Love Minus Zero/No Limit

Introduction

On the surface this is a love song. It’s sung that way and the impression is reinforced by the narrator’s repeated references to his lover as ‘My love’. This, and the mention of roses, puts us in mind of another four-verse work – Robert Burns’ poem ‘My Love Is like a Red, Red Rose’. It comes as a shock, then, to find that it’s far from being a traditional love song.

Nevertheless, the song is in part about love. This much is immediately evident from the title which taken one way seems to say love amounts to nothing and, taken another way, that it’s everything. According to Dylan the title is to be read as ‘Love Minus Zero Over No Limit’ where ‘over’ means divided by. If ‘no limit’ is interpreted as infinity, then we have love divided by infinity – the answer to which is nothing. However, if the slash is taken to mean equals rather than over, it can be interpreted as saying that when love has nothing subtracted from it, it will be unlimited. Only the former interpretation seems to fit the narrator. The latter pretty much fits his lover.

In dealing with love, the song presents the psychology and imperfect character of the narrator who turns out to be a vicious thug. Numerous references to the apocalypse make us see his behaviour as part of a wider context of moral collapse and ultimate punishment, perhaps in the afterlife.

The Raven

The song also seems to have Edgar Allan Poe’s poem ‘The Raven’ in mind. In Poe’s poem the narrator, grief-stricken by the death of his lover, hears what sounds like someone ‘gently rapping’ at his door. On discovering there’s no one there, he moves to the window and ‘(i)n there stepped a stately raven’ which then flies up and perches on a bust of Pallas Athena. The raven’s subsequently repeating the word ‘Nevermore’ represents the narrator’s fear that there’s no future existence in which he’ll see his lover again. He decides the bird is a ‘prophet’ and reluctantly puts his trust in it, not seeing that he’s using it as a representation of his own fears.¹

Similarities between the song and the poem are a raven’s occurring in both, the way they are both concerned with an afterlife, and the gentle nature of the rapping which is reflected in the lover’s speaking softly.

Love and deception

As the title informs us, the song is about love. It’s not, therefore, just about the narrator’s love for someone. In fact it’s more about his negative attitude to both his lover and to those with a moral outlook which goes beyond his.  Both his attitude and theirs are alluded to in the lines:

‘People carry roses
Make promises by the hours’

The roses are gifts to be presented to lovers and the promises are presumably of fidelity. The phrase ‘by the hours’ literally means continuously, but – since hours are short periods of time – might also be taken to suggest limits attached to the time before the promises are broken. This would imply, therefore, that the gifts are not accompanied by genuine love. As the title implies, genuine love – love with nothing taken away from it – would have no such limits.

One might wonder why the narrator is concerned to say that lovers don’t keep their promises.
That it’s an example of his own behaviour becomes apparent in the third verse where he seems to imply that he too is betraying his lover:

‘The cloak and dagger dangles
Madams light the candles’

The dangling cloak and dagger would seem to represent illicit temptation and excitement. That this amounts to sexual betrayal is indicated by the reference to madams. It’s now night and the atmosphere couldn’t be more different from that created earlier with:

‘My love she laughs like the flowers’

It’s become seedy.

Realising, perhaps, that we’re likely to take a dim view of him, he appears to try to justify himself:

 ‘In ceremonies of the horsemen
Even the pawn must hold a grudge’

Although he’s not explicit that he’s referring to himself, the word ‘must’ is a giveaway. Why must the pawn hold a grudge? We don’t normally think favourably of grudges or sympathise with people who hold them. Such sympathy, together with the willingness to excuse a grudge, suggests bias and that it’s himself that the narrator has in mind. He is the pawn. He sees himself as inferior, just as a pawn is inferior to the knights – the horsemen – in a game of chess. And he resents it – hence the grudge. In the context of brothels, his perceived inferiority may be to those he sees as sexually fulfilled – and that suggests that he might not be. His grudge would therefore be against his lover and he’s using it as an excuse for seeking satisfaction elsewhere.

That the grudge is against his lover seems probable given what he says in the first verse:

‘She doesn’t have to say that she’s faithful
Yet she’s true like ice like fire’

If he’s telling us that she’s faithful, we might wonder why he doesn’t say it straight out. Why are we not immediately told she’s faithful, but instead merely that she doesn’t have to say that she is? There’s something sinister about the pronouncement as if the narrator is telling us she doesn’t need to say it because he knows it already. How does he know? Because there’d be hell to pay if she wasn’t – as will become apparent. His certainty that she’ll remain constant is in evidence again when he announces that:

‘Valentines can’t buy her’.

The phrase ‘she’s true like ice like fire’ initially appears to be more direct. Nevertheless, while seeming to praise the woman for being true to him, the most plausible interpretation is that while on some occasions she’ll be passionate, on others she won’t accede to his sexual demands. This causes him to resent her.

At the end of the third verse there’s a further example of the narrator’s seeming to praise the woman while actually giving vent to his resentment.

‘She winks, she does not bother
She knows too much to argue or to judge’

‘She winks’ makes her seem as if she doesn’t mind about, or is even complicit in, his sexual meanderings – which seems unlikely. It’s more likely to be wishful thinking on his part.

The claim that ‘she knows too much to argue or to judge’ needn’t be taken at face value either. What looks at first like praise is far more sinister since it implies she daren’t argue against him or condemn his behaviour because of what he’ll do if she does.

Likewise the phrase:

‘… she does not bother’

can be taken to mean more than it seems to at first. Rather than simply meaning that the woman isn’t bothered by his behaviour, the precise wording suggests he’s saying she’s lazy. The approving tone would suggest he thinks a lackadaisical attitude towards moral values to be perfectly acceptable.

Narrator’s viciousness

The duplicity of the narrator which comes across in the third verse is present again in the fourth. On the surface it looks as if he’s just being critical of the wealthy – the bankers’ nieces:

 ‘Bankers’ nieces seek perfection
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring’

One only describes women by reference to their rich uncles if one has contempt for them. And if ‘perfection’ means moral perfection, the idea of those in line for inherited wealth seeking gifts is absurd. And it’s not just gifts they seek but all the gifts. The nieces are the archetype of selfishness.

That the gifts are those of wise men is heavily ironic. It implies they’re the gifts of the three magi for Jesus. And that the wealthy nieces are ‘expecting’ to appropriate them lets us know that it’s not moral perfection which the nieces are pursuing.

Although the narrator’s tone is one of sarcastic, moral disapproval, once again we needn’t take what he says at face value. The disapproval could also be fuelled by resentment. In the absence of any other reason for his concern with ‘bankers’ nieces’ it could be he has in mind one such bankers’ niece – and that this is his lover. In that case, he’s lauding himself as a wise man and the ‘expected’ gifts are what he begrudgingly feels he has to give to her.

That his grudge is caused by, and his resentment focused on, his lover becomes apparent in the final two lines:

‘My love she’s like some raven
At my window with a broken wing’

At first this sounds caring, as if the narrator is on the verge of performing an act of kindness towards his lover in her distress. What’s significant, however, is what is not said. Whereas in Poe’s poem the narrator, albeit unintentionally, let’s the raven in out of the rain, there’s no indication in the song that this happens.

Why the broken wing? The descriptions of the fifth and sixth lines make it horribly clear:

‘The wind howls like a hammer
The night blows cold and rainy’

‘Hammer’ and ‘blows’ are both associated with violence. It’s the narrator’s violence which has, in the language of the simile, caused the broken wing. The woman has not reciprocated because, as we’ve been told, she’s:

‘Without ideals or violence’

To whatever violent abuse she has been subjected on a literal level, she has – it would seem – turned the other cheek.²

Not only do the cold and the rain symbolise the woman’s distress at the hands of the narrator, but they suggest his motive – revenge. He cannot accept her ever being ‘like ice’. And it’s because of that that he’s beaten her and repaid her frigidity with a coldness of his own symbolised by the violent weather.

Apocalypse

The focus early on in the song is on the behaviour of people – ordinary people, the frequenters of ‘dime stores and bus stations’. These people are said to:

‘Read books, repeat quotations’,

suggesting erudition and an awareness of which passages are worthwhile. (Of course, that they repeat quotations might suggest a mindless acceptance of dogma, say, in which case the narrator could well be justified in his criticism.) They are also said to

‘Draw conclusions on the wall’

This is the first of four apocalypse references in the song. The phrase refers to the ‘the writing on the wall’ in Daniel 5 – the prophesy which foretold the death of Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians. As one might expect from someone who beats his lover and goes on to seek sexual satisfaction elsewhere, the narrator would seem to be criticising the people for having moral concerns. What he doesn’t notice is that, spiritually, the prophesy applies as much to him as to Belshazzar.

Similarly, the reference to those who:

 ‘… speak of the future’

may be an allusion to the apocalypse in which the future fate of mankind is revealed, evil destroyed and the good rewarded. Again, that the narrator is criticising the people for being unduly concerned about their fate in the afterlife is indicated by the contrasting attitude he attributes to the woman:

‘My love she speaks softly’

It’s significant that he doesn’t give the content of her response but only the manner in which it is delivered, suggesting that he won’t admit that her view is at variance with his. Once again his praise is a mask for criticism.

Attitudes to the apocalypse continue to be the subject in the third verse. First, there’s the reference to ‘ceremonies of the horsemen’.

Such a description seems appropriate to the archaic atmosphere created by the expression ‘cloak and dagger’ and by the reference to ‘candles’. While for the narrator the horsemen may represent rich people that he’s envious of, they can also be identified as the biblical four horsemen of the apocalypse (in Revelation 6.1-8) and therefore as a warning to the narrator of which he remains oblivious.

The third verse’s concern with the apocalypse continues:

‘Statues made of matchsticks
Crumble into one another’

Biblically statues are often taken to represent false gods. Likewise, in Poe’s poem the bust of the Greek god Pallas seems to stand for the narrator’s pagan outlook which might account for his deep conviction that there is no afterlife.

The song’s statues, which are presumably just in the narrator’s mind, can be taken as representing the upholders of false values.  In that their matchstick composition is perhaps inspired by the lighting of candles by the madams, they can be taken as representing, amongst other things, betrayal. Their crumbling ‘into one another’, going beyond mere disintegration, would seem to represent the ultimate entropic fate of the world and all its false values. Thus – like the presence of the horsemen – the statues’ destruction can be seen as an apocalyptic warning to those like the narrator.

Another apocalypse reference is in the last verse:

 ‘The bridge at midnight trembles’

Trembling, as distinct from shaking, suggests that even the bridge is afraid of the terrible thing that’s about to happen. The bridge can be taken to be the connection between heaven and earth, or the present life and the afterlife. Midnight represents the end of the world and the time of the last judgment. The implication is that the narrator’s time for adopting a more loving attitude is almost up. Meanwhile a picture of rural bliss provides temporary relief:

‘The country doctor rambles’

The rambling doctor seems to represent those who, while doing good, do it in a fairly perfunctory way.

And while the song ends with a final apocalyptic warning, a storm – the cold, the rain and the hammer-like blows of the howling wind – the narrator, as if to defy it, metes out violent revenge on his lover.³

Conclusion

Superficial similarities with Burns’ poem, together with the compliments the narrator heaps on the woman, give the initial impression that this is a love song. To see it just as a love song, though, would be to miss much. One would be taking the compliments at face value. A closer reading demonstrates that the narrator’s attitude towards his lover is at best ambivalent. Even if he does admire her, his expressions of admiration are almost always a mask for his feelings of frustration.

Nevertheless, in giving vent to his frustrations the narrator can’t avoid acknowledging his lover’s virtues – the softness of her voice, her innocent laughter, and her fidelity. She comes across as perfect as it’s reasonable to expect someone to be. Not only is she faithful but, despite his betrayal and ill-treatment of her, she remains constant and, as far as we know, uncomplaining.

The narrator himself, as he admits his lover knows, is a ‘failure’.⁴ He doesn’t see eye to eye with ordinary people and he has a grudge against those he sees as socially superior – and these may include his lover. With respect to her the narrator’s main problem is that he can’t accept that she has imperfections. As a result he pays only lip service to her virtues, he betrays her, and he becomes violent when she feels unable to meet his demands.

Another fault is his hubris which causes him not only to claim to be wise but in so doing to compare himself to the wise men who attended Christ’s nativity. This is doubly ironic given the several allusions throughout the song to the apocalypse. These have the effect of reminding us of the moral significance of the narrator’s outlook. Whereas in Poe’s poem the narrator becomes convinced there’s no afterlife, in the song the narrator behaves as if there isn’t. In religious terms, if there’s a hell, he’s in danger of damnation.

Addendum

There are further ways in which the narrator’s critical attitude to the woman comes across. In the second line he announces that she’s ‘without ideals or violence’. This is ironic since his own problem is that he has too idealised a view of her. Even in ‘She laughs like the flowers’ – a beautiful line in itself –  he might be condemning what he sees as silliness in her.

His discontent with her is reflected in the negative way he thinks about her which in turn is reflected in his choice of expression. Descriptions involving negative expressions include  ‘Without ideals or violence’, ‘She doesn’t have to say that she’s faithful’ and ‘Valentines can’t buy her’. Later there’s ‘she does not bother’. Regarding her knowledge, that too is expressed negatively, ‘She knows there’s no success like failure / And that failure’s no success at all’.

Notes

1. This is according to Poe’s own account in ‘The Philosophy of Composition’, an essay in which he describes how he went about writing the The Raven.
2. She might also be afraid of having her views heard, and so daren’t do other than ‘speak like silence’ or – as here – ‘speak softly’.
3. The line ‘She knows too much to argue or to judge’ is particularly significant given the apocalyptic context. It serves as a reminder that those with a contempt for judgment, like the narrator, ultimately will be judged.
4. In fact the lines:

‘She knows there’s no success like failure
And that failure’s no success at all’

are probably intended by the narrator to cast the woman as a failure. The narrator’s saying that she knows she’s a failure. There’s dramatic irony here, because what the woman is actually likely to know is that he is a failure.