"The Dylan Watch" (by Lawrence J. Epstein)

In this post, I want to offer an alternative way of viewing three songs on Dylan’s album Highway 61 Revisited. Those songs can be seen as a dialogue between different parts of Dylan’s self.

Many interpreters understandably consider "Like A Rolling Stone" as a mockery of some woman. Candidates have included the pop actress Edie Sedgwick, Joan Baez, and others. But, especially in the context of other songs on the album, it is also possible to view the song in another way completely.

This alternative interpretation is that a new creative part of Dylan, formed by a reaction to maddening internal confusion and the roar of demands from the world, is angrily snarling and singing to the old Dylan, the one who was sure of himself and clear about his identity as king of the folk singers.

What makes the song particularly intriguing is that the new Dylan refers to the old Dylan as a woman. The old Dylan is "Miss Lonely." Why a woman? One interpretation is that this newer creative self sees self itself as fragmented and is allowing one part of the self to explore another. Additionally, within a self are all sorts of “others” that the uncreative self suppresses. So the new self notes the existence of a feminine side.

In one verse, the new Dylan sings to the old Dylan about Albert Grossman. Dylan's enigmatic manager is called his "diplomat" in the verse, and the concluding line is about Grossman's supposed taking of Dylan's money:

You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain't it hard when you discover that
He really wasn't where it's at
After he took from you everything he could steal.

At the end of the song, Dylan pleads with his former self to go see someone who used to amuse him with language: 

You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse

Who is “Napoleon in rags”? He is Dylan (the “Napoleon” of singers) before the fame and before the money, when he lived in “rags” but was pleased with himself, when he was excited by his bursts of creative language, a Dylan driven by artistic motives not business interests.

In 1970, Nora Ephron and Susan Edmiston interviewed Dylan and asked about the identity of Queen Jane in the song "Queen Jane Approximately." Dylan answered in what must have appeared to be one of his whimsical and nonsensical responses. He said: "Queen Jane is a man." But he was having fun with them by sneaking in the truth in a barrage of evasive responses.

In the song, the new Dylan is speaking to the old Dylan, again represented as a woman. In this case the king of folk music is appropriately a Queen. The "approximately" in the song’s title is there because such a feminine representation is not precisely his former self. The speaker mentions the exhaustion Dylan must feel about his self and his songs ("you're tired of yourself and all of your creations") and the anguished folk crowds angry that he is not singing protest songs ("all of your children start to resent you"). The speaker then invites "Queen Jane" to see him, to get away from the “bandits” in the commercial world in which “Queen Jane” lives out a musical life. The speaker is Dylan’s untainted creative self urging the successful Dylan to return.

Dylan’s dialogues with his self continue in another way on the album in "Ballad of a Thin Man."

Most critics see the song as an attack on journalists, who don't understand Dylan at all but continue to write about him. This is certainly plausible--especially considering the mention of a pencil in the first verse--but the song seen in its entirety leads to a very different interpretation.

In this interpretation, the new genuine and creative Dylan calls the old, confused Dylan “Mr. Jones” and sees him as someone who doesn’t understand the homosexuality around him and is confounded by it. The language of the song is filled with very explicit gay imagery:

Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you
And then he kneels.
He crosses himself
And then he clicks his high heels
And without further notice
He asks you how it feels
And he says: "Here is your throat back
Thanks for the loan."

Given this imagery, it is more sensible to understand the "bone" the geek hands Mr. Jones and the "pencil" in Mr. Jones' hand as he walks into the room as phallic images.

The new Dylan is angry at the old Dylan for not understanding what is happening to him, for not comprehending the warping of his own creative core, the part of himself that was genuinely thrilled by the creative possibilities of combining language and music. The song is a cry from within mourning for what has happened to that part of Dylan’s self.

Comments

[Special Rider]

Interesting Thoughts.
I think that "Queen Jane" is not a person but is the escape or euphoria that is available from cannabis.

[Jim Barnhart]

I believe that Dylan's reference to the the diplomat who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat refers to the Vietnam war. Dylan's diplomat is the American Empire, Vietnam used to be know as Siam. Dylan is telling Miss Lonely that she can't believe in her country any more.

[The One-Eyed Undertaker]

I once read an interview with Dylan, wherein he said that every time he uses the word "you" in a song, he is actually talking about himself. I wish I could find that interview again.

Great article. Excellent alternative ideas. Kudos to you, sir.

[Joe Bob Halley]

Wake up, dude. LARS is about Edie Sedgwick. Read about her, read about her and Bob and Warhol, watch Factory Girl. Do your homework.

[jumprightin]

One-eyed:
Go back to sleep, dude, where Dylan songs are about one thing only.

[somelocalloser]

@Jim: It's Thailand that used to be known as Siam, not Vietnam.

I've always thought of Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window as THE Edie song btw. Funny how this never seems to be suggested. I mean "I'm sure that he has no intentions
of looking your way, unless it's to say
that he needs you to test his inventions" / "Trying to peel the moon and expose it with his businesslike anger and his bloodhounds that kneel" etc. - pretty obviously Dylan's take on Warhol.

[Anth]

That's a fair eye-opener about Grossman ; your interpretation of that verse sure has the ring of truth to it. Thanks !

I've always loved the verse in "Tombstone Blues" where it seems to me that Dylan alludes to Samson (who killed many with the "jawbone" of an ass), and calls the Johnson Administration "Philistines", desperate to recruit fresh soldiers to "send" "out to the jungle" of Vietnam.

[Stacey]

Many years ago I heard an interview with a woman who had done as her doctoral thesis a study of Dylan's changing interpretations of Like a Rolling Stone. Her theory was that in versions both live and recorded done after the original, Dylan expressed increasing hostility and this hostility was a sign of his growing misogyny. Is there any validity to her claim? I guess if it proves anything, it's that the writer (or writer/performer in this case) provides only half the story.

[Lawrence J. Epstein]

My thanks to all who commented on my post. I realize my interpretation is controversial, and so I'm glad it got some reaction.

Stacey, you asked about Dylan's purported misogyny. I don't see a hatred of women in his songs except insofar as such hatred is a weariness with all people. It makes more sense to me to accuse Dylan of misanthropy than misogyny.

Dylan's view of women is obviously complex. He sees them as guideposts ("Girls' faces formed the forward path" in My Back Pages), but also as betrayers. He sees the feminine goddess sometimes and the masculine God at others. If there is momentary fury or profound unhappiness it does not lapse into hatred for all women. He is ever-searching for the elusive love that will complete him.

Larry

[twitter.com/UnderdogSoldier]

I have enjoyed some things you have written but your interpretation of Ballad of a Thin Man is a complete joke. You must have phallus on the brain because I have given that song dozens of pensive listens and that "sword swallower" means anything but sword swallower - Dylan has a fascination with circuses and carnivals (see No Direction Home, and Chronicles Vol. 1). I shudder to think how you might interpret Blowin' in the Wind.
More generally though, I can't help but think that when Bob himself reads garbage like this, he thinks to himself "I wrote that song in 2 hours and this idiot spent 10 trying to tease out something that's not there".