Sunday, August 16, 2015

Rambler Gambler

Leave me alone if
You don't like me. Write to me
If you should need me.

This is an old song in the Dylan catalogue, apparently the second one that he recorded as a solo artist. It's from 1960. It begins with the chorus that anyone who has spent a drunken evening at an Irish bar will know: "I'm a rambler, I'm a gambler, I'm a long way from my home. If the people don't like me, they can leave me alone." He doesn't include the rest, though: "I eat when I'm hungry and I drink when I'm dry, and if the moonshine don't kill me, I'll drink till I die." 

The rest of the song contains these elements:
1. Come sit beside me, I love you boldly.
2. I'll write to you when you're in Wyoming. If you run into trouble, write to me.
3. I had a 16-year-old lover who was a flower of velvet and the rose of Celine.
4. Her parents didn't approve, which meant that eventually, she didn't either. "If I writ on your book, love, just you blot out my name."
5. Lovely verse: "Oh there's changes in the ocean, there's changes in the sea, there's changes in my true love, ain't no change in me."

The song is available on the seventh volume of the Bootleg Series, called "No Direction Home." It's the soundtrack album to the Martin Scorsese documentary on Dylan.



1 comment:

  1. Hello there, Thank you for posting this analysis of a song from Bob Dylan's Music Box: http://thebobdylanproject.com/Song/id/513 Come and join us inside and listen to every song composed, recorded or performed by Bob Dylan, plus all the great covers streaming on YouTube, Spotify, Deezer and SoundCloud plus so much more... including this link.

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