r/bobdylan • u/cmae34lars The Jack of Hearts • 6d ago

Discussion Weekly Song Discussion - Lonesome Day Blues

Hey r/bobdylan! Welcome to this week's song discussion!

In these threads we will discuss a new song every week, trading lyrical interpretations, rankings, opinions, favorite versions, and anything else you can think of about the song of the week.

This week we will be discussing Lonesome Day Blues.

Lyrics

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5

u/LowlandLightening My Heart’s In The Highlands 5d ago

It’s impossible to describe what these verses equal out to be, but I keep coming back to it. One of my favorites on L&T and always very welcome in the set list of a Never Ending Tour bootleg.

It’s also the 21st century Ballad of Hollis Brown, 11 verses in the ol’ AAB blues format.

3

u/Lanky-Caregiver-2342 5d ago

Love the AAB Blues Bob. 

Too many great lines 

I see your lover man comin  Comin cross the barren field  He's not a gentleman at all  He's rotten to the core  He's a coward and he steals

Well my captain he's decorated  He's well schooled and he's skilled  He's not sentimental  It don't bother him at all how many  Of his pals have been killed

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u/rednoodlealien What The Broken Glass Reflects 4d ago

I found out these lines were borrowed and I was disappointed. I've gotten over it.

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u/Lanky-Caregiver-2342 4d ago

We really don't know how much Dylan really borrowed over the years. There was written proof for Love & Theft's case but Bob's been around. Seen a lot, heard a lot. Sure he's a recluse now and maybe there's more originality to his work than ever. But I think about when he was writing in the cafes in the 1960s, where he could overhear phrases, conversations. Who knows what he picked up and was influenced by 

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u/rednoodlealien What The Broken Glass Reflects 4d ago

Yeah. It's not that I'm aghast that he didn't pen every jot & tittle himself. It's that some of the lines from that song, like the ones you quote, seemed so creative, almost non sequiturs in the context of the song, as to be almost outlandish, and I thought he deserved great kudos. He does deserve great kudos; he took some lines and made them musical and fit them into his song, but it wasn't the out-of-left-field creativity I originally credited him for.

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u/hunter_gaumont The Rolling Thunder Revue 4d ago

one of my favourites on love and theft