Comments on: Can’t Wait

By: Mike Goldthwaite

Mike Goldthwaite — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:22:55 +0000

Just wanted to put my two cents in. I’ve been playing Dylan songs out now for about 6 years and I’m currently teaching myself songs 1 ,and 5 through 8, on Tell Tale Signs. The more I listen to this album, the more it captures my imagination.

How many times I’ve sat on the beach, my back turned towards the water (and sun) ….and yet to come up with the lines Dylan comes up is just astonishing.

“I can see what everybody in the world is up against.
But I’ll stay here…so I can feel the hand of fate…
But I don’t know, how much longer I can wait.”

Pure Genius.

By: Laura

Laura — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:13:55 +0000

this was a very interesting read, i will have to think about this a bit more, but i just wanted to add that the first thing that came to my mind when i heard the ‘I’m breathing hard / I’m standing at the gate / And I don’t know /How much longer I can wait’ lines was the chorus in Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands: ‘.. should I leave them by your gate / or sad-eyed lady should I wait’. i am aware that ‘wait/gate’ is not a very obscure rhyme, but I think as a recurring image of the lover courting/longing for and waiting for his beloved it is still interesting.

By: David

David — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:50:04 +0000

I am curious about the different players at Columbia and Dylan’s organization. You never know what you are going from a Dylan retrospective. Sometimes it’s Commercial grab overkill, and sometimes it’s Can’t Wait. I think we all ran back to Time Out of Mind thinking, “how did I miss this for a dozen years?” And then we realized the differences and smiled. Dylan still has his Stuff. It may be hit or miss, but when it hits, pow!

By: Eyolf Østrem

Eyolf Østrem — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:58:40 +0000

But that’s the beauty of it, isn’t it? That there isn’t one version and nothing else? That’s what makes the songs worth listening to, year out year in, what makes them alive.
This is perhaps taking it a bit too far, but if a song can be compared to a human being (which I think it can), there is no definitive version of Andrew or Jane either. That was precisely my first impression of the 1984 version of Tangled Up In Blue: that I met a person I had known for a long time and saw new sides of him.
As for “what are the lyrics of tuib” — when I perform it, I never know what will come out — it’s a mix of all the different versions, and I have no idea what the “original” goes like anymore.

By: christopher fujino

christopher fujino — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:32:57 +0000

i love doing this kind of lyrical comparison. the only thing about it that bothers me is it often leaves me feeling that there is no definitive set of lyrics–tangled up in blue being the classic example. it’s hard to think about that song for me because there is no default version in my mind. what are the lyrics to tangled up in blue? i don’t know.

and for the record, i always loved the “time out of mind” version of “can’t wait”, so i’m really mixed up now as to which is my favorite.

By: Markus

Markus — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:37:53 +0000

Hi Eyolf,

oh, thanks for checking it out. I’ll be in Scandinavia for the first time in May on a songwriter retreat in Sweden. Maybe I can make some contacts to play Copenhagen some other time.
If you’re interested, there’s an acoustic version of me doing Not Dark Yet in the albums section of markusrill.net
Sorry, didn’t mean to use this as ad space.

Markus

By: Eyolf Østrem

Eyolf Østrem — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:03:39 +0000

Yes, I wonder — if the “I think of her a lot” line had been in the released version, sung the way it is in the outtake, then perhaps Can’t wait for me had already been up there with TTGTH and SITD.
The funny thing is: coming back to the TOOM version of the song now (which I hadn’t listened to in a while, I must admit), I was struck by how good it sounded. And yet, it never captured me. Hm.
Great stuff on your myspace page, btw. I didn’t see anything about a Copenhagen gig on your tour schedule — why is that? :)

By: Markus

Markus — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 23:27:40 +0000

I’m as fond of looking closely at lyrics and their permutations as the next guy but I want to be drawn in to listen close.
And in that respect the versions on Tell Tale Signs do a much better job for me than the Time Out Of Mind version. He is in great voice on that piano version on Tell Tale Signs, I can make out the lyrics clearly and I’m drawn in. And the combination of Bob’s voice, the words and the musical arrangement keeps me engaged throughout
And maybe there’s so much other really great stuff on Time Out Of Mind that Can’t Wait didn’t seem to warrant the kind of close listening that Not Dark Yet, Standing In The Doorway, Trying To Get To Heaven etc. etc. do.
It does now.

By: eyolf

eyolf — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 11:48:04 +0000

@bill: I can’t remember the exact quote at the moment, but Dylan once said in an interview (might have been Newsweek -97 or something) that he couldn’t understand why people (i.e. journalists) thought he was so secretive and elusive when it was all there, in his songs. That can of course be interpreted as yet another mask — that he hides behind his poetic persona — but I find it far easier and more rewarding to take it at face value: he is being honest (a kind of honesty not to be confused with biographical fact, though).

@Michael: Thanks for the reference to the Rebel Rivers — fascinating read. It’s been a while since I wrote that article, but I think — since the River is quite an important image in the text — that I haven’t quite figured out what to do about them. I’ll have another round of thinking if/when I decide to work on it again.

@WM: Interesting interpretation. I don’t know if I agree, but that’s unimportant. I wrote that little “biographical background” in the beginning more than a little tongue-in-cheek; the important thing to me is the “driving emotion” in the song and the different versions, and that doesn’t necessarily depend on the number of people involved. Thanks for the contribution.
I can’t make out that line either.

By: WM

WM — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:46:41 +0000

I’ll throw in my two cents. I never paid much attention to this song on Time out of Mind, but when I heard the Tell Tale Signs versions, wow, they blew me away. I interpret them in much the same way that you do. I detect 3 characters in the song, the narrator, “you,” with whom the narrator is obsessively in love and who is much younger (because for her its not that late), and “she”/”her” the narrator’s partner or wife, if you will. This is the one that he pretends not to belong close to and who will keep his head on straight. Objectively, though, he really does not belong close to her, because she is not satisfying to him. HIs passions are with “you.” I hadn’t picked up on the “forbidden juices” line but that just reinforces my view of the song. For some reason I was hearing “drinking to mend loose ends” but I think I just made that up because I couldn’t understand what he was saying there. He’s clearly been drinking forbidden juices, and he is struggling to end this love, to give up this obsession. He has to because she doesn’t want him anymore, but he can’t seem to let go. Time is running out for him to find what he’s really looking for — he thought it was “you” but “you” doesn’t want him so he’ll stay close to “she” who will keep his head on straight, but that’s not really enough. (And 3 years later we get “Things Have Changed” about being “in love with a woman that don’t even appeal to me.”)

I can’t make out the line before “she can keep my head on straight.” What is it?

By: Michael Griffin

Michael Griffin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:46:39 +0000

Just read your 2001 analysis of Love and Theft, which was very interesting. I noticed you’d not mentioned or overlooked the reference to ‘them rebel rivers’ – the Cumberland, the Ohio, and what-not else – and was curious why. I googled the phrase and found this which may be useful if you ever collect your work for publication

http://www.ccrh.org/comm/cottage/primary/rebel.htm

best wishes

Michael

By: bill

bill — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:05:19 +0000

I have often understood Bob Dylan’s songs to refer to a corporate or plotical ‘you’. I am speeking specifically about what can be described as his love songs. Certainly he sings about love from a personal point of view but consider: Has their been a more elusive and private popular artist in our culture in the past 40 yrs? Ironic that he would bare his soul on an album, public performance etc. His concern for people (ie.’the world’) was his strong point from the beginning and whether thru political or religious language has always been apparent. I think this more figurative object of love allows him to perform these songs each night with an evolving but always relevant meaning.