‘The lover who just walked out your door‘ That the one is to be seen as a direct replacement for the other is clear from a similarity in the language used in describing their behaviour: This improvement in her spiritual wellbeing is represented in the song by her substituting one form of love for another – her love for her lover ( eros) by her love for the vagabond ( agape). In addition, improving the vagabond’s physical wellbeing will amount to improving her own spiritual wellbeing. The vagabond represents an opportunity for the woman to help someone else in the same position as she had once been in. She, too, was in the vagabond’s position, in need of help from others. That the vagabond is dressed ‘in the clothes that you once wore’ suggests that he and the woman are identical. It’s not just the orphan and the vagabond who are one and the same. Is standing in the clothes that you once wore’ In each case, perhaps to represent their helplessness, they’re shown to be immobile – standing : This identity is supported by a similarity in the ways they’re described. In a sense the vagabond and the orphan are one and the same at different times – the latter representing past failure to care for others, and the former a new opportunity to do so. A vagabond, like an orphan, is someone in need. There’s an obvious similarity between vagabonds and orphans in an uncaring world. The implication seems to be that she can achieve spiritual renewal by assisting the vagabond.Ĭaring for the vagabond would represent the exact opposite of her behaviour so far. It’s in this context that the vagabond mentioned in the fourth verse becomes relevant. If she’s to avoid spiritual death she needs to act responsibly. This fear of spiritual death gets addressed as the song progresses. Since she’s not actually dead, nor in danger of literal death, the images involving the sky and the saints can be seen as an expression of the woman’s fears of spiritual death.
Instead she’s in danger of being mown down by a horde of saints. She’s imagining, in traditional Christian terms, that she’s on the threshold of heaven, but has little chance of being admitted. ‘Look out, the saints are coming through’Īnd then she becomes aware that she’s no longer on earth:Īgain the woman’s no longer merely anticipating death, but imagining she’s already dead. It’s on this interpretation that the fifth lines of both this verse and the second verse make sense. There’s no time to decide whether the things to be taken will actually last. The urgency of a need to reform is further enhanced by the phrase ‘you think…’. There are things ‘you think will last’ – things of eternal value, which can be a basis for spiritual renewal. Reforming needn’t require a total rejection of her past. The woman’s death, then, (if it were to occur) would be spiritual death resulting from a failure to reform. The term ‘orphan’ perhaps implies a lack of concern for others, an orphan having been deprived of parental care. The child is best seen as the consequences of the woman’s past life which will in some sense destroy her if she doesn’t turn her back on them. The orphan need not be a literal child, and the death need not be a literal, physical death. The imminence of the danger, and the need to ‘leave now’ is enhanced by her death being presented as having already occurred – the child is an ‘orphan’. However, from what follows in the first verse (in particular the reference to the orphan’s gun) this opening line would also seem to imply that there’s a danger of imminent death at the hands of her child. Taken literally, she is doing no more than deciding on a course of action following the departure of her lover and, presumably, the end of their relationship. ‘You must leave now, take what you need you think will last’ Along the way this outlook moves from depression, back to reality and finally to optimism.įrom the outset the woman’s state of mind is associated with death and whether her life has been of moral value:
It traces the development of her mental outlook from the realisation of her situation at the beginning, to her purposeful response to it at the end. As such the song can be taken as her thoughts as she comes to terms with the change in her life and perhaps achieves some sort of spiritual renewal. Although the woman concerned is being addressed by the narrator, it makes sense to see her for most of the time as addressing herself. Essentially it’s about the mental state of someone trying to renew their life following what they see as a calamity – the breakup of a relationship. The first thing to say is that there’s little reason to see It’s All Over Now Baby Blue as ‘about’ an event in Dylan’s life, such as his adopting a new musical style around the time it was written.
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