Bob Dylan

If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

a poem is a naked person . . . some people say that i am a poet

I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.

People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around — the music and the ideas.

We may not be able to defeat these swine, but we don't have to join them.

Morality has nothing in common with politics.

I don't call myself a poet, because I don't like the word.

Don't ask me nothin' about nothin'. I just might tell you the truth.

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941) is an American folk and rock singer-songwriter, born in Duluth, Minnesota.

Sourced

• There's no black and white, left and right to me anymore; there's only up and down and down is very close to the ground. And I'm trying to go up without thinking about anything trivial such as politics. They has got nothing to do with it. I'm thinking about the general people and when they get hurt.
  • Address to the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee (13 December 1963)

• a poem is a naked person . . . some people say that I am a poet
  • Liner notes, Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

• Reporter: How many people who labor in the same musical vineyard in which you toil - how many are protest singers? That is, people who use their music, and use the songs to protest the, uh, social state in which we live today: the matter of war, the matter of crime, or whatever it might be.
  Bob Dylan: Um...how many?
  Reporter: Yes. How many?
  Bob Dylan: Uh, I think there's about, uh...136.
  Reporter: You say about 136, or you mean exactly 136?
  Bob Dylan: Uh, it's either 136 or 142.
  • Press conference in Los Angeles, California (17 December 1965), as seen and heard in No Direction Home.

• Keep a good head and always carry a light bulb.
  • Heard in the D. A. Pennebaker documentary Dont Look Back (1967)

• God, I'm glad I'm not me.
  • Said when reading a newspaper article about himself in Dont Look Back (1967)

• Chaos is a friend of mine.
  • Newsweek (9 December 1985)

• I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.
  • Interview published with the Biograph album set (1985)

• The first two lines, which rhymed 'kiddin' you' and 'didn't you,' just about knocked me out, and later on, when I got to the jugglers and the chrome horse and the princess on the steeple, it all just about got to be too much.
  • Discussing the song "Like a Rolling Stone" in Rolling Stone magazine (1988)

• People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around — the music and the ideas.
  • The Guardian (13 February 1992)

• That ear - I mean, Jesus, he's got to will that to the Smithsonian.
  • In reference to Brian Wilson, Newsweek (1997)

• Because Dickens and Dostoevsky and Woody Guthrie were telling their stories much better than I ever could, I decided to stick to my own mind.
  • Liner notes, The Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964 (2004)

• We may not be able to defeat these swine, but we don't have to join them.
  • As quoted in Kingdom of Fear (2003) by Hunter S. Thompson

• Sometimes you say things in songs even if there's a small chance of them being true. And sometimes you say things that have nothing to do with the truth of what you want to say and sometimes you say things that everyone knows to be true. Then again, at the same time, you're thinking that the only truth on earth is that there is no truth on it. Whatever you are saying, you're saying in a ricky-tick way. There's never time to reflect. You stitched and pressed and packed and drove, is what you did.
  • Chronicles: Vol. One (2004)

• The road out would be treacherous, and I didn’t know where it would lead but I followed it anyway. It was a strange world ahead that would unfold, a thunderhead of a world with jagged lightning edges. Many got it wrong and never did get it right. I went straight into it. It was wide open. One thing for sure, not only was it not run by God, but it wasn’t run by the devil either.
  • Chronicles: Vol. One (2004)

• I put one on the turntable and when the needle dropped, I was stunned — didn't know whether I was stoned or straight.
  • Referring to the first Woody Guthrie record he ever heard, on Chronicles (2004)

• Morality has nothing in common with politics.
  • Chronicles: Vol. One (2004)

• I had ambitions to set out and find, like an odyssey or going home somewhere… set out to find… this home that I’d left a while back and couldn’t remember exactly where it was, but I was on my way there. And encountering what I encountered on the way was how I envisioned it all. I didn’t really have any ambition at all. I was born very far from where I’m supposed to be, and so, I’m on my way home, you know?
  • No Direction Home (2005)

• You can't be wise and in love at the same time.
  • No Direction Home (2005)

• He's a pinboy. He also wears suspenders. He's a real person. You know him, but not by that name... I saw him come into the room one night and he looked like a camel. He proceeded to put his eyes in his pocket. I asked this guy who he was and he said, "That's Mr. Jones." Then I asked this cat, "Doesn't he do anything but put his eyes in his pocket?" And he told me, "He puts his nose on the ground." It's all there, it's a true story.
  • When asked about the meaning of the song "Ballad of a Thin Man" during a 1965 interview.

• I don't call myself a poet, because I don't like the word.
  • Said at a press conference, as seen in the Martin Scorsese documentary No Direction Home

• I don't believe you! You're a liar! ... Play it fucking loud!
  • Dylan's response to the shout of "Judas" by a heckler, followed by his instructions to his band over the count-in to "Like A Rolling Stone." Heard on The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966

• I read On the Road in maybe 1959. It changed my life like it changed everyone else's.
  • On the influence of Jack Kerouac on him, as quoted Grasping for the Wind : The Search for Meaning in the 20th Century (2001) by John W. Whitehead

• Someone handed me Mexico City Blues in St. Paul [Minnesota] in 1959 and it blew my mind. It was the first poetry that spoke my own language.
  • On the influence of Jack Kerouac, as quoted in Jack Kerouac (2007) by Alison Behnke, p. 100

• It’s not a character like in a book or a movie. He’s not a bus driver. He doesn’t drive a forklift. He’s not a serial killer. It’s me who’s singing that, plain and simple. We shouldn’t confuse singers and performers with actors. Actors will say, “My character this, and my character that.” Like beating a dead horse. Who cares about the character? Just get up and act. You don’t have to explain it to me.
  • Bob Dylan, interview with Bill Flanagan. telegraph.co.uk (13 Apr 2009).

• It's peculiar and unnerving in a way to see so many young people walking around with cellphones and iPods in their ears and so wrapped up in media and video games. It robs them of their self-identity. It's a shame to see them so tuned out to real life. Of course they are free to do that, as if that's got anything to do with freedom. The cost of liberty is high, and young people should understand that before they start spending their life with all those gadgets.
  • Rolling Stone #1078 (14 May 2009), p. 45

Bob Dylan (1962)

Talking New York

• You sound like a hillbilly; We want folk singers here.

• A lot of people don't have much food on their table
  But they got a lot of forks and knives
  And they gotta cut something

Song to Woody

• Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song, 'bout a funny ol' world that's a-comin' along

• Seems sick an' it's hungry, it's tired an' it's torn, it looks like it's a-dyin' an' it's hardly been born.

• Here's to Cisco an' Sonny an' Lead Belly too, an' to all the good people that traveled with you.

• here's to the hearts an' the hands of the men, that come with the dust and are gone with the wind.

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963)

Blowin' in the Wind

How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?

How many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?

• How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
  How many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?

• Yes, and how many years can a mountain exist before it is washed to the sea?

• How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky?

• Yes, and how many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?

• The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.

Girl from the North Country

• So if you're travelin' in the north country fair,
  Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline,
  Remember me to one who lives there.
  She once was a true love of mine.

Masters of War

• All the money you made will never buy back your soul.

• You ain't worth the blood that runs in your veins.

• There is one thing I know though I'm younger than you
  Even Jesus would not forgive what you do

• And I hope that you die
  And your death'll come soon
  I will follow your casket
  In the pale afternoon
  And I'll watch while you're lowered
  Down to your deathbed
  And I'll stand o'er your grave
  'Til I'm sure that you're dead

A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall

• I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it.

• I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken.

• I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world.

• I met a white man who walked a black dog.

• But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’.

• It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

• I once loved a woman, a child I am told
  I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul.

• I ain't saying you treated me unkind
  You could have done better but I don't mind
  You just kinda wasted my precious time
  But don't think twice, it's all right.

• Goodbye is too good a word, girl
  So I'll just say fare thee well.

Talkin' World War III Blues

• I got into the driver's seat and drove down 42nd Street in my Cadillac.
  Good car to drive after a war.

• Half of the people can be part right all of the time,
  Some of the people can be all right part of the time,
  But all the people can't be all right all the time.
  I think Abraham Lincoln said that.
  I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.
  I said that.

The Times They Are A-Changin' (1964)

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Full lyrics online

• Come gather ’round people
  Wherever you roam
  And admit that the waters
  Around you have grown.
  And accept it that soon
  You’ll be drenched to the bone.
  If your time to you is worth savin’
  Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
  For the times they are a-changin’.

• Come writers and critics
  Who prophesize with your pen
  And keep your eyes wide
  The chance won’t come again
  And don’t speak too soon
  For the wheel’s still in spin
  And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s naming.’
  For the loser now will be later to win

• Come mothers and fathers
  Throughout the land
  And don’t criticize
  What you can’t understand
  Your sons and your daughters
  Are beyond your command
  Your old road is rapidly agin'.

• Come Congressmen, Senators, please heed the call
  Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall
  For he who gets hurt will be he who has

stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’.

Ballad of Hollis Brown

• You prayed to the Lord above
  Oh please send you a friend
  Your empty pockets tell yuh
  That you ain’t a-got no friend

• There’s seven people dead
  On a South Dakota farm
  Somewhere in the distance
  There's seven new people born

• If there's anyone who knows, is there anyone who cares?

With God On Our Side

• You never ask questions When God's on your side

• You don't count the dead When God's on your side

• But I can’t think for you
  You’ll have to decide
  Whether Judas Iscariot
  Had God on his side

• The words fill my head, and fall to the floor, that if God's on our side, he'll stop the next war.

Restless Farewell

• But if the arrow is straight, And the point is slick, It can pierce through dust no matter how thick.

Boots of Spanish Leather

• Oh, but if I had the stars from the darkest night
  And the diamonds from the deepest ocean
  I'd forsake them all for your sweet kiss
  For that's all I'm wishin' to be ownin'.

• Well, if you, my love, must think that-a-way,
  I'm sure your mind is roamin'.
  I'm sure your heart is not with me,
  But with the country to where you're goin'.

Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964)

All I Really Want To Do

• All I really want to do is, baby, be friends with you.

• I ain't looking for you to feel like me, see like me, or be like me.

Chimes of Freedom

• Far between sundown’s finish an’ midnight’s broken toll,
  We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing.
  As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds,
  Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing.
  Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight,
  Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight,
  An’ for each an’ ev’ry underdog soldier in the night,
  An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

• Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail,
  The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder,
  That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
  Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder
  Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind,
  Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind,
  An’ the poet and the painter far behind his rightful time
  An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

My Back Pages

• Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.

• In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand at the mongrel dogs who teach
  Fearing not that I'd become my enemy in the instance that I preached
  My existence led by confusion boats, mutiny from stern to bow.

Motorpsycho Nightmare

• I had to say something to strike him very weird so I yelled out "I like Fidel Castro and his beard."

Ballad In Plain D

• All is gone, all is gone, admit it, take flight.
  I gagged twice, doubled, tears blinding my sight.
  My mind it was mangled, I ran into the night
  Leaving all of love's ashes behind me.
  

  The wind knocks my window, the room it is wet.
  The words to say I'm sorry, I haven't found yet.
  I think of her often and hope whoever she's met
  Will be fully aware of how precious she is.
  

  Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me,
  "How good, how good does it feel to be free?"
  And I answer them most mysteriously,
  "Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?"

It Ain't Me Babe

• Go away from my window,
  Leave at your own chosen speed,
  I'm not the one you want, babe,
  I'm not the one you need.
  You say you're looking for someone,
  Who's never weak but always strong,
  To protect you and defend you,
  Whether you are right or wrong,
  Someone to open each and every door,
  But it ain't me, babe,
  No, no, no, it ain't me, babe,
  It ain't me you're looking for, babe.

Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

Subterranean Homesick Blues

Complete lyrics here

• Johnny's in the basement
  Mixing up the medicine
  I'm on the pavement
  Thinking about the government
  The man in the trenchcoat
  Badge out, laid off
  Says he's got a bad cough
  Wants to get it paid off
  Look out kid
  It's somethin' you did
  God knows when
  But you're doin' it again

• You don't need a weather man
  To know which way the wind blows

• Get jailed, jump bail
  Join the army, if you fail

• Don't follow leaders
  Watch the parkin' meters

• Twenty years of schoolin'
  And they put you on the day shift

• The pump don't work
  'Cause the vandals took the handles

She Belongs to Me

• She's got everything she needs, she's an artist, she don't look back.

• She could take the dark out the nighttime and paint the daytime black.

• But you will wind up peeking through her keyhole down upon your knees.

Maggie's Farm

• Well, I try my best
  To be just like I am
  But everybody wants you
  To be just like them

• I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.

Love Minus Zero/No Limit

• There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all.

• She knows too much to argue or to judge.

• In the dime stores and bus stations,
  People talk of situations,
  Read books repeat quotations,
  Draw conclusions on the wall.

Outlaw Blues

• Don't ask me nothin' about nothin'. I just might tell you the truth.

Mr. Tambourine Man

• The ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.

• Oh, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free.

• It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run

• And if you hear vague traces of skipping reels of rhyme...

• Take me disappearing, through the smoke rings of my mind, down the foggy ruins of time...

• With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves, let me forget about today until tomorrow.

• Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me.
  I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
  Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me.
  In the jingle-jangle morning, I'll come following you.

• Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Gates of Eden

• All and all can only fall with a crushing but meaningless blow.

• And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden.

• Of war and peace the truth just twist, its curfew gull it glides.

It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

• Money doesn't talk, it swears.
  Obscenity, who really cares? Propaganda all is phony.

• Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
  Suicide remarks are torn
  From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
  Plays wasted words, proves to warn
  That he not busy being born is busy dying.

• An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
  It's only people's games that you got to dodge

• Even the president of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.

• It is not he or she or them or it that you belong to.

• Disillusioned words like bullets bark
  As human gods aim for their marks.
  Make everything from toy guns that spark
  To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark.
  It's easy to see without looking too far that not much is really sacred.

• While others say don't hate nothing at all except hatred

• Advertising signs that con you into thinking you are the one
  That can do what's never been done,
  That can win what's never been won
  Meanwhile, life outside goes on all around you

• And if my thought-dreams could be seen, they'd probably put my head in a guillotine.
  But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.

• Although the masters make the rules for the wise men and the fools, I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

• You lose yourself, you reappear
  You suddenly find you got nothin' to fear
  Alone you stand with nobody near
  When a trembling distant voice unclear
  Startles your sleeping ear to hear
  That somebody thinks they really found you.

• Darkness at the break of noon
  Shadows even the silver spoon
  The hand made blade, the child's balloon,
  Eclipses both the sun and moon
  To understand you know too soon
  There is no sense in trying.

• While one who sings with his tongue on fire
  Gargles in the rat race choir
  Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
  Cares not to come up any higher
  But rather get you down in the hole
  That he’s in

• But I mean no harm nor put fault
  On anyone that lives in a vault
  But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him

• It's life and life only.

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

• Yonder stands your orphan with his gun, crying like a fire in the sun.

• Your lover who just walked out the door, has taken all his blankets from your floor.

• Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
  Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you.

• The vagabond who's rapping at your door,
  Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.

Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

Positively 4th Street

• You got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend. When I was down, you just stood there grinning.

• Do you take me for such a fool to think I'd make contact with one that tries to hide what he don't know to begin with.

• I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. You'd know what a drag it is to see you.

Like a Rolling Stone

When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose. You're invisible now. You've got no secrets to conceal.

• How does it feel? To be on your own, with no direction home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone?

• Once upon a time you dressed so fine, threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you.
  People call, say beware doll, you're bound to fall, you thought they were all, kiddin you.

• You used to laugh about
  Everybody that was hangin’ out
  Now you don’t talk so loud
  Now you don’t seem so proud
  About having to be scrounging for your next meal

• You never turned around to see the frowns, on the jugglers and the clowns when they all did, tricks for you.

• Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people, they're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made

• Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse.
  When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose.
  You're invisible now. You've got no secrets to conceal.

Tombstone Blues

• The sun's not yellow, it's chicken.

• Stop all this weeping, swallow your pride
  You will not die, it’s not poison

• The geometry of innocence flesh on the bone
  Causes Galileo’s math book to get thrown
  At Delilah who sits worthlessly alone
  But the tears on her cheeks are from laughter

• And the National Bank at a profit sells road maps for the soul
  To the old folks home and the college

It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry

• And if I don't make it, you know my baby will.

• Well, I wanna be your lover, baby, I don't wanna be your boss.

Ballad of a Thin Man

• And you say, Oh my God, am I here all alone?

• You've been with the professors and they've all liked your looks. With great lawyers you've discussed lepers and crooks.

• You go watch the geek, who immediately walks up to you when he hears you speak, and says, how does it feel to be such a freak?, and you say, impossible as he hands you a bone.

• And something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?

• Here's your throat back, thanks for the loan.

• You put your eyes in your pockets and your nose on the ground.

• they already expect you to just give a check to tax-deductible charity organization.

Highway 61 Revisited

• Oh God said to Abraham, Kill me a son.
  Abe says, Man, you must be puttin' me on.
  God say, No. Abe say, What?
  God say, You can do what you want Abe, but
  the next time you see me comin' you better run.
  Well Abe says, Where do you want this killin' done?
  God says, Out on Highway 61.

Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

• Up on Housing Project Hill, it's either fortune or fame. You must pick one or the other, though neither of them are to be what they claim.

Desolation Row

• Yes, I received your letter yesterday
  (About the time the door knob broke)
  When you asked how I was doing
  Was that some kind of joke?
  All these people that you mention
  Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
  I had to rearrange their faces
  And give them all another name
  Right now I can't read too good
  Don't send me no more letters no
  Not unless you mail them
  From Desolation Row
  

• Now at midnight all the agents, and the superhuman crew, come out and round up everyone, that knows more then they do.

• And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot fighting in the captain's tower while calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers...

Blonde on Blonde (1966)

Rainy Day Women #12 & 35

• But I would not feel so all alone, everybody must get stoned!

• They’ll stone ya and then they’ll say, “good luck”

Pledging My Time

• Somebody got lucky, but it was an accident.

Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again

Your debutante knows what you need, but I know what you want.

• Oh Mama, can this really be the end? To be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again?

• And here I sit so patiently waiting to find out what price you have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice.

• The one was Texas medicine. the other was just railroad gin. And, like a fool, I mixed them and it strangled up my mind and now people just get uglier and I have no sense of time.

• Your debutante knows what you need, but I know what you want.

• You see, you're just like me. I hope you're satisfied.

Visions of Johanna

• Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet.

• We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it.

• And Louise holds a handful of rain, tempting you to defy it.

• He’s sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all

• Inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial.
  Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
  But, Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues
  you can tell by the way she smiles

• The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face.

• Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him.

• Louise she's all right she's just near'
  She's delicate and seems like veneer'
  But she just makes it all too concise and too clear'
  That Johanna's not here

• But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel.

One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)

• I couldn’t see what you could show me
  Your scarf had kept your mouth well hid

• I couldn’t see when it started snowin’
  Your voice was all that I heard

I Want You

• She is good to me
  There's nothing she doesn't see
  She knows where I’d like to be
  But it doesn’t matter...
  I want you

Just Like A Woman

• Nobody feels any pain
  Tonight as I stand inside the rain

• She takes just like a woman, yes she does
  She makes love just like a woman, yes she does
  And she aches just like a woman
  But she breaks just like a little girl.

Absolutely Sweet Marie

• But to live outside the law, you must be honest.

Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands

• Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
  Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
  My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
  Should I leave them by your gate,
  Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

• With your sheets like metal and your belt like lace,
  And your deck of cards missing the jack and the ace,
  And your basement clothes and your hollow face,
  Who among them can think he could outguess you?

Nashville Skyline (1969)

I Threw It All Away

• I once held her in my arms,
  She said she would always stay,
  But I was cruel, I treated her like a fool,
  I threw it all away.
  I threw it all away.

Lay Lady Lay

• Lay, lady, lay. Lay across my big, brass bed.

• Whatever colors you have in your mind. I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine.

• His clothes are dirty, but his hands are clean, and you're the best thing that he's ever seen.

• You can have your cake and eat it, too.

• Stay, lady, stay. Stay while the night is still ahead.

Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You

• Throw my ticket out the window,
  Throw my suitcase out there too,
  Throw my troubles out the door, I don't need them anymore,
  'Cause tonight I'll be staying here with you.

Self Portrait (1970)

Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)

• Ev'rybody's in despair,
  Ev'ry girl and boy
  But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here,
  Ev'rybody's gonna jump for joy.

• Come all without, come all within,
  You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn.

• I like to do just like the rest,
  I like my sugar sweet, but guarding fumes and making haste,
  it ain't my cup of meat.

• A cat's meow and a cow's moo,
  I can recite 'em all,
  just tell me where it hurts you, honey,
  

and I'll tell you who to call.

Planet Waves (1974)

Forever Young

May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung. May your song always be sung, May you stay forever young.

• May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung. May your song always be sung, May you stay forever young.
• May your hands always be busy. May your feet always be swift. May you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift. May your heart always be joyful. May your song always be sung. May you stay forever young.

Dirge

• I paid the price of solitude but at least I'm out of debt.

• I hate myself for loving you.

Blood on the Tracks (1975)

Tangled Up In Blue

• Early one mornin' the sun was shinin',
  I was layin' in bed
  Wond'rin'if she'd changed at all
  If her hair was still red.

• Tangled up in blue...

• Lord knows I've paid some dues gettin' through...

• I helped her out of a jam, I guess, but I used a little too much force...

• And every one of them words rang true and glowed like burnin' coal. Pourin' off of every page, like it was written in my soul from me to you...

• The only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keepin' on like a bird that flew...

• All the people we used to know, they're an illusion to me now...

• Don't know how it all got started, I don't know what they do with their lives...

• We always did feel the same, we just saw it from a different point of view...

• But all the while I was alone
  The past was close behind,
  I seen a lot of women
  But she never escaped my mind,
  

• I lived with them on Montague Street
  In a basement down the stairs
  There was music in the cafes at night
  And revolution in the air.

Idiot Wind

• You're an idiot, babe. It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

• I can't help it if I'm lucky.

• Visions of your chestnut mare shoot through my head and are makin' me see stars.

• I waited for you on the running boards, near the cypress trees, while the springtime turned slowly into autumn.

• Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats, blowing through the letters that we wrote.
  Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves,
  We're idiots, babe. It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.

• It was gravity which pulled us in and destiny which broke us apart

• You tamed the lion in my cage but it just wasn't enough to change my heart

• Down the highway, down the tracks, down the road to ecstacy,
  I followed you beneath the stars, hounded by your memory and all your ragin' glory

• You'll never know the hurt I suffer, nor the pain I rise above, and I'll never know the same about you...

• I kiss good-bye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me.

You're a Big Girl Now

Time is a jetplane — it moves too fast. Oh but what a shame that all we've shared can't last...

• I’m going out of my mind, oh, oh; with a pain that stops and starts; like a corkscrew to my heart; Ever since we’ve been apart

• A change in the weather is known to be extreme; but what's the sense in changing horses in mid-stream?

• Time is a jetplane — it moves too fast. Oh but what a shame that all we've shared can't last...

• Love is so simple, to quote a phrase; you've known it all the time, I'm learnin' it these days.

• I know where I can find you — in somebody's room. It's the price I have to pay, you're a big girl all the way.

Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts

• Backstage the girls were playin' five-card stud by the stairs,
  Lily had two queens, she was hopin' for a third to match her pair.
  Outside the streets were fillin' up, the window was open wide,
  A gentle breeze was blowin', you could feel it from inside.
  Lily called another bet and drew up the Jack of Hearts.

Shelter from the Storm

• Beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine.

• Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm...

• "Come in", she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

If You See Her, Say Hello

• I always have respected her for doin' what she did and gettin' free

• Say for me that I'm all right though things get kind of slow
  She might think that I've forgotten her don't tell her it isn't so.

• Sundown yellow moon I replay the past
  I know every scene by heart they all went by so fast

• If she's passing back this way I'm not that hard to find
  Tell her she can look me up if she's got the time.

The Basement Tapes (1975)

This Wheel's on Fire (recorded in 1967)

• If your mem'ry serves you well, we were gonna meet again and wait, so I think I'll just unpack my bags and sit before it gets too late.
  No man alive will come to you with another tale to tell, but you know that we shall meet again, if your mem'ry serves you well.

• If your memory serves you well, I was gonna confiscate your lace and wrap it up in a sailor's knot and hide it in your case.
  And if I knew for sure that it was yours, it was oh so hard to tell, and you know that we shall meet again, if your memory serves you well.

• If your memory serves you well, I remember you're the one who called out me to call out them to get your business done.
  And after every plan has failed, and there was nothing left to tell, well you knew that we shall meet again if your memory serves you well.

• Wheels on fire, rolling down the road, best notify my next of kin, this wheel shall explode!

Open the Door, Homer (recorded 1967)

• Take care of all your memories. said my friend Mick, For you cannot relive them.

Desire (1976)

Hurricane

• Here comes the story of The Hurricane, the man the authorities came to blame for something that he never done.
  Put in a prison cell, but one time he coulda been the champion of the world.

• Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land, where justice is a game.

Mozambique

• There's lots of pretty girls in Mozambique.

Slow Train Coming (1979)

Precious Angel

• The enemy is subtle, how be it we're deceived? When the truth's in our hearts and we still don't believe?

When He Returns

• Truth is an arrow and the gate is narrow...that it passes through

Slow Train Comin

• In the home of the brave, Jefferson turnin' over in his grave,
  Fools glorifying themselves, trying to manipulate Satan

Shot of Love (1981)

Every Grain Of Sand

• I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man. Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.

Infidels (1983)

Jokerman

• Take the motherless children off the streets.

• A woman just gave birth to a prince today and dressed him in scarlet.

• Freedom just around the corner for you. But with the truth so far off, what good will it do?

Sweetheart like You

• Steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you King.

Man of Peace

• Sometimes Satan, comes as a man of peace.

I and I

• Some one else is speaking with my mouth, but I'm listening only to my heart.

Union Sundown

• A lot of people say there is no work. I say, "Why you say that for?" When nothin' you got is US made, they don't make nothin' here no more.

Don't Fall Apart on Me Tonight

• Yesterday's just a memory; tomorrow's never what it's supposed to be.

License to Kill

• For man has invented his doom, the first step was touching the moon.

Empire Burlesque (1985)

Tight Connection to My Heart

• What looks large from a distance, close up ain't never that big.

Dark Eyes

• Oh, time is short and the days are sweet and passion rules the arrow that flies.

Trust Yourself If you want somebody you can trust, trust yourself.

Biograph (1985)

Abandoned Love (recorded 1975)

• I've been deceived by the clown inside of me. I thought that he was righteous but he's vain.

• My patron saint is a-fighting with a ghost. He's always off somewhere when I need him most.

• Let me feel your love one more time before I abandon it.

Up to Me (recorded 1974)

• I was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity.

• The old Rounder in the iron mask slipped me the master key, somebody had to unlock your heart, he said it was up to me.

• It frightens me the awful truth of how sweet life can be.

• When you bite off more than you can chew, you pay the penalty, somebody's got to tell the tale, I guess it must be up to me.

• Somebody's got to cry some tears, I guess it must be up to me.

Knocked Out Loaded (1986)

Brownsville Girl

• I seen this movie one time about a man riding across the desert, and it starred Gregory Peck.

• People don't do what they believe in, they just do what's most convenient, then they repent.

• I didn't know whether to duck or to run, so I ran.

Death is Not the End

• Oh, the tree of life is growing where the spirit never dies
  And the bright light of salvation shines in dark and empty skies.

Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 (1988)

Tweeter and the Monkey Man

• Tweeter and the Monkey Man were hard up for cash
  They stayed up all night selling cocaine and hash
  To an undercover cop who had a sister named Jan
  Who for reasons unexplained she loved the Monkey Man

• Jan had told him many times "it was you to me who taught:
  in Jersey anything's legal as long as you don't get caught"

Political World

• We live in a political world
  Where mercy walks the plank,
  Life is in mirrors, death disappears
  Up the steps into the nearest bank.

Under the Red Sky (1990)

T.V. Talking Song

• Your mind is your temple, keep it beautiful and free. Don't let an egg get laid in it by something you can't see.

The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991 (1991)

Let me Die in my Footsteps (recorded 1962)

• Let me die in my footsteps before I go under the ground.

• I'd throw all the guns and the tanks in the sea, for they are mistakes of a past history.

Moonshiner (recorded ?)

• The whole world's a bottle, And life's but a dram, When the bottle gets empty, It sure ain't worth a damn.

Hard Times In New York Town (recorded 1963)

• They'll kick you when you're up and knock you when you're down.

Angelina (recorded 1981)

• When you cease to exist, then who will you blame?

Blind Willie McTell (recorded 1983)

• Well, God is in His heaven
  And we all want what's his
  But power and greed and corruptible seed
  Seem to be all that there is
  I'm gazing out the window
  Of the St. James Hotel
  And I know no one can sing the blues
  Like Blind Willie McTell

Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3 (1994)

Dignity

• Drinkin' man listens to the voice he hears,
  In a crowded room full of covered up mirrors,
  Lookin' into the lost forgotten years
  For dignity

Love Sick

• I'm sick of love but I'm in the thick of it.

Not Dark Yet

• It's not dark yet, but it's getting there...

• Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain

• I know it looks like I'm moving, but I'm standing still
  Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
  I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from

• Feel as though my soul has turned into steel. I've still got the scars that the sun didn't heal.

Standing In The Doorway

• Last night I danced with a stranger, but she just reminded me you were the one.

• I'll eat when I'm hungry, drink when I'm dry

The Essential Bob Dylan (2000)

Things Have Changed (recorded 1999)

• Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet... Putting her in a wheel barrow and wheeling her down the street.

• People are crazy and times are strange
  I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range,
  I used to care, but things have changed.

• I've been trying to get as far away from myself as I can

• I hurt easy, I just don't show it, you can hurt someone and not even know it

• All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie

• You can't win with a losing hand

• If the Bible is right the world will explode

Maggie's Farm

• Well I tried my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them

Love and Theft (2001)

Bye and Bye

• I'm sittin' on my watch so I can be on time.

• The future to me is already a thing of the past.

Mississippi

• You can always come back, but you can't come back all the way.

• I was walking through the leaves Falling from the trees.
  Feelin' like a stranger nobody sees.

• So many things that we never will undo
  I know you're sorry, I'm sorry too.

• Drownin' in the poison, got not future got no past.

• But my heart is not weary; it's light and it's free
  I've got nothing but affection for those who've sailed with me.

Summer Days

• Politician's got on his jogging shoes, he must be running for office, got no time to lose

Cry A While

• I might need a good lawyer, could be your funeral, my trial
  Well, I cried for you, now it's your turn, you can cry awhile

Modern Times (2006)

Ain't Talkin'

• If I catch my opponents ever sleepin', I'll just slaughter 'em where they lie.

Thunder on the Mountain

• Gonna forget about myself for a while, gonna go out and see what others need.

• Gonna get me an army, some tough sons o' bitches
  I recruit my army from the orphanages.

• I sucked the milk out of a thousand cows.

Someday Baby

• Take your clothes, put 'em in a sack. You goin' down the road, baby, and you cant come back. Someday baby, you ain't gonna worry po' me any more.

Together Through Life (2009)

I Feel A Change Coming On

I'm listening to Billy Joe Shaver
And I'm reading James Joyce
Some people they tell me
I've got the blood of the land in my voice.

• I'm listening to Billy Joe Shaver
  And I'm reading James Joyce
  Some people they tell me
  I've got the blood of the land in my voice

Quotes about Dylan

• Bob Dylan took a lot of air out of the room when it came to songwriters. Everybody had a tough row to hoe distinguishing themselves once Bob invented our job.
  • Steve Earle, quoted at "Homage to Townes" at Austin360.com (18 May 2009)

• Dylan is free now to work on his own terms. It would be foolish to predict what he will do next. But hopefully he will remain a mediator, using the language of pop to transcend it. If the gap between past and present continues to widen, such mediation may be crucial. In a communications crisis, the true prophets are the translators.
  • Ellen Willis, in "Dylan" in Representative Men : Cult Heroes of Our Time (1970) edited by Theodore L. Gross

• The minute you try to grab hold of Dylan, he's no longer where he was. He's like a flame: If you try to hold him in your hand you'll surely get burned. Dylan's life of change and constant disappearances and constant transformations makes you yearn to hold him, and to nail him down. And that's why his fan base is so obsessive, so desirous of finding the truth and the absolutes and the answers to him — things that Dylan will never provide and will only frustrate. ... Dylan is difficult and mysterious and evasive and frustrating, and it only makes you identify with him all the more as he skirts identity.
  • Todd Haynes, about his choice of 6 people to portray Dylan in his film I'm Not There, in "Footnote fetishism & "I'm Not There" by Jim Emerson" at The Sun-Times (9 October 2007)

• "The stage is the only place where I'm happy." But this has its own sadnesses, like so much love. He is the one person who has to be at a Dylan concert and the one person who can't go to a Dylan concert.
  • Christopher Ricks, Dylan's Visions of Sin (2003), concluding words, p. 490

External links

• Bob Dylan Jokeson Expecting Rain
• Bob Dylan Lyrics
• Quotes about Bob Dylan
• Searchable database of Bob's written word
• Film dialogue in the lyrics of Bob Dylan.