Like a Rolling Stone

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

"The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody had kicked open the door to your mind," remembered Bruce Springsteen in 1989, in his speech inducting Dylan into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Dylan first recorded the song on June 15-16, 1965, in a pair of sessions produced by Tom Wilson; session musicians included Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, Paul Griffin and Bobby Gregg. Over those two days, Dylan managed to complete only one take of the song out of nearly two dozen attempts, the version heard on Highway 61 Revisited.

"Like a Rolling Stone" was released as a 45 rpm single on July 20 1965, staying on US charts for nearly 3 months and rising to the #2 spot behind The Beatles' "Help!". It reached a higher spot on the charts than any other song of its length had ever done previously. Dylan gave the song its live debut at his legendary Newport Folk Festival appearance on July 25. Highway 61 Revisited was issued at the end of August, and when Dylan went on tour that fall "Like a Rolling Stone" took the closing slot on his playlist and held it, with rare exceptions, through the end of his 1966 "world tour", as well as during his return to touring in 1974 with The Band. Dylan regularly included the song on his tour playlists in 1978, 1980, 1981, 1984, 1986 and 1987, and it has been a regular feature of his sets during all but one year of the "Never Ending Tour" which began in 1988.

The standard studio recording of the song is found on five official albums: Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Masterpieces, Biograph and The Essential Bob Dylan. Live performances are included on Self Portrait, Before the Flood, Bob Dylan at Budokan, MTV Unplugged, , and The Band's Rock of Ages, as well as on countless unofficially circulating field recordings. An early, incomplete studio recording was included on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991; other studio outtakes were included on the Highway 61 Interactive CD-ROM.

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

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

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

Bradley: "But it is a great honor, isn't it?"

Dylan: "This week it is."

External links

[Poetic Accident: Recording 'Like a Rolling Stone'], from NPR.org (National Public Radio) - includes link to full version of song.
[Lyrics], from bobdylan.com
[Audio sample], from bobdylan.com
[Chords and Lyrics] from [http://www.dylanchords.com/]
[Vocal performance and speech intonation] by Michael Daley, York University, Toronto
[The 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time: #1], from Rolling Stone
[List of cover versions] (aspiring to completeness)
[List of recorded covers] (more limited scope)
[Analysis of the recording], from reasontorock.com
[}}}] at YouTube by Jimi Hendrix at Monterey 1967

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Like a Rolling Stone

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