Shelter from the Storm

Maybe it's because it's getting colder outside, maybe it's because my daughter's class is studying homes and went on a field trip to a Habitat for Humanity site, maybe it's because I've recently both given and received a figurative shelter from the storm, but it's this number that's on repeat for me today.

You can check out Bob singing it live in 1976 in this video, but it sounds more like it does in my head in this one, where instead of watching Bob you get to check out a dismembered mannequin. A reasonable tradeoff?

Looking at the lyrics, it seems like maybe Bob was grappling with some Jesus themes along with the usual love, loss and hard times that all his songs seem to be about. These lyrics, for example, if read in that light, make for a racier bible story than I ever heard at church:

Suddenly I turned around and she was standing there

With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair

She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns

"Come in" she said

"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

Alas, looks like even the Jesus-infused version of Bob has to deal with loss -- check out the next verse:

Now there's a wall between us something there's been lost

I took too much for granted got my signals crossed

Just to think that it all began on a long-forgotten morn

"Come in" she said

"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

And once again, I'm reminded, and so I'm reminding you: better to have had the shelter for a night, or a month, or a year, or a decade, and then lost it, than not to have had it at all.