Abandoned Love, by Bob Dylan

Deep Dive

They all come out eventually, but consider the songs Dylan, always his own worst editor, has left off his official releases. “Blind Willie McTell, Red River Shore, I’ll Keep It with Mine, Series of Dreams, Dignity, Angelina, Foot of Pride, Tears of Rage,” and others. And this one, “Abandoned Love.” Recorded on July 31, 1975 with his spared down Desire band, Scarlett Rivera, (violin) Rob Stoner (bass), Howie Wyeth (drums). It didn’t get officially released until the Biograph album, in 1985, ten year later, and everybody’s jaw dropped to hear this major song that had been hidden so long. It’s been played live only once, July 3rd, 1985, at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village, when Dylan was haunting New York, gathering up his Rolling Thunder Review performers. He was onstage with Ramblin’ Jack Eliot, and reportedly knocked the audience dead. They certainly sound joyous on hearing it, even though it’s deeply personal, about love, the chains of attachment, the bittersweet taste of separation. Such it is to be Bob Dylan, destined to lay your life out in song, to have the audience hoot and applaud at the brilliance of your telling of the story, the break-up of your marriage.

Abandoned Love, live, Bitter End

These are the lyrics from that performance, an early version. In the Biograph version, three of the verses are changed.

Abandoned Love, Bitter End

I can hear the turning of the key
I've been deceived by the clown inside of me
I thought that he was righteous but he's vain
Something's telling me I wear the ball and chain

My patron saint is fighting with a ghost
He's always off somewhere when I need him most
The Spanish moon is rising on the hill
But my heart is tellin' me I love you still 

I come back to the town from the flaming moon
I see you in the streets, I begin to swoon
I love to see you dress before the mirror
Won't you let me in your room one time before I disappear?

Everybody's wearing a disguise
To hide what they've got left behind their eyes
But me, I can't cover what I am
Wherever the children go I'll follow them 

I can't play the game no more, I can't abide
by their stupid rules which kept me sick inside
they've been made by men who've given up the search
whose gods are dead and whose queens are in the church.

I march in the parade of liberty
but as long as I love you I'm not free
how long must I suffer such abuse?
Won't you let me see your smile before I cut you loose?

Send out for Saint John the evangelist
all my friends are drunk, they can be dismissed
my head says that it's time to make a change
but my heart is telling me I love ya but you're strange.

So step lightly, darling, near the wall
put on your heavy make-up, wear your shawl.
Won't you descend from the throne, from where you sit?
Let me feel your love one more time before I abandon it 

Sara and Bob Dylan, Renaldo and Clara

Dylan was in the midst of his off-and-on again break-up with his wife Sara. The song makes perfect sense when you to put her in the mercurial, confusing center of it. The working title, according to the studio records, was “Sara Part II - Abandoned Love,” which seems to seal the deal. Dylan himself has never talked about the song, but Dylan’s M.O. is that he could easily say at any point it’s about someone else entirely. Probably would.