Tag Archives: Bob Dylan

#1 Song, Music et al, Music of the 60s

Rolling Stones Satisfaction

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Rolling Stones Satisfaction

Rolling Stones Satisfaction

The Stones first US #1

July 10, 1965
Rolling Stones Satisfaction

But first…on July 10, 1961 

Rolling Stones Satisfaction
Bobby Lewis

On July 10, 1961 “Tossin’ and Turnin'” by Bobby Lewis became the #1 song. It remained there until August 27. Not a bad run.

Frustrated love. Can’t sleep. Kicking blankets off. Flipping pillows. Written by Ritchie Adams and Malou Rene, both Americans, one wonders what the British listener thought about a guy tossin’ all night.

Rolling Stones Satisfaction

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

Four years later, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” became #1. The first US #1 song for the Rolling Stones (their fourth #1 in the UK). More frustration. Its ambivalent lyrics had us giggling if we were still young, nodding if we were old enough.

It was a great air guitar song, especially with a tennis racket. That’s what I was doing a lot of that summer at Cedar Grove Beach Club in New Dorp, Staten Island.

Kevin Hagerty and I played tennis for hours with my sister’s transistor radio blasting. Every time “Satisfaction” came on we stopping playing (by the way, playing more than generously describes our jejune tennis prowess) and starting strumming. That’s if Kev could find his racket after tossing it into the weeds  following another poor shot.

Rolling Stones Satisfaction

Keith’s dream

The story is that Keith Richards started to record some guitar doodling and the famous riff before falling asleep with the tape still running and recording snoring.

Keith intended the famous fuzzy guitar intro to suggest horns and horns were supposed to replace that fuzz. Others disagreed. Others wanted that sound.

That sound became part of rock and roll’s DNA.

Rolling Stones Satisfaction

Mono

Stereo recording was around in 1965, but mono still dominated. For some today, mono is the preferred listening choice. In any case, it was not until later releases that stereo versions appeared. Jack Nitzsche, who played the tambourine on the original recording, has some piano on the stereo offering.

Rolling Stones Satisfaction

Best ever?

“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” makes every top ten list and always near the top. Rolling Stone magazine said it’s the second greatest rock song ever. [It said Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone was #1]

And as popular as the Rolling Stones were before its release and success, following it put the Rolling Stones on others’ list of greatest rock and roll band in the world.

Rolling Stones Satisfaction
Bob Dylan, Music et al, Music of the 60s

Only a Pawn In Their Game

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Only a Pawn In Their Game

1963 status quo

The American summer of 1963 was typical in many ways. For some, that was fine. Schools closed. Summer vacation. Ice cream. Iced tea. Pools. Beaches. Tanning. Bikinis. Bulging muscles.

For others, typical was not fine. The status quo meant field work. Starvation. Mistreatment. Jim Crow terrorism. The denial of an education and the right to vote.

The struggle for civil rights continued and folk singer Bob Dylan often wrote songs about the downtrodden. His Times They Are a’Changin’ album had a plethora of such songs: “The Times They Are a’Changin’,” “Ballad of Hollis Brown,” “With God on Our Side,” and “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.”

Only a Pawn In Their Game

Dirty work

It would be difficult to pick the most powerful one among them, but it was in July 1963 that Dylan first sang “Only a Pawn in Their Game.” Writing about the June 12, 1963 assassination of Medgar Evers might be an obvious contemporary theme, but pointing out that the assassin was doing the work of the White Establishment, that the White Establishment also kept poor whites  poor, and that the White Establishment used the poor whites to do its dirty work? Such a realization is why the song remains so powerful.

As Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz said in a 2013 NPR interview:  “The whole point is, the killer is guilty, yes, but he’s not the person to blame, There’s rather a much larger system that’s out there, and that’s what the song is really about.”

To write any more about Dylan’s lyrics is superfluous. His own lyrics  say more than any essay:

Only a Pawn In Their Game

A bullet…

A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers’ blood
A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man’s brain
But he can’t be blamed
He’s only a pawn in their game
A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain.
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
He’s taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
’Bout the shape that he’s in
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoofbeats pound in his brain
And he’s taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide ’neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain’t got no name
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.
Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They lowered him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He’ll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game		 
Copyright © 1963, 1964 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1996 by Special Rider Music
Only a Pawn In Their Game
Bob Dylan, Music et al, Music of the 60s, Today in history

Freewheelin Bob Dylan

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Freewheelin Bob Dylan

Released May 27, 1963
Freewheelin Bob Dylan
photo by Don Hunstein
“I’ll let you be in my dream, if you let me be in yours.”

Now we all know Bob Dylan. We have heard the songs on his first album, Bob Dylan. We may know that he only wrote two of that album’s 13 songs: “Talkin’ New York” and “Song to Woody.”  His premier album an iconic moment in American history

We didn’t realize it at the time. We probably didn’t buy it either. The album sold about 2,500 copies its first year.

Freewheelin Bob Dylan

Times Changed

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan changed that story. Other than “Corina Corina,” Dylan wrote all its songs and as funny as “Talkin’ New York” may have been and as touching “Song to Woody” was,  Freewheelin’  showed Dylan’s genius blooming.

The album, produced by John H Hammond, has a minimalist sound that concentrates our listening to Dylan’s lyrics. To note the personnel is important nonetheless:

  • Bob Dylan – guitar, harmonica, keyboards, vocals
  • Howie Collins – guitar
  • Leonard Gaskin – bass guitar
  • Bruce Langhorne – guitar
  • Herb Lovelle – drums
  • Dick Wellstood – piano

Each of these musicians deserve separate recognition. A personal favorite is Bruce Langhorne, the inspiration for Dylan’s “Mr Tambourine Man.”  (follow above link)

Freewheelin Bob Dylan

Tracks

Side One

  1. Blowin’ In the Wind
  2. Girl from the North Country
  3. Masters of War
  4. Down the Highway
  5. Bob Dyan’s Blues
  6. A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall
 Side 2

  1. Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
  2. Bob Dylan’s Dream
  3. Oxford Town
  4. Talkin’ World War III Blues
  5. Corrina, Corrina
  6. Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance
  7. I Shall Be Free
Freewheelin Bob Dylan

Don Hunstein

As memorable as each of the album’s songs is, Don Hunstein‘s cover photo is equally so. Hunstein first began as an amateur photographer while in the Air Force and stationed in Europe. His interest became a hobby and after returning to the US and living in New York City, his hobby became a profession. As with so much in life, his timing was serendipitous.

Rock and roll was in a growth spurt and Hunstein landed a job at Columbia Records. Also lucky for Hunstein, Columbia recognized Hunstein’s talent and had him take pictures not just for albums, but of artists while recording. In their casual most human moments.

That is what he re-created for The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Though posed, the photo presents Dylan and Suze Rotolo, his then girlfriend, as if in a candid moment.

Freewheelin Bob Dylan
another photo that same day also by Don Hunstein
Freewheelin Bob Dylan

Suze’s Take

In a 2008 NY Times article, Rotolo said of the photo, “He wore a very thin jacket, because image was all. Our apartment was always cold, so I had a sweater on, plus I borrowed one of his big, bulky sweaters. On top of that I put a coat. So I felt like an Italian sausage. Every time I look at that picture, I think I look fat.”

Freewheelin Bob Dylan
photos by Don Hunstein
Freewheelin Bob Dylan

Temporary change

Freewheelin’ was more than a moment. It was a prediction. Dylan would record two more albums in its style before going rogue in 1965 and quitting work on Maggie’s farm. That choice changed the American music scene as much as any single event in the history of American music and in many cases, 20th century Western civilization.

Though Dylan may have been referring to the human tendency toward violence when he sang…

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?

Freewheelin Bob Dylan
Pro and Con

The words turned out to be a prediction of Dylan’s change of artistic direction. Many fans hated 1965 because of that change.

Decades later, we can list dozens of songs we’d not have with us if it weren’t for that change and Dylan’s freewheelin’ attitude.

As Stephen Thomas Eriwine writes in his All Music review: It’s hard to overestimate the importance of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, the record that firmly established Dylan as an unparalleled songwriter, one of considerable skill, imagination, and vision. 

Freewheelin Bob Dylan