Posted on 04/29/2022 1:34:34 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Informative. Thanks for sharing!
The left love to have the attitude of...”you couldn’t possibly understand”.
‘His repertoire.’
I liked his spoofs of the late ‘50’s love ditties, to wit;
‘you cheated me baby
and told dirty lies about me
fooling round with all those other guys
that’s why I had to get my khakis pressed...’
He was very critical of the Beatles and I think it was McCartney said something to the effect that they shouldn’t try to be successful?
Hell hath no fury like a man cuckolded...That’s what this song is about.
(It’s mildly reminiscent of Leonard Cohen’s”Suzanne” (the one in the song) who became homeless - a woman he didn’t speak to for over 50 year after she told a reporter (in the 60’s) that he had come on to her but she had rejected him)
https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/5730/
The song is about socialite, Edie Palmer. A one time girlfriend of Bob Dylan, who cheated on him, with a number of people, while he was an up and coming musician, and eventually left him for the artist Andy Warhol. Their lives went different ways, with Dylan moving on to fame and fortune, and Palmer becoming destitute, and dying a homeless drug addict. Sadly, the song is black humour on Dylans part, mocking the girl after she was dumped by Warhol, and quickly lost the brief fame she had as his girlfriend.
Most of the song hints at a rich, fame hungry girl, who was maybe destined for a fall. But there are many hints to what happened to her, after falling on hard times:
“You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns. When they all come down and did tricks for you”
This refers to the many suitors that Palmer had. Many men, trying to impress and court her, and how much she loved it. Dylan refers to them as “jugglers and clowns”, as in, men trying to entertain her, trying to catch her attention. Dylan thought of them quite literally as desperate clowns. He comments that she had little care for their feelings, and probably refers to himself as one of these “clowns”, as he was well known to have pursued Palmer vigorously, as a younger man.
“You said you’d never compromise. With the mystery tramp, but now you realize. He’s not selling any alibis. As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes. And ask him do you want to make a deal?”
This refers to the fact that Palmer resorted to prostitution, not literally, but in Dylans eyes. It was well known that Palmer slept about a lot, mostly for gifts, and fame – generally sleeping with anyone she though of as “hip” – Dylan being one of them. He’s commenting that she used to make fun of “working class people”, and considered herself a better class, but at the same time was (in Dylan’s opinion) prostituting herself to the same people, for fame.
“You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat. Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat. Ain’t it hard when you discover that. He really wasn’t where it’s at, after he took from you everything he could steal.”
“The diplomat” was one of many names Dylan referred to the artist Andy Warhol. Dylan and Warhol were known enemies of the New York art scene. Dylan, the legitimate artist, and star, whereas Warhol was more “shock” value person, who attained fame by courting the media, and trying to shock. Dylan disliked Warhol, and his “factory” immensely, and felt of them as untalented wannabes. He called him “the diplomat”, as although he had an exterior image as a wild artist, he was in his early 40s, and very wealthy, so Dylan felt it was all an act, and he was in fact a very establish piece of New York society. “Chrome Horse” he is obviously referring to a car. The Siamese cat line is referring to Warhol’s almost comedic artistic decadence. The imagery of a man walking around town with a Siamese cat (very rare at the time) on his shoulder, was Dylan explaining how ridiculous he felt Warhol was, and how much attention he craved. “He really wasn’t where it’s at, after he took from you everything he could steal”. Warhol’s 60s fame was seen as a “fad” at the time, and Dylan was basically saying “you backed the wrong horse”, as in the late 60s, Dylan really was the biggest artist/star in the world, rivalling the Beatles, and Warhol had slipped into obscurity.
Saw Dylan at a small venue in the late 70’s early 80’s during his religious phase. Came out and said if people took flash pictures or requested his old songs, he’d leave. Buzz kill but at least I can say I saw him in concert.
Who Needs The Peace Corps? - The Mothers of Invention
What’s there to live for?
Who needs the peace corps?
Think I’ll just DROP OUT
I’ll go to Frisco
Buy a wig & sleep
On Owsley’s floor
Walked past the wig store
Danced at the Fillmore
I’m completely stoned
I’m hippy & I’m trippy
I’m a gypsy on my own
I’ll stay a week & get the crabs &
Take a bus back home
I’m really just a phony
But forgive me
‘Cause I’m stoned
Every town must have a place
Where phony hippies meet
Psychedelic dungeons
Popping up on every street
GO TO SAN FRANCISCO . . .
How I love ya, How I love ya
How I love ya, How I love ya Frisco!
How I love ya, How I love ya
How I love ya, How I love ya
Oh, my hair is getting good in the back!
Every town must have a place
Where phony hippies meet
Psychedelic dungeons
Popping up on every street
GO TO SAN FRANCISCO . . .
Hotcha!
First I’ll buy some beads
And then perhaps a leather band
To go around my head
Some feathers and bells
And a book of Indian lore
I will ask the Chamber Of Commerce
How to get to Haight Street
And smoke an awful lot of dope
I will wander around barefoot
I will have a psychedelic gleam in my eye at all times
I will love everyone
I will love the police as they kick the s___ out of me on the street
I will sleep . . .
I will, I will go to a house
That’s, that’s what I will do
I will go to a house
Where there’s a rock & roll band
‘Cause the groups all live together
And I will join a rock & roll band
I will be their road manager
And I will stay there with them
And I will get the crabs
But I won’t care
Is “Edie Palmer” aka Edie Sedgwick?
My favorite Zappa Quote:
“Civics was a class that used to be required before you could graduate from high school. You were taught what was in the U.S. Constitution. And after all the student rebellions in the Sixties, civics was banished from the student curriculum and was replaced by something called ‘Social Studies’. Here we live in a country that has a fabulous constitution and all these guarantees, a contract between the citizens and the government – nobody knows what’s in it...And so, if you don’t know what your rights are, how can you stand up for them? And furthermore, if you don’t know what’s in the document, how can you care if someone is shredding it?”
Good post. Thanks.
I've seen it in a different sequence, with Edie Palmer (Sedgwick) leaving Warhol to be with Dylan.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/edie-sedgwick
Achilles heel, not Archilles heal. The first is on the back part of the foot below the ankle. The second is a verb meaning “to become sound or healthy again.”
At midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone that knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders and then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles by insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping to Desolation Row
Dang, GOPJ, you just made sense out of a song that made no sense to me whatsoever and I thought was kind of boring.
I must say, looks like nobody could skewer somebody like Dylan could I guess.
Don’t see how that song - and your interpretation makes perfect sense - has anything to do with crucifying “the crux of counterculture’s exposed achilleas heal” other than hippie girls being loose (and UGLY).
Poodle bites, poodle chews it.
“Dirty Love?”
5.56mm
Free wheelin Bob Dylan my favorite.
Come on Frenchy.
Bookmark. I’ve always “gotten” Dylan.
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