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From: Denton91
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  • The curtain had been lifted and the gambling wheel shut down. Anyone with any sense had already left town, He was standing in the doorway, looking like the jack of hearts. Easily the best songwriter of my lifetime.

  • I saw Joan Baez do this song live in 2002 or so. It is hard to describe, on another level. I think the thing that made it so memorable for me is that she dared to do this song. It's Dylan's song, though, and there's nothing like the original. It has been one of my theme songs ever since I first heard it.

  • His voice was quite good at this stage,more pleasant than his very young voice. I'll listen to him at any period of his career though---there's just so much more to think about in his songs than in the average stuff on the radio,both then and now.

  • "She had done a lot of bad things, even once tried suicide"

    that's bad alright, too bad. but i knowed a few and the girl with the scars on her wrist, she already been through enough she's more like a baby bird fallen from the nest but still alive

  • im glad to see youre still alive and lookin like a saint.

  • second to  "desolation row" only

  • this song is second only to "desolation row" which is also one of his songs

  • this song is second only to dylan's

    'desolation row"....love reading others interpretation of this ones meaning.....regardless of any deep symbolic meaning, the story itself is absolutely intriguing

  • great song, great album...

  • Suppose its best to leave the origins of someone's creativity to the creator of it. But one can speculate or read there own interpretation of what the writer is saying. personally I believe based on the lyrics that the song is based upon a card game. Suppose ones station in life is based a bit on luck and good management. I find it strange though how my 'mind set' influences the hand I'm dealt. If I feel confident I seem to get a better hand than when I feel nervous and afraid.

  • I think jst to be gaii that im going to call my little boy jack cose im named

    Lily Rosemary hart frame

    so im gonna carryy on and call him jack

    and i hate this song kinda xxxxx

    we wil now be lily rosemary and the jak of HART frame x

  • Or...you know... the song could be totally interpretive, open to whatever you think it should be about. Songs, or life, really, doesn't have a set definition.

  • Well put...:)

  • Who cares what it's really abiut - it's still the second best song ever written

  • Everyone has it wrong. The song is about a game of five stud pocker. The face cards being the main characters. Jim the King of Hearts. Lily the Queen of Hearts. The Jack of Hearts.Rosemary the Queen of spades. These are the main characters. All other face cards the minor characters So its a card game unfolding in real life even though its pure fiction. Brillantly concieved,written and sung. If Bob reads this I'm sure he'll agree but not let anyone know for sure.lol

  • Malcolmacdo is right. If I had to spend time like Jack shi polishing my poems like raw diamonds hours in the studio,on the road,eating like a king,in the crapper like a pawn,making it with me Queen I wouldn't have enough time to ace it through the day, Bobbie

  • brilliant as usuall

  • stanley....it was the best of times, it was the worst of times"....that's about all i remember from tale of two cities....it's been a long time since high school....wish i sat next to you in school though...seems like you'd be a good guy to copy from!!

  • amazing...

  • Lol i dont really like this song tbqh

    but my dad loved it :s and i was named

    after it :@ i dont actuaually get it ?

    whats the lyrics ????

    :S:S wtf the camajots or watever ?

    catch ! :O

  • @XLily96 It's a great "story tellin' song"

  • Fabulous casting, camelotjs! My favorite Dylan song ever. I always though it make a great film. I pictured Val Kilmer as Jack, in the shape he was in Tombstone.

    Johnny Depp would be great!

  • @Sharona903 Totallly! "I'm your Huckleberry, that's just my game!" But who will play Diamond JIm???

  • my favorite bobby d song..."lilly had already taken all of the die out of her hair. she was thinking about her father who she very rarely saw, thinking about rosemary and thinking about the law, but most of all she was thinking about the jack of hearts" genius..pure genius..

  • @skontch1 I think it's a parallel of "Tale of Two Cities" except Rosemary is Sydney, dying for the alleged 'criminals.'

  • one of dylan's better songs !!

  • I really hope they make this a movie, it would be brilliant!

  • This would make a great feture film.

  • what a gorgeous song ... bobby has been inspired from above once again...

  • For us lovers of Russian Lit...this song is gold!!!

  • jack would obviosly be played by johny depp

  • great song

  • yeah to everyone who has said this would make a great movie.i could not agree more.but who would play lily? rosemary/?and jack?

  • Well, if Jack is Johnny Depp (perfect!), how about Kate Winslet and Scarlett Johannsen for Lily and Rosemay and James Gandolfino for Big Jim!

  • @camelotjs - nice casting!

  • im hearing you it would make a great movie

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  • Ooohh...Guy Ritchie...Good call.

  • if it was a made into a movie it would be perfect for guy ritche

  • ..bravo....Jay, ya said it all ! yep.....

  • I have wondered this since the first time I heard this song...why oh why has it not been made into a movie!!! I had read somewhere there was a screenplay written but it just SCREAMS a great movie. But, then again, I doubt a movie could be more vivid than what plays in my head.

  • closest thing to a movie of this: DEADWOOD, the series on HBO which is now available on DVD...an absolute must see....Big Jim is played by Powers Booth, one evil dude, perhaps worse than Swearingen, the owner of the 'caberet", Swearingen's, competition for Big Jim's place

  • my name is lily

  • well hot diddley damn

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  • i cannot play poker without singing this song to myself

  • classic bob almost 40 year old song still amazing thanks for posting man

  • Shut the fuck up. This is the best!

  • lol

  • It's only a comment and an opinion, apologies if I offend the 'dyed in the wool' type. Gosh, live YOUR life, not his.

  • She's OK, but I don't like her changes to the lyrics and her tempo is too stationary - the whole thing has the wrong feeling if sung by anyone but dylan.

  • lol yeah right

  • What a song!,be happy peeps,dont go too deep.

  • I think when you get a tattoo Jesus crys.

  • i feel like the jack of hearts sometimes

  • how can u feel like a fictional character that was only observed in the story?

  • feelings dont need explanation

  • This song is soooooooo good.

  • THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST!

  • love this song! love this album! dos't ger much better than this!

  • I think Joan's version sucks.

  • Well, ....horse racing, etc. I love her version!

  • Joan Baez also does a nice version of his song.

  • and a happy birthday to our birthday boy...His Bobness

    long may he Bob.

  • Yeah Capitalism looks bad from your suburb in mom and dads house live a life the deicide on an economic system.Good Song

  • Capitalism is great, except that it cant last

  • Suffering is the only thing that lasts forever.

  • thats nice and depressing.

  • well, we have to be able to count on something being constant so there you go. Suffering will always continue...it's our lot in life...

  • Let me add that suffering being our lot in life is not a "useless" truth or something that only serves to make you depressed. You might not be able to change it for yourself, but you can sure as hell ease your children's lot by not creating said children.

    Sadly, I'm going to have to counter the obvious jokes by pointing out that you can fuck without creating children, and that life being bad enough to refrain from having children doesn't necessarily mean it's bad enough to kill yourself.

  • I stumbled upon (Using Stumbleupon with Firefox) a website about a group called VHMENT. Voluntary human extinction movement. They're didicated to ending the human race on the long run by not having kids.

    I agree that life sux too much to have kids, but not enough to kill yourself.

  • My favorite Dylan song. Good rhyming , story., & music. Love his harmonica. I think it would make a great movie. Also I thought he said "took a cabbage into town", haha.

  • Too much bass imho.

  • i made a video with obama too but it was "its the end of the world as we know it"

  • the end of capitalism as we know it

  • Thank God, Capitalism is the gentlemen's slavery

  • Gentlemen's slavery? Try Socialism. North Korea come to mind?

  • Capitalism, the whole third world comes to mind.

    anyways i dont want to open a political debate

  • Always loved this song. Made a video of it with Clint Eastwood as Jack of Hearts then threw that away and made another with President Obama as Jack of Hearts and other characters from 2008 Election. It's like Desolation Row - so many characters you could fit in to the story

  • I can't get over the fact that "Love grows where my Rosemary goes." Is listed in the "Related Videos" column. Key word make for strange bedfellows.

  • Oh yea, Joan does this one with heart, she's amazing in her own right...they were lovers back in the day. She showed a young Dylan the ropes.

  • Great song,,,gives me chills everytime I hear it..I still have the album !!!!!

  • has anybody got Joan Baez singing this , its fantastic

  • So many great individual little stories in this song. It would be impossible to get a song like this recorded today.

  • Yeah,only a musical genius could sing

    a dozen verses like this non-stop.

    When you get to that famous harmonica

    riff,you KNOW it's Bob Dylan! (IF you

    don't know already,LOL!!)

  • In my opinion the BEST song Dylan ever did

  • good song and very good guitar

  • this is one of dylan's most intriguing songs and one of my all time favorites of his songs....he is such an amazing storyteller...wonderful singing on this one as well

  • i guess i never got that story straight.....

  • story about bankrobbers Jack of Hearts is their leader , Lilly is daughter of Rosemary , Rosemary and Lilly are Big Jim`s girlfriends, Big Jim is owner of the bank, and in the end he was killed and robbed and Jack of Hearts took money along side his company

  • Anyone got a quasi clue...anyone...anyone.

  • What and you think your not?

  • bob dylan is a w**ker full stop

  • bob dylan is a wanker, but vampire weekend are ok? wow.

  • you ignorant w*anker

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  • Hey taylor, im you your class too, it does suck, BAD!

  • We. can only hope.

  • get fucked ya high school faggot

  • haha so u look up bad songs and call them crap ya u got a life no1 cares what u have to say this song is great

  • this song is not as good as all of use think. i have heard better songs..... sorry but i think it,s crap.

  • Take your opinion elsewhere.

  • You mean "it's crap", I think. But seriously, you have a right to your opinion. Dylan is sort of an acquired taste anyway. This sounds as if Dylan were doing a long Johnny Cash song (though I know it's not). I hated Johnny Cash years ago; after I heard "A Boy Named Sue", all of his other songs started sounding better. Then I heard this, about 10 years after it came out, and liked it right off; it's hypnotic. It might grow on you eventually.

  • I've always gone back and forth on this one, sometimes I think Lily's secretly the Jack of Hearts, or Rosemary is.idk

  • there's not enough words in webster's to explain how great this song is...

    more imagery and storytelling in this one tune than in any ten pop albums of the last 20 years.

    His Bobness...long may he Bob.

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  • ''Lily took her dress off, ballet'ed away'' pure genius

  • In my opinion, the best Dylan song ever.

  • couldn't agree more , and i know people who agree too

  • For the longest time I always thought that Rosemary took a "cabbage" into town.

  • LMAO! I thought at first he said that too!

  • hahaha, me too =P

  • About my favorite Dylan song now, It hurts listening to another song because I fall in love with every next one I listen too.

  • This song is so clever, so Dylan, so great. It's his best if you ask me.This is the best line: "She fluttered her false eyelashes and whispered in his ear

    "Sorry darling, that I'm late", but he didn't seem to hear

    He was starring into space over at the Jack of Hearts."

  • elementary my dear jonkoot

  • If YOU prevent yourself from even being "the jack of hearts" you are alraedy well on your way !

  • i have to say something.

    this has to be one of his best vocal performances he ever had on a song.

    it has to be.

    if u can name another song please tell.

  • I must admit ,after listening carefully again the lyrics of a song I knew from the times it ever appeared...you can't be that wrong writing what you feel and think!

    Bernard

  • Steal this song.

  • I LOVE this one, thanks for posting it!

  • This song was done in one chord, "A". A seven minute song, one chord. I don't think this will ever be duplicated. I take this opportunity to toast Bob. He is the best.

  • I love a song that tells a story , i wouldn't know a cord from a cantelope

  • A cord is made by Honda A cantalope is two people who can't run off and get married.

  • As far as I'm concerned, fredtor, I'm surprised two cords aren't cantalope'd.

  • Actually, three chords. No idea where you got one from.

  • MUSIC ,one chord or the Steve Morse "tomeninotes"-solo ( check it out it's here too", is appealing to you or it is not.

    That's all.

  • Three chords is right. I, IV and V.

  • It's not the number of chords it's the quality , the inspiration and the words the person has in himself or not.

  • Geraldine Anderson from Cowdenbeath in Fife used to listen to this Bob Dylan track before she went out clubbing to the Kinema Ballroom in Dunfermline from the late sixties into the 1970's, she is now aged 54 lives in Oakley in Dunfermline Fife this is still her all time favourite song (lilly Rosemary & the Jack of Hearts), from the album "Blood on the Tracks" by Bob Dylan

  • Okay, the movie would be a trip for sure but I would want to know that approval for every scene was coming from Dylan himself lest it be screwed up by some money-grubbing Hollywood crackpot. Or how about Dylan & Baez in starring roles? Or just leave it alone and savor what we have been given?

  • this song is amazing.

    The first time i heard it, i fell in love with it, reminded me or a sort of Wild West theme of sorts. Great.

  • favorite song of all time

  • great bobby D at his best

    he gives us a great story and great music, what more can you ask for

  • Verse within verse, meaning inside every syllable..

    Once in a while the pulitzer goes to the right guy.

    Congratulations MR DYLAN!

  • Lily offed her hubby and the mistress got the rap!

  • It's such a hard choice. This or Good Charlotte, Fallout Boy, etc...

  • ugh go AWAY!

  • oops

  • Ever hear of sarcasm?

  • noo.

  • yep, i haven't either.

  • Bob dylan is such a GREAT songwritter and singer especially this song.

  • Wow, the best of the best. All in the chord of A.  An icon.

  • It brings back such memories, always loved this track from the great singer songwriter.

  • This song kicks ass of everything published after the 1980s.

  • Johnny Depp named his daughter after this song, Lily-Rose melody Depp

    Awesome song

  • and his son is John "Jack" Christopher III

  • yes this is the best  song dylan has written

  • best of dylan and dylan is the best

  • I'm sure most of you Dylan fans know this, but for those who don't, the New York Sessions version of this song has an added stanza, check it out. It's at about the 6 minute mark.

    -Lily's arms were locked around the man that she dearly loved to touch. She forgot about the man she couldn't stand, who hounded her so much. "I've missed you so," she said to him, and he felt she was sincere but just beyond the door he felt jealousy and fear. It was just another night in the life of the jack of hearts.

  • In the standard French practice, in which each court card is said to represent a particular historical or mythological personage. The jack of hearts in a French deck : La Hire (French warrior) Étienne de Vignolles, called La Hire, (Born 1380 - died 11 January 1443) was a French military commander during the Hundred Years' War. He fought alongside Joan of Arc in the campaigns of 1429.

  • My favorite card, Jack of Hearts!

  • I fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking love Dylan.

  • Hallelujah.

  • Zimmerman rules

  • exquisite album and song

  • probably one of the bests songs ever, the music is outstanding, but what amazes me about bob is his lyrics, they are simply out of this world

  • The presidency was over and the boys were all planning to have a ball

    Sayin' bye bye to Big Jim's administration after all the things he did

    They were plannning a bonfire they were planning a parade

    They were planning a band concert and spikin' the lemonade.

  • good stuff from bob. my favorite poker tune

  • Someone posted that they thought this would make a good film/movie but I think that's part of the magic of the song...visualizing what you hear. I can imagine the dust, the heavy fabrics, the expressions on their faces, the calculating chaos. Brilliant.

  • There have been a few screenplays, but a film was never made. Agree, though...it's all about what Dylan creates in our imagination. Legend.

  • i still say it would make a great film if you could transpose the visualistion i grew up to this song

  • Man, I used to listen to this myself over and over, and over and over.