Ignorance Inside the Gates of Eden

“Gates of Eden” is one of those songs that all bobcats make the effort to learn all the words to off-by heart. It is one of those songs that is very difficult to figure out and many a Dylanologist and Bobcat has toiled away at finding different meanings within the song, including myself. I want to discuss this song in the way that it shows us ignorance. Especially the ignorance of the rich regarding the normal working person. This is a problem we as a society face today. Where Hollywood celebrities try their hardest to be ‘relatable’ by taking pictures of themselves eating pizza from a normal pizza place, or thinking that telling vulgar jokes on television is ‘relatable’ content. But in reality, they understand nothing of the normal working world. We know this, but they continuously make themselves look like idiots by discussing and preaching to us how we should be living our lives when they, in fact, are the most disconnected people in the world. Bob Dylan takes this, in his own time, and applies to to the rich-man Rockefeller-esque culture instead.

Of war and peace the truth just twists

Its curfew gull just glides

Upon four-legged forest clouds

The cowboy angel rides

With his candle lit into the sun

Though its glow is waxed in black

All except when 'neath the trees of Eden

The fact that the ‘truth just twists’ means that when it comes to war, something incredibly serious in which people are inevitably going to die, the truth does not seem to be the top concern for those at the very top. The candle is lit into the sun, but as the cowboy approaches the glow is blackened. This shows that death, though avoidable by telling the truth about war, is actually now inevitable because he has been told that he is doing something good for his country. He has been told this but he has not been told the truth.

The lamppost stands with folded arms

Its iron claws attached

To curbs 'neath holes where babies wail

Though it shadows metal badge

All and all can only fall

With a crashing but meaningless blow

No sound ever comes from the Gates of Eden

The babies are crying in this hole where they have been left because of the war, these children no longer have any parents. Possibly their fathers have died and their mothers no longer have the money or means to care for them. They have been put up for adoption, left lying around, given to relatives. But metaphorically, they have been left in a hole without a real identity, not knowing who they are. Everything will have to fall before it gets better and using the metaphor of a ‘crashing but meaningless blow’ in order to make everything better is very effective. It shows that it is not only inevitably going to fall but also that this is so meaningless to the rich leaders that it will all happen again because of them.

The savage soldier sticks his head in sand

And then complains

Unto the shoeless hunter who's gone deaf

But still remains

Upon the beach where hound dogs bay

At ships with tattooed sails

Heading for the Gates of Eden

This verse shows us what the common man does and feels. The ‘savage’ soldier is not a savage to the narrator but would be to the rich leaders because he is a soldier and he must be poor if he is on the front line. Why? The rich man cannot fathom anyone choosing to be on the front line. The soldier has his head stuck in the sand because he does not know the truth but he is scared of what is to come. The other man though, has gone deaf. He, even if the truth were spoken, would not be able to hear it. Another metaphor which tells us that these men, by the time they hear the truth, will be long gone.

Throughout the second part of the song we get the moments of the rich and powerful. For example, we have phrases such as: “And on their promises of paradise you will not hear a laugh…”, “They whisper in the wings to those condemned to act accordingly and wait for succeeding kings…” and most importantly, the following verse:

The kingdoms of experience

In the precious wind they rot

While paupers change possessions

Each one wishing for what the other has got

And the princess and the prince

Discuss what's real and what is not

It doesn't matter inside the Gates of Eden

It’s a brilliant verse in which we get a very vivid image of what I had discussed in the introduction about the preaching and the want to be relatable of the Hollywood folk.

In conclusion, there is nothing in this song that does not refer to how ignorant the upper class is of the working class lifestyle, even if they think that they know about it, they actually have no idea whatsoever. The only experience of this, therefore, must be lived ones.