Welcome to the subreddit of the poet laureate of rock 'n' roll. The voice of the promise of the '60s counter-culture. The guy who forced folk into bed with rock. Who donned make-up in the '70s and disappeared into a haze of substance abuse. Who emerged to find Jesus. Who was written off as a has-been by the end of the '80s and who suddenly shifted gears, releasing some of the strongest music of his career beginning in the late '90s. Ladies and gentlemen — Columbia recording artist Bob Dylan!
Discussion
Right? Who’s he talking to?? He sounds like he’s going in on someone.. I could Google it but I wanted to ask y’all
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The simplest way to look at it is that it’s referring to his fans who turned on him after he “went electric.”
“You say I let you down, you know it’s not like that
If you’re so hurt, why then don’t you show it?”
Specifically, it’s likely to refer to Dylan’s experience living in Greenwich Village (much of which was centered around a 4th street) where many folk musicians resided whom he was acquainted with, many people there would have been especially ridiculing due to his “going electric” and “going mainstream” or whatever. This would’ve been especially painful criticism coming from the community he lived in, that had supported him and his work up until then.
“You see me on the street, you always act surprised
You say, ‘How are you? Good Luck,’ but you don’t mean it”
As with all of his songs though, you can’t be positive what he means. He could have been referring to some guy that accidentally brushed past him on the sidewalk which prompted Dylan to make the greatest diss track ever, who knows?
Great response! Thank u
I feel so disappointed now knowing Greenwich Village's the assumed origin setting for the song. In Minneapolis there has been a grocer called 'Positively Fourth Street' on said street since the 70s, the name was inspired by the song. It is in the neighborhood Dylan kicked around in his college-adjacent folk scene days moving to Greenwich Village. I assumed the neighborhood was the inspiration to the track. Living in that area as a UofM student in the mid 80s the song was always my go-to cathartic angsty song for all the local slights I encountered.
For artists like Dylan that (like every artist should imo) most of the time don’t come out with an explanation for what their works of art mean, anyone’s interpretation is as good as any other’s. 4th street in Minneapolis is just as valid a theory as 4th street in Greenwich Village, even if Greenwich village may seem more likely with context.
So true.
ironically the title itself seems to indicate it's a particular 4th street or it would have been called "Ambiguously Fourth Street"
It’s like getting directions from someone across the country and they just tell you, “yep, it’s fourth street!” WHICH fourth street, Bob?
It's the buildings along the 4th street bridge that runs next to the bridge that collapsed. I've talked to old guys like Spider John who actually knew him in those days.
I like that interpretation but It can be inserted in any criptic Dylan song. It's all over now baby blue it's the easy go.
It is specifically about Phil Ochs
BS answer
You can’t possibly know that. It could easily be about Irwin Silber or Izzy Young or any number of Greenwich Village folkies.
It has long been believed to be about Phil Ochs, who Dylan had a fight with when Ochs criticized him for switching to electric/rock music. Specifically, Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window.
Ochs may have been the personification of a larger criticism of Dylan’s new direction, but his name is the one usually attached to Positively 4th Street.
As far as I recall, Ochs’ criticism of Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window was that it didn’t sound like a hit (he was right).
My point though, is that unless Dylan has stated a song to be about xyz or there are specific biographical details that make it obvious (Ex: Boots of Spanish Leather being about Suze) then I think definitively stating “this Dylan song is about this person” seems like a fool’s errand.
I would also push back on the idea that a song like I Don’t Believe You is about Joan Baez or that Like a Rolling Stone is about Edie Sedgwick. Some people like to say they are, but I see no reason to believe them. In the end, only Dylan knows for sure who and what he’s writing about.
Positively 4th Street was written 6 months before Dylan threw Ochs out of the car for saying Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window wasn't very good. Ochs didn't mind Dylan going electric, he just didn't like that particular song and said so.
This is my favorite song to blast when someone does me dirty. After about two times through screaming the lyrics, I am positively over my anger.
For Dylan it’s claimed it was his crossover that generated loss of friendship and respect, and his response to them.
The Kendrick situation has me wishing rock had the same tradition of personal and precisely aimed takedowns. I already love spiteful Dylan as it is, but I wonder what he would have come up with if he was actively trying to publicly humiliate and tear down someone the way Kendrick has. It’s fascinating to see generational writing talent weaponized so explicitly and to such devastating effect.
I do the same thing lol.. nothing like blasting this tune after you get done dirty 😹
It feels so good to scream this:
YOU’D KNOW WHAT A DRAG IT IS TO SEE YOU
This line is EPIC. It feels so good to yell it out.
You got no faith to lose, and YOU KNOW IIIITTTT!!!!!
Probably Drake.
😹 Dylan is team Kendrick??
That's why he played One More Cup of Coffee in A MINNNNORRRRRRR
Freaky ass folkie better keep yo ass inside
Of course
he absolutely WOULD be team Kendrick.
Kendrick is thought of as one of the greatest of all time, Drake is a fucking novelty with a couple good songs and mediocre skills as an mc.
Though Bob might be able to relate to Drakes completely made up self-mythologizing. Started at the bottom? in a wealthy neighbourhood of Toronto acting on Canadian television? The bottom, indeed.
Kendrick is a master of language, triple entendres are the baseline for him. I 100% think Bob would respect him as a lyricist.
😹😹
Although I agree on principle and I love Kendrick, I have heard that Dylan is a fan of Drake. I think it was in the rolling stone article about the song he wrote for Post Malone
Lol the hate without knowing what tf you talking about is wild. He has more than "a couple good songs", he's an extremely skilled rapper and while he wasn't dirt poor maybe, he wasn't rich whatsoever and with the acting and with his first mixtape he then managed to pay for his mother's operation and other things.
Okay. I don’t believe I have to defend Drake but the problem is not Drake makes bad music. It’s that his sexual proclivities are fucked up. And maybe that he’s just an all around scumbag. You don’t like his music? Cool. But it has hit so many people in a good way and you can’t fuck with that.
I can’t believe I have to defend Drake and on a fucking Bob Dylan subreddit? wEiRd
Not as wild as your dick riding for a pedophile groomer.
😂
Dammit beat me to this.
I mean it’s no Idiot Wind (as far as vicious lyrics go) but I can see it.
I see Idiot Wind as self-reflective, actually. And the song ends with great tenderness, empathy, remorse.
You’re an idiot babe, it’s a wonder you even know how to breathe.
That’s mic drop battle rap right there. No matter how much tenderness or empathy the verses have.
Yes, but that's the middle of the song. The resolution of the song is quite different.
This is quite the hot take. The song is a hell of a takedown, and ending with the equivalent of “you’re fucked up, but I guess I am too” isn’t tender or empathetic in my view
I suppose, although the final lines are a lament about a breakup, not a diss.
In terms of empathy:
You'll never know the hurt I suffered
Nor the pain I rise above
And I'll never know the same about you
Your holiness or your kind of love
And it makes me feel so sorry
That verse is somewhat empathetic, I suppose, on the surface. But I don’t hear it as very sincere, more like a minor concession. “You’ll never know what I’ve been through! Oh and yeah, I guess you’ve had a hard time too.” “Your holiness”? That definitely sounds mocking, or at best sarcastic.
Even if it is empathetic, it’s a few lines at the end of a song that calls her an idiot multiple times and wishes for her violent death (“One day you’ll be in the ditch, / flies buzzin’ around your eyes, / blood on your saddle”; “blowin’ through the flowers on your tomb”). Not exactly tender. And any empathy or sensitivity that might be at the end falls flat after all the viciousness before it.
All that said, it’s a great song. Good songs don’t need to be kind or virtuous, IMO.
It definitely is. Jerry Garcia does amazing covers of it. Really squeezes out the emotion.
Love Jerry's Dylan covers. I mean i like the deads as well, but really love Garcia band covers
In David Hadju's book Positively 4th Street, he mentions that half of the Greenwich Village scene thought it was directed at them personally. Likely, it was sort of a kiss off to the folk scene more than any individual, although it's been suggested that it's targeted at Sing Out magazine.
it's absolutely a diss track.
I take it to be about all his folky "friends" who turned on him when he started using a band. 4th street is a prominent part of the village, which we all know was the epicenter of the 60s folk boom. So someone who is "positively 4th street" to me at least, is someone who is entrenched in their narrow idea of what folk music is and can be, anyone who basically seemed to think that Bob lost all credibility as a writer because he plugged a fucking guitar in, rather than stay acoustic.
And he has several others too. Like a Rolling Stone, Idiot Wind...
Bobby was the Kendrick of his time
You are kidding right? Of.course it is a diss song! Nobody can write a better diss song.than Dylan. Check out Ballad In Plain D and One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later). All bitter revenge/breakup/diss songs! Dylan as with all song lyrics, does it better than anyone by far.
Absolutely - a lot of people took offense to the song when it was released for several reasons.
He became a millionaire very young while others were struggling
He was a “star” when most “folk sings” still were purists like Woody and Pete
He “borrowed” from a lot of other people
Don’t get me wrong - I’m a diehard fan. Just trying to give my perspective on P4thS.
“Well, I'm stranded in the city that never sleeps Some of these women they just give me the creeps I'm avoiding the south side the best I can These memories I got they can strangle a man”
The Village is on the south side of Manhattan
In my opinion, it's the best f-you song of all time.
Keep in mind, Rolling Stone was done in close timing to that one and that is a real diss track as well.
This is my anthem for an ex friend of mine. It's such a diss and I love it.
arguably the first diss track!
Many people are saying it.
I always thought he was singing at me. I take it as a compliment.
I’ve read that this was about his period in the Dinkytown neighborhood in Minneapolis. Koerner, Ray, and Glover would’ve been some of the people he either gigged with or hung out with. I’m not very knowledgeable about that scene but I don’t think Dylan left with a lot of lasting friendships from Mpls.
I think it is well known that this is about Drake.
There's nothing quite like Dylan in sneer mode, and this is the king of all Dylan sneers.
I wouldn't want him mad at me.
You got a lot of nerve to judge this song.
U/MxEverett used to be among the songs you're in with!
Check out the book by the same title, by David Hadju, about Bob’s relationship with Richard Farinia and the Baez sisters.
Phil Ochs
Sounds like an annoying guy 😹 imma google him
A truly great folk singer/songwriter. Wrote some of the best protest songs of the early/mid 60s.
I Ain’t Marching Anymore, Draft Dodger’s Rag and Love Me I’m A Liberal are absolute classics.
Appreciate that ! Gonna listen.. just saw the fbi had a big file on him
He was pretty cool.
Anyone notice how Bob Dylan uses words in his lyrics?
He uses a guitar too 😳
I thought it was all samples?
Dylan was in the lab cooking up samples 😹
Woodrow Wilson, even his descendants felt the wrath from these verses of ire.
Izzy Young seems to have thought it was about him.
At dawn, my lover comes to me and tells me of her dreams/ with no attempt to shovel a glimpse into the ditch of what each one means. Do you really think Bob means ‘whatever your interpretation is,is fine’?
I live like 2 miles away from the apartment building he is referencing in that song. Hint: It's not in NY, it's on the east bank in MPLS. EDIT: and yes, it's very much a diss track
Phil Ochs
I came here to say that. Dylan could relate to him. And did so - isn’t there a story that he kicked Ochs out of a taxi they were in?
He’s not interested in singing about fans or groups of people - it’s just not him.
Joan Baez. Not completely a diss track. He admits he would love to have her back.
The person he’s addressing in the song is a “he”
You say that based on what?