I see it as a man who has lost his faith in a faithless world, he may even be a preacher, or a pilgrim
Everywhere he looks, there is evil and ruthlessness, and all the while he even wants to give into the temptation of evil, he is fighting with himself, he wants to just find his enemies and "slaughter them where they lie." He wants to believe that prayer will heal him, and even though he loves his neighbor and tries to "do good unto others", "Things ain't going well..."
But he can't give in, his own suffering is "unending", the fire that was once in his heart for his god is now gone, but the light of hope is still there.
Through out the song, his heart is burnin' and yearnin' for something better, and until he finds it, even if he has to go to the "last outback at the world's end", he will never stop walkin' or looking for that fire, that unconditional love that he is losing every day.
It's a haunting, beautiful, lonesome, heart wrentching, ballad of indescribable pain, anger, love, and faith
Not only one of my favorites on the new album, but of all Dylan's songs
I see it as a man who has lost his faith in a faithless world, he may even be a preacher, or a pilgrim Everywhere he looks, there is evil and ruthlessness, and all the while he even wants to give into the temptation of evil, he is fighting with himself, he wants to just find his enemies and "slaughter them where they lie." He wants to believe that prayer will heal him, and even though he loves his neighbor and tries to "do good unto others", "Things ain't going well..." But he can't give in, his own suffering is "unending", the fire that was once in his heart for his god is now gone, but the light of hope is still there. Through out the song, his heart is burnin' and yearnin' for something better, and until he finds it, even if he has to go to the "last outback at the world's end", he will never stop walkin' or looking for that fire, that unconditional love that he is losing every day. It's a haunting, beautiful, lonesome, heart wrentching, ballad of indescribable pain, anger, love, and faith Not only one of my favorites on the new album, but of all Dylan's songs