Highway 61 Revisited
Encyclopedia
Highway 61 Revisited is the sixth studio album
by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan
. It was released in August 1965 by Columbia Records
. On his previous album, Bringing It All Back Home
, Dylan devoted Side One of the album to songs accompanied by an electric rock
band, and Side Two to solo acoustic numbers. For Highway 61 Revisited, Dylan used rock backing on every track, except for the closing 11-minute acoustic song, "Desolation Row
". Critics have written that Dylan's ability to combine driving, complex, blues-based
rock music with the power of poetry, made Highway 61 Revisited one of the most influential albums ever recorded.
Leading off with his hit single of that summer, "Like a Rolling Stone
", the album features many songs that have been acclaimed as classics and that Dylan has continued to perform live over his long career, including "Highway 61 Revisited
", "Ballad of a Thin Man
", and "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
". Dylan named the album after one of the great North American arteries
, which connected his birthplace
in Minnesota
to southern cities famed for their musical heritage, including St. Louis, Memphis
, and New Orleans.
Highway 61 Revisited peaked at number three in the United States charts and number four in the United Kingdom, while its single, "Like a Rolling Stone
", reached number two in the US and number four in the UK. It is often considered by critics as his magnum opus
. The album has received multiple accolades. It was ranked number four on Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
, and "Like a Rolling Stone", "Desolation Row
", and "Highway 61 Revisited
" were listed at number one, number 185 and number 364, respectively, on Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
list.
was built, Highway 61
stretched from the Mississippi delta
to the Canadian border
, running through Minneapolis, where Dylan briefly attended college, and Duluth, where he was born. Along the way, the highway passed nearby the birthplaces and homes of Southern music greats such as Muddy Waters
, Son House
, Elvis Presley
, and Charley Patton. The "empress of the blues", Bessie Smith
, met her death in an automobile accident on Highway 61, and blues legend Robert Johnson
was said to have sold his soul to the devil at the highway's crossroads with Highway 49
. The highway was also the subject of several blues classics, notably Roosevelt Sykes
's "Highway 61 Blues" (1932) and Mississippi Fred McDowell's
"61 Highway" (1964).
For most of its nearly 1700 miles (2,735.9 km), Highway 61 paralleled the Mississippi River
, providing a migratory route in the 1920s through the 1950s for African American
s leaving the Deep South
for better economic prospects. With them, they brought their music. As biographer Robert Shelton commented, "Jazz came up the river. Blues came up the river. A lot of great basic American culture came right up that highway and up that river." As a teenager, Dylan hitched rides on Highway 61 to catch live rhythm 'n blues
acts around St. Paul
. "Highway 61, the main thoroughfare of the country blues, begins about where I began," Dylan wrote in his autobiography Chronicles
. "I always felt like I'd started on it, always had been on it and could go anywhere, even down in to the deep Delta country
. It was the same road, full of the same contradictions, the same one-horse towns, the same spiritual ancestors.... It was my place in the universe, always felt like it was in my blood."
Dylan told Shelton that he had to overcome considerable resistance at Columbia Records
, to give his album the title, "I wanted to call that album Highway 61 Revisited. Nobody understood it. I had to go up the fucking ladder until finally the word came down and said: 'Let him call it what he wants to call it'."
Dylan critic Michael Gray
has argued that, at the time of its release, the novelty of the songs on Highway 61 Revisited dazzled its listeners. But, for Gray, the very title of the album represents Dylan's insistence that his songs are rooted in the traditions of the blues. "The album title announces we are in for a long revisit. Many bluesmen had been there before [Dylan], all recording versions of a blues called "Highway 61".
in 1966. "It's very tiring having other people tell you how much they dig you if you yourself don't dig you."
Out of this dissatisfaction, Dylan wrote an extended piece of verse which Dylan described as a "long piece of vomit". He refined this long poem into a song consisting of four verses and a chorus—"Like a Rolling Stone". Dylan told Hentoff that the process of writing and recording "Like a Rolling Stone" washed away this dissatisfaction, and renewed his enthusiasm for creating music. Speaking of the breakthrough of writing that song, forty years later, Dylan told Robert Hilburn
in 2004, "It's like a ghost is writing a song like that… You don't know what it means except the ghost picked me to write the song."
Highway 61 Revisited was recorded in two blocks of recording sessions, which took place in Studio A of Columbia Records
in New York City, located at 799 Seventh Avenue, just north of West 52nd Street. The first session, June 15 and June 16, was produced by Tom Wilson and resulted in the single, "Like a Rolling Stone". On July 25, Dylan performed his controversial electric set at the Newport Folk Festival
, where some sections of the crowd booed his performance. Four days after Newport, Dylan returned to the recording studio. From July 29 to August 4, Dylan and his band completed recording Highway 61 Revisited, but under the supervision of a new producer, Bob Johnston
.
on drums, Joe Macho, Jr. on bass, Paul Griffin
on piano, and Frank Owens on guitar. On lead guitar, Dylan recruited an old acquaintance, Michael Bloomfield
, of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band
. June 15 began with takes of "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry
" and an outtake, "Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence"; versions of these songs recorded on the 15th were released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991. Recording then moved to "Like a Rolling Stone"; on this day, the song was recorded in 3/4 time with Dylan playing piano, and one of these takes was subsequently released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3.
Dylan and his band returned to Studio A the following day, where they devoted virtually the entire session to recording "Like a Rolling Stone". Present on this occasion was Al Kooper
, a young musician invited by Wilson to observe, but who wanted to play on the session. Kooper managed to sit in on the session, and he improvised an organ riff which would be a major element of the song. The fourth take was ultimately selected as the master, but Dylan and the band would persist in recording a further eleven takes. After "Like a Rolling Stone" had been completed, Dylan improvised a short song which has remained unreleased. Although the song has been bootlegged under the title "Lunatic Princess Revisited", Dylan researcher Clinton Heylin
refers to the track as "Why Do You Have to Be So Frantic?", after its opening line, and Tim Dunn has noted that Dylan copyrighted a song with this title. Heylin calls the song a "weird little one-verse fragment", but claims that the riff is the blueprint of Dylan's 1979 evangelical
composition, "Slow Train".
in upstate New York. Four days after the Newport Folk Festival
, on July 29, 1965, Dylan returned to Studio A. Backed by the same musicians from the previous studio session, Dylan no longer employed Tom Wilson as producer. Instead, he was replaced by Columbia producer Bob Johnston
, who had lobbied to work with Dylan, although he was not involved in Wilson's dismissal.Polizzotti refers to Wilson and Dylan falling out during the recording of "Like A Rolling Stone", perhaps over the prominence of Kooper's organ in the mix. When questioned by Jann Wenner
in 1969 about the switch in producers, Dylan gave a deadpan answer: "All I know is that I was out recording one day, and Tom had always been there—I had no reason to think he wasn't going to be there—and I looked up one day, and Bob was there [laughs]." (Wenner, Jann. "Interview with Jann S. Wenner," Rolling Stone, November 29, 1969, in )
Their first session together was devoted to three songs. After recording multiple takes of "Tombstone Blues", "It Takes a Lot to Laugh" and "Positively 4th Street", master takes were successfully recorded. "Tombstone Blues" and "It Takes a Lot to Laugh" were included in the final album, but "Positively 4th Street
" was issued as a single-only release. At the close of the July 29 session, Dylan attempted to record "Desolation Row", accompanied by Al Kooper on electric guitar and Harvey Brooks on bass. There was no drummer, as the drummer had gone home. This electric version was eventually released in 2005, on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7
.
On July 30, Dylan and his band returned to Studio A and recorded three songs. A master take of "From a Buick 6" was successfully recorded and later included on the final album, but most of the session was devoted to "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" Dylan was not satisfied with the results, and set the song aside for a later date; it was eventually re-recorded with the Hawks in October.
During the next two days, Dylan spent much time writing out chord charts for the remaining six songs he had yet to record. Sessions resumed at Studio A on August 2, this time with Sam Lay
sitting in on drums early in the session with Gregg replacing him later. "Highway 61 Revisited" is thus the only song on the album that Lay played on. "Highway 61 Revisited", "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues", "Queen Jane Approximately", and "Ballad of a Thin Man" were all recorded successfully and master takes were selected for the album.
One final session was held on August 4, again at Studio A. Most of the session was devoted to completing "Desolation Row", which had already been recorded with an electric guitar accompaniment. It was finally recorded with just two acoustic guitars. According to Johnston, respected Nashville musician Charlie McCoy
happened to visit New York, and Johnston invited him to attend the Dylan session. According to some sources, seven takes of "Desolation Row" were recorded, and takes six and seven were spliced together for the master recording.
Highway 61 Revisited commences with a song which has been described as revolutionary in its combination of electric guitar licks, organ chords, and Dylan’s voice, at once young and jeeringly cynical.” Dylan critic Michael Gray
has described 'Like a Rolling Stone' as "a chaotic amalgam of blues, impressionism, allegory, and an intense directness in the central chorus: 'How does it feel?'" The song was notable for eschewing the traditional themes of popular song, such as love, and instead expressed resentment and a yearning for revenge. Author Oliver Trager describes the lyrics as "Dylan's sneer at a woman who has fallen from grace and is reduced to fending for herself in a hostile, unfamiliar world." As well as contemplating the downfall of the central character, 'Miss Lonely', the song has been said to have a wider compass. Dylan biographer Robert Shelton wrote that the song expresses "compassion for those who have dropped out of bourgeois surroundings", and hence describes "the loss of innocence and the harshness of experience".
Edie Sedgwick
, a socialite and actress in the Factory
scene of pop art
ist Andy Warhol
, has been suggested as the basis of Miss Lonely. Other people who have been seen as possible targets of the song include Joan Baez
, Marianne Faithful and Bob Neuwirth
. Biographer Howard Sounes
argues that the song is not necessarily about one single person but was aimed generally at those Dylan perceived as being "phony".
"Tombstone Blues"
This fast-paced blues song, driven by Michael Bloomfield’s lead guitar, assembles a parade of historical characters—outlaw Belle Starr
, biblical temptress Delilah
, Jack the Ripper
(transformed into a successful businessman), John the Baptist
(transformed into a torturer), blueswoman Ma Rainey
who is in bed with classicist Beethoven—to sketch an absurdist account of contemporary America. The influence of Dylan’s hero, Woody Guthrie
, has been heard in the way the chorus of this song, "Mama’s in the factory, she ain’t got no shoes/ Daddy’s in the alley, he’s looking for food/ I’m in the kitchen with the tombstone blues" echoes Guthrie’s "Mama was in the kitchen, preparing to eat/ Sis was in the pantry looking for yeast/ Pa was in the cellar mixing up the hops/ And Brother’s at the window, he’s watching for the cops" in the song "Taking It Easy". But for many critics, the reality hovering behind the song is the then-escalating Vietnam War
; the "king of the Philistines" who sends his slaves "out into the jungle" has been heard as a reference to President Lyndon B. Johnson
. Johnson may also be present as the Commander In Chief who declares, "The sun’s not yellow, it’s chicken".
"It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry"
This song began life under the title "Phantom Engineer", and was first recorded on the same day as "Like a Rolling Stone"—June 16, 1965. This earlier version has a faster tempo and slightly different lyrics; it was eventually released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3. Dylan performed this formulation of the song as part of his electric set at the Newport Folk Festival
on July 25, 1965.
Dylan and his band returned to the song on July 29, 1965. Tony Glover, who was present at the recording session, has recalled that while the other musicians took a lunch break, Dylan worked on the song at the piano, crucially slowing down the tempo. Egan comments that Dylan transformed "the song from a bobbing, cawing and insufferably smart-alec number into a slow, tender, sensual anthem." The lyrics reveal Dylan’s talent for borrowing from old blues numbers, adapting the lines "Don’t the clouds look lonesome shining across the sea/ Don’t my gal look good when she’s coming after me" from "Solid Road" by Brownie McGhee
and Leroy Carr
—a song which Dylan had recorded under the title "Rocks and Gravel" and then dropped from his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
. Musically, "It Takes a Lot to Laugh" has a lazy tempo driven by session drummer Bobby Gregg
, a barrelhouse piano part played by Paul Griffin
, a raunchy bass
part played by Harvey Brooks
, an electric guitar part played by Mike Bloomfield
and a harmonica
part by Dylan.
"From a Buick 6"
"From a Buick 6", a "recklessly" played fast-blues song, commences with a snare
shot similar to the opening of "Like a Rolling Stone", Partially based on Sleepy John Estes
' 1930 song "Milk Cow Blues
", the guitar part is patterned after older blues
riffs by Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton
and Big Joe Williams
. Robert Shelton describes the song as "an earthy tribute to another funky earth-mother", while for Heylin it is close to filler material, relying on the band's sound "to convince us he is doing more than just listing the ways in which this 'graveyard woman' is both a life-giver and a death-giver". "From a Buick 6" was released as the B-side of Dylan's "Positively 4th Street
" single on September 7, 1965.
"Ballad of a Thin Man"
Driven by a doomy piano played by Dylan himself, contrasting with a horror movie organ part played by Al Kooper, this track was described by Kooper as "musically more sophisticated than anything else on the album". Mike Marqusee
writes that "Ballad of a Thin Man" can be read as "one of the purest songs of protest ever sung", with its scathing take on "the media, its interest in and inability to comprehend [Dylan] and his music." For Marqusee, the song became the anthem of an in-group, "disgusted by the old, excited by the new... elated by their discovery of others who shared their feelings", with its central refrain "Something is happening here/ But you don't know what it is/ Do you, Mr Jones?" epitomizing the hip exclusivity of the burgeoning counterculture
. Robert Shelton describes the song's central character, Mr Jones, as "one of Dylan's greatest archetypes", characterizing him as "a Philistine
, a person who does not see... superficially educated and well bred but not very smart about the things that count."
There has been speculation whether Mr Jones was based on a specific journalist. In 1975, reporter Jeffrey Jones "outed" himself in a Rolling Stone
article, describing how he had attempted to interview Dylan at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. When Dylan and his entourage later chanced on the hapless reporter in the hotel dining room, Dylan shouted mockingly, "Mr Jones! Gettin' it all down, Mr Jones?" When Bill Flanagan asked Dylan, in 1990, whether one reporter could claim all the credit for Mr Jones, Dylan replied: "There were a lot of Mister Joneses at that time. Obviously there must have been a tremendous amount of them for me to write that particular song. It was like, 'Oh man, here's the thousandth Mister Jones'."
As in "Like a Rolling Stone", "Queen Jane Approximately" warns the female subject of the song of her imminent fall from grace. Polizzotti characterises "Queen Jane" as friendlier and more compassionate than "Rolling Stone", and says the songs makes a "benign" opening to Side Two, after the acidic put-down of "Ballad of a Thin Man". However, Allmusic critic Bill Janovitz describes Dylan's tone as "simultaneously condescending, self-righteous, sneering, contemptuous". "The narrator in the song ... seems to be warning someone of a great fall from grace, an awakening, as if he has either been through it all himself already or is just too smart to fall into such traps": 'Now when all of the flower ladies want back what they have lent you / And the smell of their roses does not remain / And all of your children start to resent you / Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?'." The song is structured as a series of ABAB quatrain
verses, with each verse followed by a chorus which is simply a repeat of the last line of each verse: "Won't you come see me Queen Jane?". Gill calls this song "the least interesting track on the album", though he praises the piano ascending the scale during the harmonica break, which "neatly evokes the stifling nature of an upper class existence". "Queen Jane Approximately" was released as the B-side of Dylan's "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
" single in early 1966.
"Highway 61 Revisited"
Dylan audaciously commences the title song of this album with the words "God said to Abraham 'Kill me a son'/Abe said 'Man, you must be puttin' me on'." As Gill has pointed out, Abraham was the name of Dylan's father, "which effectively makes Bob himself the son whom God wants killed". As befits a song celebrating a highway central to the history of the blues, this is the fastest, most raucous blues boogie on the album, with Mike Bloomfield's "razor slashes of slide guitar" driving the band. The scope of the song broadens to make the highway a road of limitless possibilities, peopled by drifters and chancers, and culminating in a promoter who is trying to stage World War III on Highway 61. The fast moving boogie is punctuated by the sound of a police siren. (On the album cover, Dylan is credited with playing "Police Car".) Drummer Sam Lay (of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band) recalls that he flew in from Chicago
and played drums on this one track. Lay has said that he supplied Dylan with a whistle which had a "sound like a police siren with a high pitch to it" known as a "Siren Whistle" http://www.acmewhistles.co.uk/sounds/small_siren_147.mp3. Confusingly, Al Kooper also claims that he lent Dylan a siren that he wore around his neck, which supplied the police car punctuation for the recording. "Highway 61 Revisited" was released as the B-side of Dylan's "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?
" single on November 30, 1965.
"Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"
"Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" is a song of six verses and no chorus, with lyrics which describe a nightmarish experiences in Juarez
, Mexico
, where the narrator encounters sickness, despair, whores and saints, corrupt authorities, alcohol and drugs before resoving to return to New York City
. Critics have heard, in this song, literary references to Malcolm Lowry
's Under the Volcano
, Edgar Allan Poe
's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue
" and Jack Kerouac
's Desolation Angels
. For Andy Gill, the title may refer to Rimbaud's
poem "Ma Bohème: Fantaisie", which contains the lines "My only pair of pants had a big hole in them/ Tom Thumb the dreamer, sowing the roads/ With rhymes". The backing musicians, Bobby Gregg on drums, Mike Bloomfield on electric guitar, and two pianists, Paul Griffin (musician)|Paul Griffin on tack piano
and Al Kooper on Hohner Pianet, produce a mood which, for Gill, perfectly complements the enervated tone of the lyrics. Heylin notes that Dylan took great care—sixteen takes—to get the effect he was after, with lyrics which subtly "skirt the edge of reason". A live recording of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" was released as the B-side of Dylan's "I Want You
" single in June 1966.
"Desolation Row"
Dylan ends Highway 61 Revisited with the sole acoustic
exception to his rock album. "Desolation Row" intertwines surreal allusions to a variety of figures in Western culture during this song—described by Andy Gill as "an 11-minute epic of entropy, which takes the form of a Fellini-esque parade of grotesques and oddities featuring a huge cast of iconic characters, some historical (Einstein, Nero
), some biblical (Noah, Cain and Abel), some fictional (Ophelia, Romeo, Cinderella), some literary (T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound
), and some who fit into none of the above categories, notably Dr. Filth and his dubious nurse."
The song opens with a report that "they're selling postcards of the hanging", and notes "the circus is in town". Polizzotti, and other critics, have connected this song with the lynching of three black men in Duluth. The men were employed by a travelling circus and had been accused of raping a white woman. On the night of June 15, 1920, they were removed from custody and hanged on the corner of First Street and Second Avenue East. Duluth
was Bob Dylan’s birthplace; at the time of the lynching, Dylan’s father, then eight years old, was living in Duluth. Photos of the lynching were sold as postcards.In 2003, a memorial was unveiled to Isaac McGhie, Elmer Jackson and Elias Clayton, the three men who were killed. A great-grandson of one of the most prominent leaders of the lynch mob spoke at the ceremony dedicating the memorial.
The south-western
flavored acoustic guitar part accompanying Dylan's playing was by Nashville-based
session musician Charlie McCoy
. The flavor of the backing and eclecticism of the imagery led Polizzotti to describe "Desolation Row" as the "ultimate cowboy song, the 'Home On The Range' of the frightening territory that was mid-sixties America". In the penultimate verse, the passengers on the Titanic are shouting "Which side are you on?". This was one of the most cherished slogans of the Left
, and, for Robert Shelton, one of the targets of this song is "simpleminded political commitment. What difference which side you're on if you're sailing on the Titanic?"
, located in Gramercy Park
, New York
. A website researching the location of Dylan's album cover photos has pinpointed the building at 4, Gramercy Park West. Kramer placed Dylan's friend Bob Neuwirth
(carrying a Nikon SP
) behind Dylan "to give it extra color". Dylan is wearing a Triumph motorcycle T-shirt
under a blue and purple silk shirt, holding his Ray-Ban sunglasses in his right hand. Photographer Kramer commented in 2010 on Dylan's expression, "He's hostile, or it's a hostile moodiness. He's almost challenging me or you or whoever's looking at it: 'What are you gonna do about it, buster?'"
prose: "On the slow train time does not interfere & at the Arabian crossing waits White Heap, the man from the newspaper & behind him the hundred inevitable made of solid rock & stone." One critic has pointed out the close similarity of these notes to the stream of consciousness, experimental novel, Tarantula
, which Dylan was writing during 1965 and 1966.
The album was re-released in 2010 with new liner notes by Greil Marcus
.
told Broadside magazine, immediately after the record’s release, that Dylan had "produced the most important and revolutionary album ever made". Speaking to Anthony Scaduto
five years later, Ochs said, "I put on Highway 61 and I laughed and said it's so ridiculous. It's impossibly good, it just can’t be that good. How can a human mind do this?"
The English poet Philip Larkin
, reviewing Highway 61 for The Daily Telegraph
, wrote that he found himself "well rewarded" by the record: "Dylan’s cawing, derisive voice is probably well suited to his material... and his guitar adapts itself to rock ('Highway 61') and ballad ('Queen Jane'). There is a marathon 'Desolation Row' which has an enchanting tune and mysterious, possibly half-baked words."
The album cemented Dylan's mastery of a new genre—combining verbal sophistication with a hard rock sound. One 1965 reviewer wrote: "Bob Dylan used to sound like a lung cancer victim singing Woody Guthrie
. Now he sounds like a Rolling Stone singing Immanuel Kant
". The album was a hit, peaking at number 3 on the Billboard 200
chart of top albums. In August 1967, Highway 61 was certificated as a gold record.
Dylan critic Michael Gray
called Highway 61 "revolutionary and stunning, not just for its energy and panache but in its vision: fusing radical, electrical music ... with lyrics that were light years ahead of anyone else's; Dylan here unites the force of blues-based rock'n'roll with the power of poetry. Rock culture, in an important sense, the 1960s, started here."
For Clinton Heylin
, it was "an album that consolidated everything 'Like A Rolling Stone' (and Bringing It All Back Home
) proffered ... an amalgamation of every strand in American popular music from 'Gypsy Davey' to the Philly Sound
. The rich, textured sound was folk-rock realized." Tim Riley said it was "the first Dylan record to posit protest as a way of life, a state of mind, something as psychologically bound as it is socially incumbent."
Numerous polls in recent years demonstrate that the album remains a fixture in the rock pantheon. In 1995 Highway 61 Revisited was named the fifth greatest album of all time in a poll conducted by Mojo
magazine. In 2001, the TV network VH1
placed it at number 22. In 2003, Rolling Stone
magazine, describing Highway 61 as "one of those albums that, quite simply, changed everything", placed it at number four in its list of the greatest albums of all time. The Rolling Stone list of the 500 greatest songs of all time ranked "Highway 61 Revisited", "Desolation Row" and "Like a Rolling Stone" at #364, #185 and #1, respectively.
Side one
Side two
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
. It was released in August 1965 by Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
. On his previous album, Bringing It All Back Home
Bringing It All Back Home
Bringing It All Back Home is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's fifth studio album, released in March 1965 by Columbia Records. The album is divided into an electric and an acoustic side. On side one of the original LP, Dylan is backed by an electric rock and roll band - a move that further alienated...
, Dylan devoted Side One of the album to songs accompanied by an electric rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
band, and Side Two to solo acoustic numbers. For Highway 61 Revisited, Dylan used rock backing on every track, except for the closing 11-minute acoustic song, "Desolation Row
Desolation Row
"Desolation Row" is a 1965 song written and sung by Bob Dylan. It was recorded on August 4, 1965, and was released as the closing track of Dylan's sixth studio album, Highway 61 Revisited...
". Critics have written that Dylan's ability to combine driving, complex, blues-based
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
rock music with the power of poetry, made Highway 61 Revisited one of the most influential albums ever recorded.
Leading off with his hit single of that summer, "Like a Rolling Stone
Like a Rolling Stone
"Like a Rolling Stone" is a 1965 song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Its confrontational lyrics originate in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhausted from a grueling tour of England...
", the album features many songs that have been acclaimed as classics and that Dylan has continued to perform live over his long career, including "Highway 61 Revisited
Highway 61 Revisited (song)
"Highway 61 Revisited" is the title track of Bob Dylan's 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited. It was also released as the B-side to the single "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" later the same year...
", "Ballad of a Thin Man
Ballad of a Thin Man
"Ballad of a Thin Man" is a song written and recorded by Bob Dylan, released on the album Highway 61 Revisited in 1965.-Meaning:"Ballad of a Thin Man" comments on a conventional "Mr. Jones", who walks into a room of intentionally bizarre circus freaks and doesn't "know what's happening".The...
", and "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
"Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan. It was originally recorded on August 2, 1965 and released on the album Highway 61 Revisited. The song was later released on the compilation album Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol...
". Dylan named the album after one of the great North American arteries
U.S. Route 61
U.S. Route 61 is the official designation for a United States highway that runs from New Orleans, Louisiana, to the city of Wyoming, Minnesota. The highway generally follows the course of the Mississippi River, and is designated the Great River Road for much of its route. As of 2004, the highway's...
, which connected his birthplace
Duluth, Minnesota
Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...
in Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
to southern cities famed for their musical heritage, including St. Louis, Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
, and New Orleans.
Highway 61 Revisited peaked at number three in the United States charts and number four in the United Kingdom, while its single, "Like a Rolling Stone
Like a Rolling Stone
"Like a Rolling Stone" is a 1965 song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Its confrontational lyrics originate in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhausted from a grueling tour of England...
", reached number two in the US and number four in the UK. It is often considered by critics as his magnum opus
Magnum opus
Magnum opus , from the Latin meaning "great work", refers to the largest, and perhaps the best, greatest, most popular, or most renowned achievement of a writer, artist, or composer.-Related terms:Sometimes the term magnum opus is used to refer to simply "a great work" rather than "the...
. The album has received multiple accolades. It was ranked number four on Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
, and "Like a Rolling Stone", "Desolation Row
Desolation Row
"Desolation Row" is a 1965 song written and sung by Bob Dylan. It was recorded on August 4, 1965, and was released as the closing track of Dylan's sixth studio album, Highway 61 Revisited...
", and "Highway 61 Revisited
Highway 61 Revisited (song)
"Highway 61 Revisited" is the title track of Bob Dylan's 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited. It was also released as the B-side to the single "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" later the same year...
" were listed at number one, number 185 and number 364, respectively, on Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" was the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone, issue number 963, published December 9, 2004, a year after the magazine published its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time"....
list.
Dylan and Highway 61
While Dylan was growing up in the 1950s, before the interstate highway systemInterstate Highway System
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, , is a network of limited-access roads including freeways, highways, and expressways forming part of the National Highway System of the United States of America...
was built, Highway 61
U.S. Route 61
U.S. Route 61 is the official designation for a United States highway that runs from New Orleans, Louisiana, to the city of Wyoming, Minnesota. The highway generally follows the course of the Mississippi River, and is designated the Great River Road for much of its route. As of 2004, the highway's...
stretched from the Mississippi delta
Mississippi Delta
The Mississippi Delta is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. The region has been called "The Most Southern Place on Earth" because of its unique racial, cultural, and economic history...
to the Canadian border
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, running through Minneapolis, where Dylan briefly attended college, and Duluth, where he was born. Along the way, the highway passed nearby the birthplaces and homes of Southern music greats such as Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
, Son House
Son House
Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. was an American blues singer and guitarist. House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music...
, Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, and Charley Patton. The "empress of the blues", Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s...
, met her death in an automobile accident on Highway 61, and blues legend Robert Johnson
Robert Johnson
Robert Leroy Johnson was an American blues singer and musician. His landmark recordings from 1936–37 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that have influenced later generations of musicians. Johnson's shadowy, poorly documented life and death at age 27 have given...
was said to have sold his soul to the devil at the highway's crossroads with Highway 49
U.S. Route 49
U.S. Route 49 is a north–south United States highway. The highway's northern terminus is in Piggott, Arkansas, at an intersection with U.S. Route 62. Its southern terminus is in Gulfport, Mississippi, at an intersection with U.S. Route 90. US 49 is approximately 516 miles in length.It...
. The highway was also the subject of several blues classics, notably Roosevelt Sykes
Roosevelt Sykes
Roosevelt Sykes was an American blues musician, also known as "The Honeydripper". He was a successful and prolific cigar-chomping blues piano player, whose rollicking thundering boogie-woogie was highly influential.-Career:Born in Elmar, Arkansas, Sykes grew up near Helena but at age 15, went on...
's "Highway 61 Blues" (1932) and Mississippi Fred McDowell's
Mississippi Fred McDowell
Fred McDowell known by his stage name; Mississippi Fred McDowell, was an American Hill country blues singer and guitar player.-Career:...
"61 Highway" (1964).
For most of its nearly 1700 miles (2,735.9 km), Highway 61 paralleled the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
, providing a migratory route in the 1920s through the 1950s for African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s leaving the Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...
for better economic prospects. With them, they brought their music. As biographer Robert Shelton commented, "Jazz came up the river. Blues came up the river. A lot of great basic American culture came right up that highway and up that river." As a teenager, Dylan hitched rides on Highway 61 to catch live rhythm 'n blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
acts around St. Paul
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...
. "Highway 61, the main thoroughfare of the country blues, begins about where I began," Dylan wrote in his autobiography Chronicles
Chronicles: Volume One
Chronicles, Volume One is the first part of Bob Dylan's planned 3-volume memoir. Published on October 5, 2004, by Simon & Schuster, the 304-page volume covers selected points from Dylan's long career. The book spent 19 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list for hardcover nonfiction books...
. "I always felt like I'd started on it, always had been on it and could go anywhere, even down in to the deep Delta country
Mississippi Delta
The Mississippi Delta is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. The region has been called "The Most Southern Place on Earth" because of its unique racial, cultural, and economic history...
. It was the same road, full of the same contradictions, the same one-horse towns, the same spiritual ancestors.... It was my place in the universe, always felt like it was in my blood."
Dylan told Shelton that he had to overcome considerable resistance at Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
, to give his album the title, "I wanted to call that album Highway 61 Revisited. Nobody understood it. I had to go up the fucking ladder until finally the word came down and said: 'Let him call it what he wants to call it'."
Dylan critic Michael Gray
Michael Gray (author)
Michael Gray is a British author who has written extensively about popular music.Gray grew up on Merseyside, attended Birkenhead School, and read History and English Literature at the University of York. Gray subsequently lived and worked in North Devon, Birmingham, West Malvern, London and North...
has argued that, at the time of its release, the novelty of the songs on Highway 61 Revisited dazzled its listeners. But, for Gray, the very title of the album represents Dylan's insistence that his songs are rooted in the traditions of the blues. "The album title announces we are in for a long revisit. Many bluesmen had been there before [Dylan], all recording versions of a blues called "Highway 61".
Background to recording sessions
In May 1965, Dylan returned from his tour of England feeling tired and dissatisfied with his material. "I was going to quit singing. I was very drained… I was playing a lot of songs I didn't want to play," Dylan told Nat HentoffNat Hentoff
Nathan Irving "Nat" Hentoff is an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media and writes regularly on jazz and country music for The Wall Street Journal....
in 1966. "It's very tiring having other people tell you how much they dig you if you yourself don't dig you."
Out of this dissatisfaction, Dylan wrote an extended piece of verse which Dylan described as a "long piece of vomit". He refined this long poem into a song consisting of four verses and a chorus—"Like a Rolling Stone". Dylan told Hentoff that the process of writing and recording "Like a Rolling Stone" washed away this dissatisfaction, and renewed his enthusiasm for creating music. Speaking of the breakthrough of writing that song, forty years later, Dylan told Robert Hilburn
Robert Hilburn
Robert Hilburn is a pop music critic and author. As critic and music editor of the Los Angeles Times from 1970 to 2005, his reviews, essays and profiles have appeared in hundreds of publications around the world...
in 2004, "It's like a ghost is writing a song like that… You don't know what it means except the ghost picked me to write the song."
Highway 61 Revisited was recorded in two blocks of recording sessions, which took place in Studio A of Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
in New York City, located at 799 Seventh Avenue, just north of West 52nd Street. The first session, June 15 and June 16, was produced by Tom Wilson and resulted in the single, "Like a Rolling Stone". On July 25, Dylan performed his controversial electric set at the Newport Folk Festival
Electric Dylan controversy
By 1965, Bob Dylan had achieved the status of leading songwriter of the American folk music revival.Paul Simon suggested that Dylan's early compositions virtually took over the folk genre: "[Dylan's] early songs were very rich ... with strong melodies. 'Blowin' in the Wind' has a really strong...
, where some sections of the crowd booed his performance. Four days after Newport, Dylan returned to the recording studio. From July 29 to August 4, Dylan and his band completed recording Highway 61 Revisited, but under the supervision of a new producer, Bob Johnston
Bob Johnston
Donald William Robert 'Bob' Johnston is a noted American record producer, best known for his work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson and many Nashville recording artists, as well as Simon and Garfunkel.-Early days:Johnston was born into a professional musical family...
.
Recording sessions, June 15 – June 16
Tom Wilson produced the initial recording sessions for Highway 61 Revisited on June 15–16, 1965. Dylan was backed by Bobby GreggBobby Gregg
Robert J. Gregg is a musician who has performed as a drummer and has also been a record producer. As a drum soloist and band leader he recorded one album and several singles, including one Top 40 single in the United States...
on drums, Joe Macho, Jr. on bass, Paul Griffin
Paul Griffin (musician)
Paul Griffin was an American session musician and pianist, who recorded with hundreds of artists from the late 1950s to the 1990s...
on piano, and Frank Owens on guitar. On lead guitar, Dylan recruited an old acquaintance, Michael Bloomfield
Mike Bloomfield
Michael Bernard "Mike" Bloomfield was an American musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, since he rarely sang before 1969–70...
, of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Paul Butterfield
Paul Butterfield was an American blues vocalist and harmonica player, who founded the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in the early 1960s and performed at the original Woodstock Festival...
. June 15 began with takes of "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry
It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry
"It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" is a song written by Bob Dylan that was originally released on his seminal album Highway 61 Revisited, and also included on the compilation album Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits 2 that was released in Europe. An alternate version of the song appears on...
" and an outtake, "Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence"; versions of these songs recorded on the 15th were released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991. Recording then moved to "Like a Rolling Stone"; on this day, the song was recorded in 3/4 time with Dylan playing piano, and one of these takes was subsequently released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3.
Dylan and his band returned to Studio A the following day, where they devoted virtually the entire session to recording "Like a Rolling Stone". Present on this occasion was Al Kooper
Al Kooper
Al Kooper is an American songwriter, record producer and musician, known for organizing Blood, Sweat & Tears , providing studio support for Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965, and also bringing together guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills to...
, a young musician invited by Wilson to observe, but who wanted to play on the session. Kooper managed to sit in on the session, and he improvised an organ riff which would be a major element of the song. The fourth take was ultimately selected as the master, but Dylan and the band would persist in recording a further eleven takes. After "Like a Rolling Stone" had been completed, Dylan improvised a short song which has remained unreleased. Although the song has been bootlegged under the title "Lunatic Princess Revisited", Dylan researcher Clinton Heylin
Clinton Heylin
Clinton Heylin is an English author who has written extensively about popular music and the work of Bob Dylan.- Education :...
refers to the track as "Why Do You Have to Be So Frantic?", after its opening line, and Tim Dunn has noted that Dylan copyrighted a song with this title. Heylin calls the song a "weird little one-verse fragment", but claims that the riff is the blueprint of Dylan's 1979 evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
composition, "Slow Train".
Recording sessions, July 29 – August 4
To create the material for his next album, Dylan spent a month writing songs in his new home in the Byrdcliffe artists' colony of WoodstockWoodstock, New York
Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 at the 2000 census.The Town of Woodstock is in the northern part of the county...
in upstate New York. Four days after the Newport Folk Festival
Newport Folk Festival
The Newport Folk Festival is an American annual folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the previously established Newport Jazz Festival...
, on July 29, 1965, Dylan returned to Studio A. Backed by the same musicians from the previous studio session, Dylan no longer employed Tom Wilson as producer. Instead, he was replaced by Columbia producer Bob Johnston
Bob Johnston
Donald William Robert 'Bob' Johnston is a noted American record producer, best known for his work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson and many Nashville recording artists, as well as Simon and Garfunkel.-Early days:Johnston was born into a professional musical family...
, who had lobbied to work with Dylan, although he was not involved in Wilson's dismissal.Polizzotti refers to Wilson and Dylan falling out during the recording of "Like A Rolling Stone", perhaps over the prominence of Kooper's organ in the mix. When questioned by Jann Wenner
Jann Wenner
Jann Simon Wenner is the co-founder and publisher of the music and politics biweekly Rolling Stone, as well as the owner of Men's Journal and Us Weekly magazines.-Childhood:...
in 1969 about the switch in producers, Dylan gave a deadpan answer: "All I know is that I was out recording one day, and Tom had always been there—I had no reason to think he wasn't going to be there—and I looked up one day, and Bob was there [laughs]." (Wenner, Jann. "Interview with Jann S. Wenner," Rolling Stone, November 29, 1969, in )
Their first session together was devoted to three songs. After recording multiple takes of "Tombstone Blues", "It Takes a Lot to Laugh" and "Positively 4th Street", master takes were successfully recorded. "Tombstone Blues" and "It Takes a Lot to Laugh" were included in the final album, but "Positively 4th Street
Positively 4th Street
"Positively 4th Street" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, first recorded by Dylan in New York City on July 29, 1965. It was released as a single by Columbia Records on September 7, 1965, reaching #1 on Canada's RPM chart, #7 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and #8 on the UK Singles Chart...
" was issued as a single-only release. At the close of the July 29 session, Dylan attempted to record "Desolation Row", accompanied by Al Kooper on electric guitar and Harvey Brooks on bass. There was no drummer, as the drummer had gone home. This electric version was eventually released in 2005, on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7
The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack
The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack is the third most recent installment in the Bob Dylan "Bootleg Series" of rare and/or officially unissued recordings....
.
On July 30, Dylan and his band returned to Studio A and recorded three songs. A master take of "From a Buick 6" was successfully recorded and later included on the final album, but most of the session was devoted to "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" Dylan was not satisfied with the results, and set the song aside for a later date; it was eventually re-recorded with the Hawks in October.
During the next two days, Dylan spent much time writing out chord charts for the remaining six songs he had yet to record. Sessions resumed at Studio A on August 2, this time with Sam Lay
Sam Lay
Sam Lay is an American drummer and vocalist, who has been performing since the late 1950s.-Life and career:...
sitting in on drums early in the session with Gregg replacing him later. "Highway 61 Revisited" is thus the only song on the album that Lay played on. "Highway 61 Revisited", "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues", "Queen Jane Approximately", and "Ballad of a Thin Man" were all recorded successfully and master takes were selected for the album.
One final session was held on August 4, again at Studio A. Most of the session was devoted to completing "Desolation Row", which had already been recorded with an electric guitar accompaniment. It was finally recorded with just two acoustic guitars. According to Johnston, respected Nashville musician Charlie McCoy
Charlie McCoy
Charles "Charlie" Ray McCoy is an American musician noted for his harmonica playing. In his career, McCoy has backed several notable musicians including Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Tom Astor, Elvis Presley and Ween. He has also recorded thirty-seven studio albums, including fourteen for Monument Records...
happened to visit New York, and Johnston invited him to attend the Dylan session. According to some sources, seven takes of "Desolation Row" were recorded, and takes six and seven were spliced together for the master recording.
Side One
"Like a Rolling Stone"Highway 61 Revisited commences with a song which has been described as revolutionary in its combination of electric guitar licks, organ chords, and Dylan’s voice, at once young and jeeringly cynical.” Dylan critic Michael Gray
Michael Gray (author)
Michael Gray is a British author who has written extensively about popular music.Gray grew up on Merseyside, attended Birkenhead School, and read History and English Literature at the University of York. Gray subsequently lived and worked in North Devon, Birmingham, West Malvern, London and North...
has described 'Like a Rolling Stone' as "a chaotic amalgam of blues, impressionism, allegory, and an intense directness in the central chorus: 'How does it feel?'" The song was notable for eschewing the traditional themes of popular song, such as love, and instead expressed resentment and a yearning for revenge. Author Oliver Trager describes the lyrics as "Dylan's sneer at a woman who has fallen from grace and is reduced to fending for herself in a hostile, unfamiliar world." As well as contemplating the downfall of the central character, 'Miss Lonely', the song has been said to have a wider compass. Dylan biographer Robert Shelton wrote that the song expresses "compassion for those who have dropped out of bourgeois surroundings", and hence describes "the loss of innocence and the harshness of experience".
Edie Sedgwick
Edie Sedgwick
Edith Minturn "Edie" Sedgwick was an American actress, socialite, model and heiress. She is best known for being one of Andy Warhol's superstars. Sedgwick became known as "The Girl of the Year" in 1965 after starring in several of Warhol's short films in the 1960s...
, a socialite and actress in the Factory
The Factory
The Factory was Andy Warhol's original New York City studio from 1962 to 1968, although his later studios were known as The Factory as well. The Factory was located on the fifth floor at 231 East 47th Street, in Midtown Manhattan. The rent was "only about one hundred dollars a year"...
scene of pop art
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
ist Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, has been suggested as the basis of Miss Lonely. Other people who have been seen as possible targets of the song include Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
, Marianne Faithful and Bob Neuwirth
Bob Neuwirth
Bob Neuwirth is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and visual artist. A mainstay of the early 1960s Cambridge, Massachusetts, folk scene, he subsequently became a friend and associate of Bob Dylan alongside whom he appears in D.A...
. Biographer Howard Sounes
Howard Sounes
Howard Sounes is a British author, journalist and biographer.Howard Sounes began his career as a newspaper journalist as a staff reporter for the Sunday Mirror. He broke major stories concerning one of the most notorious murder cases in British criminal history, that of Fred West and Rosemary West...
argues that the song is not necessarily about one single person but was aimed generally at those Dylan perceived as being "phony".
"Tombstone Blues"
This fast-paced blues song, driven by Michael Bloomfield’s lead guitar, assembles a parade of historical characters—outlaw Belle Starr
Belle Starr
Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr , better known as Belle Starr, was a notorious American outlaw.-Early life:...
, biblical temptress Delilah
Delilah
Delilah appears only in the Hebrew bible Book of Judges 16, where she is the "woman in the valley of Sorek" whom Samson loved, and who was his downfall...
, Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper
"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...
(transformed into a successful businessman), John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
(transformed into a torturer), blueswoman Ma Rainey
Ma Rainey
Ma Rainey was one of the earliest known American professional blues singers and one of the first generation of such singers to record. She was billed as The Mother of the Blues....
who is in bed with classicist Beethoven—to sketch an absurdist account of contemporary America. The influence of Dylan’s hero, Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
, has been heard in the way the chorus of this song, "Mama’s in the factory, she ain’t got no shoes/ Daddy’s in the alley, he’s looking for food/ I’m in the kitchen with the tombstone blues" echoes Guthrie’s "Mama was in the kitchen, preparing to eat/ Sis was in the pantry looking for yeast/ Pa was in the cellar mixing up the hops/ And Brother’s at the window, he’s watching for the cops" in the song "Taking It Easy". But for many critics, the reality hovering behind the song is the then-escalating Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
; the "king of the Philistines" who sends his slaves "out into the jungle" has been heard as a reference to President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
. Johnson may also be present as the Commander In Chief who declares, "The sun’s not yellow, it’s chicken".
"It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry"
This song began life under the title "Phantom Engineer", and was first recorded on the same day as "Like a Rolling Stone"—June 16, 1965. This earlier version has a faster tempo and slightly different lyrics; it was eventually released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3. Dylan performed this formulation of the song as part of his electric set at the Newport Folk Festival
Newport Folk Festival
The Newport Folk Festival is an American annual folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the previously established Newport Jazz Festival...
on July 25, 1965.
Dylan and his band returned to the song on July 29, 1965. Tony Glover, who was present at the recording session, has recalled that while the other musicians took a lunch break, Dylan worked on the song at the piano, crucially slowing down the tempo. Egan comments that Dylan transformed "the song from a bobbing, cawing and insufferably smart-alec number into a slow, tender, sensual anthem." The lyrics reveal Dylan’s talent for borrowing from old blues numbers, adapting the lines "Don’t the clouds look lonesome shining across the sea/ Don’t my gal look good when she’s coming after me" from "Solid Road" by Brownie McGhee
Brownie McGhee
Walter Brown McGhee was a Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaborations with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.-Life and career:...
and Leroy Carr
Leroy Carr
Leroy Carr was an American blues singer, songwriter and pianist, who developed a laid-back, crooning technique and whose popularity and style influenced such artists as Nat King Cole and Ray Charles. He first became famous for "How Long, How Long Blues" on Vocalion Records in 1928.-Life and...
—a song which Dylan had recorded under the title "Rocks and Gravel" and then dropped from his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Columbia Records. Whereas his debut album Bob Dylan had contained only two original songs, Freewheelin initiated the process of writing contemporary words to traditional melodies....
. Musically, "It Takes a Lot to Laugh" has a lazy tempo driven by session drummer Bobby Gregg
Bobby Gregg
Robert J. Gregg is a musician who has performed as a drummer and has also been a record producer. As a drum soloist and band leader he recorded one album and several singles, including one Top 40 single in the United States...
, a barrelhouse piano part played by Paul Griffin
Paul Griffin (musician)
Paul Griffin was an American session musician and pianist, who recorded with hundreds of artists from the late 1950s to the 1990s...
, a raunchy bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
part played by Harvey Brooks
Harvey Brooks
Harvey Brooks is an American bassist. He has played in many styles of music...
, an electric guitar part played by Mike Bloomfield
Mike Bloomfield
Michael Bernard "Mike" Bloomfield was an American musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, since he rarely sang before 1969–70...
and a harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
part by Dylan.
"From a Buick 6"
"From a Buick 6", a "recklessly" played fast-blues song, commences with a snare
Snare drum
The snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...
shot similar to the opening of "Like a Rolling Stone", Partially based on Sleepy John Estes
Sleepy John Estes
John Adam Estes , best known as Sleepy John Estes or Sleepy John, was a American blues guitarist, songwriter and vocalist, born in Ripley, Lauderdale County, Tennessee.-Career:...
' 1930 song "Milk Cow Blues
Milk Cow Blues
Milk Cow Blues is an album from American country music artist Willie Nelson. This album was released on September 19, 2000, on the Island Records label. It features many famous blues artists, including B. B. King and Dr. John.-Track listing:...
", the guitar part is patterned after older blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
riffs by Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton
Charlie Patton
Charlie Patton , better known as Charley Patton, was an American Delta blues musician. He is considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", and is credited with creating an enduring body of American music and personally inspiring just about every Delta blues man...
and Big Joe Williams
Big Joe Williams
Joseph Lee Williams , billed throughout his career as Big Joe Williams, was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar...
. Robert Shelton describes the song as "an earthy tribute to another funky earth-mother", while for Heylin it is close to filler material, relying on the band's sound "to convince us he is doing more than just listing the ways in which this 'graveyard woman' is both a life-giver and a death-giver". "From a Buick 6" was released as the B-side of Dylan's "Positively 4th Street
Positively 4th Street
"Positively 4th Street" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, first recorded by Dylan in New York City on July 29, 1965. It was released as a single by Columbia Records on September 7, 1965, reaching #1 on Canada's RPM chart, #7 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and #8 on the UK Singles Chart...
" single on September 7, 1965.
"Ballad of a Thin Man"
Driven by a doomy piano played by Dylan himself, contrasting with a horror movie organ part played by Al Kooper, this track was described by Kooper as "musically more sophisticated than anything else on the album". Mike Marqusee
Mike Marqusee
Mike Marqusee is an American-born writer, journalist and political activist in London. His partner is the barrister Liz Davies.Marqusee, who describes himself as a "deracinated New York Marxist Jew" has lived in Britain since 1971...
writes that "Ballad of a Thin Man" can be read as "one of the purest songs of protest ever sung", with its scathing take on "the media, its interest in and inability to comprehend [Dylan] and his music." For Marqusee, the song became the anthem of an in-group, "disgusted by the old, excited by the new... elated by their discovery of others who shared their feelings", with its central refrain "Something is happening here/ But you don't know what it is/ Do you, Mr Jones?" epitomizing the hip exclusivity of the burgeoning counterculture
Counterculture of the 1960s
The counterculture of the 1960s refers to a cultural movement that mainly developed in the United States and spread throughout much of the western world between 1960 and 1973. The movement gained momentum during the U.S. government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam...
. Robert Shelton describes the song's central character, Mr Jones, as "one of Dylan's greatest archetypes", characterizing him as "a Philistine
Philistinism
Philistinism is a derogatory term used to a particular attitude or set of values perceived as despising or undervaluing art, beauty, spirituality, or intellectualism. A person with this attitude is referred to as a Philistine and may also be considered materialistic, favoring conventional social...
, a person who does not see... superficially educated and well bred but not very smart about the things that count."
There has been speculation whether Mr Jones was based on a specific journalist. In 1975, reporter Jeffrey Jones "outed" himself in a Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
article, describing how he had attempted to interview Dylan at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. When Dylan and his entourage later chanced on the hapless reporter in the hotel dining room, Dylan shouted mockingly, "Mr Jones! Gettin' it all down, Mr Jones?" When Bill Flanagan asked Dylan, in 1990, whether one reporter could claim all the credit for Mr Jones, Dylan replied: "There were a lot of Mister Joneses at that time. Obviously there must have been a tremendous amount of them for me to write that particular song. It was like, 'Oh man, here's the thousandth Mister Jones'."
Side Two
"Queen Jane Approximately"As in "Like a Rolling Stone", "Queen Jane Approximately" warns the female subject of the song of her imminent fall from grace. Polizzotti characterises "Queen Jane" as friendlier and more compassionate than "Rolling Stone", and says the songs makes a "benign" opening to Side Two, after the acidic put-down of "Ballad of a Thin Man". However, Allmusic critic Bill Janovitz describes Dylan's tone as "simultaneously condescending, self-righteous, sneering, contemptuous". "The narrator in the song ... seems to be warning someone of a great fall from grace, an awakening, as if he has either been through it all himself already or is just too smart to fall into such traps": 'Now when all of the flower ladies want back what they have lent you / And the smell of their roses does not remain / And all of your children start to resent you / Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?'." The song is structured as a series of ABAB quatrain
Quatrain
A quatrain is a stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines of verse. Existing in various forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and China; and, continues into the 21st century, where it is...
verses, with each verse followed by a chorus which is simply a repeat of the last line of each verse: "Won't you come see me Queen Jane?". Gill calls this song "the least interesting track on the album", though he praises the piano ascending the scale during the harmonica break, which "neatly evokes the stifling nature of an upper class existence". "Queen Jane Approximately" was released as the B-side of Dylan's "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
"One of Us Must Know " is a song written and recorded by Bob Dylan. It is the fourth track on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde, and was released as the album's first single that February. The song is an emotional confession of misconnects and apologies from the singer to a woman who has tragically...
" single in early 1966.
"Highway 61 Revisited"
Dylan audaciously commences the title song of this album with the words "God said to Abraham 'Kill me a son'/Abe said 'Man, you must be puttin' me on'." As Gill has pointed out, Abraham was the name of Dylan's father, "which effectively makes Bob himself the son whom God wants killed". As befits a song celebrating a highway central to the history of the blues, this is the fastest, most raucous blues boogie on the album, with Mike Bloomfield's "razor slashes of slide guitar" driving the band. The scope of the song broadens to make the highway a road of limitless possibilities, peopled by drifters and chancers, and culminating in a promoter who is trying to stage World War III on Highway 61. The fast moving boogie is punctuated by the sound of a police siren. (On the album cover, Dylan is credited with playing "Police Car".) Drummer Sam Lay (of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band) recalls that he flew in from Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and played drums on this one track. Lay has said that he supplied Dylan with a whistle which had a "sound like a police siren with a high pitch to it" known as a "Siren Whistle" http://www.acmewhistles.co.uk/sounds/small_siren_147.mp3. Confusingly, Al Kooper also claims that he lent Dylan a siren that he wore around his neck, which supplied the police car punctuation for the recording. "Highway 61 Revisited" was released as the B-side of Dylan's "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?
Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?
"Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" was a 1965 single by American rock artist Bob Dylan. It reached #58 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and #17 on the UK chart in January 1966...
" single on November 30, 1965.
"Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"
"Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" is a song of six verses and no chorus, with lyrics which describe a nightmarish experiences in Juarez
Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez , officially known today as Heroica Ciudad Juárez, but abbreviated Juárez and formerly known as El Paso del Norte, is a city and seat of the municipality of Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Juárez's estimated population is 1.5 million people. The city lies on the Rio Grande...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, where the narrator encounters sickness, despair, whores and saints, corrupt authorities, alcohol and drugs before resoving to return to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Critics have heard, in this song, literary references to Malcolm Lowry
Malcolm Lowry
Clarence Malcolm Lowry was an English poet and novelist who was best known for his novel Under the Volcano, which was voted No. 11 in the Modern Library 100 Best Novels list.-Biography:...
's Under the Volcano
Under the Volcano
Under the Volcano is a 1947 semi-autobiographical novel by English writer Malcolm Lowry . The novel tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic British consul in the small Mexican town of Quauhnahuac , on the Day of the Dead.Surrounded by the helpless presences of his ex-wife, his...
, Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in Graham's Magazine in 1841. It has been claimed as the first detective story; Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination". Two works that share some similarities predate Poe's stories, including Das...
" and Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
's Desolation Angels
Desolation Angels
Desolation Angels is a 1979 album by the hard rock band Bad Company. It was their 5th studio release. Paul Rodgers revealed on In the Studio with Redbeard that the album's title came from the novel of the same name by Jack Kerouac.Desolation Angels was recorded at Ridge Farm Studios in Surrey,...
. For Andy Gill, the title may refer to Rimbaud's
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
poem "Ma Bohème: Fantaisie", which contains the lines "My only pair of pants had a big hole in them/ Tom Thumb the dreamer, sowing the roads/ With rhymes". The backing musicians, Bobby Gregg on drums, Mike Bloomfield on electric guitar, and two pianists, Paul Griffin (musician)|Paul Griffin on tack piano
Tack piano
In music, the tack piano is a permanently altered version of an ordinary piano, in which tacks or nails are placed on the hammers of the instrument at the point where the hammers hit the strings, giving the instrument a tinny, more percussive sound...
and Al Kooper on Hohner Pianet, produce a mood which, for Gill, perfectly complements the enervated tone of the lyrics. Heylin notes that Dylan took great care—sixteen takes—to get the effect he was after, with lyrics which subtly "skirt the edge of reason". A live recording of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" was released as the B-side of Dylan's "I Want You
I Want You (Bob Dylan song)
"I Want You" is a 1966 song recorded by Bob Dylan. It was issued as a single in June 1966, shortly before the release of its accompanying album, Blonde on Blonde. A live version of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" was included as a B-side...
" single in June 1966.
"Desolation Row"
Dylan ends Highway 61 Revisited with the sole acoustic
Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
exception to his rock album. "Desolation Row" intertwines surreal allusions to a variety of figures in Western culture during this song—described by Andy Gill as "an 11-minute epic of entropy, which takes the form of a Fellini-esque parade of grotesques and oddities featuring a huge cast of iconic characters, some historical (Einstein, Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
), some biblical (Noah, Cain and Abel), some fictional (Ophelia, Romeo, Cinderella), some literary (T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
), and some who fit into none of the above categories, notably Dr. Filth and his dubious nurse."
The song opens with a report that "they're selling postcards of the hanging", and notes "the circus is in town". Polizzotti, and other critics, have connected this song with the lynching of three black men in Duluth. The men were employed by a travelling circus and had been accused of raping a white woman. On the night of June 15, 1920, they were removed from custody and hanged on the corner of First Street and Second Avenue East. Duluth
Duluth, Minnesota
Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...
was Bob Dylan’s birthplace; at the time of the lynching, Dylan’s father, then eight years old, was living in Duluth. Photos of the lynching were sold as postcards.In 2003, a memorial was unveiled to Isaac McGhie, Elmer Jackson and Elias Clayton, the three men who were killed. A great-grandson of one of the most prominent leaders of the lynch mob spoke at the ceremony dedicating the memorial.
The south-western
Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
flavored acoustic guitar part accompanying Dylan's playing was by Nashville-based
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
session musician Charlie McCoy
Charlie McCoy
Charles "Charlie" Ray McCoy is an American musician noted for his harmonica playing. In his career, McCoy has backed several notable musicians including Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Tom Astor, Elvis Presley and Ween. He has also recorded thirty-seven studio albums, including fourteen for Monument Records...
. The flavor of the backing and eclecticism of the imagery led Polizzotti to describe "Desolation Row" as the "ultimate cowboy song, the 'Home On The Range' of the frightening territory that was mid-sixties America". In the penultimate verse, the passengers on the Titanic are shouting "Which side are you on?". This was one of the most cherished slogans of the Left
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
, and, for Robert Shelton, one of the targets of this song is "simpleminded political commitment. What difference which side you're on if you're sailing on the Titanic?"
Outtakes
A number of outtakes from the Highway 61 Revisited sessions have been released. The first proper non-album release from the sessions was the single "Positively 4th Street", although on an early pressing of the single Columbia used another Highway 61 outtake, "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?", by mistake. "Crawl Out Your Window" was subsequently re-recorded with the Hawks in October, and released as a single in November 1965. Columbia also accidentally released an alternate take of "From a Buick 6" on an early pressing of Highway 61 Revisited, and this version continued to appear on the Japanese release for several years. Other officially released outtakes include alternate takes of "Like a Rolling Stone" and "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry", and a previously unreleased song, "Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence", on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991. Alternate takes of "Desolation Row", "Highway 61 Revisited", "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues", "Tombstone Blues" and a still different take of "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" were released on The Bootleg Series Volume 7. Excerpts from a number of different takes of "Like a Rolling Stone" appeared on the Highway 61 Interactive CD-ROM, released in February 1995. Several other alternate takes of various songs were recorded during the Highway 61 sessions but remain unreleased, as does the composition "Why Do You Have to Be So Frantic?".Cover art
The cover photograph was taken by photographer Daniel Kramer several weeks before the recording sessions. It captures Dylan sitting on the stoop of the apartment of his manager, Albert GrossmanAlbert Grossman
Albert Bernard Grossman was an American entrepreneur and manager in the American folk music scene and rock and roll. He was most famous as the manager of Bob Dylan between 1962 and 1970.-Biography:...
, located in Gramercy Park
Gramercy Park
Gramercy Park is a small, fenced-in private park in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park is at the core of both the neighborhood referred to as either Gramercy or Gramercy Park and the Gramercy Park Historic District...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. A website researching the location of Dylan's album cover photos has pinpointed the building at 4, Gramercy Park West. Kramer placed Dylan's friend Bob Neuwirth
Bob Neuwirth
Bob Neuwirth is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and visual artist. A mainstay of the early 1960s Cambridge, Massachusetts, folk scene, he subsequently became a friend and associate of Bob Dylan alongside whom he appears in D.A...
(carrying a Nikon SP
Nikon SP
The Nikon SP is a professional level, interchangeable lens, 35 mm film, rangefinder camera introduced in 1957. It is the culmination of Nikon's rangefinder development which started in 1948 with the Nikon I, and was "arguably the most advanced rangefinder of its time." It was manufactured by the...
) behind Dylan "to give it extra color". Dylan is wearing a Triumph motorcycle T-shirt
T-shirt
A T-shirt is a style of shirt. A T-shirt is buttonless and collarless, with short sleeves and frequently a round neck line....
under a blue and purple silk shirt, holding his Ray-Ban sunglasses in his right hand. Photographer Kramer commented in 2010 on Dylan's expression, "He's hostile, or it's a hostile moodiness. He's almost challenging me or you or whoever's looking at it: 'What are you gonna do about it, buster?'"
Liner notes
As he had on his previous three albums, Dylan contributed his own writing to the back cover of Highway 61 Revisted, in the shape of freeform, surrealistSurrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
prose: "On the slow train time does not interfere & at the Arabian crossing waits White Heap, the man from the newspaper & behind him the hundred inevitable made of solid rock & stone." One critic has pointed out the close similarity of these notes to the stream of consciousness, experimental novel, Tarantula
Tarantula (book)
Tarantula is an experimental novel by Bob Dylan, written between 1965 and 1966. It employs stream of consciousness writing, somewhat in the style of Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg. One section of the book parodies the Leadbelly song "Black Betty"...
, which Dylan was writing during 1965 and 1966.
The album was re-released in 2010 with new liner notes by Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a much broader framework of culture and politics than is customary in pop music journalism.-Life and career:Marcus was born in San Francisco...
.
Initial reactions
Singer-songwriter Phil OchsPhil Ochs
Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...
told Broadside magazine, immediately after the record’s release, that Dylan had "produced the most important and revolutionary album ever made". Speaking to Anthony Scaduto
Anthony Scaduto
Anthony Scaduto is a journalist and biographer of rock musicians. His most famous work is Dylan, a biography of Bob Dylan, first published in 1972...
five years later, Ochs said, "I put on Highway 61 and I laughed and said it's so ridiculous. It's impossibly good, it just can’t be that good. How can a human mind do this?"
The English poet Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...
, reviewing Highway 61 for The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, wrote that he found himself "well rewarded" by the record: "Dylan’s cawing, derisive voice is probably well suited to his material... and his guitar adapts itself to rock ('Highway 61') and ballad ('Queen Jane'). There is a marathon 'Desolation Row' which has an enchanting tune and mysterious, possibly half-baked words."
The album cemented Dylan's mastery of a new genre—combining verbal sophistication with a hard rock sound. One 1965 reviewer wrote: "Bob Dylan used to sound like a lung cancer victim singing Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
. Now he sounds like a Rolling Stone singing Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
". The album was a hit, peaking at number 3 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
chart of top albums. In August 1967, Highway 61 was certificated as a gold record.
Legacy
Highway 61 Revisited has remained among the most highly acclaimed of Dylan's works. Scaduto, Dylan's first serious biographer, wrote that it may be "one of the most brilliant pop records ever made. As rock, it cuts through to the core of the music—a hard driving beat without frills, without self-consciousness." Commenting on Dylan's imagery, Scaduto wrote: "Not since Rimbaud has a poet used all the language of the street to expose the horrors of the streets, to describe a state of the union that is ugly and absurd." While discussing Highway 61 with Scaduto, Dylan gave the album a strong endorsement: "I'm not gonna to be able to make a record better than that one. Highway 61 is just too good. There's a lot of stuff on there that I would listen to."Dylan critic Michael Gray
Michael Gray (author)
Michael Gray is a British author who has written extensively about popular music.Gray grew up on Merseyside, attended Birkenhead School, and read History and English Literature at the University of York. Gray subsequently lived and worked in North Devon, Birmingham, West Malvern, London and North...
called Highway 61 "revolutionary and stunning, not just for its energy and panache but in its vision: fusing radical, electrical music ... with lyrics that were light years ahead of anyone else's; Dylan here unites the force of blues-based rock'n'roll with the power of poetry. Rock culture, in an important sense, the 1960s, started here."
For Clinton Heylin
Clinton Heylin
Clinton Heylin is an English author who has written extensively about popular music and the work of Bob Dylan.- Education :...
, it was "an album that consolidated everything 'Like A Rolling Stone' (and Bringing It All Back Home
Bringing It All Back Home
Bringing It All Back Home is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's fifth studio album, released in March 1965 by Columbia Records. The album is divided into an electric and an acoustic side. On side one of the original LP, Dylan is backed by an electric rock and roll band - a move that further alienated...
) proffered ... an amalgamation of every strand in American popular music from 'Gypsy Davey' to the Philly Sound
Philadelphia soul
Philadelphia soul, sometimes called the Philadelphia Sound or Sweet Philly, is a style of soul music characterized by funk influences and lush instrumental arrangements, often featuring sweeping strings and piercing horns. The subtle sound of a glockenspiel can often be heard in the background of...
. The rich, textured sound was folk-rock realized." Tim Riley said it was "the first Dylan record to posit protest as a way of life, a state of mind, something as psychologically bound as it is socially incumbent."
Numerous polls in recent years demonstrate that the album remains a fixture in the rock pantheon. In 1995 Highway 61 Revisited was named the fifth greatest album of all time in a poll conducted by Mojo
Mojo (magazine)
MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...
magazine. In 2001, the TV network VH1
VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...
placed it at number 22. In 2003, Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine, describing Highway 61 as "one of those albums that, quite simply, changed everything", placed it at number four in its list of the greatest albums of all time. The Rolling Stone list of the 500 greatest songs of all time ranked "Highway 61 Revisited", "Desolation Row" and "Like a Rolling Stone" at #364, #185 and #1, respectively.
Track listing
All songs written by Bob DylanSide one
- "Like a Rolling StoneLike a Rolling Stone"Like a Rolling Stone" is a 1965 song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Its confrontational lyrics originate in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhausted from a grueling tour of England...
" – 6:09 - "Tombstone BluesTombstone Blues"Tombstone Blues" is the second track off Bob Dylan's album Highway 61 Revisited. Musically it is a straightforward blues song, however the lyrics are typical of Dylan's free-associate surreal style of the period, with such lines as "the sun's not yellow, it's chicken".It was performed by Marcus...
" – 5:58 - "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to CryIt Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry"It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" is a song written by Bob Dylan that was originally released on his seminal album Highway 61 Revisited, and also included on the compilation album Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits 2 that was released in Europe. An alternate version of the song appears on...
" – 4:09 - "From a Buick 6From a Buick 6"From a Buick 6" is a song by Bob Dylan from his album Highway 61 Revisited, which was also released as a single on the B-side of Positively 4th Street...
" – 3:19 - "Ballad of a Thin ManBallad of a Thin Man"Ballad of a Thin Man" is a song written and recorded by Bob Dylan, released on the album Highway 61 Revisited in 1965.-Meaning:"Ballad of a Thin Man" comments on a conventional "Mr. Jones", who walks into a room of intentionally bizarre circus freaks and doesn't "know what's happening".The...
" – 5:58
Side two
- "Queen Jane ApproximatelyQueen Jane Approximately"Queen Jane Approximately" is a song from Bob Dylan's 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited. It was released as a single as the B-side to "One of Us Must Know " in January 1966...
" – 5:31 - "Highway 61 RevisitedHighway 61 Revisited (song)"Highway 61 Revisited" is the title track of Bob Dylan's 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited. It was also released as the B-side to the single "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" later the same year...
" – 3:30 - "Just Like Tom Thumb's BluesJust Like Tom Thumb's Blues"Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan. It was originally recorded on August 2, 1965 and released on the album Highway 61 Revisited. The song was later released on the compilation album Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol...
" – 5:31 - "Desolation RowDesolation Row"Desolation Row" is a 1965 song written and sung by Bob Dylan. It was recorded on August 4, 1965, and was released as the closing track of Dylan's sixth studio album, Highway 61 Revisited...
" – 11:21
Personnel
- Bob DylanBob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
– guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, harmonicaHarmonicaThe harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
, pianoPianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
, liner notesLiner notesLiner notes are the writings found in booklets which come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for vinyl records and cassettes.-Origin:...
, police sirens - Mike BloomfieldMike BloomfieldMichael Bernard "Mike" Bloomfield was an American musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, since he rarely sang before 1969–70...
– guitar - Harvey BrooksHarvey BrooksHarvey Brooks is an American bassist. He has played in many styles of music...
– bassBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick.... - Bobby GreggBobby GreggRobert J. Gregg is a musician who has performed as a drummer and has also been a record producer. As a drum soloist and band leader he recorded one album and several singles, including one Top 40 single in the United States...
– drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person .... - Paul GriffinPaul Griffin (musician)Paul Griffin was an American session musician and pianist, who recorded with hundreds of artists from the late 1950s to the 1990s...
– organOrgan (music)The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
, piano - Al KooperAl KooperAl Kooper is an American songwriter, record producer and musician, known for organizing Blood, Sweat & Tears , providing studio support for Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965, and also bringing together guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills to...
– organ, piano (Hohner pianet) - Sam LaySam LaySam Lay is an American drummer and vocalist, who has been performing since the late 1950s.-Life and career:...
– drums - Charlie McCoy – guitar
- Frank Owens – piano
- Russ SavakusRuss SavakusRuss Savakus is an American session bass player , violinist and singer. Savakus has recorded with numerous artists in and around the 1960s folk and folk-rock movement in New York...
– bass
Charts
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1965 | Billboard 200 | 3 |
| 1965 | UK Top 75 | 4 |