Black Crow Blues

Bob wants his babe back.

He wanders, disconsolate,

And suffers mood swings.

"Black Crow Blues" is the second song on the first side of "Another Side of Bob Dylan." It's the first one on which he plays the piano, and it's a ragged-and-dirty and fun, minor song. Despite its obscure place in the Bob Dylan catalogue, it's a smart, delightful and compact song. It has the usual Dylan concerns of his more "interior" music, listed by verse:

1. Tired, worn out, wishing lover would tell him what it's about.

2. Standing on a highway somewhere, this time by a billboard.

3. She can come to him any time she wants... not that she ever does.

4. Sometimes he's too high to fall, other times he's so low he's not sure he can get up at all.

5. Black crow's in the meadow, sort of like Churchill's black dog, I think. As for Dylan, he doesn't feel scarecrow enough to chase it away. That's a fancy way of saying he has the blues.