Posted on 06/04/2023 3:05:21 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The short answer is no. It’s almost beyond the antithesis of sexist. It plays with male self-pitying norms so much that it is almost post-sexist, a satire of the patriarchal break-up songs that went before it. However, it is easy to see why some think the opposite on first glance, and that is the triumph of Bob Dylan and how he pushed music on to a new literary height. Lyrically speaking, ‘Just Like a Woman’ is, in fact, one of his finest progressive triumphs.
Paul Simon once said, “With Dylan, everything he sings has two meanings. He’s telling you the truth and making fun at the same time.” With ‘Just Like a Woman’ he paints himself as a victim, but then reveals – like the consummate unreliable narrator – that the truth is he is, in fact, the wrongdoer and the resultant acrimony has nothing to do with the supposed ways of womanhood.
“Nobody feels any pain,” he sings in a defiant fashion. Then in the very next line, he reveals the lie of the first: “Tonight as I stand inside the rain.” He’s not merely caught in a storm here, if he was then there’s room enough for the syllables of “outside in the rain” within the melody. But that’s not the case, the rain we’re dealing with is a downcast disposition—the weepy movie character roving the wet streets in destress. So, with one deft touch, Dylan informs those paying close attention that this here singer is a liar and he’s actually riddled with a lot of pain at present.
From then on, when the singer points the finger at his fairweather former lover we are able to infer that his attack is loaded with bitterness rather than truth. We are dealing with a self-pitying man who has been – to use the parlance of our times – triggered by a break-up and is now going on the offensive. However, seeing as though it is his former lover, he can’t go in too hard or that would somehow implicate him, so he says that she was, essentially, a great catch, it’s just that she got away. This wasn’t due to his own shortcomings but because she was cursed by the fickle flaws of the opposite sex unlike his strong, painless male constitution.
Then after rattling off her faults, he covertly declares that his sexist effrontery is, indeed, a mask that serves to hide his own issues like Tony Soprano getting defensive on the therapist’s couch. “Ain’t it clear that I just can’t fit,” he eventually confesses in the glim hope that all the sullying he has said beforehand muddies his own heartache and he can still cling to his Brando-like manhood.
But then in one beautifully poetic moment, he is forced to admit his own vulnerability. “But when we meet again, introduced as friends / Please don’t let on that you knew me when, I was hungry and it was your world,” he epically writes—quick as flash returning to his attack as though to whisk that plea for mercy out of sight and mind in a renewed wail of derision. It is the narrator’s call for a public truce that lets him come out on top in the eyes of society. Without getting too salacious, we could even garner that this might be about Joan Baez and how she was the Queen of Folk before he came along and she welcomed him into her throng as King rather than the other way around.
This is all the more prescient in this day and age when frequently women are exposed to toxic public behaviour from men followed by the covert private confession this is actually a face saving way of sheltering my own vulnerability, eg. ‘I’m being nasty because I’m hurt babe, it’s a mark of love and you should be proud, besides please don’t do the same to me because I’m sensitive’. Even in 1966, long before social media heightened this dangerous misogynist behaviour, Dylan was pointing out the nettlesome dynamic of this through his troubled narrator.
To wrap things up, he sings the last line with a softness that was absent in his previous scathing verses, a whimpering last word. He’s said his break-up piece, very little has been reconciled and now he is moving on unscathed, the pain having passed through a toxic outburst. The perpetrator now off scot free, hoping that when they meet as friends she sticks to his story. And just like that, Dylan shows that even in break-ups, the books are cooked toward the cocks of this world.
It is far from a flaw that this doesn’t always immediately come across and people might catch the wrong drift, that is the beauty of the songwriting here: it has a depth that yearns to be explored. A thousand simple pop songs before it were outrageously sexist and they were taken with a pinch. Dylan subverted that; writing a song that is ostensibly sexist not to be taken with a pinch of salt, so that when the depth is pried at the mechanisms of misogyny are revealed, using irony to expose a greater sense of truth in a truly entertaining fashion.
As Lou Reed decreed of his work: “You don’t want to actually listen to the lyrics of a rock ‘n’ roll record. I mean, for what? It’s not like when you read a book and you come across a great line, it would be great if you got that in a song I thought.” Adding: “Now, other than Dylan, there’s not much there.” Like a book, with Dylan you not only have great lines, but a lot of reading between them to relish.
True, and any honest poet would think the same.
It reminds me of when Akira Kurosawa received his lifetime Oscar in 1990, and in his acceptance speech said, "I am very deeply honored to receive such a wonderful prize, but I have to ask whether I really deserve it. I'm a little worried, because I don't feel that I understand cinema yet. I really don't feel that I have yet grasped the essence of cinema. Cinema is a marvelous thing, but to grasp its true essence is very, very difficult. But what I promise you is that from now on I will work as hard as I can at making movies and maybe by following this path I will achieve an understanding of the true essence of cinema and earn this award."
WHO is complaining about this?
That’s your answer right there, then.
Can’t stand his singing. His lyrics are epic, though.
How about Billy Joel’s “She’s Always A Woman”?
Might not be true anymore, Billy.
Thank you! Going to look into Akira Kurosawa movies.
Watching clips on IMDb.
‘Ran’ is basically a re-telling of ‘King Lear.’
But, so was ‘A Thousand Acres’ (perennial favorite!) by Jane Smiley which won the Pulitzer.
Shouldn’t Shakespeare be getting royalties on his stories? ;)
Looks interesting, either way. Again, Thanks. :)
the fect he wrote about this makes him a B*tch... I can understand minorities and women writing about what ever they feel that day, but when a man writes about basicly toxic masculinity and sexism, its pathetic...
fact*
‘Ran’ is basically a re-telling of ‘King Lear.’
Kurosawa thought about filming a sequel, "Also Ran," and then a threequel set in Persia, "I Ran."
(Yes, I'm just kidding.)
”Sometimes a lyric is just a lyric. do you really think we all live on a yellow submarine. “
Does she make love just like a woman?
Or does she break just like a little girl?
Therefore, nothing is.
It’s ART, that’s what it is. Don’t like it, don’t listen to it.
Big Dylan fan, that song is not a fave of mine, but so what who cares?
Aren't those two sentences essentially saying the exact opposite thing? No one was arguing that the Beatles were actually living in a yellow submarine. They were contending it was allusion to drugs, or some other symbolism.
Lyrically Speaking: In what ways is Bob Dylan “Just Like a Woman”?
No.
Reality doesn't care about the subtleties.
I loved Harry Chapin and Al Stewart much more than Dylan, but it is notable that both of these musical musical idols of mine lionize Dylan.
Kind of like Admiral Levine, nudge nudge!
I’m also a huge Al Stewart fan. Harry Chapin is okay but I find his songs often overly sentimental and mawkish.
Al is my drug of choice! I see him about twice a year, the next time will be Aug 26. My favorite song is Somewhere in England 1915, but there are about 150 others I really love. Glad to know a fellow patriot who loves Al!
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