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"Bringing It All Back Home", Track #10


"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" Music Video

SLUMDOG: This is for me along with Visions Of Johanna the best song ever written. It knocks me sideways every time i hear it. I have never heard a lyric that comes anywhere near as outstanding as this. (02/17/09)

DAVID DIXON: I used to call this Dylan's "State of the Union" message when I was in high school. He seems to be surveying the cultural terrain and finding mostly reasons to sigh, bleed, cry, and die. The words are well-chosen; rich and expressive, alliterative, ranging from mysterious imagery in the early verses (darkness at the break of noon . . . the child's balloon eclipses both the sun and moon) to precise and poetic weilding of his verbal scalpel (. . . gargles in the rat-race choir, bent out of shape from society's pliers). The state of the union? It was a mess; it still is, and it's not about politics. The song? It was brilliant poetic reflection on the times. Still brilliant in these times. (03/30/06)

GRUNT: To me it's one of the masterpieces, I can't stop thinking about it & listening to it. It's beautiful in it's biting form. It's holdback anger with a layer of cream. (11/23/05)

NINA: I'm sure there's nothing much that hasn't been said about this. I'd like to just add that one of the ultra-miracle moments for me in this song is just the way he bites off the word *it* in the 9th verse. (05/13/05)