Well what do you say? The man who never wrote a song explicitly about ANYONE in his entire career. (You who are so good with words and with keeping things vague.) A career that's spanned, well Jesus, forever, thousands of songs. One song. One. If this isn't a song that affects you I don't know what would? This is a man begging his wife not to leave him. Simple. The worst period of Dylan's songwriting career was when he was happy. From '69-'74 Dylan was gone, disappeared. The music was awful. But he was a man living in Woodstock, NY with a wife and two children. Them playing leap frog and hearing about snow white... But then what? Now what? Now the beach is deserted except for some kelp. Many Dylan fans will argue that the only woman he ever truly loved was Sara Lownds. Maybe Ruth, maybe Joan, but when Joan asked Bob years later (80s?) why they hadn't married when they were in love, he responded by saying that he married the woman he was in love with. This song is heart-wrenching. On an album (following BOTT!) where he's taken up song-writing in an entirely different way, this song doesn't fit. It doesn't fit with the story-telling-ballad theme of the album, it doesn't fit with the mysteriousness of Blood and it doesn't fit with the anger of the (underrated) Planet Waves, where he was attempt a song like Dirge, a pivotal song in his career. This song, obviously at a time where his career would drastically change and he'd tour endlessly (no really, endlessly), and he'd be divorced and he'd take up faith in a way that astounded the music world, this song is unique in every dimension. It hurts to listen to.
Well what do you say? The man who never wrote a song explicitly about ANYONE in his entire career. (You who are so good with words and with keeping things vague.) A career that's spanned, well Jesus, forever, thousands of songs. One song. One. If this isn't a song that affects you I don't know what would? This is a man begging his wife not to leave him. Simple. The worst period of Dylan's songwriting career was when he was happy. From '69-'74 Dylan was gone, disappeared. The music was awful. But he was a man living in Woodstock, NY with a wife and two children. Them playing leap frog and hearing about snow white... But then what? Now what? Now the beach is deserted except for some kelp. Many Dylan fans will argue that the only woman he ever truly loved was Sara Lownds. Maybe Ruth, maybe Joan, but when Joan asked Bob years later (80s?) why they hadn't married when they were in love, he responded by saying that he married the woman he was in love with. This song is heart-wrenching. On an album (following BOTT!) where he's taken up song-writing in an entirely different way, this song doesn't fit. It doesn't fit with the story-telling-ballad theme of the album, it doesn't fit with the mysteriousness of Blood and it doesn't fit with the anger of the (underrated) Planet Waves, where he was attempt a song like Dirge, a pivotal song in his career. This song, obviously at a time where his career would drastically change and he'd tour endlessly (no really, endlessly), and he'd be divorced and he'd take up faith in a way that astounded the music world, this song is unique in every dimension. It hurts to listen to.