Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[perspectives]

Hi,

I listened to the genius musican Bob Dylan's song titled 'Bob Dylan's 115th Dream' this morning and found it brillantly cool and hilarious. But there're a few lines that also puzzle me a lot.

Lyrics here: http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/bob-dylans-115th-dream

My questions are:
1. I have yuh understand. Is 'yuh' here 'you'? What does 'I have yuh understand' mean?

2. The waitress he was handsome. Souldn't it be 'waiter' instead of 'waitress'?

3. back in the tank. Does 'tank' , a slang, mean 'jail'?

4. I got some friends down the way. What does 'down the way' mean? Anything particular?

5. The Englishman said :'Fab' . Does 'Fab' mean 'fabulous' 'cool' here?

6. Ran out to the street
When a bowling ball came down the road
And knocked me off my feet
A pay phone was ringing
It just about blew my mind
When I picked it up and said hello
This foot came through the line
Part of this stanza baffles me most. What does 'This foot came though the line' mean here? Does it have anything to do with 'I put my foot in my mouth'?


Thank you for your help in advance.

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[CP]

Good for you, listening to and appreciating the splendid music of Bob Dylan.

1. Yes, "yuh" means "you." When speaking informally, it's fairly common for people to pronounce it that way. How yuh doin', man?

2. Yes, waiter is male, waitress is female, so "the waitress he was handsome" is technically wrong. Dylan probably wrote and sang it that way to be funny, or to suggest that the waiter was effeminate. After all, it's a song, and about a dream, so you can't expect it to be without ambiguity.

3. Yes, "tank" means "jail" here. Notice he has just mentioned getting bail, which is money used to get someone out of jail. There are many other slang or colloquial words for "jail," including tank, can, slam, slammer, gray-bar motel, hoosegow, big house (more likely used for prison than for jail), etc.

4. "Down the way" just means somewhere not too far away, without being very specific.

5. Yes, "fab" is short for "fabulous," and when this song was written, "fab" was only recently introduced to Americans from Britain thanks to the "invasion" of British pop and rock music that occurred in the 1960s--ancient history to you, but the good old days to me.

6. You ask an interesting question, and it's a nice interpretation of the lyric. It's a song, which doesn't have to have a single meaning to one and all, and should be open to interpretation. You will never hear Bob Dylan explain what he meant, because he knows that even he, the author, doesn't necessarily know the correct answers, and anyway, there may be many correct answers. As far as I am concerned, your interpretation is better than any other I've heard.

By the way, I'm pretty sure this is the first instance of the term "blew my mind," which immediately became part of the language. Like Shakespeare, Dylan was (still is) able to invigorate the language with innovative words and phrases that endure.
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You live a new life for every new language you speak. -Czech proverb

[perspectives]

Thank you so much, CP, for your detailed explanation.

I love a lot of Bob Dylan's songs which are not only humorous but also meaningful.

As for 'down the way' in that context, could it be possiblely to mean that their friends and Capatain Arab were put in the jail? Just the narrator described it in an understatement?

Thank you once again.