Harvey Brooks: bass (?)
Russ Savakus: bass (?)
Bobby Gregg: drums, tambourine (?)
Bruce Langhorne: tambourine (?)
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios / Studio A, New York: July 30, 1965
Technical Team
Producer: Bob Johnston
Sound Engineers: Roy Halee, Pete Dauria, and Ted Brosnan
Genesis and Lyrics
Bob Dylan tells us that a Buick Master 6 from the 1920s, the product of the largest automobile manufacturer in America, is the perfect car to cruise Highway 61—the interstate of blues along which he wants to lead his listener throughout this album. With the lines “Well, she don’t make me nervous, she don’t talk too much” Bob is obviously referring to Sara Lownds, whom he had met a few months earlier. Sara is a woman of Zen, secretive and detached from the material world. This text is an opportunity for Dylan to indulge his surrealism, because only the woman he is talking to can bring him serenity: “I got this graveyard woman”—an angel—“She’s a junkyard angel,” who “walks like Bo Diddley and she don’t need no crutch.” And Dylan concluded, “Well, you know I need a steam shovel mama to keep away the dead / I need a dump truck mama to unload my head.”
Production
Four takes of “From a Buick 6” were recorded on July 30 under the title of “Lunatic Princess No. 3.” The fourth was selected for the album. “From a Buick 6” is the shortest song on Highway 61 Revisited. Bob Dylan once again shares his love for blues-rock and plays his Stratocaster. He delivers a soaring harmonica part in F, prevailing over Mike Bloomfield, who this time does not get a chance to express himself as a soloist, although he provides an excellent rhythm part.
Bobby Gregg played drums and a tambourine, probably attached to his hi-hat (unless, perhaps, Bruce Langhorne played tambourine), and the bass line in the boogie-woogie tradition. Al Kooper’s organ is perfectly clear. His playing from his first session on has been totally confident. Inevitably, the song brings to mind the best British rhythm ’n’ blues formations from the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and also Chuck Berry. “From a Buick 6” is a Delta blues song loaded with electricity…
COVERS
“From a Buick 6” was covered by many artists, including Johnny Winter (Still Alive and Well, 1973), Gary “U.S.” Bonds (Dedication, 1981), Mitch Ryder (At Rockpalast, 2004), and Wilko Johnson (Red Hot Rocking Blues, 2005).
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
This is an alternate take of “From a Buick 6” on the first US pressing of the album (now a delight for collectors) and on the album for the Japanese market.
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Bob Dylan / 5:59
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, piano
Mike Bloomfield: guitar
Al Kooper: organ
Paul Griffin (or Frank Owens?): electric piano
Harvey Brooks: bass
Bobby Gregg (or Sam Lay?): drums
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios / Studio A, New York: August 2, 1965
Technical Team
Producer: Bob Johnston
Sound Engineers: Roy Halee and Larry Keyes
Genesis and Lyrics
The Thin Man (1934) is a comedy-mystery film starring William Powell and Myrna Loy and directed by W. S. Van Dyke. It is based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett. Thirty years later, the Thin Man movies inspired one of Bob Dylan’s most enigmatic songs. The story concerns a Mr. Jones, apparently very respectable, who is locked in a room where a Dantesque spectacle take place: “You hand in your ticket / And you go watch the geek / Who immediately walks up to you / When he hears you speak / And says, “How does it feel / To be such a freak? / Because something is happening here / But you don’t know what it is / Do you, Mister Jones?”
It is difficult to know to whom or what Bob Dylan is referring. In August 1965, when interviewed by Nora Ephron and Susan Edmiston about the identity of Mr. Jones, he gave an explanation as strange as the song itself: “He’s a real person. You know him, but not by that name… I saw him come into the room one night and he looked like a camel. He proceeded to put his eyes in his pocket. I asked this guy who he was and he said, ‘That’s Mr. Jones.’ Then I asked this cat, ‘Doesn’t he do anything but put his eyes in his pocket?’ And he told me, ‘He puts his nose on the ground.’ It’s all there; it’s a true story.”20
All the explanations giving by Dylan are plausible. “Ballad of a Thin Man” may be an allegory about the awakening consciousness of the baby boomers; that is, the shock of a conformist (“Jones” being the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of “Mr. Everyone”) discovering the burgeoning counterculture. It may also be an implicit reference to homosexuality and oral sex: “Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you / And then he kneels / He crosses himself / And then he clicks his high heels.” In March 1986, Dylan told his audience in Japan, “This is a song I wrote a while back in response to people who ask me questions all the time.” Consequently, it is more likely that it is just an attack on journalists and critics, always ready with a pen in hand, who ask questions all the time: “You walk into the room / With your pencil in your hand / You see somebody naked / And you say, ‘Who is that man?’ / You try so hard / But you don’t understand.” There is been some speculation that Max Jones, a writer at the New Yorker, is targeted. In 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, Jones clumsily interviewed Bob Dylan about the role of the harmonica in modern folk music. This made Dylan angry because he had just converted to electric rock.
Other “Joneses” are also possible, starting with Brian Jones, founder of the Rolling Stones and a friend of Dylan who had begun to decline in 1965, and LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), a noted writer of the African-American revolt and close to members of the Beat generation in Greenwich Village. Perhaps even Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, or the folk scene, which did not understand Dylan’s artistic development, is hiding behind the name. Also note that the word Jones is a word used to describe a fixation, typically for a drug such as heroin.
Production
Four takes of “Ballad of a Thin Man” were made on August 2, 1965. The third was selected for the album. Musically, “Ballad of a Thin Man” is the most ambitious song on the album, and also the strangest. Al Kooper describes the track as “musically more sophisticated than anything else on the [Highway 61 Revisited] album.” The harmonic descent would certainly not have displeased John Lennon. Lennon claimed he felt as suicidal as Mr. Jones in his 1968 song “Yer Blues,” which the Beatles recorded for the White Album. For the first time since “Black Crow Blues” on Another Side of Bob Dylan, the songwriter played piano. The backing musicians included Al Kooper on organ, playing in a style recalling intonations so essential to Alan Price or Booker T. Jones (Jones!). A third keyboard part played by Paul Griffin appeared for the second time on one of Dylan’s records (the first was on “If You Gotta Go, Go Now” recorded January 15, 1965, and released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3). It is probably an electric piano, a Wurlitzer or a Hohner Pianet with its characteristic vibrato. Mike Bloomfield provided an accompaniment with finesse and restraint (despite an average guitar tuning). The rhythm part is most likely by Bobby Gregg. He described “Ballad of a Thin Man” as a “nasty song.” The talented bassist was Harvey Brooks, performing thanks to his friend Al Kooper. In 2011 Brooks gave us some insight into how Dylan worked: “Bob would play the tune a couple of times, and as he played we would sketch out the tune for the chord progression, the form and any special parts that related to our instruments. As soon as Bob was ready we had to be ready!”53 Finally, it appears that the fourth take was recorded to be inserted, in part, into the third take. If this is the case, the insert is completely undetectable. Since the concert at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in New York, on August 28, 1965, Bob Dylan has performed this song onstage more than a thousand times. There are several live versions: Before the Flood (1974), At Budokan (1979), Real Live (1984), The Bootleg Series Volume 4 (1998), and The Bootleg
Series Volume 7 (2005).
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
For some scholars, journalists are without a doubt the songwriter’s target in “Ballad of a Thin Man.” The biographical musical film I’m Not There (2007), directed by Todd Haynes and based on the life and music of Bob Dylan, tends to confirm this. Thus, the journalist (played by Bruce Greenwood) struggling to understand the work of Jude Quinn (Cate Blanchett) bears the name Keenan Jones!
Queen Jane Approximately
Bob Dylan / 5:31
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Mike Bloomfield: guitar
Al Kooper: organ
Paul Griffin (or Frank Owens?): piano
Harvey Brooks: bass
Bobby Gregg: drums, tambourine (?)
Bruce Langhorne: tambourine (?)
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios / Studio A, New York: August 2, 1965
Technical Team
Producer: Bob Johnston
Sound Engineers: Roy Halee and Larry Keyes
Genesis and Lyrics
“Queen Jane Approximately” is musically very similar to “Like a Rolling Stone,” with an omnipresent Al Kooper playing the organ. Both songs cover the same ground, a fall from grace. However, the narrator shows more compassion for “Queen Jane” than for “Miss Lonely.”
Once again, there is some speculation as to the identity of the queen. It seems obvious to look for Queen Jane somewhere in British history. Possibilities include the third wife of Henry VIII, Jane Seymour, or his great-niece, Lady Jane Grey, who reigned over England for just a few days before being beheaded. Others think that the queen is none other than Joan Baez, who continued her battle alone without her ex-boyfriend Bob Dylan, hinted at in the lines “Now when all the clowns that you have commissioned / Have died in battle or in vain.” Perhaps even Dylan is just making a nod at clouds of marijuana. Dylan told Nora Ephron and Susan Edmiston in late summer 1965, “Queen Jane is a man.”20
The song is structured in five stanzas. The first two deal with Queen Jane’s relationships with her family, and the following two deal with her relationship with her former “courtiers.” The last stanza concerns her relationship with bandits—“Now when all the bandits that you turned your other cheek to.” The structure flows from those who are the closest to her to her current situation. Dylan ends each verse enigmatically by offering Queen Jane reassurance: “Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?”
Production
Despite seven takes, “Queen Jane Approximately” seems relatively “unfinished.” The two electric guitars played by Bob Dylan and Mike Bloomfield are out of tune or out of phase. The fault lies with Bloomfield. It is quite surprising that neither Johnston, the sound engineers, nor any of the musicians present during the session reported it. Harvey Brooks, who plays the bass, explained the recording process: “When I recorded with Dylan on Highway 61 and New Morning there were the minimal amount of takes. His performance and the overall feel were the determining factors of the master take. Tuning or mistakes were not as important.”53 A focus on general feeling was actually crucial to the final result, although there is a regrettable lack of accuracy in the guitar parts. Al Kooper delivers an excellent organ part, the bass and drums are in harmony, the piano leads the song from one end to the other, and Bob himself provides an excellent vocal and a harmonica part in C. The covers by the Grateful Dead and the Four Seasons demonstrate that “Queen Jane Approximately” is a very good song.
Seven takes were recorded, and the last was used for the master. Bob Dylan rarely played the song live. The first time was with the Grateful Dead on July 4, 1987. The live version appears on Dylan & the Dead (1989).
COVERS
“Queen Jane Approximately” has been covered by many artists, including the Four Seasons (The 4 Seasons Sing Big Hits by Burt Bacharach… Hal David… Bob Dylan, 1965), Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead (Dylan & the Dead, 1989), and Jack Downing (A Force That Cannot Be Named: The Jack Downing Anthology, 2012).
Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan / 3:30
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, police car siren
Mike Bloomfield: guitar
Al Kooper: electric piano
Frank Owens: piano
Harvey Brooks: bass
Sam Lay: drums
Bruce Langhorne: tambourine
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios / Studio A, New York: August 2, 1965
Technical Team
Producer: Bob Johnston
Sound Engineers: Roy Halee and Larry Keyes
Genesis and Lyrics
Highway 61 goes about 1,430 miles across the United States from north to south, from the cities of Saint Paul and Wyoming, Minnesota, down to New Orleans. On the south side, it travels through the states of Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana, which is blues country, as well as cities like Vicksburg and Memphis. It is nicknamed the “Blues Highway” for good reason: legend has it that in Clarksdale, Mississippi, at the crossing of Highway 61 and Route 49, the great blues musician Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his talent. This road played a major role in the life of Dylan. So he paid tribute to it by naming the album after it and dedicating a song to it. Highway 61 was for Dylan the road to freedom, making it possible for him to leave his hometown of Duluth to dig the source of the blues. Along with the Mississippi, another crucial mineload in his artistic career, it became a reference point for Dylan that he called his “place in the universe.”1
The song “Highway 61 Revisited” included five verses. The first one was the most interesting, not because it referred to the book of Genesis (the binding of Isaac, the son of Abraham), but mainly because it implicitly referred to the very life of the songwriter. Dylan’s father’s first name was Abraham. This man from the Midwest mainstream believed in traditional American values and did not approve of his son’s decision to become a musician, much less his image as a rebel. This created distance between him and Bob, at least up to the Carnegie Hall concert in October 1963, which he attended with his wife. Others thought this verse reflected the relationship between Bob Dylan and his manager Albert Grossman, who was both a real mentor and a castrating figure. This was why Dylan wanted to symbolically “kill his father.”
Dylan’s surrealism took off in the first few lines with this biblical sacrifice that was supposed to take place along Highway 61, and became more intense in the next verses. The second verse told of the misfortunes of Georgia Sam, who could not collect welfare and turned to poor Howard, who showed the road to take—Highway 61. In the third verse, Mack the Finger wanted to get rid of “forty red, white and blue shoestrings / And a thousand telephones that don’t ring” on the same highway. In the fourth, Shakespeare was mentioned as Dylan sang, “Now the fifth daughter on the twelfth night / Told the first father that things weren’t right / My complexion she said is much too white.” This was an extravagant allusion to Twelfth Night. Finally, in the fifth verse, “Now the rovin’ gambler he was very bored / He was tryin’ to create a next world war / He found a promoter who nearly fell on the floor,” along Highway 61.
Production
After recording Curtis Jones’s “Highway 51” on November 22, 1961, for his first album (Bob Dylan), Dylan tackled “Highway 61 Revisited” on August 2, 1965, which took ten takes, the last one being kept for the album. It was a blues song in B flat, giving tribute to the founding fathers of blues, Robert Johnson and Blind Willie McTell (Dylan named a great song after McTell in 1983, which appears on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3), as well as Leadbelly. In the song, McTell and Leadbelly were referred to under the respective pseudonyms of Georgia Sam and poor Howard (an allusion to Lead-belly’s 1940 song “Po’ Howard”).
“Highway 61 Revisited” is an energetic blues-rock song carried by the electric guitar of Mike Bloomfield, who com-firmed his virtuosity on the bottleneck. In 1971, Bloomfield explained his o
wn way of creating this accessory that is indispensable for any good blues musician: “By then I had a Fender Telecaster, and for the slide I used a bicycle handle-bar, cut off about an inch.”54 The result was a killer sound that made possible hot playing and propelled the group, his Telecaster electrifying the whole song. Dylan made no mistake in recruiting him. “When it was time to bring a guitar player onto my record, I couldn’t think of anybody but him. I mean, he just was the best guitar player I’d ever heard.”6
Al Kooper apparently played the electric piano in the old Louisiana rhythm ’n’ blues traditional style. He was supported on piano by Frank Owens, who provided efficient rhythmic backup. Drums were played by Sam Lay, who performed only this one time on the album; he was, among other things, the sideman of Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, and Howlin’ Wolf (in the best of his recordings with Chess Records) before joining the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. According to Kooper, there is also tambourine played mainly by Bruce Langhorne.
As for the police car siren that opened the song and punctuated each verse, it was Bob Dylan’s work—based on an idea from Al Kooper (who wore this type of whistle around his neck whenever he went to a pot party to play a joke on his buddies). “After a few run-throughs, Kooper recalls, he walked over to Dylan, ‘and suggested he forgo the harmonica and put the police siren in his harp holder.’”45 Another story attributed the origin of this sound to Sam Lay, who carried this type of toy whistle on his keychain and caught the attention of Dylan. In the album’s credits, Bob attributed to himself the role of the “police car.” But you can rest assured that he also sang and played the Stratocaster. Note that the idea for this siren was not planned originally, since on the sixth take, it was not present (see The Bootleg Series Volume 7).
Bob Dylan All the Songs Page 26