Shooting Star and Mourning:
Most Bob Dylan fans know that he is not alien to the ideas of loss and Heartbreak. However, these ideas are normally in lamenting the end of a relationship, songs of heartbreak, as poignant as they often are, they rarely touch on a very real reality for heartbreak and loss; death. However, there is one song, that I think, is about loss of another through death: ‘Shooting Star’
The song is almost a foreshadow of Dylan’s disasterous follow up album, ‘Under the Red Sky’, with its almost child-like sound it could almost be a nursery rhyme. A big problem with Under the Red Sky was that it felt like a collection of nursery rhymes. However, unlike Under the Red Sky, this song has good production and is only child-like in its sound.
Seen a shooting star tonight
And I thought of you
You were trying to break into another world
A world I never knew
I always kind of wondered
If you ever made it through
Seen a shooting star tonight
And I thought of you
When we analyse these lyrics we have to remember that Bob Dylan is a religious person, and that can influence some of his imagery. The imagery in this is pretty obvious, it’s about somebody that the singer once knew who is now deceased. This is apparent when you consider it’s a shooting star (coming from the skies, where heaven is) and that they were trying to “break into another world” which would be about getting into heaven. Whoever the singer is still alive, because they can’t tell whether whoever was deceased made it or not; they can’t see into the world of the dead, they’ve never been there, because they’re alive.
Seen a shooting star tonight
And I thought of me
If I was still the same
If I ever became what you wanted me to be
Did I miss the mark or overstep the line
That only you could see?
Seen a shooting star tonight
And I thought of me
The second part of the song finds the singer reflecting on themself because of the shooting star; because of thoughts about whoever it is they’re thinking of. It further alludes to the fact that the person in question is dead, because the singer is left wondering about everything, they’ve been given no definitive conclusion that something like a break-up would provide. It also adds a small time frame for the song, whoever it was that died had done so long ago, which is seen by “if I was still the same”, as that implies enough time has passed wherein somebody can change as a person.
Listen to the engine, listen to the bell
As the last fire truck from hell
Goes rolling by
All good people are praying
It’s the last temptation, the last account
The last time you might hear the sermon on the mount
The last radio is playing
Suddenly, the song takes a darker twist, it is recounting a funeral now, the funeral of the subject for the first two parts. There’s a bell from a church, a fire truck coming straight from hell, adding to the imagery of heaven and hell established in the first part, there’s prayer going around and it’s the last time whoever died will hear, feel, see, experience anything. It’s a sudden jerk into the past that removes the whimsey from death and takes it into the despair and truth of a funeral.
Seen a shooting star tonight
Slip away
Tomorrow will be
Another day
Guess it’s too late to say the things to you
That you needed to hear me say
Seen a shooting star tonight
Slip away
At the end of the song, the singer laments that they never got to say whatever it is they needed to say, be it love, friendship, sorry or anything else. However, they recognise that life keeps on moving on, that there’s no need to linger on the past. Finally, the shooting star slips away, showing how the singer has finally moved on and had stopped being fixated by the deceased.
I believe the ambiguity in this song helps it with being so powerful, it’s hard not to relate to it if you’ve lost somebody. This isn’t a song directed to a lover, or anybody in particular; just somebody that you might have once known and has died.
