Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
From '' Plays Instrumental Versions Of Bob Dylan Favorites ''
Label: Metro Records – MS-597
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo
Country: US
Released: 1966
Tracklist
A1 Like A Rolling Stone
A2 It Ain't Me Babe
A3 It's All Over Now Baby Blue
A4 She Belongs To Me
A5 Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
B1 One Too Many Mornings
B2 Positively 4th Street
B3 All I Really Want To Do
B4 Mr. Tambourine Man
B5 The Times They Are A-Changin'
Written-By – Bob Dylan
Artwork – Peter Max
Engineer – Val Valentin
Producer, Arranged By – Alan Lorber
------------------------
"Like a Rolling Stone" is a 1965 song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.
Its confrontational lyrics originate in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhausted from a grueling tour of England.
After the lyrics were heavily edited, "Like a Rolling Stone" was recorded a few weeks later as part of the sessions for the forthcoming album Highway 61 Revisited.
During a difficult two-day preproduction, Dylan struggled to find the essence of the song, which was demoed without success in 3/4 time.
A breakthrough was made when it was tried in a rock music format, and rookie session musician Al Kooper improvised the organ riff for which the track is known.
However, Columbia Records was unhappy with both the song's length at over six minutes and its heavy electric sound, and was hesitant to release it.
It was only when a month later a copy was leaked to a new popular music club and heard by influential DJs that the song was put out as a single.
Although radio stations were reluctant to play such a long track, "Like a Rolling Stone" reached number two in the US charts and became a worldwide hit.
The track has been described as revolutionary in its combination of different musical elements, the youthful, cynical sound of Dylan's voice, and the directness of the question in the chorus: "How does it feel?".
"Like a Rolling Stone" transformed Dylan's career and is today considered one of the most influential compositions in post-war popular music and has since its release been both a music industry and popular culture milestone which elevated Dylan's image to iconic.
Cover versions
Johnny Thunders,
David Bowie,
The Four Seasons,
The Rascals,
Judy Collins,
Johnny Winter,
Cher,
The Rolling Stones,
Spirit, Michael Bolton,
The Creation,
David Gilmour,
John Mellencamp,
The Wailers
Green Day and many others.
Guitarist Jimi Hendrix, performing with The Jimi Hendrix Experience, recorded a live version at the Monterey Pop Festival.
Hendrix was an avid fan of Bob Dylan, and especially liked "Like a Rolling Stone".
"It made me feel that I wasn't the only one who'd ever felt so low ..." Hendrix said.
After the second verse, Hendrix skipped to the fourth. Hendrix played the electric guitar, and music critic Greil Marcus described the atmosphere of the Hendrix recording thus:
Huge chords ride over the beginning of each verse like rain clouds; the tune is taken very slowly, with Hendrix's thick, street-talk drawl sounding nothing at all like Dylan's Midwestern dust storm."
Release
According to Shaun Considine, release coordinator for Columbia Records in 1965, "Like a Rolling Stone" was first relegated to the "graveyard of canceled releases" because of concerns from the sales and marketing departments over its unprecedented six-minute length and "raucous" rock sound. In the days following the rejection, Considine took a discarded acetate of the song to a club called Arthur—a newly opened disco popular with celebrities and media people. At the crowd's insistence, the demo was played over and over, until finally it wore out. The next morning, a disc jockey and a programming director from the city's leading top 40 stations called Columbia and demanded copies. Shortly afterwards, on July 20, 1965, "Like a Rolling Stone" was released as a single with "Gates of Eden" as its B-side.
The song has also been covered in various languages.
Hugues Aufray covered the song in French ("Comme des pierres qui roulent" (Aufray Trans Dylan, 1995)),
Wolfgang Ambros included an Austrian-German dialect version "Allan Wia a Stan" on his 1978 LP Wie Im Schlaf which reached position 8 in the Austrian charts for 8 weeks,
German band Bap created a dialect of Cologne version "Wie 'ne Stein" and Lars Winnerbäck did a performance of the song in Swedish titled "Som en hemlös själ".
Articolo 31 recorded an Italian version titled "Come una Pietra Scalciata".
#instrumentalcover
#easylistening
#bobdylancover
📜 [PUBLISHING & PERMISSIONS]
Copyright music and lyrics reproduced by kind permission of Special Rider – for original, exclusive performances by Bob Dylan, check-out the official channel at youtube.com/BobDylan
From '' Plays Instrumental Versions Of Bob Dylan Favorites ''
Label: Metro Records – MS-597
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo
Country: US
Released: 1966
Tracklist
A1 Like A Rolling Stone
A2 It Ain't Me Babe
A3 It's All Over Now Baby Blue
A4 She Belongs To Me
A5 Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
B1 One Too Many Mornings
B2 Positively 4th Street
B3 All I Really Want To Do
B4 Mr. Tambourine Man
B5 The Times They Are A-Changin'
Written-By – Bob Dylan
Artwork – Peter Max
Engineer – Val Valentin
Producer, Arranged By – Alan Lorber
------------------------
"Like a Rolling Stone" is a 1965 song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.
Its confrontational lyrics originate in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhausted from a grueling tour of England.
After the lyrics were heavily edited, "Like a Rolling Stone" was recorded a few weeks later as part of the sessions for the forthcoming album Highway 61 Revisited.
During a difficult two-day preproduction, Dylan struggled to find the essence of the song, which was demoed without success in 3/4 time.
A breakthrough was made when it was tried in a rock music format, and rookie session musician Al Kooper improvised the organ riff for which the track is known.
However, Columbia Records was unhappy with both the song's length at over six minutes and its heavy electric sound, and was hesitant to release it.
It was only when a month later a copy was leaked to a new popular music club and heard by influential DJs that the song was put out as a single.
Although radio stations were reluctant to play such a long track, "Like a Rolling Stone" reached number two in the US charts and became a worldwide hit.
The track has been described as revolutionary in its combination of different musical elements, the youthful, cynical sound of Dylan's voice, and the directness of the question in the chorus: "How does it feel?".
"Like a Rolling Stone" transformed Dylan's career and is today considered one of the most influential compositions in post-war popular music and has since its release been both a music industry and popular culture milestone which elevated Dylan's image to iconic.
Cover versions
Johnny Thunders,
David Bowie,
The Four Seasons,
The Rascals,
Judy Collins,
Johnny Winter,
Cher,
The Rolling Stones,
Spirit, Michael Bolton,
The Creation,
David Gilmour,
John Mellencamp,
The Wailers
Green Day and many others.
Guitarist Jimi Hendrix, performing with The Jimi Hendrix Experience, recorded a live version at the Monterey Pop Festival.
Hendrix was an avid fan of Bob Dylan, and especially liked "Like a Rolling Stone".
"It made me feel that I wasn't the only one who'd ever felt so low ..." Hendrix said.
After the second verse, Hendrix skipped to the fourth. Hendrix played the electric guitar, and music critic Greil Marcus described the atmosphere of the Hendrix recording thus:
Huge chords ride over the beginning of each verse like rain clouds; the tune is taken very slowly, with Hendrix's thick, street-talk drawl sounding nothing at all like Dylan's Midwestern dust storm."
Release
According to Shaun Considine, release coordinator for Columbia Records in 1965, "Like a Rolling Stone" was first relegated to the "graveyard of canceled releases" because of concerns from the sales and marketing departments over its unprecedented six-minute length and "raucous" rock sound. In the days following the rejection, Considine took a discarded acetate of the song to a club called Arthur—a newly opened disco popular with celebrities and media people. At the crowd's insistence, the demo was played over and over, until finally it wore out. The next morning, a disc jockey and a programming director from the city's leading top 40 stations called Columbia and demanded copies. Shortly afterwards, on July 20, 1965, "Like a Rolling Stone" was released as a single with "Gates of Eden" as its B-side.
The song has also been covered in various languages.
Hugues Aufray covered the song in French ("Comme des pierres qui roulent" (Aufray Trans Dylan, 1995)),
Wolfgang Ambros included an Austrian-German dialect version "Allan Wia a Stan" on his 1978 LP Wie Im Schlaf which reached position 8 in the Austrian charts for 8 weeks,
German band Bap created a dialect of Cologne version "Wie 'ne Stein" and Lars Winnerbäck did a performance of the song in Swedish titled "Som en hemlös själ".
Articolo 31 recorded an Italian version titled "Come una Pietra Scalciata".
#instrumentalcover
#easylistening
#bobdylancover
📜 [PUBLISHING & PERMISSIONS]
Copyright music and lyrics reproduced by kind permission of Special Rider – for original, exclusive performances by Bob Dylan, check-out the official channel at youtube.com/BobDylan
