This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
My love she speaks like silence
Without ideals or violence
She doesn't have to say she's faithful
Yet she's true, like ice, like fire
People carry roses
And make promises by the hours
My love she laughs like the flowers
Valentines can't buy her
In the dime stores and bus stations
People talk of situations
Read books, repeat quotations
Draw conclusions on the wall
Some speak of the future
My love she speaks softly
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all
The cloak and dagger dangles
Madams light the candles
In ceremonies of the horsemen
Even the pawn must hold a grudge
Statues made of matchsticks
Crumble into one another
My love winks, she does not bother
She knows too much to argue or to judge
The bridge at midnight trembles
The country doctor rambles
Bankers' nieces seek perfection
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring
The wind howls like a hammer
The night blows rainy
My love she's like some raven
At my window with a broken wing
Without ideals or violence
She doesn't have to say she's faithful
Yet she's true, like ice, like fire
People carry roses
And make promises by the hours
My love she laughs like the flowers
Valentines can't buy her
In the dime stores and bus stations
People talk of situations
Read books, repeat quotations
Draw conclusions on the wall
Some speak of the future
My love she speaks softly
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all
The cloak and dagger dangles
Madams light the candles
In ceremonies of the horsemen
Even the pawn must hold a grudge
Statues made of matchsticks
Crumble into one another
My love winks, she does not bother
She knows too much to argue or to judge
The bridge at midnight trembles
The country doctor rambles
Bankers' nieces seek perfection
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring
The wind howls like a hammer
The night blows rainy
My love she's like some raven
At my window with a broken wing
Lyrics submitted by roger wilco
Love Minus Zero/No Limit Lyrics as written by Bob Dylan
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I have pondered this song for years, and was never able to come up with a decent theory as to what it meant (which is the reason it really thrills me to stumble upon this site), but I have always felt that the subject was not not a person, but rather a (from dylan's point of view) truth of some sort. For instance, Dylan says his love is true, like ice, like fire. Human beings all have flaws, therefore no human being could come close to being as true as something as elemental as ice and fire. Also, in the line "without ideals or violence," once again all flawed human beings possess both ideals and a tendency towards violence of some sort, whereas some kind of deep, concrete truth is the only thing that could attain this level of detachment from human affairs. I think the end line maybe refers to Dylan perhaps realizing that the truth he believed in for so long is not without its flaws also.
I also just now thought of a song whose first line parallels the last line of this song. In It Aint Me, BAbe, the song begins..."Go away from my window..." Perhaps this is referring to the raven with a broken wing. Of course, I always assumed It Aint Me, Babe referred to an actual woman, and this parallel could make sense of Love Minus Zero/No Limit is indeed about a romantic love. Who really knows?
This is why I freakin' LOVE Dylan. His lyrics can be interpreted in so many different ways, much like all the poetic greats of the past...how many modern songwriters can claim that?