Lamar: What happened to all them towers?
Brother Mouzone: Slow train comin’. Reform, Lamar. Reform.

(from The Wire Episode Scripts)

On Friday, Jim, Desa and I had a good conversation about episode 10 of season 3 of The Wire. We looked at the opening sequence (YT) and Colvin’s speech about the war on drugs (YT) and discussed reformation and militarization. We were struck by that metaphor of a “slow train coming.” I knew it from the Bob Dylan song (YT), but assumed it had older roots. However, a cursory Google search didn’t find any. After looking at the lyrics, I think it might be an interesting exercise to see how many connections we could find between the song and the series.

We listened to a bit of the song during the discussion. Shortly after we finished, Youtube sent me a content claim referencing the song, and later put one in for the clip as well. They muted the video, so it’s only of use to the three of us who were there.

It’s kinda sad that these algorithms inhibit our ability to discuss and learn from our culture. They muted the whole thing, not just the parts in dispute, making the video unuseable.