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Queen Jane Approximately

"Queen Jane Approximately"
Song by Bob Dylan from the album Highway 61 Revisited
Released August 30, 1965
Recorded August 2, 1965 at Columbia Studios, New York
Genre Folk rock, garage rock
Length 5:19
Label Columbia
Writer(s) Bob Dylan
Producer(s) Bob Johnston
Highway 61 Revisited track listing

"Queen Jane Approximately" is a song from Bob Dylan's 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited. It was released as a single as the B-side to "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)" in January 1966. It has also been covered by several artists, including The Grateful Dead and The Four Seasons.

Similar to other Dylan songs of this period, "Queen Jane Approximately" has the singer criticizing the subject of the song, warning her of an imminent fall from grace. Although the song covers similar ground to "Like a Rolling Stone", "Queen Jane Approximately" is gentler and shows the subject some compassion. The main point of criticism is that the subject lives in an inauthentic world filled with superficial attitudes and people and meaningless, ritualized proprieties. However, the singer also invites the subject to come and see him if and when she is willing to break away from her superficial diversions and engage in an honest, authentic experience, or when she needs someone to ultimately pick up the pieces. The song is structured in five verses, in which the first two deal with Queen Jane's relationship with her family, the second two deal with her relationship with her "courtiers" and the last deals with her relationship with bandits. This structure essentially maps out a path from those closest to her to a way out of her current situation, preparing for the last lines of the fifth verse where the narrator offers "And you want somebody you don't have to speak to / Won't you come see me Queen Jane?" The song incorporates several attitudes towards the subject, including condescension, self-righteousness, contempt, compassion as well as sneering.

The song is structured as a series of ABAB quatrain verses, with each verse followed by a chorus that is just a repeat of the last line of the verse, which is always "won't you come see me Queen Jane". Each B line ends with a rhyme on "ain", while the A lines each end with a double-syllable rhyme, such as "cheek to / speak to" or "lent you / resent you". The music is recorded with a "warts and all" philosophy consistent with the rest of the Highway 61 Revisited album. The electric guitars are out of tune or out of phase and clash with the organ and piano chords, the bass has Spanish inflections, and the mix is raw with a sound similar to garage rock. Musicians on "Queen Jane Approximately" include Dylan, Mike Bloomfield on electric guitars and Al Kooper and Paul Griffin on keyboards.


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