Bob Dylan Wrote This Cutting 1966 Track About a Relationship He Was “Lucky To Escape From” Without Injury

Most musical historians and Bob Dylan fans would categorize his 1975 album Blood On The Tracks as his pinnacle collection of breakup songs. But he was writing about failed relationships years earlier. Several such tracks appeared on Dylan’s 1966 album, Blonde on Blonde. That included one he would later say was about a relationship he was fortunate to leave without injury.

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In typical Dylan fashion, his perspective on the breakup is one-sided and somewhat aloof. (Although there’s a sense that his aloofness is a defense mechanism hiding deeper hurt and sensitivity.) “I can’t do what I’ve done before / I just can’t beg you anymore / I’m gonna let you pass, I’ll go last, and then time will tell just who fell and who’s been left behind.”

These lines appear in the first verse of “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)”. The rest of the song reads as accusatory, jaded, and stubbornly indifferent. Even the way Dylan later described the song in the liner notes for Biograph seems to evoke a cold-shoulder attitude.

Behind “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)”

Bob Dylan was rarely transparent enough to make plain who, exactly, he was talking about in his music. Plenty of speculation answered these inquiries for him, with varying degrees of accuracy. He was similarly opaque in his description of “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)”. In the liner notes of Biograph, per Oliver Trager’s Keys to the Rain: The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, Dylan wrote that the Blonde on Blonde track was “probably written after some disappointing relationship where, you know, I was lucky to have escaped without a broken nose.”

The song’s origins might have been a failed relationship. But in later years, Dylan would use the song to explore a different relationship. This time, the connection was about a performer and their audience. Still potentially volatile, and still something Dylan regarded with a keen sense of separation. Dylan began using “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)” as a concert opener, closer, and in some instances, both. With a live band, the bluesy number grew rowdier.

And indeed, both applications seem to fit. The song’s final lines, for example, seem as appropriate a send-off to a crowd as anything else in Dylan’s catalogue. “I’m just gonna let you pass, yes, and I’ll go last / Then time will tell who fell and who’s been left behind when you go your way, and I go mine.” The fact that the song could translate to such different relationships and circumstances is a testament to Dylan’s songwriting talent (and an interesting insight into how the long-time superstar views his audience).

Photo by Fiona Adams/Redferns