The song that Bob Dylan impressed himself with
Bob Dylan has always had a higher standard in songwriting than most of his contemporaries. Even though he may have had the odd track that failed to hit the mark like his classics, Dylan was always interested in making the one song that would hold up as an anthem for his time rather than making by-the-numbers fluff. While any aspiring songwriter would have loved to have a song like ‘Blowin’ In the Wind’ under their belt, Dylan was knocked back the first time he played this track for the first time.
Before he had even begun honing his craft as a songwriter, Dylan was interested in the aspect of poetry in music. Even though his first singles tended to cram in as many words as possible, he appreciated the style of Woody Guthrie, who was able to make the most iconic songs of all time with only a handful of well-chosen words.
By the time Dylan had started writing his own folk ballads, he was being heralded as one of the true innovators of his time. At a time when rock and roll was taking over the mainstream, the enigmatic folk singer stood for the kind of music that could be taken seriously, even being used as one of the main soundtracks during the March on Washington in 1963.
While rock and roll was still seen as a mindless genre then, Dylan knew the power that artists like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were wielding from half a world away. Despite The Beatles being lifelong fans of the freewheeling troubadour, the folk singer was looking to steal a few tricks from his British counterparts on the album Bringing It All Back Home.
Featuring the first electric instruments found on his records, Dylan was flirting with the idea of launching himself as a rock-focused act for the next few years. Even though fans would have mixed feelings about the folk icon embracing rock and roll, Dylan knew that he was in unchartered territory when he wrote ‘Like A Rolling Stone.’
Telling the story of someone’s dramatic fall from grace, Dylan is seething with anger on the track, patronising his partner about how it feels to be left with no direction home. Of course, the songwriter had made tracks with this kind of sardonic tone before, he knew this would be much stronger than anything else he had made.
When talking about the song’s creation, Dylan knew he was onto something, saying, “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”.
While he may have been satisfied, his audience would tell a different story. When he decided to embrace rock instrumentation, thousands of people called Dylan a sellout for cowering to what the public expected out of him. He may have been adopting the fashions of the day, but this wasn’t a case of him looking for the biggest paycheque.
By embracing the sounds of rock and roll, Dylan had the volume and attitude to match his lyrics, even calling out the rock establishment in the lyrics by asking them where they would go once they took over the world. Dylan may have rebelled against the higher-ups in the 1960s, but after fans heard ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ for the first time, there was no chance of returning to more innocent times.
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