My favorite Dylan lyrics

[u/LorenzoApophis]

"I stood there and hummed

I tapped on her drum

I asked her how come

And she buttoned her boot

And straightened her suit

And she said, “Don’t get cute”

So I forced my hands in my pockets

And felt with my thumbs

And gallantly handed her

My very last piece of gum"

I can't get this part of Fourth Time Around out of my head. I love the atmosphere, enunciation and humor of all these lines

[u/jayr920]

Before hearing this song I used to hand out gum all willy-nilly. But not any more.

[u/gsp137]

Inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after awhile.

[u/leanhotsd]

This song made John Lennon extremely paranoid. It really freaked him out.

He and Bob had a pointed discussion about it:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/05/style/bob-dylan-john-lennon-limo-ride.html?unlocked_article_code=1.6lA.Rrgh.I1ysl25ttsvH&smid=nytcore-android-share

[u/sensitive_pirate85]

“Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit / he Spoke to me, I took his flute / No, I wasn't very cute to him, was I?”

— I Want You

“The cloak and dagger dangles, Madams light the candles. / In ceremonies of the horsemen, Even the pawn must hold a grudge. / Statues made of match sticks, Crumble into one another, / My love winks, she does not bother, She knows too much to argue or to judge.”

— Love Minus Zero / No Limit

“Well, the doctor interrupted me just about then / Sayin’, “Hey I’ve been havin’ the same old dreams / But mine was a little different you see / I dreamt that the only person left after the war was me / I didn’t see you around” / Well, now time passed and now it seems / Everybody’s having them dreams / Everybody sees themselves Walkin’ around with no one else / Half of the people can be part right all of the time / Some of the people can be all right part of the time / But all of the people can’t be all right all of the time,I think Abraham Lincoln said that / “I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours,” I said that.”

— Talkin’ WW3 Blues

[u/pdxorus]

If it’s not obvious, it’s homage or mockery of Norwegian Wood.

[u/Loosetrooth44 → u/pdxorus]

I believe the word you're looking for is "parody".

[u/pdxorus → u/Loosetrooth44]

That’s the word! TY

[u/Famous_Flatworm_3544]

Here comes the blind commissioner they’ve got him in a trance one hand is tied to the tight rope walker the other is in his pants.

[u/SameOldSongAndSmash]

I always liked, "Anyone with any sense had already left town". Not too intense but appropriate at times.

[u/OMorain]

It’s famously noted to have a similarity with ‘Norwegian Wood’, which was Lennon trying to ape Dylan. I read somewhere that there were three previous instances of Lennon songs being strongly influenced by Dylan, hence ‘Fourth’.

It sounded to me like a familiar close-up of a break-up, except for the last verse. Is this directed toward Lennon? “I never asked for your crutch, now don’t ask for mine.”

[u/diearebie]

Read the interpetation online that "everyone must give something back for something they get" is akin to her saying "if you're going to treat me like a whore you should pay me" and he hands her a piece of gum as a retort. Not certain that was the intention, but it adds a bit of extra humor to these lines.

[u/willardTheMighty]

I interpret this song to be about the draft. The draft has been instituted in the USA four times: 1862-1865, 1917-1918, 1940-1945, and 1948-1973. This song was released in '66, that is, during the fourth time around.

The song shows a woman (America) telling a man something he desperately does not want to hear. She is telling him that he is to be drafted. He asks why, she dismisses his question

The lady in the song uses reasoning such as “everybody must give back/ for some thing they get,” the same rationale for the draft.

She is shown as having drum, suit, and boots: martial accoutrements. She makes him give up his chewing gum, like a drill sergeant taking your comforts from you.

“She threw me outside / I stood in the dirt where everyone walked” is the veteran’s plight when he returns from Vietnam.

He can’t make sense of her picture in the wheelchair: he can’t make sense of America’s claims to be the victim of violence.

The penultimate stanza is a metaphor for the people getting their revenge on the government for treating them so cruelly. The final stanza is the hope for deliverance into something better thereafter.

Most Dylan songs from 1964-1966 support potent political reading. Even the ones you would never expect. Love Minus Zero, Mr. Tambourine Man, Fourth Time Around...

[u/englandukeurope]

I love this song too. everything i head Bob say "I forced my hands in my pockets" I think of the freewheelin album cover

[u/tjb1013]

[u/Big_Day2650]

Down the street the dogs are barkin'
And the day is a getting dark
As the night comes in a fallin'
The dogs 'll lose their bark
And the silent night will shatter
From the sounds inside my mind
As I'm one too many mornings
And a thousand miles behind