Empire Burlesque came as a relief to many Dylan fans, to the chagrin of others.  The relief was from a severing of his overtly religious, specifically Christian pontificating lyrics thumping begun with Slow Train and jammed down throats in his completely gospel LP Saved.  “Never Gonna Be The Same Again” is a love song, of the pining, yearning type, typical say of Blood On The Tracks or even going back to Another Side of Bob Dylan, and the type that would be heard, five years later on Oh Mercy, e.g. “Most Of The Time.”

The rhyming in “Never” is, with some departures, abcbdee.  It is an all terminal rhyme song, with the auto-rhyming word “baby” advancing full-throttle by the end.  It has a gospel feel still, but the piercing guitar is rock for sure, and the refrain line, “And I ain’t never gonna be the same again” stays with the listener. It’s dramatically delivered, like a pronouncement of some kind, a declaration, at the end of each verse (four of them).

The three rhymes with “again” that end verses 1, 2, and 4 are my favorites, “pretend” with “again” maybe the most creative, but Dylan’s wrenched rhyme “wind”/”again” is striking in how he makes it work, makes it rhyme, a rhymester when it’s all said and done, the song, I mean, “again” never the same again with such words rhyming with it.

Worth a listen for that end wrenched rhyme: