Bob Dylan: Ballad of a Press Critic

By: Greg Mitchell With its enshrinement on Friday, via the huge ?No. 1? on The New York Times op-ed page, Bob Dylan's ?Like a Rolling Stone? solidified its place as the greatest song of the past half-century. A consensus seems to have formed just recently, with the ditty getting the nod from both Rolling Stone and equally venerable New Musical Express in London.

For once the experts got it right, even if ?Like a Rolling Stone? trails ?St. Louis Blues? (in its Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong versions) as the song of the century. And the album it appears on, "Highway 61 Revisited," is the greatest long player.

To top it off, Dylan also wrote, in the same period, the most scathing and, arguably, most influential attack on the press in modern times. And he's still at it. On Sunday's "60 Minutes," Ed Bradley asked him about the passage in his new memoir where Dylan reveals that he always figured the press was something "you lied to." Bob told him that he knew he had to answer to God, but not to reporters. Of course, there was a time when some people thought Dylan was God.

Dylan is everywhere this month, from the bestseller list (for his wonderfully quirky memoir ?Chronicles?) to ?60 Minutes.? So it was no surprise to find him on the Times' op-ed page on Friday, with Shaun Considine, who used to work at Dylan's record company, revealing that he personally saved ?Like a Rolling Stone? from oblivion after it had been spiked by Columbia because of its groundbreaking length (six minutes) for a single.

It's a wonderful yarn, centering on Considine getting the acetate of the record played at Sybil Burton's Arthur disco, which set off a frenzy that forced Columbia to finally release the damn thing. Who knows if it's all true, or if a dozen others will step forward now and say that they are the real heroes of this episode.

One part of the piece struck me as a bit off, however. Considine implies that Dylan was not a major figure in the summer of 1965 and that Columbia was in ?no way? interested in rock music. Yet at the time it was deep-sixing ?Like a Rolling Stone,? Columbia had already released the Byrds' version of Dylan's ?Mr. Tambourine Man,? which was climbing the charts and soon hit #1.

The other thing that threw me was Considine's assertion that, while Columbia gave in on releasing the ultra-long ?Like a Rolling Stone,? it did so by cutting it in half, putting Part I on side one of the 45 and Part II on the reverse, to make it more radio-friendly.

That's not at all how I remember it. Without dwelling on it, let me say that I was one of those prototypical boomers whose life was at least partly changed by Dylan, and specifically ?Like a Rolling Stone,? while I was still in high school. I bought the single then, and shouted along with the lyrics at high volume up in my bedroom, pretty much matching Considine's description: ?Exhiliration. Heart pounding. Body rolling.? And I distinctly remember that the entire song was carried on one side, and that ?Gates of Eden? was on the reverse.

Did Considine have this wrong? Well, thanks to Google, I have since learned that a two-part single was indeed released in July, and when it rose to #2 on the charts, Columbia released the record I bought in August.

That fall, Columbia, on the heels of the success of the single, released the ?Highway 61? lp, which included the press-mocking ?Ballad of a Thin Man.?

I don't recall the origin of that song now, but Bob fans surely recall D.A. Pennebaker's documentary, ?Don't Look Back,? which follows a Dylan tour earlier that year, and includes a scene where the singer taunts a smart but clueless Time magazine reporter. Indeed, the refrain of ?Ballad of a Thin Man,? which holds that ?something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mister Jones?? quickly became words to live by for a generation: from the founders of underground newspapers in the United States to soldiers in Vietnam.

A decade later, Dylan wrote the controversial line in "Hurricane" charging that "the newspapers all went along for the ride" in an (alleged) legal frame-up.

In concert, meanwhile, he sometimes introduced "Ballad of A Thin Man" by recalling a press conference in England during 1965 when he refused to answer personal questions, declaring that a man's life speaks for itself. Actually, back then, he was more likely to respond to questions by saying something like, "I don't wanna disappoint anybody, tell me what I should say." (Maybe President Bush should try that line today.)

Anyway, for those who haven't heard "Ballad of a Thin Man" in awhile, or never have, here are a few extracts, showing that in media criticism, as in so many other areas, Dylan was far ahead of his time:

You walk into the room
With a pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say, "Who is that man?"
You try so hard
But you don't understand
Just what you'll say
When you get home

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

You raise up your head
And you ask, "Is this where it is?"
And somebody points to you and says
"It's his"
And you say, "What's mine?"
And somebody else says, "Where what is?"
And you say, "Oh my God
Am I here all alone?"

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?"
And you say, "Impossible"
As he hands you a bone

Well, you walk into the room
Like a camel and then you frown
You put your eyes in your pocket
And your nose on the ground
There ought to be a law
Against you comin' around
You should be made
To wear earphones

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?