All the Tired Horses

The words

A short, repeated chant about a rider unable to get going while the day passes.

This is barely a song at all, more a brief, hypnotic chant. A lone rider is stuck, unable to get moving, while the hours slip away. The same couple of lines are repeated over and over by a choir of women, with lush strings swelling behind them, and Dylan himself never sings. Opening Self Portrait this way felt like a puzzle or a joke to many listeners, yet it has a dreamy, drifting beauty.