The fun of Dylan is allowing yourself to join him in this exploration of not only what the words mean literally but what they conjure up in your mind. Olajohansson touches it for me or maybe his wife's comment that it is brings up the inability to connect just based on a simple twist of fate. The spark starts the connection but then it falls apart-is not that the risk of any relationship? Enjoy the search!
The subtitle of this song in Dylan’s notebook is “fourth street affair”; it’s about infidelity. He’s a married man who can’t stop cheating. That’s why he “lost the ring” (divorce). That’s why “he felt the heat of the night” because he knew he was cheating on his wife again. That’s why they stopped into a cheap hotel “with the neon burning bright”. That’s why his ex-wife was “born in spring”. Spring is about rebirth, new life, purity but he “was born too late” possibly in fall which is about plants (or life) dying and decaying.
He flips into first person for just one line, “I remember well”. This seems significant. My general sense is that a twist of fate brought them together and a twist of fate dictated it could not last and he has a hard time accepting the outcome. What-might-have-beens have a way of lingering in your head.
The one duff line in the song is "walk along with a parrot that talks", which seems to have wandered in from his earlier surrealistic style. He seems to have thought the same since he soon changed it to "walks alone through the city blocks". A recent version of the verse where the man wakes up alone in the hotel runs: "He woke up and she was gone He didn't see nothing but the dawn Got out of bed and put his shoes back on Pushed back the blind Found a note she'd left behind 'What did it say?' Said, you should have met me back in '58 We could have avoided this little simple twist of fate"
That line has always grated on my ear. There may be such a thing as a parrot that does not talk but, even so, it always strikes me as filler, for the sake of the rhyme.
Blood on the Tracks is the greatest ever breakup record and one of the greatest albums of all time. This sounds like one of the bootleg versions of the song, the album version is different.
I have vivid memories of my 21st Birthday party listening in to a very drunk good friend explaining to my dad (in confidence, thinking that nobody else could hear) that he had fallen in love with a prostitute in Marseille whilst travelling on a student trip around Europe and she would be the love of his life for ever and a day. Guess it happens
Thank you for your brilliant real time interpretation of the song. Blood on the Tracks is sometimes called Dylan's divorce album and infidelity lurks behind a lot of scenes in the songs on this album. You can go from Tangled up in Blue and Simple Twist of Fate to Shelter from the Storm to find the character in even more precarious situations where he is bound to seek shelter with other women; to Idiot Wind where it's all going to hell; on If You See Her Say Hello and You're a Big Girl Now the scenarios have turned retrospective. So Blood on the Tracks is like a circle of infidelity, divorce, rage and regret.
@@olajohansson1678 Poetry is classified as fiction. Dylan is notoriously private about his personal life. Some of his obscurantism is intended to hide the personal. What gets me is that people who know nothing about what is and isn't poetry, and don't ever read it, nonetheless presume themselves to be experts on it.
Interesting version...it isn't the original track from the album though. Wonder if it's from one of the outtakes - a number of them were featured in "More Blood, More Tracks". EDIT: (I guess if I'd waited 10 more seconds, that would have become clear)...The original had some more verses and some altered lines.
A story in reverse. Wishing he'd said something when she dropped a coin into the cup. Too strung out to notice, and knows it was a missed opportunity. The first two verses are what he imagined might have happened. Maybe. . . .
Funny story. A colleague at a university and I discussed Shelter from the Storm and got stuck in the fourth verse. We just couldn't get passed it and we were both very familiar with Dylan's music. Then I played the song for my wife, who is a visual artist and was completely unfamiliar with the song, and after the fourth verse she immediately said that it was about infidelity. The trick is that she didn't try to interpret what the words said, but what they showed. I think she was spot on and I also think infidelity is what's going on in Simple Twist of Fate.
This is the first time hearing this song soI might be wrong but isn't he the prostitute or gigolo here who fell in love with a client? He hopes she will pick him out again while he is cruisin down at the docks for sailors coming in from the sea. It's a sin to feel to much when you are working but he can't help it. And the title works much better I feel in this scenario. What do you think?
@@TroubadourChannel It makes one look at oneself honestly, at least for the moment, and see one's deficiencies -- "And wished that he'd gone straight". Another problem with Dylan is the changes in pronouns.
Theres a somewhat intimate live rendition of "Love Minus Zero / No Limit" Might be my favorite of his. Well, its too hard to pick a favorite. You should check iit out "..My love she speaks like silence, Without ideals or violence, She doesn't have to say she's faithful, Yet she's true, like ice, like fire. People carry roses, Make promises by the hours, My love she laughs like the flowers, Valentines can't buy her..." ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9w1mCevu3sU.htmlsi=pPFf6aJPqvqQ2oDD
Our lives and history are a series of cause and effect. Sometimes seemingly insignificant events can eventually end up bringing about significant effects on us down the line. As much as the events themselves, our perceptions of those events affect us just as much. I think that's what this song is about and how certain events/perceptions first lead to the speaker's love of a woman and how other events/perceptions lead to the breakup with that woman.
Nope: He was awarded the Nobel Prize in a "Special Category" -- that is separate from Literature -- for two reasons: 1. "Overwhelming" recommendations from fans that he be awarded the Nobel in Literature, 2. Skepticism about his work. Why is it that "fans" must aggrandize and hyperbolize into inaccuracy? Is it about, in this instance, Dylan, or about the "fan"? Is the "fan" insecure that all the hype about Dylan might be just that, so they feel it necessary to post counter-hype? If we respect the award then we don't misrepresent it.
@@jnagarya519 Everything I’ve looked up says he won the Nobel prize in literature. What is your source? And I never claimed to be a big Bob Dylan fan, even though I do think he’s a good song writer. Not sure why you put fan in quotes 🙄
@@modoc97405 The prize was specifically in a "special category" -- the Nobel Committee hasn't a history of giving awards to pop culture song writers who many claim is a significant poet. So they created a specific category in which to put him. The Nobel website will have the specific information. I am a big Bob Dylan fan; but unlike so many who are actually uncomprehending of poetry -- that a piece of writing rhymes does not automagically make it poetry -- praise him with the greatest of superlatives. In my view he is certainly a superior writer; and he has at times written what can be viewed as poetry. But some distinguish between song lyrics and poetry. And though some describe him as a "chameleon" because of the various "phases" of his presentation, I view some of the changes, some sharp and extreme, as inconsistency. Ultimately he is a finite, imperfect human, therefore is not perfect; and that which is not perfect is legitimately subject to critical evaluation.
id check out "mr tambourine man", youve prob heard that one but really listen clisely......"visions of johanna" (album version, i always reccomend album, official versions for bob, this was some beautiful, alternate outtake, its "official", but not on the album, & released in the last ten years, i like it equally, im just saying generally, stick to album versions for the first listens to dylan songs)....in "tangled up in blue" every verse is written from a different point of view, a different tense (kind of , past tense, present tense, etc, etc)...anyway, bob;s idea was to emulate picasso's cubism where several sides of the same object was merged into one image....lastly, these lyrics...by the time he brought this album on tour the lyrics had changed, & he did it for every song, its like he was changing the songs to fit his terrible mood on the day....prostitute: bob isnt forthcoming about anything, very cagey...all thats known 100% is that he was going thru a divorce from 1974 to 1978. Anyway, great reaction, liked & subbed:)
This is a relatively straightforward lyric. To get at the "poetry" of his writing try "Mister Tambourine Man" -- which is actually musical by itself, without any reference to the music. "a song is a poem that can't walk by itself" -- Dylan.
You found a nice alternative version to the album track. I might even prefer it. About Dylan's lyrics: it's rare if not impossible to find a song where you can ferret out "the" meaning. There are usually multiple levels any given song can be "sort of" understood on. But just when you think you're about to get it, Dylan will throw in a curve ball verse and blow the whole thing up, forcing you to reevaluate the whole song from scratch. His lyrics are like an iceberg but he only reveals the tip, but suggesting a lot of depth and breadth below that the listener has to try to figure out. Frustrating in a way, but a technique that allows the listener to never get sick of the lyrical content, because you're own interpretation is somewhat different every time, as "the" meaning always lies just out of reach. The difference between Dylan and other lyricists who might attempt the same game of being "vague", is that, even though he just gives up fleeting glimpses, I believe Dylan has a fully formed philosophical point of view and cosmology of symbolism undergirding his songs. Similarly to how JRR Tolkien had a massive, fully developed history of an alternate world all worked out that gave the little narratives resting on top a "reality" that other fantasy writers struggle to attain. And that is why people keep trying in vain to understand his lyrics, because it seems like the mental effort is worth it to try to dive for the pearls he is hiding.
If you are interested in poetry then yiu are listening to the wrong Dylan songs bud. This and a tangled up in blue are straight storytelling songs. You need to to be starting with a hard rains a gonna fall,my back pages, tambourine man,its all right ma, master's of war. There you get Dylan's lyrical genius.
I don’t think it’s straight story telling in the sense of being a simple story. It seems he’s referring to two separate women here-the woman who left him (whose good character is reflected by her charitable giving) and he now realizes he should have made the effort to develop a relationship with, and a prostitute he visits while telling himself he doesn’t care about the lost opportunity for love. I think it’s a sad and powerful song about waiting passively for a meaning relationship (as a simple twist of fate) and thereby letting it pass right by you because you’ll never find it by just waiting for it to pick you out.
"heat" = SEX. Also in that instances "twist of fate" = SEX. "freight train" -- it is a movie cliche in older films: when a couple have sex the film instead shows a train entering a tunnel.
First of all, Dylan is enigmatic. Second, sometimes, he just rhymes. To me, much of his work is kaleidoscopic. That said, I will take a crack at some of this. My take is that this is generally about a one night stand, perhaps a commercial encounter. It seems to me the narrator knows it was doomed from the strt as, perhaps, he is gay. Maybe he fell in love with her. Maaybe he was seeking a way to "go straight." Maybe they successfully have sex, maybe they don't. At any rate, he fell asleep and she left. He keeps searching for her, or "it." BTW, I hear the line: "She dropped a coin into the cup of the blind man by the gate." as a metaphor for her having given the "blind" narrator a triffle while passing him by. But that's just me.
The lyrical value of most Dylan songs oscillates between words and music. Conventional literary analysis is insufficient and all too reductive for a song like A Simple Twist of Fate. Conventional music criticism is also insufficient. What's required is a certain kind of performance analysis. Tangled up in Blue, for instance, is about precarious experiences on the road (cf. Steinbeck and Kerouac) and cascading imagery (closely aligned with certain modes of modern painting) as much and as poetic stanzas. But it's all carried by music, it can't be separated from the music if it is about Bob Dylan's lyricism.
Nice analysis, but I would definitely recommend you adjust the sound because the music was drowning you out. I could hear it, but you need to bring your voice up.
If you want to listen to true Dylan poetry...you need to listen to Like A Rolling Stone, Desolation Row, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, Blowin' in the Wind, Maggie's Farm, etc.
I'm at a minute 13.11, I'll give it a shot... He makes a deal with a prostitute on a park bench and falls for her in a "spark" knowing that he can't have her, which makes him feel alone and wishes he could have her and turn both their lives around. He wishes he had been "straight" up about this from the start The "heat of the night" is lust They go to the "neon" hotel she frequents. He wakes up, and she is gone. He feels regret for not being "straight" with her. He feels alone again She gives a "coin" to the busker she knows all too well and maybe heads to docks where the sailors dwell He strolls the docks where the sailors have a woman at every port, dorning a talking parrot like a pirate trying to steal her away from the sailors, and the talking parrot will guide his way to her... searching for a "twist of fate"
It's the real Dylan, an alternate take from the NY sessions of Blood on the Tracks and its posted on Dylan's RU-vid page. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-oXlkwHECabU.html
the only thing more annoying than someone who stops the song every couple of sec.s , is someone who insists on talking during the song . i know it's your vid., but show some class cause it's bobs song. try playing the song uninterrupted, then go back and replay it stopping it as much as you want to point out whatever you want , sounds like a win/win. the songs are not that long so length shouldn't be a problem, this particular vid. is 19.25 min.s the songs only 3 maybe 4 min.s , how much you got to say?.
It's the real Dylan, an alternate take from Blood on the Tracks and its posted on Dylan's RU-vid page ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-oXlkwHECabU.html
