Dylan’s intriguing Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts lured in the background of my consciousness for a long time – now I feel it has matured enough to share my, certainly subjective, perspective of the song as a spiritual transformation. It is the second song of Dylan’s highly acclaimed 1975 album Blood on the Tracks, voted No. 9 in the Rolling Stone Magazine’s 2020 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of all time (and confirmed at that position in the 2023 update) covered here. The first song from this album on this blog was Shelter from the Storm (for a video see here).
Here’s the official audio:
Different Perspectives on Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts
On Untold Dylan, John Henry argues that the song doesn’t really fit on the album. And that is not because it isn’t good, but because it is different from the rest of the songs. Different in that it doesn’t break up the sense of time, that it doesn’t relate to (lost) love, and that it is not told in the first person.
Longandwastedyear.com doesn’t like it, both for lyrical (what the hell is even happening?) and musical reasons (annoying rhythmically).
Chris Gregory loves it, stating: “This is a song that is impossible to tie down. Dylan delights in presenting us with a cavalcade of scenes that present us with riddles that, by their very nature, can never be solved.”
David Weir of Bob Dylan Song Analysis once again gives a very profound breakdown, showing the story is not nearly as straight forward and much more inconsistent than it seems at first glance.
Like many remarkable songs, Dylan hasn’t given this one much attention in his (over 4000!) live concerts; according to his own website, he only played it once, in 1976.
A Spiritual Perspective on Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts
To me, the abovementioned riddles and inconsistencies shout out for an interpretation on a different level, not taking the story literally, as is typical for spiritual allegories.
I used to think that Dylan was a master of ambiguity, giving each listener plenty of options for her or his own interpretations. Just like Joan Baez says in her great song Diamonds and Rust, directed at Dylan: You who are so good with words / And at keeping things vague / ‘Cause I need some of that vagueness now …
Over the years, and reading e. g. his 1980 interview with Karen Hughes, I believe more and more that his work is not only partially spiritual, and not only because he received occasional inspiration in that direction, but spiritual in a very fundamental sense. So I believe his ambiguities are not arbitrary, but originate in his ability to switch from a literal, worldly meaning to a spiritual, abstract level, describing processes in a maturing spirit-soul.
A key to many spiritual writings is to see everything, all people and places as aspects within oneself. So I’ll try to make sense of Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts by seeing the four main characters, Lily, Rosemary, Big Jim and the mysterious Jack of Hearts, as aspects of one being, hinting at a transformation.
The Four Main Characters: Lily, Rosemary, Big Jim and the Jack of Hearts
So, what are some attributes of the main characters? Starting with the ladies:
Rosemary
- looks “like a queen without a crown”
- flutters her false eyelashes
- married to Big Jim, but tired of playing the role of his wife
- drinking hard
- had done a lot of bad things, even tried suicide
- “lookin’ to do just one good deed before she died”
- dreaming of a future with the Jack of Hearts
Lily
- plays cards with the girls, draws the Jack of Hearts
- “a princess, fair-skinned and precious as a child”
- “She’d come away from a broken home, had lots of strange affairs /
With men in every walk of life which took her everywhere” - “It was known all around that Lily had Jim’s ring”;
nothing would come between her and the king –
except maybe the Jack of Hearts … - loves the Jack of Hearts, can’t stand Big Jim (my interpretation)
(this verse is included in the official lyrics, but missing on the album version; Bob sang it on the Bootleg Series Vol. 14, “More Blood, More Tracks”) - in the end, takes the dye out of her hair, thinks of her father, but mostly, about the Jack of Hearts
To me, the spiritual path is about the connection between the soul and the personality. The two ladies represent aspects of the soul, like in Goethe’s Faust: Two souls, alas, are housed within my breast … One is oriented towards this world, the earthly, material aspects, and one is longing for something higher, the immaterial realm of the spirit-soul. The two may be distinguished, but may not be so strictly separated. In spirituality, sometimes only one soul is referenced, which is placed between two realms and, through often painful experience, is purified until only the desire for the life of the spirit-soul remains.
In that sense, Rosemary would represent the worldly soul aspect, having done “a lot of bad things”. But she is tired of it, she has collected enough experiences. Married to Jim, representing wealth, worldly power, and a big ego, she is longing for the Jack of Hearts, and prepared to die if she can carry out one good deed – in other words, ready for a sacrifice.
Lily shares the same longing, and she also seems to be tied to Jim. However, she appears more innocent, more pure, in spite of all the affairs she’s been through. To me, she’s the embodiment of a soul fallen into a bad world which is not her home, and seeking the way back to her true home. I’ve seen discussions on the web (I think in Youtube comments) about the meaning of “precious as a child”: precious when she was a child? or precious now, like a child? To me, the line hints at a purity that is in her, as she belongs to a higher realm, even though she is tied to earthly bounds.
On to the men:
Big Jim
- rich and powerful: owner of the only diamond mine in town
- aware of his position, stylish
- does as he pleases, regardless of consequences for him or others
- narrator says already when he is first mentioned in the fourth verse that his power attributes (bodyguards and silver cane) are no match for the Jack of Hearts
- stares at the Jack of Hearts, his face seems familiar, but he can’t recall from where
- surprises Lily and the Jack of Hearts in the dressing room; while a revolver clicked, we learn only two verses later that it was not the Jack of Hearts that was killed, but rather Jim who got stabbed, apparently by Rosemary
The Jack of Hearts
- least defined of the four
- In a masterful display of songwriting and storytelling, Dylan manages to finish each verse with that one name, almost like a mantram – the only places that name appears
- seems generous and polite in the second verse, though referenced in the beginning as “like the Jack of Hearts”
- So he appears 16 times in 16 verses (a number also used in Changing of the Guards), yet remains somewhat mysterious, e. g. “The only person on the scene missin’ was the Jack of Hearts” in the second-last verse; also in the verse before that, when the bank robbers can go no further without him.
Similar to the women, the two men, to me, also represent aspects within one human: an ego aspect, who wants everything for himself, without being held accountable (“he laid it all to waste” – like, on a large scale, we deal with our planet), and a being that serves a higher purpose, helping the soul to connect to the spirit.
The “lower” aspect of man somehow seems to know of the higher aspect – like a faint memory that cannot be pinned down. Maybe the conscience, that wouldn’t fade even in the most ego-oriented lifestyle?
Four Characters, One Spiritual Transformation
So, in essence, the song describes a transformation, which activates the spirit-soul (Lily carries that potential), helped by a sacrifice by the worldly soul aspect (Rosemary), who readily accepts her fate (she didn’t blink on the gallows). That way, the ego aspect (Big Jim) is overcome, and Jack of Hearts can finally connect, unhindered, with the higher soul aspect.
Does the rest of the story make sense in that context?
I’m aware that there are many different interpretations out there which make sense, and I wouldn’t want to argue with anyone. I’ll just offer a few ideas.
Assuming the four main characters are aspects of one being, then the rest of the setting, including supporting actors like the bank robbers, should have a place and a meaning, and not be completely arbitrary.
Allowing Light Into The System
As for the bank robbers, they relate to an image of the human being as a microcosm (see posts about Dylan’s Senor and Cohen’s Avalanche), a small world in its own right. A magnetic sphere surrounds the human like a firmament, in which the karma is stored. The microcosm is immortal, but degenerated, so heavenly energies cannot easily enter. The “bank robbers” drill a hole in the wall. Reminds me of Cohen’s famous lines: “There’s a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in”. Many people experience something similar when tragic events occur. In times of deep need, feeling as if cut open, we are often more responsive to the light than when everything is going our way. The robbers may take old treasures that are worthless for the transformation that is about to occur. One may be reminded of “That pot of gold is only make-believe” from Abandoned Love.
In this context, I think the “brand-new coat of paint” that Lily references in verse 10 makes sense in terms of a renewal of the whole human system. Like a renovation, where old ideas, habits, and earthly ties are cleaned out. This is not a fundamental change yet, but a precondition to even receive new energies.
Another line that may fit here is: “Lily washed her face, took her dress off and buried it away” – to me an image of purification. Clothes are often referred to in spiritual contexts in the sense of the soul garment, e. g. in Simon & Garfunkel’s Scarborough Fair. They are mentioned in Harry Styles’ Sign of the Times, in Dylan’s Isis, and in Avicii’s Wake Me Up among many others.
The backstage manager may represent aspects of the subconscious and even the rational mind. It doesn’t get the control of the situation that it might like to have.
In that context, I really love how Dylan starts the song. Strong opening lines are an art in itself, and Dylan has produced some memorable ones. Señor, señor, do you know where we’re headin’? comes to mind: Lincoln County Road or Armageddon? / Seems like I been down this way before / Is there any truth in that, señor? Here, the festival over, the cabaret quiet, gambling wheel shut down: the seeker gives up on his earthly quest and finally turns to the truth inside, not looking for anything on the outside of things anymore that cannot be found there. Enough is enough.
I don’t want to stretch it too far, so if the following seems that way to you, that’s fine, just ignore it. Maybe even the card game in verse three fits into a broader picture. Dylan has used similar images in other songs, e. g. the king and the queen of swords in Changing of the Guards. The number two in the “two queens” that Lily had may be a symbol for a world of opposites: life and death, light and darkness / day and night, left and right, hot and cold, love and hate … So if the soul is longing for a different state of being, it needs to go beyond the opposites. Maybe the third queen is a hint at that. To use a different image, the horizontal bar of the cross may symbolize our material world of opposites, while the vertical bar cuts right through the center, leading into another realm. So the third queen may correspond to that vertical bar, like a new dimension.
The Hanging Judge: Executor of the Spiritual Transformation
The hanging judge is one of many examples in spiritual texts that appear very cruel to a humanistic understanding. Similarly, we find a lot of cruelty in fairy tales, and I’ve heard a good friend and father say that’s why he wouldn’t read fairy tales to his children. To my understanding, children are usually not shocked or harmed by it – they feel the stories on a level of the soul which is not yet, as in adults, disturbed by an interfering rational mind.
We can think of the Old Testament, which can be read as a tale of a developing consciousness, where old aspects are “killed” as new aspects emerge (see, for example, Anna Martens, “Das Große Gesetz”), or the Bhagavad Gita, where a battle is raging.
So the hanging judge is just an impersonal force that helps overcome earthly bindings by “killing” them. At first he is drunk, so not ready for action, an unawakened potential. When the day comes, he is sober, ready to do what has to be done.
In the body, there may be real fights on a spiritual path. It’s just not our task as an ego personality to take any part in them, we can just observe and open up for the light. At first, new impulses are actively removed from the body, until a moment comes where they can persist.
I heard that in the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly (a butterfly is mentioned in verse 6 of our song!), the old “caterpillar” cells fight the new “butterfly” cells until a tipping point is reached where the latter gain the upper hand so that the transformation can be fulfilled.
The Cabaret: Repair as Spiritual Transformation of The Human System
The Cabaret is the setting in which the “Western” story plays out. In the end, it is “closed for repair” – a fundamental reconstruction of the whole human system takes place before a new life can start that is no longer ruled by the ego.
Lily has now taken the dye our of her hair – nothing artificial about her any more, no more concessions to the material world. Thinking about her Father (a small “f” in the official lyrics) and the law – how life follows a plan, reminiscent of “I’m hanging in the balance / of a perfect finished plan” in one version of “Every Grain of Sand” (“of the reality of man” in another version). Now the transformed human has become aware of how everything is connected.
Final Words on Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts
I also find it noteworthy that Dylan doesn’t sing like a mythical angel, as one might be tempted to do in such a context. Rather, he seems to punch us in the face with the combination of lyrics, pace, and rhythm, as if to say: There is No Time To Think. Let it sink in. And, if I take a lot of Youtube comments seriously, many people seem to feel the magic, without really making sense of the words.
Before I forget: Not quite the first line of the song, but in the first verse, a typical Dylan masterpiece: “Anyone with any sense had already left town“. He who follows a spiritual path will often be called a fool, as Dylan himself found out the hard way. Just listen to “Property of Jesus“, on the 1981 album Shot of Love (never played live!).
Joan Baez covered the song, among others, here’s her version (live 1976):
What do you make of this song? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
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