6th Avenue Heartache

I went to the website where Jacob made a comment on this song. He says the song was inspired by a homeless guy that played guitar on the doorsteps of a building accross the street from where he lived. He says that he related to that homeless guy in the sense that even with the obvious social class differences, they both lived through their music.

"Below me was a homeless man I'm singin' songs I knew complete On the steps alone, his guitar in hand It's fifty years, stood where he stands "

It's actually a very literal part of the song.

The homeless man later dissapeared from the doorsteps but left all his stuff: "Look out the window, down upon that street And gone like a midnight was that man But I see his six strings laid against that wall And all his things, they all look so small"

Just like Jacob, the homeless man moved on with his life, but he hopes that the stranger is doing well wherever he is.

Anyway, here's the web addy if you want to see for yourself: http://www.wallflowers.com/index_main.html

this is a great wallflowers song, but it's even better because adam duritz of the counting crows sings back up and the mixture of jacob dylan and adam is amazing :)

i am really not sure what this song means... but i think it has something to do with life in a big city and how cruel it can be... altho i am prolly wrong. my first clue was the name... "6th Ave. Heartache" if you think about it, almost all major cities in the US have a 6th ave. and ppl rush around, not really paying attn or caring. i think the first verse talks about a shoot out, and how he doesn't know what to do, and the "weight of the world" is crushing him. the chorus talks about a black line. i am guessing this might be referring to the boundary line that seperates the classes in society. i don't know why i think this... it just popped into my head. i can't really relate this to the rest of the song. the rest of the song goes on to talk more about the busy streets and the cruel world. Anyways i think i have this all wrong... but no one has posted anything yet... plz correct me

I think that this song is a communication with his father. Probably, he'd always told himself that he would never be an artist, a poet. In the first verse, he clearly feels the call to comment on society, which is how his father got his start. I suppose the early Dylan could be seen as a minstrel - someone who has the world and his art, quite literally, strapped across his back. Something that always struck me about Bob Dylan is how he seemed so alone when he performed - see the movie Don't Look Back to see what I an talking about. His father would have been about 50 when he wrote this song. And, surely, he was singing songs that Jacob knew complete.

So, I think he's telling his father that the same artistic curse that was laid on him is now being visited upon the son. Any other interpreation of the song leaves unexplained the enigmatic line---- "The same black line that was drawn on you Was drawn on me "

I like the multiple layers in this song: One, the physical, where Jacob is looking down from his apartment at an old street busker. Two, the metaphysical, where Jacob feels an artistic kinship with the man, and feels that connection is now "drawin' me in" to the life of an artist. Three, the aspect of time, where Jacob is a young man near the beginning of his life/career choices, and the older homeless busker has reached the end of his life/career choices. Four, the aspect of life and death ... it appears that the older man has died (shots ring out ... screams out loud), while Jacob, the younger man, his life ahead of him, "has his fingers crossed on a shooting star". Five ... a possible deeper layer is that the older man represents his father, and that there's a passing of the torch so to speak. And that Jacob didn't really have a choice here ... the "same black line" that was drawn on him, is sort of a curse that came from his father.

I know that everything Jacob does always somehow gets tied back to his father. But even so ... maybe this reference could be subconscious here(?), because Jacob wrote about the actual inspiration (the homeless busker) and did not mention his father.

I feel that number two is the strongest thread. Jacob feels that in this moment of this older musician passing, their two lives touch. The place where they touch feels to him like a "black line". It seems this represents the hard life of an artist. The hard line between living a normal life, and the choice to cross over that "same black line" and instead living a less-than-ordinary-life, where your primary focus is making art.

Because Jacob is making a connection with the man, instead of ignoring him as just another homeless person, he realizes ... with some regret ... that the moment is actually "drawin' me in" instead of repelling him. He is becoming an Artist in this moment. This, even though he might be on the exact, same hardscrabble path ... for "50 years", only to disappear without much notice.

Because he is channeling deeper meanings from this moment, Jacob realizes this means that he too is destined to be an Artist ... even if it means he might never have much success at it. That's the "6th Avenue Heartache" ... Jacob's realization that he is going down the same dark, uncertain path as the one that that ended this homeless busker's life.

The same black line that was drawn on you Was drawn on me And now it's drawin' me in 6th Avenue Heartache

(note: every time I said "Jacob" here, I really could have said "the song writer". I don't know him. This is just my interpretation. But we all know who the song writer is, and who is father is, so ...) Edit: oops ... Jakob.

[Edit: Added ... "oops ... Jakob."]

I have to agree with the last comment; the song is about the busy city and Dylan's role in it. I believe in the song he goes on to say while he tours the country's cities he feels like he never has a home because he's constantly moving. In the second verse he relates himself to a homeless man in the line, "singin' songs I knew complete." In the last verse Dylan also refers to making it big and he thinks of a time when another musician's music has touched that city by saying the 6 string is on the wall. The he says in the end the both moved on.

at first I interpreted the song as a love song-it seemed to fit me personally that way. The last line "i've got my fingers crossed behind a shooting star" reminds me that sometimes we need all the lcuk we can get in terms of finding or meeting that special someone...this is what feels right to me.

i definatly agree with montresor.

when i first heard this song i definatly thought it had soemthing to do with his father. it makes sense when you really listen to it.

I'm so glad some other people find it to have something to do with his father! I thought that but I wasn't quite sure. For some reason the black line comment always struck me as being marked to be like him, or being veiwed as following his footsteps. I'm not sure, but that's how I took it.

but also, Jakob has said that he often uses metaphors that create visual images that some may take litterally, so i may be waay off.