Dylan Song By Song: "Gates of Eden" Quiz

Answer: Bringing It All Back Home

Released in 1965 on "Bringing It All Back Home," this is one of Dylan's richest but least performed songs.

Answer: S

Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds. In the song we have have "truth" and "twists"; "motorcycle" and "madonna"; and "promises of paradise," to name but a few examples. But the largest barrage of words employs the letter S: "savage soldier", "sticks", "sand", "shoeless", "ship", "sits", "side saddle", "silver-studded", "songs," "sparrow sings," and so on.

Answer: Lucifer

Ezekiel 31:9-16, which is often interpreted to refer to Satan, reads: "I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because . . . he hath shot up his top among thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height . . . I have driven him out for his wickedness . . . I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden . . . shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth." When "'neath the trees of Eden," Satan was full of beauty and brightness, but now, cast down from heaven and outside the gates of Eden, the glow of Satan's candle is, as Dylan describes it, "waxed in black."

Answer: Lamppost stands

"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. . . " This cacophony of noise Dylan contrasts with Eden, out of which no sound comes forth to greet the fallen world: "No sound ever comes from the Gates of Eden."

Answer: Aladdin

"Aladdin and his lamp / Sits with Utopian hermit monks / Side saddle on the Golden Calf / And on their promises of paradise / You will not hear a laugh / All except inside the Gates of Eden." I believe Dylan is here painting a picture of the fallen world outside of Eden, where all have succumbed to idolatry. Both the pagans (represented by Aladdin) and the supposed Christians (represented by the monks) sit upon "the Golden Calf," the idolatrous object of Israelite worship in Exodus 32:4.

The breadth of the discrepancy between the actual and the ideal is known only inside the Gates of Eden, where the utopian promises of these men are laughed at.

Answer: Truths

Dylan sings, "there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden." Dylan's images, many of which seem senseless, combine to create a powerful image of the loss of Eden.

Answer: The savage soldier

"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..."

Answer: Time-rusted

"With a time-rusted compass blade / Aladdin and his lamp / Sits with Utopian hermit monks / Side saddle on the Golden Calf." The other three choices are all sound-rich adjectives Dylan employs elsewhere in the song.

Answer: Kingdoms of Experience

"The kingdoms of Experience / In the precious wind they rot." Through the Fall, mankind lost paradise and exchanged innocence for experience. But experience is putrid; it leaves "paupers" to "change possessions / Each one wishing for what the other has got" while the "princess and the prince" waste time debating "what's real and what is not." But none of this nonsense "matter[s] inside the Gates of Eden."

Answer: Dawn

"At dawn my lover comes to me / And tells me of her dreams." Yet his lover does not attempt to explain the meaning of these dreams. Here, I think Dylan implies that this kind of random dream imagery may be the closest we can come to grasping Eden: "At times I think there are no words / But these to tell what's true."