Bob Dylan – "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (1965)

Twenty years of schooling

And they put you on the day shift

[Strictly speaking, this record is not eligible for the 2 OR 3 LINES "GOLDEN DECADE" ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME.  Membership in that hall of fame is limited to records that were not hit singles.  “Subterranean Homesick Blues” was technically a top-40 record because it was listed at #39 on the Billboard “Hot 100” for exactly one week.  That’s hardly what anyone would consider to be a hit single, of course – and since it clearly doesn’t belong in the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME, I’m including it in the album tracks hall of fame instead.  It’s just too good a song to disqualify on the basis of a technicality.  What follows is an edited version of my original October 5, 2021, post about “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” which includes Bob Dylan’s most often quoted lines” “You don’t need a weatherman/To know which way the wind blows.”]

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“Like a Rolling Stone” is the best record Bob Dylan ever recorded – it’s arguably the best record made in the sixties – but “Subterranean Homesick Blues” has the best lyrics Dylan ever wrote.  

That’s saying something, because Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his song lyrics.  That was a ridiculous decision, of course – song lyrics need to be sung along with their accompanying music, not put on a printed page and read like poetry – but there’s no doubt Dylan wrote some amazing lyrics.

Of course, Dylan’s lyrics would have been even better if he had run them by me before finalizing them – they could have used a bit of editing.

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To wit: consider these lines from “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again,” which are spoken to the singer of the song by a shady young woman named “Ruthie”:

Your debutante knows what you need

But I know what you want

Dylan is clearly saying that Ruthie is offering the singer something more satisfying than his prissy little debutante girlfriend if offering.

(Not the same Ruthie.)

But instead of saying that the debutante know what he needs while Ruthie knows what he wants, shouldn’t it be the other way around?  

I’m guessing that the debutante may know what the singer wants – or at least what he thinks he wants, and has told her he wants – but she can’t provide what he really needs deep down inside.  After all, he may not know himself what he really needs.

Ruthie can fulfill his needs because she has a much deeper understanding of him than he has of himself – and a much deeper understanding of him than the debutante.

So shouldn’t the line read as follows?

Your debutante knows what you want

But I know what you need

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Today’s featured song contains another example of a Dylan lyric gone awry.

Think about the lines quoted at the beginning of this post:

Twenty years of schooling

And they put you on the day shift 

Dylan is making the point that the world is F.U.B.A.R. – after all, it makes no sense for someone to be sent to school for twenty years and then given a factory job.

But Dylan should have used night shift in those lyrics – not day shift.  

The day shift is almost always preferable to the night shift.  Working the night shift will play havoc with your body clock, making it difficult for to sleep well.  And it will likely also play havoc with your relationships because most people work during the day, not at night.

It’s bad enough to go to school for twenty years and end up working the day shift at a factory, but it adds insult to injury to end up working the night shift – that’s a real kick in the pants, especially for someone with that much edumacation.

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I think Bob Dylan’s a little overrated – he did write a lot of bad songs, after all – but the genius of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” can’t be denied.  The lyrics are insane in the membrane, and I love the irregularity of the lines – the record’s herky-jerky line structure is something that differentiates it from every other record of that era.

Click here to listen to “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” which was released in 1965 on Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan’s fifth studio album.

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