Bob Dylan — Positively 4th Street — Listen, watch, download and discover music for free at Last.fm 60s "Positively 4th Street" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, first recorded by Dylan in New York City on July 29, 1965. It was released as a single by Columbia Records on September 7, 1965, reaching #1 on Canada's RPM chart, #7 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and #8 on the UK Singles Chart. Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song as #206 in their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. The song was released between… read more Don't want to see ads? Subscribe now Similar Tracks Bob Dylan - Wikiquote Bob Dylan If your time to you is worth savin’ Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin’. a poem is a naked person . . . some people say that i am a poet I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom. People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties.

They are still being passed around — the music and the ideas. We may not be able to defeat these swine, but we don't have to join them. Morality has nothing in common with politics. I don't call myself a poet, because I don't like the word. Don't ask me nothin' about nothin'. I just might tell you the truth. Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24 , 1941 ) is an American folk and rock singer-songwriter, born in Duluth, Minnesota . In 2016 Dylan received the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition". Contents Quotes[ edit ] Because Dickens and Dostoyevsky and Woody Guthrie were telling their stories much better than I ever could, I decided to stick to my own mind. "Only Human Driftin' And Learnin'" by Sidney Fields, New York Mirror (9 December 1963) There's no black and white, left and right to me anymore; there's only up and down and down is very close to the ground. And I'm trying to go up without thinking about anything trivial such as politics.

They has got nothing to do with it. I'm thinking about the general people and when they get hurt. Address to the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee (13 December 1963) a poem is a naked person . . . some people say that I am a poet Liner notes , Bringing It All Back Home (1965) He's a pinboy. He also wears suspenders. He's a real person. You know him, but not by that name... I saw him come into the room one night and he looked like a camel. He proceeded to put his eyes in his pocket. I asked this guy who he was and he said, "That's Mr. Jones." Then I asked this cat, "Doesn't he do anything but put his eyes in his pocket?" And he told me, "He puts his nose on the ground." It's all there, it's a true story. When asked about the meaning of the song "Ballad of a Thin Man" during a 1965 interview. I find it easy to write songs.

I been writing songs for a long time and the words to the songs aren't written out just for the paper; they're written as you can read it, you dig. If you take whatever there is to the song away—the beat, the melody—I could still recite it. I see nothing wrong with songs you can't do that with either—songs that, if you took the beat and the melody away, they wouldn't stand up because they're not supposed to do that, you know. Songs are songs. Interview with Paul Robbins (March, 1965) Reporter: How many people who labor in the same musical vineyard in which you toil - how many are protest singers? That is, people who use their music, and use the songs to protest the, uh, social state in which we live today: the matter of war, the matter of crime, or whatever it might be. Bob Dylan: Um...how many? Bob Dylan: Uh, I think there's about, uh...136. Reporter: You say about 136, or you mean exactly 136? Bob Dylan: Uh, it's either 136 or 142.

Press conference in Los Angeles, California (17 December 1965), as seen and heard in No Direction Home . Bob Dylan: I do know what my songs are about. Playboy: And what's that? Bob Dylan: Oh, some are about four minutes; some are about five, and some, believe it or not, are about eleven or twelve. Colleges are like old-age homes; except for the fact that more people die in colleges. Playboy Interview (February 1966) I don't believe you! You're a liar! … Play it fucking loud! Dylan's response to the shout of "Judas" by a heckler, followed by his instructions to his band over the count-in to "Like A Rolling Stone." Heard on The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966 Keep a good head and always carry a light bulb. Heard in the D. A. Pennebaker documentary Dont Look Back (1967) God, I'm glad I'm not me. Said when reading a newspaper article about himself in Dont Look Back (1967) My songs always sound a lot better in person than they do on the record.

Ron Rosenbaum: Why are you doing what you're doing? Bob Dylan: [Pause] Because I don't know anything else to do. I'm good at it. Ron Rosenbaum: How would you describe "it"? Bob Dylan: I'm an artist. I try to create art. I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet. Interview with Robert Shelton, Melody Maker (29 July 1978) Art is the perpetual motion of illusion. The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for anyone but inspire them? Bob Dylan: The Rolling Stone Interview by Jonathan Cott (26 January 1978) I kinda live where I find myself. I think women rule the world, and that no man has ever done anything that a woman either hasn't allowed him to do or encouraged him to do. Rolling Stone interview (21 June 1984) I wanted just a song to sing, and there came a certain point where I couldn't sing anything. So I had to write what I wanted to sing 'cos nobody else was writing what I wanted to sing.

Interview with Bert Kleinman (30 July 1984) Chaos is a friend of mine. Newsweek (9 December 1985) I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom. Interview published with the Biograph album set (1985) When I first heard Elvis's voice I just knew that I wasn't going to work for anybody and nobody was going to be my boss. He is the deity supreme of rock and roll religion as it exists in today's form. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail. I think for a long time that freedom to me was Elvis singing 'Blue Moon of Kentucky.' I thank God for Elvis.

US magazine (24 August 1987); on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Elvis Presley 's death, as reported in Bob Dylan: Performing Artist 1986–1990 and Beyond, Mind out of Time (2009) The first two lines, which rhymed 'kiddin' you' and 'didn't you,' just about knocked me out, and later on, when I got to the jugglers and the chrome horse and the princess on the steeple, it all just about got to be too much. Discussing the song " Like a Rolling Stone " in Rolling Stone magazine (1988) People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around — the music and the ideas. The Guardian (13 February 1992) That ear - I mean, Jesus, he's got to will that to the Smithsonian. In reference to Brian Wilson , Newsweek (1997) Here's the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don't find it anywhere else.

Dylan Revisited , Newsweek (1997) I'm inconsistent, even to myself. Quoted in "POP/JAZZ; A Wiser Voice Blowin' In the Autumn Wind" by Jon Pareles, The New York Times (28 September 1997) We may not be able to defeat these swine, but we don't have to join them. As quoted in Kingdom of Fear (2003) by Hunter S. Thompson I was heading for the fantastic lights. No doubt about it. Could it be that I was being deceived? Not likely. I don't think I had enough imagination to be deceived; had no false hope, either. I'd come from a long ways off and had started from a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else. Chronicles: Vol. One (2004), p. 22 Morality has nothing in common with politics. Chronicles: Vol. One (2004), p.

45 I'm a '60s troubadour, a folk-rock relic, a wordsmith from bygone days, a fictitious head of state from a place nobody knows. I'm in the bottomless pit of cultural oblivion. Chronicles: Vol. One (2004), p. 147 Sometimes you say things in songs even if there's a small chance of them being true. And sometimes you say things that have nothing to do with the truth of what you want to say and sometimes you say things that everyone knows to be true. Then again, at the same time, you're thinking that the only truth on earth is that there is no truth on it. Whatever you are saying, you're saying in a ricky-tick way. There's never time to reflect. You stitched and pressed and packed and drove, is what you did. Chronicles: Vol. One (2004), p. 220 I put one on the turntable and when the needle dropped, I was stunned — didn't know if I was stoned or straight. Referring to the first Woody Guthrie record he ever heard, on Chronicles: Vol. One (2004), p.

243 The road out would be treacherous, and I didn’t know where it would lead but I followed it anyway. It was a strange world ahead that would unfold, a thunderhead of a world with jagged lightning edges. Many got it wrong and never did get it right. I went straight into it. It was wide open. One thing for sure, not only was it not run by God, but it wasn’t run by the devil either. Chronicles: Vol. One (2004), p. 293 I had ambitions to set out and find, like an odyssey or going home somewhere… set out to find… this home that I’d left a while back and couldn’t remember exactly where it was, but I was on my way there. And encountering what I encountered on the way was how I envisioned it all. I didn’t really have any ambition at all. I was born very far from where I’m supposed to be, and so, I’m on my way home, you know? Said at a press conference, as seen in the Martin Scorsese documentary No Direction Home I read On the Road in maybe 1959. It changed my life like it changed everyone else's.

On the influence of Jack Kerouac on him, as quoted Grasping for the Wind : The Search for Meaning in the 20th Century (2001) by John W. Whitehead Someone handed me Mexico City Blues in St. Paul [Minnesota] in 1959 and it blew my mind. It was the first poetry that spoke my own language. On the influence of Jack Kerouac , as quoted in Jack Kerouac (2007) by Alison Behnke, p. 100 I think it's the land. The streams, the forests, the vast emptiness. The land created me. I'm wild and lonesome. Even as I travel the cities, I'm more at home in the vacant lots. But I have a love for humankind, a love of truth, and a love of justice. I think I have a dualistic nature. I’m more of an adventurous type than a relationship type. London Times interview (2009) It’s not a character like in a book or a movie. He’s not a bus driver. He doesn’t drive a forklift. He’s not a serial killer.

It’s me who’s singing that, plain and simple. We shouldn’t confuse singers and performers with actors. Actors will say, “My character this, and my character that.” Like beating a dead horse. Who cares about the character? Just get up and act. You don’t have to explain it to me. . Bob Dylan, interview with Bill Flanagan . telegraph.co.uk (13 Apr 2009). It's peculiar and unnerving in a way to see so many young people walking around with cellphones and iPods in their ears and so wrapped up in media and video games. It robs them of their self-identity. It's a shame to see them so tuned out to real life. Of course they are free to do that, as if that's got anything to do with freedom. The cost of liberty is high, and young people should understand that before they start spending their life with all those gadgets. Rolling Stone #1078 (14 May 2009), p. 45 The people in my songs are all me.

Bob Dylan - Banquet Speech - Nobelprize.org If someone had ever told me that I had the slightest chance of winning the Nobel Prize, I would have to think that I'd have about the same odds as standing on the moon. I began to think about William Shakespeare , the great literary figure. I would reckon he thought of himself as a dramatist. The thought that he was writing literature couldn't have entered his head. His words were written for the stage. Meant to be spoken not read. When he was writing Hamlet , I'm sure he was thinking about a lot of different things: "Who're the right actors for these roles?" "How should this be staged?" "Do I really want to set this in Denmark?" His creative vision and ambitions were no doubt at the forefront of his mind, but there were also more mundane matters to consider and deal with.

"Is the financing in place?" "Are there enough good seats for my patrons?" "Where am I going to get a human skull?" I would bet that the farthest thing from Shakespeare's mind was the question "Is this literature?" As a performer I've played for 50,000 people and I've played for 50 people and I can tell you that it is harder to play for 50 people. 50,000 people have a singular persona, not so with 50. Each person has an individual, separate identity, a world unto themselves. They can perceive things more clearly. Your honesty and how it relates to the depth of your talent is tried. Like Shakespeare, I too am often occupied with the pursuit of my creative endeavors and dealing with all aspects of life's mundane matters. "Who are the best musicians for these songs?" "Am I recording in the right studio?" "Is this song in the right key?" Some things never change, even in 400 years.

Not once have I ever had the time to ask myself, "Are my songs literature?" So, I do thank the Swedish Academy, both for taking the time to consider that very question, and, ultimately, for providing such a wonderful answer. You sound like a hillbilly; We want folk singers here.

A lot of people don't have much food on their table But they got a lot of forks and knives And they gotta cut something I’m out here a thousand miles from my home Walkin' a road other men have gone down I'm seein' your world of people and things Your paupers and peasants and princes and kings Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie , I wrote you a song, 'Bout a funny ol' world that's a-comin' along Seems sick an' it's hungry, it's tired an' it's torn It looks like it's a-dyin' an' it's hardly been born Here's to Cisco an' Sonny an' Lead Belly too An' to all the good people that traveled with you Here's to the hearts and the hands of the men That come with the dust and are gone with the wind Compare: "We come with the dust and we go with the wind." Woody Guthrie , Pastures of Plenty . How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man? How many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand? How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?

How many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand? Yes, and how many years can a mountain exist before it is washed to the sea? How many times can a man turn his head pretending he just doesn't see? How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky? Yes, and how many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind. So if you're travelin' in the north country fair, Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline, Remember me to one who lives there. She once was a true love of mine. But I see through your eyes All the money you made will never buy back your soul. You ain't worth the blood that runs in your veins. There is one thing I know though I'm younger than you Even Jesus would not forgive what you do And I hope that you die And your death'll come soon I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon And I'll watch while you're lowered Down to your deathbed And I'll stand o'er your grave 'Til I'm sure that you're dead Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?

And where have you been, my darling young one? Compare: "O where ha' you been, Lord Randal, my son? And where ha' you been, my handsome young man?" Lord Randall , no. 12 . I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it. I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken. I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world. I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin'. I met a white man who walked a black dog. And I'll tell it and speak it and think it and breathe it. But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’. It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall. It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe If you don't know by now Compare: "It ain't no use to sit and sigh now, darlin." Paul Clayton , Who's Gonna Buy You Ribbons (When I'm Gone). I once loved a woman, a child I am told I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul.

I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road, babe Where I'm bound, I can't tell But goodbye's too good a word, babe So I'll just say fare thee well Compare: "So I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road..." Paul Clayton , Who's Gonna Buy You Ribbons (When I'm Gone). I ain't saying you treated me unkind You could have done better but I don't mind You just kinda wasted my precious time But don't think twice, it's all right. I got into the driver's seat and drove down 42nd Street in my Cadillac . Good car to drive after a war. Half of the people can be part right all of the time, Some of the people can be all right part of the time, But all the people can't be all right all the time. I think Abraham Lincoln said that. I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours. I said that. And admit that the waters Around you have grown. And accept it that soon You’ll be drenched to the bone.

If your time to you is worth savin’ Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin’. Come writers and critics Who prophesize with your pen And keep your eyes wide The chance won’t come again And don’t speak too soon For the wheel’s still in spin And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s naming.’ For the loser now will be later to win Come mothers and fathers What you can’t understand Your sons and your daughters Are beyond your command Your old road is rapidly agin'. Come Congressmen, Senators, please heed the call Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall For he who gets hurt will be he who has stalled There’s a battle outside and it's ragin’. You prayed to the Lord above Oh please send you a friend Your empty pockets tell yuh That you ain’t a-got no friend There’s seven people dead On a South Dakota farm Somewhere in the distance There's seven new people born If there's anyone who knows, is there anyone who cares?

You never ask questions When God's on your side You don't count the dead When God's on your side But I can’t think for you You’ll have to decide Whether Judas Iscariot Had God on his side The words fill my head, and fall to the floor, that if God's on our side, he'll stop the next war. Oh all the money that in my whole life I did spend Be it mine right or wrongfully I let it slip gladly past the hands of my friends To tie up the time most forcefully Compare: "Of all the money e'er I had, I spent it in good company. And all the harm e'er I've done, Alas! it was to none but me." The Parting Glass . But if the arrow is straight And the point is slick It can pierce through dust no matter how thick Oh, but if I had the stars from the darkest night And the diamonds from the deepest ocean I'd forsake them all for your sweet kiss For that's all I'm wishin' to be ownin'. Well, if you, my love, must think that-a-way, I'm sure your mind is roamin'.

I'm sure your heart is not with me, But with the country to where you're goin'. All I really want to do is, baby, be friends with you. I ain't looking for you to feel like me, see like me, or be like me. Far between sundown’s finish an’ midnight’s broken toll, We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing. As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds, Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing. Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight, Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight, An’ for each an’ ev’ry underdog soldier in the night, An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing. Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail, The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder, That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind, Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind, An’ the poet and the painter far behind his rightful time An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now. In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand at the mongrel dogs who teach Fearing not that I'd become my enemy in the instance that I preached My existence led by confusion boats, mutiny from stern to bow. All is gone, all is gone, admit it, take flight. I gagged twice, doubled, tears blinding my sight. My mind it was mangled, I ran into the night Leaving all of love's ashes behind me. The wind knocks my window, the room it is wet. The words to say I'm sorry, I haven't found yet. I think of her often and hope whoever she's met Will be fully aware of how precious she is. Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me, "How good, how good does it feel to be free?" And I answer them most mysteriously, "Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?" Go away from my window, Leave at your own chosen speed, I'm not the one you want, babe, I'm not the one you need.

You say you're looking for someone, Who's never weak but always strong, To protect you and defend you, Whether you are right or wrong, Someone to open each and every door, But it ain't me, babe, No, no, no, it ain't me, babe, It ain't me you're looking for, babe. She's got everything she needs, she's an artist, she don't look back. She could take the dark out the nighttime and paint the daytime black. You will start out standing, proud to steal her anything she sees, but you will wind up peeking through her keyhole down upon your knees. Well, I try my best To be just like I am But everybody wants you To be just like them I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more. There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all. She knows too much to argue or to judge. In the dime stores and bus stations, People talk of situations, I said, "You know they refused Jesus, too" He said, "You're not Him" The ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming. Oh, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free.

It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run And if you hear vague traces of skipping reels of rhyme... Take me disappearing, through the smoke rings of my mind, down the foggy ruins of time... With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves, let me forget about today until tomorrow. Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me. I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to. Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me. In the jingle-jangle morning, I'll come following you. All and all can only fall with a crushing but meaningless blow. And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden. Of war and peace the truth just twist, its curfew gull it glides. He not busy being born is busy dying. Money doesn't talk, it swears. Obscenity, who really cares? Propaganda all is phony. Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn Suicide remarks are torn From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn Plays wasted words, proves to warn That he not busy being born is busy dying.

An' though the rules of the road have been lodged It's only people's games that you got to dodge Even the president of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked. It is not he or she or them or it that you belong to. Disillusioned words like bullets bark As human gods aim for their marks. Make everything from toy guns that spark To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark. It's easy to see without looking too far that not much is really sacred. While others say don't hate nothing at all except hatred Advertising signs that con you into thinking you are the one That can do what's never been done, That can win what's never been won Meanwhile, life outside goes on all around you And if my thought-dreams could be seen, they'd probably put my head in a guillotine . But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only. Although the masters make the rules for the wise men and the fools, I got nothing, Ma, to live up to. You lose yourself, you reappear You suddenly find you got nothin' to fear Alone you stand with nobody near When a trembling distant voice unclear Startles your sleeping ear to hear That somebody thinks they really found you.

Darkness at the break of noon Shadows even the silver spoon The hand made blade, the child's balloon, Eclipses both the sun and moon To understand you know too soon There is no sense in trying. While one who sings with his tongue on fire Gargles in the rat race choir Bent out of shape from society's pliers Cares not to come up any higher But rather get you down in the hole That he’s in But I mean no harm nor put fault On anyone that lives in a vault But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him It's life and life only. Yonder stands your orphan with his gun, crying like a fire in the sun. Your lover who just walked out the door, has taken all his blankets from your floor. Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you. Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you. The vagabond who's rapping at your door, Is standing in the clothes that you once wore, Strike another match, go start anew! And it's all over now, Baby Blue. Positively 4th Street [ edit ] You got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend.

When I was down, you just stood there grinning. Do you take me for such a fool to think I'd make contact with one that tries to hide what he don't know to begin with. I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. You'd know what a drag it is to see you. Like a Rolling Stone [ edit ] When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose. You're invisible now. You've got no secrets to conceal. How does it feel? To be on your own, with no direction home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone? Once upon a time you dressed so fine, threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you. People call, say beware doll, you're bound to fall, you thought they were all, kiddin you. You used to laugh about Everybody that was hangin’ out Now you don’t talk so loud Now you don’t seem so proud About having to be scrounging for your next meal You never turned around to see the frowns, on the jugglers and the clowns when they all did, tricks for you.

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people, they're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse. When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose. You're invisible now. You've got no secrets to conceal. The sun's not yellow, it's chicken. Stop all this weeping, swallow your pride You will not die, it’s not poison The geometry of innocence flesh on the bone Causes Galileo’s math book to get thrown At Delilah who sits worthlessly alone But the tears on her cheeks are from laughter And the National Bank at a profit sells road maps for the soul To the old folks home and the college And if I don't make it, you know my baby will. Well, I wanna be your lover, baby, I don't wanna be your boss. Ballad of a Thin Man [ edit ] And you say, Oh my God, am I here all alone? You've been with the professors and they've all liked your looks. With great lawyers you've discussed lepers and crooks.

You go watch the geek, who immediately walks up to you when he hears you speak, and says, how does it feel to be such a freak?, and you say, impossible as he hands you a bone. And something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones? Here's your throat back, thanks for the loan. You put your eyes in your pockets and your nose on the ground. They already expect you to just give a check to tax-deductible charity organization. Oh God said to Abraham, Kill me a son. Abe says, Man, you must be puttin' me on. God say, No. Abe say, What? God say, You can do what you want Abe, but the next time you see me comin' you better run. Well Abe says, Where do you want this killin' done? They're selling postcards of the hanging Yes, I received your letter yesterday (About the time the door knob broke) When you asked how I was doing Was that some kind of joke?

All these people that you mention Yes, I know them, they're quite lame I had to rearrange their faces And give them all another name Right now I can't read too good Don't send me no more letters no Not unless you mail them From Desolation Row Now at midnight all the agents And the superhuman crew Come out and round up everyone That knows more than they do The Titanic sails at dawn Fighting in the captain's tower While calypso singers laugh at them And fishermen hold flowers... Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again [ edit ] Your debutante knows what you need, but I know what you want. Oh Mama, can this really be the end? To be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again? And here I sit so patiently waiting to find out what price you have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice. The one was Texas medicine. the other was just railroad gin. And, like a fool, I mixed them and it strangled up my mind and now people just get uglier and I have no sense of time. Your debutante knows what you need, but I know what you want. You see, you're just like me. I hope you're satisfied.

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet. We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it. And Louise holds a handful of rain, tempting you to defy it. He’s sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all Inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial. Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while But, Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues you can tell by the way she smiles The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face. Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him. Louise she's all right she's just near' She's delicate and seems like veneer' But she just makes it all too concise and too clear' That Johanna's not here I couldn’t see what you could show me Your scarf had kept your mouth well hid I couldn’t see when it started snowin’ Your voice was all that I heard She is good to me There's nothing she doesn't see She knows where I’d like to be But it doesn’t matter...

I want you Well, I see you got your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat Yes, I see you got your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat Well, you must tell me, baby How your head feels under somethin' like that Under your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat Compare: "I saw you riding 'round in your brand new automobile/ Yes I saw you ridin' around, babe, in your brand new automobile/ Yes you was sitting there happy with your handsome driver at the wheel/ In your brand new automobile." Lightnin' Hopkins , Automobile Blues. I once held her in my arms, She said she would always stay, But I was cruel, I treated her like a fool, I threw it all away. Love is all there is, it makes the world go 'round Love and only love, it can’t be denied No matter what you think about it You just won’t be able to do without it Take a tip from one who's tried Lay, lady, lay. Lay across my big, brass bed. Whatever colors you have in your mind. I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine.

His clothes are dirty, but his hands are clean, and you're the best thing that he's ever seen. You can have your cake and eat it, too. Stay, lady, stay. Stay while the night is still ahead. Throw my ticket out the window, Throw my suitcase out there too, Throw my troubles out the door, I don't need them anymore, 'Cause tonight I'll be staying here with you. People disagreeing everywhere you look Makes you wanna stop and read a book Forever Young [ edit ] May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung. May your song always be sung, May you stay forever young. May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung. May your song always be sung, May you stay forever young. May your hands always be busy. May your feet always be swift. May you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift. May your heart always be joyful. May your song always be sung. May you stay forever young. I paid the price of solitude but at least I'm out of debt. I hate myself for loving you.

Early one mornin' the sun was shinin', I was layin' in bed Wond'rin'if she'd changed at all If her hair was still red. Tangled up in blue... Lord knows I've paid some dues gettin' through... I helped her out of a jam, I guess, but I used a little too much force... And every one of them words rang true and glowed like burnin' coal. Pourin' off of every page, like it was written in my soul from me to you... The only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keepin' on like a bird that flew... All the people we used to know, they're an illusion to me now... Don't know how it all got started, I don't know what they do with their lives... We always did feel the same, we just saw it from a different point of view... But all the while I was alone The past was close behind, I seen a lot of women But she never escaped my mind, I lived with them on Montague Street In a basement down the stairs There was music in the cafes at night And revolution in the air. You're an idiot, babe.

It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe. I can't help it if I'm lucky. Visions of your chestnut mare shoot through my head and are makin' me see stars. I waited for you on the running boards, near the cypress trees, while the springtime turned slowly into autumn. Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats, blowing through the letters that we wrote. Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves, We're idiots, babe. It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves. It was gravity which pulled us in and destiny which broke us apart You tamed the lion in my cage but it just wasn't enough to change my heart Down the highway, down the tracks, down the road to ecstacy, I followed you beneath the stars, hounded by your memory and all your ragin' glory You'll never know the hurt I suffer, nor the pain I rise above, and I'll never know the same about you... I kiss good-bye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me. You're a Big Girl Now [ edit ] Time is a jetplane — it moves too fast.

Oh but what a shame that all we've shared can't last... I’m going out of my mind, oh, oh; with a pain that stops and starts; like a corkscrew to my heart; Ever since we’ve been apart A change in the weather is known to be extreme; but what's the sense in changing horses in mid-stream? Time is a jetplane — it moves too fast. Oh but what a shame that all we've shared can't last... Love is so simple, to quote a phrase; you've known it all the time, I'm learnin' it these days. I know where I can find you — in somebody's room. It's the price I have to pay, you're a big girl all the way. Backstage the girls were playin' five-card stud by the stairs, Lily had two queens, she was hopin' for a third to match her pair. Outside the streets were fillin' up, the window was open wide, A gentle breeze was blowin', you could feel it from inside. Lily called another bet and drew up the Jack of Hearts. Beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine. Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm...

"Come in", she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm." I always have respected her for doin' what she did and gettin' free Say for me that I'm all right though things get kind of slow She might think that I've forgotten her don't tell her it isn't so. Sundown yellow moon I replay the past I know every scene by heart they all went by so fast If she's passing back this way I'm not that hard to find Tell her she can look me up if she's got the time. This Wheel's on Fire (recorded in 1967)[ edit ] If your mem'ry serves you well, we were gonna meet again and wait, so I think I'll just unpack my bags and sit before it gets too late. No man alive will come to you with another tale to tell, but you know that we shall meet again, if your mem'ry serves you well. If your memory serves you well, I was gonna confiscate your lace and wrap it up in a sailor's knot and hide it in your case.

And if I knew for sure that it was yours, it was oh so hard to tell, and you know that we shall meet again, if your memory serves you well. If your memory serves you well, I remember you're the one who called out me to call out them to get your business done. And after every plan has failed, and there was nothing left to tell, well you knew that we shall meet again if your memory serves you well. Wheels on fire, rolling down the road, best notify my next of kin, this wheel shall explode! [Recounting a scene in The Gunfighter ] Turn him loose, let him go, let him say he outdrew me fair and square — I want him to feel what it's like to every moment face his death. I can't believe we've lived so long and are still so far apart. I know she ain't you, but she's here, and she's got that dark rhythm in her soul.

She said, "Welcome to the land of the living dead," but you could tell she was so brokenhearted — she said, "Even the swap meets around here are getting pretty corrupt." We're going all the way, till the wheels fall off and burn, till the sun peels the paint and the seat covers fade and the water moccasins die. I didn't know whether to duck or to run, so I ran. When I saw you break down in front of the judge and cry real tears, it was the best damn thing I saw anybody do. I've always been the kind of person who doesn't like to trespass, but sometimes you just find yourself over the line. I feel pretty good, but that ain't saying much — I could feel a whole lot better, if you were just here by my side to show me how. The only thing we knew for sure about Henry Porter was that his name wasn't Henry Porter. Strange how people who suffer together have stronger connections than those who are most content. You always said people don't do what they believe in; they just do what's most convenient, then they repent. Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet...

Putting her in a wheel barrow and wheeling her down the street. People are crazy and times are strange I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range, I used to care, but things have changed. I've been trying to get as far away from myself as I can I hurt easy, I just don't show it, you can hurt someone and not even know it All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie You can't win with a losing hand If the Bible is right the world will explode I'm sittin' on my watch so I can be on time. The future to me is already a thing of the past. My clothes are wet, tight on my skin/but not as tight as the corner I painted myself in. You can always come back, but you can't come back all the way. I was walking through the leaves Falling from the trees. Feelin' like a stranger nobody sees. So many things that we never will undo I know you're sorry, I'm sorry too. Drownin' in the poison, got not future got no past. But my heart is not weary; it's light and it's free I've got nothing but affection for those who've sailed with me.

David Bowie , " Song for Bob Dylan " (1971) Dylan is to me the perfect symbol of the anti-artist in our society. He is against everything—the last resort of someone who doesn't really want to change the world. ... I think his poetry is punk. It's derivative and terribly old hat. ... Dylan songs accept the world as it is. Ewan MacColl , interview with Karl Dallas, "Focus on MacColl", Melody Maker (18 September 1965), p. 23. Quoted in No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan (1986) by Robert Shelton, p. 296. Bob Dylan took a lot of air out of the room when it came to songwriters. Everybody had a tough row to hoe distinguishing themselves once Bob invented our job. Steve Earle , quoted at "Homage to Townes" at Austin360.com (18 May 2009) What I wanted to do with Bobby was just to get him to sound in the studio as natural, just as he was in person, and have that extraordinary personality come thru.

… After all, he's not a great harmonica player, and he's not a great guitar player, and he's not a great singer. He just happens to be an original. And I just wanted to have that originality come thru. John Hammond (Dylan's first producer), Pop Chronicles , [ Show 31 - Ballad in Plain D: An introduction to the Bob Dylan era. Part 1 , interview recorded 10.4.1968 . The minute you try to grab hold of Dylan, he's no longer where he was. He's like a flame: If you try to hold him in your hand you'll surely get burned. Dylan's life of change and constant disappearances and constant transformations makes you yearn to hold him, and to nail him down. And that's why his fan base is so obsessive, so desirous of finding the truth and the absolutes and the answers to him — things that Dylan will never provide and will only frustrate. … Dylan is difficult and mysterious and evasive and frustrating, and it only makes you identify with him all the more as he skirts identity.

Todd Haynes , about his choice of 6 people to portray Dylan in his film I'm Not There , in "Footnote fetishism & "I'm Not There" by Jim Emerson" at The Sun-Times (9 October 2007) He had a lovely voice, but he was also, I think, a great poet. And he was the background music to a lot of people of my age. I don't take a lot of stock in generational thought, as you know. I think generational solidarity is the lowest form of solidarity there is. But I think that for every decade or so, every generational set, there is a special voice. And certainly for my lot, it was him. Christopher Hitchens , interview on The Hugh Hewitt Show (13 July 2010) I defy you to say what he'll be doing six months from now. He's just driven by pure art. You know, his son said to me..."There is no doubt that if my dad had never made it, if he was sitting on the side of the sidewalk with his guitar and a hat out in front of him, he would be doing precisely doing the same songs.

His whole career would be exactly the same." Now, there is certainly hyperbole in that, but it's kind of, sort of true... If we have anybody who's Shakespeare in our time, it's Dylan, and he just speaks to me more and more, and he once said in an interview that the purpose of art was to inspire, and when you see a Dylan show...You would think he's so good, you know—if you go see a jazz cat who's so good playing bass, you can leave that show going, "Why even pick up a bass again?" But for some reason—and I'm not the only one that feels this—at the end of the Dylan show, art just seems so good. I want to go write a play, or write a novel. I'll stay up all night and write a song. And you don't care that it's not as good. The other thing that I love about Dylan is he is a freak, not a cheerleader... Dylan just stands there and says, "I am speaking for me. Maybe some of this is true for you to. I don't know.

But I'm digging so deep." All of his mining, you know, is going towards his heart and deeper into his brain. He makes no attempt, that I can tell, to say, "Oh yeah, this is gonna kill 'em. This is what they'll like." And that's where universality has to live. You can't be universal if you're trying to please other people. You can only be universal if you have so clearly who you are, and Dylan has no idea who he is, but he's still searching and he's sharing that process with us. Penn Jillette , ReasonTV interview (2 August 2016) "The stage is the only place where I'm happy." But this has its own sadnesses, like so much love. He is the one person who has to be at a Dylan concert and the one person who can't go to a Dylan concert. Christopher Ricks , Dylan's Visions of Sin (2003), concluding words, p. 490 A day doesn't go by when I don't listen to Dylan or at least think about him and his art. I just think we're terrifically lucky to be alive at a time when he is.

Christopher Ricks , as quoted in "Dylan, Master Poet? Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" by Charles McGrath, The New York Times (9 June 2004) Dylan creates a mythic atmosphere out of the land around us. The land we walk on every day and never see until someone shows it to us. Sam Shepard , The Rolling Thunder Logbook (1977), p. 63 Dylan has invented himself. He's made himself up from scratch. That is, from the things he had around him and inside him. Dylan is an invention of his own mind. The point isn't to figure him out but to take him in. He gets into you anyway, so why not just take him in? He's not the first one to have invented himself, but he's the first one to have invented Dylan... Sam Shepard , The Rolling Thunder Logbook (1977), p. 100 Dylan is free now to work on his own terms. It would be foolish to predict what he will do next. But hopefully he will remain a mediator, using the language of pop to transcend it. If the gap between past and present continues to widen, such mediation may be crucial.

In a communications crisis, the true prophets are the translators. Ellen Willis , in "Dylan" in Representative Men : Cult Heroes of Our Time (1970) edited by Theodore L. Gross I'll never be Bob Dylan. He's the master. If I'd like to be anyone, it's him. And he's a great writer, true to his music and done what he feels is the right thing to do for years and years and years. He's great. He's the one I look to. I'm always interested in what he's doing now, or did last, or did a long time ago that I didn't find out about. The guy has written some of the greatest poetry and put it to music in a way that it touched me, and other people have done that, but not so consistently or as intensely. Like me, he waits around and keeps going, and he knows that he doesn't have the muse all the time, but he knows that it'll come back and it'll visit him and he'll have his moment.

Question: Which 60s song starts, "You've got a lot of nerve?"
Answer: Positively 4th Street