The Goal
So I thought I’d do a little Dylan outreach, some very gentle proselytizing. I’m going to take a rather short and straightforward song, as Dylan songs go, and lay its majesty out before you.
I won’t be waxing lyrical myself. I won’t be talking about meter or melody or keys or chords. I won’t be referencing other songs or other artists. I will confine myself to the meaning of the words in this one song only, using the clearest, most direct language I can muster.
The song is Simple Twist of Fate. It’s about a one-night stand that gets a 5-star review from one of the parties and a 2-star review from the other.
The Song
To get you started, picture a man walking through a park at day’s end, deciding whether or not he should sit down next to a woman he sees alone on a bench he’s about to pass by - and maybe strike up a conversation. He tells himself there’s a scenario here in which he gets laid tonight, but he also knows how unlikely that is. He’s torn. Ah, what the hell. He sits down.
Verse 1
They sat together in the park As the evening sky grew dark
So here they are, presumably on a park bench, as the song opens.
She looked at him and he felt a spark Tingle to his bones
“He felt a spark tingle to his bones” is quintessential Dylan, and is not to be overlooked. You know exactly what he means by this, but you wouldn’t have said it that way yourself. The phrases that surface in the minds of mere mortals are pedestrian tropes, things like: “she made his heart skip a beat” or “she took his breath away” or “she hit him like a ton of bricks.” But with Dylan it’s a spark that tingles to the bone. Short, simple words rarely seen together - spark, tingle, bone - perfectly conjuring something we’re all familiar with - ”I’m seriously out of my league here!” - is at the root of the Dylan magic.
‘Twas then he felt alone And wished that he’d gone straight And watched out for a simple twist of fate
So the man is about to hook up with a woman who is clearly very desirable. And he knows she desires him, from that look. He should be absolutely pumped, and yet he feels alone - alone - and wishes he hadn’t sat down at all! But it’s too late now; the ride has begun. And as this metaphorical roller coaster pulls away from the platform, he’s being overwhelmed by a premonition that it will end badly for him.
Verse 2
They walked along by the old canal A little confused, I remember well
Wait, what? I remember well? Who are you?
This “I” is the “he” in the story. Dylan’s narrator is signalling to us that although he’s telling the story in the third person - presumably to allow us to imagine ourselves more snugly in his shoes - it’s a first person story. He’s talking about what happened to himself. At the very end of the song he’ll drop the he/she shenanigans and get down to business by talking directly to us about his problems.
And stopped into a strange hotel With a neon burning bright
Pretty straightforward. Can you see the brightness of the neon against a sky that has yet to go fully dark? Or maybe it has gone fully dark by now. Either way, it’s a strange hotel.
He felt the heat of the night Hit him like a freight train Movin’ with a simple twist of fate
As they used to say back when this was written, she rocked his world. Or you could say that the experience in the hotel with the woman was devastatingly satisfying for the man.
A minor side comment here. Note that Dylan has rhymed freight train with fate. He sings it like this: like a FREEEEEEEEEEIGHT train. The Doppler effect. You feel the train, the rhyme, and the orgasm all blow by.
Verse 3
A saxophone someplace far off played As she was walkin’ on by the arcade
There’s been a change of scene. She’s no longer where we left her - at the strange hotel with the man. Don’t tell me she left while he was sleeping???
It seems like she’s now outside, where she can hear a saxophone playing in the distance, a pretty rare experience, no? When’s the last time you heard a (solo) sax being played (well) outdoors? Whenever you do hear one, though, the feeling you get is almost always one of melancholy, some pervasive sense of sadness. In the next line we’ll learn that it’s very early morning, making it even more haunting. Distant saxophone sadness at dawn. I bet she did leave him sleeping.
And she’s walking by an arcade? Why an arcade? It was chosen to reflect her view of the night before: just fun and games. If you think I’m reaching for that interpretation, you’ll see in just a bit that I’m not.
As the light bust through a beat up shade Where he was wakin’ up
She did sneak out on him!!! I knew it. And now we know she left before sunrise.
She dropped a coin into the cup Of a blind man at the gate
A second, indirect reference to her opinion of the happenings of the previous night. It couldn’t be any clearer. It was a charity fuck.
And forgot about a simple twist of fate
She has already forgotten the previous night by virtue of her inability now to think back on it without prompting, which she will not get. The night simply did not rise to the level of worthiness for future reflection. It has instead been placed in her memory’s trash bin, which will soon be emptied. To her, last night was a nothingburger.
This third verse, taken altogether, is pure Hollywood. The juxtaposition of the scenes of him waking up and her dropping the coin into the cup? And it all gets kicked off with A saxophone someplace far off played, which is, quite clearly, scene direction—in the past tense.
Verse 4
He woke up, the room was bare He didn’t see her anywhere He told himself he didn’t care Pushed the window open wide Felt an emptiness inside To which he just could not relate Brought on by a simple twist of fate
No need to go line by line here, it’s all pretty straightforward. I do love the pushing open wide of the window. It’s just what you would do if you were in a movie. And we’d already been introduced to the beat-up shade on that window, so the window was already in the scene.
But the bottom line here is that he too wants to forget the previous night. But he won’t be able to.
Verse 5
He hears the ticking of the clocks
My favorite line in the song. I have my own “ticking of the clocks” story. Once in high school I was fetched out of class and escorted down to the vice principal’s office, the dreaded den of a large and gruff one-armed man responsible for discipline at the school. He wasn’t there. They sat me in his office, told me to wait, and shut the door behind them. I heard the ticking of the clocks.
You only hear clocks ticking when you’re inside, alone and stock still: quiet body, quiet mind, quiet surroundings. You’re not just alone, you’re profoundly alone, detached even from your own thoughts.
Who but Dylan writes that lyric - he hears the ticking of the clocks - to describe a man who has been cast down into abject loneliness due to a recent brush with its opposite? And could it possibly be done more succinctly?
I suppose you could say that it merely means he’s keenly aware of the time going by, that he’s concerned about getting old or missing his chance to redeem himself? Meh.
And walks along with a parrot that talks
You’re free to see and hear the parrot if you like, but I don’t think there’s a parrot. Do you remember the prior instance of him walking along? By the old canal? He was with the woman then. But now he’s alone and has only himself to talk to - if he wants to drown out the ticking of the clocks, that is.
If there is a parrot, it only serves to speak to the man’s general cluelessness. Everybody knows a puppy (or two) is the correct animal for the job at hand. (He’s gone looking for the woman, as you will see next.) Unless, of course, there had been some sort of kinky parrot pillowtalk the night before??? An unlikely interpretation, to say the least.
Hunts her down by the waterfront docks
This is a bit unexpected. He actually tracks her down. But by the waterfront docks? Where did they come from? We’re by a large body of water? I guess there was a canal, wasn’t there? But is Dylan throwing away half a line here? Scenic filler? No. Never. He’s setting us up for a giant thwack on the funny bone.
Where the sailors all come in Maybe she’ll pick him out again
So let’s review. She’s already picked him out once and been severely unimpressed. And now she’s positioned herself where boatloads of horny sailors are disembarking, and he’s hoping to be picked out again???
(The parrot, by the way, is now back in play! It so nicely fits with the sailor theme, don’t you think? Maybe she made him pretend he was a sailor! Only Bob would know.)
How long must he wait One more time for a simple twist of fate
Forever, most likely, is how long he’ll have to wait. Parrot or no parrot.
Final Verse
People tell me it’s a sin To know and feel too much within
His buddies are all telling him, “Dude, you gotta stop obsessing over this chick. It’s time to MOVE ON.”
Note also that, as promised, he’s now talking as himself. He’s no longer “he”, he’s “me”.
I still believe she was my twin
But he can’t move on. She was the one. The others can’t compare.
But I lost the ring
He couldn’t close the deal. He lost the engagement ring. Not a literal engagement ring, but rather a spiritual one–his chance to win this woman’s heart. How did he lose the ring, you ask?
She was born in spring But I was born too late
By being too young, too immature.
Blame it on a simple twist of fate
And here’s the simple twist of irony.
Let’s assume there’s a perfect “twin” out there somewhere for each of us. Given the number of people in the world, what are the chances of you meeting your perfect twin while strolling through a park and then immediately proceeding to have great sex with them? Pretty darn low, you’d have to say.
But now let’s grant that you do meet them and you do have sex with them. What are the chances they're the right age for a long term relationship??? Pretty darn high, but not guaranteed.
So, in this final line of the song, according to me, Dylan’s referring to a second twist of fate. The first twist was the tremendous luck that brought them together at all. The second twist, buried inside the first, is the tiny misfortune that keeps them apart: a slight age difference.
Alternate Final Verse
Not buyin’ that slight age difference explanation, are ya? Well, I have one further piece of evidence to introduce before you make your final ruling. There’s an alternate closing verse to this song.
People tell me it’s a crime To feel too much at any one time She should’ve caught me in my prime She would have stayed with me Instead of going off to sea And leavin’ me to meditate Upon that simple twist of fate
I think that “She should’ve caught me in my prime” seals the deal, don’t you?
Dylan loves to reimagine his songs, lyrically and musically. And we never know why. Does he like the new versions better, or is he just sick and tired of the old ways of singing them? Your guess is as good as mine. But I can’t help but wonder if he thought the first version of the final verse in Simple Twist of Fate was a bit too abstruse, with its lost ring and embedded twists of fate. In this second version, he abandons them and has the woman vacate the premises altogether, maybe with one of the sailors. And possibly a parrot.
The Wish
What you’ve just read (and thank you for doing it) is, of course, my personal opinion, which means it could be totally wrong. But that’s the whole beauty of it. A great songwriter presents us an entire short film with just a handful of still frames. Each frame, carefully crafted, is a double-edged sword: it strikes deeply but vaguely, and in that vagueness lies room for interpretation.
To me, Simple Twist of Fate is a reflection on the random vagaries that shape our modern lives. You meet so few people in a lifetime (given the vast numbers out there who could be met), and yet, if you’re going to have a life partner, you need to pick one from among your tiny sampling before they’re all gone! The sad truth is that, when you strip away the romance, we’re settling for least-incompatible-with. So, which is worse, never having your perfect partner cross your path or having them cross it, only to reject you?
Simple twist of fate. If I’ve done my job well, you should now see how those four words, in that order, could only be the title of a Dylan song.
You lucky dog. You’re alive in Dylan’s time. You speak his English. No endless bogs of annotations to wade through. May you make the most of it, my friend.
The (Uninterrupted) Lyrics
They sat together in the park As the evening sky grew dark She looked at him and he felt a spark tingle to his bones ’Twas then he felt alone and wished that he’d gone straight And watched out for a simple twist of fate
They walked along by the old canal A little confused, I remember well And stopped into a strange hotel with a neon burnin’ bright He felt the heat of the night hit him like a freight train Moving with a simple twist of fate
A saxophone someplace far off played As she was walkin’ by the arcade As the light bust through a beat-up shade where he was wakin’ up, She dropped a coin into the cup of a blind man at the gate And forgot about a simple twist of fate
He woke up, the room was bare He didn’t see her anywhere He told himself he didn’t care, pushed the window open wide Felt an emptiness inside to which he just could not relate Brought on by a simple twist of fate
He hears the ticking of the clocks And walks along with a parrot that talks Hunts her down by the waterfront docks where the sailors all come in Maybe she’ll pick him out again, how long must he wait Once more for a simple twist of fate
People tell me it’s a sin To know and feel too much within I still believe she was my twin, but I lost the ring She was born in spring, but I was born too late Blame it on a simple twist of fate