Written on April 16, 2020 for Music Criticism JR-310-02 at Emerson College.

“Like A Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan from the album HIGHWAY 61 pushes past defining only the youth of the ’60s to encompassing a plethora of future generations, including the 20th-century generation. The storytelling component of the song breaks folk-rock boundaries by incorporating elements of poetic lyricism that exposes a larger philosophical connotation. Dylan composed the song alongside producer Tom Wilson, guitarist Michael Bloomfield, organist Al Kooper, drummer Bobby Gregg, bassist Joseph Macho, and pianist Paul Griffin, on June 15-16, 1965. Columbia Records released the song on July 15, 1965, and it became an instant staple hit within Dylan’s discography. To this day the song distinguishes Dylan’s idiosyncratic songwriting talent that pushed the use of rhyme and political ideals into a new level of rock and roll storytelling. 

Thematically, “Like A Rolling Stone” contains various complex levels of meaning seen in references to isolationism, classism, and existentialism. The structure of the song follows a coming of age narrative depicting a female protagonist who faces a cultural shift from leaving home to facing the hardships of reality in a big city. The song switches perspective when the verses encompass a third-person point of view, with the listener taking in the coming of age narrative of the woman, but the chorus signals a shift to the first person. The chorus where Dylan repeatedly pleads the lyric “how does it feel” can apply to the listener. This causes a self-reflection effect on the listener and allows the song to take meaning into the personal life of the listener. Amongst the four verses, Dylan chronologically sings about the downfall of this woman as she begins to realize that external, superficial factors such as marriage, alcoholism, and going to the finest school have no substantial value. This common narrative held prevalence in the lives of many young adults in New York City during the ’60s, specifically known as “beatniks.”   

The Beat generation originated in the 1950s in New York’s Greenwich Village, and the term “beatniks” defined a group of youthful young adults that emphasized rebellion and the arts such as poetry and jazz music. Beatniks display characteristics of angst and going against the social norm. Historically, beatniks aligned their values with high brow ideas such as finding “the joylessness and purposelessness of modern society [as] a sufficient justification for both withdrawal and protest” (Britannica, 2020). Similarly, the Bohemian group in New York City promoted a lifestyle of partying at local bars, clubs, and saloons. Bohemians like nomads did not consider anywhere as a home and found that there was never, “a chance of assimilation; life is a condition of permanent resistance to belonging (to a place, to family, anything resembling home)” (Thomas, 2005). Both of these groups served as formative influences to Dylan while he lived in New York City. Dylan regularly participated in beatnik events held in jazz clubs where he gained exposure to the combination of jazz music and poetry recitations. Dylan describes his experience from moving from Minnesota to New York as coming out of the wilderness where he “naturally fell in with the Beat scene, the Bohemian, Bebop crowd” (New Yorker, 2010). Dylan’s close literary friend in New York City, Allen Ginsberg, catalyzed Dylan’s segway into both of these scenes. Through Ginsberg Dylan also met the famous writer, Jack Kerouac, known for his famous novel “On The Road.” Released 8 years prior, Keuroc’s novel contains a similar theme of self-discovery as seen in famous quotes from the novel such as:

“Because he had no place he could stay in without getting tired of it and because there was nowhere to go but everywhere, keep rolling under the stars” (Kerouac, 1957)

“I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless emptiness” (Kerouac, 1957)

The lyrical annotation connecting Dylan’s narrative of a woman facing life on her own to the “hell” of reality that Keuroc illustrates, shares a commonality of isolationism and a sense of both protagonists having to pave his or her life path like “rolling under the stars” or “like a rolling stone.” Even though “On The Road” does not have an official linkage to “Like A Rolling Stone,” Dylan admired the work of Kerouac. Dylan’s heavy literary short storytelling within his lyrics can also be seen in popular albums such as BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME and BLONDE ON BLONDE.  

Alongside the boom in the arts during the ’60s, the Vietnam War shaped American society and politics. Both Beatniks and Bohemians held opposing views towards the demographic context of the Vietnam War. Although, “Like A Rolling Stone” does not exhibit clear characteristics of a protest song like other Dylan hits such as “Blowin’ In The Wind” and “Hurricane,” it contextually distinguishes a major cultural movement of the ’60s that redefined the notions of the arts. 

The beginning instrumentation of the song reveals a steady rhythm between the mixture of the organ keys, electric guitar, bass, tambourine, and drums that do not overpower Dylan’s vocals. The instrumentation serves to subtly mesh as the foreground of the song, while Dylan’s large vocals take up the entire 6-minute span of the song. Immediately the poetic elements become self-evident within the first verse in which Dylan spits out 9 lines of rhymes within 47 seconds. Fluidly each sentence contains a hint of a rhyme scheme such as “dime” and “prime,” “doll” and “fall,” and “loud” and “proud.” The frequency in rhyme creates a textured balance in the song between the lyrical storytelling and the artistic application of poetry. Dylan makes the narrative clear about a woman falling from grace from her life full of riches in “People call, say “beware doll, you’re bound to fall.” Dylan described this freeform style of lyrics as a “long piece of vomit” that reaches a sense of clarity and detachment from the narrative in the chorus (Magic In Rolling Stones Session, 2011). Dylan’s vocals sound scruffy and nasally throughout every verse until the transition into the chorus where he holds the “how does it feel” in a straining, one-note, portamento. 

The segway into the repetitive chorus underscores the explosive sound of the organ keys that add a new dimension to the song evoking a conglomerate of folk and rock elements. The organ key swells allude to the nostalgia that one hears at a traditional church service and evokes an uplifting mood to the song in contrast to the isolating lyrics in which Dylan strains out, “How does it feel/To be without a home/ Like a complete unknown/ Like a rolling stone.” The ode to the track name lyric “like a rolling stone” represents a simile open for interpretation to the listener, but directly connects to the theme of representing the youth generation. Music critic, Herb Bowie, connotes the phrase to symbolize “liberation for the rock generation” tying into the Beatniks, but the phrase conveys a larger sense of humanism to it  (Bowie). The phrase alludes to society as a monogamous whole, in which everyone floats on the same boat in going through the motions of life whether realizing it or not. 

The second verse begins with a frustrated “Aw” continues the narrative of the woman’s entitlement getting stripped away from her self absorbed bubble, best expressed in the lyrics, “You’ve gone to the finest school all right, Mrs. Lonely/ But ya know ya only used to get juiced to it” and “Nobody’s ever taught ya how to live out on the street/ And now you’re gonna have to get used to it.” These lyrics directly align with Dylan’s criticism on the woman’s late self-awareness on hardship also seen in the third verse where Dylan makes a tongue in cheek reference to the metaphoric phrase of riding on a high horse in: 

“You use to ride on a chrome horse with your diplomat/ Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat/Ain’t it hard when you discover that/ He really wasn’t where it’s at/ After he took from you everything he could steal.” 

Following each transition into the chorus, Dylan’s voice seems to become progressively more aggressive and pleading in a call to action manner as he stresses out “How does it feel?” to the listener. The final fourth verse brings the narrative of the woman to a full circle in which Dylan describes how not even marriage can detract from the protagonist’s loneliness, “But you’d better take your diamond ring, ya better pawn it, babe.” This verse also subtly references the demographic of the Bohemian and Beatnik youth in the lyric, “Aw, princess on the steeple and all the pretty people/ They’re all drinkin; thinkin they got it made” a direct homage to how partying culture can not serve as an escape from reality. While the final lyric “You’re invisible now, ya got no secrets to conceal” circles back to the main idea of how the protagonist represents every other person and her past life of privilege represents a sugar-coated facade of reality. 

The final fourth chorus hits the song home at the 5 minutes and 19 seconds mark and leaves room for a harmonica solo in comparison to its brief appearances in between each verse. The harmonica solo gives the song a jangly down to earth ring to it, similar to the style of The Byrds or The Doors. The harmonica seamlessly meshes with the last verses within the chorus. The 6-minute duration of the song in the ’60s represented a sense of unconventionality towards the label of becoming a smash hit single, but Dylan proved otherwise with “Like A Rolling Stone” earning millions of plays from every forthcoming generation. The skillful use of combining poetic stanzas within his verses, alongside the unique assemblage of instrumentation would pave the way for inspiring iconic artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and more. 

Overall, “Like A Rolling Stone” represents an accidental masterpiece, with the crux instrumentation in the song found within the organ. Played by Al Kooper, Kooper entered the studio as a guitarist and ended up playing a random organ melody that caused Dylan to instruct Wilson to increase the organ notes seen in the boisterous chorus. Kooper describes the recording process as “general chaos” in which no leadership took place during the session and everything that came about in the song happened through trial and error (Marcus, 2006). Lyrically, the song holds potency in correlating Dylan’s personal life experience, with the life narrative of many listeners in the present day. This coming of age mantra Dylan employs in this song can resonate with any person that goes from their small hometown into the big city, in which the shift from family to independence takes place. 

The self-journey of independence diminishes all sense of fantasy and teaches one to open their eyes to the dark underbelly of society characterized by greed, poverty, and corruption. Dylan does not use any sense of escapism in the lyrical connotations of the song and keeps it authentic to the underlying irony of the woman. The song serves as a relevant memento that at the end of the day we are all complete unknowns that make up the planet and Dylan stresses to acknowledge the bigger picture in what matters in life. In conclusion, Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” will not age like a human and instead continue to roll through the lives of many generations to come.

MLA Citations 

Bowie, H. (n.d.). Reason to Rock. Retrieved from https://www.reasontorock.com/tracks/like_a_rolling_stone.html

Greene, A. (2019, June 18). Bob Dylan Recorded ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ 50 Years Ago Today. Retrieved from https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/bob-dylan-recorded-like-a-rolling-stone-50-years-ago-today-65422/ 

Kerouac, J. (1957). On The Road . New York City, NY: Viking Press.

 Magic In Rolling Stones Session . (2011). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOAowiF3y_8&feature=emb_title

Marcus, G. (2006). Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the crossroads. London: Faber and Faber.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2020, January 6). Beat movement. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/art/Beat-movement 

The New Yorker. (2010, August 13). Bob Dylan, the Beat Generation, and Allen Ginsberg’s America. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/bob-dylan-the-beat-generation-and-allen-ginsbergs-america

Thomas, I. (2005, January 31). The Arrival of a Bohemian. Retrieved from https://slate.com/human-interest/2005/01/the-arrival-of-a-bohemian.html