“Like a Rolling Stone”, the biggest rock song ever

A dry blow of battery, which sounds like a fist in the listener’s stomach. Then the plane and organ enter, the guitar remains in the background. So Dylan arrives, who declares a story, that of a “socialite” who was previously well introduced in the people who counts, always on the move, and now it is lost: like a stone that rolves and does not collect musk, as the famous proverb says. “How does it feel?” Dylan asks, how you feel alone, as unknown suits.
The song that has marked the rock forever: “Like a Rolling Stone”. Exactly 60 years have passed since that July 20, 1965, when he arrived in the world in the form of a single at 45 rpm, changing the history of music. It is difficult to imagine today what has meant for a boy then listening to that sound, that sound and narrative assault. But his strength remains intact and passes through the generations – as he showed “A Complete Unknown”, the recent bio -Pic on Dylan who from that song takes the title and puts it at the center of the story, played by Timothée Chalamet.

A revolution in the form of the song

“Like a Rolling Stone” was a revolution in sound and form – rewritten the rules of what and how it could be done with a song. It was published as a single just a month after its incision, of June 1965: too long, six minutes, when the standards of the time did not go beyond three minutes: so the version sent to the radio was divided on the two sides of the vinyl.
Furthermore, breaking with all the conventions of the time, it did not start with a melody, but with that dry battery shot to which the other tools are gradually added, until you reach the famous refrain only after a minute. The songs must not necessarily follow the same scheme: after the folk, Dylan smeared the electric, fished from the blues and stuffed everything with a structure and an idea of storytelling that would influence generations of musicians.

The effort behind legend

We always think of great music as the result of a sudden inspiration, but often behind the masterpieces there is evidence, errors, without exit roads before the right one: the story of “Like a Rolling Stone” is told in “The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol.12”, released just 10 years ago, a box dedicated to Dylan’s engravings in that extraordinary period of creative trance in which he made The three albums of the famous “Electric turning point”: “Bringing it all back home”, “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Blonde on Blonde”.
“Like a Rolling Stone” occupies an entire disk in the collection, with 16 different take away and the separate traces of each tool, starting from the waltz version that Dylan never managed to complete, then moving on to the rock that we all know and finding the right key. It is a historical document of how much talent – and even a little case – there are behind those perfect six minutes. Starting from the famous history of the organ, to which Kooper sat down almost by chance: he was a guitarist, but that role was already busy and he wanted at all costs to play. He improvised keyboardist and thus invented that lap which is one of the immortal components of the song.

Judah! The controversial electric turn

“Judah!”
It is May 17, 1966 and Dylan, on the stage of the Free Trade Hall of Manchester, thus responds to a contester of the audience who reproaches him the electric choice, considered a betrayal of his folk roots: “I don’t believe you, you are a liar,” says Dylan. Then he turns to his band, The Hawks, Futuri The Band, and screams: “Play it Fuckin ‘Loud!”, Before leaving with a furious and memorable electric version of “Like a Rolling Stone”.
That episode – which for years was mistakenly associated with another concert at the Royal Albert Hall – entered the history of music and was masterfully rediscovered by Martin Scorsese in the documentary “No Direction Home”, where images of what happened in the dressing rooms and on stage are included. At the same time the official recording of that concert was also published, the 7th volume of the Bootlegs Series, which for years were illegally shot among the fans. One of the most important moments of rock: Dylan chose to go on his way by explaining to those who contested that it was not him to betray the music, but the “purists” listeners who demanded that an artist was always the same as the expectations and of the canons of alleged “authenticity”. Dylan no longer found ourselves, it was already somewhere else, his music was already ahead of years.

From Dylan to Chalamet: the song becomes cinema

That event, that scene are also at the center of James Mangold’s recent film, “A Complete Unknown”, with Timothée Chalamet as Dylan. The film – which from the one verse of the song takes the title – grants a narrative license: the scream “Judas!” It is set at the 1965 Newport Festival where Dylan was always contested for its electrical approach – instead of the free trade hall the following year. But the essence of the story remains faithful to Dylan’s extraordinary artistic adventure, also dedicating a sequence to the mythological birth of the song in the studio. In the film it is sung (dignity) by Timothée Chalamet: but the true heresy is not the license that moves the event of the “Judas!” As for having shortened in the soundtrack at just over 3 minutes, almost normalizing the revolutionary scope of the unpublished form of those 6 minutes that changed the history of rock.

From “Judas!” to article 31: 10 versions to celebrate it

To celebrate the sixty years of this masterpiece, nothing better than listening to it through its many incarnations: from the famous “Judas” version recorded in Manchester to the “Italianized” one of article 31, which have reread it in their own way (with the approval of Dylan and its staff), passing through different versions of its author, and those of John Mellencamp, Cat Power and Rolling Stones. If you want to deepen, there are several books: from “The day that Bob Dylan took the electric guitar” (“” Dylan Goes Electric! “By Elijah Wald, who inspired the film” A full Unknown “) to” Like a Rolling Stone “of the Dean Greil Marcus, at the academic study of Mario Gerolamo Mossa” Bob Dylan & Like a Rolling Stone “.
Meanwhile, here is this playlist to celebrate Dylan and the biggest rock song of all time.