The song “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?” by Bob Dylan is a complex and ambiguous one, with multiple possible interpretations. However, one possible interpretation is that the song is about a relationship that has become toxic and destructive. The speaker of the song is trapped in a room with their anger and revenge, and they are asking their partner to leave and go back to them whenever they want. The speaker needs their partner to test their ideas and inventions, but they also know that the relationship is harmful to both of them.
The song’s lyrics are full of imagery that suggests entrapment and violence. The speaker’s partner is sitting in their room “with a fist full of tacks,” and they are “preoccupied with their vengeance.” The speaker also describes their partner as “cursing the dead that can’t answer him back.” This imagery suggests that the relationship is deeply unhealthy and that the speaker’s partner is filled with rage.
The song’s title, “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?”, also suggests a sense of entrapment. The speaker is asking their partner to leave, but they are also asking them to do so in a way that is not threatening or violent. The speaker knows that the relationship is harmful, but they are also afraid of what will happen if their partner leaves.
Lyrics
He sits in your room, his tomb, with a fist full of tacks
Preoccupied with his vengeance
Cursing the dead that can’t answer him back
You know that he has no intentions
Of looking your way, unless it’s to say
That he needs you to test his inventions
Hey, crawl out your window
Come on, don’t say it will ruin you
Come on, don’t say he will haunt you
You can go back to him any time you want to
He looks so truthful, is this how he feels?
Trying to peel the moon and expose it
With his business-like anger and his bloodhounds that kneel
If he needs a third eye, he just grows it
He just needs you to talk or to hand him his chalk
Or pick it up after he throws it
Hey, crawl out your window
Come on, don’t say it will ruin you
Come on, don’t say he will haunt you
You can go back to him any time you want to
Why does he look so righteous while your face is so changed?
Are you frightened of the box you keep him in
While his genocide fools and his friends rearrange?
Their religion of little ten women
To back up their views, but your face is so bruised
Come on out, the dark is beginning
Ah, come on, out your window
Come on, don’t say it will ruin you
Come on, don’t say he will haunt you
You can go back to him any time you want to
CANSU DEMİR
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