I have long loved this Bob Dylan song. It is a poignant story of love lost, and is remarkably musical for Dylan. In classic folk-song style, it is a dialogue between the man and his departing lover. She offers to send him treasures from her travels, and he declines, saying all he wants is to have her back. She offers three times, he refuses three times. Then she drops this bombshell: "I don't know when I'll be coming back again. It depends on how I'm feeling." He wishes her well, and then asks if she couldn't send him a nice pair of Spanish boots.
I was always struck by the coldness of the girl's snub of her faithful lover: I'll come back when and if I feel like it. But also by the coldness of his reply: on second thought, a nice pair of boots are better than you.
The other day I heard an interview with Suze Rotolo, Dylan's girlfriend at the time, the very one who appears on the cover of his iconic Freewheelin' album. Apparently, she had lived her whole life in New York City, had never gone to college, and got an opportunity to go to Italy. It was something she wanted to do, because she felt constrained, she wanted to discover who she was beyond "Bob Dylan's girlfriend." The plan had been for her trip to be 3 months at most. She wound up staying 8.
That's when it hit me what was missing from "Spanish Leather." Her. Who is this girl the singer loves so much? Why is she going to Spain? No idea. All that matters is she is not where he wants her, at his side. Now, that's not horrible, every lover wants their beloved to be with them. But look again at the words with which he declines her presents.
No, there’s nothing you can send me, my own true love
There’s nothing I wish to be owning
Just carry yourself back to me unspoiled
From across that lonesome ocean
What is this word, "unspoiled"? There's a sexual meaning of "spoiled" that is hard to ignore in this context. He doesn't just want her back, he wants her back without her having had sex with anyone else. It's striking that, in this moment, when he's trying to say how much he just misses her companionship, he slips in this caveat. There's a way you could come back to me that I wouldn't want.
But even if we don't go with the sexual meaning of "spoiled," why "spoiled"? Is his concern that something would happen that would change her, so that she lost her value to him? Suddenly I'm looking back at the previous line, with its word "owning." He doesn't want her to lose her value.
Now remember the context of the story behind the song. The idea of going on a journey to find yourself was a part of the culture of the times. Kerouac's On the Road, or Steibeck's Travels With Charley. Was the possibility of Rotolo's self-discovery threatening to Dylan?
How different things can look, when you see them from the other side.
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