It is time for a new beginning in male-female relationships!

All I Really Want To Do
by Bob Dylan 1964

I ain't lookin' to compete with you,
Beat or cheat or mistreat you,
Simplify you, classify you,
Deny, defy or crucify you.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

No, and I ain't lookin' to fight with you,
Frighten you or tighten you,
Drag you down or drain you down,
Chain you down or bring you down.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

I ain't lookin' to block you up
Shock or knock or lock you up,
Analyze you, categorize you,
Finalize you or advertise you.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

I don't want to straight-face you,
Race or chase you, track or trace you,
Or disgrace you or displace you,
Or define you or confine you.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

I don't want to meet your kin,
Make you spin or do you in,
Or select you or dissect you,
Or inspect you or reject you.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

I don't want to fake you out,
Take or shake or forsake you out,
I ain't lookin' for you to feel like me,
See like me or be like me.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you..

When males act out dark fantasies they become a legion of the lost.

How can we find a way out of the cave? Manipulation has lured too many males into the hades of heartless self-satisfaction. They drag their female victims along as a prize for the temple of death.

Where's the exit?

It is time for a new beginning in male-female relationships. Escape will have to be through a partnership of men and women in seeking light from darkness.

Otherwise, where's it going to end? Nursing homes with both sexes on Viagra and suffering from Alzheimers? Erection without recollection? No memories of that first kiss, poem, walk by the river, dancing to the jukebox?

Lipstick on the collar or lovebite worn like a Victoria Cross? The time you cried like a real man about secret worries, and I held you? When we both kicked off our shoes coz we loved the rhythm and blues? When I told you that you looked like James Dean, and you believed this little liar? When you said Natalie Wood was nothing to compared with me, and my breasts were better? When you got drunk and brought up your heart and I said Mum, he's got food poisoning? When I jumped on your back like a little monkey when you tried to job that bloke crackin onto me? When you lost your first job and I said it doesn't matter a bugger. When the kid died and you said it's my genes and I said don't be so bloody stupid. When you said you were unfaithful, and I said No because you have told me about it, you silly little boy? When I said Dad was a drunk and you said well, so am I, baby? When you said Mum henpicked Dad and I said, I do too? When you played the guitar and everybody laughed, but I cried and kissed you because you were better than Leonard Cohen? When you got silent, for once, and I left you alone? And then I crept in when you were snoring.

Was it Marx who said civilization is judged by how it treats its women?
There's not a great deal of time. We must hurry and leave a lot of stuff behind.

We cannot look back at the lost.

When males act out dark fantasies they become a legion of the lost.

In their hell a woman is reduced to the value of a meat tray – we groan and shy away lest we be infected by the miasma of this evil.

When women are made to feel that they are merely objects for physical satisfaction our hearts become sad; we become people of sorrow. We are brought to the realization that evil is the absence of good.

It is this vacuum that fills doctor's surgeries with people begging for their morphine tablets, or those who are so stressed from their job they have forgotten the art of life, or countless people who despair of having a partner, a decent place to live and some kind of livelihood.

No wonder I Can't Get No Satisfaction (1965) was such a hit...

(I can't get no) Satisfaction
M. Jagger/K. Richards 1965

I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction
'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can't get no, I can't get no

When I'm drivin' in my car
And a man comes on the radio
He's telling me more and more
About some useless information
Supposed to fire my imagination
I can't get no, oh no no no
Hey hey hey, that's what I say

I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction
'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can't get no, I can't get no

When I'm watchin' my TV
And a man comes on to tell me
How white my shirts can be
But he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke
The same cigarettes as me
I can't get no, oh no no no
Hey hey hey, that's what I say

I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no girlie action
'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can't get no, I can't get no

When I'm ridin' round the world
And I'm doin' this and I'm signing that
And I'm tryin' to make some girl
Who tells me baby better come back later next week
'Cause you see I'm on losing streak
I can't get no, a no no no
Hey hey hey, that's what I say

I can't get no, I can't get no
I can't get no satisfaction
No satisfaction, no satisfaction, no satisfaction

We do not have to accept a world of boofheads and bimbos...

This is a time of inexorable addiction to a host of consumerist things.

Sex is a commodity. The biggest sellers are chocolate, booze and the toys of escapism. So the world is going to hell on a trolley? Let's get the caravan and boat out.

But we have to care. We have to stop this addictive nonsense, this culture of death.

The death of Dianne Brimble on that liner diminishes us all, whether we are man or woman. What would she have said if she had not died, but woken up to live on that morning on board the Pacific Sky cruise ship in 2002?

Think about that.

I'd like to think that there is a way ahead for men and women although waves of an omnipresent society of mendacity, greed, power and manipulation may have upended our ship of life, like the liner in the Poseidon Adventure.

We need to stick together in this escape for life as we climb upward to breathe clean air and feel the sun on our backs, listen to the sea birds and the sounding of the whales.

We do not have to accept a world of boofheads and bimbos.

If we abandon being rugbyheads, soccerheads, boozeheads, alcoheads, or sexheads, who can lead us forth from our cave?

May I suggest buying a cheap guitar and learning a few chords.

Leonard Cohen said he had been accused of being a poor musician.

It was wrong, said the poet, he had five chords not three.

Read these words or, better still go listen to them on the web, and you might understand why the compiler of biographical information on Leonard Cohen for Wikipedia described him as "among the English language's most distinguished and influential songwriters of the twentieth century" [See box and link below].

Suzanne
Leonard Cohen 1965

Suzanne takes you down to
her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you've touched her perfect body
with your mind.

And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust him
For he's touched your perfect body
with his mind.

Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she's touched your perfect body
with her mind.

Leonard Cohen biographical information from Wikipedia Leonard Norman Cohen, CC (born September 21, 1934 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian poet, novelist, and singer-songwriter. He is among the English language's most distinguished and influential songwriters of the twentieth century. His musical career has largely overshadowed his prior work as a poet and novelist, although he has continued to publish poetry sporadically after his breakthrough in the music industry. Musically, Cohen's early songs are based in folk music, both for melodies and instrumentation, but, beginning in the 1970s, his work shows the influence of various types of popular music and cabaret music. Since the 1980s he typically has sung in a deep bass register, with synthesizers and female backing vocals. Cohen's songs are often emotionally heavy and lyrically complex, owing more to the metaphoric word play of poetry than to the conventions of song craft. His work often explores the themes of religion, isolation, sex, and complex interpersonal relationships. Cohen's music has become very influential on other singer-songwriters, and more than a thousand cover versions of his work have been recorded. He is iconic in his native land, having been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and awarded the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honor.

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Cliff Baxter can be contacted at:
Cliff Baxter <cliffbaxter@catholica.com.au>

©2006 Clifford Baxter

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