Bob Dylan EXPOSED!

As a historical songwriter, that is. See, everyone has assumed that Positively 4th Street is about the scene Dylan knew when he lived in 161 West 4th Street in 1962. That assumption is wrong: the song is actually about the rivalry and enmity between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, both of whom were based in New York City and were active in local politics during the period of their rivalry.

A look through the lyrics amply demonstrates the accuracy of my interpretation:

You got a lotta nerve

To say you are my friend

When I was down

You just stood there grinning



You got a lotta nerve

To say you got a helping hand to lend

You just want to be on

The side that's winning

This verse obviously refers to Burr's appeals to New York Federalists once he had begun to fall from power in the New York Republican party, displaced by the Clintonians and Livingstonians. This fall from grace resulted partly from how damnedly undignified "Burrian" sounds.

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

Of course, this is Hamilton's reaction to Burr's suspicions that Hamilton intrigued against him, to the advantage of the Jeffersonians who had it in for Burr. This is fairly close to the tone Hamilton took in his responses to Burr's challenges to an affair of honor (i.e. duel).

You say you lost your faith

But that's not where it's at

You had no faith to lose

And you know it

It's amply documented that Hamilton's problems with Burr stemmed not from his politics (Burr's Republicanism was far more tolerable to the Federalists than was Jefferson's), but from Burr's seemingly total lack of moral scruples. Hamilton was not at all surprised, then, that once Burr was ostracised from Republican circles, he strongly allied himself with the Federalist party, or what was left of it.

I know the reason

That you talk behind my back

I used to be among the crowd

You're in with



Do you take me for such a fool

To think I'd make contact

With the one who tries to hide

What he don't know to begin with

Unfortunately, Dylan gets the order of events wrong, as he is wont to do in historical songs (cf. "With God on Our Side", in which he puts the Spanish-American war before the Civil War). This pair of verses obviously applies to Burr's standing with the Republicans back when Hamilton was Treasury Secretary, long before the events described in the first few verses. I don't understand why Dylan gets these things wrong.

You see me on the street

You always act surprised

You say, "How are you?" "Good luck"

But you don't mean it



When you know as well as me

You'd rather see me paralyzed

Why don't you just come out once

And scream it

It's been remarked upon that in the weeks between arranging the duel and consummating it, Burr and Hamilton shared polite company together and seemed to be quite at ease at one another.

No, I do not feel that good

When I see the heartbreaks you embrace

If I was a master thief

Perhaps I'd rob them

Again with the bizarre order lapses! Burr's promiscuity was infamous (he bragged about it, giving great detail, in letters to his cherished daughter), and was a major reason Hamilton distrusted him. A.H. could deal with Jefferson sleeping with Sally Hemings much more easily than with Burr sleeping with married women, prostitutes, and ingenues left and right.

"And now I know you're dissatisfied
With your position and your place
Don't you understand
It's not my problem"

Of course, one of the reasons Burr fought the duel was to enhance his reputation and revive his failing political career (more or less the same reasons Hamilton accepted it against all his better judgement).

I wish that for just one time

You could stand inside my shoes

And just for that one moment

I could be you



Yes, I wish that for just one time

You could stand inside my shoes

You'd know what a drag it is

To see you

These lines are obvious and require no further explication from me. It's patently obvious that my interpretation is right, of course, but Dylan does need to work on those little chronological-order problems of his. Cars and slave-trading in DeLacroix? Wha?