Lyrics to
Clothes Line Saga

Released by Bob Dylan in 1975
From the Album: The Basement Tapes |

This version of Clothes Line Saga was released by Bob Dylan in 1975.

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After a while we took in the clothes
Nobody said very much
Just some old wild shirts and a couple pairs of pants
Which nobody really wanted to touch
Mama come in and picked up a book
An’ Papa asked her what it was
Someone else asked, “What do you care?”
Papa said, “Well, just because?”
Then they started to take back their clothes
Hang’em on the line
It was January the thirtieth
And everybody was feelin’ fine.

The next day, everybody got up
Seein’ if the clothes were dry
The dogs were barking, a neighbor passed
Mama, of cource, she said, “Hi”
“Have you heard the news?” he said with a grin
“The Vice President’s gone mad”
“Where?” “Downtown.” “When?” “Last night”
“Hmm, say, that’s too bad”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it,” said the neighbor
“It’s just something we’re gonna have to forget”
“Yes, I guess so” said Ma
Then she asked me if the clothes was still wet.

I reached up, touched my shirt
And the neighbor said, “Are those clothes yours?”
I said, “Some of them, not all of them”
He said, “Ya always help out around here with the chores ?”
I said, “Sometime, not all the time”
Then my neighbor he blew his nose
Just as papa yelled outside
“Mama wants you to come back in the house and bring them clothes”
Well, I just do what I’m told so I did it, of course
I went back in the house and Mama met me
And then I shut all the doors.


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Bob Dylan has released many songs over the years besides Clothes Line Saga. Bob Dylan released songs from 1962 to 2006 spanning across albums like Bob Dylan, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Another Side Of Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin', Highway 61 Revisited, Bringing All Back Home, Blonde On Blonde, John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, Selfportrait, New Morning, Dylan, Planet Waves, The Basement Tapes, Blood On The Tracks, Desire, Street Legal, Slow Train Coming, Saved, Shot Of Love, Infidels, Empire Burlesque, Knocked Out Loaded, Down In The Groove, Oh Mercy, Under The Red Sky, Good As I Been To You, World Gone Wrong, Time Out Of Mind, Love And Theft, and Modern Times. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Bob Dylan.

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If you're a fan of 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1975 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Clothes Line Saga by Bob Dylan

The lyrics to Clothes Line Saga are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that Bob Dylan used when the song was created in 1975. The lyrics to Clothes Line Saga have both easy-to-spot meanings and hidden metaphors that have been discussed by the music press and fans, but only Bob Dylan and any collaborators know all of the inspirations for the song.

If you like etymology or breaking apart phrases and words, it is easy to understand the lyrics to Clothes Line Saga by Bob Dylan. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Clothes Line Saga" means the words set to the music of Clothes Line Saga, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Bob Dylan. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Clothes Line Saga and the lyrics to Clothes Line Saga are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Bob Dylan who came here looking just for the lyrics to Clothes Line Saga, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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