I agree, and I love reading the lyrics. There is an emotional progression to the song. This is how I read them:
Oh, I’m sailin’ away, …*
First verse is her POV, still very loving, using the phrase my own true love. No impression that this isn’t a short vacation.
No, there’s nothin’ you can send me…
His POV: Very poetically saying I’ll miss you and to please come back safely.
Oh, but I just thought you might want something fine…
Her POV: Less loving than her first verse. Nothing about love, offering material gifts instead.
But if I had the stars …
His POV: still loving, very romantic images. No, just come back and be with me again.
But I might be gone …
Her POV: Hinting at what’s to come. I might be gone a while, can I just send you some stuff to make you feel better instead.
Oh, how can, how can…
His POV: Not getting it. Still thinks she might come back.
Oh, I got a letter on a lonesome day…
His POV: He got it. She’s not coming back. She doesn’t care about him in the same way.
So take heed, take heed…
His POV: It’s a bit passive aggressive. The first two lines, he’s saying you might have lousy weather ahead and not everything will be fun in the new country. Also can be read as warning about how restlessness for travel took his love away.
The second two lines show acceptance. He’s has taken up her offer of a material gift instead of her physical presence.
Indeed it does, and that’s something we take seriously on this board. I think I’ve left enough of each verse to make it clear to someone who knows the song what’s being referred to.
Things I think about when I hear a song: Is it good, great? Melody? Lyrics? Who wrote it and when?
Things I don’t think about: Is he an asshole? Is he passive aggressive? Can I psychoanalyze the singer? Can I psychoanalyze the subject? Can I gain some kind of psychic mastery over the song or the singer by picking him apart?
To whatever extent it is a great song, it is less and less amenable to such surgery, IMMHOO. That’s kind of for the bad songs in the world isn’t it? And this is a great song, by a great artist.
Perhaps you’re mistaking the narrator for the artist in this case. When Bob Dylan sings this song–or anyone else, for that matter, deciding on the character of the narrator is very much part of a full appreciation/analysis of the song. Speaking for myself, the character of Bob Dylan never entered into the discussion. I think it’s fairly clear that when a singer lays a song out there–the voice may be his own, but most likely is not.
So I gently rebut your assertion–in the spirit of music appreciation. After all, the unexamined life is not worth living.
I guess my point of view is that it’s not life, it’s a song. And that’s not examining it, it’s fansplaining it in a way that, in all likelihood, would make the author cringe. That’s sometimes a sign that one has gotten carried away… sometimes.
When I say the singer I mean the vocal persona, which means the lyrics and the intent. Not meaning Bob Dylan per se, necessarily. But Dylan has his ego, talent and genius behind his songs. That’s why you buy the Dylan LP, and not the Neil Diamond one. If you dissect it out and make a psychological exegesis of it it might be an intellectual exercise but I can’t see what it has to do with an artistic work such as a song. It seems like the exact opposite of music appreciation.
Lost track of this thread for a bit. Thanks to JCHaywire for continuing my thought more coherently than I did. To reiterate: I love the song. But after the thousandth time singing it, it occurred to me that if the narrator (not the singer) were to have posted his story here in MPSIMS he would almost certainly be called out as a passive aggressive chauvinist prick.
Honestly it’s sort of like a new song for me when I hear it now as I’m rooting for the other party.
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