Just Floating

Listening to Oh Mercy in the car I was struck by what a staggeringly great album it is (as I always am when I give it a spin) and how many solid Dylan classics there are on it, as well as zero filler besides. One such classic is The Man in the Long Black Coat, and in the 4 lines that constitute its sort of middle-eight section Dylan goes into the territory of genius that it seems to me only he inhabits in the world of song:

     'There are no mistakes in life some people say
     It is true sometimes you can see it that way
      But people don't live or die people just float
     She went with the man in the long black coat'

The first two lines may look unexceptionable, but in the context of the song they're extraordinary. It's as if the voice established in the verses, that of the dark, knowing narrator of a darkly Biblical fable, is replaced by someone more immediately addressing the listener; a sort of friendly, worldly-wise version of Dylan. In fact, in the second line he's amiably taking you into his confidence - except that he sounds less than confident regarding his conjecture. As is so often the case you need to hear the words, the way they are sung, to begin to grasp their full power.

Then comes the stunning third line, with the eerie perfection of float - and what a perfect rhyme it makes. When Dylan comes back to the final line, the key line of the song, repeated as the conclusion (a conclusion in the most real sense, you realise) the puzzle lies in the connection of the last two lines, but you know there is a connection, and one observation somehow leads to the other.

I was trying, and failing, to remember the third line in a lesson today, but I did remember, of course, the word float. It suddenly came to me as the perfect word to describe what Meursault does with his life in Camus's classic L'Etranger.