Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.
(Here, the antagonist, Mr. Bob Dylan, is obviously in a deprived state...and in this lonesome place he reaches out for "Mr. Tamborine Man", an obvious metaphor for help during the quagmire of what is commonly known as a "bad trip", specifically caused, in this case, by too much amphetemines.)
Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand,
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.
(In addition to the help/drug metaphors, there's a recurrent theme of lonlieness and alienation that is common in 19th and 20th century literature, from Mark Twain's Huck Finn to Kerouac's Sal Pardaise from On the Road...combine this with a speed-induced nightmare, and this poor guy is simply begging for a reprieve from a mess he's gotten himself into.)
Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'.
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it.
(Duh. No comment needed here).
Though you might hear laughin', spinnin', swingin' madly across the sun,
It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin'.
And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind,
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seein' that he's chasing.
(Paranoia, again drug induced, along with hallucinary behaviors...makes this one bad night, and he needs his savior, "Mr. Tamborine Man", to shake him loose. I think some of us have been here before).
Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.
(Here's our hero is crying out for help, and it's a deep, soul-searching help he seeks...a kind of clarity achieved through religious epiphanies and the like...and he knows it's out of reach. The madness he's subjected himself to, vis-a-vie his abuse of amphetimines, is simply going to have to subside when the drug finally wears off...and hopefully, it's tomorrow. Now, whether or not that's going to occur is a different story.)
Hope this helps.
