Where Are You Tonight? lyrics

Song information

Artist: Bob Dylan
Album: Street-Legal

Lyrics

There's a long-distance train rolling through the rain, tears on the letter I write
There's a woman I long to touch and I'm missing her so much, but she's drifting like a satellite
There's a neon light ablaze in a green smoky haze, and laughter down on
Elizabeth street
And a lonesome bell tone in that valley of stone where she bathed in a stream of pure heat
Her father would emphasize you got to be more than street-wise but he practiced what he preached from the heart
A full-blooded cherokee, he predicted to me the time and the place that we'd part

There's a babe in the arms of a woman in a rage
And a longtime golden-haired stripper onstage
As she winds back the clock and she turns back the page
Of a book that nobody can write
Oh, where are you tonight?

The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure, to live it you have to explode
In that last hour of need, we entirely agreed, sacrifice was the code of the road
I left town at dawn, with marcel and st. john, strong men belittled by doubt
I couldn't tell her what my private thoughts were but she had some way of finding them out
He took dead-center aim but he missed just the same, she was waiting
Putting flowers on the shelf
She could feel my despair as I climbed up her hair and discovered her invisible self

There's a lion in the room, there's a demon escaped
There's a million dreams gone, there's a landscape being raped
As her beauty fades and I watch her undrape
But I won't, but then maybe again, I might
Oh, if I could just find you tonight

I fought with my twin, that enemy within, 'til both of us fell by the way
Horseplay and disease is killing me by degrees while the law looks the other way
Your partners in crime hit me up for nickels and dimes, the man you were lovin' could never get clean
It felt outa place, my foot in his face, but he should have stayed where his money was green
I bit into the root of forbidden fruit with the juice running down my leg
Then I dealt with your boss, who'd never known about loss, who always was
Too proud to beg
There's a white diamond gloom on the dark side of this room and a pathway that leads up to the stars
If you don't believe there's a price for this sweet paradise, just remind me to show you the scars

There's a new day at dawn and I've finally arrived
If I'm there in the morning, baby, you'll know I've survived
I can't believe it, I can't believe I'm alive
But without you it doesn't seem right
Oh, where are you tonight?