In this poignant song from Bob Dylan’s 1976 album Desire, Dylan asks for “one more cup of coffee” before he leaves the gypsy girl he loves. He knows she doesn’t return his love and affection, but he yearns to prolong his time with her.
Complaining that “your heart is like an ocean / Mysterious and dark,” and “Your loyalty is not to me / But to the stars above,” he tells her that he is leaving to go to the “valley below.”
But before he goes, he asks only for “One more cup of coffee for the road / One more cup of coffee ‘fore I go / To the valley below.” Maybe if they share another cup of coffee, their relationship might be saved, or at least his leaving will be postponed.
The chorus, from which “One More Cup of Coffee” takes its title, is a beautiful duet between Dylan and Emmylou Harris that passionately expresses the narrator’s longing. Throughout the song, Scarlet Rivera’s mournful violin underscores the sadness.
Desire was released in January 1976, between the two legs of Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue tour that had started in 1975. The album held the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Pop Albums chart for five weeks and reached No. 3 in the U.K. Desire was named No. 174 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and is certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.
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