In this series, we take a song and try to read through and interpret the lyrics, focusing on the meaning of the words and trying to translate hard words or idiomatic expressions. Of course, I have no way of knowing for sure what the songwriter had in mind when they wrote the song, so these are just my interpretations. If you have a different interpretation or want to join the discussion about this song check out our reddit post for this page by clicking here.

If you would like see other posts in this series, then click here.

For the French version of this Article, click here.

Background

Subterranean Homesick Blues is a Folk Rock song by the legendary singer/songwriter Bob Dylan that was first released in 1965 on the album Bringing it All Back Home. Dylan was highly influenced by the Beat scene of the 1950’s and his early music later became emblematic (perhaps to his chagrin) of the Hippie/Counterculture movements of the 1960s.

Here is a video of the song. The man holding the signs is Bob Dylan himself. The man to left I believe is Alan Ginsberg, the famous Beat poet.

The Lyrics

Johnny’s in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I’m on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he’s got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It’s somethin’ you did
God knows when
But you’re doin’ it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin’ for a new friend
The man in the coon-skin cap
By the big pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten

Maggie comes fleet foot
Face full of black soot
Talkin’ that the heat put
Plants in the bed but
The phone’s tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May
Orders from the D.A.
Look out kid
Don’t matter what you did
Walk on your tiptoes
Don’t try “No-Doz”
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don’t need a weatherman
To know which way the wind blows

Get sick, get well
Hang around a ink well
Ring bell, hard to tell
If anything is goin’ to sell
Try hard, get barred
Get back, write braille
Get jailed, jump bail
Join the army, if you fail
Look out kid
You’re gonna get hit
But users, cheaters
Six-time losers
Hang around the theaters
Girl by the whirlpool
Lookin’ for a new fool
Don’t follow leaders
Watch the parkin’ meters

Ah get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don’t steal, don’t lift
Twenty years of schoolin’
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don’t wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don’t wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don’t work
’Cause the vandals took the handles

Translation and Interpretation

The song functions as a kind of warning to young people about how the world really is. The main themes are that there are traps and tribulations in normal life that no one warns you about when you are young. These traps can come from authorities such as police and governments or from criminals, but part of the trap is also normal life itself. Dylan loads every verse with a seemingly nonstop list of arbitrary actions and obligations that come at the listener at a frenetic pace. The prescription for this malady is to go “underground”, a term that means to go into hiding or to work in secret. We can see this in the title of the song where “subterranean” is another word for underground. It is not clear whether Dylan means to literally drop out of society or whether he simply means to just drop trying to be normal.

The “underground” theme continues in the first verse where Johnny (presumably a friend of the singer’s) is in the basement (i.e. a room underground) mixing up the “medicine”, almost certainly a euphemism for drugs. The singer is on the pavement thinking about the government when a police officer approaches him wanting a bribe to not arrest him. He does not say that he is a police officer explicitly, but the man is wearing a “trench coat”, a kind of jacket that is often associated with police detectives, and says that the man has his badge (plaque de policier) out. The police officer wants to be “paid off” which means he wants money to not arrest him. The singer then “ducks down the alleyway” (goes down the alleyway in a manner as to avoid detection).

The second verse continues with a girl named Maggie coming to warn the singer that the police are going to arrest them. The girl comes “fleet foot” (meaning quickly) saying that the “heat” (the police) put “plants” in the bed. The word plant here could be a kind of listening device that the police have installed to spy on the group. The word plant is also used when the police pretend to find illegal materials on someone or at a place in order to arrest a person or seize their property illegally. In that case, one would say that the police “planted” drugs on them, so it could have either meaning, but the next verse lends evidence to the first interpretation. Maggie reports that the phone is tapped anyways. To “tap” a phone is make it so that you can listen to and record other people’s phone calls. The police sometimes do this when they are investigating someone for a crime. She then reports that they are going to bust (arrest) them in early may, orders from the DA (the district attorney, the government official in charge of prosecuting crimes).

Dylan then gives a series of warnings. The reference to “No-Doz” is a kind of caffeine pill drug used for energy. He then says to “stay away from those that carry around a fire hose”. This is almost certainly a reference to the civil rights protests that were happening in the American south at the time where police would often used employ fire hoses to dispel protesters. He then says to “keep a clean nose” which is an idiom that means to behave well and stay out of trouble, and says to watch “the plain clothes”, meaning that you should watch out for undercover police officers (police officers disguised as normal citizens who try to get people to break the law in front of them and then arrest them).

Dylan then says “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”. I have never heard this expression outside of this song, so it is possible that Dylan invented it, but the meaning is clear either way: if you are smart and use common sense, then you can avoid some of these traps. On a side note, this line was where the group, The Weather Underground, a Marxist militant organization responsible for a bombing campaign in the early 1970s, took its name.

The song then continues with a litany (long list) of warnings, rules, and expectations that come along with normal life, which include telling the listener that they shouldn’t “lift” (another word for steal) and then warning them that after “twenty years of schooling […] they put you on the day shift”. The “day shift” is normal work hours for most jobs, usually starting around 7:00 to 9:00 am and ending between 3:00 and 6:00 pm. The point is that you do all of this training and education only to end up in mundane, monotonous, never-ending job that you may not even want. He then says that they “keep it all hid” and tells the listener that they should “jump down a manhole”. A manhole is the round metal entrance to the sewers that you find in streets in cities in America. This is yet another reference to going underground since the sewers are the underground of the city.

Whatever you think about the ideas of this song, Bob Dylan was an amazingly influential songwriter whose work continues to resonate down through the decades, and this song makes for a very interesting case study in American counterculture attitudes and language as they existed in the 1960s.