Like A Rolling Stone

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"Like a Rolling Stone"
"Like a Rolling Stone" cover
Single by Bob Dylan
from the album Highway 61 Revisited
Released 1965
Recorded 1965
Genre Folk rock
Length 6:09
Label Columbia Records
Producer(s) Tom Wilson
Chart positions

#2 (U.S.)
#4 (UK)
Bob Dylan singles chronology
"Maggie's Farm" "Like a Rolling Stone" "Positively 4th Street"
Music sample:

"Like a Rolling Stone" is a song by Bob Dylan from his album Highway 61 Revisited. First issued in 1965, it represents, in its length (6:09), style, and scoring, one of the most influential of Dylan's songs. Rolling Stone magazine ranked it as the greatest song of all time, and declared, "No other pop song has so thoroughly challenged and transformed the commercial laws and artistic conventions of its time." It is regarded by many as amongst the greatest popular music songs of all time.

"The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody had kicked open the door to your mind," remembered Bruce Springsteen in 1988, in his speech inducting Dylan into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Recording

Dylan first recorded the song on June 15-16, 1965, in a pair of sessions produced by Tom Wilson; session musicians included Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, Paul Griffin, and Bobby Gregg. Bloomfield, a blues guitarist, was specifically asked by Dylan not to play "any of that B.B. King blues shit". Kooper, a guitarist, played the organ, which was not an instrument he regularly played. Over those two days, Dylan managed to complete only one take of the song out of nearly two dozen attempts - the version heard on Highway 61 Revisited.

[edit] Release

"Like a Rolling Stone" was released as a 45 rpm single on July 20, 1965, staying on US charts for nearly 3 months and rising to the #2 spot, behind The Beatles' song "Help!". It reached a higher spot on the charts than any other song of its length had ever reached before.

Dylan gave the song its live debut at his legendary Newport Folk Festival appearance on July 25, 1965. Highway 61 Revisited was issued at the end of August, and when Dylan went on tour that fall, "Like a Rolling Stone" took the closing slot on his playlist and held it, with rare exceptions, through the end of his 1966 "world tour", as well as during his return to touring in 1974 with The Band.

Dylan regularly included the song on his tour playlists in 1978, 1980, 1981, 1984, 1986, and 1987, and it has been a regular feature of his sets during all but one year of the "Never Ending Tour", which began in 1988.

[edit] Releases

[edit] Bob Dylan versions

The standard studio recording of the song is found on four official albums: Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Biograph, and The Essential Bob Dylan.

Live performances of the song are included on Self Portrait, Before the Flood, Bob Dylan at Budokan, MTV Unplugged, The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert, The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack, and The Band's Rock of Ages, as well as on countless unofficially circulating field recordings.

An early, incomplete studio recording was included on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991; other studio outtakes were included on the Highway 61 Interactive CD-ROM.

[edit] Cover versions

Here is a list of some notable artists (with what album it was on or where and when it was performed, if applicable) who have covered "Like a Rolling Stone:"

[edit] Subject

Speculation about the song's unnamed subject has run continuously since its 1965 release; one common school of thought centers on Edie Sedgwick, an actress/model known for her association with Andy Warhol. Sedgwick is also often identified as a figure in other Dylan songs of the time, particularly "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" from his album Blonde on Blonde. However, Dylan is widely believed only to have begun to associate with Sedgwick in the fall of 1965, after "Like A Rolling Stone" was recorded.

Others have claimed to see a deeper meaning. Mike Marqusee has written at length on the conflicts in Dylan's life at this time, with its deepening alienation from his old folk-revival audience and clear-cut leftist causes. He suggests that the song, which veers near misogyny, in its references to its presumed female recipient, is probably self-referential. Thus :- "The song only attains full poignancy when one realises it is sung, at least in part, to the singer himself: he's the one 'with no direction home'" (Marqusee, p157). Martin Scorsese's recent movie about Dylan, No Direction Home, appears to show, in footage filmed backstage in 1966, that Dylan was deeply affected by his mixed audience reception at that time.

[edit] Rolling Stone magazine's ranking

In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine declared "Like a Rolling Stone" the greatest song of all time, based on its poll of 172 music industry figures. When asked about the citation in his 2004 60 Minutes interview with Ed Bradley, Dylan himself seemed to find the matter bemusing, saying he never paid attention to such polls, as they changed from week to week:

Bradley: "But it is a great honor, isn't it?"
Dylan: "This week it is."

[edit] Further reading

On the topic of possible misogyny in the lyrics of this song, it may be relevant that some versions omit the final verse, which could be seen as expressing the strongest emotions of bitterness towards the female subject of the song.

To make a comparison of the lyrics, the original lyrics are at

http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/rolling.html

with the edited version at

http://www.teenagewildlife.com/music/collab/HAH/LARS.html.

[edit] External links

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