Bob Dylan's "Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts" Characters Poll

can we cast the movie, too? BIG JIM played by Ricky Jay, LILY as played by Lily Tomlin or Martha Plimpton

I kind of just want to use the whole cast of The Sting - Redford as the Jack of Hearts, Robert Shaw as Big Jim, Paul Newman in a cameo as the backstage manager...

"And Robert Shaw came through the door
(They still were casting Jaws)
And as Paul Newman paced the floor,
the audience hit Pause
They wanted to get some popcorn,
before Redford played the Jack of Hearts"

worst song on the album imho

yeah, i kinda hate it

i'm not big on this song either but my favorite line in it is "big jim was no one's fool; he owned the town's only diamond mine" so i guess big jim?

runner-up is the redundancy of THE HANGING JUDGE WAS SOBER / HE HADN'T HAD A DRINK

well that's probably a pun

there's all this heartbreaking, fairly emotionally direct material and then oh hey here's a song I wrote while flipping through a deck of cards

That's kind of what I love about it! Sort of leavens the proceedings, or it's almost like he's distracting himself from everything he's going through by losing himself in this charming little yarn.

This early take is much closer sonically to the rest of the record, kind of weird to hear it that way actually - - - it suggests that there is some kind of emotional material hanging behind the story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiNiBumCAkw

Also has an added verse which gets inside Lily and the Jack's head for a second - - interesting that that's what he would choose to leave out for the album.

No brand new coat of paint, no credibility.

there's all this heartbreaking, fairly emotionally direct material and then oh hey here's a song I wrote while flipping through a deck of cards

By the way, how do people interpret the ending of this song? Does Lily leave town with the Jack of Hearts, or does he use her up and leave her stranded? It seems that Jack is the only one absent from the hanging, suggesting Lily is there, but then Lily is worrying about "the law" - is she on the lam? Or just worried on Jack's behalf?

worst song on the album imho

― max buzzword (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday

hahaha whatever haters, I'd take a few more verses of this in exchange for "If You See Her, Say Hello," easy.

So I went looking for a "Tweeter and the Monkey Man" poll and, um

;_;

No brand new coat of paint, no credibility

― kornrulez6969, Monday, February 15, 2010 1:37 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow, and i even posted to that thread! Shucks.

Amazed that the Jack got no votes at all. I guess I do have to do that Tweeter poll then.

(In my defense, I think I searched "jack of hearts," which of course isn't used in that thread title...)

in mid-February 2014, someone will start "Lily, POLLmary, and the Jack of Hearts"

kornrulez6969 will post "No brand new coat of paint, no credibility"

eternal return is a hell of a thing

"Another bienniale, another Jack of Hearts poll..." - - and yet this is exactly why I love this website.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Get those votes in for this unknowingly redundant poll! The Hanging Judge is cool and all but surely there are other deserving characters!

kornrulez6969 will post "No brand new coat of paint, no credibility"

I have absolutely zero recollection of posting the exact same thing 2 years ago. No short term memory, no credibility.

Next time, I'm changing my vote to the gambling wheel.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Thanks for voting everyone. If we do this again in a few years we should be pretty sure about the margin of error for these things.

Ha, I just saw this thread and was bummed I missed it. I totally did not remember doing that earlier poll.

Anyway, I disagree that this doesn't fit on the album. The grinning grimness and jaunty ennui are very much of a piece.