Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands
<dd>by Bob Dylan
With your mercury mouth in the missionary times,
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes,
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes,
Oh, who among them do they think could bury you?
With your pockets well protected at last,
And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass,
And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass,
Who among them do they think could carry you?
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?
With your silhouette when the sunlight dims
Into your eyes where the moonlight swims,
And your match-book songs and your gypsy hymns,
Who among them would try to impress you?
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?
The kings of Tyrus with their convict list
Are waiting in line for their geranium kiss,
And you wouldn't know it would happen like this,
But who among them really wants just to kiss you?
With your childhood flames on your midnight rug,
And your Spanish manners and your mother's drugs,
And your cowboy mouth and your curfew plugs,
Who among them do you think could resist you?
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?
Oh, the farmers and the businessmen, they all did decide
To show you the dead angels that they used to hide.
But why did they pick you to sympathize with their side?
Oh, how could they ever mistake you?
They wished you'd accepted the blame for the farm,
But with the sea at your feet and the phony false alarm,
And with the child of a hoodlum wrapped up in your arms,
How could they ever, ever persuade you?
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 sheet-metal memory of Cannery Row,
And your magazine-husband who one day just had to go,
And your gentleness now, which you just can't help but show,
Who among them do you think would employ you?
Now you stand with your thief, you're on his parole
With your holy medallion which your fingertips fold,
And your saintlike face and your ghostlike soul,
Oh, who among them do you think could destroy you
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?
.
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The most covetted teacher in my high school as far as I knew it was Harold Bonticoe (forgive me if after all these years I've misremembered the spelling). Mr. B had the gifted tenth grade English block, & among his popular devices was to use pop lyrics to demonstrate the basics of poetry. Somewhere along the line I know he got depressed. The last time I spoke with him, he told me that after years of using this Dylan song, he couldn't explain what Dylan meant by "my warehouse eyes my Arabian drums." Was he afraid that he had accepted the value of this lyric as poetry because of some hype in Rolling Stone? Was he trying to see "eyes" as a verb, missing the comma? Was it just too much to accept that drums could be "Arabian" without much else in the lyric to back up the connection to the Middle East? (It just now hits me that these could be oil drums from Saudi Arabia... but that would make Dylan, gasp, a prophet.) Still, putting aside a teacher's self-doubt, these lines would not have been out of place in a poem by Hart Crane or Lorca. I don't find it at all far fetched to see this as poetry. I believe it was probably written as verse & then thrown over a few fairly easy chord changes after the fact. It's the first song I ever learned on the guitar. It's one of my favorite poems.
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