Link to Song: It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
What you should know about this song: After he was famously booed offstage for using his electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival, Dylan came back on stage with an acoustic and played this song as his response to the crowd. Since then, it has become one of Dylan’s most famously-covered songs, with artists such as The Grateful Dead, Them (with Van Morrison), Joan Baez, The Byrds, Leon Russell, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, and The Animals recording their own versions.* As with yesterday’s song (“She Belongs to Me”), there is much speculation over who this song is really about but many sources point to Joan Baez or possibly singer-songwriter David Blue.
“In staying with the theme of ending albums with farewell songs (both The Times They Are A-Changin and Another Side of Bob Dylan ended on this note, with “Restless Farewell” and “It’ Ain’t Me, Baby” respectively), this is the concluding song for Bringing it All Back Home. Rolling Stone Magazine described the song as “his devastating farewell to innocence, kicking Baby Blue out into the street, whether that means the end of a friendship or his abandonment of the folk scene.” (Issue 1131)
“I had carried that song around in my head for a long time, and I remember that when I was writing it, I’d remembered a Gene Vincent song, ‘Baby Blue.’ It had always been one of my favorites.” – Bod Dylan, 1985*
Photo Source: Beat Generation Gallery
