‘Not Dark Yet’: a Non-church Song for the Easter Season
Some critics find this song an expression of the deepest despair, as if written from the depths of some private hell. Dylan refutes this. He writes on his own religious journey: ‘I try to live within that line between despondency and hope. I’m suited to walk that line right between the fire. I see it as right straight down the middle of the line really.’
Dylan’s journey can be described in the words of the 16th century mystic, St John of the Cross: His memorable phrase is: ‘The dark night of the soul’. In what others describe as the Way Negative (Via negativa), Dylan rejects human love, the arts, and physical well-being – none of these offer salvation. But in the three words of the title, ‘Not dark yet’, Dylan holds on to hope. There are still more dawns to come.
The Way Negative recognises the limitations of human language to describe the divine.
Not Dark Yet
Shadows are fallin’ and I’ve been here all day
Too hot to sleep and time is runnin’ away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I’ve still got the scars that the sun didn’t heal
There’s not even room enough to be anywhere
It’s not dark yet, but it’s gettin’ there.
Well, my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there’s some kind of pain
She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
She put down in writin’ what was in her mind
I just don’t see why I should even care
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting’ there.
Well, I’ve been to London and I been to gay Paris
I’ve followed the river and I got to the sea
I’ve been down on the bottom of the world full of lies
I aint lookin’ for nothin’ in anyone’s eyes
Sometimes my burden is more than I can bear
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting’ there.
I was born here and I’ll die here against my will
It looks like I’m movin’ but I’m standin’ still
Every nerve in my body is so naked and numb
I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don’t even hear the murmur of a prayer
It’s not dark yet but it’s getting there.
Bob Dylan
When words fail us, the sounds of music speak volumes. You can listen to Dylan give an awe-inspiring performance of this prayerful song online at Manawatu Peoples Radio (
www.mpr.nz/show/wesley). Gillian and John Thornley are the hosts of ‘Easter 25’, one programme in a regular weekly series featuring NZ hymnwriters. They would welcome any feedback.