Juarez is the Mexican border town across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. In the mid-1960s at the time Dylan wrote this song, the town was famous for its bars and whorehouses. College students from schools throughout the Southwest went there to drink tequila and cheer each other one as they got drunk but yelling "bite that lime." There was a ritual to getting drunk on tequila at that time. The Army guys were from nearby Fort Bliss. Most had just finished basic training, were about 18 years old and there to get drunk and get laid before shipping out to Vietnam. If you stayed there for more than a few days, the drinking and whoring wore you out. The best lines that give it meaning are near the end when he mentions that Angel (presumably, a Hell's Angel biker from California) arrived from the coast and left three days later looking like a ghost. Given their reputation as drinkers and battlers, you get the idea that Juarez could drain every bit of life out of anyone. And it would.
Juarez is the Mexican border town across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. In the mid-1960s at the time Dylan wrote this song, the town was famous for its bars and whorehouses. College students from schools throughout the Southwest went there to drink tequila and cheer each other one as they got drunk but yelling "bite that lime." There was a ritual to getting drunk on tequila at that time. The Army guys were from nearby Fort Bliss. Most had just finished basic training, were about 18 years old and there to get drunk and get laid before shipping out to Vietnam. If you stayed there for more than a few days, the drinking and whoring wore you out. The best lines that give it meaning are near the end when he mentions that Angel (presumably, a Hell's Angel biker from California) arrived from the coast and left three days later looking like a ghost. Given their reputation as drinkers and battlers, you get the idea that Juarez could drain every bit of life out of anyone. And it would.