“Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” was also released as a single with “Rita May” on the B-side and was available in stores on November 30, 1976. This single did poorly on the charts. Bob Dylan performed it live for the first time on April 28, 1976, at the University of West Florida in Pensacola.
COVERS
“Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” was recorded by Moon Martin (Cement Monkey, 1995), the Grateful Dead (Southern Comfort, 1996), Joe Louis Walker (Blues on Blonde on Blonde, 2003), and Cat Power (I’m Not There [Original Soundtrack], 2007).
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
The line “She said that all the railroad men / Just drink up your blood like wine” is inspired by a folk song, “I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground,” recorded in the 1920s by Bascom Lamar Lunsford. He is often known by his nickname “minstrel of the Appalachians.”
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
Bob Dylan / 3:58
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar
Robbie Robertson: guitar
Joe South: guitar
Charlie McCoy: guitar (?)
Wayne Moss: guitar (?)
Al Kooper: organ
Hargus Robbins: piano
Henry Strzelecki: bass
Kenneth Buttrey: drums
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios, Nashville: March 10, 1966
Technical Team
Producer: Bob Johnston
Genesis and Lyrics
During his spring 1965 UK tour, Bob Dylan was invited to visit John and Cynthia Lennon in their twenty-two-room mansion in Weybridge, Surrey. After returning to the United States, Dylan bought a more modest house, only eleven rooms, in the heart of the Byrdcliffe art colony outside of Woodstock, New York, and very near Albert Grossman’s house.
Bob’s UK experience is largely the source of inspiration for “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat.” But, as always, Dylan reaches a new level and another dimension in the writing. His song is a sarcastic satire on mass-consumption society, the false symbol of freedom. He ridicules the first “fashion victims” of the pop years. He uses the leopard-skin pill-box hat—famously worn by Jackie Kennedy Onassis—as the quintessence of vulgarity. The pill-box hat is a satire on materialism and the cult of appearance. In the last verse, “You might think he loves you for your money / But I know what he really loves you for / It’s your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat.” Maybe this is his way of refusing to submit to conventions and, consequently, to his rock-star status. But Dylan would not be Dylan if he did not contradict all speculation. To the question “What is ‘Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat’ about?” he answered, “It’s just about that. I think that’s something I mighta taken out of the newspaper. Mighta seen a picture of one in a department-store window. There’s really no more to it than that. I know it can get blown up into some kind of illusion. But in reality, it’s no more than that. Just a leopard-skin pill-box. That’s all.”20
Production
“Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” is a return to the electric blues. Dylan had already performed the song in a live concert with the Hawks in late 1965 before recording it in multiple takes at Columbia’s Studio A in New York City. The first sessions were two takes on January 25, and then four more and an insert in January 27, 1966. On February 14, Dylan arrived in Nashville. On his first day there, fourteen additional takes were made and then another one during the night of March 9–10. The last attempt was selected for the album. One take from January 25 was released in 2005 on The Bootleg Series Volume 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack. That version is quite different from the one on the album. With a different tempo, the atmosphere is similar to a very successful slow electric blues song. The lyrics are also different, including an additional verse, which is a nod to the 1941 Memphis Minnie song “Me and My Chauffeur Blues”—or even to “Drive My Car” by the Beatles, released one month earlier in England.
Dylan played solo lead guitar, apparently a Fender Telecaster, in the song’s opening. Although moderately tired by this exercise, he played reasonably well before handing the guitar over to Robbie Robertson (on the left stereo channel, Dylan on the center-right channel). Robertson, being in his element with the Chicago electric-blues style, handled the solo. “Bob liked blues singers, but it was different blues background to mine… He was more folk-blues, like the reverend Gary Davis and Blind Lemon Jefferson, and I was listening to more Chicago blues, via the Mississippi Delta—[Howlin’] Wolf and Muddy [Waters] and [Little] Walter, those people. I wasn’t as drawn [to] acoustic music as he was—I’d been playing electric guitar since I was quite young, so it was more attractive to me. But when Bob and I were spending so much time together on tour, a lot of the time we would get a couple of guitars and just play music together, and in the course of that, we were trading a lot of our musical backgrounds: he was turning me on to things, and I was turning him on to things, and this trading of ideas helped us a bit in the way we approached music, both live and on record.”24
Besides Dylan and Robertson on the lead guitars, Joe South certainly played rhythm. His guitar playing and technique are very recognizable and effective. A fourth guitar handles the solo at the beginning of the song, something quite unusual in this style of music (McCoy, Moss?). Al Kooper played a muted organ part and Robbins piano, which is, however, lost in the stereo mix. The bass and drums provide the groove. In March 1967, “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” was released as a single with “Most Likely You’ll Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)” on the B-side. It was the fifth single released from Blonde on Blonde.
Just Like A Woman
Bob Dylan / 4:53
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Charlie McCoy: guitar
Joe South: guitar
Wayne Moss: guitar
Al Kooper: organ
Hargus Robbins: piano
Henry Strzelecki: bass
Kenneth Buttrey: drums
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios, Nashville: March 8, 1966
Technical Team
Producer: Bob Johnston
Genesis and Lyrics
According to the album notes for Dylan’s compilation Biograph, he claimed that he wrote the lyrics for “Just Like a Woman” in Kansas City on Thanksgiving night, November 25, 1965, while on tour with the Hawks.12 They performed in Chicago on November 26. This suggests that the song was written or at least completed in Nashville a few months later, just before or during the recording session on March 8, 1966. Other than the first verse, the lyric sheet does not have the entire text. Historian Sean Wilentz said that in listening to the original Nashville tapes “[t]he lyrics, once again, needed work; on several early takes, Dylan sang disconnected lines and semi-gibberish.”68 In all likelihood, Dylan completed the song in his Nashville hotel room, as he often did during the sessions for Blonde on Blonde, while Al Kooper played the melody at the piano. If he did not finish “Just Like a Woman” in Nashville, the chorus and the bridge were added at the last minute in the studio, which would confirm Wilentz’s statement.
“She makes love just like a woman, yes, she does / And she aches just like a woman / But she breaks just like a little girl.” Who was Bob Dylan thinking about when he wrote and sang these words? Rumors are that “Just Like a Woman” is about Dylan’s relationship with Joan Baez, but their breakup took place during the UK tour in spring 1965. Edie Sedgwick, Dylan’s muse before she moved on to Andy Warhol, is a more likely candidate. Connected to Warhol’s Factory since 1965, Edie met Bob at the Chelsea Hotel, where she lived at the time, and soon fell under the charms of the songwriter. Their alleged relationship ended after a few months, when Warhol told Edie that Dylan had married Sara.
Whether or not addressed to Edie Sedgwick, the lyrics of “Just Like a Woman” resulted in an outcry among feminists. In the New York Times on March 14, 1971, Marion Meade, a novelist and an influential figure in the women’s liberatio
n movement, wrote, “There’s no more complete catalogue of sexist slurs,” and stated that Dylan “defines women’s natural traits as greed, hypocrisy, whining and hysteria.”4 This is obviously something quite different. Feminists did not understand Dylan’s true message. Phrases such as “But lately I see her ribbons and her bows / Have fallen from her curls” and “Till she sees finally that she’s like all the rest / With her fog, her amphetamine and her pearls” are two metaphors on the transition from adolescence to adulthood, on innocence lost forever. There is no misogyny, only a beautiful poem about the failure of a relationship.
Production
From a musical standpoint, “Just Like a Woman” is probably the most commercial track on Blonde on Blonde. At a conference on March 2012 at Belmont University in Nashville, Al Kooper said you had to listen to it at 4 a.m., probably the time when it was recorded. The harmonic grid is both simple and sophisticated, as are the lyrics. Dylan has that gift of making his words and his music immediately identifiable by strong and indelible images. To underscore the force of the song, he obtained subtle arrangements from his band, making “Just Like a Woman” a classic in his repertoire. His two harmonica parts in E in the introduction and the conclusion are excellent, stretching out almost until after the last chorus. Two classical guitars back Dylan: one is probably McCoy on guitar solo throughout the song, distinguishing himself at each break in a phrase to the delight of his fans. The second is played in arpeggio (by South or Moss?), doubled by Robbins on piano. Kooper delivers a superb organ part as required by the solo guitar, adding some color to the piece. Dylan’s accompaniment includes two other acoustic guitars, one played by Dylan himself.
“Just Like a Woman” also owes its success to the excellent rhythm section, with Strzelecki on bass and Buttrey on drums. Dylan provides a superb vocal, giving the song its full breadth, maturity, and emotional expression, showing his immense talent as a performer at the age of twenty-four. One of two takes from March 8, 1966, was chosen for the album and the single, released in August 1966. The single features “Obviously Five Believers” as a B-side, and reached number 33 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Bob Dylan performed “Just Like a Woman” live onstage for the first time on April 13, 1966, in Sydney, Australia. Since then, he has performed it nearly nine hundred times. There are several live versions, The Bootleg Series Volume 4: Live 1966: The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert (1966), The Concert for Bangladesh (1971), Before the Flood (1974), At Budokan (1979), and The Bootleg Series Volume 5: Live 1975: The Rolling Thunder Revue (2002).
COVERS
Many artists and bands have covered “Just Like a Woman.” The British group Manfred Mann released a cover of the song in 1966. The single reached number 10 on the UK singles chart, which explains why Dylan’s single was not released in the UK. Other covers include Joe Cocker (With a Little Help from My Friends, 1969), Roberta Flack (Chapter Two, 1970), Nina Simone (Here Comes the Sun, 1971), the Byrds (bonus track of Byrdmaniax, 2000 CD reissue), Rod Stewart (Tonight I’m Yours, 1981), Richie Havens (Bob Dylan: The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration, 1993), Stevie Nicks (Street Angel, 1994), Charlotte Gainsbourg and Calexico (I’m Not There [Original Soundtrack], 2007).
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
The soundtrack for Ciao! Manhattan, a 1972 film about the chaotic life of Edie Sedgwick, includes “Just Like a Woman,” which is not a coincidence.
Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)
Bob Dylan / 3:30
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Charlie McCoy: bass, trumpet
Robbie Robertson: guitar
Joe South: guitar (?)
Wayne Moss: guitar (?)
Al Kooper: organ
Kenneth Buttrey: drums
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios, Nashville: March 9, 1966
Technical Team
Producer: Bob Johnston
Genesis and Lyrics
In the Biograph liner notes, Bob Dylan said that this song was “[p]robably written after some disappointing relationship where, you know, I was lucky to have escaped without a broken nose.”12 The text of “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)” is certainly one of the most accessible of all his songs from this period. The song has three verses and one bridge between the second and third verses. In the first verse, the narrator makes some accusations. He reveals the reasons for the failure of the relationship. There is a woman who sometimes lies (“But you know you’re not that strong”). In the second verse he makes an observation: “Sometimes it gets so hard to care.” Finally, in the third verse, the narrator himself acknowledges that divorce is inevitable and that he also bears some of the responsibility: “You say my kisses are not like his / But this time I’m not gonna tell you why that is.” Still, the divorce seems strange, especially in the bridge—“The judge, he holds a grudge / He’s gonna call on you”—and the narrator warns the woman of the evil intentions of the judge. Fantasy, fiction, encrypted message?
Production
The most significant part of the story of this piece is the incredible Charlie McCoy. He wanted to play trumpet after each chorus, while also holding the bass. Neither Dylan nor Bob Johnston was very interested in overdubs, so they let him try. Al Kooper: “So we started recording and when that section came up, he picked up a trumpet in his right hand and played the part while he kept the bass going with his left hand without missing a lick in either hand. Dylan stopped in the middle of the take and just stared at him in awe.”42 However, McCoy simplified his bass line and was content to just “pump.” Three guitars are distinct in the mix, probably the least successful song of the album. The organ is not easily discernible, unlike the martial sound of Kenneth Buttrey’s drums.
This song was released in 1967 as the B-side on the single “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat.” “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)” was performed for the first time on the Bob Dylan and the Band Tour on January 3, 1974, at Chicago Stadium. The song served as the first and last song on most nights on the 1974 tour.45 Later during the tour, a live performance was recorded and used as the first track on the album Before the Flood. This rock ’n’ roll version is very different from the one recorded in the Columbia Recording Studios. Bob Dylan emphasizes the last word of each verse. This version was released as a single in July 1974 with “Stage Fright” as the B-side. “Stage Fright” is a composition by Robbie Robertson sung by Rick Danko, the bassist of the Band. The single peaked at number 66 on the Billboard chart. Thus Dylan released “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)” twice.
IN YOUR HEADPHONES
At 1:43 there is an unidentified noise that might be a “yeah” from a musician, the sound of a strange gadget, a recording problem, or just a joke.
Temporary Like Achilles
Bob Dylan / 5:03
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Robbie Robertson: guitar
Wayne Moss: guitar (?)
Charlie McCoy: guitar (?)
Joe South: guitar (?)
Al Kooper: electric piano (?)
Hargus Robbins: piano
Henry Strzelecki: bass
Kenneth Buttrey: drums
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios, Nashville: March 9, 1966
Technical Team
Producer: Bob Johnston
Genesis and Lyrics
In this song the narrator has been rejected by a girlfriend who has taken up with another man, a man with a thousand virtues. Bob Dylan turns it into an account of inner turmoil, which is the theme of the entire album Blonde on Blonde. “Well, I rush into your hallway / Lean against your velvet door / I watch upon your scorpion / Who crawls across your circus floor.” The image of “your hallway,” noted Dylan scholar Michael Gray explains, “suggests a place of potential refuge, and so raises again the fact of there being a gulf between narrator and outside world.”30
In the second verse of the song, Dylan introduces Achilles as the protector of the narrator’s unfaithful mistress: “How come you send someone out to have me barred?” Dylan may be referring to Homer’s Iliad, an ancient Greek epic poem. Achilles, according to the legend, was dipped into the River Styx as a baby and was made invulnerable everywhere except on his heel. An “Achilles heel” has, therefore, become a metaphor for vulnerability.
Production
“Temporary Like Achilles” was born from the ashes of “Medicine Sunday,” an outtake recorded in New York with the Band on October 5, 1965. The refrain “You know I want your lovin’ / Honey, but you’re so hard” was taken from “Medicine Sunday,” but the comparison stops there. While “Medicine Sunday” has the imprint of Highway 61 Revisited, “Temporary Like Achilles” has the mark of Nashville. This nonchalant boogie is reminiscent of Fats Domino’s rhythmic “Blueberry Hill.” This slow blues song is highlighted by Hargus Robbins’s excellent piano part, bringing a New Orleans tone to the song. Drums played with brushes and bass guitar bring the necessary groove to the piece. No less than three guitars are at work, one of which backs the harmonic piano part. With a very reverberant sound and a pronounced vibrato, the sound is quite similar to that of an electric piano. It is difficult to identify the player, perhaps Al Kooper.
Bob Dylan All the Songs Page 31