Bob Dylan's "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" Quiz

Answer: Sara Lownds

"Lowlands" may allude to Sara's last name, "Lownds." Biographer Robert Shelton called "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" a "wedding song" for Sara and quotes Dylan as saying, "This is the best song I've ever written."

Dylan married Sara on November 22, 1965 in Long Island, New York in the judge's office. The couple divorced in 1977 and had four children. Dylan also adopted Sara's daughter Maria from a previous marriage. Dylan has written several songs about Sara, including "Sara," "Love Minus Zero," and "Abandoned Love."

Answer: 0

According to the Official Bob Dylan website, Bob Dylan has never, as of 2021, played "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" in concert. A live version was, however, played at a rehearsal (though not in concert) for the 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour, and a recording of it ended up in "Renaldo and Clara," a 1978 film directed by Bob Dylan. Takes of this song have been included on "The Original Mono Recordings" and "The Bootleg Series Volume 12: The Cutting Edge 1965."

"Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" was rated number 27 on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Bob Dylan Songs."

Answer: Richie Havens

Born January 21, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York, Richie Havens began his career on the beat poetry scene in Greenwich Village in the 1950s. After his second album, he signed on with Bob Dylan's own manager, Albert Grossman. The Verve label released his "Mixed Bag" in 1966, which included a well-respected cover of Dylan's "Just Like a Woman." The sequel to the album, "Mixed Bag II," included "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands."

Answer: Roger Waters

In a January 18, 2012 interview with shock jock Howard Stern, Roger Waters said he thought that if Dylan could record something that long (the song was over eleven minutes), so could he. The song is "a whole album," Waters explained. "And it in no way gets dull or boring. You just get more and more engrossed."

Answer: lips like lace

"And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes...
and your flesh like silk, and your face like glass...."

Bob Dylan sang vocals and played harmonica on this song, while session musician Hargus "Pig" Robbins was on piano. Al Kooper played organ, and Charlie McCoy and Wayne Moss were on guitars. Joe South played bass and Kenny Buttery was on drums.

Answer: mercury and cowboy

Some of these other words are also uses as descriptors in the song, but not of the lady's mouth. The singer describes the lady's "matchbook songs and...gypsy hymns," his own "Arabian drums" and "warehouse eyes."

The song was included as the closing track on Bob Dylan's seventh studio album, "Blonde on Blonde," which was released June 20, 1966.

Answer: Spanish

In the song "Sara," also for his wife Sara, Dylan refers to the composition of this song:

"I can still hear the sounds of those Methodist bells
I'd taken the cure and had just gotten through
Stayin' up for days in the Chelsea Hotel
Writin' 'Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' for you."

In reality, however, at least according to Rolling Stone magazine, "he largely wrote it on the spot during the dead of night in a Nashville studio" while "the session musicians he'd hired played cards."

Answer: swims

Old Crow Medicine show did a tribute to Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" album, performing it track for track live in 2016. The album was released in 2017 as "50 Years of Blonde on Blonde" and included their version of "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands." A version of the song, by American singer-songwriter Weyes Blood, was also included on the cover album "Dylan Revisited."

Answer: Monterey, California

Sara's first husband was a magazine photographer, which accounts for this reference to "your magazine husband." Sara's father was a scrap metal dealer, which may account for this "sheet metal memory" description and the other reference to metal in the song ("with your sheets like metal and your belt like lace").

Answer: George Harrison

"Long, Long, Long" was written by George Harrison and included on "The White Album" in 1968. In his 1980 autobiography " I, Me, Mine," Harrison wrote, "The 'you' in 'Long, Long, Long' is God. I can't recall much about it except the chords, which I think were coming from 'Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands'...those three chords and the way they moved."