I don’t know who this is about but I’m pretty certain what it’s about.
The narrator is addressing an ex-girlfriend with whom he had what he thought was an ‘open’ relationship, and expressing his sorrow that he inadvertently hurt her. There is a mistake in the first verse here — it should read “when I saw you say goodbye to your friend and smile” — he thought she was in an ongoing relationship and just wanted an affair with him, whereas in fact she was leaving her previous partner to be with him.
The second verse refers to their failure to communicate, where each makes an assumption about the other’s intentions (he that she knows he isn’t ‘serious’ about her, she that he is serious about her). The second part of the verse refers to an incident where the two of them are at a party and he leaves with someone else and breaks her heart. “Young” here means innocent, as opposed to the worldly sophisticate he took her for.
The third verse is slightly less clear, but suggests that he couldn’t see how the relationship could continue, whereas she claimed to know what she was doing. “The farm” probably has a literal meaning but to me the metaphor suggests sex without commitment — again he’s saying she posed as a person who was in control of the situation and comfortable with casual encounters whereas in fact she was extremely vulnerable behind that façade. “Clawed out my eyes” refers to her jealous bitterness at the end of the relationship.
The chorus says that he did love her in his own way, even though he didn’t want to spend his life with her, and that in the end she took refuge in the conventional, wanted a traditional marriage rather than ‘free love’ and became jealous and angry when this wasn’t on offer.
I think it's one of Dylan's most heartfelt and beautiful songs.
I don’t know who this is about but I’m pretty certain what it’s about.
The narrator is addressing an ex-girlfriend with whom he had what he thought was an ‘open’ relationship, and expressing his sorrow that he inadvertently hurt her. There is a mistake in the first verse here — it should read “when I saw you say goodbye to your friend and smile” — he thought she was in an ongoing relationship and just wanted an affair with him, whereas in fact she was leaving her previous partner to be with him.
The second verse refers to their failure to communicate, where each makes an assumption about the other’s intentions (he that she knows he isn’t ‘serious’ about her, she that he is serious about her). The second part of the verse refers to an incident where the two of them are at a party and he leaves with someone else and breaks her heart. “Young” here means innocent, as opposed to the worldly sophisticate he took her for.
The third verse is slightly less clear, but suggests that he couldn’t see how the relationship could continue, whereas she claimed to know what she was doing. “The farm” probably has a literal meaning but to me the metaphor suggests sex without commitment — again he’s saying she posed as a person who was in control of the situation and comfortable with casual encounters whereas in fact she was extremely vulnerable behind that façade. “Clawed out my eyes” refers to her jealous bitterness at the end of the relationship.
The chorus says that he did love her in his own way, even though he didn’t want to spend his life with her, and that in the end she took refuge in the conventional, wanted a traditional marriage rather than ‘free love’ and became jealous and angry when this wasn’t on offer.
I think it's one of Dylan's most heartfelt and beautiful songs.