….would be Like A Rolling Stone because I wrote that after I’d quit. I’d literally quit singing and playing, and I found myself writing this song, this story, this long piece of vomit about twenty pages long, and out of it I took Like A Rolling Stone and made it as a single. And I’d never written anything like that before and it suddenly came to me that that was what I should do, you know. I mean, nobody had ever done that before.
~Bob Dylan (to Martin Bronstein – Feb 1966)

.. The sound is so rich the song never plays the same way twice
~Greil Marcus

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
~Bruce Springsteen (Jan 1988)

First time I really listened to “Like A Rolling Stone”, I felt I entered a parallel universe.. a place of intense beauty.. a place filled with this wonderful blues-fueled rock music… and a spellbinding ..organ! I had never heard anything like it.. anything this good..

That was the day I understood that there is bad music, good music, great music & then there is Bob Dylan. He plays in another league. His musical universe is still as beautiful now as it was first time I flew into it.. “Like A Rolling Stone” still sounds as fresh as it did the first time I listened ~25 years ago.

..HOW does it feeeeeel?

Let’s not start with the original version (as most of you reading this probably have heard hundreds of times), but instead a frightening version.. a slow & demanding versions… an “ugly” version (some people might say).. a dangerous version.. but most importantly a BRILLIANT version:

…We get to hear a rarity on the tour… Bob introduces The Band. Then he kicks into the highlight of disc one… a paifully slow Like A Rolling Stone in which Bob spits words at the crowd with venom, and drags them into eternity.
~bobsboots.com

@ Royal Albert Hall – London, England – 26 May 1966:

Everything is changed now from before. Last spring I guess I was going to quit singing. I was very drained and the way things were going it was a very draggy situation – I mean, when you do Everybody Loves You For Your Black Eye and meanwhile the back of your head is caving in. Anyway, I was playing a lot of songs I didn’t want to play. I was singing words I didn’t really want to sing. I don’t mean words like “God” and “mother” and “president” and “suicide” and “meat cleaver”. I mean simple little words like “if” and “hope” and “you”. But Like A Rolling Stone changed it all; I didn’t care any more after that about writing books or poems or whatever. I mean it was something that I myself could dig. It’s very tiring having other people tell you how much they dig you if you yourself don’t dig you. It’s also very deadly entertainment-wise. Contrary to what some scary people think, I don’t play with a band now for any kind of propaganda-type or commercial-type reasons. It’s just that my songs are pictures and the band makes the sound of the pictures.
~Bob Dylan (to Nat Hentoff – March 1966)

To be without a home

“Like A Rolling Stone” was recorded @ the second “Highway 61 Revisited” recording sessions on June 16 – 1965,  produced by Tom Wilson.

Studio A
Columbia Recording Studios
New York City, New York
16 June 1965

1. Like A Rolling Stone
2. Like A Rolling Stone
3. Like A Rolling Stone
4. Like A Rolling Stone
   (original version)
   
   –
   Spotify
   
5. Like A Rolling Stone
6. Like A Rolling Stone
7. Like A Rolling Stone
8. Like A Rolling Stone
9. Like A Rolling Stone
10. Like A Rolling Stone
11. Like A Rolling Stone
12. Like A Rolling Stone
13. Like A Rolling Stone
14. Like A Rolling Stone
15. Like A Rolling Stone
16. Why Should You Have To Be So Frantic?

Like a complete unknown

Personnel

• Bob Dylan (guitar, piano, harmonica, vocal)
• Mike Bloomfield (guitar)
• Al Gorgoni (guitar)
• Frank Owens (piano)
• Bobby Gregg (drums)
• Joseph Macho Jr. (bass)
• Al Kooper (organ)

Like a rolling stone

“Like a Rolling Stone” is a 1965 song by the 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. After the lyrics were heavily edited, “Like a Rolling Stone” was recorded a few weeks later as part of the sessions for the forthcoming album Highway 61 Revisited. During a difficult two-day pre-production, Dylan struggled to find the essence of the song, which was demoed without success in 3/4 time. A breakthrough was made when it was tried in a rock music format, and rookie session musician Al Kooper improvised the organ riff for which the track is known. However, Columbia Records was unhappy with both the song’s length at over six minutes and its heavy electric sound, and was hesitant to release it. It was only when a month later a copy was leaked to a new popular music club and heard by influential DJs that the song was put out as a single. Although radio stations were reluctant to play such a long track, “Like a Rolling Stone” reached number two in the US charts and became a worldwide hit. ~Wikipedia

 

The famous – Newcastle 66 version (video):

“Like A Rolling Stone” is also no doubt the most famous song ever written out of sheer boredom
~Mark Polizzotti (33-1/3 – Highway 61 Revisited)

Lyrics

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall”
You thought they were all kiddin’ you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin’ out
Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You’ve gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you’re gonna have to get used to it
You said you’d never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He’s not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain’t no good
You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
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

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They’re drinkin’, thinkin’ that they got it made
Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things
But you’d better lift your diamond ring, you’d better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can’t refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

–

Here is the Liverpool 66 version:

on no other record does the sound, or the act, so call attention to itself, as an absolute announcement that something new has begun
~Greil Marcus (“Like A Rolling Stone)

So.. finally the best live version… Manchester 66 (spotify):

‘Rolling Stone’ ‘s the best song I wrote…
~Bob Dylan (to Ralph J. Gleason – March 1966)

–

Check Out: 

• Alldylan.com @ Facebook
• –
• Bob Dylan top 200 songs
• Bob Dylan recording sessions

References:

• Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions – Part One – by Michael Krogsgaard
• Still On The Road – Olof Björner

-Egil