Bob Dylan: “It was ten pages long and didn’t have a title”

A couple of weeks ago the eighteenth chapter of the Bootleg Series was published Bob Dylan titled “Through the open window” (read the review here). A chapter dedicated to the first steps of his career, when at the beginning of the Sixties the young musician originally from Minnesota revealed himself in the clubs of New York and became the heir of Woody Guthriebecomes the new folk singer of a whole generation. Things soon took a completely different turn when, in 1965, Dylan added electricity to his songs.

In July of that 1965 Bob Dylan released one of his best-known songs, “Like A Rolling Stone” yet, when he performed it live for the first time, he was booed by his own fans. 1965 was the year the Duluth musician transitioned from acoustic folk to electric rock. The turning point for Bob was 1964, when he was extremely impressed by listening to the Beatles.

In the book of
Anthony Scaduto
from 1971,
‘Bob Dylan: An Intimate Biography’
,
Bob Dylan
remember listening to the
Beatles
on a road trip in February 1964. “As we drove through Colorado, we had the radio on and eight of the ten most played songs were by the Beatles. In Colorado! “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” and all those early songs. It wasn’t just the popularity of the songs; it was the way they were played. They did things that no one else did. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all worthwhile. You could only do that with other musicians.”

THE
Beatles
they inspired
Bob Dylan
to build a bridge between rock and folk, and his fifth studio album,
“Bringing It All Back Home”
was created in two distinct halves: the first electric side and the second acoustic.
“Bringing It All Back Home”
was the first of a trilogy of electric albums by
Bob Dylan
of the mid-1960s. Most of the musicians on this album were session musicians like the guitarist
Bruce Langhorne
and the drummer
Bobby Gregg
. But unlike most session musicians of the time, these musicians had grit, groove and attitude. As Dylan’s producer said,
Tom Wilson
these musicians had “the skill of session musicians and the perspective of young rockers”.

That album marked a turning point. In one fell swoop,
Bob Dylan
created a new genre of folk-rock. He took elements of the
Beatles
and transcended them to create something new and exciting. Lyrically, the record moved away from politically charged lyrics, as Dylan began to question the folk protest movement. By 1965, he felt limited by the expectations the folk community placed on him. He had a greater desire for artistic freedom and focused on more introspective, surreal and personal themes.

“Bringing It All Back Home”
it was released in April 1965, reaching first place in Great Britain and sixth in the United States. At the end of that month, Dylan wrote
“Like A Rolling Stone”
. The recording took place on June 15 and 16, 1965, and Dylan made use of musicians who would prove fundamental to his electric sound, such as
Mike Bloomfield
the guitarist of
Paul Butterfield Blues Band
. The producer
Tom Wilson
he had invited a young keyboard player named
Al Kooper
to attend the session. But Kooper was determined to participate and slipped relatively unnoticed into the rehearsal room, positioning himself behind the Hammond organ. When the band kicked in, Kooper launched into a spontaneous organ riff that would become a crucial element of the song.

There has been speculation that the song may have been about the 1960s socialite
Edie Sedgwick
but
Bob Dylan
he never confirmed it. To the journalist
Jules Siegel
he said, “It was ten pages long. It didn’t have a title, just a beat on the paper, all about my constant hatred directed towards a point that was honest… I had never thought of it as a song until one day I was at the piano and on the paper it was ‘How does it feel?’ at a slow pace, at the most slow pace.” He reduced it to four verses and a chorus. It still had a running time of over six minutes, but in the end it didn’t matter.

“Like A Rolling Stone”
he lived a life of his own. It was released on July 20, 1965 and reached number two in the American charts.

Five days later “Like A Rolling Stone” made his live debut, when Dylan headlined the Newport Folk Festival. His band consisted of Al Kooper (organ/bass), Barry Goldberg (piano/organ) and three members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band: Mike Bloomfield (guitar), Jerome Arnold (low) e Sam Lay (drums). It was late evening on July 25th when Bob Dylan he took the stage dressed in black jeans, black boots and a black leather jacket, clutching a 1964 Fender Stratocaster. What happened next is legend: Dylan and the band launched into “Maggie’s Farm”. When they finished the song, the audience was divided into boos and applause. He followed “Like A Rolling Stone”before closing with “It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry” and then the group left the stage. In all, just 17 minutes. The crowd roared, the organizers then convinced Dylan to return to the stage to play acoustically, he played “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” And “Mr. Tambourine Man”. Five months later, at a press conference in San Francisco, Dylan was asked once again about the Newport performance. He replied, “I didn’t know what was going to happen, but they sure whistled, I can tell you that. You could hear it everywhere…”

A few days after Newport,
Bob Dylan
and his band returned to Columbia Records’ Studio A on 7th Avenue in New York to record the album that would become
“Highway 61 Revisited”
(
read the review here
). That was the first album where Dylan performed with his electric band on every song.
“Like A Rolling Stone”
it was the song that opened the album’s tracklist.
“Highway 61 Revisited”
It was released on 30 August 1965 and reached fourth and third place in the UK and US respectively. But it was just the beginning, after that album
Bob Dylan
he created another masterpiece: the double album
“Blonde On Blonde”
(
read the review here
).