This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
I pity the poor immigrant
Who wishes he would've stayed home
Who uses all his power to do evil
But in the end is always left so alone
That man whom with his fingers cheats
And who lies with every breath
Who passionately hates his life
And likewise, fears his death
I pity the poor immigrant
Whose strength is spent in vain
Whose heaven is like ironsides
Whose tears are like rain
Who eats but is not satisfied
Who hears but does not see
Who falls in love with wealth itself
And turns his back on me
I pity the poor immigrant
Who tramples through the mud
Who fills his mouth with laughing
And who builds his town with blood
Whose visions in the final end
Must shatter like the glass
I pity the poor immigrant
When his gladness comes to pass
Who wishes he would've stayed home
Who uses all his power to do evil
But in the end is always left so alone
That man whom with his fingers cheats
And who lies with every breath
Who passionately hates his life
And likewise, fears his death
I pity the poor immigrant
Whose strength is spent in vain
Whose heaven is like ironsides
Whose tears are like rain
Who eats but is not satisfied
Who hears but does not see
Who falls in love with wealth itself
And turns his back on me
I pity the poor immigrant
Who tramples through the mud
Who fills his mouth with laughing
And who builds his town with blood
Whose visions in the final end
Must shatter like the glass
I pity the poor immigrant
When his gladness comes to pass
Lyrics submitted by Irishred516
I Pity the Poor Immigrant Lyrics as written by Bob Dylan
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Great version of a great song,
it is surely not about stereotyping immigrants... i think it is plain to see, but the main metaphor is "immigrant", an outsider, specifically an outsider who has no respect for and does not integrate himself into his new home.
"Who passionately hates his life, And likewise fears his death." That reminds me a bit of the book Steppenwolf. I KNOW it's probably completely off the real meaning, but this whole song reminds me of someone like Harry Haller...an outsider who "eats but is not satisfied, Who hears but does not see", who doesn't feel at home with his own life. As I said my interpretation is probably completely wrong, but I am pretty certain it's not literally about immigrants.
It's amazing what can think of somebody, before you ever get to know them. I think is a wonderful song about steretyping people, in this case immigrants. This man is looked upon as being anything but good, but in the end is left alone, struggling to make it.
You should listen to the song "Tramps and Hawkers". It's an Irish folk song (or possibly Scottish?)... The Dubliners do a good version.
Dylan basically steals the tune, then adds his own lyrics. In my opinion he did a really good job. The narrative of "Tramps and Hawkers" is an old man telling the tale of his travels. I think "the poor immigrant" is about an actual immigrant, not a metaphor.
It took me ages to figure out where the tune was from. Drove me crazy
The first time I heard this song, i just thought straight away it was an ironic description of the white American... the title leads us to believe it's about the "poor immigrant" who has a hard time living in the U.S for instance, and the words in fact describe the white man as an immigrant who stole the land he lives in and whose life is a blind lie etc. ("built his town with blood" and so on)
Am I the only one to think that? It would fit in pretty well with Dylan's usual themes...
Very good take.
I always thought it was a song about an immigrant who was, because of need, to become a member of the Mafia. He "uses all of his power to do evil". He cheats and he lies. He hates his life and he fears his death because he knows it will be violent. He "eats" but is never satisfied. He loves wealth more than those around him. He tramples through the mud (burying a body?). He builds his town with blood (self-explanatory). When he is finally taken out, he is glad that his wicked life is over...."his gladness comes to pass".
I like this take. It is very good and a somewhat more specific than the comment by Clevernickname relating the song to white Americans. Dylan wrote a timeless commentary on the American white “conservative” who in the age of Trumpian politics cannot be satisfied. We built the country by trampling on the American Indian (there’s another good comment on this subject), trampled through the mud in Viet Nam, the war we fought when Dylan wrote it, and now in numerous other countries. Cannot ever be happy with the greatest country ever built. “Wishes he would have stayed home” does not really fit modern day Americans, but where is home? I’ll answer that with a question: when was America great?
what's A.Grossman's heritage? could Bob have just been pissed at him one day? If so, what a way to vent your steam. this is a brutal, beautiful song.
I've always thought this song was sang from the viewpoint of native Americans looking at the "white men" settling in. Great one for me in any case.
@disfunktor Yours is the best theory I have heard. The line "Who fills his mouth with laughing" is built on the classic Native American syntax of their native tongue. Well done.
@disfunktor Spot on, I'd say!
@disfunktor best interpretation, imo; (nearly) everything falls in its right place!
Good tune. I know some people like this. And I have absolutely no hatred for them (it's not in my makeup).