you hand in your ticket
and you watch the geek
who immediately walks up to you
when he hears you speak
and says, "how does it feel
to be such a freak?"
and you say, "impossible!"
as he hands you a bone.

what the hell is a geek?

a geek is a circus performer who ate live chickens. he doesn't like eating raw meat or feathers but he does it to survive. but these people who are coming in to see him are coming in for entertainment, so they are the real freaks. and the geek knows this so during his performance, he eats the live chicken and he hands one of the members of the audience a bone, because he realizes that they are the real freaks.

what dylan is putting across is middle class people or upper class people who sometimes take the afternoon off and put their whole family into a limousine and they go down to the black ghettoes to watch the prostitutes and watch the decaying community. they do this for pleasure. people who are disadvantaged, they're not interested in them coming down for entertainment. but if they'll pay them for a trick, then they'll tolerate them, or else they'll drive them out of the ghettoes. this song is hell. you've got to understand that this song is saying a hell of a lot about society.