Mr. Tambourine Man

Bob Dylan, along with countless other accolades, was recently (2016) awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Part of me wanted to pick something else because this song felt like a cop out, but I think it may not be as well known as I thought it was. Despite having a “unique” voice and basic guitar skills, Dylan managed to have an incredibly successful career and is known as one of the all time greats. If it weren’t for his lyrics, he would not be the artist we know him as today. One of my favorite songs, Mr. Tambourine Man (a part of his 1965 album Bringing it All Back Home), is also one Dylan’s most poetic.

Though I know that evenin’s empire has returned into sandVanished from my handLeft me blindly here to stand but still not sleepingMy weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feetI have no one to meetAnd the ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming

Dylan is clearly lost here, but the real question is why? Considering this album is in the post mortem of his best-selling album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, it could be interpreted as Dylan’s struggle with writing. Perhaps Dylan’s “evenin’s empire” is his past success and he’s struggling to write in its “ancient empty street’s.” Although, this interpretation is problematized by the following verse.

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ shipMy senses have been stripped, my hands can’t feel to gripMy toes too numb to stepWait only for my boot heels to be wanderin’I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fadeInto my own parade, cast your dancing spell my wayI promise to go under it

These lines suggest a different type of wandering. Here, Dylan’s talk about a “magic swirlin’ ship” and being “ready for to fade” make the listener feel like he’s talking about a trip off drugs. Though Dylan denies that the song’s meaning is about drugs, he reinforces this idea later in the song.

Then take me disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mindDown the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leavesThe haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beachFar from the twisted reach of crazy sorrowYes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving freeSilhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sandsWith all memory and fate driven deep beneath the wavesLet me forget about today until tomorrow

While the use of “smoke rings” ties back into the drug-themed second verse, I believe these lines distinguish and separate the song from drugs or writer’s block. Rather, I think Dylan is singing about his experience with time. I think the alliteration present in the whole song, but particularly the first verse (evenin’s empire and ancient empty streets), tie in to the fast smooth tempo of the song. Emblematic of the experience he’s writing about, he includes nuanced outbreaks like “but still not sleeping” and “too dead for dreaming”  that jut out against the otherwise silky rhythm.