Native Drumm : Bob Dylan's "Gates of Eden"

Bob Dylan's

Gates of Eden

Annotated by Michael Drumm

Let me state at the outset that this is not intended to be a scholarly work. There have been academic studies of Bob Dylan's writing, perhaps including this song, but I have not read them. I do not consider myself a "Dylanologist", I merely learned to play and sing this song after hearing it on tape. In so doing, I became interested in the symbolic content or the verses. Each one came to have a special meaning for me.
I had heard and enjoyed this song for many years without any interpretation, and still believe that it stands very well simply as a sequence of surreal images. Still, I could not resist the temptation to try to make rational sense of it. . Here I share my impressions with the understanding that Dylan's intentions in writing it might have been quite different.

Before discussing the individual verses, a word must be said about the unifying concept. The gates of Eden are the boundary between pure reality and illusion. In the bibical Eden, man was said to have had direct contact with God before the knowledge of good and evil separated him from the divine. Here, it is a state of mind where one sees clearly. Where truth is self-evident. Dylan enumerates some of the false beliefs and values we experience, and contrasts them with the innate wisdom from which he senses we have strayed.

The Gates of Eden by Bob Dylan	Annotations
1. Of war and peace the truth just twists It's curfew gull, it glides Upon four-legged forest clouds The cowboy angel rides With his candle lit into the sun Though it's glow is waxed in black All except when 'neath the trees of Eden	This first verse is perhaps the most impenetrable of the nine. This very fact ties neatly with the wonderful irony of the last verse, bringing it full circle. In fact, "curfew gull" may be an innacurate transcription. None the less, it can be said that the opening lines set the tone for the rest of the song. The folly of man, the fall from grace, and the corruption of truth are reflected in the images presented here. The illumination of the cowboy angel's candle is obscured except within the realm of Eden.
2. The lamppost stands with folded arms It's iron claws attached To curbs neath holes where babies wail Though its shadow's iron badge All and all can only fall With a crashing but meaningless blow No sound ever comes from the gates of Eden	The second verse refers to authority. The use of force to supress dissent. The repetition of "iron", the word "badge", a crashing blow in response to babies' wailing... one has a sense of a policeman, a stern father, a repressive society attempting to stifle an innocent's outrage at the world's unfairness. The lamppost suggests an inflexible standard or ethos, who's authority is wielded by a shadow, a dark image of its own principle without substance.
3. The savage soldier sticks his head In sand and then complains Unto the shoeless hunter who's Gone deaf, but still remains Upon the beach where hounddogs bark At ships with tattooed sails Heading for the gates of Eden	The soldier seems an obvious reference to war and macho agressiveness supported by an unwillingness to see the truth. In the shoeless hunter we see the deeper root of animus, closer to nature, but deaf to its meaning. His dogs perceive the presence of Eden indirectly through the passage of mysterious ships, but the hunter pays no heed to their barking.
4. With a time-rusted compass blade Aladdin and his lamp Sit with utopian hermit monks Side-saddle on the golden calf And on their promises of paradise You will not hear a laugh All except inside the gates of Eden	False idols, false teachings, false prophets...Dylan sarcastically refers to exploitative eastern gurus in his image of Aladdin, with their ancient but misleading teachings represented as a rusted compass.
5. Relationships of ownership They whisper in the wings To those condemned to act accordingly And wait for succeeding kings And I try to harmonize the song The lonesome sparrow sings There are no kings inside the gates of Eden	This verse addresses materialism. People are trapped in the hedgemony of wealth, respecting only those who command great resources. In the lonesome sparrow we see that true worth resides outside the trappings of money and influence.
6. The motorcycle black madonna Two-wheeled gypsy queen And her silver studded phantom cause The grey flannel dwarf to scream As he weeps to wicked birds of prey Who pick up on his breadcrumb sins And there are no sins inside the gates of Eden	Guilt and sexual repression are the subject here. The grey flannel dwarf as the conventional small-minded member of society (a literary reference to "The Man In the Grey Flannel Suit" by Sloan Wilson which deals with the issue of conformity) is disturbed by the image of uninhibited female sexuality. He is victimized by the religious/moral institutions that both instill his guilt, and absolve him of it for a price. As in the garden of Genesis, shame is not attached to sexual desires in Eden.
7. The kingdoms of experience In the precious winds they rot While paupers trade possessions Each one wishing for what the other has got And the princess and the prince discuss What's real and what is not It doesn't matter inside the gates of Eden	Here we see addressed the sophistries of those who hold themselves above the common fray. The ivory-towered intellectuals debate existential points while fancying themselves aloof from the basic struggles with which the less gifted are involved. Yet the dichotomies of philosophical reason are illusionary too, as can be seen from the perspective of the denizens of Eden.
8. A foriegn sun it squints upon A bed that is never mine As friends and other strangers from their fates try to resign Leaving men wholly totally free To do anything they wish to do, but die And there are no trials inside the gates of eden	Loneliness, shallow relationships, and hypocracy try the spirit. Freedom is meaningless without control over one's own life. Demands of others sap the essence of being. In Eden friendship is not conditional.
9. At dawn my lover comes to me And tells me of her dreams With no attempt to shovel a glimpse Into the ditch of what each one means Sometimes I think there are no words But these to tell what's true And there are no truths outside the gates of eden	The final verse contains the final irony. In the interpetation of this song there is an inherent contradiction. Dylan is saying that his imagery speaks for itself, that it's truth is expressed in surreal dreamlike language because the nature of truth is beyond logic. Thus any attempt to rationalize is by definition an inferior means of expression. (Yet it does lend itself to analysis, however flawed.) This is most evident in the first verse which while obscure, rings with beauty and power of expression that logically defies definition.