2011, Mark used to introduce this song with "a song about sleeping rough..."
For me, it has some deeper meanings about restlessness versa having a home. To rest at sleep at a cemetery says a lot - very morbid. The hunted hobo only finds rest at a place where the dead ones are. (In the movie "Once Upon A Time In the West" it's part of the story that a town AT THE railroad is planned. These plans bring a lot of terror and hatred and death. Plus it is just easy to put the heavy marble that is used to build a great palace the same as for tombstones next to the tracks...). So being settled is bad, being on the road is also bad, because if you are hunted or a displaced person, all you want to have is a home - the dream of the ragpicker if you like, the theme of the complete great album, every song is about not being at home, check it out, it's a concept... even Quality Shoe!
The hobo himself is restless, he just takes a little rest and then has to keep on going...
In the live version this part is excellently represented. Exhausted and depressed because of being put off the train (again), he just looks for a place to rest and be safe. That would be the very silent and sad fiddle part, or also the picking nowadays. During the 2010 versions, the was absolutely clear for me when the hobo spotted another train coming up on the horizon - maybe at the crack of dawn - he now has to hurry up to catch it... Here is hope again, and confidence - the tension rises when the train comes closer and closer and he has to run next to it to jump onto it... and 2010 this was really awesome played - you can hear the moment when he finally got onto it! (Locarno 2010 good example).
So that's what he wants. He doesn't want to stay at the same place because he HAS to go on and on. Lots of allegory in it, same as in Speedway if you ask me.
Cain and Abel, the settled Cain and the nomad Abel, can't be happy toghether... and so on. So that is a universal theme, put into a simple Bob Dylan-style melody. But the big efforts on the live versions are telling me that Mark sees a lot of potential in it obviously...
Just my 2 cent
LE