Freewheelin' In The Bronx 1971 (iii)

Now that I didn’t have to get up early and be in a skyscraper office by 9 o’clock during the week anymore in late March and April 1971, I found myself sleeping until after 9 o’clock each morning. Then, after quickly washing up, getting dressed, eating a bowl of dry cereal and drinking some orange juice for breakfast, I would usually spend the rest of the morning during the week writing a new protest folk song or folk love song, listening to vinyl records on my cheap portable phonograph or to the WNEW-FM radio station that then played cuts from the most current rock albums, or reading some library book or underground newspaper. One morning around this time, for example, I wrote the “Give It All Up” protest folk song , which included the following lyrics:

Give it all up
For the good of all
Give it all up
To hasten the fall.

Maybe you got a job
A nine-to-five coffin
Fuck their mindless jobs
We’re after our freedom.

I’m sick of imperialism
As well as of sexism
I’m glad you’re here Kathy
You can lie on top of me.”

After spending my weekday mornings writing songs, playing guitar, listening to music or reading, when noontime came around I would usually spend the afternoon, if it wasn’t raining outside, walking around the Bronx, exploring different Bronx neighborhoods, wandering through various Bronx parks, checking out the scene at local college campuses, walking in and out of stores around the Grand Concourse near Fordham Road without buying anything, and visiting local branches of the New York Public Library in the Bronx.