Bob Dylan: Like A Rolling Stone

One of the best Bob Dylan songs up to this day, “Like a Rolling Stone” was born in June 1965, written right after Dylan returned home from an exhausting tour throughout England. At that time Dylan was quite unhappy with the direction his career was going into and to express his dissatisfaction, he filled up his time with writing prose, poems and song lyrics. “Like a Rolling Stone” started as a piece of prose with a length of between 10 and 20 handwritten pages, inspired by Dylan’s anger caused by the situation he was in.

The situation itself was that Dylan had a countless number of fans and admirers at that time, yet he himself didn’t admire his work and didn’t respect what he was doing. One day Dylan was jamming on his piano, using that long piece of prose that he had written earlier and suddenly he realized it could become a song. He took the piece as a base and, reworking it heavily, wrote the lyrics for “Like a Rolling Stone”, which consisted of 4 verses and a chorus.

The lyrics have a very strong emotional charge. They tell the story of the fictional Miss Lonely – a spoiled girl, who had everything in life that she wanted – all the finest clothes and high-placed friends. She got used to always take the easy way out, but one day her life changed and became difficult for her. In “Like a Rolling Stone”, Bob Dylan showcases how it feels like to be a dropout, but also how in such moments, when you own nothing material anymore, you realize that you also have nothing to loose.

The recording sessions for “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan took place in Studio A of Columbia Records. For the recordings, producer Tom Wilson booked several musicians to play on the piano, bass, drums and tambourine. The first recording day was very chaotic. Five takes were made in an attempt for “Like a Rolling Stone” to be recorded in a ¾ waltz time, but with no success.

On the next day, 21-year-old guitarist Al Kooper joined the session musicians, although he wasn’t originally booked by Wilson, but was incidentally his guest at the same time. After a couple of rehearsal takes, Kooper told Wilson that he had a great idea of what the organ should play. Dylan liked the idea and step by step “Like a Rolling Stone” evolved into the great guitar song in 4/4 time that we all know today.

Bob Dylan says that “Like a Rolling Stone” was a breakthrough in his career – a song that changed his whole musical direction and that gave him a reason to continue singing and writing music. “Like a Rolling Stone” also had a huge commercial success peaking at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #4 on the UK Singles Chart. It was acknowledged as one of the most remarkable songs of the 60s and as such has been covered by artists like Michael Bolton, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones and Green Day. That’s why you should seriously consider to learn how to play “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan on your own guitar, especially if you admire his work.