Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands

The words

A slow, hymn-like tribute to a mysterious woman, piling up images of her before asking whether he may wait for her.

Dylan addresses a woman he holds in awe, describing her over several long verses in a cascade of surreal, devotional images that never settle into a plain portrait. Each verse builds slowly toward the same pleading refrain, in which he asks whether he should go on waiting for her. The tone is reverent and almost liturgical rather than casually romantic. The band plays softly and patiently, swelling at each chorus, and the song stretches past eleven minutes, filling the whole fourth side of the original double LP.