Chimes of Freedom - Live at Newport Folk Festival, Newport, RI - July 1964

Far between sundown's finish and midnight's broken toll

We ducked inside a doorway as thunder went crashing

As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds

Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing

Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight

Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight

And for each and every underdog soldier in the night

And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Through the city's melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched

With faces hidden as the walls were tightening

As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin' rain

Dissolved into the bells of the lightning

Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake

Tolling for the luckless, they abandoned and forsaked

Tolling for the outcast, burning constantly at stake

And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Through the mad, mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail

The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder

As the clanging of the church bells blew far into the breeze

Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder

Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind

Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind

And the poet and the painter far behind his rightful time

And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashin'

In the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales

For the disrobed faceless forms of no position

Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts

All down in taken-for-granted situations

Tolling for the deaf and blind, tolling for the mute

For the mistreated, mate-less mother, the mis-titled prostitute

For the misdemeanor outlaw, chained and cheated by pursuit

And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Even though a cloud's white curtain in a far-off corner flared

And the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting

Electric light still struck like arrows fired but for the ones

Condemned to drift or else be kept from driftin'

Tolling for the searching ones on their speechless seeking trail

For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale

And for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail

And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Starry-eyed and laughing as I recall when we were caught

Trapped by no track of ours for they hang suspended

As we listened one last time and we watched with one last look

Spellbound and swallowed 'til the tolling ended

Tolling for the aching whose wounds cannot be nursed

For the countless confused,

accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse

And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe

And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashin'