Sign on the Window isn't the Bob Dylan podcast you need, but it's definitely the one that you want! Each week we select a Dylan song at random, live with the song for a week (or two) and then get together to discuss. This week, it needs no introduction – 1965's "Like a Rolling Stone."
Because of the sprawl that can easily occur, we've broken the episode into 8 parts.
Transformation – Contexts(3:30)
What are you gonna do, chart it out? – The Cutting Edge (11:00)
A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss – What's going on? (32:30)
A Completely Free Song – the song itself (37:45)
He doesn’t seem the type, and I don’t remember seeing him at any of the Cylon parties – does this still work today? (53:30)
We're a Real Podcast and the parts have to continue – shilling and playlist(56:00)
Are you alive? Yes. Prove it. – Recommendations (1:02:00)
The Cylon War is long over, yet we must not forget the reasons why so many sacrificed so much in the cause of these parts - endings (1:10:00)
Next episode: MUSIC VIDEO MONTH CONTINUES! "Duquesne Whistle"
Part 1: Transformation (3:30)
I’d literally quit singing and playing, and I found myself writing this... long piece of vomit about twenty pages long and out of it I took 'Like a Rolling Stone...' And I’d never written anything like that before and it suddenly came to me that that was what I should do. — Bob Dylan
Entire books have been written about "Like a Rolling Stone." For full discussion, see the episode, obviously.
In short, the song is the last to be recorded with Tom Wilson and was recorded over two days — June 15 (five takes) and June 16 (15 takes, take 4 being on Highway 61 Revisited. (The entire "Like a Rolling Stone" sessions is fully available on TBLS Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge).
As of recording, he's played the song 2067 times — from July 26, 1965 at Newport Folk Festival to... tonight, June 30, 2019, in Karlstad, Sweden.
The song has been covered many, many times by the likes of Bowie, the Four Seasons, Nancy Sinatra, the Rolling Stones, Johnny Winter, Spirit, Anberlin, Cher, Michael Bolton, The Wailers, Green Day, most recently Titus Andronicus, and Jimi Hendrix.
Speaking of, many artists have commented on the importance of this song to their art, including Jimi:
It made me feel that I wasn't the only one who'd ever felt so low...
Paul McCartney:
It seemed to go on and on forever. It was just beautiful ... He showed all of us that it was possible to go a little further.
Zappa:
When I heard 'Like a Rolling Stone', I wanted to quit the music business, because I felt: 'If this wins and it does what it's supposed to do, I don't need to do anything else ...' But it didn't do anything. It sold but nobody responded to it in the way that they should have.
Elvis Costello:
What a shocking thing to live in a world where there was Manfred Mann and the Supremes and Engelbert Humperdinck and here comes 'Like a Rolling Stone.'
And most famously, Bruce Springsteen at Dylan's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 1988:
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'd kicked open the door to your mind ... The way that Elvis freed your body, Dylan freed your mind, and showed us that because the music was physical did not mean it was anti-intellect. He had the vision and talent to make a pop song so that it contained the whole world. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound, broke through the limitations of what a recording could achieve, and he changed the face of rock'n'roll for ever and ever.
As for accolades, it has plenty: according to review aggregator Acclaimed Music, "Like a Rolling Stone" is the statistically most acclaimed song of all time; it's #1 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time;" #4 on Pitchforks "200 Best Songs of the '60s" (and many more); and it's part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock."
Part 2: What are you gonna do, chart it out? (11:00)
It all started with that 'La Bamba' riff. — Bob Dylan
We listened to many versions of "Like a Rolling Stone" and left many versions (some great ones) on the cutting room floor, so to speak. Naturally, we began with June 15-16 on The Cutting Edge and break the entire thing down, including some choice Dylan commentary after they'd nailed the Highway 61 version:
That's not it, how did we do it?
Ah no, don't roll 6!
It's six minutes long, man!
Is my guitar too loud?
Why can't we get that right, man?
We discussed his Newport debut of the song in '65, the iconic "play it fucking loud" from Manchester with the Hawks in '66, Isle of Wight in '69, Before the Flood in '74, Rolling Thunder in '75, At Budokan in '78, at Earl's Court in London in June 1981, Unplugged in '95 and other performances that have been bootlegged over the years.
Part 3: A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss (32:30)
It wasn't called anything, just a rhythm thing on paper all about my steady hatred directed at some point that was honest. In the end it wasn't hatred, it was telling someone something they didn't know, telling them they were lucky. Revenge, that's a better word. I had never thought of it as a song, until one day I was at the piano, and on the paper it was singing, "How does it feel?" in a slow motion pace, in the utmost of slow motion. It was like... in your eyesight you see your victim swimming in lava... in the pain they were bound to meet up with. I wrote it. I didn’t fail. It was straight. — Bob Dylan, to Jules Siegel in 1966
The proverb "a rolling stone gathers no moss", credited to Publilius Syrus, evokes a desire to stay active and avoid stagnation. The idea of "a rolling stone"was a staple of blues lyrics and had been around well before Bob Dylan.
Famously, this song is pretty mean. We discuss (outside our lyrical dive) the women in Dylan's life at this pivotal moment: Edie Sedgwick, Marianne Faithfill, Joan Baez. We talk Titus Andronicus's latest cover, which inverts all premise and turns the song back upon the singer themselves. This wasn't fully unprecedented, as Dylan has said:
...when I used words like 'he' and 'it' and 'they,' and talking about other people, I was really talking about nobody but me.
Part 4: A Completely Free Song (37:45)
I’ve written some songs which are kind of far out, a long continuation of verses, stuff like that – but I haven’t really gotten into writing a completely free song.
— Dylan, 1965
We do a deep dive on the lyrics. We discuss what's happening in the song, Miss Lonely and the cast of characters, the harshness of its judgment ("Are you hard on [people in your songs] because you want to torment them? Or to change their lives and make them know themselves?"a reporter asked...Dylan replied while laughing, "I want to needle them"), the internal rhymes and external monologue with the culture at large, and how it still rolls today like it did in 1965.
Robert Shelton gave this interpretation:
A song that seems to hail the dropout life for those who can take it segues into compassion for those who have dropped out of bourgeois surroundings. 'Rolling Stone' is about the loss of innocence and the harshness of experience. Myths, props, and old beliefs fall away to reveal a very taxing reality.
Nat Hentoff wrote:
'Like a Rolling Stone' changed it all; I didn’t care any more after that about writing books or poems or whatever. [Here] was something that I myself could dig.. My songs are pictures and the band makes the sound of the pictures.
In the episode, after each of the four verses are discussed, we play a clip. After verse 1, we sample from Unplugged; after verse 2 is from Before the Flood; after verse 3 we travel to Seattle during the '78 world tour; and end with Dylan at Toad's Place in 1990.
Part 5: He doesn’t seem the type, and I don’t remember seeing him at any of the Cylon parties. (53:30)
It's like a ghost is writing a song like that, it gives you the song and it goes away. You don't know what it means. Except that the ghost picked me to write the song. — Bob Dylan to Robert Hillburn in 2004
Even with The Cutting Edge eliminated "the mystery" of this song, it doesn't dilute how incredible and lucky we are to have this as part of the American canon. I love the NPR headline on the 50th anniversary its recording: “The Day Dylan Got Right.” Indeed.
For Daniel, it's not on his personal Mt. Rushmore, but it it's too good to be skipped, too good to be "overplayed" like some other Dylan "classics" are. You put on Highway 61, you listen to the snare pop, and you don't touch the dial until the harmonica fades from "Desolation Row."
It's perfect.
Ad: Did you know it's Music Video Month?
This week we look at the interactive video that came out forever ago. If you haven't experienced this version of "Like a Rolling Stone," click NOW!
Part 6: We're a Real Podcast and the parts have to continue so here's Kelly's episode booklet & our playlist
Part 7: Are you alive? Yes. Prove it. [Recommendations]
Kelly (and Daniel) went to see PUP/Beach Bunny/Ratboys live at Wonder Ballroom. She also recommends Derry Girls and Easy.
Daniel cannot shut up about Fresh Withdraw. Also Bill Callahan is back with Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest.
Part 8: The Cylon War is long over, yet we must not forget the reasons why so many sacrificed so much in the cause of these parts [Endings]
Daniel still made Kelly guess. She picked #28 — "Disease of Conceit." Try again next month!
As for next week, we're going back to Tempest with "Duquesne Whistle."
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087 – "Like a Rolling Stone"