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?
Some facts:
Dylan has played “Like A Rolling Stone” 2011times live
Dylan gets downright talkative at this show, joking about New Jersey being ‘The land of The Boss’. He ends ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ with what sounds like a parody of the stop-start ending of Springsteen’s ‘Born In The USA’. .. Before the encore a guitar-shaped birthday cake is carted onstage for Howard Epstein, while everyone sings ‘Happy Birthday’, including Al Kooper, sitting in on piano during the latter part of the show.
~Clinton Heylin (A Life In Stolen Moments)
Howie Epstein birthday – and he gets a cake
Al Kooper joining in for the last 5 songs (including “Like A Rolling Stone”)
Meadowlands Brendan T. Byrne Sports Arena
East Rutherford, New Jersey
21 July 1986
Musicians:
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
Tom Petty (guitar)
Mike Campbell (guitar)
Benmont Tench (keyboards)
Howie Epstein (bass)
Stan Lynch (drums)
and with The Queens Of Rhythm: Carolyn Dennis, Queen Esther Marrow, Madelyn Quebec, Louise Bethune (backing vocals)
–
….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)
