From: khematite@gmail.com   
      
   On Tuesday, 1 February 2022 at 13:20:22 UTC-5, Willie wrote:   
   > I still, though, can't get into the song. It's so churlish. And when he   
   starts out with "They say I shot a man named Gray /    
   > And took his wife to Italy" I think, what is he talking about? Is he just   
   saying, "They'll say anything about me, however groundless"? Or is there some   
   significance in the name "Gray"? But if so, why "I can't help it if I'm   
   lucky"? I think that first    
   verse needs reworking.    
      
      
   I recall bursting out in laughter the first time I heard that cut back in   
   1975.  Dylan humor had become a lot scarcer since the 1960s, so this was a   
   welcome moment for me.  The key lines for me were the following:  "She   
   inherited a million bucks/And when    
   she died it came to me."  The "I can't help it if I'm lucky" that followed was   
   almost Wildean.  Was he just lucky that he inherited a million bucks, or was   
   he also lucky that Gray's wife died? ("“One must have a heart of stone to   
   read the death of    
   little Nell [or Mrs. Gray?] without laughing.”)  Or perhaps if everything   
   that happened wasn't just sheer dumb luck, just how innocent was the narrator   
   in all these events that ended up leaving him a million dollars richer?  Were   
   those stories "planted    
   in the press" perhaps true?  Maybe, as the press reported, he really did shoot   
   Gray and run off to Italy with Gray's wife?  And how did Gray's wife just   
   happen to die so conveniently?  "Hey, don't look at me--I can't help it if I'm   
   lucky!"   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)