A South politician preaches to the poor white man,
"You got more than the blacks, don't complain.
You're better than them, you been born with white skin", they explain.
And the Negro's name
Is used it is plain
For the politician's gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.
The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid,
And the marshals and cops get the same,
But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool.
He's taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
'Bout the shape that he's in
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.
From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks,
And the hoof beats pound in his brain.
And he's taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
o hide 'neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain't got no name
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.
Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught.
They lowered him down as a king.
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He'll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game.
FICHA TÉCNICA
DANIEL KRAMER
Bob Dylan jugando al ajedrez. Woodstock. Nueva York, 1964
Gelatina de plata
No tengo datos de la segunda fotografía, aunque sospecho que se tomó en la misma sesión: idéntico tablero, mantel, jersey... No obstante agradecería cualquier aportación al respecto.
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