Music 262: Rock Music, History and Social Analysis, Electric Dylan

[Music Playing on Piano]

[Brian Ward]: Bob Dylan enters this period where he starts experimenting with a full rock band. This is called Bob Dylan’s electric period. He has a full band backing him up and his music changes a little bit. His music really develops in a naturally way. He starts to really illustrate the wit that he has. He has a really dry sense of humor. That starts to come out during this period.

Also this electric period of folk rock from Bob Dylan really was a catalyst for the drug culture and also became popular with those who were both fighting in the Vietnam War and those who were opposed to the Vietnam War at home. These lyrics from the later period were never intended to be pure poetry anymore. These are actually song lyrics and there’s a difference.

He went on a world tour in 1965 and he was both hated and booed and also worshipped and adored. Also, he was debated a lot in the press. This created a huge publicity for Bob Dylan and really ensconced [entrenched] him as an icon in rock n’ roll.

Bob Dylan’s electric band went on to form a band called The Band with Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm. This really set the scene for the folk rock that was to follow. Bob Dylan with his ideas, his wit, and his lyrics, plus the sound that this band created to back him up really created this whole folk rock revolution that happened in the 1960s. Influencing bands like The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield. With this electric band, Bob Dylan actually scored his first top 40 hit. This was a song called Subterranean Homesick Blues. Now Subterranean Homesick Blues is this frank that’s fast paced. It has all these references and is just rapid fire, rapid fire. It almost could be compared to rapping of the modern times. He used all of these up-to-the minute allusions to what was happening in the 60s, both political and socially in the United States.

Another song from this period is the song Like a Rolling Stone. This is a song that the lyrics are based on a short story that Bob Dylan wrote. It’s about a debutante that becomes a loner when she falls out of high society. Bob Dylan is sort of telling her to get it together and start living life like a real person. The critics always considered this song to be Bob Dylan’s magnum opus, his best work that he ever produced. Dylan said that he just sort of wrote it as a rhythm thing on paper and it was about some of the feelings I was having at the time, the steady hatred. It was real honest, but that was it. It wasn’t a big deal to him. Rolling Stone magazine named this the number one song on their list of the greatest songs of all time.

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