Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited
Album #47 - August 1965
Episode date - April 20, 2016
If you play this album along with other albums that were released at approximately the same time, you might better understand the full genius of Bob Dylan.
Nobody anywhere was doing anything even remotely as progressive as “Highway 61 Revisited,” even though everybody was listening to each other and ideas were flowing back and for the between the major artists. The Beatles released “Help!” at this time, which sounds like a simple pop confection in comparison. The Rolling Stones had barely learned how to write songs at this point, and Dylan was reinventing the very notion of what it actually meant to ‘write a song’ in the first place. The Beach Boys “Summer Days and Summer Nights” had glorious moments, but sounds downright immature next to this album, and the Byrds were mere interpreters who relied on Dylan as a virtual guru for their material.
In 1965, Dylan had a mainline that tapped into some exclusive vein of expression that would eventually change the world, because as his influence set in, every single songwriter who followed would find some sort of inspiration in the ideas presented on this record. “Highway 61 Revisited” is a masterpiece that will never age, because too much of our present day music relies on it.
Featured tracks include;
1) Like a Rolling Stone
2) Tombstone Blues
3) It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry
4) From a Buick 6
5) Ballad of a Thin Man
6) Queen Jane Approximately
7) Highway 61 Revisited
8) Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
9) Desolation Row
August 1965 - Billboard Charted #3