Dylan has a habit of taking a cliché — something that’s been heard and said so many times that it has lost all true meaning — and using it in a song lyric in a surprising or a subversive way, or in a way that reminds the listener what it really meant to begin with. Professor Christopher Ricks has drawn attention to Dylan’s way of doing this. Below is yet another YouTube treasure — a video of Dylan performing the song God Knows in 1994 (professionally shot). In this case the cliché to which Dylan is applying his restorative power is the title of the song itself. The term “God knows” is so often said and heard that it would be easy enough to listen through this entire song without ever thinking that the singer is actually referring to God — to the God of Abraham. The first line of the song actually leads you down that path, i.e. the path of thinking that the song is just a jokey and entirely secular pop rock tune: God knows you ain’t pretty. The second line does not disillusion you: God knows it’s true. The next couplet, however, is actually telling the listener something that the real God would really know: God knows there ain’t anybody / Ever gonna take the place of you.

Having said all that, Dylan changes that opening verse in the performance below. (God knows he’s unpredictable.) Still, it’s a good one.

God knows there’s a river,
God knows how to make it flow,
God knows you ain’t gonna be taking
Nothing with you when you go.

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