How hard to reach a point your life when you see how much you have lost. Dylan, perhaps 70-years-old when he wrote this song, out walking and thinking about his life and the relationships at the core of that life reached that point. If that man is honest with himself, he will see both joys and pain. We may want to focus on the good parts, the moments people share on social media, but all of us have endured strife, losses and trauma. If we’re fortunate, we have a partner who has travelled on that journey with us, who has been there.
Listen to him declare:
It’s been such a long, long time
Since we loved each other and our hearts were true
One time, for one brief day
I was the man for you
That’s an awful truth that we may all have felt, looking back when love seemed so simple, so purse, before we got in the way and we walked a twisted path.
In this song, we hear about that relationship and the life the singer led. We get the full life which is not to say that we get all the moments and all the details. This is not biography, but parts of a painting, images and brush strokes that suggest a full life and relationship. It does not tell us all, there are blank spaces, details left out, but just enough to understand.
I play this song often, finding solace in its hard truths.
Recording the Song
It is an unusual song, recited more than sung. There are ten four-line verses following a rhyming pattern of ABCB, yet the line lengths vary so we will hear a short line and a long line crammed into the same number of beats. Dylan carefully enunciates each word, no need for your Bob Dylan decoder ring with this song. Dylan wants us to hear it all quite clearly.
Dylan gives us the lines as a poet might give us his poem. The music provides a soft bed that carries us forward and allows the natural tension of the lyrics to build. Charlie Sexton’s electric guitar, which Dylan praised in an interview, adds highlights to the song.
There’s no chorus, no bridge, just lines building momentum.
What We Bring Makes Every Song Personal
We enter into a relationship with every song, every poem we hear. We bring our lives into every song. When this singer bemoans the loss of his family, I feel it in my bones because for the estrangement from my own family:
I ain’t seen my family in twenty years
That ain’t easy to understand
They may be dead by now
I lost track of them after they lost their land
And we hear about a romantic rival who has fallen by the wayside:
My enemy slammed into the earth
I don’t know what he was worth
But he lost it all, everything and more
What a blithering fool he took me for
The world the singer knew, the world in which he grew up, has vanished. Things are not the way they once were, which begs the question if they ever were. Dylan puts it this way:
I think when my back was turned
The whole world behind me burned
Maybe today, if not today, maybe tomorrow
Maybe there’ll be a limit on all my sorrow
Yet what matters most is the relationship with his lover, his bride.
A Life Long Relationship
In recent years, I have had the opportunity to attend the weddings of the children of many friends. The young love we witness is palpable and wonderful, yet I cannot help but think of what lies ahead when that initial sparkle fades, when the challenges begin and real love will take root. Or not. When the losses come, the inevitable strains and loss, will their love survive. We all face trauma and stress and there is only a question of whether it will bind us tighter or drive us apart.
In the last verse, he refers to their torn souls, suggesting they are soulmates, destined for each other, bound together. That first rush of love may have come long ago, but they are still together since just the night before, he hears her talking in her sleep:
Saying things you shouldn’t say
Oh, baby
You just might have to go to jail some day
When the first blush evaporates, we can see our partners as no one else does. We can see their strengths, but we know their weaknesses too, their flaws, their vulnerability. The relationship has a bit of mutual destruction built into it which comes to light in ugly divorces. Our partners know where we are most vulnerable and we know the same about them.
Despite it all, they are still together, they are still talking. Maybe it is therapy they need, maybe just more time:
Is there a place we can go?
Is there anybody we can see?
Maybe what’s right for you
Isn’t really right for me
And he admits there are times he has hurt her, times when he tried to cover up, to hide a truth from her:
I wear dark glasses to cover my eyes
There’re secrets in them I can’t disguise
Come back, baby
If I hurt your feelings, I apologize
After all these years, they have their separate lives, but they are bound and he turns to her because he understands her like no other. My bride will tell me, “I get you.” And in many ways, that is the dream, someone who sees us, who gets us, someone with whom we can be honest, with whom we can be who we are, our genuine selves.
In the end, they have each other. There are hurtful things, acts too terrible to mention, that cannot be undone. But they are still together:
We cried on a cold and frosty morn’
We cried because our souls were torn
So much for tears
So much for those long and wasted years.
No use in recriminations, no use in assigning blame. They have each other, they can go on. At this point, they only have each other.
Live Performances
This song has been a mainstay in the live shows ever since its release in 2012. Dylan has performed it 329 times, most recently in June 2024. Here is a recording from Chicago in November 2014.
#Songoftheday #spreadinghappiness #bobdylan #longandwastedyears #love
YouTube: https://youtu.be/7JOIE-hE1pk?si=sZiA0UpSBYKKczdJ
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/242TKXb3WdPJxUgDPF4tmy?si=5b480d00806c4490