"Like a Rolling Stone" is a 1965 song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Its confrontational lyrics originate in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned from a grueling tour of England, exhausted. 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 preproduction, 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.

The track has been described as revolutionary in its combination of different musical elements, the youthful, cynical sound of Dylan's voice, and the directness of the question in the chorus: "How does it feel?". "Like a Rolling Stone" transformed Dylan's career and is today considered one of the most influential compositions in post-war popular music and has since its release been both a music industry and popular culture milestone which elevated Dylan's image to iconic. The song has been covered by numerous artists, varying from The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Rolling Stones, The Wailers to Green Day.

Writing and recording[link]

In the spring of 1965, returning from the tour of England documented in the film Dont Look Back, Dylan was unhappy with the public's expectations of him, as well as the direction his career was going, and seriously considered quitting the music business. In a 1966 Playboy interview, he described his dissatisfaction: "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 ... But 'Like a Rolling Stone' changed it all. 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."^[3]

The basis of the song came from an extended piece of verse. In 1966, Dylan described the genesis of "Like a Rolling Stone" to journalist Jules Siegel:

It was ten pages long. It wasn't called anything, just a rhythm thing on paper all about my steady hatred directed at some point that was honest. In the end it wasn't hatred, it was telling someone something they didn't know, telling them they were lucky. Revenge, that's a better word. I had never thought of it as a song, until one day I was at the piano, and on the paper it was singing, 'How does it feel?' in a slow motion pace, in the utmost of slow motion.^[4]

During 1965, Dylan composed prose, poems, and songs by typing incessantly. Footage of Dylan in his suite at the Savoy Hotel, London, captures this process in Dont Look Back. But he told two interviewers that "Like a Rolling Stone" began as a long piece of "vomit" (in one account 10 pages, in another 20 pages) which then acquired musical form.^[5] He never spoke of any other major composition in this way. In an interview with CBC radio in Montreal, Dylan called the creation of the song a "breakthrough," explaining that it changed his perception of where he was going in his career. He said that he found himself writing "this long piece of vomit, 20 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 was what I should do ... After writing that I wasn't interested in writing a novel, or a play. I just had too much, I want to write songs."^[6]

From the extended version on paper, Dylan crafted four verses and the chorus in Woodstock, New York.^[7] The song was written on an upright piano in the key of G sharp and was changed to C on the guitar in the recording studio.^[8] Dylan invited Mike Bloomfield, lead guitarist of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, to play on the recording session. Asked by Dylan to visit his house in Woodstock for the weekend to learn new material, Bloomfield later recalled: "The first thing I heard was 'Like a Rolling Stone'. I figured he wanted blues, string bending, because that's what I do. He said, 'Hey, man, I don't want any of that B.B. King stuff'. So, OK, I really fell apart. What the heck does he want? We messed around with the song. I played the way that he dug, and he said it was groovy."^[9]

The recording sessions were produced by Tom Wilson on June 15–16, 1965, in Studio A of Columbia Records, 799 Seventh Avenue, in New York City.^[1][10][11] In addition to Bloomfield, the other musicians enlisted were Paul Griffin on piano, Joe Macho, Jr. on bass, Bobby Gregg on drums, and Bruce Langhorne on tambourine,^[11] all booked by Wilson. Gregg and Griffin had previously worked with Dylan and Wilson on Bringing It All Back Home.^[12]

	"Like a Rolling Stone" 3/4 version noicon The 3/4 "waltz" version of "Like a Rolling Stone", recorded on June 15. This take would later appear on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.
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On the first day, five takes of the song were recorded in a markedly different style from the eventual release—a 3/4 waltz time, with Dylan on piano. The lack of sheet music meant the song was played by ear. However the essence of the song was discovered in the course of the chaotic session. They did not reach the first chorus until the fourth take, but after the following harmonica fill Dylan interrupted, saying, "My voice is gone, man. You wanna try it again?"^[13] This take was subsequently released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.^[13][14] The session ended shortly afterwards.^[15]

When the session re-convened the following day, June 16, Al Kooper joined the proceedings. Kooper, at that time a 21-year-old session guitarist,^[16] was not originally supposed to play but was present as Wilson's guest.^[17] When Wilson stepped out, however, Kooper sat down with his guitar with the other musicians, hoping to take part in the recording session.^[18] By the time Wilson returned, Kooper, who had been intimidated by Bloomfield's guitar playing, was back in the control room. After a couple of rehearsal takes, Wilson moved Griffin from Hammond organ to piano.^[18] Kooper then went to Wilson, saying that he had a good part for the organ. Wilson belittled Kooper's organ-playing abilities, but as Kooper later said, "He just sort of scoffed at me ... He didn't say 'no'—so I went out there." Wilson, surprised to see Kooper at the organ, nevertheless allowed him to play on the track. Upon hearing a playback of the song, Dylan insisted that the organ be turned up in the mix, despite Wilson's protestations that Kooper was "not an organ player."^[19]

This session saw 15 recorded takes.^[20] The song had by now evolved into its familiar form, in 4/4 time with Dylan on electric guitar. After the fourth take—the master take that was released as a single^[21]—Wilson happily commented, "That sounds good to me."^[22] Nevertheless, Dylan and the band persisted in recording the song 11 more times.^[23]

Release[link]

According to Shaun Considine, release coordinator for Columbia Records in 1965, "Like a Rolling Stone" was first relegated to the "graveyard of canceled releases" because of concerns from the sales and marketing departments over its unprecedented six-minute length and "raucous" rock sound. In the days following the rejection, Considine took a discarded acetate of the song to a club called Arthur—a newly opened disco popular with celebrities and media people.^[1][24] At the crowd's insistence, the demo was played over and over, until finally it wore out. The next morning, a disc jockey and a programming director from the city's leading top 40 stations called Columbia and demanded copies.^[1] Shortly afterwards, on July 20, 1965, "Like a Rolling Stone" was released as a single with "Gates of Eden" as its B-side.^[25][26][27]

Despite its length, the song became Dylan's biggest hit to date^[21][28] and remained in the US charts for 12 weeks, where it reached number 2—behind The Beatles' "Help!".^[29][30] The promotional copies released to disc jockeys on July 15 had the first two verses and two refrains on one side, while the rest of the song was put on the other. Deejays who wanted to play the whole song would simply flip the vinyl over.^[31][32] While many radio stations were reluctant to play the song in its entirety, public demand eventually forced them to air the full song.^[27][33] This helped the single reach its number 2 peak, several weeks after its release.^[33] It was a Top 10 hit in other countries, including Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.^{[34][35][36][37]}

Themes[link]

Unlike conventional chart hits of the time, the lyrics of "Like a Rolling Stone" were not about love, but expressed resentment and a yearning for revenge.^[38][39] Author Oliver Trager describes the lyrics as "Dylan's sneer at a woman who has fallen from grace and is reduced to fending for herself in a hostile, unfamiliar world."^[39] Until now, the song's target, Miss Lonely, has taken the easy way out, gone to the finest schools and had high-placed friends, but now that her situation has become difficult she has no meaningful experiences on which to base her character.^[39] The opening lines of the song establish the woman's former condition:

Once upon a time you dressed so fine

Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?^[40]

And the first verse ends with lines deriding her current condition:

Now you don't talk so loud

Now you don't seem so proud

About having to be scrounging your next meal^[40]

Despite the vitriol, the song also depicts compassion for Miss Lonely, as well as joy in the freedom of losing everything.^[38] Jann Wenner has commented that "Everything has been stripped away. You're on your own, you're free now ... You're so helpless and now you've got nothing left. And you're invisible—you've got no secrets—that's so liberating. You've nothing to fear anymore."^[41] The final verse ends with the lines:

When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose

You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal^[40]

The refrain emphasizes these themes:

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^[40]

Dylan biographer Robert Shelton summed up the song's meaning as: "A song that seems to hail the dropout life for those who can take it segues into compassion for those who have dropped out of bourgeois surroundings. 'Rolling Stone' is about the loss of innocence and the harshness of experience. Myths, props, and old beliefs fall away to reveal a very taxing reality."^[42]

In a humorous vein, Dylan commented on the moral perspective of "Like a Rolling Stone" at a press conference at KQED television studio on December 3, 1965. A reporter suggested to Dylan the song took a hard line on a girl, and asked "Do you want to change their lives? or do you want to point out to them the error of their ways?" Laughing, Dylan replied, "I want to needle them."^[43][44]

Commentators have tried to tie the characters in the song to specific people in Dylan's orbit in 1965. In his book POPism: The Warhol '60s, Andy Warhol recalled that some people in his circle believed that "Like a Rolling Stone" contained hostile references to him; he was told, "Listen to 'Like a Rolling Stone'—I think you're the diplomat on the chrome horse, man."^[45] The reason behind Dylan's alleged hostility to Warhol was supposedly Warhol's treatment of Edie Sedgwick, an actress and model. Sedgwick has been suggested as the basis of the central character in the song, 'Miss Lonely'.^[46] Sedgwick was briefly involved with Dylan in late 1965 and early 1966, around which time there was some discussion of the two making a movie together.^[47] According to Warhol collaborator Paul Morrissey, Sedgwick may have been in love with Dylan, and was shocked when she found out that Dylan had secretly married Sara Lownds in November 1965.^[47] However, in The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, Michael Gray argues that Sedgwick had no connection with "Like a Rolling Stone", but states "there's no doubt that the ghost of Edie Sedgwick hangs around Blonde on Blonde".^[48]

Greil Marcus has alluded to a suggestion by art historian Thomas Crow that Dylan had written the song as a comment on Warhol's scene: "I heard a lecture by Thomas Crow ... about "Like a Rolling Stone" being about Edie Sedgwick within Andy Warhol's circle, as something that Dylan saw from the outside, not being personally involved with either of them, but as something he saw and was scared by and saw disaster looming and wrote a song as a warning, and it was compelling."^[49] Joan Baez, Marianne Faithful and Bob Neuwirth have also been mooted as possible targets of Dylan's scorn.^[28][50][51] Dylan's biographer Howard Sounes warned against reducing the song to the biography of one person, and suggested "it is more likely that the song was aimed generally at those [Dylan] perceived as being 'phony'". Sounes adds, "There is some irony in the fact that one of the most famous songs of the folk-rock era—an era associated primarily with ideals of peace and harmony—is one of vengeance."^[52]

Mike Marqusee has written at length on the conflicts in Dylan's life during this time, with its deepening alienation from his old folk-revival audience and clear-cut leftist causes. He suggests that the song is probably self-referential. "The song only attains full poignancy when one realises it is sung, at least in part, to the singer himself: he's the one 'with no direction home.'"^[53] Dylan himself has noted that after his motorcycle accident in 1966 he realized that "when I used words like 'he' and 'it' and 'they,' and talking about other people, I was really talking about nobody but me."^[50]

Live performances[link]

Dylan performed the song live for the first time within days of its release, when he appeared at the Newport Folk Festival on July 25, 1965.^[54] Many of the audience's folk enthusiasts objected to Dylan's use of electric guitars, looking down on rock 'n roll, as Bloomfield put it, as popular amongst "greasers, heads, dancers, people who got drunk and boogied."^[27] According to Dylan's friend, music critic Paul Nelson, "The audience [was] booing and yelling 'Get rid of the electric guitar'", while Dylan and his backing musicians gave an uncertain rendition of their new single.^[27]

Highway 61 Revisited was issued at the end of August 1965. When Dylan went on tour that fall, "Like a Rolling Stone" took the closing slot on his setlist and held it, with rare exceptions, through the end of his 1966 "world tour." On May 17, 1966, during the last leg of the tour, Dylan and his band performed at Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England. Just before they started to play the track, an audience member yelled "Judas!", apparently referring to Dylan's supposed "betrayal" of folk music. Dylan responded, "I don't believe you. You're a liar!" With that, he turned to the band, ordering them to "play it fucking loud".^[54]

Since then, "Like a Rolling Stone" has remained a staple in Dylan's concerts, often with revised arrangements.^[55] It was included in his 1969 Isle of Wight show and in both his reunion tour with The Band in 1974 and the Rolling Thunder Revue tour in 1975–76. The song continued to be featured in other tours throughout the 1970s and 1980s.^[55] On the Never Ending Tour, which began in 1988, "Like a Rolling Stone" has been one of the five most performed songs, with 653 performances registered through 2005.^[56]

Besides Highway 61 Revisited, the song's standard release can be found on four official albums: Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Biograph, The Essential Bob Dylan, and Dylan. In addition, the early, incomplete studio recording in 3/4 time appears on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.^[14][57] Live performances of the song are included on Self Portrait, Before the Flood, Bob Dylan at Budokan, MTV Unplugged, The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert, The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack,^[58] and The Band's Rock of Ages.^[59]

Legacy[link]

The song's sound was revolutionary in its combination of electric guitar licks, organ chords, and Dylan's voice, at once young and jeeringly cynical.^[60] Critic Michael Gray described the track as "a chaotic amalgam of blues, impressionism, allegory, and an intense directness in the central chorus: 'How does it feel'".^[60] The song had an enormous impact on popular culture and rock music. Its success made Dylan a pop icon, as Paul Williams notes:

Dylan had been famous, had been the center of attention, for a long time. But now the ante was being upped again. He'd become a pop star as well as a folk star ... and was, even more than the Beatles, a public symbol of the vast cultural, political, generational changes taking place in the United States and Europe. He was perceived as, and in many ways functioned as, a leader.^[61]

Record producer Paul Rothchild, producer of The Doors' first five albums, recalled the elation that an American musician had made a record that successfully challenged the primacy of the British Invasion groups. He said, "What I realized when I was sitting there is that one of US—one of the so-called Village hipsters—was making music that could compete with THEM—the Beatles, and the Stones, and the Dave Clark Five—without sacrificing any of the integrity of folk music or the power of rock'n'roll."^[62]

The song had a huge impact on Bruce Springsteen, who was 15 years old when he first heard it. Springsteen described the moment during his speech inducting Dylan into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and also assessed the long-term significance of "Like a Rolling Stone":

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'd kicked open the door to your mind ... The way that Elvis freed your body, Dylan freed your mind, and showed us that because the music was physical did not mean it was anti-intellect. He had the vision and talent to make a pop song so that it contained the whole world. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound, broke through the limitations of what a recording could achieve, and he changed the face of rock'n'roll for ever and ever "^[63][64]

Dylan's contemporaries in 1965 were both startled and challenged by the single. Paul McCartney remembered going around to John Lennon's house in Weybridge to hear the song. According to McCartney, "It seemed to go on and on forever. It was just beautiful ... He showed all of us that it was possible to go a little further."^[65] Frank Zappa had a more extreme reaction: "When I heard 'Like a Rolling Stone', I wanted to quit the music business, because I felt: 'If this wins and it does what it's supposed to do, I don't need to do anything else ...' But it didn't do anything. It sold but nobody responded to it in the way that they should have."^[65] Nearly forty years later, in 2003, Elvis Costello commented on the innovative quality of the single. "What a shocking thing to live in a world where there was Manfred Mann and the Supremes and Engelbert Humperdinck and here comes 'Like a Rolling Stone'".^[66]

Although CBS tried to make the record more "radio friendly" by cutting it in half and spreading it over both sides of the vinyl, both Dylan and fans demanded that the full six-minute take be placed on one side and that radio stations play the song in its entirety.^[67] "Like a Rolling Stone"'s subsequent success played a big part in changing the music business convention that singles had to be under three minutes in length. The surreal cast of characters and Dylan's verbal inventiveness also represented an innovation in Top 10 singles. In the words of Rolling Stone, "No other pop song has so thoroughly challenged and transformed the commercial laws and artistic conventions of its time, for all time."^[68]

In 1966, Dylan told Ralph Gleason: "Rolling Stone's the best song I wrote."^[69] In 2004, speaking to Robert Hilburn, Dylan still felt that the song had a special place in his work: "It's like a ghost is writing a song like that, it gives you the song and it goes away. You don't know what it means. Except that the ghost picked me to write the song."^[70]

More than 40 years since its release, "Like a Rolling Stone" remains highly regarded, as measured by polls of reviewers and fellow songwriters. A 2002 ranking by Uncut and a 2005 poll in Mojo both rated it Dylan's number one song.^[71][72] As for his personal views on such polls, Dylan told Ed Bradley in a 2004 interview on 60 Minutes that he never pays attention to them, because they change frequently.^[73] Illustrating his point was the 100 Greatest Songs of All Time poll by Mojo in 2000, which included two Dylan singles, but not "Like a Rolling Stone". Five years later, the magazine named it his number one song.^[72][74] Rolling Stone picked "Like a Rolling Stone" as the number two single of the past 25 years in 1989,^[75] and then in 2004 placed the song at number one on its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".^[76] In 2011, Rolling Stone again placed "Like a Rolling Stone" at the top of their list of "500 Greatest Songs Of All Time".^[77] In 2006, Pitchfork Media placed it at number 4 on their list of "The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s".^[78]

Cover versions[link]

	Jimi Hendrix's cover of "Like a Rolling Stone" noicon Jimi Hendrix's cover of "Like a Rolling Stone" at the Monterey Pop Festival.
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Many artists have covered "Like a Rolling Stone", including Johnny Thunders, David Bowie, The Four Seasons, The Rascals, Judy Collins, Johnny Winter, Cher, The Rolling Stones, Anberlin, Spirit, Michael Bolton, The Creation, David Gilmour, The Surfaris, John Mellencamp,^[79][80] The Wailers,^[81][82] and Green Day.^[83] Guitarist Jimi Hendrix, performing with The Jimi Hendrix Experience, recorded a live version at the Monterey Pop Festival.^[84] Hendrix was an avid fan of Bob Dylan, and especially liked "Like a Rolling Stone". "It made me feel that I wasn't the only one who'd ever felt so low ..." Hendrix said.^[85] After the second verse, Hendrix skipped to the fourth. Hendrix played the electric guitar, and music critic Greil Marcus described the atmosphere of the Hendrix recording thus:

Huge chords ride over the beginning of each verse like rain clouds; the tune is taken very slowly, with Hendrix's thick, street-talk drawl sounding nothing at all like Dylan's Midwestern dust storm."^[86]

The song has also been covered in various languages. Hugues Aufray covered the song in French ("Comme des pierres qui roulent" (Aufray Trans Dylan, 1995)), Austrian Wolfgang Ambros included an Austrian-German dialect version "Allan Wia a Stan" on his 1978 LP Wie Im Schlaf which reached position 8 in the Austrian charts for 8 weeks^[87], German band Bap created a dialect of Cologne version "Wie 'ne Stein" on its LP Vun drinne noh drusse and Lars Winnerbäck did a performance of the song in Swedish titled "Som en hemlös själ", literally "Like a Homeless Soul".^[88] Articolo 31 recorded an Italian version titled "Come una Pietra Scalciata" (literally, "Like a Kicked-off Stone") for their 1998 album Nessuno.^[89] Articolo 31's version is a hip-hop song which contains overdubs of a confused girl's voice, rapped parts and DJing. This version contains only three verses and is four and a half minutes long.^[90]

Charts[link]

References[link]

Footnotes

Bibliography

External links[link]

• Lyrics at Bob Dylan's official website
• Vocal performance and speech intonation: Bob Dylan’s "Like a Rolling Stone" by Michael Daley, York University, Toronto

"A Rolling Stone" is a 1980 single by Jamaican singer Grace Jones.

Background[link]

The song was recorded on Jones' 1980 album Warm Leatherette, her first post-disco album, and was released as the first single from the album in the UK. It didn't garner much attention and was quickly followed by "Love Is the Drug" and "Private Life". Unlike the majority of the Warm Leatherette album's material the song wasn't a cover version but a new composition co-written by Jones herself, Deniece Williams and Fritz Baskett. In the lyrics Jones complains to her lover about something missing in their relationship, which is affection.^[1] The 7" single featured an edited version of "Sinning", the opening track from the previous disco album Muse as the B-side. The 12" single included an extended remix of "A Rolling Stone" which was only released in the UK and still remains unreleased on CD.

Track listing[link]

• 7" Single^[2][3]

A. "A Rolling Stone" – 3:31

B. "Sinning" – 4:08

• 12" Single^[4][5]

A. "A Rolling Stone" – 5:39

B. "Sinning" – 5:05

References[link]

Rolling Stone

File:Rolling Stone January 22 1981 cover.png John Lennon and Yoko Ono on the cover of the January 22, 1981 issue of Rolling Stone
Editor	Jann Wenner Will Dana (managing editor)
Categories	Music magazine
Bi-weekly
Publisher	Jann Wenner
Total circulation (2011)	1,467,739[1]
First issue	November 9, 1967 (1967-11-09)
Company	Wenner Media LLC
Country	United States
Based in	New York City, New York
Language	English
Website	www.RollingStone.com
ISSN	0035-791X

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner, who is still editor and publisher, and music critic Ralph J. Gleason.

The magazine was known for its political coverage beginning in the 1970s, with the enigmatic and controversial gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. Rolling Stone magazine changed its format in the 1990s to appeal to younger readers,^[2] often focusing on young television or film actors and pop music. This led to criticism that the magazine was emphasizing style over substance.^[3] In recent years, the magazine has resumed its traditional mix of content, including in-depth political stories, and has seen its circulation increase.

Beginnings[link]

To get the magazine off the ground, Wenner borrowed $7,500 from his family members and from the family of his soon-to-be wife, Michell Palmer.^[4] The first issue carried a cover date of November 9, 1967.^[5] Rolling Stone magazine was initially identified with and reported on the hippie counterculture of the era. However, the magazine distanced itself from the underground newspapers of the time, such as Berkeley Barb, embracing more traditional journalistic standards and avoiding the radical politics of the underground press. In the very first edition of the magazine, Wenner wrote that Rolling Stone "is not just about the music, but about the things and attitudes that music embraces." This has become the de facto motto of the magazine.

In the 1970s, Rolling Stone began to make a mark for its political coverage, with the likes of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson writing for the magazine's political section. Thompson would first publish his most famous work Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas within the pages of Rolling Stone, where he remained a contributing editor until his death in 2005. In the 1970s, the magazine also helped launch the careers of many prominent authors, including Cameron Crowe, Lester Bangs, Joe Klein, Joe Eszterhas, Patti Smith and P. J. O'Rourke. It was at this point that the magazine ran some of its most famous stories, including that of the Patty Hearst abduction odyssey. One interviewer, speaking for large numbers of his peers, said that he bought his first copy of the magazine upon initial arrival on his college campus, which he described as a "rite of passage".^[3]

During the 1980s the magazine began to shift focus towards being a general "entertainment" magazine. Music was still a dominant topic but there was increasing coverage of celebrities in television, movies and the pop culture of the day. The magazine also initiated its annual "Hot Issue" during this time.

The printed format has gone through several changes. The first publications 1967–72, were folded tabloid newspaper format, no staples with black ink text, and a single color highlight that changed each edition. From 1973 on, editions were done on a four-color press with a different newsprint paper size. In 1979 the bar code appeared. In 1980 it became a gloss paper large format 10 x 12 magazine. As of October 30, 2008 edition, Rolling Stone is a smaller, standard-format magazine size. (USA Today,^{[volume & issue needed]} Associated Press Anick Jesdanun)

Criticism[link]

One major criticism of Rolling Stone involves its generational bias toward the 1960s and 1970s. One critic referred to the Rolling Stone list of the "99 Greatest Songs" as an example of "unrepentant rockist fogeyism".^[6] In further response to this issue, rock critic Jim DeRogatis, a former Rolling Stone editor, published a thorough critique of the magazine's lists in a book called Kill Your Idols: A New Generation of Rock Writers Reconsiders the Classics (ISBN 1-56980-276-9), which featured differing opinions from many younger critics.^[7] Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg criticised the magazine writing that "Rolling Stone has essentially become the house organ of the Democratic National Committee."^[8] Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner has made all of his political donations to Democrats.^[9]

Hunter S. Thompson, in an article that can be found in his book Generation of Swine, criticized the magazine for turning on marijuana even though the magazine embraced it in the 60s and 70s when Thompson was a frequent contributor.^{[citation needed]}

Rolling Stone magazine has been criticized for reconsidering many classic albums that it had previously dismissed. Examples of artists for whom this is the case include, among others, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, The Beach Boys, Nirvana, Weezer, Radiohead, Depeche Mode, Outkast and also Queen. For example, Led Zeppelin was largely written off by Rolling Stone magazine critics during the band's most active years in the 1970s. However by 2006, a cover story on Led Zeppelin honored them as "the Heaviest Band of All Time".^[10] A critic for Slate magazine described a conference at which 1984's The Rolling Stone Record Guide was scrutinized. As he described it, "The guide virtually ignored hip-hop and ruthlessly panned heavy metal, the two genres that within a few years would dominate the pop charts. In an auditorium packed with music journalists, you could detect more than a few anxious titters: How many of us will want our record reviews read back to us 20 years hence?"^[6] Another example of this bias was that the album Nevermind, by grunge band Nirvana, was given three stars in its original review, despite being placed at #17 in "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list in 2003. Also, when The Beatles' Let It Be was released in 1970, the magazine originally gave the album a poor review, yet in 2003, Rolling Stone ranked it number 86 in the magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.^[11]

The hire of former FHM editor Ed Needham further enraged critics who alleged that Rolling Stone had lost its credibility.^[12]

The 2003 Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists of all Time article's inclusion of only two female musicians resulted in Venus Zine answering with their own list titled "The Greatest Female Guitarists of All Time".^[13]

Renewed relevance[link]

After years of declining readership, the magazine experienced a major resurgence of interest and relevance with the work of two young journalists in the late 2000s: Michael Hastings and Matt Taibbi.

In 2009, Taibbi unleashed a scathing series of acclaimed reporting on the financial meltdown. He famously dubbed Goldman Sachs "The Great Vampire Squid."

Bigger headlines came at the end of June 2010. Rolling Stone caused a controversy in the White House by publishing in the July issue an article by journalist Michael Hastings, titled "The Runaway General",^[14] quoting criticism of General Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of the International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces-Afghanistan commander, about Vice President Joe Biden and other Administration members of the White House. McChrystal resigned from his position shortly after his statements went public.^{[15][16][17][18]}

In January 2012, the magazine ran exclusive excerpts from Hastings' book just prior to publication. The book, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan, provided a much more expansive look at McChrystal and the culture of senior American military and how they get embroiled in these wars. It has been described as a boozy, sexy account of the misadventures of America's most notorious killers.^{[citation needed]} The book reached Amazon's bestseller list in the first 48 hours of release, and it received generally favorable reviews. Salon's Glenn Greenwald described it as "superb," "brave" and "eye-opening."^[19]

Website[link]

Rolling Stone has maintained a website for many years, with selected current articles, reviews, blogs, MP3s, and other features such as searchable and free encyclopedic articles about artists, with images and sometimes sound clips of their work. The articles and reviews are sometimes in a revised form from the versions that are published. There are also selected archival political and cultural articles and entries. The site also at one time had an extensive message board forum. By the late 1990s, the message board forum at the site had developed into a thriving community with a large number of regular members and contributors worldwide. The site was also plagued with numerous Internet trolls and malicious code-hackers who vandalized the forum substantially.^[20]

Rolling Stone abruptly deleted the forum in May 2004. Rolling Stone began a new, much more limited message board community at their site in late 2005, only to remove it again in 2006. Rolling Stone also has a page at MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. In March 2008, the Rolling Stone website started a new message board section once again, then deleted it in April 2010. The magazine devotes one of its Table of Contents pages to promoting material currently appearing at its website, listing detailed links to the items. As of April 19, 2010, the website has been updated drastically and features the complete archives of Rolling Stone.^{[citation needed]} Around the same time it was announced that the Rolling Stone website would adopt the view by subscription model, charging for content. The subscription model is now in place.

Restaurant[link]

In December 2009, the Los Angeles Times reported that the owners of Rolling Stone magazine planned to open a Rolling Stone restaurant in the Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood, California in the spring of 2010.^[21] The expectation was that the restaurant could become the first of a national chain if it was successful.^[22] As of November 2010, the "soft opening" of the restaurant was planned for December 2010.^[23] According to its website, the restaurant is now open for lunch and dinner.^[24]

Notable staff[link]

In popular culture[link]

• On the debut album by Evelyn Evelyn (produced by and featuring Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls and Seattle folk-hero, Jason Webley), the second track – "A Campaign of Shock and Awe" – references Rolling Stone. In a case of life imitating art, the fictional twin sisters (truly Palmer and Webley) sing "As featured in Rolling Stone, Spin, The New Yorker and Pitchfork...". Evelyn Evelyn has been featured in three of the four publications (Rolling Stone being the exception).^[25]
• "The Cover of the Rolling Stone" is a 1973 song satirizing success in the music business. It was first recorded by Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show, who subsequently did get on the cover of the magazine, albeit in caricature rather than a photograph.
• George Harrison's 1975 song "This Guitar (Can't Keep from Crying)", a lyrical sequel to his Beatles track "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", references the magazine in its second verse: "Learned to get up when I fall / Can even climb Rolling Stone walls". The song was written in response to some unduly harsh reviews from Rolling Stone and other publications for Harrison's 1974 North American tour and the Dark Horse album.^[26][27]
• In Stephen King's 1980 novel Firestarter, the protagonist chooses Rolling Stone as an unbiased independent media source, through which she can expose the government agency hunting her. However, in the film adaptation, the protagonist chooses The New York Times.
• The 1985 film Perfect depicts John Travolta as a reporter for Rolling Stone, covering the health club fad of the time. Jann Wenner plays editor-in-chief "Mark Roth".
• Almost Famous portrayed a fictional 15-year-old aspiring rock journalist writing for Rolling Stone. The semi-autobiographical film was written and directed by former Rolling Stone columnist Cameron Crowe and featured portrayals of publisher Jann Wenner (Eion Bailey), editor Ben Fong-Torres (Terry Chen), David Felton (Rainn Wilson) and others in Rolling Stone's 1970s San Francisco offices. Wenner also had a cameo in the film as a man reading a newspaper in a taxi.

Covers[link]

Some artists have graced the cover many times, some of these pictures going on to become iconic. The Beatles, for example, have appeared on the cover over thirty times, either individually or as a band.^[28] The first ten issues featured, in order of appearance, the following:

• John Lennon
• Tina Turner
• The Beatles
• Jimi Hendrix, Donovan & Otis Redding
• Jim Morrison
• Janis Joplin
• Jimi Hendrix
• Monterey Pop Festival
• John Lennon & Paul McCartney
• Eric Clapton

Reference works[link]

• Bashe, Patricia R.; George-Warren, Holly; Pareles, Jon, eds. (2005) [1983]. The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll. New York: Fireside. ISBN 0-7432-9201-4. 
• Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian, eds. (2004) [1979, 1983, 1992]. The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8. 
• Miller, Jim (1980) [1976]. The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-394-51322-3. 
• Rolling Stone Cover to Cover – the First 40 Years: Searchable Digital Archive-Every Page, Every Issue. Renton, WA: Bondi Digital Pub. 2007. ISBN 978-0-9795261-0-7. 
• Swenson, John (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. New York: Rolling Stone. ISBN 0-394-72643-X. 

International editions[link]

• Argentina – Published by Publirevistas S. A. since April 1998. This edition also circulates in Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay.
• Australia – Rolling Stone Australia began as a supplement in 1969 in Go-Set magazine. It became a full title in 1972 and was published by Nextmedia Pty Ltd, Sydney until 2008. It is now published by ACP Magazines and is the longest running international edition.
• Brazil – Published in Brazil since October 2006 by Spring Comunicações.
• Bulgaria – Published in Bulgaria since November 2009 by Sivir Publications.Ceasing operations as of the August/September 2011 issue.
• Chile – Published by Edu Comunicaciones until May 2003. Published by El Mercurio from January 2006 to December 2011.
• China – Rolling Stone in mainland China is licensed to One Media Group of Hong Kong and published in partnership with China Record Corporation. The magazine is in Chinese with translated articles and local content.
• Colombia – Edited in Bogotá for Colombia, Ecuador, Perú, Panama and Venezuela.
• France – Launched 2002. This edition temporarily ceased in 2007 and was relaunched in May 2008 under license with 1633SA publishing group.
• Germany – Published in Germany since 1994 by Axel Springer AG.
• India – Launched in March 2008 by MW Com, publishers of Man's World magazine.
• Indonesia – Published in Indonesia since June 2005 by a&e Media.
• Italy – Published in Italy since November 2003, first by IXO Publishing and now by Editrice Quadratum.
• Japan – Launched in March 2007.
• Mexico – Published by Prisa Internacional from 2002 until May 2009; from June 2009 it is published by Editorial Televisa under license.
• Middle East – Published in Dubai by HGW Media since November 2010.
• Russia – Published by Izdatelskiy Dom SPN since 2004.
• Spain – Published by PROGRESA in Madrid, since 1999.
• Turkey – Published since June 2006 by GD Gazete Dergi.
• South Africa – Published since November 2011.

See also[link]

• The Rolling Stone Interview

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Rolling Stone

• Official website
• Rolling Stone on Myspace
• Official Rolling Stone merchandise
• Official Jann S. Wenner website
• Rolling Stone The 100 Best Songs of 2006
• The Voice of America (Observer article, April 30, 2006)
• Rolling Stone cover gallery
• Rolling Stone 2003 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
• List at RollingStone.com 2004 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
• Guitarists of All Time
• Rolling Stone Turkey
• Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Read Me? Article from The New York Times, December 25, 2005
• The Origins of Rolling Stone Article from The Daily Californian August 20, 2007
• How Does It Feel Article from The Washington Post May 4, 2006
• Revolutionary, wild, unpredictable – and that was just the writers Article from The Independent (London) May 10, 2006
• Baron Wolman, Rolling Stone's first Chief Photographer
• Rolling Stone, 2008, The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time
• Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Artists

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Bob Dylan
Dylan onstage at the Azkena Rock Festival, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, June 26, 2010
Background information
Birth name	Robert Allen Zimmerman
Also known as	Elston Gunnn, Blind Boy Grunt, Bob Landy, Robert Milkwood Thomas, Tedham Porterhouse, Lucky/Boo Wilbury, Jack Frost, Sergei Petrov
Born	(1941-05-24) May 24, 1941 (age 71) Duluth, Minnesota, U.S.
Origin	Hibbing, Minnesota, U.S.
Genres	Rock, folk, folk rock, blues, blues rock, country, gospel, country rock
Occupations	Musician, singer-songwriter, producer, visual artist, poet, writer, director, screenwriter
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards, harmonica
Years active	1961–present
Labels	Columbia, Asylum
Associated acts	Joan Baez, The Band, The Byrds, Johnny Cash, Mark Knopfler, Grateful Dead, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Traveling Wilburys
Website	bobdylan.com

Bob Dylan ( /ˈdɪlən/), born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, is an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist. He has been an influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades.^[1][2] Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly reluctant figurehead of social unrest. A number of Dylan's early songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", became anthems for the US civil rights^[3] and anti-war^[4] movements. Leaving his initial base in the culture of folk music behind, Dylan's six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone" has been described as radically altering the parameters of popular music in 1965.^[5] However, his recordings employing electric instruments attracted denunciation and criticism from others in the folk movement.

Dylan's lyrics incorporated a variety of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed hugely to the then burgeoning counterculture. Initially inspired by the songs of Woody Guthrie,^[6] Robert Johnson,^[7] and Hank Williams, as well as the music and performance styles of Buddy Holly and Little Richard,^[8] Dylan has both amplified and personalized musical genres. His recording career, spanning fifty years, has explored numerous distinct traditions in American song—from folk, blues and country to gospel, rock and roll, and rockabilly to English, Scottish, and Irish folk music, embracing even jazz and swing.^[9]

Dylan performs with guitar, keyboards, and harmonica. Backed by a changing line-up of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the Never Ending Tour. His accomplishments as a recording artist and performer have been central to his career, but his greatest contribution is generally considered to be his songwriting.^[1]

Since 1994, Dylan has published three books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries.^[10][11] As a songwriter and musician, Dylan has received numerous awards over the years including Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Awards; he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2008 awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."^[12] In May 2012, Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama.^[13]

Life and career[link]

Origins and musical beginnings[link]

Bob Dylan was born "Robert Allen Zimmerman" (Hebrew name שבתאי זיסאל בן אברהם [Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham])^[14][15] in St. Mary's Hospital on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota,^[16][17] and raised in Hibbing, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Iron Range west of Lake Superior. His paternal grandparents, Zigman and Anna Zimmerman, emigrated from Odessa in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine) to the United States following the anti-Semitic pogroms of 1905.^[18] His maternal grandparents, Benjamin and Lybba Edelstein, were Lithuanian Jews who arrived in the United States in 1902.^[18] In his autobiography Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan writes that his paternal grandmother's maiden name was Kyrgyz and her family originated from Kars, Turkey.^[19]

Dylan's parents, Abram Zimmerman and Beatrice "Beatty" Stone, were part of the area's small but close-knit Jewish community. Robert Zimmerman lived in Duluth until age six, when his father was stricken with polio and the family returned to his mother's home town, Hibbing, where Zimmerman spent the rest of his childhood. Robert Zimmerman spent much of his youth listening to the radio—first to blues and country stations broadcasting from Shreveport, Louisiana and, later, to early rock and roll.^[8] He formed several bands while he attended Hibbing High School. The Shadow Blasters was short-lived, but his next, The Golden Chords, lasted longer and played covers of Little Richard rock and roll^[20] and other popular songs.^[21] Their performance of Danny and the Juniors' "Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay" at their high school talent show was so loud that the principal cut the microphone off.^[22] In 1959, his high school yearbook carried, beneath his photo, the caption: "Robert Zimmerman: to join 'Little Richard'."^[20][23] The same year, using the name Elston Gunnn [sic], he performed two dates with Bobby Vee, playing piano and providing handclaps.^[24][25][26]

Zimmerman moved to Minneapolis in September 1959 and enrolled at the University of Minnesota, where his early focus on rock and roll gave way to an interest in American folk music. In 1985, Dylan explained the attraction that folk music had exerted on him:

The thing about rock'n'roll is that for me anyway it wasn't enough ... There were great catch-phrases and driving pulse rhythms ... but the songs weren't serious or didn't reflect life in a realistic way. I knew that when I got into folk music, it was more of a serious type of thing. The songs are filled with more despair, more sadness, more triumph, more faith in the supernatural, much deeper feelings.^[27]

He soon began to perform at the 10 O'clock Scholar, a coffee house a few blocks from campus, and became actively involved in the local Dinkytown folk music circuit.^[28][29]

During his Dinkytown days, Zimmerman began introducing himself as "Bob Dylan".^[30] In his autobiography, Dylan acknowledged that he had been influenced by the poetry of Dylan Thomas.^{[31][a 1]} Explaining his change of name in a 2004 interview, Dylan remarked: "You're born, you know, the wrong names, wrong parents. I mean, that happens. You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free."^[32]

1960s[link]

Relocation to New York and record deal[link]

Dylan dropped out of college at the end of his freshman year. In January 1961, he traveled to New York City, hoping to perform there and visit his musical idol Woody Guthrie,^[33] who was seriously ill with Huntington's Disease in Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital.^[34] Guthrie had been a revelation to Dylan and was the biggest influence on his early performances. Describing Guthrie's impact on him, Dylan later wrote: "The songs themselves had the infinite sweep of humanity in them ... [He] was the true voice of the American spirit. I said to myself I was going to be Guthrie's greatest disciple."^[35] As well as visiting Guthrie in the hospital, Dylan befriended Guthrie's acolyte Ramblin' Jack Elliott. Much of Guthrie's repertoire was actually channeled through Elliott, and Dylan paid tribute to Elliott in Chronicles (2004).^[36]

From February 1961, Dylan played at various clubs around Greenwich Village. He befriended and picked up material from many folk singers in the Village scene, including Dave Van Ronk, Fred Neil, Odetta, the New Lost City Ramblers, and Irish musicians Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers.^[37] Dylan later described Liam Clancy as "the best ballad singer I ever heard."^[38] In September, Dylan gained some public recognition when Robert Shelton wrote a positive review in The New York Times of a show at Gerde's Folk City.^[39] The same month Dylan played harmonica on folk singer Carolyn Hester's eponymous third album, which brought his talents to the attention of the album's producer, John Hammond.^[40] Hammond signed Dylan to Columbia Records in October. The performances on his first Columbia album, Bob Dylan (1962), consisted of familiar folk, blues and gospel material combined with two original compositions. The album made little impact, selling only 5,000 copies in its first year, just enough to break even.^[41] Within Columbia Records, some referred to the singer as "Hammond's Folly" and suggested dropping his contract. Hammond defended Dylan vigorously. In March 1962, Dylan contributed harmonica and back-up vocals to the album Three Kings and the Queen, accompanying Victoria Spivey and Big Joe Williams on a recording for Spivey Records.^[42] While working for Columbia, Dylan also recorded several songs under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt,^[43] for Broadside Magazine, a folk music magazine and record label.^[44] Dylan used the pseudonym Bob Landy to record as a piano player on the 1964 anthology album, The Blues Project, issued by Elektra Records.^[43] Under the pseudonym Tedham Porterhouse, Dylan contributed harmonica to Ramblin' Jack Elliott's 1964 album Jack Elliott.^[43]

With Joan Baez during the civil rights "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom", August 28, 1963

Bob Dylan in November 1963

	"Blowin' in the Wind" noicon Blowin' in the Wind was, according to critic Andy Gill, "the song with which Dylan's name is most inextricably linked, and safeguarded his reputation as a civil libertarian through any number of changes in style and attitude."[45]
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Dylan made two important career moves in August 1962. He legally changed his name to Bob Dylan,^[46] and signed a management contract with Albert Grossman.^[47] Grossman remained Dylan's manager until 1970, and was notable both for his sometimes confrontational personality, and for the fiercely protective loyalty he displayed towards his principal client.^[48] Dylan subsequently said of Grossman, "He was kind of like a Colonel Tom Parker figure ... you could smell him coming."^[29] Tensions between Grossman and John Hammond led to Hammond being replaced as the producer of Dylan's second album by the young African American jazz producer Tom Wilson.^[49]

From December 1962 to January 1963, Dylan made his first trip to the United Kingdom.^[50] He had been invited by TV director Philip Saville to appear in a drama, The Madhouse on Castle Street, which Saville was directing for BBC Television.^[51] At the end of the play, Dylan performed "Blowin' in the Wind", one of the first major public performances of the song.^[52] The film recording of The Madhouse on Castle Street was destroyed by the BBC in 1968.^[51] While in London, Dylan performed at several London folk clubs, including Les Cousins, The Pinder of Wakefield,^[53] and Bunjies.^[50] He also learned new songs from several UK performers, including Martin Carthy.^[50]

By the time Dylan's second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, was released in May 1963, he had begun to make his name as both a singer and a songwriter. Many of the songs on this album were labeled protest songs, inspired partly by Guthrie and influenced by Pete Seeger's passion for topical songs.^[54] "Oxford Town", for example, was a sardonic account of James Meredith's ordeal as the first black student to risk enrollment at the University of Mississippi.^[55]

His most famous song at this time, "Blowin' in the Wind", partially derived its melody from the traditional slave song "No More Auction Block", while its lyrics questioned the social and political status quo.^[56] The song was widely recorded and became an international hit for Peter, Paul and Mary, setting a precedent for many other artists who had hits with Dylan's songs. "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" was based on the tune of the folk ballad "Lord Randall". With its veiled references to nuclear apocalypse, it gained even more resonance when the Cuban missile crisis developed only a few weeks after Dylan began performing it.^[57] Like "Blowin' in the Wind", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" marked an important new direction in modern songwriting, blending a stream-of-consciousness, imagist lyrical attack with a traditional folk form.^[58]

While Dylan's topical songs solidified his early reputation, Freewheelin' also included a mixture of love songs and jokey, surreal talking blues. Humor was a large part of Dylan's persona,^[59] and the range of material on the album impressed many listeners, including The Beatles. George Harrison said, "We just played it, just wore it out. The content of the song lyrics and just the attitude—it was incredibly original and wonderful."^[60]

The rough edge of Dylan's singing was unsettling to some early listeners but an attraction to others. Describing the impact that Dylan had on her and her husband, Joyce Carol Oates wrote: "When we first heard this raw, very young, and seemingly untrained voice, frankly nasal, as if sandpaper could sing, the effect was dramatic and electrifying."^[61] Many of his most famous early songs first reached the public through more immediately palatable versions by other performers, such as Joan Baez, who became Dylan's advocate, as well as his lover.^[62] Baez was influential in bringing Dylan to national and international prominence by recording several of his early songs and inviting him onstage during her own concerts.^[63]

Others who recorded and had hits with Dylan's songs in the early and mid-1960s included The Byrds; Sonny and Cher; The Hollies; Peter, Paul and Mary; The Association; Manfred Mann; and The Turtles. Most attempted to impart a pop feel and rhythm to the songs, while Dylan and Baez performed them mostly as sparse folk pieces. The cover versions became so ubiquitous that CBS started to promote him with the tag "Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan."^[64]

"Mixed Up Confusion", recorded during the Freewheelin' sessions with a backing band, was released as a single and then quickly withdrawn. In contrast to the mostly solo acoustic performances on the album, the single showed a willingness to experiment with a rockabilly sound. Cameron Crowe described it as "a fascinating look at a folk artist with his mind wandering towards Elvis Presley and Sun Records."^[65]

[edit] Protest and Another Side

In May 1963, Dylan's political profile was raised when he walked out of The Ed Sullivan Show. During rehearsals, Dylan had been informed by CBS Television's "head of program practices" that the song he was planning to perform, "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues", was potentially libelous to the John Birch Society. Rather than comply with the censorship, Dylan refused to appear on the program.^[66]

	"The Times They Are a-Changin'" noicon Dylan said of "The Times They Are a-Changin'": "This was definitely a song with a purpose. I wanted to write a big song, some kind of theme song, with short concise verses that piled up on each other in a hypnotic way. The civil rights movement and the folk music movement were pretty close and allied together at that time."[27]
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By this time, Dylan and Baez were both prominent in the civil rights movement, singing together at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.^[67] Dylan's third album, The Times They Are a-Changin', reflected a more politicized and cynical Dylan.^[68] The songs often took as their subject matter contemporary, real life stories, with "Only A Pawn In Their Game" addressing the murder of civil rights worker Medgar Evers; and the Brechtian "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" the death of black hotel barmaid Hattie Carroll, at the hands of young white socialite William Zantzinger.^[69] On a more general theme, "Ballad of Hollis Brown" and "North Country Blues" address the despair engendered by the breakdown of farming and mining communities. This political material was accompanied by two personal love songs, "Boots of Spanish Leather" and "One Too Many Mornings".^[70]

By the end of 1963, Dylan felt both manipulated and constrained by the folk and protest movements.^[71] These tensions were publicly displayed when, accepting the "Tom Paine Award" from the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, an intoxicated Dylan brashly questioned the role of the committee, characterized the members as old and balding, and claimed to see something of himself (and of every man) in Kennedy's alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.^[72]

Bobby Dylan, as the college yearbook lists him: St. Lawrence University, upstate New York, November 1963