Song Details
- Album Release Date: 2012
- Genre: singer-songwriter
Song Meaning of “Scarlet Town” by Bob Dylan
The song ‘Scarlet Town’ is a haunting folk-style ballad from the talented Bob Dylan. The lyrics are filled with plenty of images that evoke a sense of sadness and despair. It’s about a person coming to terms with their mortality and the relentlessness of time.
The song begins with the narrator walking through a town, noting the ‘waves of sorrow’ that wash over it. He reflects on synchronicity and fate with the line, ‘It must have been fate that brought me to that town’. He then progresses to muse on the universal theme of death and how it affects all people, even in the bustling streets of this town. Dylan paints a vivid picture of the ever-changing but seemingly cyclical nature of life with the repetition of ‘Scarlet Town, walls all around’.
While the narrator seems to be looking for acceptance, he doesn’t “seem to fit in” and is ‘just searching around’ for something, possibly solace or understanding. The bridge features a sad revelation that ‘it’s a one-way street’, implying that progress is hard to come by.
At the end of the song, Dylan reaffirms that the only thing to accept is death, and that despite our hopes of ‘True love never will prevail’, it’s something that will come to us all.