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The guilty undertaker sighs,
The lonesome organ grinder cries,
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you.
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn,
But it's not that way,
I wasn't born to lose you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

The drunken politician leaps
Upon the street where mothers weep
And the saviors who are fast asleep,
They wait for you.
And I wait for them to interrupt
Me drinkin' from my broken cup
And ask me to
Open up the gate for you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

Now all my fathers, they've gone down
True love they've been without it.
But all their daughters put me down
'Cause I don't think about it.

Well, I return to the Queen of Spades
And talk with my chambermaid.
She knows that I'm not afraid
To look at her.
She is good to me
And there's nothing she doesn't see.
She knows where I'd like to be
But it doesn't matter.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

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?
But I did it, though, because he lied
Because he took you for a ride
And because time was on his side
And because I . . .
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

Bob Dylan 1966

Commentary 

A straightforward but poignant song of unreciprocated lust.  

The "dancing child with his Chinese suit" is the singer's younger rival - "Time was on his side".

The Queen of Spades is the singer's own wife/previous lover whose ardour is cooling.  She is still good to him but "she knows where [he]'d like to be but it doesn't matter."   

"Lonesome organ grinder" hints at a pun on lonely masturbation.

Christopher Ricks (Dylan's Visions of Sin 2003 p 152) reminds us of Blake's masturbatory lines from Visions of the Daughters of Albion. Click here to read them.  He also finds similarities with Ecclesiastes Chapter 12 on the time "when desire shall fail".  I find these these latter parallels a bit of a stretch.   

Click here for Out to Get You by James

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Last modified: September 20, 2006