I married Isis on the fifth day of May
But I could not hold on to her very long
So I cut off my hair and I rode straight away
For the wild unknown country where I could not go wrong

–

[about Isis] Hm… Well, it’s kind of like a journey, you know, like sort of a journey type trip. I wrote that with another person and I think half the verses were mine and half the verses were his, and it just sort of ended up being what it was. I don’t really know too much in depth what it would mean.
-Bob Dylan (Rockline Interview, Hollywood, California – June 17, 1985)

The only reason that ‘Isis’ was chosen as the song to work together on was that we were at my loft apartment and Bob didn’t have a guitar with him… but I had a piano, and ‘Isis’ was the one song that he had started to write on the piano… We are sitting at a piano together and we are writing these verses in an old Western ballad kinda style.
-Jacques Levy