The song describes a specific incident, and there are 3 people in the incident, although the 3rd person is absent for most of it. There's the giver of the stick of gum, the recipient of the gum stick, and a third person, who the gum stick givers mind inclines towards when he's at the 2nd characters house. Then he brings what he took from the 2nd character to the third character.
The joke about the giving of the stick of gum is a joke about the hypocrisy of the woman who requests that he give something back for something she gave him. The joke spans a couple of verses, because when he asks for some Jamaican rum, she's infuriated to hear her own logic turned back on herself.
He goes to see the girl in the wheel chair who doesn't ask for anything, which is much better, as seeing an act of love, or maybe even just an act of oral sex which I think the song is also wryly about, as a favor demanding compensation of some kind cheapens or belittles what might be happening between them. Thus, he gives a stick of gum to mock her cheap way of looking at things with one of the cheapeast things someone can buy.
As for the oral sex, I worked in a used clothing store, and pimps, these slobs come in with their prostitutes to buy them clothes, and they are invariably eating sweet strongly flavoured things like a popsicle to eliminate the foul lingering aftertaste of going down on someone. Jamaican rum and a stick of gum are good examples of such aftertaste eliminators.
Apart from that sordid aspect, the wheelchair really emphasizes the strength of this other woman. She might have some incapacities that might make you think she feels sorry for herself, but she doesn't ask for anything extra, even though you might think she is the more deserving of something extra. So that she doesn't ask is all the more attractive and sort of noble, especially when considering the lady he leaves in the begining of the song.
And that he takes from one woman to give to another, sort of shows how the gifts are not really proferred in a logical system of exchange, which is how the 1st lady mistakes it to be, or tries to force it to be. Through coincidence and a wandering mind, and desires we are all taking and giving in a very haphazard sort of way, which is better then thinking that debts are owed, which can really sour things.
I also love the classical guitar, it's sort of atypical from the rest of the songs on Blonde on Blonde, because they fall into a either a blues/rock category with those basic progressions, to the non-blues more romantic progressions like those found in I Want You and Stuck Outside of Mobile. The contrast between the sentiment of the guitar and the unsentimental way he looks at an incident with this one lady and then the other makes it a rare sort of love song, because the sound is sort of romantic in a light hearted way, but the subject is kind of troubled and not obviously pretty.
I think that the subject must be wondering how he came to be so enmired with a lady who inspires him to mock her ugly way of characterizing what it is that's happening between them, be it a blow job, or something metaphoric.
The song describes a specific incident, and there are 3 people in the incident, although the 3rd person is absent for most of it. There's the giver of the stick of gum, the recipient of the gum stick, and a third person, who the gum stick givers mind inclines towards when he's at the 2nd characters house. Then he brings what he took from the 2nd character to the third character.
The joke about the giving of the stick of gum is a joke about the hypocrisy of the woman who requests that he give something back for something she gave him. The joke spans a couple of verses, because when he asks for some Jamaican rum, she's infuriated to hear her own logic turned back on herself.
He goes to see the girl in the wheel chair who doesn't ask for anything, which is much better, as seeing an act of love, or maybe even just an act of oral sex which I think the song is also wryly about, as a favor demanding compensation of some kind cheapens or belittles what might be happening between them. Thus, he gives a stick of gum to mock her cheap way of looking at things with one of the cheapeast things someone can buy.
As for the oral sex, I worked in a used clothing store, and pimps, these slobs come in with their prostitutes to buy them clothes, and they are invariably eating sweet strongly flavoured things like a popsicle to eliminate the foul lingering aftertaste of going down on someone. Jamaican rum and a stick of gum are good examples of such aftertaste eliminators.
Apart from that sordid aspect, the wheelchair really emphasizes the strength of this other woman. She might have some incapacities that might make you think she feels sorry for herself, but she doesn't ask for anything extra, even though you might think she is the more deserving of something extra. So that she doesn't ask is all the more attractive and sort of noble, especially when considering the lady he leaves in the begining of the song.
And that he takes from one woman to give to another, sort of shows how the gifts are not really proferred in a logical system of exchange, which is how the 1st lady mistakes it to be, or tries to force it to be. Through coincidence and a wandering mind, and desires we are all taking and giving in a very haphazard sort of way, which is better then thinking that debts are owed, which can really sour things.
I also love the classical guitar, it's sort of atypical from the rest of the songs on Blonde on Blonde, because they fall into a either a blues/rock category with those basic progressions, to the non-blues more romantic progressions like those found in I Want You and Stuck Outside of Mobile. The contrast between the sentiment of the guitar and the unsentimental way he looks at an incident with this one lady and then the other makes it a rare sort of love song, because the sound is sort of romantic in a light hearted way, but the subject is kind of troubled and not obviously pretty.
I think that the subject must be wondering how he came to be so enmired with a lady who inspires him to mock her ugly way of characterizing what it is that's happening between them, be it a blow job, or something metaphoric.