I agree with Agurus except for one point. Everything is future or present tense ("you'll be happier when I'm gone" and "as I turn to go" as examples) until the final verse. It then shifts to past tense; "wonder if you knew when I got blue, and things got weird, I started growing Bob Dylan's beard".
I think that the singer's attempt to "grow Bob Dylan's beard" is what led to the breakup of the relationship, not his way of coping with it.
But the last stanza contains sequential events. The protagonist got blue and things got weird before he started growing Bob Dylan's beard. Regardless of whether or not the beard leads to the breakup, the beard continues to defend our narrator as the narrator continues to use modal and future tenses to suggest solutions to ease the difficulty.
But the last stanza contains sequential events. The protagonist got blue and things got weird before he started growing Bob Dylan's beard. Regardless of whether or not the beard leads to the breakup, the beard continues to defend our narrator as the narrator continues to use modal and future tenses to suggest solutions to ease the difficulty.
On a humorous side note, I can't fathom why growing a beard would lead to a breakup unless this is the most picky, fickle, and casual relationship in the history of Wilco's repoitoire.
On a humorous side note, I can't fathom why growing a beard would lead to a breakup unless this is the most picky, fickle, and casual relationship in the history of Wilco's repoitoire.
I see where you're coming from. It seems both positions are valid; things "getting weird" between the couple, the breakup, then the "beard" being grown as a metaphor for wisdom, and things "getting weird", the man "growing the beard" by trying to come to terms with it in a way that just creates an even bigger barrier and the breakup stemming from that.
I see where you're coming from. It seems both positions are valid; things "getting weird" between the couple, the breakup, then the "beard" being grown as a metaphor for wisdom, and things "getting weird", the man "growing the beard" by trying to come to terms with it in a way that just creates an even bigger barrier and the breakup stemming from that.
I agree with Agurus except for one point. Everything is future or present tense ("you'll be happier when I'm gone" and "as I turn to go" as examples) until the final verse. It then shifts to past tense; "wonder if you knew when I got blue, and things got weird, I started growing Bob Dylan's beard".
I think that the singer's attempt to "grow Bob Dylan's beard" is what led to the breakup of the relationship, not his way of coping with it.
But the last stanza contains sequential events. The protagonist got blue and things got weird before he started growing Bob Dylan's beard. Regardless of whether or not the beard leads to the breakup, the beard continues to defend our narrator as the narrator continues to use modal and future tenses to suggest solutions to ease the difficulty.
But the last stanza contains sequential events. The protagonist got blue and things got weird before he started growing Bob Dylan's beard. Regardless of whether or not the beard leads to the breakup, the beard continues to defend our narrator as the narrator continues to use modal and future tenses to suggest solutions to ease the difficulty.
On a humorous side note, I can't fathom why growing a beard would lead to a breakup unless this is the most picky, fickle, and casual relationship in the history of Wilco's repoitoire.
On a humorous side note, I can't fathom why growing a beard would lead to a breakup unless this is the most picky, fickle, and casual relationship in the history of Wilco's repoitoire.
I see where you're coming from. It seems both positions are valid; things "getting weird" between the couple, the breakup, then the "beard" being grown as a metaphor for wisdom, and things "getting weird", the man "growing the beard" by trying to come to terms with it in a way that just creates an even bigger barrier and the breakup stemming from that.
I see where you're coming from. It seems both positions are valid; things "getting weird" between the couple, the breakup, then the "beard" being grown as a metaphor for wisdom, and things "getting weird", the man "growing the beard" by trying to come to terms with it in a way that just creates an even bigger barrier and the breakup stemming from that.