It's probably for the best. If you're a casual fan, you probably won't be clicking the link and listening to a boggling 16-minute epic. It's Bob Dylan's longest song. And if you are in any way a Bob Dylan fan, you can vouch that the 16-minutes flies by.
It does this by constantly looping a blues riff, which is done by an organ. The pacing's at a funeral pall pace. Like Nick Cave's "More News From Nowhere," the song is seen through the eyes of one person in a day where not much happens at all, and you can't stop listening to it - partly because of Dylan's masterful control of the song, and partly because the riff is so hypnotic.
In my AP class in high school, we dissected a poem by either T.S. Eliot or William Butler Yeats. It doesn't matter. The poem was seen through the eyes of someone who appeared to be at the sunset of his life, but our teacher challenged us to question whether it was an old man, or a twentysomething who is an "old soul."
No such ambiguity exists on "Highlands". The character is alone, and unfortunately, probably confined to a crappy apartment.
"I'm listening to Neil Young, I gotta turn up the sound / Someone's always yelling 'Turn it down.'"
After making a few musings on his life, he summons up the energy to go outside. And he is so detached, he can't tell if it's a holiday or not. Then he saunters down to a restaurant where he has one of the most memorable encounters with a waitress in rock. Once again, not much happens, but the delivery is absolutely arresting.
The waitress recognizes him as an artist and demands to have her picture drawn. The man makes a few sketches and hands it back. She throws it back at him, saying it doesn't look a thing like her. He responds "He wished it didn't look like her either." Finally, it ends with the waitress challenging the old man if he's ever read women authors.
“Well,” she says, “you just don’t seem like you do!”
I said, “You’re way wrong”
She says, “Which ones have you read then?” I say, “I read Erica Jong!”
She goes away for a minute
And I slide up out of my chair
I step outside back to the busy street but nobody’s going anywhere
I said, “You’re way wrong”
She says, “Which ones have you read then?” I say, “I read Erica Jong!”
She goes away for a minute
And I slide up out of my chair
I step outside back to the busy street but nobody’s going anywhere
The ending of the song is slightly cryptic "The sun is beginning to shine on me, but it's not like sun that used to be." He then says "The party's over / and there's less and less to say." But he resigns himself to the future ("I'll figure it out somehow").
If there was a time where I wish LaLa were back in business, it would be now. Just take my word for it. Track down this song by all means.
And then I'll be back with something much shorter. I need to get some Wire into the fold to bring my average song length back down to the five-minute range.
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