Where Are You Tonight? Lyrics
There's a woman I long to touch and I miss her so much but she's drifting like a
satellite. There's a neon light ablaze in this green smoky haze, laughter down on
Elizabeth Street
And a lonesome bell tone in that valley of stone where she bathed in a stream of pure
heat. Her father would emphasize you got to be more than street-wise but he practiced
what he preached from the heart.
A full-blooded Cherokee, he predicted to me the time and the place that the trouble would start.
And a longtime golden-haired stripper onstage
And she winds back the clock and she turns back the page
Of a book that no one can write.
Oh, where are you tonight?
In that last hour of need, we entirely agreed, sacrifice was the code of the road.
I left town at dawn, with Marcel and St. John, strong men belittled by doubt.
I couldn't tell her what my private thoughts were but she had some way of finding
them out. He took dead-center aim but he missed just the same, she was waiting,
putting flowers on the shelf.
She could feel my despair as I climbed up her hair and discovered her invisible self.
There's a million dreams gone, there's a landscape being raped,
As her beauty fades and I watch her undrape,
I won't, but then again, maybe I might.
Oh, if I could just find you tonight.
Horseplay and disease is killing me by degrees while the law looks the other way.
Your partners in crime hit me up for nickels and dimes, the guy you were lovin'
couldn't stay clean.
It felt outa place, my foot in his face, but he should-a stayed where his money was
green.
I bit into the root of forbidden fruit with the juice running down my leg.
Then I dealt with your boss, who'd never known about loss and who always was
too proud to beg.
There's a white diamond gloom on the dark side of this room and a pathway that leads
up to the stars.
If you don't believe there's a price for this sweet paradise, remind me to show you the
scars.
If I'm there in the morning, baby, you'll know I've survived.
I can't believe it, I can't believe I'm alive,
But without you it just doesn't seem right.
Oh, where are you tonight?

I love this song a lot, I always have. One line that has always intrigued me is his comment about the lady's father, 'Her father would emphasize you got to be more than street-wise, but he practiced what he preached from the heart. A full-blooded Cherokee, he predicted it to me, the time and the place that we'd part....'
This line had me stumped until just a few minutes ago. The reason why it had, had me stumped was because just a little while ago I had felt the need to go research Sara Lowndes, due to a line from a Dylan song from Bringing it all Back Home. The line was from Outlaw Blues. He claims that he is involved with a dark-sinned woman from Jackson. That's all he said, but Jackson could be anywhere for all intents and purposes. I am assuming he's referring to Jackson, Mississippi, but I could be wrong.
At any rate, I felt the need to research Sara Lowndes at that point, so I did. It turns out that in so doing I found a reference on Wikkipedia about her "father", who apparently was a Jewish immigrant who came over to the US in 1912. He moved to Wilmington, DE, and was evidently murdered by a fellow European immigrant, in 1956. But I don't recall the article ever specifying whether Sara Lowndes ever lived in 'Jackson' or not. So this remains a mystery to this day I suppose.
But nevertheless if this is true then we have a conundrum here. Dylan said he actually met her "father", and that he was a full-blooded Cherokee.
But I believe that the answer to this conundrum may have come to me when I first started composing this 'General Thought' of mine here at this site. The notion came to me that Dylan was not referring to Sara's BIOLOGICAL father, but rather to her Priest. I don't know what Sara's denomination is or was, but if she was Catholic (or some variant of Catholicism), then I believe that this might explain quite a bit ----- especially considering that I have probably listened to this song at least a hundred times and NEVER knew that this was what he meant.
If anyone else has a thought or opinion to add, please don't hesitate. I am all ears.
Thank you.
[Edit: Correcting Lyrical, Factual, and (possibly) Grammatical errors.]
@driver8ball The New York Times offered a clue to the woman in "Outlaw Blues" in a 3/15/24 obituary of Dorie Ann Ladner, "a largely unsung heroine on the front lines of the 1960s civil rights movement in the South," who was born in Mississippi. She had Native American heritage but identified as black.
@driver8ball The New York Times offered a clue to the woman in "Outlaw Blues" in a 3/15/24 obituary of Dorie Ann Ladner, "a largely unsung heroine on the front lines of the 1960s civil rights movement in the South," who was born in Mississippi. She had Native American heritage but identified as black.
The obituary includes this paragraph: "During her hiatuses from college, Ms. Ladner was serenaded by Bob Dylan in the New York apartment where she helped to plan the 1963 March on Washington. He was said to have been smitten with her and to...
The obituary includes this paragraph: "During her hiatuses from college, Ms. Ladner was serenaded by Bob Dylan in the New York apartment where she helped to plan the 1963 March on Washington. He was said to have been smitten with her and to have alluded to her in his song `Outlaw Blues'I got a woman in Jackson / I ain’t gonna say her name / She’s a brown-skin woman, but I / Love her just the same."
Here's the link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/15/us/dorie-ladner-dead.html

I think that Marcel and St John are either his hands/fists or weapons. So 'she' found out his plan and sent someone, maybe Dad, to shoot him but he was too streetwise. Comes back to her and sees through her, then the dreams are gone and time passes. He deals with the competition but...(this is the bit I'm not so sure about) The punch line means that he wants the original 'she/you' back Any body got any ideas about how the 'There's a white diamond gloom ' stanza fits into anything else.

Maybe the white diamond gloom is the glossy suburban existence that they settled into after the bustup? And he's unhappy about paying for it?

This is one of Dylan's most underrated songs. I think that the sheer power of the lyrics gets a bit lost in the gloss, but they are pretty incredible nonetheless.
I agree. I tend to come back to this one time and again. There's a kind of desperation and roughness to his tone that gets to me. Like most other stuff on this record it's totally underrated.
I agree. I tend to come back to this one time and again. There's a kind of desperation and roughness to his tone that gets to me. Like most other stuff on this record it's totally underrated.
Agree with both of you. I tend to think of this song somewhat historically, though maybe I shouldn't. It is the last song on the last album before he converts fully to Christianity and Christian music. In that context the end of the song, beginning with the forbidden fruit line seem very personal.
Agree with both of you. I tend to think of this song somewhat historically, though maybe I shouldn't. It is the last song on the last album before he converts fully to Christianity and Christian music. In that context the end of the song, beginning with the forbidden fruit line seem very personal.

Definitely one of the great Dylan songs. It's about Sara, anguish at two-timing and betraying her ("there's a babe in the arms of a woman in rage"), losing her, moving on from her, but always missing her. Lots of intense garbled imagery, but if you think of Dylan with another woman and Sara finding her at their house, with their kids, then taking the kids away, the images begin to make sense: including forbidden fruit, leaving town at dawn, the inner conflict, the obscure truths of a broken relationship, truths that you can't live without exploding. There's another woman, another sweet paradise, but the price for that are the scars. It's a divorce song, isn't it? Maybe the great divorce song.

This is a brilliant song, up there with his best.
I loved this album from the first time I heard it. Since there can be no "best Dylan album" I won't rate it but it's near the top for me. I don't understand why people crap all over it. Maybe I'm influenced by the fact that the first of the 30 or so concerts I've seen was the one touring with this album, though he only played two songs from Street Legal, including Where are you Tonight? I actually have a recording of the show. Anyway, I always thought the line :
If you don’t believe there’s a price for this sweet paradise Remind me to show you the scars
was" If you don't believe there's a Christ in this sweet paradise...."
Which is also brilliant plus being advance notice of his born again thing which started right afterwards.
Another line that always intrigued me is:
I left town at dawn, with Marcel and St. John Strong men belittled by doubt
Love the line. But who in hell are Marcel and St. John. Researching this, it seems that a church, called St John's Abbey, hugely important in the Catholic church, is located not that far from Mr. Dylan's Farm outside of Minneaoplis. It was designed by Marcel Breuer...that's all I got so far...anybody got other ideas?