I read the song in a quite literate sense: The first and the second stanza are about a lost love and the experienced rejection. The fourth stanza tells us what happened then. The lyrical I moves, after losing the love of his youth, to the countryside and becomes the father of a family.
This might be my personal prejudice, but at the same time I read into the fourth stanza pain: The description of an idyll that does not feel as an idyll to the lyrical I -- one of the most subtle and deep forms of pain..
The hint is: "That must be what it is all about", not "That is what it is all about." The lyrical I tries to persuade himself that he is living the best of all possible lifes, but he is not quite feeling the way. Maybe he still wants to be the one who went with the girl to California.
Only this interpretation gives the song its full force, I feel, transcending the usual love song to something more ironic and bitter. Ambiguity is one of Dylan's trademark features.
I read the song in a quite literate sense: The first and the second stanza are about a lost love and the experienced rejection. The fourth stanza tells us what happened then. The lyrical I moves, after losing the love of his youth, to the countryside and becomes the father of a family.
This might be my personal prejudice, but at the same time I read into the fourth stanza pain: The description of an idyll that does not feel as an idyll to the lyrical I -- one of the most subtle and deep forms of pain.. The hint is: "That must be what it is all about", not "That is what it is all about." The lyrical I tries to persuade himself that he is living the best of all possible lifes, but he is not quite feeling the way. Maybe he still wants to be the one who went with the girl to California.
Only this interpretation gives the song its full force, I feel, transcending the usual love song to something more ironic and bitter. Ambiguity is one of Dylan's trademark features.