One Headlight

From reading the artists few chats about the song but still leaving enough unsaid to let the listener put their own feel on it is a wonderful gift Dylan gave us with this one.

To me this song is about growing up, you get in your 20s or early 30s and everything you though was real turns out to be bullshit. Your friends weren't really your friends, the beliefs your parents taught you aren't all correct, you find our that hippies only hate capitalism when they aren't selling you something, that both political parties are f*k'd, that rich people live by a different set of laws than poor people, that love isn't like the movies, that you can't be whatever you want to be if you work hard enough and that life can sometimes be damn hard with so many responsibilities it almost breaks your back from the weight of it. I think he uses Cinderella just as a fictional character that represents the innocents of youth. That the poor mistreated step-sister can become the princess. You see a lot of unfair and heartless situations and how ugly the world can be and you think you can change it when you're 17, 22, 26, 29 then one day you are 35 and like, "No matter what we do or how hard we try these people are still the same a$$hles doing the same evil to each other and the world around them." It's a hell of a wake up call and it can be shocking and painful when you realize it's not all roses and sunshine.

His only friend is innocence or liberty, take your pick. I've often wondered if Lady Liberty herself is "She" because of the undertones of American society involved in the song. I look at the second verse and "it's cold it feels like indepedence day..." It makes me think of these parades today where people are too lazy to stand and salute the flag or the soldiers and they only reason they are really there is so their kids can get all the free candy being thrown out. Nobody respects what America stands for anymore and when you realize it, it's eye opening.

There is also a sorrow that runs through the song almost as a mourning for the dreams that die as you get older. You look around one day and you didn't travel the world like you always said you would and instead are in the same town going through the same motions as the generation before you.

So there is this bitterness and regret that can start to get to you if you let it but even if many of your dreams and aspirations are gone and innocence is dead, you still have your own morality and drive to overcome life's obstacles. Nobody ever thinks they'll be sick or die or unemployed or any of that when they are young but as you grow older and life sh*ts on you some...

Just never give up and you can find happiness in life despite all that crap. You can make it if you just don't quit. Life may not be as pretty as we thought but it's still got a lot of good in it. So even if your diluted view (or headlight) of the world as a kid is dead, your sensibility-view (other headlight) is still getting you through it.

That's my take.