This
track from the 1975 album “Desire” tells
the tale of a gypsy girl, and of the man who must leave her to enter the
"valley below." Some critics see the song as a metaphor for Dylan's
crumbling relationship with his then wife, Sara Lowndes, but it was a specific
experience that inspired it.
When Dylan was 34 years old, he visited Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, France. While there he attended a gypsy celebration. The experience left a strong impression on him. "I'll never forget this one man played Russian roulette with five bullets in the chamber!" Dylan wrote of the experience. "Anyway, things went on and it was time for me to go. They said, 'What do you want Bob, as you're leaving us?' I just asked for a cup of coffee for the road. They put it in a bag and they gave it to me. And I was standing there looking out to the ocean, and it was like looking at the valley below where I was standing."
Rob
Stoner's bass
contribution at the beginning of the song was because violinist Scarlet Rivera
wasn't ready. Stoner recalled to Mojo magazine October 2012: "The beginning of 'One More Cup of Coffee' -
that wasn't arranged for me to do a bass solo. Scarlet wasn't ready. Bob starts
strumming his guitar - nothing's happening. Somebody better play something, so
I start playin' a bass solo. Basically the run-throughs became the first
takes."
The
song develops its “gypsy” feel through using the “Andalusian cadence”. This is a harmonic minor chord progression adopted
from flamenco music comprising four chords descending stepwise i–VII–VI–V.
Dylan uses the progression in A harmonic minor: Am-G-F-E.
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