Saturday, January 24, 2015

Bob Dylan's New Orleans Rag

Bob's friend refers him
To a call girl. Evidence
Suggests she's lethal.

This is a silly song recorded during the sessions for "The Times They Are a-Changin'" in 1963, and is available on the hard-to-find "The 50th Anniversary Collection 1963" set. Bob's in New Orleans, feeling low and mean and all the usual blues feelings, when a guy suggests that he visit a woman who can fix him up. He discovers through the repeated evidence of broken men emerging from her boudoir that she might be a stronger course of antibiotics than he was anticipating. He concludes with warning future busted fellows to seek their pleasures elsewhere.

Here is what happens to the men ahead of him in line for room 103:
1. Couldn't walk, linkin' and a-slinkin', couldn't stand up, moaned, groaned, shuffled down the street.
2. Wiggled and wobbled, could hardly stand, frightened look in eyes as though had fought bear.
3. Long legs, couldn't crawl, muttered and uttered, broken French, looked like had been through monkey wrench.

The scientific method, in other words, comes through for Bob: observe repeated experimentation, then conclude.




1 comment:

  1. Hello there Robert, Thank you for posting this analysis of a song from Bob Dylan's Music Box: http://thebobdylanproject.com/Song/id/86/Bob-Dylans-New-Orleans-Rag Come and join us inside and listen to every song composed, recorded or performed by Bob Dylan, plus all the great covers streaming on YouTube, Spotify, Deezer and SoundCloud plus so much more... including this link.

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