Situations have ended sad
Relationships have all been bad
Mine’ve been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud
But there’s no way I can compare
All those scenes to this affair
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go
~Bob Dylan (You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go)

Much of the song is thus delivered, so lightly as to suggest that it’s in brackets, with the same sparkling, generous humour. Astonishing that a man who, by the time he made this album, had been monstrously famous for over a decade and had been acclaimed as a genius before he was 25, could have the down-to-earth self-knowledge to
throw out, in this song, so ordinarily humorous and puckish a phrase as the one that ends this stanza: ‘You’re gonna make me wonder what I’m doin’ / Stayin’ far behind without you / You’re gonna make me wonder what I’m sayin’— / You’re gonna make me give myself a good talkin’ to . . .’
~Michael Gray (The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia)

And how smoothly the album slips from this orgy of marital upchuck into the lightest, most innocent, most enticing love song of the whole batch, a throwaway which on closer inspection seems quite as brilliant (in composition and performance) as anything else here: “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go.” So clever, so perfect, to have a song that puts any separation squarely in the future, instead of present, near past, or distant past.
~Paul Williams (Bob Dylan: Performing Artist, Vol 2: The Middle Years 1974-1986)

Grooveshark:

Spotify:

@#130 on my list of Bob Dylan’s top 200 songs.

Facts

Song by Bob Dylan from the album Blood on the Tracks
Released	January 17, 1975
Recorded	December 27, 1974 at Sound 80 inMinneapolis, Minnesota
Genre	Folk rock
Length	4:36
Label	Columbia
Writer	Bob Dylan
Producer	Bob Dylan

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Known studio recordings:

• A&R Studios, NYC, September 16, 1974 – 8 takes
• A&R Studios, NYC, September 17, 1974-3 takes, released on “Blood On The Tracks” (20 Jan 1975)
• –
  Musicians:
  Bob Dylan (guitar, vocal)
  Tony Brown (bass)
  Paul Griffin (organ)
  –
  Produce by Bob Dylan & David Zimmerman
  Engineers: Phil Ramone & Glenn Berger (“Phil & Lenn”)

check out:

• Blood On The Tracks, Second Recording Session, 17 September 1974

Live:

• First live performance: Bellevue Biltmore Hotel, Clearwater FL, April 22, 1976.
• It has been performed only 11 times live – last performance: Hughes Stadium, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado – 23 May 1976.
• Only performed in 1976

It was no great surprise when he gave the song a gorgeous country-rock reinvention on the second Revue tour. With an even stronger melody, it cut quite a contrast to the other, angst-ridden arrangements given the
1974 songs in 1976. Rehearsed early on for the 1978 world tour and at least once during the G.E. era, it has nonetheless become the forgotten song from perhaps his finest album-side.
~Clinton Heylin (Still on the Road: The Songs of Bob Dylan Vol. 2, . 1974-2008)

Album:

• Released on “Blood On the Tracks” – 20 Jan. 1975
  –
  –> check out: Bob Dylan: Blood On The Tracks (released 20 Jan 1975)

Lyrics

I’ve seen love go by my door
It’s never been this close before
Never been so easy or so slow
Been shooting in the dark too long
When somethin’s not right it’s wrong
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go

Dragon clouds so high above
I’ve only known careless love
It’s always hit me from below
This time around it’s more correct
Right on target, so direct
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go

Purple clover, Queen Anne’s Lace
Crimson hair across your face
You could make me cry if you don’t know
Can’t remember what I was thinkin’ of
You might be spoilin’ me too much, love
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go

Flowers on the hillside, bloomin’ crazy
Crickets talkin’ back and forth in rhyme
Blue river runnin’ slow and lazy
I could stay with you forever and never realize the time

Situations have ended sad
Relationships have all been bad
Mine’ve been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud
But there’s no way I can compare
All those scenes to this affair
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go

Yer gonna make me wonder what I’m doin’
Stayin’ far behind without you
Yer gonna make me wonder what I’m sayin’
Yer gonna make me give myself a good talkin’ to

I’ll look for you in old Honolulu
San Francisco, Ashtabula
Yer gonna have to leave me now, I know
But I’ll see you in the sky above
In the tall grass, in the ones I love
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go

Live versions

Municipal Auditorium
San Antonio, Texas
11 May 1976

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Tarrant County Convention Center Arena
Fort Worth, Texas
16 May 1976

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Early January 1978 – Rundown Rehearsals:

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Check out:

• Bob Dylan top 200 according to Egil
• Bob Dylan’s best songs: You’re A Big Girl Now

–

Sources

• Clinton Heylin – Still on the Road: The Songs of Bob Dylan Vol. 2, . 1974-2008
• Paul Williams – (Bob Dylan: Performing Artist, Vol 2: The Middle Years 1974-1986)
• Wikipedia
• Olof’s – Still On The Road

-Egil