Welcome to our “Psychedelic Lunch” series where we find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes and explore music and musicians from the 60’s to today. Enjoy the trip!

This was the only song on the album produced by Tom Wilson, who produced Dylan’s second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Wilson had been a jazz producer and was brought in to replace John Hammond. Wilson invited keyboard player Al Kooper to the session, and Al produced the famous organ riff that drove the song. This was the last song Wilson worked on with Dylan, as Bob Johnston took over production duties.

The title is not a reference to The Rolling Stones. It is taken from the proverb “a rolling stone gathers no moss.” Dylan got the idea from the 1949 Hank Williams song “Lost Highway,” which contains the line, “I’m a rolling stone, all alone and lost.”

Thanks to The Rolling Stones, many associate the phrase with a life of glamor, always on the move, but Williams’ song is about a hobo paying the price for his life of sin. Dylan also used the phrase to indicate loneliness and despair: his rolling stone is “without a home, like a complete unknown.”

Dylan based the lyrics on a short story he had written about a debutante who becomes a loner when she falls out of high society. The lyrics that made it into the song are only a small part of what was in the story.

“Like a Rolling Stone” runs 6:13. It was a big breakthrough when the song got radio play and became a hit, as many stations refused to play songs much longer than 3 minutes. It was also rare for a song with so many lyrics to do well commercially.

Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman, who revolutionized the music manager profession and was known as a shrewd defender of his artists, was the one who told Columbia Records that they couldn’t shorten “Like a Rolling Stone” in order to make it more radio friendly.

Dylan recorded another version in 1970 for his Self Portrait album. This time, he used experienced session players in Nashville, Tennessee. Ron Cornelius played guitar on the album and told us about the session: “You’re not reading manuscripts. In Nashville the players are booked because of what they can create right now, not what’s written on a piece of paper. Everybody’s creating their part as the tape is rolling. Out of everybody I’ve worked with, I don’t know of anyone who’s been any nicer than Bob Dylan. He treated me wonderfully, but at the same time you knew being around him day after day that this man wakes up in a different world every morning. On a creative level that’s a really good thing and to try to second guess him or to ask him what he actually meant by these lyrics, you’re shooting in the dark because he’s not going to tell you anyway. And he might be telling you the truth when he says “I don’t know, what does it mean to you.'”

It is rumored that this was written about one-time debutante Edie Sedgwick, who was part of artist Andy Warhol’s crowd. She was the subject of an emotional tug-of-war between the Dylan camp and the Warhol camp.

According to this theory, the song includes some fanged, accusatory lines about Warhol and the way he mistreated Edie.

Ain’t it hard when you discover that
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he took from you everything he could steal

“Poor Little Rich Girl” Sedgwick is viewed by many as the tragic victim of a long succession of abusive figures. After escaping home and heading to New York, she ran into Warhol, who soon began to use her as his starlet. When her 15 minutes had come to an end, Warhol moved on.

Sedgwick and Dylan had a brief affair shortly before the musician married Sarah Lownds, and many say that this Dylan song was written about her. It should be noted that there is absolutely nothing beyond circumstantial evidence to support this idea, but the myth is so widely known that it’s taken on a life of its own and is therefore recognizable on its own terms.

This made Bob Dylan an unlikely inspiration for Jimi Hendrix, who before hearing this considered himself only a guitarist and not a singer. After hearing this, he saw that it didn’t take a conventional voice to sing rock and roll.

Hendrix often played “Like A Rolling Stone,” including a performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. Hendrix and Dylan met only once, but Jimi had a knack for bringing out the emotions in Dylan’s songs: he also did a very successful cover of “All Along The Watchtower.”

The Rolling Stones didn’t take their name from this song, but rather the 1950 Muddy Waters track “Rollin’ Stone.” The magazine Rolling Stone was named after this song, with a degree of separation: Ralph Gleason wrote a piece for The American Scholar about the influence of music on young people called “Like a Rolling Stone,” which he titled after the song. When he founded the magazine with Jann Wenner in 1967, they decided to name it after his story. Wenner muddied the waters a bit when he wrote in the debut issue: “Muddy Waters used the name for a song he wrote. The Rolling Stones took their name from Muddy’s song. ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ was the title of Bob Dylan’s first rock and roll record.”

In the November 2004 issue, Rolling Stone Magazine named this #1 on their list of the greatest songs of all time.

Greil Marcus wrote a book of almost 300 pages about this song. The book was released in 2005 and is titled Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads.

Al Kooper, who was primarily a guitarist and went on to be a very successful music producer, played this organ on this song. If you listen very closely at the beginning of this song, you will notice that the organ is an 1/8th note behind everyone else. Kooper wasn’t an expert on the organ, but Dylan loved what he played and made sure it was turned up in the mix.

When we asked Kooper what stands out as his finest musical accomplishment, he told us: “By the amount of emails I receive and the press that I get it is undoubtedly the organ part on ‘Like A Rolling Stone.’ I kinda like the way Martin Scorcese edited my telling of that story in the documentary No Direction Home. For me, no one moment or event sticks out. I think reading my resumé every ten years or so, is my finest moment – certainly my most incredulous. I cannot believe I did all the stuff I did in one lifetime. One is forced to believe in luck and God.” (Check out our interview with Al Kooper.)

A line from this song provided the title of the 2005 Martin Scorsese documentary about Bob Dylan called No Direction Home.

Jimi Hendrix’s performance of this song at Monterey is a classic. Hendrix had made a name for himself in Europe, but didn’t manage to make a dent in the US market until the fabled Summer of Love. It happened at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967. All of a sudden, an artist who had struggled unsuccessfully for recognition in his own country became one of its future music legends.

Rolling Stone asked a panel of musicians, writers and academics to vote for Dylan’s greatest song in a poll to mark Dylan’s 70th birthday on May 24, 2011. This song came out on top, beating “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” and “Tangled Up In Blue” into second and third places respectively.

A music video for the song was created by digital agency Interlude and debuted on November 19, 2013. The clip is interactive, allowing viewers to flip through a mock TV network with 16 channels mimicking various formats such as games shows, shopping networks and reality series. Director Vania Heymann stated, “I’m using the medium of television to look back right at us — you’re flipping yourself to death with switching channels [in real life].”

Amongst the celebrities that appear lip-synching along with the lyrics are comedian Marc Maron, rapper Danny Brown, The Price is Right host Drew Carey, SportsCenter anchor Steve Levy and Jonathan and Drew Scott of the reality show Property Brothers.

The Consequence of Sound site named the clip as their Best Video of 2013 calling it a “fascinating nod to social dissonance,” adding, “watching a contestant from The Price Is Right grip his head in disbelief while mouthing ‘Like a complete unknown,’ then flipping through to see Danny Brown waving a corn dog while singing out ‘with no direction at all’ demonstrates that the chasm between generations isn’t as deep as we think. On the contrary, the format couldn’t have served as a more obvious channel bridging decades of time.”

Dylan’s original draft of the song’s lyrics were written on four sheets of headed note paper from the Roger Smith Hotel in Washington, DC. The quartet of handwritten pages fetched over $2 million at Sothebys New York in June 2014, setting a new price record for a popular music manuscript. The previous record was John Lennon’s handwritten lyrics for the 1967 Beatles track “A Day In The Life,” which cost $1.2 million.

The Rolling Stones recorded this for their 1995 album Stripped. Stones guitarist Keith Richards explained: “We got over the built-in reticence. If he [Bob Dylan] had written ‘Like a Beatles,’ we probably would have done it straight away. We’ve been playing that song ever since Bob brought it out; it was like a dressing room favorite, a tuning room favorite. We know it really well. It was just a matter of screwing up the courage, really, to get over the feeling like we were riding on its back. We also realized that, hey, we took our name from a Muddy Waters album, a Muddy Waters song. Suddenly it didn’t feel awkward to play it.”

An early manuscript of this song in the Dylan archives at the Center for American Research in Tulsa reveals some lyrics that were later changed or removed. Instead of “You used to laugh about,” it was “You used to make fun about.” Some lines that were excised:

You’ve studied all these great theories on life
And now you find out they don’t mean a thing
You’ve been blessed by counts these old friends claimed to love
Now they’re all ashamed of you

John Mellencamp performed this with Al Kooper at a Bob Dylan tribute concert held in Madison Square Garden on October 16, 1992.

Bob Dylan: Like A Rolling Stone. Album: Highway 61 Revised. released on July 20, 1965.

Welcome to our “Psychedelic Lunch” series, “Bob Dylan Week” where we find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes and explore music from the 60’s to today. Weekdays At Noon EST. Enjoy the trip!

His real name is Robert Zimmerman. Rumor has it he took his name from poet Dylan Thomas, but this has never confirmed this. He did confirm in his autobiography Chronicles, Volume I that he went with “Bob” instead of “Bobby” because he didn’t want to be confused with Bobby Darin, Bobby Rydell or Bobby Vee.

Dylan was born in Duluth, Minnesota. At an early age he moved to Hibbing, where he grew up. This part of the state was known for its abundant iron mines at the time. It is known by its inhabitants as “The North Country,” hence the song “Girl From The North Country.”

Dylan briefly attended the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis in the early ’60s. During this time, he hung out frequently in an area known as Dinkytown. Dinkytown had a burgeoning folk scene at the time and this is where he first performed as a solo artist (he was in a number of rock ‘n’ roll bands in high school) and first used the name Bob Dylan.

He was secretly married for six years to Carol Dennis, one of his backup singers. They had a daughter together.

He was married to his first wife, Sara, from 1965-1977. In the divorce, she got half the royalties to the songs Dylan wrote while they were married, some of which were about her.

Dylan played six shows with The Grateful Dead in 1987. They released a live album called Dylan And The Dead.

In a classic 1966 French film Masculin-Feminin, the protagonist reads a headline from a French newspaper saying, “Qui etes-vous Bob Dylan?” This means, “Who are you, Bob Dylan?”

He broke several vertebrae in his neck when he crashed his motorcycle in 1966. It kept him from recording for a while and prompted rumors that he was brain damaged or dead.

Dylan would often make biblical allusions in his lyrics. Two examples:

In “Long Time Gone,” the line “I know I ain’t no prophet/And I ain’t no prophet’s son” reflects Amos 7:14 (“I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son”).

In “Let me Die in My Footsteps,” the line “There’s been rumors of war and wars that have been” reflects Matthew 24:6 (“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars”).

He had a cat named Rollin’ Stone.

In 1960, Dylan was paid 50 dollars to play harmonica on a Harry Belafonte album.

He has recorded under several pseudonyms, including Bob Landy, Robert Milkwood Thomas, and Blind Boy Grunt.

Dylan has starred in a few movies, none of which have done well with critics. They include Hearts Of Fire, Pat Garrett And Billy The kid and Renaldo And Clara.

Dylan’s first band was formed in high school and called the Golden Chords. He was the piano player.

Michael Jackson and Dylan performed together at Elizabeth Taylor’s 55th birthday party in 1987.

In the mid-1970s, then-unknown comic Steve Martin opened for Dylan in Tampa, Florida.

He named his 1969 album after outlaw John Wesley Hardin. His last name was misspelled “Harding.”

In 1991, he won a Lifetime Achievement Grammy.

He was raised Jewish, but became a born-again Christian in the late ’70s.

Dylan and his first wife Sara are the parents of film director Jesse Dylan and musician Jakob Dylan, the lead singer and songwriter of The Wallflowers. Bob Dylan later married his longtime backup singer Carolyn Dennis. Jesse’s wife Susan Traylor and Jakob’s wife Paige Dylan are both actresses.

Dylan: “I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I’ll die like a poet.”

Martin Scorsese’s PBS documentary No Way Home made a strong case that Bob Dylan is the most influential songwriter of the 20th Century. Whether one accepts that opinion or not, there’s ample evidence he was among the most prolific. Remarkably, in just three years, Dylan wrote six classic albums of great original songs.

Freewheelin’ was released May 27, 1963; Times They Are A-Changin’ on January 13, 1964; Another Side of Bob Dylan seven months later on August 8 1964; Bringing It All Back Home on March 22 1965; Highway 61 Revisited five months later on August 30, 1965; and Blonde On Blonde eight months later on May 16, 1966. What other famous songwriter has created such a wealth of brilliant songs in such a short period of time?

In 2008, he became the first Rock musician ever awarded a Pulitzer Prize. He was given the special award for his “profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.”

Dylan recorded the folk song “The House Of The Rising Sun” on his first album, and after The Animals recorded the song in 1964, it had a profound effect on him. Animals lead singer Eric Burdon told us: “Bob Dylan, who was angry at first, turned into a rocker. Dylan went electric in the shadow of The Animals classic ‘House of the Rising Sun.'”

Back in 1965, when a British reporter asked him what his message was, Bob Dylan replied, “Keep a good head and always carry a light bulb.” His famous quote appears in Don’t Look Back, the documentary that covers Bob Dylan’s 1965 concert tour of the United Kingdom. No wonder then that his explicit demand on his concert rider was to have dressing rooms lit with incandescent lighting.

Bob Dylan was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. The committee noted he was honored, “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” Dylan was the first American to win the award since Toni Morrison in 1993.

Welcome to our “Psychedelic Lunch” series, “Bob Dylan Week” where we find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes and explore music from the 60’s to today. Weekdays At Noon EST. Enjoy the trip!

Folk-rock singer-songwriter Bob Dylan signed his first recording contract in 1961, and he emerged as one of the most original and influential voices in American popular music. Dylan has continued to tour and release new studio albums, including Together Through Life(2009), Tempest (2012), Shadows in the Night(2015) and Fallen Angels (2016). The legendary singer-songwriter has received Grammy, Academy and Golden Globe awards, as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Nobel Prize for Literature.

In 1960, Dylan dropped out of college and moved to New York, where his idol, the legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie, was hospitalized with a rare hereditary disease of the nervous system. He visited with Guthrie regularly in his hospital room; became a regular in the folk clubs and coffeehouses of Greenwich Village; met a host of other musicians; and began writing songs at an astonishing pace, including “Song to Woody,” a tribute to his ailing hero.

In the fall of 1961, after one of his performances received a rave review in The New York Times, he signed a recording contract with Columbia Records, at which point he legally changed his surname to Dylan. Released early in 1962, Bob Dylan contained only two original songs, but showcased Dylan’s gravel-voiced singing style in a number of traditional folk songs and covers of blues songs.

The 1963 release of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan marked Dylan’s emergence as one of the most original and poetic voices in the history of American popular music. The album included two of the most memorable 1960s folk songs, “Blowin’ in the Wind” (which later became a huge hit for the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary) and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” His next album, The Times They Are A-Changin’, firmly established Dylan as the definitive songwriter of the ’60s protest movement, a reputation that only increased after he became involved with one of the movement’s established icons, Joan Baez, in 1963.

While his romantic relationship with Baez lasted only two years, it benefited both performers immensely in terms of their music careers—Dylan wrote some of Baez’s best-known material, and Baez introduced him to thousands of fans through her concerts. By 1964 Dylan was playing 200 concerts annually, but had become tired of his role as “the” folk singer-songwriter of the protest movement. Another Side of Bob Dylan, recorded in 1964, was a much more personal, introspective collection of songs, far less politically charged than Dylan’s previous efforts.

Reinventing His Image

In 1965, Dylan scandalized many of his folkie fans by recording the half-acoustic, half-electric album Bringing It All Back Home, backed by a nine-piece band. On July 25, 1965, he was famously booed at the Newport Folk Festival when he performed electrically for the first time. The albums that followed, Highway 61 Revisited (1965) — which included the seminal rock song “Like a Rolling Stone” — and the two-record set Blonde on Blonde (1966) represented Dylan at his most innovative. With his unmistakable voice and unforgettable lyrics, Dylan brought the worlds of music and literature together as no one else had.

Over the course of the next three decades, Dylan continued to reinvent himself. Following a near-fatal motorcycle accident in July 1966, Dylan spent almost a year recovering in seclusion. His next two albums, John Wesley Harding (1967)—including “All Along the Watchtower,” later recorded by guitar great Jimi Hendrix—and the unabashedly country-ish Nashville Skyline (1969) were far more mellow than his earlier works. Critics blasted the two-record set Self-Portrait (1970) and Tarantula, a long-awaited collection of writings Dylan published in 1971. In 1973, Dylan appeared in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, a feature film directed by Sam Peckinpah. He also wrote the film’s soundtrack, which became a hit and included the now-classic song, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”

In 1974, Dylan began his first full-scale tour since his accident, embarking on a sold-out nationwide tour with his longtime backup band, the Band. An album he recorded with the Band, Planet Waves, became his first No. 1 album ever. He followed these successes with the celebrated 1975 album Blood on the Tracks and Desire (1976), each of which hit No. 1 as well. Desire included the song “Hurricane,” written by Dylan about the boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, then serving life in prison after what many felt was an wrongful conviction of triple homicide in 1967. Dylan was one of many prominent public figures who helped popularize Carter’s cause, leading to a retrial in 1976, when he was again convicted.

After a painful split with his wife, Sara Lowndes — the song “Sara” on Desire was Dylan’s plaintive but unsuccessful attempt to win Lowndes back — Dylan again reinvented himself, declaring in 1979 that he was a born-again Christian. The evangelical Slow Train Coming was a commercial hit, and won Dylan his first Grammy Award. The tour and albums that followed were less successful, however, and Dylan’s religious leanings soon became less overt in his music. In 1982, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. 

Rock Star Status

Beginning in the 1980s, Dylan began touring full time, sometimes with fellow legends Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and the Grateful Dead. Notable albums during this period included Infidels (1983); the five-disc retrospective Biograph (1985); Knocked Out Loaded (1986); and Oh Mercy (1989), which became his best-received album in years. He recorded two albums with the all-star band the Traveling Wilburys, also featuring George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne. In 1994, Dylan returned to his folk roots, winning the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album for World Gone Wrong.

In 1989, when Dylan was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Bruce Springsteen spoke at the ceremony, declaring that “Bob freed the mind the way Elvis freed the body. … He invented a new way a pop singer could sound, broke through the limitations of what a recording artist could achieve and changed the face of rock and roll forever.” In 1997, Dylan became the first rock star ever to receive Kennedy Center Honors, considered the nation’s highest award for artistic excellence.

Dylan’s 1997 album Time Out of Mindreestablished this one-time folk icon as one of rock’s preeminent wise men, winning three Grammy Awards. He continued his vigorous touring schedule, including a memorable performance in 1997 for Pope John Paul II in which he played “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” and a 1999 tour with Paul Simon. In 2000, he recorded the single “Things Have Changed” for the soundtrack of the film Wonder Boys, starring Michael Douglas. The song won Dylan a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Dylan then took time out from his music to tell the story of his life. The singer released Chronicles: Volume One, the first in a three-book memoir series, in the fall of 2004. Dylan gave his first full interview in 20 years for a documentary released in 2005. Entitled No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, the film was directed by Martin Scorsese.

Welcome to our “Psychedelic Lunch” series, “Bob Dylan Week” where we find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes and explore music from the 60’s to today. Weekdays At Noon EST. Enjoy the trip!

Bob Dylan: The Stories Behind Some Of His Greatest Songs

‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door'(1973)

‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door'(1973) What does it mean?: Written for the film Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid and said to be inspired by the relationship between the two lead characters (“Mama put my guns in the ground/ I can’t shoot them anymore”). Dylan made a cameo in the film.

‘Highway 61 Revisited'(1965)

‘Highway 61 Revisited'(1965) What does it mean?: Dylan said it was inspired by Robert Johnson, the legendary blues singer who was said to have sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads of Highway 61 and Highway 49.

‘It Ain’t Me, Babe'(1964)

‘It Ain’t Me, Babe'(1964) What does it mean?: Speculation has been rife that this was simply about a one sided relationship or about his terse connection to the folk movement. Most agree that Dylan’s talking about the fact that at the time he reluctantly took the mantle of a figurehead for his generation (“It ain’t me you’re looking for”).

‘Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands’ (1966)

‘Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands’ (1966)What does it mean?: Said to be about his wife at the time Sara Lownds. On the song ‘Sara’ recorded much later Dylan sings: “Staying up for nights in the Chelsea Hotel, writing ‘Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands’ for you”.

‘Joey’ (1976)

‘Joey’ (1976) What does it mean?: The song was about notorious mobster Joey Gallo. It was criticized at the time for its romantic take on the more violent elements of the gangster’s life.

Welcome to our “Psychedelic Lunch” series, “Bob Dylan Week” where we find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes and explore music from the 60’s to today. Weekdays At Noon EST. Enjoy the trip!

Bob Dylan: The Stories Behind Some Of His Greatest Songs

‘Subterranean Home Sick Blues'(1965)

‘Subterranean Home Sick Blues'(1965): Dylan took part of the title from the Jack Kerouac novella The Subterraneans, whose characters were loosely based around Beat writers Burroughs and Ginsberg.

‘Mr. Tambourine Man'(1965)

‘Mr. Tambourine Man'(1965) What does it mean?: ‘Tambourine Man’ was 60s slang for a drugs dealer and Dylan is said to have written it on a hash-fuelled road trip.

‘Rainy Day Women No. 12 And 35′(1966)

‘Rainy Day Women No. 12 And 35′(1966)What does it mean?: Famous for the line “Everybody must get stoned” and, according to Dylan geeks, if you multiply 12 by 35 you get 420 – a number associated with pot culture. Far out, dude.

‘Tangled Up In Blue'(1975)

‘Tangled Up In Blue'(1975) What does it mean?: Said to be influenced by Cubism (Dylan was taking art classes at this time), this song tackles the end of Dylan’s marriage to his wife Sara, but only by way of looking back at his own life (from his Minnesota upbringing to his coffee house days in New York) in a semi-mythical way.

‘I Want You'(1966)

‘I Want You'(1966) What does it mean?: Dylan had a terse friendship with The Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones and the track was said to be about Dylan’s feelings for Jones’ then girlfriend Anita Pallenberg. Others believe it was inspired by Edie Sedgwick.

Welcome to our “Psychedelic Lunch” series where we find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes and explore psychedelic tunes from the 60’s to today. Weekdays At Noon EST. Enjoy the trip!

Album: Blonde on Blonde (1966)

Mobile is a town in Alabama that is known for folk music, while Memphis, Tennessee is known for blues and rock.

A few different characters show up in the narrative, starting with “the ragman.” Dylan did offer a rare song interpretation when he told Robert Shelton, author of No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan, that the ragman is Satan. Many of Dylan’s lyrics are filled with biblical images, but shrouded in inscrutable stories.

It is often said that Dylan “found God” in the ’80s, but the Bible and God have been running through his work in a very serious way ever since the very beginning. Dylan later said that if he had to “do it all again,” he’d teach theology or ancient Roman history.

Dylan session artist Al Kooper’s memoir, Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards , tells many fun anecdotes of the time around the recording of Blonde on Blonde. Anecdote the first: He was delayed on his way to Nashville for the first day of recording with Dylan, due to a night with some lady fans. So he delayed the plane the next morning while he came riding up beside it in a jeep. He boarded literally minutes before the plane’s wheels would have left the runway, only to turn around and discover that this flight had originated in New York and was half-full of people who knew him.

Kooper Anecdote the second: He was on foot in the city when a gang of thugs started chasing him with the idea of beating him up. He ducked into a bookstore and called to Dylan’s manager, Al Grossman, from a phone booth (remember this was in the day before mobile phones). Al Grossman dispatched Lamar Fike, a bodygaurd who had also worked for Elvis, to the scene in a Cadillac to retrieve Kooper from his imminent curb-stomping, thoroughly freaking out the thugs in the process.

Kooper Anecdote the third: one of the session players for Blonde on Blonde was a keyboard player named “Pig,” who happened to be blind. On a night when the band was drinking and blowing off steam, winding around the streets of Tennessee, they decided to let Pig drive. Pig was doing quite well, supplemented by directions from the passengers, until the Highway Patrol pulled them over.

Some notable uses of this song include the opening credits of I’m Not There, both the film and book version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas play it and mention it, respectively, and the various Grateful Dead covers throughout the ’60s and ’70s.

One of the lines in the song was inspired by “I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground,” by Bascom Lamar Lunsford. Lumsford, who was known as the “minstrel of the Appalachians,” wrote:

‘Cause a railroad man they’ll kill you when he can
And drink up your blood like wine

Which compares closely with Dylan’s:

Mona tried to tell me
To stay away from the train line
She said that all the railroad men
Just drink up your blood like wine

Mona tried to tell me/To stay away from the train line/She said that all the railroad men/Just drink up your blood like wine/And I said, “Oh I didn’t know that/But then again there’s only one I’ve met/And he just smoked my eyelids/And punched my cigarette

Attempting to ascribe specific meanings to Bob Dylan lyrics is most often a fool’s errand. As with abstract paintings or films like 2001: A Space Odyssey or TV shows such as Twin Peaks, everyone who experiences a Dylan song comes away with his or her own unique understanding of what was being communicated and to what it all might (or might not) add up. 

As part of the 1966 landmark Blonde on Blonde, speculation over “Stuck Inside of Mobile” often suggests the sprawling words and Ferris Wheel structure of the song relate to Dylan’s revolutionary “going electric” at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

The idea, it’s been said, is that Mobile, Alabama could represent old-style, acoustic music, while Memphis had forever been transformed by the plugged into rock of Elvis Presley. 

All that comes close to being likely is that Dylan makes reference to an age-old mountain ballad titled “I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground” that contains the words, “I don’t like a railroad man/A railroad man, he’ll kill you when he can/And he’ll drink up your blood like wine.”

As for the smoking of an eyelid and punching of cigarettes: that’s just Bob Dylan for you.

Welcome to our “Psychedelic Lunch” series where we find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes and explore psychedelic tunes from the 60’s to today. Weekdays At Noon EST. Enjoy the trip!

Bob Dylan, Times They Are A Changin. Album: The Times They Are A – Changin’ (1964)

In the 1960s, several now-influential artists appealed to the disaffected counterculture’s emphasis on peace and love, especially with the sliding approval rates of the Vietnam War. As public approval of the Vietnam War dwindled in the latter half of the 1960s, popular music artists began to record songs that reflected this disapproval and ultimately became a new method of protest.

To begin, the highly-influential folk musician Bob Dylan recorded the song “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” Written in 1963, just before the public began to disapprove of America’s involvement in Vietnam, the song features a simple melody played by Dylan’s acoustic guitar and harmonica. The lines “There’s a battle outside/and it’s ragin’/it’ll soon shake your windows/rattle your walls” are an obvious reference to the Vietnam War.

Dylan goes further and sings the lines, “Come mothers and fathers/throughout the land/and don’t criticize/what you can’t understand/your sons and daughters are beyond your command.” While at first glance Dylan could be pleading with the public to stop trying to understand the war, Dylan is in fact trying to tell us something else. In poetic terms, he shows the mass confusion, frustration, and anger at how many parents’ sons and daughters were sent off to war.

Moreover, a 1966 anti-war music poster advertised the popular rock groups Jefferson Airplane and Mystery Trend. The event, a benefit dance held at the University of California at Berkeley on March 25, 1966, features a large war scene drawing at the center. The war scene, colored in red, white and black, features combatants wearing helmets and holding machine guns, while avoiding explosions triggered by bombers flying overhead. At the top of the scene, the words “Vietnam” can be seen in the same font that the military uses. Below “Vietnam,” the word “Peace” can be seen scrawled in white lettering.