There is a sudden point of view change there, from the narrator to the woman he meets (or meets again).
I read the book based on samples from the Dylan archive, and it says that his writing style is to write lots of verses and then select the ones that will be in the song. That explains a lot, such as the out of order lyrics in “All Along the Watchtower.”
Yeah, I’ve always pictured the singer as contemplating a statue. (And I would certainly not take the Wikipedia entry as evidence that he’s not; as far as I can tell, it’s just a random Wiki editor’s attempt at paraphrasing the lyrics, rather than being based on anything the songwriter said.)
On another note I don’t know if “Bohemian Rhapsody” is even trying to tell a coherent story, but it’s pretty bad at doing so – the singer seems to go back and forth between being indifferent to everything and desperate to escape the consequences of his crime without any internal logic to the transitions, and there’s no explanation of why he committed the crime in the first place, or whether he is actually under arrest (by law enforcement? by Beelzebub?) or free to go anywhere he likes.
Have you seen this?
- Because isn’t that totally amazing fiddle feedback thing the Devil plays (which sounds like Hendrix gone bluegrass) a hundred times better than that high-school-band piece-of-crap tune Johnny plays?
Haha, no I hadn’t seen that, but it perfectly mirrors my opinion of the song, and well beyond. And I thought I was overanalyzing the song 
Thanks for sharing that!
Hell YES. 100% agree!
According to Job, yeah, kinda.
Old Testament God was a terrible boss.
But, in Job 1 they come across more as friendly rivals, cynically using Job as a pawn in a bet.
The Lord: Where you been?
Satan: Y’know, around.
The Lord: Check out my boy Job- pretty righteous dude, right?
Satan: Sure, anybody would be plenty righteous when you give them anything they want. But take it all away and he’d curse your ass out.
The Lord: OK, smart guy, do your worst and we’ll see. Just don’t lay a finger on the man himself.
Many people are confused by the pronouns changing from first and second to third person and back, but as I understand the song, the protagonist and the woman are always the same.
The lyrics of Tangled up in Blue have famously changed, sometimes dramatically, over time:
The key to the song is in the final verse:
We always did feel the same
We just saw it from a different point of view
The point of view is constantly shifting throughout the song. Not just in the original ablum version, but in and between all the versions to come.
Yeah, I know, I estimate that I have about six different versions of “Tangled Up In Blue” in my record collection. I have almost anything officially released by Dylan.
It’s one of the most fascinating songs in Dylan’s catalog, the ever changing song, and a mystery, in a body of work that contains many fascinating songs and mysteries.
I love the song. I assumed the conquistador has been in South American jungles long enough for his sword to rust. I always pictured some Aztec-type coming up on him. Maybe died on the shore trying to get back to the ship.
I actually like this better than LSoP. And, FTR, I always thought it was “place”, too.
Try this,