February 20, 2023:
Coda.
This piece is an exercise in extreme compression, juxtaposing references, admittedly oblique, to two great breakup albums: Joni Mitchell's Blue (1971) and Lorde's Melodrama (2017). Where the Dylan reference points, again extremely obliquely, to the contrasting temperatures of the two works, Blue claiming a form of adult domesticity gone bad, while Melodrama sites itself in solitary dancing on light up floors.
It places demands. Readers must know the three records, follow the thematic connection between two of them, and grasp how the hook from "My Back Pages" is repurposed with different intent.