Expecting Rain

After the disputed merits of the NET, it's the big hot topic among Dylan fans. There's so many, but a few I like are :

He been around the world ... and back again

The moon is almost hidden, the stars are beginning to hide

[The admittedly preposterous] He was wearing boxing gloves, he took a dive one day ... off the Golden Gate Bridge into China Bay

The opening of Idiot Wind, when that which seems to be straight forwardly autobiographical leads into They say I shot a man named Gray.

All of 'Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands'

A Nam vet was fighting the best he knew how for the right things as he knew them, (boxing gloves, he ain't got his M-16 anymore, or his trusty 81mm mortar), the Golden Gate is in San Francisco, home to the HaightAshbury love/magic of the "Kids" in the Sixties, so the symbology becomes: even in the presence of the love, despair at finding a place in society worth having drove him to death, cuz of Nam, (China Bay).

Looks like I've just learned my new word for the day.

It's one of those topics you just keep wanting to return to isn't it? I like "Riding first class trains, making the rounds ... tryin' to keep from fallin' between the cars".

Paraprosdokians-- so hard to say, so easy to understand.

Maybe these?

Beat a path of retreat up them spiral staircases

My woman got a face like a teddy bear
She’s tossin’ a baseball bat in the air

This one certainly applies to Bob:

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

superb! Another reason why it's such a fabulous song that SO many people completely miss

Me, too. For a second there, I was afraid it was about another no-talent Kardashian family member.

"Gonna save my money ... and rip it up!" - brilliant!

The sun's not yellow, it's chicken.

Myself, I'm a malaprop man.

I think that this may be a Paraprosdokian:

And I would send a message
To find out if she’s talked
But the post office has been stolen
And the mailbox is locked

Politician got on his jogging shoes
He must be running for office, got no time to lose.

yes?

http://www.englishforums.com/content/hu ... okians.htm

Oh, OK...

Just about every song in his arsenal contains them...

Ballad of a Thin Man

Bob Dylan's 115th Dream

Buckets of Rain

Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window

Cat's In the Well

Dignity

Dirt Road Blues...

...in fact it would almost be easier to list the Bob Dylan songs in which one won't find paraprosdokians...but I would never admit that Bob Dylan was anything less than hard anyway

I am not sure I quite understand them. So it means that the ending of the line makes you reassess the first part.

In that case, would these lines from Hard Rain count:

I saw a new-born baby with wild wolves all around it (I get, or at least got, a cosy image of a swaddling babe, then Bob brings the predators in).

I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it (lovely sparkly image, crashes into loneliness at the end).

I saw ten-thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken (rousing start, painful last bit).

If this is what paraprosdokians are, then are quite a lot of them in Dylan. He does a good job on pulling the rug out from under our feet, especially in the case of cliches.

It’s a wicked life but what the hell
from Goin' To Acapulco

Talkin' Hava Negiliah Blues:

Here's a foreign song I learned in Utah

Let's not forget about:

An' he just smoked my eyelids
An' punched my cigarette.

When I heard this song for the first time I definitely did not see that coming

Yes, I guess I could make it without you
If I just didn’t feel so all alone


from Obviously Five Believers

Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance:

Well, I’ve been lookin’ all over
For a gal like you
I can’t find nobody
So you’ll have to do

The waitress he was handsome

There's not that many real ones. To be a valid paraprosdokian it has to be more than unusual or witty, it needs to make you change your line of thinking about what is being said. This is a good one.



At first I'm thinking: He's doing well, after all he's riding first class trains.
Then I think: No wait, he's not doing well. He's a hobo and he's riding on top of the first class trains.


Here's another one (I think):

Well my captain he’s decorated—he’s well schooled and he’s skilled
My captain, he’s decorated—he’s well schooled and he’s skilled
He’s not sentimental—don’t bother him at all
How many of his pals have been killed

At first you think his captain is a fine fellow.
Then you change your mind abruptly and think the opposite.

Well, I looked at my watch
I looked at my wrist
I punched myself in the face
With my fist