Link to Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9hMtVWN91M (This is a famous version from his performance in Japan 1994 where he was accompanied by a full orchestra).
What you should know about this song: According to Rolling Stone Magazine, this is the 2nd greatest Dylan song of all time (behind “Like a Rolling Stone,” of course). The magazine goes on to describe this seven-minute apocalyptic ballad as “the greatest protest song by the greatest protest songwriter of his time” (Issue 1131, March 2011).
Interestingly enough, every line in the song actually started out as a beginning of a whole (separate) song. Once Dylan realized he wouldn’t have enough to write all of those songs, he chose to put all the lines together into one. What is also interesting is that Dylan chose to debut this song in 1962 at the Carnegie Hall despite only being given a 10 minute act. According to Pete Seeger, the concert’s organizer,”Bob raised his hand and said, ‘What am I supposed to do? One of my songs is 10 minutes long.'”
This is a perfect example of how Dylan’s seemingly natural inspiration from the world around him transpires into music that makes history. Since it’s conception in 1962, it has rarely left his live performance song repertoire.
“I wrote it at the time of the Cuban [missile] crisis. I was in Bleecker Street in New York. we just hung around at night – people sat around wondering if it was the end, and so did I… It was a song of desperation. What could we do? Could we control men on the verge of wiping us out? The words came fast, very fast.” – Bob Dylan, 1965
Dylan describing his task as an artist: to sing out against darkness wherever he sees it – to “tell it and think it and speak it and breath it.” – Dylan (quote by Rolling Stone Issue 1131).
Photo Copyright Don Hunstein, 1963.
