Lay Lady Lay

Lay¹, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed,

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed.

Whatever colors you have in your mind,

I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine.

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed,

Forget this dance, let's go upstairs.

Let's take a chance – who really cares?

Why don't you know you got nothing to prove?

It's all in your eyes and the way that you move.

Forget this dance, let's go upstairs.

Why wait any longer for no need to complain?²

You can have love, but you might lose it.

Why run any longer when you're running in vain?

You can have the truth, but you got to choose it.

Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile,

Till the break of day let me see you make him smile.

I long to see you in the morning light,

I long to hold you in the night –

Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile.

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed.

¹ The correct verb to use would technically be "lie" (she lies, she lay, she has lain), not "lay", which is the transitive form of "lie". However, the distinction between the two forms has been increasingly disappearing in English due at least partially to the fact that the base form of the verb lay looks and sounds exactly the same as the simple past form of lay. But just because the use of lay in this song is technically incorrect doesn't mean that it was not intentional: it would not sound right to hear "lie, lady, lie, lie across my big brass bed" (because of the assonance) and, besides, this is how real people talk every day and there's nothing wrong with it.

² Here it's almost as though Dylan begins to sing the line from the original album version, "Why wait any longer for the world to begin?", before improvising about halfway through, which might explain why the line sounds sort of meaningless and inane.