One thing about Bob Dylan, if you think you know what his songs are about, you’re probably dead wrong. Over the years, fans have been relentless in trying to uncover the true meaning behind many of the songwriter’s lyrics. I mean this is Dylan we’re talking about. You know, the guy who claimed “Blowin’ In The Wind” wasn’t a protest song. Nevertheless, here are some of the theories fans have come up with when it comes to Bob Dylan’s music.
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“Mr. Tambourine Man”
Dylan would eventually share that this song was inspired by musician Bruce Langhorne. However, because of the lyrical content, many people thought that Dylan was talking about a drug dealer. The drug dealer being “Mr. Tambourine Man”. This feels justified, as Dylan asks him to “take me on a trip upon your magic swirling ship.” He also sings, “take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind,” which definitely seems like a nod to drugs. Dylan sings a lot about sleep, so it could also be interpreted as more of an ode to drowsiness.
“Went To See The Gypsy”
When this song was released, the year was 1970, one of the years that Elvis Presley happened to be playing in Las Vegas. So naturally, when Bob sang of meeting a gypsy who “did it in Las Vegas”, listeners thought he was talking about Elvis. In a 1969 Rolling Stone interview, as reported by Facts Verse, Bob Dylan mentioned Presley when talking about career highlights. “Elvis Presley recorded a song of mine,” he shared. “That’s the one recording I treasure the most.” While that is true, in another interview with Rolling Stone, Dylan would admit that he’d never met Presley. The reason? He actually didn’t want to.
“Dear Landlord”
There are a few interpretations of this one. In one of them, God is the landlord. In perhaps the most likely one, the landlord is Dylan’s longtime manager, Albert Grossman, who was his landlord for a time. Jonathan Taupin, who was an associate of Grossman’s, even shared that Grossman “kept a huge percentage of Dylan’s publishing rights … when many other artists completely controlled their own publishing.” So, Dylan’s description of a “landlord” who he begs to “not put a price” on his soul seems pretty accurate. Upon discovering this theory, Dylan said, as shared in Bob Dylan All The Songs, that “only later when people pointed out that the song may have been written for Grossman [Dylan] thought it could have been.”
Photo by: Gai Terrell/Redferns
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