I believe this song could also work being from the perspective of a ghost...thus meeting a friend "he used to know," being out in the wind, without a shirt on his back, only with debts he can never repay. And he only hears news of the dead.
As for how he died, well, he was hit by a train. Maybe it was an accident, or maybe a lonely, grief-stricken suicide; either way, without his mother to whoop him back.
Of course, as a ghost, he can never return home "this way"...
I don't think this is what Dylan had in mind, but given the ambiguous, dreamy, and adrift-in-time nature of the lyrics, I think, it could be a plausible interpretation.
I believe this song could also work being from the perspective of a ghost...thus meeting a friend "he used to know," being out in the wind, without a shirt on his back, only with debts he can never repay. And he only hears news of the dead.
As for how he died, well, he was hit by a train. Maybe it was an accident, or maybe a lonely, grief-stricken suicide; either way, without his mother to whoop him back.
Of course, as a ghost, he can never return home "this way"...
I don't think this is what Dylan had in mind, but given the ambiguous, dreamy, and adrift-in-time nature of the lyrics, I think, it could be a plausible interpretation.