its amazing how far music can come.. 24 years after it released and its one of the most heartfelt songs ive heard
He sits in your room, his tomb with a fist full of tacks
Preoccupied with his vengeance
Cursin' the dead that can't answer him back
You know that he has no intentions
Of looking your way, unless it's to say
That he needs you to test his inventions
Hey, come crawl out your window
Use your hands and legs it won't ruin you
How can you say he will haunt you?
You can go back to him any time you want to
He looks so truthful, is this how he feels?
Trying to peel the moon and expose it
With his business-like anger and bloodhounds that kneel
If he needs a third eye he just grows it
He just needs you to talk or to hand him his chalk
Or pick it up after he throws it
Hey, please crawl out your window
Oh, use your hands and legs it won't ruin you
How can you say he will haunt you?
You can go back to him any time you want to
He looks so righteous while your face is so changed
As you sit on the box you keep him in
While his genocide fools and friends rearrange
Their religion of the little ten women
That backs up their views but your face is so bruised
Come on out the dark is just beginning
Hey, please come out your window
Oh, use your hands and legs it won't ruin you
How can you say he will haunt you?
When you can go back to him any time that you want to
You've got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend
If you won't come out your window
Yes, come out your window
Preoccupied with his vengeance
Cursin' the dead that can't answer him back
You know that he has no intentions
Of looking your way, unless it's to say
That he needs you to test his inventions
Hey, come crawl out your window
Use your hands and legs it won't ruin you
How can you say he will haunt you?
You can go back to him any time you want to
He looks so truthful, is this how he feels?
Trying to peel the moon and expose it
With his business-like anger and bloodhounds that kneel
If he needs a third eye he just grows it
He just needs you to talk or to hand him his chalk
Or pick it up after he throws it
Hey, please crawl out your window
Oh, use your hands and legs it won't ruin you
How can you say he will haunt you?
You can go back to him any time you want to
He looks so righteous while your face is so changed
As you sit on the box you keep him in
While his genocide fools and friends rearrange
Their religion of the little ten women
That backs up their views but your face is so bruised
Come on out the dark is just beginning
Hey, please come out your window
Oh, use your hands and legs it won't ruin you
How can you say he will haunt you?
When you can go back to him any time that you want to
You've got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend
If you won't come out your window
Yes, come out your window
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Warren wanted a Beach Boys thing for this one, and Carl Wilson and Billy Hinsche came in, with Carl arranging the vocal parts. The other harmony vocalists (credited as the "Gentlemen Boys") were Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, Zevon's longtime backers Waddy Wachtel and Jorge Calderon, and Linda Rondstadt/Stone Poneys guitarist Kenny Edwards.
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In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
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Lord Huron
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"
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
It sounds a bit Edie Sedgwick-y. Instead of inviting her to have an affair, he's trying to get her away from Warhol and hang out with him, but she sees it as a betray to Andy. His "inventions" and "bloodhounds that kneel" sound like Factory talk to me
There are two versions of this song - the one which appears on 'Biograph' was recorded with 'The Hawks', later known as 'The Band', and released officially as a single.
A previous version was recorded during the 'Highway 61 Revisited' sessions and accidentally released as 'Positively Fourth Street' in the first pressing of that single. This version is FAR superior, although the lyrics in the chorus use 'come on' instead of the 'use your hands and legs' that appears in the Hawks' version.
Gotta love the use of the word 'genocide'...I'm perplexed, it sounds more like 'jealous-eyed', but Bob was using a lot of wordplay in his songs at this time.
The lyrics sound like a clever invitation to a woman to an affair. It also sounds like it was released as an attempt to appeal to the pop market to effectively follow-up 'Like A Rolling Stone' (not counting 'Positively Fourth Street', which was a well-timed and opportunistic dig).
It's easy to say now, but the H61 session version of 'Crawl' would have been more effective.
@elephant_range Bob used the line 'you gotta lot of nerve to say you are my friend' to open Positively 4th St as well to close out 'Crawl out Your Window'. Same line, two Entirely different meanings. No one else was considering doing things like that, let alone pulling it off. This guy, along with some critics of Bob's stuff, helped introduce me to things like surrealism and multiple meanings. <br />
i can relate to bob's attitude and perspective in this song on a very personal level
I felt that it was to a woman who is in a relationship in which she feels neglected, and Dylan is exploiting her vulnerability.
I guess it
s just: come and see me if you want it, dont look for a reason to stay where you dont wanna be, you dont mean that much to me, but I want you if you want me.Kind of what I got from it, although I've never really believed I fully understood this song. It's a difficult read, but it's an excellent track.
i agree with tiffany-twisted. this whole thing sounds like it's about edie. andy is the one she can go back to anytime she wants to. basically he is saying andy is just using edie. i never got the feeling that bob cared much about edie so i guess that's why he doesn't sound so desperate he probably just wants a good time but doesn't care where it goes... i like both versions.
Lyrically and in terms of words, this must be one of Dylan's most complex songs. Only a few of his songs are precise, and it is songs such as this one which really establish Dylan as a puzzle maker as much as they establish him as a brilliant songwriter. Every Dylan song has meaning. That is the first point to note. He simply obscures it, to the extent that his songs seem to be open to interpretation, which they are. Every listener must therefore form his own understanding of it. Dylan, like all great artists, detests the need to explain his work, his objectives with it and his success with these objectives but one reason for remaining elusive is that everyone must figure the puzzle out for himself. It is like any beautiful epigram by Wilde, or a short prose of Khalil Gibran. Once you start sorting things out with a Bob Dylan song, such as this one, the curiosity is half the joy.
Khalil Gibran was a master. Anyone unfamiliar with his work really needs to at least pick up The Prophet. Even if you're not a Christian (or a believer period), the compassion and clarity found within the pages is still a worthy read.