Queen Jane Approximately
July 1965
Queen Jane Approximately is a folk-rock song of the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, who on August 30, 1965 on his album Highway 61 Revisited was first published. Furthermore, the piece as a B- side of the single One of Us Must Know ( Sooner or Later ) was used in January 1966.
Dylan plays the song often live at concerts. The Grateful Dead and The Four Seasons have covered the song.
Formation
Dylan recorded the song on 2 August 1965 on Columbia Records with producer Bob Johnston. With it, the musicians played Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, Paul Griffin, Bobby Gregg and Harvey Goldstein. In the same session also Ballad of a Thin Man emerged, Highway 61 Revisited and Just Like Tom Thumb 's Blues.
Construction
The song consists of five stanzas lyrically, each with five verses. Dylan uses a cross rhyme in an ABAB scheme. The last two verses of each stanza of the song repeat the key question: Will not you come see me, Queen Jane? . The sound is reminiscent of the song to the garage rock of earlier Dylan songs, such as Maggie 's Farm on Bringing It All Back Home or other pieces of the Highway 61 album (eg Tombstone Blues ). The most dominant are the organ sounds in the background of the song, such as on Like a Rolling Stone. The electric guitars lined up in this sound and appear to be untuned in some places. The piece has no chorus in the traditional sense, but a kind of refrain repeated question.
The text
Lyrically reminiscent Queen Jane Approximately to Like a Rolling Stone or Ballad of a Thin Man, except that the lyrical I in Queen Jane pitied and basically wants to be part of their lives sung victim of his criticism, hence the repeated question of when they him wanted to see and spend time with him. Queen Jane is less hard and nasty than the other tracks on the album, the report of a fallen person. Queen Jane must be different than Miss Lonely in Like a Rolling Stone still convinced of their situation and perspective. The singer offers her to leave the superficial and to enter into a new life with honesty and depth. Dylan uses a variety of surrealist metaphors, which makes Queen Jane Approximately a typical Dylan song that period.
Queen Jane
Who Dylan is specifically meant by Queen Jane, has been discussed in musicology from critics and fans frequently, such as the identity of Mr. Jones in Ballad of a Thin Man or Miss Lonely in Like a Rolling Stone. Because of the name and the title of Queen Jane ( engl: Queen ) have become the object of some interpretations of Jane Grey and Jane Seymour from the older English history. However, larger focus is on Joan Baez, with Dylan may have had a short-lived relationship that failed due to his suffering. Dylan and Baez were considered the king and queen of folk music. Was Queen Jane Approximately Dylan's summary of the relationship? Other interpretations suggest that Baez had already been the central figure of the malicious text in Like a Rolling Stone. The journalist Nora Ephron against Dylan said that Queen Jane was a man.