Musical Structure and Lyrics
The song, like most of Dylan's, is composed of a simple harmonic, or chordal, and melodic structure; the verse has a I-ii-IV-I progression followed by a I-V-IV-vi-V. As has been pointed out by Richie Unterberger, in his review of the song on the Allmusic website, the lyrics of "Positively 4th Street" are uncompromisingly nasty. Dylan begins by telling the unspecified second-person target of the song that they have a lot of nerve to say that they are his friend and then goes on to list a multitude of examples of their backstabbing duplicity. While the lyrics are distinctly negative, the organ-dominated backing music is that of care-free folk-rock. The melody is somewhat repetitive and does not deviate from the harmonic progression set up during the first four lines of the song. Additionally, the song has no recognisable, repeating refrain, and does not feature its title anywhere in the song's lyrics. Founder of Crawdaddy! magazine, Paul Williams, has noted that the song's lyrics are uncharacteristically straightforward and devoid of the rich, poetic imagery present in the majority of Dylan's contemporaneous material. Thus, the song can be seen as something of an open letter to Dylan's intended target, with the Top 40 airwaves serving as Dylan's means of communication.
The lyrics of "Positively 4th Street" are bitter and derisive, which caused many, at the time of the song's release, to draw a comparison with Dylan's similarly toned previous single "Like a Rolling Stone". Indeed, journalist Andy Gill described it as "simply the second wind of a one-sided argument, so closely did it follow its predecessor's formula, both musically and attitudinally".
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