Biffyshrew wrote:
Dylan's inflection on the words "cherry red" reminded me immediately of Mick Jagger singing the same phrase on "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Then "You took the silver, you took the gold" seems to echo the Stones' "You got the silver, you got the gold" from the same album. Had Zimmy been listening to _Let It Bleed_ when he wrote these songs? With all the dozens of references to other songs scattered throughout the TOOM lyrics, it wouldn't surprise me if these Stones references were intentional. But how could he have known that he'd be releasing his album the same day as the Stones released their new one? :-)
Bill (call me anything) Routhier wrote:
There's a couple of lines in ' Standing in the Doorway' that bear a little examination, because they show just how brilliant Bob is as a lyricist.
'When the last rays of daylight go down,
Buddy you'll roll no more,
I can hear the churchbells ringing in the yard,
Wonder who their ringing for...'
Now this is an incredibly sly and witty group of lines. These are at the same time the sort of so-called simple lyrics that some of the more dim-witted people out here are complaining about, because they're not wordy and 'poetic.'
OK - 'When the last rays of daylight go down' - obvious, the end of his life - 'Buddy you'll roll no more.' Then, this wonderful couplet follows it- 'I hear the churchbells ringing in the yard, I wonder who they're ringing for...' So, the narrator, his attention diverted, hears churchbells. He wonders who's died. He's been musing on his mortality, and the bells echo that.
But those lines harken directly back to the famous John Donne passage, 'never send to know for who the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.' So the narrator, inadvertantly, is answering his own question - the bells are tolling for him, the narrator - yet, as a character within the song, the narrator isn't aware of the irony of his own words. The irony instead is coming to us from the songwriter and singer, Bob, who is standing outside the song, in an omniscient voice - and at the same time he is singing it, and it's about him.
Get it?
No small wonder he always says he doesn't know who he is.
Paul Sweeney wrote:
I believe the line, "I eat when I'm hungry, I drink when I'm dry" came from the lyrics of an old Irish song called, The Moonshiner. I first heard this song from the Clancy Bros on an album released in the early 60's
I'm a rambler, I'm a gambler
I'm a ling way from home,
and if you don't like me
just leave me alone.
I'll eat when I'm hungry,
I'll drink when I'm dry.
And if the moonshine don't kill me,
I'll live till I die......"
Thgold wrote:
"I eat when I'm hungry, etc.," is from the old cowboy song Rye Whiskey, as someone else has undoubtedly pointed out in this forum. Could have been in a movie, too, of course.
Editor's note: I found the lyrics (at least one version) on the net. Interesting that the song also goes by the name Jack of Diamonds, who is of course a character in the Dylan song Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts. Here's the lyrics.
Jack Of Diamonds (Rye Whiskey)
I've known you of old
You've robbed my poor pockets
of silver and gold
Beafsteak when I'm hungry
Rye whiskey when I'm dry
Greenbacks when I'm hard up
And heaven when I die
Rye whiskey, rye whiskey
Rye whiskey I cry
If I don't get rye whiskey
I surely will die
Jack of diamonds, jack of diamonds
I've known you of old
You've robbed my poor pockets
of silver and gold