Man in the Long Black Coat Lyrics
Crickets are chirping, the water is high
There’s a soft cotton dress on the line hangin’ dry
Window wide open, African trees
Bent over backwards from a hurricane breeze
Not a word of goodbye, not even a note
She gone with the man
In the long black coat
[Verse 2]
Somebody seen him hanging around
At the old dance hall on the outskirts of town
He looked into her eyes when she stopped him to ask
If he wanted to dance, he had a face like a mask
Somebody said from the Bible he’d quote
There was dust on the man
In the long black coat
[Verse 3]
Preacher was a talkin’, there’s a sermon he gave
He said every man’s conscience is vile and depraved
You cannot depend on it to be your guide
When it’s you who must keep it satisfied
It ain’t easy to swallow, it sticks in the throat
She gave her heart to the man
In the long black coat
There are no mistakes in life some people say
It is true sometimes you can see it that way
But people don't live or die, people just float
She went with the man
In the long black coat
[Verse 5]
There’s smoke on the water, it’s been there since June
Tree trunks uprooted, 'neath the high crescent moon
Feel the pulse and vibration and the rumbling force
Somebody is out there beating on a dead horse
She never said nothing, there was nothing she wrote
She gone with the man
In the long black coat
About
One of the darker sounding songs off Oh Mercy, “Man In The Long Black Coat” was written in the studio and recorded in just one take.
The song is, in many ways, a reinterpretation of an old Scottish ballad called “The Daemon Lover.” The ballad tells the story of a woman who leaves her husband and baby to board a ship with a man who has enticed her with promises of treasure. The ship sinks and they both die. In “The Man With The Long Black Coat,” Dylan tells the story from the perspective of the husband who has been left behind.
In Dylan’s memoir, Chronicles, he wrote about the song, saying,
In some kind of weird way, I thought of it as my ‘I Walk the Line,’ a song I’d always considered to be up there at the top, one of the most mysterious and revolutionary of all time, a song that makes an attack on your most vulnerable spots, sharp words from a master."
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
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