Bob Dylan's Dream

It doesn't come from any heartland, no specific order of creation, no boasting of natural selection. It is a song for all, to be seen in a universal light. For we all know how to laugh, no matter how long ago it has been.

"Dethrone the dictaphone, hit it in its funny bone, that's where they expect it least."

And this urge to laugh, to feel life, is at first understood by the lonely as something that has to have a solution created for it. This is not always the case. No need to wait for heroes, especially when all the good ones are long gone. Those that didn't die (and hence became heroes) moved away; they knew there was more danger in the day-to-day life. It's much more worse to eat fast food, get a heartache, cry all nite, clean your room, and pass out, never to wake up. Bullets are less forgiving.

For without some form of love, we all vanish. Even J.D. Salinger likes to eat. There's a bothersome nature to having someone that's just alright. One wants needs. One wants to be wanted. But more so,one wants to want. You turn down those that aren't the best, leaving room for that which is good for you. It won't be long before you open up those windows again. Hints at future references to be fleshed out with much more depth begin to appear. A return to form, back from the future.

Then, there are the collectors. Enjoy it while it lasts. You can't take it with you. That's what the poor people say. They've been saying it since the Nun finished her story and even years before. No one's left in the pear tree, so it's time to focus on the "what-can-you-do-for-me" generation. That's every generation, in case you wonder. No one's left just yet. Besides, who would notice?

The wind seems to have the answers, taking you to and fro, back and forth. The wind is us, the wind is the cap on the boy's head as well as the smile of his teeth, the sweet taste of a returning night, the glimmer of hope and the answer to my next question. But we're left feeling too small, forgeting what the wind told us.

Such is the case, making the rest so unimportant, it a come as you want, leave as you please, fulfill your desires, just don't hurt me or my kids.

Or in other words, it's just a funny, good song and one I've been trying to write for two years now.

Blaine Duncan

Standing In The Doorway

The stately opening bars of the intro to "Standing In The Doorway"and the soft leslie organ in the background suggest the starst winkling in the summer night of the first stanza:

I'm walking through the summer nights
Jukebox playing low
Yesterday everything was going too fast
Today, it's moving too slow
I got no place left to turnI got nothing left to burn

Dylan's craggy voice captures the narrator's feeling of ultimate resignation. He's burned all his bridges and has nothing left and nowhere to go. The next lines reveal the reason; a failed relationship with his lover:

Don't know if I saw you, if I would kiss you or kill you
It probably wouldn't matter to you anyhow
You left me standing in the doorway, crying
I got nothing to go back to now

The light in this place is so bad
Making me sick in the head
All the laughter is just making me sad
The stars have turned cherry red

Cut off from the light of love and salvation, the narrator has become alienated from his own emotions. His lover has left him, but she is back. The pain she caused him, however, is so deep, and his trust has been so badly abused, that he doesn't know if he wants her. He's damned if he accepts her, and damned if he doesn't. The stars turn red with the flame of the burning anguish in his soul ashe tries to cure his spirit with music, which usually can charm the savage beast of torn feelings – but his ironic reference to his "gay guitar" reveals that it will not work its usual healing magic this time, and the "cheap cigar" he smokes is a sad phallic image of the fires of physical love gone shriveled and cold. All he can do is to address the ghost of his love, a Sweet Melinda, a goddess of gloom who took his voice and left him howling at the emotionless,impassive midnight moon.

I'm strumming on my gay guitar
Smoking a cheap cigar
The ghost of our old love has not gone away
Don't look like it will anytime soon
You left me standing in the doorway crying
Under the midnight moon

One of the major symptoms of depression is a withdrawal into oneself, an inability to articulate one's anguish; and so it is with Dylan's narrator: "There are things I could say but I don't."The "midnight train" he's been riding hearkens back to "Idiot Wind"and its "Down the highway, down the tracks, down the road to ecstasy, I followed you beneath the stars, hounded by your memory and all your ragin' glory," but now that train is heading toward the song's final line, the "blues wrapped around my head," the image ofthe midnight train in blues lyrics so commonly representing the journey toward sadness or death. The narrator is even touched by paranoia – "Maybe they'll get me and maybe they won't" – but hequickly turns his attention back to his own situation, knowing that "the mercy of God must be near;" this is the first intimationin the lyric that he may be contemplating suicide. He has "icewater" in his veins, because he's alienated from his own feelings,so that he is capable of destroying himself. He damns himself for those feelings, calling himself "a fool" for suffering. Yet something, some instinct for survival, still holds him back from such a terribly final action. Something in him still wants to take the chance and simply go back to his lover, yet he knows that would violate what self-respect he still possesses; it would be "crazy,"it would "go up against every rule."

Maybe they'll get me and maybe they won't
But not tonight and it won't be here
There are things I could say but I don't
I know the mercy of God must be near
I've been riding the midnight train
Got ice water in my veins
I would be crazy if I took you back
It would go up against every rule
You left me standing in the doorway, crying
Suffering like a fool


Taken advantage of by the lover who now wants to come back, Dylan's narrator is burned once, twice shy. A part of him wants her, yet he knows it'll be his doom whether he returns to her or refuses her. His consciousness trapped in the paradox, he now turns to thoughts of suicide. He talks to himself: "Buddy, you'll roll no more." He wonders for whom the church bells toll, he knows he can't win, but his heart won't give in to the overwhelming desire to end the game by ending his life. He refuses to withdraw into solitude, trying to meet new people – "last night I danced with a stranger" – but this just reminds him of his feelings for his lover. In the end, the narrator is left standing in the darkness at the break of noon,knowing that there is no sense in trying, no sense in crying, no sense in any course of action at all:

When the last rays of daylight go down
Buddy, you'll roll no more
I can hear the church bells ringing in the yard
I wonder who they're ringing for
I know I can't win
But my heart just won't give in
Last night I danced with a stranger
But she just reminded me you were the one
You left me standing in the doorway crying
In the dark land of the sun

The image of the opposition between darkness and light is one that Dylan has used in other songs, where it seems to represent the failure of consciousness to comprehend the paradoxes and antinomies of existence. For example, in "Gates of Eden" the cowboy angel rides in the face of the twisted truth of war and peace – "With his candle lit into the sun / Though its glow is waxed in black / All except when `'neath the trees of Eden;" in "Ain't No Man Righteous," "In a city of darkness, there's no need of the sun;"in "Only A Pawn In Their Game," "the shadowy sun sets on the one that fired the gun." So, too, here in "Standing In The Doorway,"the "dark land of the sun" represents the emotional paradox in which Dylan's protagonist is trapped; he hates himself for still wanting the lover who drove the corkscrew into his heart, but he also hates himself for turning her away. He finally takes the only way out,the way of the blues, living life one day at a time, trusting in some power outside himself to bring him a healing touch that would make sense of it all, seeing "nothing to be gained by any explanation:"

I'll eat when I'm hungry,
drink when I'm dry
And live my life on the square
And even if the flesh falls off of my face
I know someone will be there to care
It always means so much
Even the softest touch
I see nothing to be gained by any explanationT
here are no words that need to be said
You left me standing in the doorway crying
Blues wrapped around my head

And now I tag Pam/She to write up "In The Summertime" :-)



Howard

Down The Highway

"Down The Highway" is one of the great unrecognized songs in the Bob Dylan canon. It is the fourth song on side one of what is perhaps his greatest album and prepares the listener for the next track, another road song, "Bob Dylan's Blues." However "Down The Highway" itself like innumerable Dylan compositions to follow is loaded with references, musical, personal, literal and maybe even non-literal.The first reference is in the very first word, "Well." This is a continuation of the religious theme started on Dylan's first album, Bob Dylan. The question of course is which well is it. Well, it could be the well that the woman met Jesus at or maybe it's the well Jesus met the woman at but either way according to legend and maybe a book or two and and a couple of scribes who lived for centuries without modern medicine something happened at that well. What it has to do with "Down The Highway" no one is sure, not even the Mexican bus driver. Anyway where was I? Oh yes, the song. The next important word is the word Walkin'. This has many references and most likely this one refers to the mythical bluesman Robert Johnson and his song "The Walking Blues," which kind of is the bastard child of Eddie Son House's "Death Letter Blues" maybe. I just went to reference this song and noticed I actually have a sealed unopened copy of this in my record collection along with a non-sealed un-opened one. Go figure.Hmmmm. Wonder if it's worth somethin'. Mebbe it'll get me on a demXM radios. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, walkin'. The best version of "Walkin' Blues" was by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. It opened up their second album, "East-West" leaving the listener with the impression that someone was walkin' from east to west. And it had the"walkin' beat" which is kind of like the train beat except slower and without the tracks. In any case back to the song in question. Someone maybe the singer is walkin' down the highway with his suitcasein his hand. This immediately begs the question what kind of suitcase. I have a feeling that it wasn't one a dem modern ones made out of some kind of mystical cloth that has wheels and a disappearing handle and all kinds of strange compartments for modern amenities. Nay, this was undoubtedly an old leather suitcase with a shoe compartment and even a leather handle, the kind that leaves one of them big nasty blisters on your finger if you carry it too long. It probably once belonged to somebody's grandmother in case they needed to go to Oneonta or some other place like that that only grandmothers ever go to where they sit in a room by a little round table with a vase looking at the window for a week, dining on meatloaf and boiled potatoes at the corner eatery and then return home with tales of mountains and candy. In any case, this line with the suitcase and the walkin' is repeated more than likely because the suitcase was heavy and the singer's just a little guy. Oh yeah I forgot, he was on the highway cause he had to get to Philadelphia to meet the ghost of WCFields. But since he was the most notorious scrounger anyone had ever encountered in the Village in 1962, everyone refused to give him money, so he he decided to thumb a ride in the syntax of those ancient times.


The last part of the verse has him missing his baby. He might have meant that he missed the bus if he had any money to take it, which would have been a Trailways bus back then. But then he says his baby is in a far-off land. In the history of this particular singer-songwriter, this specifies things and refers to the picture onthe cover of the album, and points the finger to a the next album.

The next verse clues the listener into what time of day this walkin' down the highway was occurring. Morning rush hour! "Your streets are gettin' empty." If he had had a car, this would have been the best time to get a parking space in what is now commonly referred to as "the hood," and especially if they had alternate side of the street parking back then which I don't think they had come that far in metropolitan evolutionary thinking just yet then. Anyhow, since all that parking was available of course the highway's were gettin' filled with all kinds of singled drivers on their way to their meaningless daily employment cutting down the vast forests of the planets in order to keep tab of some unspecified something or other that would beforgotten about by sundown.

In the third verse, we find the singer is not on his way to meet WCFields at all but is escaping from gambling debts because being anobstreperous type, prolly one of those ADD people that would become soprevalent later in the century, he started playing the game without paying attention to rules.

But things deepen by the next verse. First off he is definitely in need of gambling rehabilitation cause he figures he's bound to get lucky and this was decades before powerball. He's serious about this since he's willing to die for it. But the key line is the dawning oft he messianic complex that would become extremely serious for this particular blues singer over the course of the decade approximately,when he talks of meeting his baby in the middle of the ocean implying he could walk on water, which some said he could, but that would come later.

Equally revealing is the next verse, where he finds someone to blame and this is a songwriter who always looked for someone to blame, at least most of the time he did. In this case, finding no one, he blames the ocean begging the question who is going to defend the ocean should this case be brought to court. But there is more than one theif in the verse. The ocean steals his baby, and his baby stole hisheart. Not only did she steal his heart, she packed in a suitcase and took it to Italy, which leaves one wondering if it was an Italian suitcase to begin with and did that suitcase ever go to Oneonta.

{But this also reminds me of the real life time I had to deliver a heart to some heart hospital. I picked it up at some lawyer's office where it was in one of those not too clear plastic containers, the kind like that cole slaw comes in. It looked not unlike an artichoke and I had to make it to some foreign county in New Jersey in the rainto some German doctor who didn't talk like Peter Lorre and insisted I be a witness him poking it prodding with all sorts of nasty sharp devices of heart implementation. Naturally I called up the companyand demanded the extract extra cash from the lawyers for this since heart poking was not part of the contract, artichoke or not, and if my name had been Art, which it isn't I mighta choked.)

However before I forget, I almost skipped over the most important part of the song, Italy. At the end of the line she took it away to Italy,the singer repeats the word or perhaps it's a name Italy. The reasons for this are of course mysterious and sometimes negligible but this phrasing of Italy would be the foretelling of notation of a remarkable kind of phrasing that would be not only commented on but catalogued by pundits and critical authorities alike from here to Arizona and maybe even Bombay. Eventually down the highway, the tracks and especially on the road to ecstacy some would consider it a severe maniacal illness but to to this very second, all manner of people, not excluding jelly-faced drunkards from England especially indulge in this practice and even argue about it in barrister-like language saying prevailing inanities such as "No, you ignorant Mongoose, the Preoria 'Italy' was lightly caressed such as it were a sprightly leafo' lettuce stretched across a wad o' cottage cheese with a plump partition of peach layin' by or did he mean bye," to which another lost arrogant chum wandering down the forelorn road of foddeery or is it foppery responded, "No you fool, it wasn't Preoria at all," he couldn't possibly sing it right in the states. it was at the lone performance it was at the lone performance at the Cathedral in Bath in a marvelous duet with the bardof Belfast with the local drunkard Wm. Wyman sitting on on bass that the ultimate 'Italy' occurred, and if you don't think I'm right, I will stomp right out of here, get me five pints up at the pub and change my name to a fourth alias that's 9 times as obnoxious as the one I use now, and shan't commerce with you until the next argument contrariwise." At this point a fourth and sixth person if they can even be called that interfered and everyone else left the room.

No doubt this brings us to the sixth and final verse where the forlorn trudger is still out on the highway, probably the Lincoln Highway,somehere in Rahway, New Jersey. No one will give him a ride, probably because they're afraid that Bavarian suitcase contains all manner of of contaminated species, so he is left to walk and evoke both Whitman(it being New Jersey) and the mighty Woodrow, poet hoboer of thearchaic railway, and with strains of Ferlinghetti references, he now intends to walk to California and back to the welcoming arms of Lady Liberty, an inevitable prehistoric forecast of his entire career.

And with that I call upon Mr. Blaine Duncan to subject the musical work "Bob Dylan's blues to the whims of Alabambian analysis.


PSB

Lily, Rosemary and The Jack Of Hearts

There's been so much written about this song over the years and about it's relationship to Shakespeare's Hamlet, and about the roles and relationships of the characters that you could spend days, maybe evenweeks, trying to read all of the interpretations out there.

There's also been a lot written about the obvious relationship between romance and the criminal element in almost every line, and then there's the card game references and questions about whether there is a relationship with the playing cards and the tarot. You can find comments on the biological backgrounds of the characters questioning if both Lily and Jack were Rosemary's children, and of course the idea that Big Jim is the symbol of Big Business, and what the heck do the bankrobbers have to do with anything, and on and on and on.

So, anyway, I'm not going there because it could take forever and it's really been done and done very well. I've been listening to this song since it was released and a couple of thoughts I had about it early on have lingered, and retained their significance to me since the first time I heard it, well, maybe the tenth time since there's so much to pick up in it. And when you consider all the subtlety and nuance in this song you have to agree that it leaves itself open for many different interpretations, even from just one person. Once again, the talent of the writer explodes in a multifaceted set of lyrics that still keeps me wondering about them. My thoughts on it may have changed a bit over the years, particularlywith the input of all of the discussion about this song, but these two reactions seem to have remained.

The first one is the way the song shows how a very fleeting influence can create a tidal wave of reaction, and that all the events and characters are pulled along with it (people just float) without control once the flow begins. Some would call it karma, I suppose, and in Big Jim's case it's pretty easy to see. He's taken over the town and "laid all to waste", using up and abusing everything and everyone in his path. From the tone I could tell that he hadn't exactly been following the ten commandments in his quest for control. It's a bit tougher to see the justice in Rosemary's case although from the very first I knew that she was the wild card in the tale from the reference to her being a queen without a crown. But then came the verse about the bad things she's done and her obvious guilt (one good deed before she died), and the reference to her "playing Big Jim's wife" coupled with her arriving in a carriage suggested that she was a part of the waste layin gand that she playedthe role in order to reap the benefits that Jim and his diamond mine could provide.

All very complicated with layer after layer to get through.Then all of a sudden there's the Jack of Hearts "standin' in the doorway", a stranger who comes in and orders a round for the house,and that's enough to get some attention from the patrons, but only for a moment, although we see that Jim's picking up some rather ominous vibes from his presence, perhaps sensing the wave that's about to occur. The lines about Jack are loaded with an aura ofmystery surrounding the stranger, but also a purpose in his being there, and I spent a great deal of the rest of the song trying to determine what that purpose was.

And then there's the whole thing with Lily and the suggestions that there is some sort of past history between her and Jack, which opened way too many doors for me and multiplied the mystery surrounding the stranger and his reason for being there. When I considered the momentous results of Jack's arrival, I found myself thinking that he was some sort of powerful shaman sent to bring justice to the criminals who ruined the town.

Then came the verse that revealed what the drilling in the wall was, and it occurred to me that all the mystery surrounding this guy wasn't really there after all and he was just another criminal there to scout for and back up his cohorts trying to blow up the safe. It appeared that Jack could have arrived, provided a diversion, got a little "diversion" himself in the meantime, and left without any ideaof the devastating results of his presence. The mystery is there,that's for sure, but it lies in the reactions to the stranger from the other complicated characters and that wave of events that resulted from those reactions. It seemed like a very Dylan type twist and left me thinking about how a relatively minor eventi nvolving one set of circumstances set off in one direction can cause a major chain reaction in another direction entirely, with the wave sand the ripples affecting layers and layers of very different circumstances.

Which leads me to the second thing that I think of when I hear this song. I think that the Jack of Hearts character may be somewhat autobiographical when you consider the momentous effect that Jack had on all the characters, and the possibility that he wasn't trying to effect anything, just get in, get the job done, and get out. The air of mystery that surrounds him in this song happens because of the reactions of others, not because of anything that Jack did,although, as I said earlier, the song suggests that Jack's presence actually caused the turn of events. I think in one layer of the song Dylan is describing himself and the fact that he is not trying to be a major influence, or even a small one, and that he has no control over the complications created by what people perceive him to be.

Well, that's a couple of my first impressions and only 2 cents worth of a thousand dollar song. The song is so many stories in one and onso many levels that I wonder if even Dylan has seen all of them. Now for the tag - PSB, step up to the plate and tell us about the real Down the Highway. (BTW, don't bother with the oracle, he just doesn't seem to take these things seriously and I'm pretty sure you'll get some crap about Sears, too)

Jackie

Absolutely Sweet Marie

OK, I am playing your game! I don't usually try to analyze Dylan songs I just like to experience them.......the art the music gives to me personally. I heard this song when it came out and I always heard it as a guy obsessing about a woman. I also realize it could have a lot to do with some bad drugs too. With Dylan songs there are usually many faucets to a line....so here goes with a grain of salt:

Well, your railroad gate, you know I just can't jump it
(I want Marie but I can't get into her bag)
Sometimes it gets so hard, you see
( In a romantic mood, you see)
I'm just sitting here beating on my trumpet
( being restless and romantic)
With all these promises you left for me
( Ya .Ya... she held me over, with a few laters)
But where are you tonight, sweet Marie?
( I want the promise) ( I want Marie)


Well, I waited for you when I was half sick
(Look what I did for you, guilt trip)
Yes, I waited for you when you hated me
( more guilt trip)
Well, I waited for you inside of the frozen traffic
(More guilt trip)
When you knew I had some other place to be
(guilt trip)
( I did what circumstances required)
Now, where are you tonight, sweet Marie?
( I want the promise, now!)

Well, anybody can be just like me, obviously
( people who wait)
But then, now again, not too many can be like you, fortunately.
( People that are being waited for)

Well, six white horses that you did promise
( Coming around the mountain on 6 white horses)
Were fin'lly delivered down to the penitentiary
( somebody had to pay the price)
But to live outside the law, you must be honest
( if you are going to do the deed ya gotta walk the talk)
I know you always say that you agree
But where are you tonight, sweet Marie?
( I want you )

Well, I don't know how it happened
But the river-boat captain, he knows my fate
( God knows my fate)
But ev'rybody else, even yourself
They're just gonna have to wait.
( Now YOU gotta wait)

Well, I got the fever down in my pockets
The Persian drunkard, he follows me
Yes, I can take him to your house but I can't unlock it
( I'm knockin but I can't get in)
You see, you forgot to leave me with the key
Oh, where are you tonight, sweet Marie?

Now, I been in jail when all my mail showed
( locked up )
That a man can't give his address out to bad company
(Can't trust some people)
And now I stand here lookin' at your yellow railroad
In the ruins of your balcony
( needle tracks with her life in ruins)
Wond'ring where you are tonight, sweet Marie.
( He is concerned for her, where she went) ( where did she go after she died)


There is one kind favor I ask of you
One kind favor I ask of you
One kind favor I ask of you
That you see that my grave is kept clean

If you ever hear a church bell toll
If you ever hear a church bell toll
If you ever hear a church bell toll
You may know by that I'm dead and gone

Well six white horses in a line
There's six white horses in a line
Six white horses in a line
Taking me to that burying ground

Now dig my grave with a silver spade
Now dig my grave with a silver spade
Dig my grave with a silver spade
And lay me down with a golden shovel

Now dig my grave with a silver spade
Now dig my grave with a silver spade
Dig my grave with a silver spade
And lay me down with a golden shovel

There is one kind favor I ask of you
One kind favor I ask of you
One kind favor I ask of you
That you see that my grave is kept clean

Linda

Idiot Wind

"We live in the smoky landscape now, as the exhausted troops seek the roads home. The sign posts have been smashed; the maps are blurred. There is no politician anywhere who can move anyone to hope; the plague recedes, but it is not dead, and the statesmen areas irrelevant as the tarnished statues in the public parks. We live with a callous on the heart. Only the artists can remove it. Only the artists can help the poor land again to feel."

-Pete Hamill, Liner notes to "Blood on the Tracks"

There are three versions of "Idiot Wind" that bares remarks. They are three uniquely different songs, which evoke different emotions upon listening. Now this is not unheard of in Dylandom, when the Bard will never give us the same song twice. But what is unparalleled with this song, as no other artist other than Dylan can do so well, is to give us his "State of the Union" address (I think Ginsberg has used this term before). Not just merely on a personal level, because everyone always seems to reference Dylan's personal life with "Blood on the Tracks". The more I listen to "Blood on theTracks", and "Idiot Wind" in particular, the less it has become about love and the more it becomes about the landscape of America, both yesterday and today - an America growing out of adolescence and into the tumultuous age of consumerism, war, political downfall,apathy and resignation.

The New York, Minneapolis and Hard Rain versions of "Idiot Wind" all have very different textures to them. The first impression one gets when listening to all three versions is that the song is about the ending of a love affair and relationship that has gone drastically sour. They both want what the other is unwilling and unable to give and this has caused resentment and anger from each, "Someone's got it in for me, they're planting stories in the press". The New York version shows a world- weary acquiescence to this fact, and in an almost bittersweet way, the narrator sings, "I couldn't believe after all these years, you didn't know me any better than that, sweet lady". But the stories in the press also signal that something else besides love has gone south. What once was hopeful optimism about the future has now turned to a harsh distrust and submissive attitude toward the powers that be – there is simply nothing he can do except sit back in disbelief. The blame is placed on the lover and the ones seemingly in control of the narrator's destiny, "Idiot wind, blowin' every time you move your teeth/ You're an idiot babe/ It's a wonder you still know how to breathe". The idiot wind blowing through the country, politicians blowing smoke inthe public's eyes, trying to blind them from the truth. The idiot wind that said change was and is possible in a world gone terribly wrong. In the New York version, this devastating acknowledgment comes through clearly, "I figured I lost you anyway/Why go on? /What's the use?" He has not only lost love, but the optimism and innocence of his youth; along with the youth and hopefulness ofa country then in war and coming out of a decade that ended with dark and foreboding signs of what was to come. Much like the times we live in today.

The lone soldier on the cross who wins the war after losing every battle is an underdog. A lone figure putting themselves out there on the line for something, who has been in the trenches way too long, and no one believes that he will win, and even his own faith is dwindling. Still he keeps going. The narrator, in an eclipse of desperation, battles between giving up and moving forward. He must win the war. Even though he feels he has lost everything: love, confidence, and integrity. He must mend a broken heart and spirit and move forward doing the only thing he knows how to do. The Minneapolis version is much more resilient in this aspect. This pliability turns into anger at both the loved one and the world he finds himself in – a love who has scorned him and a world that has turned upside down – he no longer understands either of them and is contemptuous at the hurt they have caused, "You hurt the ones I love best and cover up the truth with lies/One day you'll be in the ditch, flies buzzin around your eyes/Blood on your saddle" and, "Now everything's a little upside down, as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped/What's good is bad and what's bad is good/You'll find out when you reach the top/You're on the bottom". He once thought love was enough, but his destiny has pulled him in another direction. He is out there walking the wire, alone in uncharted waters in a world he doesn't recognize anymore, but his love can't or is unwilling to accept this.

All the person sees before him now is corruption, greed, acid lies. He can't recognize his love anymore, she has changed, he has changed, and the world has changed before his eyes – an idiot wind sweeping not only through his own relationship, but through the very fabric of America, "Idiot Wind blowin' like a circle around my skull/From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol". A country once full of promise turning its back on the very ideas that at one time made it great, letting the idiot wind not only destroy his relationship, but crushing the soul of where he lives. This alienation is more than he can bare, "I can't feel you anymore/I can't even touch the books you read/ Every time I crawl past your door I been wishin' I'm somebody else instead". But he still continues the search, in hopes that her love and beauty might save him and that just maybe the beauty he once found in this country can be restored, "down the highway, down the tracks, down the road toecstasy/ I followed you beneath the stars, hounded by your memory and all your raging glory".

"I've been double crossed now for the very last time and now I'm finally free", removing himself from the carnage, he declares vehemently his independence in the Minneapolis version. He tells his love that she can never know the pain she has put him through,and he will never know the same about her. This acknowledgement makes him sorry for the way things turned out, and regretful that things couldn't have went differently. The alternate New York verse, "You can have the best there is, but it's gonna cost you all your love/ You won't get it for money" has the narrator telling the woman and anyone who will listen that he cannot be bought, that a price tag cannot replace the true value of love and that it's going to take a lot more than money to repair what is broken between them and the bleak times they live in.

The final verse takes a twist, when the narrator turns inward and points the blame not only at the woman and everyone else, but he points the blame on himself, accepting at least some of the blame for the situation he now finds himself in, "We are idiots, babe/It'sa wonder we can even feed ourselves". They are idiots for throwing away what they had, for buying into what was expected of them, letting other people and things come between them. It's a wonder they made it through, yet they survive, and will continue to move on through the world the only way they know how to. The idiot wind the narrator talks about is the wind that makes politics into thirty second sound bites, the wind that makes conformity fashionable, the idiot wind that makes the dumbing down of America acceptable, and the idiot wind that makes money and social status more important than love and relationships. The last version, the Hard Rain version, is as bitter and venomous as any song that's been sung by any artist. It is an unabashed outpouring of anger, hurt, betrayal and loss. The person is letting the world know in no uncertain terms that he will make it through regardless. He's been through hell and come out the other side. This is what links all three versions, and is really what the song and album as a whole areabout – it is a survivor's tale.

Kelly

Cold Iron Bounds

~~~Well, I sure don't have this song committed to memory the way I have some of Bob's songs. Once again it seems so personal. Is Bob's life this tragic? But what if it's not. What if it's a character Bob made up. Or a situation he saw someone else going through.Cold iron bounds certainly sounds bleak. Final. The mental chain gang.

Cold Iron Bounds

I'm beginning to hear voices and there's no one around
Well, I'm all used up and the fields have turned brown
I went to church on Sunday and she passed by
My love for her is taking such a long time to die

~~~~Some of Bob's songs talk to the other party, "you got a lot of nerve", "you say you love me", " you say you're lookin' for someone", "you used to laugh about", or " And you're sick of all this repetition". But this one the main point of view is "I". I'm all used up, older, tired of trying, still in love but it's pretty obvious that the love won't be reciprocated.

I'm waist deep, waist deep in the mist
It's almost like, almost like I don't exist
I'm twenty miles out of town, in cold irons bound

~~~saying it twice really seems to show an uncertainty, not wanting to face the truth, reluctance, denial. Lost in the fog of grief. The cold iron bounds of not wanting to give up on have this love.

The walls of pride are high and wide
Can't see over to the other side
It's such a sad thing to see beauty decay
It's sadder still, to feel your heart torn away

~~~pride is the key word in this verse. Will he come out of this with his pride, will he trust himself to love again? He seems to be saying that thought it is hard to see a love falter, it is worst if you can't really understand why it isn't working.

One look at you and I'm out of control
Like the universe has swallowed me whole
I'm twenty miles out of town in Cold irons bound

~~~just seeing this person starts th over the whole pain cycle which once again makes him feel like he's out on a Minnesota chain gang in winter. Let me digress here and say I have always been fond of changing things around in the chorus, in this case only the last lineis the same.No need to waste that space on simple repetition when you have much to say. Unfortunate those for those of us who try to remember all these words when singing them.

There's too many people, too many to recall
thought some of 'm were friends of mine; I was wrong about 'm all
Well, the road is rocky and the hillside's mud
Up over my head nothing but clouds of blood

~~~this is a perplexing verse, I can understand how sometimes people have a different opinion of you after a breakup, being wrong about your "friends"., but the clouds of blood line leaves me wondering just what point he's trying to make here. Clouds of blood is quite dire!

I found my world, found my world in you
But your love just hasn't proved true
I'm twenty miles out of town in cold irons bound
Twenty miles out of town in cold irons bound

~~~this poor soul was thought or could see how everything was just going to be peachy but the love just hasn't proved true. Twenty miles out of town, no direction home.

Oh, the winds in Chicago have torn me to shreds
Reality has always had too many heads
Some things last longer than you think they will
There are some kind of things you can never kill

~~~classic Dylan lines here. We all have our own separate realities. reminds me of huxley's book "the doors of perception" where Huxley assumes that the human brain filters reality in order not to let pass all impressions and images, which would be unbearable to process. And some things just won't go away no matter what.

It's you and you only, I'm been thinking about
But you can't see in and it's hard lookin' out
I'm twenty miles out of town in cold irons bound

~~~there's that hesitation again. He just doesn't want to believe it's over and didn't work.

Well the fats in the fire and the water's in the tank
The whiskey's in the jar and the money's in the bank
I tried to love and protect you because I cared
I'm gonna remember forever the joy that we shared

~~~here in the last verse , he seems to have decided that his life is just going to have to go on, not as much fun as it could have been but he's warm, watered, whiskeyed, wealthy, so to hell with it.He tried to love because he cared, "what is real but compassion"(greg brown) but it wasn't enough in the end

Looking at you and I'm on my bended knee
You have no idea what you do to me
I'm twenty miles out of town in cold irons bound
Twenty miles out of town in cold irons bound

~~~and here is the most pointed line in the song,You have no idea what you do to me. And probably no idea about a lot of other things either.

sorry to be so late in my home work assignments. after practicng for the train hoot final, i had to do laundry and ski and pay bills and ski and work and ski and parent and ski and ski. it is winter ya know! anyway this was no easy assignment and my thought may not make any sense to anyone which is why i try not to go there much and keep these thoughts to myself. the easy part was to chose the next song but now i've lost my turn. but some women around here was going to have to tell me just what thehell ABSOLUTELY SWEET MARIE is all about .

oh, well, guess i'll never know,
maybe i'm the Persian drunkard.

kiote

Man In A Long Black Coat

I was going to wait another day or two, after all i've been thinking about this song since '89 and always felt this way about it but never wrote it down.

anyway, right after the last post i pulled out oh mercy and started listening and typing.

now that my homework is done can i go cook dinner? :-)))

"Crickets are chirpin', the water is high, there's a soft cottondress on the line hangin' dry,
the windows wide open, African trees bent over backwards from ahurricane breeze."

Bob's lyrics do what literature does; they paint a picture in your mind. You feel the heat of August's hurricane season, feel the ominous wind blowin the clothes. You can picture the trees oddly bent as though from a foreign landscape and all the while you hear these crickets chirpin`. The setting is in olden days before laundromats. Countryside pastoral barns and white clapboard churches with wooden steeples. Dropping his "g's" to me symbolizes simple country people, the type that would wear an unstarched white apron like dress. The music is menacing and has a tremendous moodsetting quality. His staccato delivery with a voice that is mysterious, deep and full, set the scene across as well as the 4, 6 and 12 string guitars chirpin' squeakin' thumpin' slurin' sustainin' and a harmonica punctuatin` momentarily the hot windy setting.

Bob finishes this first sentence at 1:30 and what a lot has been said already in this intro.

"Not a word of goodbye, not even a note, she gone with the man inthe long black coat."

She gonnnne - and quick too, left her dress on the line and no word of farewell. This man in the long black coat always makes me think only of a preacher. A classic southern or old west character, carrying a bible under his arm with dark clouds and lightning and thunder crackin' behind him. Long black coats in olden day rural America remind me of funeral parlors and churches - maybe I watched too many westerns with my dad who btw always called them padres. I can see that man in his flowing coat running up the stairs of a small town church. The comical all full-filling full length leather coat line was years later, and anyway this ain`t it. This coat to me is cotton with big buttons or looped hooks.

"Somebody seen him hangin around at the old dance hall on the outskirts of town, he looked into her eyes when she stopped him to ask if he wanted todance, he had a face like a mask."

I've heard the interpretation that the man is the grim reaper, "death" himself in the long black coat as he was comin' to get her. But this line rules that out to me. First of all a woman wouldn't ask a bag of bones like "death" to dance. And anyway,everybody knows that when death comes knockin' on your door he wears a hooded cloak and carries a big scythe and that woulda caused the townsfolk to talk a little hysterically if they saw him hangin around their hoe down, um, hootenanny.
To me the mask means means he was expressionless. If he was apreacher incognito as a regular single unattached available man then he was in an awkward situation. A preacher would only be used to good church women who approached him on Sundays to tell him innocent stories, give him a home made pie or tell him that they enjoyed his sermon.

"Somebody said from the Bible he'd quote there was dust on the manin the long black coat."

THE BIBLE HE'D QUOTE kinda stands out, don't it just say "HINT,HINT."

Small town people talking about the stranger and the woman. "Somebody seen him", "somebody said" yep, the gossip was stirring. Dance halls were for floozies, the girls in the redgarters. (I got Joe's attention now.) Dust of rumors, dust of the road he traveled to get from the town where he preached to this town where he was a stranger dressed like a preacher and who quoted from the bible. Some people say it is dust from digging her grave, but I'd go with the dust of rumors that bob "covered" in another song.

"Preacher was a talkin' there's a sermon he gave, he said every man's conscience is vile and depraved, you cannot depend on it to be your guide when it's you who must keep it satisfied. It ain't easy to swallow, it sticks in the throat, she gave her heart to the man in the long black coat."

Woah, pure Bob brilliance. He's bringing out in song yet another human loop that we all fall into. Every---All--- are fallible and preachers too are subject to fail and fall. Some sermonize to seek perfection, to come to God with a white clean angelic life, and they therefore are hypocrites preaching hypocrisy. This preacher knows better, this preacher has walked a few miles on the wrong side of the road and been covered in dust. The guilt is enormous for a preacher who looked into the eyes of a married woman and stole her heart away from her husband.

"There are no mistakes in life some people say it is true sometimeyou can see it that way. But people don't live or die, people just float. She went with theman in the long black coat."

Everything is meant to be, there are no coincidences, life happens as it should. Free will, she went on her way and floated along withher destiny where it led. She was in a dance hall and asked a man to dance so the relationship with the abandoned man at home was already over.

"There's smoke on the water, it's a been there since June, tree trunks uprooted, 'neath the high crescent moon. Feel the pulse and vibration and the rumbling force, somebody is out there beating on a dead horse."

The abandoned man is seeking understanding of her discontent. He recalls the warning signs - where there is smoke there is fire -like a tree, a relationship rots from the roots and eventually topples over and dies - and he is rehashing the past which at this point ain`t going to do him any good. She`s gone and there is no use in beating himself up over the loss but for a while he will rant "WHY?" and beat the dead horse till he gains understanding, time heals his wounds and her memory has faded and he is able to move on.

She never said nothing there was nothing she wrote, She gone withthe man in the long black coat

Karen

Sign On The Window

This one on this song may sound a little hokey; or maybe just plain-jane over simplified.

Bob wants out. The fame he has wanted now over shadows him. It hasbecome something that he is not. His fame is larger than his life. His fame seems to be outside himself; and draws a life of its own upon itself. Holding him in a grip. Slowly taking all his air.

*Sign on a window says "Lonely"
*Sign on the door said "No Company Allowed"

Sign on the street says "Y' Don't Own Me" That image we have of him. The prophet and J>C> images ~ the mass masses are now conjuring him into being. And are not only labeling upon him; but are attempting ~ to hold him to it.

Sign on the porch says "Three's A Crowd"
Sign on the porch says "Three's A Crowd"
To me that is now the fame he no longer desires. Because you've
got your up and your down.

You got your right and your left. You got your Ying and your Yang;but this bullshit is way over the top ~ And I want to be Left Alone.

*Her and her boyfriend went to California
Her and her boyfriend done changed their tune
My best friend said, "Now didn't I warn ya
Brighton girls are like the moon
Brighton girls are like the moon"

This is very open.. But to me its like.. She his wife/ his lady,is not much help.The fame is pretty cool. She apart of it now. She likes the fame,the notoriety, the success.But she doesn't really understand anything about him. Doesn'tnotice his pain and discomfort of the heaviness of ~ of his turmoilof who Bob Dylan is. And whether or not he will be the one who ultimately decides "Who" Bob Dylan is.

Looks like a-nothing but rain...Sure gonna be wet tonight on Main Street....Hope that it don't sleet

(..everthings a little screwed up/Not much I can do right now)
(I have to trust my own instincts/and ride this one out)
(I can handle all of this/as long as ... as it don't get worse)

Build me a cabin in Utah
Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout
Have a bunch of kids who cal me "Pa"
That must be what it's all about
That must be what it's all about.

Well, this part is simple and well chronicles'`d... I bet.

He's growing up.~ The whirl wind has sucked him up and spit him out.The times, the moon walk, the assassinations... The distrust ofnations. The free love of consciousness. On an individual level. From LSD and purple haze to the Fortunate Son. (~ CCR ) And Up onCripple Creek with Levon to Elton John. The Who and Rod Stewart. From MaggieMay to the White rabbit.

Vietnam, via-satellite, the civil rights movement black and white/Color TV, The Brady Bunch, and the Six million dollar man.

Lucy and Ricky are gone forever. gone

Innocents are gone along with them. With the black and white Tv.GONE.

Where is Bob? ???

So Bob says shit!!!

Build me a cabin in Utah
Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout
Have a bunch of kids who call me "Pa"
That must be what it's all about
That must be what it's all about

~~
the end.

Sorry I didn't see this sooner/ and thanks for a heads up and gosh,,
Speaking of Idaho and Utah,, How about tagging Mr Koite. Could you tell us your impressions of........ Cold Irons Bound.

Ronnie/r246

In The Summertime

I've always felt this song was not about a woman or any earthly relationship, but rather a commmetary, if you will, by Bob on his relationship with Christ.

'I was in your presence for an hour or so, or was it a day I truly don't know'...

During the so-called "Christian years", Bob spoke of how he felt Chirst, or Christ's presence, had actually visited him:"There was a presence in the room that couldn't have been anybody but Jesus.." He seems not to be sure how long this encounter lasted or how it manifested itself in the physical realm, which reminds me of something Paul wrote in the New Testament "whether in the body, I cannot tell, or out of the body, I cannot tell..God knows". That's not a direct quote because I can't recall exactly where in the New Testament it is, but it's similar. Thus we get "for an hour or so, or was it a day I truly don't know".

"Did you respect me for what I did, or for what I didn't do, or for keeping it hid?"

I interpret this as Bob simply saying "Hey, how'd I do? Did I say the things you wanted me to? Should have I taken it farther? Did I say too much orsay it too harshly?" In other words, "am I in your favor?"

"I got the heart and you got the blood, we cut through iron and wecut through mud"

Bob has the "heart", or the God-given talent, to sing of God's wonders, and through Christ's "blood", he has been redeemed in order to do so. Cutting through iron and mud could be a comment on the negative response Bob received upon his conversion and upon his evangelical fervor throughout this period.

"Fools they made a mock of sin, our loyalty they tried to win..But you were closer to me than my next of kin when they didn't want to know or see"Possibly a reference to those around Bob who didn't get Christianity and couldn't accept the fact that Bob had not only accepted it but was actively promoting it through his songs and live performances.The "next of kin" line could be referring to Bob's Jewish family who were upset at what they looked at as turning his back on his heritage.

"Strangers they meddled in our affairs, poverty and shame wastheirs.."

Proverbs 13:18 says "Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction: but he that regardeth reproof shall be honoured".

Again, probably a reference to those who couldn't accept that their "idol", Dylan, had his own idol. Bob was booed mercilessly on stage during this period, and was considered a traitor and even a sell-out. "Poverty and shame", he thinks, will come to those who mock me and "mock my God" (from 'Shot of Love').

"But all that suffering was not to be compared with the glory that is to be".

Whatever earthly ridicule he endured was worth his reward in the Kingdom that is coming.

"And I'm still carrying the gift you gave, it's a part of me now,it's been cherished and saved..It'll be with me unto the grave and then into eternity"....Now, this is where I start to completely speculate but, to my ears,this is where Bob could be saying he's moving on, not necessarily away from Christ, but onto other things at least in his professional life and possibly onto other things philosophically and spiritually to explore. This sounds past tense to me. "The gift you gave". It sounds heartfelt and thankful, and so powerful was it in his life that it will be with him "into eternity". But still, I can't help but get an image of a trinket from a past lover that you keep...You do cherish it, you look back upon the relationship fondly, but for whatever reason, you had to move on from on it.

And move on, he did..at least in a professional sense. The album this song is on, 'Shot of Love', was far more secular in nature,including a tribute to foul-mouthed comic Lenny Bruce. The following album, 'Infidels', while having some Biblical references, was pretty much completely secular. And no longer was Bob preaching and evangelizing from the stage.

I feel as if 'the summertime' represents the period in his life when Bob first accepted Christ, and I feel as if he looks back on that period in this song fondly and with great awe. And I do feel as if he has "carried the gift" with him. He has sprinkled spiritual references throughout his songs ever since, here and there. He has sang many overtly Christian songs in his live performances, both his own and others'. "The Summertime" was a period so over-powering tha the could not help but to proclaim to the world what he had been through. But summertime inevitably turns to autumn. And while the "gift" is "apart" of him now, he feels as if he's done his partin trying to impart the gift to others.

At least that's my take. Ok, my tag has been made. Ronnie, we'll be waiting on 'Sign On theWindow' .

mac

Shooting Star

Seen a shooting star tonight
And I thought of you.
You were trying to break into another world
A world I never knew.
I always kind of wondered
If you ever made it through.
Seen a shooting star tonight
And I thought of you.

Seen a shooting star tonight
And I thought of me.
If I was still the same
If I ever became what you wanted me to be
Did I miss the mark or
Over-step the line
That only you could see?
Seen a shooting star tonight
And I thought of me.

Listen to the engine, listen to the bell
As the last fire truck from hell
Goes rolling by, all good people are praying,
It's the last temptation
The last account
The last time you might hear the sermon on the mount,
The last radio is playing.
Seen a shooting star tonight
Slip Away.
Tomorrow will be another day.
Guess it's too late to say the things to you
That you needed to hear me say.
Seen a shooting star tonight
Slip away.

This is not a song of regret, but it's a song in which the narrator looks back. A shooting star comes out of the blue, and that's the place from which the past, very much like the future, comes too. And the thing about the past is that even if it's over and done with, it still changes - the way we look at it changes. As a familiar landspace that hits you in a completly different way when the light shines on it in an unusual way. Our present is constantly shining a different life on the past. There's an undeniable melancholy on this song, but, as Joni once said it, "there's comfort in melancholy when there's no need to explain", and the narrator seems to feel very lilneed to explain any of his actions.The same shooting star that makes the narrator think of someone makes him think of himself. By that we can tell that this person on his mind was very close to him. The same shooting star that makes him think of the past, makes him think of the present ("if I everbecame what you wanted me to be") and of the future ("tomorrow will be another day"). And that's many time how we measure the past, by comparing it to the present, or to our expectations towards the future (for they sometimes are not the same as they were in the past).This past is not a hauting one, it's more of inquisitive one. There are questions that were never answered and the narrator is asking himself these questions. He's asking them to this person too, through this song, but we don't get the feeling he's expecting an answer. "I always kind of wondered/ if you ever made it through", "was I still the same, did I ever became what you wanted me to be". The shootingstar makes him think of himself and that person cause he's seeing himself through this person's eyes - trying to find in himself what that other person would have liked to see or not. What would she/hesay if he/she saw me now?

The bridge comes to remind us all to ask ourselves questions that may point out if we're on the right track. If it was our last day,if we were to face today our final judgement, would there be much to regret? What would we like to forget, who would we forgive, and for what should be beg for forgiveness?All questions end when he realizes a new day will be there soon, a new day to shine a different light on the past. Again, it's not about regret, it's about what he's become and who he is. It's just a moment of reflection, slip away. Back into reality it just dosen't make much sense since it's too late to say anything or take back anything that's been said. Everyday is judgment day cause it just might be our last one. If there was something that he could say and he didn't, he won't be able to say it now. Elusive like a shooting star the past comes to us and leaves in a sigh. And then it's back to reality, to facing a new day, the present.

Well, I tag Mac to do...mmm.."In The Summertime".

J.