Beyond the Horizon

Love for someone far away. This song is so sweet.

Ok, some of the songs on this album already conjured memories of the willie nelson album "stardust," but the inclusion of the actual word "stardust" in this song is a dead giveaway. I see this as dylan's acknowledgement of his debt to nelson's album. it's also interesting that stardust is a cover album, while "modern times" is driven by some "covers" (eg. Someday Baby).

Favorite lines: I'm touched with desire What don't I do? Through flame and through fire I'll build my world around you

Beyond the horizon, at the end of the game Every step that you take, I'm walking the same It's dark and it's dreary I've been pleading in vain I'm wounded, I'm weary My repentance is plain

Beyond the horizon o'r the treacherous sea I still can't believe that you have set aside your love for me

Beyond the horizon, 'neath crimson skies In the soft light of morning I'll follow you with my eyes Through countries and kingdoms and temples of stone Beyond the horizon right down to the bone

Beyond the horizon, the sky is so blue I've got more than a lifetime to live lovin' you

(Sorry, that's just about the whole song, but I would like to add that "round about midnight" is probably a reference, somehow, to Thelonious Monk's "round midnight." I'd like to think that these two lovers are listening a little Monk.)

I thought the same thing about the "Round about midnight" line, I'd imagine Dylan is a Monk fan of some sort.

This is a song about Heaven.

The simlicity of the musicality in this song is what makes it one of the more pleasant songs in the current Dylan repatoir, (from Time Out Of Mind on). It doesn't seem bluesy at all, whereas Sugar Baby and Nettie Moore and Not Dark Yet and even Thunder on the Mountain have bluesy aspects to them. Beyond The Horizon isn't bluesy at all, it's a very upbeat and positive song.

It's a song about God, not a person, I believe.

If you've ever read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, you'll see the connection. Heaven is symbolically portrayed as this place "At the end of the rainbow" where "life has only begun." Depending on your level of letting-go of attachments, even your love of your family, a love greater than any kind of mortal love creeps into and begins to fill you up.

Look at the imagery here; Dylan sings about a place "across the divide" where "love waits forever, for one and for all."

"My wretched heart is pounding I felt an angel's kiss" The song "Amazing Grace" reflects the Protestant ethic of referring to your mortal self as a "Wretch" who is full of sin.

"I found you just in time It's dark and it's dreary I've been pleading in vain I'm wounded, I'm weary My repentance is plain" In "Amazing Grace," you sing about being lost and found. Amid all the turmoil, the "flame and fire" of life, you want to "build your world around" something immortal, so you can transcend the world with your love.

This song talks about mortality and life being spared, and ends with "I've got more than a lifetime to live lovin' you" meaning love lasts forever, and soon "we'll be on the same side" (we = Bob and God/Immortal Love). Dylan is a Christian nowadays, and not only is he a recent convert, but he's old, so it makes sense he'd be thinking about mortality and how he made it through his wilder youth and now sees God with this love that transcends all his other loves...

The song is a try to glance at heaven, though heaven is still out of sight. There is only a short look at the present time, which is "dark and it's dreary" while beyond the horizon "the sky is so blue". Mortality is just a necessary transition for reaching this world where loving is easy, successful and without end.