One Too Many Mornings — Bob Dylan Analysis

A song about someone leaving, leaving you feeling behind.

In Steve Job’s biography from Walter Isaacson, he said this was his favorite Bob Dylan song. I listened to this song and loved it.

Verse 1

Down the street the dogs are barkin’
And the day is a-gettin’ dark
As the night comes in a-fallin’
The dogs’ll lose their bark
An’ the silent night will shatter
From the sounds inside my mind
Yes, I’m one too many mornings
And a thousand miles behind

He sets the scene in a suburban / urban area undergoing the smearing transition into nightfall. The barking dogs give a sense of life. He contrast this later with dogs that don’t bark. The nightly surrounding is quiet. Over nightfall, the silence is deafening. So silent that you are trapped with only your own thoughts

We meet the two lines that will be repeated in the following verses (more common in traditional folk music). “Too many mornings and a thousand miles behind.” He is not where he had wanted to be. Our realities often fall much shorter than our expectations.

Personally, I’ve always felt “a thousand miles behind.” I always see the faults and dismiss my achievements. My reality is always short of my expectations. It’s really a problem…

I’m still quite astounded by this amazing poetry. “the silent night will shatter, [f]rom the sounds inside my mind.” I love this so much; I’ve spent countless nights with insomnia and with racing thoughts.

Verse 2

From the crossroads of my doorstep
My eyes they start to fade
And I turn my head back to the room
Where my love and I have laid
An’ I gaze back to the street
The sidewalk and the sign
And I’m one too many mornings
An’ a thousand miles behind

As the person returns home, they start to hallucinate and doze off. Reminded of their love, who is not present. He looks outside. Not at people but at inanimate elements of the street. A twinge of lonliness outside and inside.

Verse 3

It’s a restless hungry feeling
That don’t mean no one no good
When ev’rything I’m a-sayin’
You can say it just as good
You’re right from your side
I’m right from mine
We’re both just one too many mornings
An’ a thousand miles behind

He or she is feeling a sense of emptiness. These lovers have parted. They’ve had differing views. There is a sense of unsettling melancholy from the music and the lyrics. The narrator knows that things didn’t work out, but it is alright. He or she reflects and realizes how far behind he or she is.

I remember analyzing this song in a local southern coffee shop with my friend Charlie. For me, no matter how talented or successful, you always feel “a thousand miles behind.” Maybe it’s just me.

This song sums up the feeling of someone leaving and it leaves you with the feeling that you are not where you wanted to be. I’m speculating here, but I assume Steve Jobs connected with this song most when he was fired from the company he started. He recollects feeling a wandering aimlessness or a “restless hungry feeling” in the book. I’d speculate that at that time he felt “one too many mornings and a thousand miles behind.”