Disease of Conceit

The words

Pride is pictured as an epidemic sweeping the land, wrecking lives and blinding people to their own ruin.

Dylan treats conceit as a sickness spreading from person to person across the country, more dangerous than any physical plague. He describes what it does to people: it inflates them, isolates them and finally brings them down. The song moves like a stern moral lesson delivered with sorrow rather than anger. Its stately piano and sombre singing give it the feel of a hymn sung in a darkened church.