They're drinking up and walking and it is time for me to slide
I live in another world where life and death are memorized
Where the earth is strung with lover's pearls and all I see are dark eyes.
Some mother's child has gone astray, she can't find him anywhere
But I hear another drum beating for the dead that rise
Whom nature's beast fear as they come and all I see are dark eyes.
They tell me revenge is sweet and from where they stand I'm sure it is
But I feel nothing for their game, where beauty goes unrecognized
All I feel is heat and flame, and all I see are dark eyes.
Hunger pays a heavy price to the falling gods of speed and steel
Oh, time is short and the days are sweet and passion rules the arrow that flies
A million faces at my feet but all I see are dark eyes.
According to Dylan in Chronicles, Volume 1, this song was written at the Plaza Hotel in New York. If there was a hooker in the hallway, she was a high-priced one.
I think that the guy in the song is a soldier. Everyone around is involved in some political upheaval, some revolution or other, but the look in a woman's eyes is all that matters. When the world has gone to hell and selling death, he's buying life. What else is there but dark eyes?
Apparently Dylan wrote this after passing a prostitute in the hallway of a hotel. The song was just what he was looking for to finish off Empire Burlesque. If you ask me, it's the only really good song on the album.
Yeah, this song was something he just wrote up to finish off the album. It didn't seem to have a great lot of meaning to Dylan or fans of the time or those of today, for that matter. I really can't understand why it's so underrated; I absolutely love this song. Very sorrowful.
I agree that this song has a sorrowful tone. But how can any of us presume to know how much meaning this has to Dylan?
I agree that this song has a sorrowful tone. But how can any of us presume to know how much meaning this has to Dylan?
Given the circumstances he explained in Chronicles of how it came about I believe it relates to elements of sexual addiction. Read through the lyrics from this standpoint and I believe you will find, stanza by stanza, it resonates with meaning from this perspective.
Given the circumstances he explained in Chronicles of how it came about I believe it relates to elements of sexual addiction. Read through the lyrics from this standpoint and I believe you will find, stanza by stanza, it resonates with meaning from this perspective.
Guys who have struggled with it can understand I beieve. Add to that high-profile fame gives it another layer of pressure.
Guys who have struggled with it can understand I beieve. Add to that high-profile fame gives it another layer of pressure.
Probably the best Dylan song in the more than twenty year period between Desire and Time Out of Mind.
his voice sounded so good at this point. this is a beautiful song "a million faces at my feet but all i see are dark eyes."
They always say 'Where did Dylan go in the 80s?' Well that's a good question, where did Dylan go? To some land where he could write incredible songs and they'd go completely unrecognized, I guess. These must be the same people who didn't 'get' Dylan when he went electric and didn't 'get' Dylan when he went country and didn't 'get' Dylan when he converted. Wake up, Dylan never went anywhere. So his songwriting changed, but it never changed for the worse. Just because it's different doesn't mean it's automatically terrible. Of course there were bad songs and of course there were bad albums, but there were always great ones too. This is in my top 5 for eighties songs along with I and I, Blind Willie McTell, Brownsville Girl and Foot of Pride. Oh and Man in the Long Black Coat. Top six, I guess. Anyways this is a brilliant song. These lyrics are phenomenal, could only be written by Dylan. There's a very interesting live version by him and Patti Smith, highly recommended.
Judy Davis does a kickass drunken version of this song in the movie "High Tide." She ends it by saying in a slurred voice..."that's a great fuckin' song..."
This one other song from Dylan that I think is merely an observation. It is written in the Plaza Hotel and I just think he is observing his surroundings. Every one he sees there are there for him. He don't belong there (I am from another world) and fakes to blend in. He fades out and he's not hearing or caring that people want to see Bob. The only thing he sees is this beautiful woman with dark eyes. In the end he says it more clearly. "million faces at my feet and all I see are dark eyes". Bob doesn't care that people look up to him, or care who and where he is. He sees the beauty in life and then and there the only thing that matters to him is those dark eyes
This song is one of the few masterpieces that Dylan wrote and recorded in the 80's. Very underrated.