Expecting Rain

In the thread on Visions of Johanna, the influence of Ginsberg's great recasting of the Mourner's Kaddish upon that song has been highlighted by rimbaud. Certainly the influence of Kaddish on Sad Eyed Lady is aglow & apparent :

with your eyes of Russia/with your eyes of no money ... with your eyes of your failure at the piano/with your eyes of your relatives in California/with your eyes of Ma Rainey dying in an ambulance/with your eyes of Czechoslovakia attacked by robots

into

with your mercury mouth in the missionary times/and your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes ... with your childhood flames on your midnight rug/and your Spanish manners and your mother's drugs ... with your saintlike face/and your ghostlike soul

where rhythmic biographical cataloguing is used to commemorate a life -
but in Sad Eyed Lady's case it commemorates a life that's still being lived.

In fact, Sad Eyed Lady, for all its lyrical memoralising, for all its elegiac feel, is an anti-Kaddish.
I think Dylan may have been inspired by Ginsberg's poem about mortality into a direct and appropriately imaginative response : a prayer to immortality - Oh, who among them do they think could bury you? Who among them do they think could carry you? Oh, who among them do you think could destroy you?

That's a very interesting thought, thank you, I may not hear the song the same way again.

Yeah, great thought. I'll have to check both out again.

Very good observation there.

sorry, I thought you said something about my Auntie Gladys... not all of us speak these obscure ancient tongues!

Hey Telltale,
Guess what?you are wrong

I agree.

Slim, I'm picturing Nurse Gladys Emmanuel from 80s sitcom Open All Hours, buxom and auburn in her fullsome loveliness! - and if she's your Auntie then that means that she married stuttering tightwad Arkwright after all ... and therefore you must be ... David Jason!

Telltale, yeah, I noticed the same thing about Kaddish and Sad Eyed Lady; not so much that it's an anti-Kaddish, but the stylistic similarities in the "with your ..." refrain.

That passage from Kaddish is used in Renaldo and Clara, of course.
And Bob Dylan did say in 1966 that it was a prayer.
So, I think telltale's observations are spot on.

A jolly fine observation, old man.

Great observation, telltale. This song is like a hymn. I'll never forget the first time I heard it. I can remember the smallest details about what I was doing because it made such an impact.


A little bit from Countdown Kid's Blog. Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands was the #1 song in his countdown.

The narrator makes his point by piling up the praise, both of her beauty (“your saintlike face”) and her nature (“your gentleness now that you just can’t help but show.”) But he also is in awe of the way she overcomes the hordes of marauders that wish to extinguish her inner light. That’s why he keeps asking those questions, the “Who among them” questions, because he knows what the answer is: None of them can carry, bury, persuade, employ, or destroy her. That is the ultimate commendation he can give.

And so the narrator decides to try his hand, having proven that he’s not like the other guys. He goes to the Lowlands himself, but doesn’t storm her gate, an action which would have just put him in the same class as all the rabble he just described. With only his humble offerings in tow (“My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,”) he leaves it up to her: “Should I leave them by your gate/Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?”

I always conjure up a mental image of Dylan at this point in the song, standing outside in the wind and the rain, blowing on his harmonica with impassioned gusto, staring up at her silhouette in the window, awaiting her reply. As a matter of fact, that’s kind of how I picture him in general, forever walking that lonely road, living that half-romantic, half-tragic life, allowing us to experience all of the wonder and woe of this unforgiving world through him. I know he rolls out of bed like everybody else, but a small part of me wants to believe he’ll always be in front of those gates, fighting the honorable fight for the rest of us.

interesting thread. For me 'sad eyed lady' as impressive as it is, has never totally 'worked' as a song, as well as I would want it to (to justify taking up a whole 'album side' when there were those things)... at least not quite as well, as say 'visions of johanna' (from the same album).... but that being said, its still incredibly impressive and quite something special..

How rude- and misplaced. It may be over two years ago, but he or she has given this some thought, made a plausible case- just read the two passages, and remember how close Dylan was to Ginsberg at the time- and expressed him or herself very well, in doing so. You've turned up with nothing other than 'You are wrong', and a rolling with laughter emoticon.

it took a few spins but the rage comes through in the "Kings of Tyrus" verse and it's as big as LARS. It's got a fine chorus so it works as song. Very easy to imagine future trouble with that Sad Eyed Lady, though. This is the poet's mistake always when the subject rejects the narrative.

If I'd have had that thought when I was doing an extended piece on Kaddish at Uni, I reckon I'd have got a higher mark.

Brilliant observation - I shall give this some more thought and write more.

Most interesting post in ages, by the way...