thejamminjabber

Remember the song One Headlight? Don’t feign ignorance, you know the song I’m talking about. If you were in college back in ‘96 and weren’t into metal or rap, that was your jam.

It is a little known fact that the song is about a one-breasted stripper Jakob Dylan had a one night stand with while on tour with The Wallflowers. She fell in love, as the young and damaged are wont to do, but Dylan was a “rolling stone” (get it?) and couldn’t commit. The young dancer was so heartbroken that she committed suicide, posthumously bestowing upon Dylan the gift of 2 Grammys and a #2 radio hit. Score!

Take the beginning of the first verse:

So long ago, I don’t remember when
That’s when they say I lost my only friend
Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease
As I listened through the cemetery trees
I seen the sun comin’ up at the funeral at dawn
The long broken arm of human law

Pretty straight forward, although referring to her as his “only friend” seems a little cruel to me. Dylan then goes on to imagine himself at her funeral, which the bastard never actually attended. I’m not sure what the “long broken arm of human law” is in reference to, but there is only one of them, so it stands to reason that it represents a female breast. Human law demands two luscious bosoms to every woman, and having only one breaks that law.

But how do you know she was a stripper, you ask, let alone one of the mono-breasted variety?

Now it always seemed such a waste
She always had a pretty face
So I wondered how she hung around this place

Here Dylan describes her as having a “pretty face,” lamenting the fact that such beauty was wasted on a girl with only one breast. He wonders “how she hung around this place,” “this place” being the sleazy strip club where she sold her dignity night after sleazy night. “She” could also be looked at as the lone breast, “this place” being the girl’s bony chest. Dylan seems to be wrestling with why the widowed bosom would want to stick around after the loss of its sister-breast.

Still not convinced? The proof to this single-breasted pudding is in the chorus:

Hey, come on try a little
Nothing is forever
There’s got to be something better than
In the middle
But me & Cinderella
We put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlight

“There’s got to be something better than in the middle,” refers to her one breast hanging limp in the middle of her chest, like some sort of fleshy cyclops. But you know what? It’s good enough for him, because they can still “drive it home with one headlight.” One breast is all he needs to rev the engines on the ole fuck machine.

Jakob Dylan’s guide to pleasing a one-breasted woman

The second verse goes on to recount their post-coital conversation, in which the stripper details how hard her life has been (”maze of ugliness and greed,”) but how she still has hope for the future (”and I seen the sun up ahead.”) But Dylan knows it won’t be easy and doesn’t want any part of it. “We’ll run until she’s out of breath, she ran until there’s nothin’ left,” he sings, poeticizing the fact that having one breast was akin to having only one lung, and that she could only run short distances without getting winded.

She said it’s cold
It feels like Independence Day
And I can’t break away from this parade
But there’s got to be an opening
Somewhere here in front of me
Through this maze of ugliness and greed
And I seen the sun up ahead
At the county line bridge
Sayin’ all there’s good and nothingness is dead
We’ll run until she’s out of breath
She ran until there’s nothin’ left
She hit the end-it’s just her window ledge

The final verse describes the impact her suicide had on Dylan, his life becoming a metaphorical mess in the wake of her death, emphasized by the final line, “ I think her death it must be killin’ me.”

Well this place is old
It feels just like a beat up truck
I turn the engine, but the engine doesn’t turn
Well it smells of cheap wine & cigarettes
This place is always such a mess
Sometimes I think I’d like to watch it burn
I’m so alone, and I feel just like somebody else
Man, I ain’t changed, but I know I ain’t the same
But somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin’ dreams
I think her death it must be killin’ me

Once you are made aware of it, the meaning behind the lyrics is fairly obvious. A one-breasted stripper is the titular (no pun intended) muse of Dylan’s haunting song. With One Headlight, he has succeeded where countless others have failed. He has crafted a heart-wrenching love letter so poignant, and of such maturity, not even his own father could surpass it.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::