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Writer's pictureBob Bjarke

BOB DYLAIN: SAVED BY LOVE

Updated: Jun 15, 2022


Next up in our series of AI-generated Bob Dylan lyrics is "Saved By Love." One fascinating aspect of this project is that our AI model is learning from the entire Dylan catalog at once, so all of his stylistic evolutions are influencing our output. So we might see some of the characteristically inscrutable and surreal writing from a song like "Ballad of a Thin Man" combined with more wistful, reflective territory of his later writing.


Update June 15 2022:

Listen to this recorded version by Untold Dylan's Tony Attwood:


If you're new to this exploration, here's a link to our first post explaining background and methodology.


Here's "Saved By Love:"



I had a long talk with your aunt

In the churchyard, in the alley

She told me all about your death

I lay in bed and talked to myself


But I didn’t know what to do

Three bodies lyin’ there was nothin’ I could do to stop it

Memory is like a rolling cloud

Where the ancient light never fades


I had a long talk with your uncle

In the county jail

He sat in a rocking chair

He talked about the golden age


When men, women, and children went free

He said the darkest hour was still ahead

When men, women, and children went free

I had a right to be

Saved by love, I had a right to be


I had a long talk with your grandmother

In the home of the living

She talked about the trials and the tribulations

She said you had a right to know


What she knew about disease 

and about how it was to be killed

How many people died from it, and what was left?

How many more would be left to rot?


When you died, your body was buried in the rocks

In the gutter like a boiled fish

I never saw my heart begin to bleed

I never saw my whole being disappear


I had a long talk with my brother

In the cold dark of night

He spoke of the great final struggle

When all is lost and all is made of stone


You and me we had completeness

I gave you all of what you wanted

I did it my way, you followed your own fancy

I had a right to be

Saved by love, I had a right to be


As I mentioned above, this feels like it spans a few styles of Dylan's output. I can hear him howling this tune as he did on his early electric recordings, but I can also hear later Dylan quietly croaking this out much like he might on something like "Love Sick."


But I didn’t know what to do Three bodies lyin’ there was nothin’ I could do to stop it Memory is like a rolling cloud Where the ancient light never fades


This above passage feels like a representative combination of early and later Dylan. To me, the first two lines evoke his early writing with direct descriptions of a disturbing scene, while the next two lines are more reflective of the writing of his later years. And then we also see something that is appearing somewhat regularly in this experiment: the call back. "When you died, your body was buried in the rocks," is obviously a reference to "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" but like I mentioned in an earlier post, this doesn't feel completely out of character for Dylan.


The overall feeling I get from this output is a feeling of loss and regret. The writer has lost someone they loved, and is struggling to make sense of this loss.


I had a right to be Saved by love, I had a right to be

The repeating structure of "I had a long talk with ..." also feels like something we might hear from Dylan, and while I'm not an expert this seems to harken back to the structure of the blues artists Dylan admires.

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