Bob Dylan’s Workingman’s Blues #2-The Definitive Interpretation…

Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature! Bob Dylan! Some people are surprised or upset at the news, but not me. Why not Bob? I’m not provincial. His winning rekindled my fan boy fascination with his lyrics, and since he is now a Nobel Prize winner his writing deserves a proper literary analysis. In his fifty-plus year career as a songwriter Dylan has written some incredibly inscrutable lyrics, but also some of the simplest and most sincere. I decided to tackle “Workingman’s Blues #2” from his 2006 album Modern Times. This is one of my favorite songs in Dylan’s catalog and is simultaneously timely and timeless both literally and figuratively, inscrutable yet simple. So here are the lyrics along with my definitive analysis.

There’s an evenin’ haze settlin’ over town
Starlight by the edge of the creek
The buyin’ power of the proletariat’s gone down
Money’s gettin’ shallow and weak
Well, the place I love best is a sweet memory
It’s a new path that we trod
They say low wages are a reality
If we want to compete abroad

My cruel weapons have been put on the shelf
Come sit down on my knee
You are dearer to me than myself
As you yourself can see
While I’m listening to the steel rails hum
Got both eyes tight shut
Just sitting here trying to keep the hunger from
Creeping its way into my gut

Meet me at the bottom, don’t lag behind
Bring me my boots and shoes
You can hang back or fight your best on the frontline
Sing a little bit of these workingman’s blues

The first several lines candidly address the economics of our actual modern times. Dylan’s reference to the proletariat is telling. Proletariat is a word inextricably tied to Marxism, yet Dylan stubbornly resists ties to any political philosophy. Even his hero Woody Guthrie never joined the Communist Party. In using the word Dylan takes a bold political stand, something he hadn’t done in some time. Many of Dylan’s early lyrics were very political; his support of Civil Rights and his anti-war stance in songs like “Blowin in the Wind,” “Masters of War,” and “When the Ship Comes In.” As usual Dylan gets personal too. “My cruel weapons have been put on the shelf.” I believe this is a direct reference to Dylan’s long retreat from political activism. He doesn’t believe in hitting people over the head anymore. I don’t think Dylan ever wanted to be a folk hero, devoted to a singular cause, but he is reminding us that he has not forgotten the common man or woman, nor has he forgotten the lessons of his early heroes, Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly. “You are dearer to me than myself, as you yourself can see.” Dylan paints a lyrical portrait of those he has not forgotten. The clue to a connection with Woody Guthrie is obvious in the proceeding line, “While I’m sitting here listening to the steel rails hum.” He describes the life of a hobo during the Great Depression, hopping freight trains and riding the rails, a time period in which Guthrie wrote voluminously of the lives of the poor. The chorus on the other hand, is a direct reference to Merle Haggard’s “Workingman’s Blues,” the inspiration for the song. Haggard and Dylan were touring partners at the time Dylan wrote it. Merle Haggard’s song has a different tone, but there’s a consistency in the concern for those who actually work for a living.

Okay, second verse…

Well, I’m sailin’ on back, ready for the long haul
Tossed by the winds and the seas
I’ll drag ’em all down to hell and I’ll stand ’em at the wall
I’ll sell ’em to their enemies
I’m tryin’ to feed my soul with thought
Gonna sleep off the rest of the day
Sometimes no one wants what we got
Sometimes you can’t give it away

Now the place is ringed with countless foes
Some of them may be deaf and dumb
No man, no woman knows
The hour that sorrow will come
In the dark I hear the night birds call
I can feel a lover’s breath
I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall
Sleep is like a temporary death

Meet me at the bottom, don’t lag behind
Bring me my boots and shoes
You can hang back or fight your best on the frontline
Sing a little bit of these workingman’s blues

The first lines reference Dylan’s own, “When The Ship Comes In.” The sailing ship imagery is a striking departure from the rest of the song. The consensus on “When the Ship Comes In” is that it is both personal and political, much like this song. The story goes that Dylan, then little known, and Joan Baez attempted to check into a motel. They were refused because of Dylan’s shaggy appearance. When Baez was finally able to get them a room, Dylan sat up writing the song. “When the Ship Comes In” is far more than personal revenge fantasy however. This is Dylan’s genius. He takes his personal degradation and connects it to society’s rejection of the other. “When the Ship Comes In” is another timeless classic and could be a theme for any civil rights movement at any time. The remainder of the verse reminds us that personal heartache often accompanies financial problems. “In the dark I hear the night birds call, I can feel a lover’s breath.” The words are reminiscent of Woody Guthrie’s “I Ain’t Got No Home” where the narrator’s wife, overcome by poverty and hunger, lies down and dies on the cabin floor. Others have suggested that sleeping in the kitchen with his feet in the hall is also a reference to Woody Guthrie, staying up through the night writing his biography Bound for Glory, and perhaps sleeping half in one room and half in another, symbolic of existing half in one world and half in another.[i]

Well, they burned my barn, and they stole my horse
I can’t save a dime
I got to be careful, I don’t want to be forced
Into a life of continual crime
I can see for myself that the sun is sinking
How I wish you were here to see
Tell me now, am I wrong in thinking
That you have forgotten me?

Now they worry and they hurry and they fuss and they fret
They waste your nights and days
Them I will forget
But you I’ll remember always
Old memories of you to me have clung
You’ve wounded me with your words
Gonna have to straighten out your tongue
It’s all true, everything you’ve heard

Meet me at the bottom, don’t lag behind
Bring me my boots and shoes
You can hang back or fight your best on the frontline
Sing a little bit of these workingman’s blues

Verse three is full of Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck. Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath had a powerful effect on Guthrie, leading him to write the song “Tom Joad.” In the song, as in the novel and the John Ford directed film, the Joad family’s house is taken, and Tom Joad realizes that breaking the law can be morally righteous, because the law is on the side of those doing the stealing. (Another example of this is Guthrie’s “Pretty Boy Floyd”) The next few lines blur the message of economic hardship and unfairness with Dylan’s personal feelings. “I can see for myself that the sun is sinking, how I wish you were here to see it, Tell me now, am I wrong in thinking that you have forgotten me?” Again he addresses the devoted, those who loved his early activism. He’s getting older, the sun is sinking, but he wishes they were still with him to listen to what he has to say. Is he wrong in thinking that they’ve forgotten what he was, how much he cared? The last few lines of the verse are heartbreaking. “Them I will forget, but you I’ll remember always.” It is a heartbreaking message to those who believed in the power of Dylan’s words to change the world. He will never forget their dedication. “Old memories of you, to me have clung, you’ve wounded me with your words, gonna have to straighten out your tongue, it’s all true everything you’ve heard” He’s been hurt as well, perhaps by the criticism of those who loved him, for not remaining true to folk or the cause of the people. He’s admitting it’s true, everything you’ve heard. He’s not the man you thought he was. He is a man coming to terms with his guilt, his flaws.

In you, my friend, I find no blame
Wanna look in my eyes, please do
No one can ever claim
That I took up arms against you
All across the peaceful sacred fields
They will lay you low
They’ll break your horns and slash you with steel
I say it so it must be so

Now I’m down on my luck and I’m black and blue
Gonna give you another chance
I’m all alone and I’m expecting you
To lead me off in a cheerful dance
I got a brand new suit and a brand new wife
I can live on rice and beans
Some people never worked a day in their life
Don’t know what work even means

Well, meet me at the bottom, don’t lag behind
Bring me my boots and shoes
You can hang back or fight your best on the frontline
Sing a little bit of these workingman’s blues

Songwriters: Bob Dylan

In the final verse there is reconciliation. “In you my friend, I find no blame, wanna look in my eyes please do, no one can ever claim that I took up arms against you” There it is. I’ve always been on your side, even as I’ve turned from activism and explored love and loss, I never turned against you. Yet Dylan turns this very notion around on itself. The heroes and fans he calls out to are a lost love. “Now I’m down on my luck and I’m black and blue, gonna give you another chance, I’m all alone, I’m expecting you, to lead me off in a cheerful dance” I believe “I can live on rice and beans” is both a final nod to Leadbelly, his New Orleans roots, and a lament at the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, especially in the poor, predominantly African-American neighborhoods of that city. Dylan takes one final swing at the idle rich, “Some people never work a day in their life, don’t know what work even means” before closing the song with the refrain.

This song is heartbreakingly romantic. Like a lover reaching out to a lost love, he’s always been faithful to, but she is still somehow let down, Dylan reaches out to the heroes of his past and to those who fought alongside him to make the world a better place. The feeling of romantic love is not so far from a love of humanity that fills a human heart when it tries to make the world a better place. Both overflow the confines of the heart and inspire generosity of the soul. The song is an elegy to Dylan’s heroes and to his own past and a reaffirmation of his love for the common men and women he inspired.

[i] https://unofficialculture.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/i-sleep-in-the-kitchen-with-my-feet-in-the-hall-the-space-between-art-and-geography/