| "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" | |
|---|---|
| Song byBob Dylan | |
| from the albumBringing It All Back Home | |
| Released | March 22, 1965 (1965-03-22) |
| Recorded | January 14, 1965 |
| Studio | Columbia Recording, New York City |
| Genre | Folk rock |
| Length | 2:53 |
| Label | Columbia |
| Songwriter | Bob Dylan |
| Producer | Tom Wilson |
| Audio sample | |
"Love Minus Zero/No Limit" (read "Love Minus Zero over No Limit", sometimes titled "Love Minus Zero") is a song written byBob Dylan for his fifth studio albumBringing It All Back Home, released in1965. Its main musical hook is a series of three descendingchords, while its lyrics articulate Dylan's feelings for his lover, and have been interpreted as describing how she brings a neededzen-like calm to his chaotic world. The song uses surreal imagery, which some authors and critics have suggested recallsEdgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" and the biblicalBook of Daniel. Critics have also remarked that the style of the lyrics is reminiscent ofWilliam Blake's poem "The Sick Rose".
Dylan has performed "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" live on several of his tours. Since its initial appearance onBringing It All Back Home, live versions of the song have been released on a number of Dylan's albums, includingBob Dylan at Budokan,MTV Unplugged (European versions), andThe Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue, as well as on the reissuedConcert for Bangladesh album by George Harrison & Friends. Live video performances have been included on theConcert for Bangladesh andOther Side of the Mirror: Live at Newport Folk Festival 1963–1965 DVD releases.
Artists who have covered "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" includeRicky Nelson,Buck Owens,the Turtles,Joan Baez,Judy Collins,Fleetwood Mac,Rod Stewart, andJackson Browne.Eric Clapton played it at Bob Dylan's30th Anniversary Concert Celebration.
The version of the song that appears onBringing It All Back Home was recorded on January 14, 1965, and wasproduced byTom Wilson.[1] This version was recorded by the full rock band that Dylan used to accompany him on the songs that appeared on side one of the album, and features a prominent electric guitar part played byBruce Langhorne.[1][2][3] However, like the other love song on side one, "She Belongs to Me", "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" had been recorded a day earlier in various acoustic configurations, and one of these takes was a strong contender to be included on the album.[1] The January 13, 1965 recordings and a first take from January 14 were released on the 6-disc and 18-disc versions ofThe Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966 in 2015.[4] The initial title of the song was "Dime Store", in a reference to an included lyric; it was also briefly referred to as "(Tune Z) Dimestore" on the recording sheet.
Author and music criticRichie Unterberger has called the song, "one of the more tuneful and accessible tracks" on the album, with a prominent series of three descendingdiatonic chords providing the main hook.[5][6] CriticRobert Shelton has described the music as soothing, so that the love expressed seems tranquil, even when images such as cloaks and daggers and trembling bridges are evoked by the lyrics.[7] The tune and rhythm have a Latin feel and the lyrical rhyming pattern varies from verse to verse.[5][8] For example, in the first verse, the first and second lines rhyme, the fourth and eighth lines rhyme, and the sixth and seventh lines rhyme, but the third and fifth lines are unrhymed.[8] But in the second verse, the first three lines rhyme.[8] Throughout the song, the rhymes are sometimes approximate; for example "another" is rhymed with "bother" and "trembles" is rhymed with "rambles."[8]
Some commentators, including Dylan biographerClinton Heylin, have suggested that the lyrics reflect theZen-like detachment of the singer's lover through a series of opposites, for example, that she "speaks like silence" and is both "like ice" and "like fire".[1][9] Another famous line from the song that captures this dichotomy is, "She knows there's no success like failure, and that failure's no success at all."[1][10]
The first verse of the song has the singer infatuated with a woman, admiring her inner strength.[9] The three remaining verses reflect the inauthentic chaos that the singer has to deal with in the outside world, from which the lover's Zen-like calm provides needed refuge.[9] Author Andy Gill has commented that the final image of the lover being like some raven at the singer's window with a broken wing recallsEdgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", but is also a symbol of the lover's vulnerability in spite of her strength.[9] Author Anthony Varesi has remarked that the broken wing may also be a reference to the woman's need for shelter, or else to a flaw in her.[11] According to Dylan critics Oliver Trager and Marcus Gray, the style of the song's lyrics are comparable toWilliam Blake's poem "The Sick Rose" in their economy of language and use of a detached tone to express the narrator's intense emotional experience.[12][13] Wilfrid Mellers has suggested that the song's surreal images anticipate the psychedelic songs Dylan would later write.[6]
Author Seth Rogovoy, an expert on Jewish music, has pointed out that some of the song's images evoke prophecies from theBiblicalBook of Daniel.[14] For example, the line:
is reminiscent of Daniel's prophecy thatNebuchadnezzar would build a statue of precious metals only to see it crumble like "chaff".[14] Similarly, literary criticChristopher Ricks has noted that another line in the song states that people "Draw conclusions on the wall."[8] Ricks writes that drawing conclusionson the wall rather thanfrom the wall evokes the story from the Book of Daniel where a hand writes on a wall the words "MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN," warning that theNeo-Babylonian Empire was about to end.[8]
One interpretation that has been put forward by author John Hinchey regarding the identity of the lover in the song, as well as the one featured in "She Belongs to Me", is that she is Dylan'smuse.[15] Hinchey states that in each song the inaccessibility of the lover/muse can be interpreted as Dylan's acknowledgment of his own limitations—limitations that he attempts to overcome in writing the songs.[15] In this interpretation, the final raven image sitting at the window can be viewed as a symbol of the muse's inaccessibility, and the raven's broken wing a symbol of its wildness.[15] A related interpretation suggested by Shelton is that the song reflects an artist's "self-awareness through isolation."[7] The line "She knows there's no success like failure, and that failure's no success at all" can be seen as a reflection of the isolation of the American writer.[7]
The original title of the song was "Dime Store", which originates from the line "In the dime stores and bus stations..."[1] The official title "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" is, according to Dylan, afraction with "Love Minus Zero" on the top and "No Limit" on the bottom, and this is how the title appeared on early pressings of theBringing It All Back Home LP.[1][12] Therefore, the correct pronunciation of the song's title is "Love Minus Zero over No Limit".[16] This has been interpreted by Trager as "absolutely unlimited love."[12] Trager also noted that the title is based on gambling terminology which would mean that all love is a risk.[12]
Dylan has frequently performed the song in concert since the time it was written, nearly always acoustically.[1] He performed it occasionally in concert during 1965 and 1966, but more frequently during theRolling Thunder Revue tours from 1974 through 1976.[12] Dylan also played it atThe Concert for Bangladesh, during the first of the two August 1, 1971 benefit concerts organized byGeorge Harrison andRavi Shankar to help provide relief for refugees inBangladesh.[7] Dylan has also been playing the song live throughout theNever Ending Tour that began in 1988.[12] Dylan has performed the song 365 times, with the most recent performance taking place in 2012.[17]
In addition to its appearance onBringing It All Back Home, "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" has been included on several Dylan live and compilation albums. In the 1970s, it was included on the compilationMasterpieces and on the liveBob Dylan at Budokan album, recorded in 1978.[5] Other live performances have been included onLive 1962-1966: Rare Performances From The Copyright Collections (recorded in May 1965), the 2005 reissue of theConcert for Bangladesh album,The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue (recorded December 1975; also released onThe Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings), and the European versions ofMTV Unplugged (recorded November 1994).[5] Footage of Dylan playing the song is included on the 2005 DVD of theConcert for Bangladesh film and inThe Other Side of the Mirror: Live at Newport Folk Festival 1963–1965, a film byMurray Lerner showing Dylan's performances at theNewport Folk Festival.[5] A snippet from an impromptu performance of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" is also included in the filmDont Look Back.[5]
The song was also included on theRhino/Starbucks compilation albumThis is Us: Songs from Where You Live.[5]
The song was covered several times in 1965, including a version bythe Turtles on their albumIt Ain't Me Babe and a version bythe Walker Brothers on their albumTake It Easy with The Walker Brothers.[18][19] Los Angeles bandthe Leaves covered the song on their 1966 albumHey Joe andJoan Baez included it[10] on her 1968 album of Dylan covers,Any Day Now.[19]Billboard described Baez's version as being "performed to perfection" and "one of her most commercial efforts to date".[20] A version by singer/songwriterTurley Richards became a minor hit in 1970 (US number 84)[citation needed] and Australian number 96.[21]
It was also covered in 1993 byJudy Collins on Judy Collins Sings Dylan... Just Like a Woman.[19]Eric Clapton covered the song during Bob Dylan's30th Anniversary Concert Celebration.[19] Other musicians who have covered the song includeFleetwood Mac,Rod Stewart,Jackson Browne,Ricky Nelson,Buck Owens,Slaughter Beach, Dog,Doug Sahm,Bridget St. John,Eliza Gilkyson,Leon Russell,Les Fradkin,Willie Nile andBaby Gramps, Carolyn Hester.[19]
In a 2005 reader's poll forMojo magazine, "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" was listed as the #20 all-time greatest Bob Dylan song, and a similar poll of artists ranked the song #32.[22] In 2002,Uncut magazine listed it as the #23 all-time greatest Bob Dylan song.[23] Australian music criticToby Creswell included the song in his book1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time and the Artists, Stories and Secrets Behind Them.[24]
