Just Like a Woman

god, i´ve always seen this song as about a woman who is very strong on the outside when actually she´s fragile like a little girl. maybe that´s just me.

This song is almost certainly about Edie Sedgwick, a very fragile, child-like woman.

"Nobody feels any pain, Tonight as I stand inside the rain..." Loneliness or depression can be so consumptive (i.e., being inside the rain and incapable of objectivity on one's feelings vs. being outside the rain only looking at the it from the outside, objectively) that a person is numb to any other kind of emotional pain.

It is possible for a hyper-sensitive observer like Dylan (obviously, his music supports hypersensitivity to just about everything) to be pulled into the "rain" at his own needy time by the person(s) who(m) is in the rain constantly as a state of being and a fact of his/her life.

"With her fog, her amphetamine, and her pearls": Depressed or disassociative people often walk around in a "fog." In the '60s, amphetamines were prescribed for depression (hence, the term "uppers") and weight loss. Today, they are still prescribed for types of depression and ADHD (inability to focus or concentrate--a mental fog). Women often buy clothes or jewelry (pearls) to make themselves feel better when depressed.

"It was raining from the first...": The first time he met Baby it began raining. A sun-shower is refreshing. A day or two of rain is cleansing. Days, weeks, months, and years of rain ranges from dreary and gloomy to despair and hopelessness. Her depression, negativity, and tendency toward self-destruction may have begun raining on him "at the first." Or, he was attracted to her by his own brief time of sadness, loneliness, or depression. With mental illness likes attracts likes, misery loves company, "I can relate" becomes consuming empathy, those who need love are attracted to others who need love (generally, not those who have love to give), people are attracted to what they know. (Hence, daughters of beaten women are often attracted to someone who thinks and acts like the man who beat their mothers). These two could probably empathize with one another and wanted the same things. He was "dying of thirst" for love, empathy, or what have you, and it appeared that she had whatever it was he needed at the time. "So, [he] came in here" where "here" is "inside the rain"(her "rain").

"... hungry (desperate enough for love. empathy, etc.) to be in "[her] world" which he is eventually embarassed by or ashamed of. All of us have those retrospective moments that embarrass or horrify us when we say in disbelief, "I can't believe I was there, I did that, I was doing that, I was with him/her, I thought I was in love with him/her, etc."

Expanding on the depression/loneliness theory, the rest is somewhat self-explanatory. " Depression is a "long-time curse." Her pain and "rain" is more than he can handle for an extended period of time like a commitment or marriage. He realizes that his "rain" is getting worse, or at least, not getting better by staying in her "rain" which will not help either of them. His "rain" is changing or passing, while hers is unchanging and constant; therefore, "[he] just can't fit." That is, he just can't stay in the relationship. If he lets himself "fit," he sees that he will go with her in her slow, downward spiral to eventual self-destruction while loving her and trying to help her. Recognizing where it's going shakes him out of his doldrums, and he realizes that his "rain" is only temporary. His sense of self-preservation and survival surfaces and "[he] believe(s) it's time to quit" the relationship; get out of the funnel.

"Takes just like a woman" may reference a woman's emotional need to be loved. Women take a man's love, his heart, his kindness, his desire to help if he really loves her, and vice versa.

I have to disagree with you. NOT because I am female just that your interpretation might be a bit off. I think Dylan is talking about a woman who at one point in her life had it all and needed no one to help her get by.

"Ev'rybody knows That Baby's got new clothes But lately I see her ribbons and her bows Have fallen from her curls."

But some life changing event happened and now she's forced to build up herself again.

"Nobody has to guess That Baby can't be blessed Till she sees finally that she's like all the rest With her fog, her amphetamine and her pearls"

"Ah, you fake just like a woman, yes, you do You make love just like a woman, yes, you do Then you ache just like a woman But you break just like a little girl."

And this part is about how she shrugged it off and looked like she moved on but Dylan knows her secret that she's just as fragile as a little girl.

I personally respect gay people and support their cause. But I think that trying to read homosexuality where it isn't written is wrong. Same as "Ballad of a thin man". If we get that point of view, we could manage every song in the world to fit into it. She is a girl, a little scared girl beneath the woman she appears to be.

you are all a bunch of fuckin idiot's. this song isn't about queers or how women are decitful. its probally about him smoking opium or getting high.

We'll never know...it may about an involvement with a socialite, some say Edie Sedgwick. "What's worse is this pain in here"...her public persona masks private despair... (addictions, mental illness) "she breaks just like a little girl" when the mask drops. He can't deal with it, her problems are too big. This one is not hard to fathom from that perspective, but the "I" in this song may be another also. For those who give a facile critique this song as 'sexist', listen to the Roberta Flack version.

Alright. I have three theories -- either she's underaged and/or a virgin, she's a prostitute, or she's the daughter of someone he knows. Maybe two of the three of those.

Is it at all possible that this song might be about having sex with a virgin, who is trying to pass herself off as experienced? Queen Mary was the Bloody Queen - maybe this is a connection with the blood sometimes present during a woman's first vaginal penetration? Notice, he's not talking about Queen Elizabeth I (the Virgin Queen), since he's talking about already having had sex with her.

My other thought is that this could be an underage girl. At first, I thought maybe a hooker - and I'm still not unconvinced of that, since he talks about going to see her again. Also, the meaning of fog, amphetamines, and pearls is probably drug related - at least, as I see it... "Fog" might be marijuana smoke, but more likely refers to freebasing, "amphetamines" is just that - uppers, and "pearl" is slang for Cocaine. So, maybe she's a crack (free-based coke) and crystal-meth (free-based amphetamine) junkie. That's another reason I'd wonder if maybe she's a hooker, though I do realize that those drugs are not limited to streetwalkers.

Though, the hooker theory isn't ironclad - the familiarity with which he knows her -- "introduce us as friends" would imply that he knows he'll see her under a social setting in the future. Maybe she's the daughter of a friend or associate? He doesn't want her to acknowldge the "affair." His "hunger" is maybe his desire, while her "world" could be her vagina (allowing him to have sex with her). Could her "pain" be caused by physically being too small to accomodate him? He says at one point that he can't fit, and then follows that by saying that maybe they should just quit. The frustration of causing her pain is too much for him.

Thoughts?

i think it is about some body who starts a relationship with this girl that everybody thinks is fantastic. But when he gets to know her he discovers that she is actually a sad little girl underneath the woman she presents herself to be, "shes like all the rest" and "lately I see her ribbons and her bows have fallen from her curls." So he sees that she isn't that special and that she is more than ribbons and bows. He tries to make it work but "it just doesn't fit". So he ends it but it hurts because he still wants love and is upset she isn't "the one". That is wot i fink, that might because the story i have just explained has happened 2 me. wot dya reckon?

I agree with sailor and so forth - just listen to the '66 live take in its aching beauty and you can never say it's about anything else than an affair with a vulnerable, highstrung girlwoman and he's the vulnerable, highstrung boyman...