Song Emmett Till

Twas down in Mississippi not so long ago
When a young boy from Chicago town stepped through a Southern door
This boy’s dreadful tragedy I can still remember well
The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till

Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up
They said they had a reason, but I can’t remember what
They tortured him and did some things too evil to repeat
There were screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing sounds out on the street

Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain
And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain
The reason that they killed him there, and I’m sure it ain’t no lie
Was just for the fun of killin’ him and to watch him slowly die

And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial
Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till
But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this awful crime
And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind

I saw the morning papers but I could not bear to see
The smiling brothers walkin’ down the courthouse stairs
For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free
While Emmett’s body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea

If you can’t speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that’s so unjust
Your eyes are filled with dead men’s dirt, your mind is filled with dust
Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood it must refuse to flow
For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!

This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man
That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan
But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could give
We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live

Copyright © 1963, 1968 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1996 by Special Rider Music

Read more: http://www.bobdylan.com/fr/node/27031#ixzz3uJRHxxl0

Résumé de chaque paragraphe en une phrase.

1. Un jeune garçon noir de Chicago vint dans le Mississippi, son nom était Emmett Till et il lui arriva quelque chose de terrible.

2. Des hommes le torturèrent, le narrateur ne se souvient plus pourquoi.

3. Puis ils le jetèrent dans une rivière. Le narrateur pense qu'ils le torturèrent pour le plaisir.

4. Pour éviter que le gouvernement ne fasse une enquête, deux frères se dénoncèrent; mais dans le jury, certains avaient les deux frères. Ce procès fut donc une parodie.

5. Le jury décréta les deux frères innocents. Le narrateur dénonce les lois "Jim Crow".

6. Le narrateur s'adresse à ses auditeurs en disant que s'il ne réagisse pas à pareil injustice, ils ont laissé tomber la nature humain bien bas.

7. Cette chanson n'est là que pour rappeler que ce genre de choses est toujours d'actualité à cause du Ku-Klux-Klan, mais si tous ceux qui ne sont pas d'accord s'unissent, alors le pays pourra changer.