submissions
| Bob Dylan – Visions of Johanna Lyrics
| 19 years ago
|
|
I mean, feel how he longs to be released from the mundanity of this earthly life (where we all sit stranded doing our best to deny it) where even being entwined with his lover Louise doesn't satisfy him. I think little-boy-lost is his inner self muttering small talk when he's 'in the hall', about to make love to Louise. Earthly riches like jewels belong to us ordinary mortals as we struggle towards the distant goals in our binoculars. Yes, Johanna, the timeless beauty of creation and salvation has abandoned this empty cage of a world that now corrodes and his conscience explodes - 'no man sees my face and lives' - skeleton keys and the rain, death and life is transcended by the eternal visions of johanna rendering this world 'unreal'. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Spanish Harlem Incident Lyrics
| 19 years ago
|
|
Marvellous little song - it's easy to picture this wildcat described in the first verse and how after their encounter in the second verse (probably the most explicitly vague erotics he's ever written) and how he's completely lost in her memory in the third, the exhilirating and terrifying feelings from a hot one-night-stand when you don't know if you'll ever see her again. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands Lyrics
| 19 years ago
|
|
Just my take on 'warehouse eyes, my arabian drums' - for me it always meant his, for him, probably almost untolerable consciousness and awareness level and therefore restlessness - that he hopes his wife, muse, will soothe or take away but then again the sadeyed prophets say there will never be real communion. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts Lyrics
| 19 years ago
|
|
I agree with kripvorlun and the Jack got away of course heading for another joint. Also check out lily and rose in the tarot deck, the Tree of Life surely must be Dylans favourite version. Also compare Desire (both as a concept and the cover art on the album) plus the women in Red and White and the Rose in Renaldo&Clara. I love the original outtake version where those very universal yet private but not-too-close-to-home relationship weariness comments ('tired of playing the role of Big Jim's wife') and personal characterizations ('made his usual entrance looking so dandy and so fine') jump out from the sweet melody. Life is a pantomime or a burlesqe cabaret (remember the end of Renaldo&Clara - Willkommen, Bien venue) and what else is Dylan doing other than romanticising and mythologising his and all our lives. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Mr. Tambourine Man Lyrics
| 19 years ago
|
|
Dylan has talked about how his songs 'come to him' and in the sixties sometimes several at the same time, usually at nighttime or in the (jingle-jangle) morning after. The creative process is what artists live for and I know no better description of the related hope and release than this song. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Man in the Long Black Coat Lyrics
| 19 years ago
|
|
Yeah, but more like how Man is the destructive, demonic force and Her is the positive life-affirming force but how the former wins...who's gonna take away his license to kill? |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Just Like a Woman Lyrics
| 19 years ago
|
|
I agree with sailor and so forth - just listen to the '66 live take in its aching beauty and you can never say it's about anything else than an affair with a vulnerable, highstrung girlwoman and he's the vulnerable, highstrung boyman... |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Jokerman Lyrics
| 19 years ago
|
|
To me herein is neither God nor Satan. As Dylan writes at the end of Chronicles 'the future was run neither by God or the Devil', neither order or chaos but by chance/fate, Jokerman. And thus maybe Jokerman personifies the identity of America/Western world or the part of mankind that lives ungodly. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – John Wesley Harding Lyrics
| 19 years ago
|
|
Isn't it about the emptiness/falsity of hero worship and futility of 'outlaw' living itself - at the end of the album Dylan sounds like someone who is finally willing to live a 'normal' settled life. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Jack-A-Roe Lyrics
| 19 years ago
|
|
Somewhere in the liner notes to World gone wrong Dylan writes 'submerge your personality' - maybe it's a stretch but I think I can hear a little autobiography here and there on the album, for instance doesn't this song reflect Dylan's relation to Sara when they married...? And 28 years later he's a lone pilgrim. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Isis Lyrics
| 19 years ago
|
|
Paega, I think it's not salvation by religion but rather by earthly riches (the grave robbery) and manliness and as such I agree with nightingalerider the song is somehow shallow but the delivery...oh-ah! |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – I Shall Be Released Lyrics
| 19 years ago
|
|
The existentialist Dylan again - crying out that he was framed by every face of every man who put him there. Isn't that all our lives - there is only so much freedom in this world. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – I and I Lyrics
| 19 years ago
|
|
'I is another' according to Rimbaud. Man&woman(muse) or man&god = ONE, what we strive for. Or rather ONE = god/woman as 'one said to the other, no man sees my face and lives' I think. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Gates of Eden Lyrics
| 19 years ago
|
|
el che - i mostly agree with you, only i think that just as with desolation row, watchtower etc dylan's perspective is more generally existentialist/nihilistic than in this case being only 'about' religious dogma. 'perfection - i ain't ever seen none' dylan said. eden, paradise is of course perfect (and obviously our society is not) but therefore also unattainable. The 'lamppost' I see like a ruling elite metaphor in an inequal, imperfect society. 'Relationships of ownerships' - some studies say some 2% of us has the economical and political power...'Gray-flannel dwarf' isn't that the ordinary salary worker/citizen being scared by Easy-rider type individual freedom seekers and alright his 'breadcrumb sins' maybe religious but also failing to conform to society's rules. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Desolation Row Lyrics
| 19 years ago
|
|
Dylan said somewhere that he and Hendrix 'landed on the same desert'. I'm sure Desolation Row is not a 'nice' place to be, mentally, having seen society for what's it's worth and not being able to forget and enjoy an unquestioning life. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Changing of the Guards Lyrics
| 19 years ago
|
|
16 years as a recording artist by that time, he's career and it's all in there I think - the marriage, the divorce, the coming of Christ as replacement for Her - even the warning to everybody who cared where/who he was |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Ballad of a Thin Man Lyrics
| 19 years ago
|
|
There might be a few onesided Dylan songs, but not many. To me what makes this song great is that both the journalist/square and the gay/come out of the closet story work. |
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.
