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The guilty undertaker sighs,
The lonely organ grinder cries,
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you.
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn,
But it's not that way,
I wasn't born to lose you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.
The drunken politician leaps
Upon the street where mothers weep
And the saviors who are fast asleep,
They wait for you.
And I wait for them to interrupt
Me drinkin' from my broken cup
And ask me to
Open up the gate for you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.
Now all my fathers, they've gone down,
True love they've been without it.
But all their daughters put me down
Cause I don't think about it.
Well, I return to the Queen of Spades
And talk with my chambermaid.
She knows that I'm not afraid
To look at her.
She is good to me
And there's nothing she doesn't see.
She knows where I'd like to be
But it doesn't matter.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.
Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit,
He spoke to me, I took his flute.
No, I wasn't very cute to him,
Was I?
But I did it, though, because he lied
Because he took you for a ride
And because time was on his side
And because I
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.
The lonely organ grinder cries,
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you.
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn,
But it's not that way,
I wasn't born to lose you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.
The drunken politician leaps
Upon the street where mothers weep
And the saviors who are fast asleep,
They wait for you.
And I wait for them to interrupt
Me drinkin' from my broken cup
And ask me to
Open up the gate for you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.
Now all my fathers, they've gone down,
True love they've been without it.
But all their daughters put me down
Cause I don't think about it.
Well, I return to the Queen of Spades
And talk with my chambermaid.
She knows that I'm not afraid
To look at her.
She is good to me
And there's nothing she doesn't see.
She knows where I'd like to be
But it doesn't matter.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.
Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit,
He spoke to me, I took his flute.
No, I wasn't very cute to him,
Was I?
But I did it, though, because he lied
Because he took you for a ride
And because time was on his side
And because I
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.
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Is he both the guilty undertaker and organ grinder? as the unfaithful husband, and entertainer.
Are the drunken politicians just more lawyers, maybe divorce lawyers.
I think the song is referring to one elicit love
So my girlfriend carted me back and forth from the towing place TWICE, stood in line with me for 2 hours at the DMV, and it was hot and she was cranky to say the least. On our final trip to the towing place this song came on and I tried to sing it to her as best I could even though I didn't know any of the words (thankfully, the chorus is pretty simple). It made her to smile and now we're engaged.
Thanks for getting me out of a jam Bob, I owe you one.
- i think the 2nd stanza is about peace. The singer is longing for the end of the war so he can open up the gates (his heart and mind) for peace.
- the 1st stanza might be about either freedom, which is "buried" when he gets married, the "guilty undertaker" being the priest; it might as well be a priest marrying his secret love to another man, thus burying the singer's hope. Why else should the silver saxophones suggest to refuse her? Hmmm ... but I'm not too sure about that.
- the Queen Of Spades is a card of the Tarot deck which is usually interpreted as standing for an intelligent and independent woman. She is rather strict and cool (sometimes cold, even) and for that reason men have a tendency to fear her. Threfore he emphasizes that he's not afraid of her. I think the Queen of Spades and the chambermaid are the same person (Sara). Isn't it a married wife's typical complaint to be regarded as the husband's chambermaid?
... well, as always with Bob Dylan's songs, I wonder if he himself even has an interpretation of the song. Sometimes i think, maybe he just writes down what he dreams at night, leaving the interpretation to others... and from time to time, he comes by on songmeanings.net and reads our postings to find out - lol!
Or am I too late and you got married already? If so, may I ask which song you chose, finally?
And verse 2 I think is Ted Kennedy and Chappaquidick. I wont get political, but he's saying more towards the end of the verse.
I do not see that each stanza is a continuation of the previous but varied types of love. In order to understand this part, it is important to know that Dylan wrote this song during the Viet Nam conflict.
'The drunken politician leaps' is that they are drunk with the power over other people's lives, 'upon the street where mothers weep,' can be interpreted as the very ones he the politician proclaims to protect is done so by sacrificing the sons of mothers off to war.
'And the saviors who are fast asleep, they wait for you.' These 'saviors' again are those who are part of the political machine and who really have no idea what is going on other then they foist upon themselves as 'saviors', the solution to the ignorant masses. Yet they wait for you, meaning the soldiers are the key to their success.
But the soldiers don't know even to what purpose they are fighting 'and wait for them to interupt...' meaning they hope the power brokers will come out of their drunken stupor before they, the soldier, has to be '...drinkin' from my broken cup...' This is clearly is in reference to Christ asking God to have the cup be taken away, yet it was for this very purpose he came to earth to take the cup for the salvation of mankind. I believe the 'broken cup' signifies that the purpose for which he the soldier is called to die is not a pure one but 'broken' because it is based on the whimsy of political machinations.
'And ask me to open up the gate for you' I believe this signifies the gate can only be open by the soldier in order for the politician to enter to the next arena of his success.
Ultimately, this is about love 'where mothers weep'. A love so powerful as it is unconsolable knowing her child will never return home and cries on the street, 'I want you... so bad.'
Here is my spin:
A man, a lover lost his wife and refuses the necessary steps to deal with it. True love was lost.
The 'undertaker' sees this and is 'guilty' how he himself reacts to the inevitable monochromatic world of death.
'The lonesome organ grinder' is the lover who realizes that he can no longer entertain and delight his lover and has nothing to offer but tears.
The 'silver saxophnes' are the instruments of lovers, and say that you need to move on and stop grieving, yet the lover thought that his love for her was eternal so anything afterward would be 'cracked bells', signifying marriage and any celebration would be nothing more than the sound of 'washed out horns' as if to mock his true love that 'blow into my face with scorn' because it wasn't supposed to be like this.
He can't reconcile that fact that she is now gone because, 'But it's not that way, I wasn't born to lose you.' And so yearns, 'I want you, I want you, honey I want you... so bad'.
I'll keep working on the next stanzas.
ibdman
The guilty undertaker (sexual revolution)signs that True Love is dead.
The lonesome organ grinder is separated and gets no true love just a coin or two.
The silver saxophones grease the music of bars and hook up scenes. The church bells and the wedding bells are cracked and the washed out horns are no longer triumphantly proclaimin true love.
The poet cannot accept it... it's not that way, I wasnt born into the generation in which true love died. I want you.. I want true love.
Drunken Politician leaps to his suicide in the street. No love for politicians. Mothers weep for children lost to the streets and the revolution. Saviours are sleeping but they would provide True Love. They expect me the poet to open the gate of true love again, but Dylan's cup is broken. He does not have true love and wants it so bad.
All my father's I feel refers to Dylan's poetical influences. The modernist poets disavow true love and embrace science and disdain the romantic poets. The daughter's of the sexual revolution are putting him down because he is romantically proclaiming that he wants True Love. They put him down because they are free, now from "True Love."
He moves down the social ladder to the Queen of Spades, maybe a bar or hotel, the chambermaid, the hotel room maid or the waitress. He is not afraid to look at her to see if she still believe in True Love. She understands and agrees about True Love. She knows that he wants True Love but he does not want it with her. The Queen of Spades could be a symbol of death. She wants true love but for him it would be death with the chambermaid. So, it does not matter because she is not part of the sexual revolutionaries.
Dancing child with His suit could be Cupid or Pan with his Pan flute. He is taking away Cupid's flute because he doesn't want just lust or to temporarily be in capricious love.
He took away the flute and wasn't that cute to him.
He took away the lust flute and wants True Love. He wants the real thing.
This is just my humble opinion of what this poem is about.
I dont claim to have anything other than my own point of view about this poem.
I love this poem and most everything Bob Dylan wrote.
I think of him as a "Great" poet.
Paul