Never Just One Thing, Part X: The Authentic Zen of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit"

September 02, 2023

Never Just One Thing, Part X: The Authentic Zen of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit"

One thing I've learned about love is not to question it, not to overthink it. Not to fucking interrogate it. I learned it a lot later than the 23-year-old Bob Dylan appears to have, at least using his classic song "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" as a gauge. This one often appears on lists of Dylan's top 20 or 30 songs. If you have a young friend who is less-than-literate in Dylan (yes, it happens), point them to this one. It's a very "Dylany" Dylan song. Meaning it represents his mid-60s flowering, the time when he moved beyond being merely the most famous folkie around to a new level of artistry. This is part of the Dylan phase that culminated with Blonde on Blonde, and is probably the kind of sound most people conjure when they think of him. That fact probably makes Bob's head explode, since he has been nothing if not restless as an artist, constantly seeking and achieving reinvention. Still, it would be hard to argue that he ever topped this early peak.

Like many of his songs of this period it has an enigmatic, nearly nonsensical title. Think "Queen Jane Approximately," or, for that matter, Blonde on Blonde. The title does make some sense though, insofar as it suggests the confluence of zero and infinity, a fact that is nearly imponderable, sort of like the spirit of Zen that permeates the song. But, let's keep that in mind as background and get into exactly what we have here. What we have is a song that carries the meaning of his earlier "My Back Pages" into the realm of romantic, interpersonal love. Recall the words of that song: "Equality I sang those words as if a wedding vow." "Using ideas as my maps." "Lies that life is black and white / spoke from my skull." "Ah, but I was so much older then / I'm younger than that now." "Pages" served as Dylan's declaration of independence from the straitjacket of being the most revered "protest singer," the composer of what Dylan himself came to call his "finger pointing songs."

In "Love Minus Zero" he encapsulates the whole of "My Back Pages" with the astute opening pairing of "ideals" and "violence." But where "Pages" spoke of politics and philosophy, here it is strictly personal. As an idealist myself, I find it vital to acknowledge the destructive power of ideals, whether they take the form of Maoists setting flame to the bonds of family and community because they failed to meet the Communist vision, or the pain we inflict on our partners when they fall short of being who we thought we needed them to be. And why do they fall short in our view? Because our visions of love are based on received wisdom and preordained modes of romantic performance. People "read books, recite quotations." "Banker's nieces seek perfection." Indeed, "people carry roses," but Dylan's love is the essence of flowers herself. "She's true like ice, like fire," elemental phenomena beyond, or prior to, obligation or moral judgment.

Here's where we get to the Zen aspect of this. Zen spirituality is based on the direct apprehension of existence and experience. Satori, enlightenment, is achieved in an instant and with no work involved. In fact, work or effort smothers it, just like those preconceptions that do violence to love. Direct experience is where truth resides and eternity is found. Just like Dylan said in his most famous song: "You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you." Or, as the Zen people say: "If you meet the Buddha, kill him."

Zen, of course, uses koans, paradoxical statements that one is meant to meditate upon until one is freed from the obligation of making sense, as the Talking Heads urged us to do. And in this spirit is the most well known couplet of the song: "She knows there’s no success like failure / and that failure’s no success at all." The more I think about it, the more I don't have a clue what this means. There isn't some clever insight embedded here in this inversion. No, what he is saying is that success and failure are stupid categories to use when we consider our most important and intimate relationships. This is why "My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge."

In offering these thoughts, have I explained too much, the very impulse warned against in this beautiful song? Perhaps, but let me redeem myself by confessing that my favorite lines in it resist explanation, because as far as I can tell, they don't mean anything at all. I just like how they sound: "In the dime stores and bus stations / People talk of situations." I guess they are there because they rhyme with "quotations." And it's sort of a given in poetry that each line should have it's own integrity, and shouldn't just tee up something else. But I just can't get enough of hearing them just for themselves, and I don't know why. And this gets to the last point I want to make here. This is just a great song to listen to. The melody is supremely serene, with a chord progression sort of like "If Not for You." And when you listen, you might not consciously think it through like I have here, but the insinuations of these lines will find their way inside your head, and you will be changed, whether you know it or not.

P.S. So apt that in Eliza Gilkyson's sparkling performance of the song on Austin City Limits, the small child of one of the band members sits at the corner of the stage, listening, rapt.

Love Minus Zero/No Limit

My love she speaks like silence
Without ideals or violence
She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful
Yet she’s true, like ice, like fire
People carry roses
Make promises by the hours
My love she laughs like the flowers
Valentines can’t buy her

In the dime stores and bus stations
People talk of situations
Read books, repeat quotations
Draw conclusions on the wall
Some speak of the future
My love she speaks softly
She knows there’s no success like failure
And that failure’s no success at all

The cloak and dagger dangles
Madams light the candles
In ceremonies of the horsemen
Even the pawn must hold a grudge
Statues made of matchsticks
Crumble into one another
My love winks, she does not bother
She knows too much to argue or to judge

The bridge at midnight trembles
The country doctor rambles
Bankers’ nieces seek perfection
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring
The wind howls like a hammer
The night blows cold and rainy
My love she’s like some raven
At my window with a broken wing