Released May 16, 1966 Genre Folk rock Label Columbia | Recorded March 8, 1966 Length 4:57 Writer(s) Bob Dylan | |
"Absolutely Sweet Marie" is a song written by Bob Dylan, released on his 1966 double album Blonde on Blonde. The song is an exuberantly up-tempo number.
Contents
Song and background
During a 1991 interview published in Paul Zollo's book Songwriters on Songwriting, Expanded Fourth Edition (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), Dylan gives an idea of how he sees the song in his explanation of a line about a "yellow railroad":
"Absolutely Sweet Marie" was recorded on March 8, 1966 in Nashville, Tennessee. Only two complete takes of the song were recorded, the second being the master. The first take was released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966 in 2015.
Dylan did not perform "Absolutely Sweet Marie" live until 1988, and has intermittently played it since, including during a session for his MTV Unplugged appearance.
"To live outside the law you must be honest"
The song contains the phrase "To live outside the law you must be honest". Jonathan Lethem points to a very similar line by the screenwriter Stirling Silliphant in the 1958 film The Lineup: "When you live outside the law, you have to eliminate dishonesty" and that Dylan "heard it…, cleaned it up a little, and inserted it into" this song. In 1940s, in notes on his lyrics page for the song "Pretty Boy Floyd," Woody Guthrie wrote: "I love a good man outside the law, just as much as I hate a bad man inside the law." Dylan, who has acknowledged being heavily influenced by Guthrie, may have been honoring his predecessor.