I actually think the words in this song below are much stronger than the music. though the backing singers do add a nice touch. It draws a picture of struggling psyches in a relationship. Where the pursuit  of love has turned sour. It is another Dylan classic. Of course one may like to entertain the highest ideals in the things we pursue, only a truly free man  may not be affected with no vested interests and the application of compassion.

Part of the participation in this process is disillusionment. Usually healed by the opposite love. As the song develops there is a no doubt that when belief is lost everything else deteriorates. It is quite possible that our minds can simple not handle  the amount of life with out a belief in the way society/life should be ordered. The question is what should that order be if  one seeks that in religion or social clubs. This song does fit well in the  internalisation or externalisation  of processes that one may go through.

It is interesting too how the images of power are played out in the last verses through use of kings and Queens and organisations. We quite often perceive  life in relation to what we can do and how we do that.  This is the ultimate trick as the song demonstrates that control of a changing reality may not be worth what one once pursued.

Sixteen years,
Sixteen banners united over the field
Where the good shepherd grieves.
Desperate men, desperate women divided,
Spreading their wings ‘neath the falling leaves.

Fortune calls.
I stepped forth from the shadows, to the marketplace,
Merchants and thieves, hungry for power, my last deal gone down.
She’s smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born,
On midsummer’s eve, near the tower.

The cold-blooded moon.
The captain waits above the celebration
Sending his thoughts to a beloved maid
Whose ebony face is beyond communication.
The captain is down but still believing that his love will be repaid.

They shaved her head.
She was torn between Jupiter and Apollo.
A messenger arrived with a black nightingale.
I seen her on the stairs and I couldn’t help but follow,
Follow her down past the fountain where they lifted her veil.

I stumbled to my feet.
I rode past destruction in the ditches
With the stitches still mending ‘neath a heart-shaped tattoo.
Renegade priests and treacherous young witches
Were handing out the flowers that I’d given to you.

The palace of mirrors
Where dog soldiers are reflected,
The endless road and the wailing of chimes,
The empty rooms where her memory is protected,
Where the angels’ voices whisper to the souls of previous times.

She wakes him up
Forty-eight hours later, the sun is breaking
Near broken chains, mountain laurel and rolling rocks.
She’s begging to know what measures he now will be taking.
He’s pulling her down and she’s clutching on to his long golden locks.

Gentlemen, he said,
I don’t need your organization, I’ve shined your shoes,
I’ve moved your mountains and marked your cards
But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination
Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards.

Peace will come
With tranquility and splendor on the wheels of fire
But will bring us no reward when her false idols fall
And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating
Between the King and the Queen of Swords.