After a while we took in the clothes, nobody said very much,
Just some old wild
1 shirts and a couple pairs of pants, which nobody really wanted to touch.
Mama come in and picked up a book and papa asked her what it was,
Someone else asked, "What do you care?" Papa said, "Well, just because."
Then they started to take back the clothes, hang 'em on the line,
It was January the thirtieth and everybody was feeling fine.
The next day everybody got up, seeing if the clothes were dry,
The dogs were barking, the neighbor passed, mama, of course she said hi.
"Have you heard the news?" he said with a grin, "The Vice President's gone mad!"
"Where?" "Downtown." "When?" "Last night." "Hmm, gee, that's too bad."
"Well, there's nothing we can do about it," said the neighbor, "Just something we're gonna have to forget."
"Yes, I guess so," said ma, then she asked me if the clothes were still wet.
I reached up, touched my shirt, and the neighbor said, "Are those clothes yours?"
I said, "Some of 'em, not all of 'em." He said, "You always help out around here with the chores?"
I said, "Sometime, not all the time." Then my neighbor, he blew his nose
Just as papa yelled outside, "Mama wants you to come back in the house and bring them clothes!"
Woo-hoo!
Well, I just do what I'm told, so I did it of course,
I went back in the house and mama met me and then I shut all the doors.
1
According to other lyrics sources, this word is transcribed as "wild" and, while it would make infinitely more sense for it to be "white", it really does not sound as though Dylan says "white", so I will follow the traditional interpretation until a more reasonable solution can be found.