Highway 61 Revisited (song)
Encyclopedia
"Highway 61 Revisited" is the title track of Bob Dylan
's 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited
. It was also released as the B-side to the single "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?
" later the same year. In 2004, Rolling Stone
magazine ranked the song as number 364 in their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
runs from Duluth, Minnesota, where Bob Dylan grew up in the 1940s and 1950s down to New Orleans, Louisiana. It was a major transit route out of the Deep South particularly for African Americans traveling north to Chicago, St Louis and Memphis, following the Mississippi River valley for most of its 1400 miles (2,253.1 km).
tells Abraham
to "kill me a son
". God wants the killing done on Highway 61. This stanza references Genesis 22, in which God commands Abraham to kill one of his two sons, Isaac
. Abram, the original name of the biblical Abraham, is the name of Dylan's own father. Verse 2 describes a poor fellow, Georgia Sam, who is beyond the helping of the welfare department. He is told to go down Highway 61. Georgia Sam may be a reference to Piedmont blues
musician Blind Willie McTell
, who occasionally went by Georgia Sam when recording.
In the third verse, a "Mack the Finger" has this problem of getting rid of particular absurd things: "I got forty red white and blue shoe strings / And a thousand telephones that don't ring". "Louie the King" solves the problem with Highway 61. Verse 4 is about the "fifth daughter" who on the "twelfth night" told the "first father" that her complexion is too pale. Agreeing, the father seeks to tell the "second mother", but she is with the "seventh son", on Highway 61.
The fifth and last verse is the story of a bored gambler, trying "to create the next world war". His promoter tells him to "put some bleachers out in the sun / And have it on Highway 61". There is an evident political undertone in this absurd tale.
There is a pause in each verse while Dylan waits for some event in the story to finish; in the third verse, for example, the pause occurs while Louie the King attempts to resolve the shoestring-and-telephones problem. Between each verse Dylan is heard blowing an imitation police whistle, known as a "Siren Whistle" http://www.acmewhistles.co.uk/sounds/small_siren_147.mp3, brought in by Sam Lay who was drummer on the Highway 61 sessions as noted by Tony Glover in the liner notes to Live 1966.
covered "Highway 61 Revisited" on his second Columbia
release, Second Winter
. Winter's rendition is regarded as "a career-defining track," and the song continues as a live standard of his. A 10-minute version of the song appears on his 1972 live album, Captured Alive!, and he also performed it live in 1992 for the The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration
album, which saluted Dylan's three decades as a recording artist.
Ex-Dr Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson
included "Highway 61 Revisited" in his concert sets in the late 1970s and released a live recording of the song on an EP given away with his 1978 album Solid Senders. The recording now forms part of the album's CD release. In 1987, Dr Feelgood also covered the song for their album Classic, a track Allmusic describes as "utterly inspired."
The song has also been recorded by P.J. Harvey on her 1993 album Rid of Me
. Paste
magazine selected this version as the 15th best cover of a Dylan song of all time, while also paying homage to "Johnny Winter's classic electric-blues version."
"Highway 61 Revisited" has even been covered by Billy Joel
. The song highlights a selection of covers that appear on his 2005 box set My Lives
.
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
's 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited
Highway 61 Revisited
Highway 61 Revisited is the sixth studio album by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released in August 1965 by Columbia Records. On his previous album, Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan devoted Side One of the album to songs accompanied by an electric rock band, and Side Two to solo acoustic numbers...
. It was also released as the B-side to the single "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?
Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?
"Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" was a 1965 single by American rock artist Bob Dylan. It reached #58 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and #17 on the UK chart in January 1966...
" later the same year. In 2004, Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine ranked the song as number 364 in their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Influence of Highway 61
Highway 61U.S. Route 61
U.S. Route 61 is the official designation for a United States highway that runs from New Orleans, Louisiana, to the city of Wyoming, Minnesota. The highway generally follows the course of the Mississippi River, and is designated the Great River Road for much of its route. As of 2004, the highway's...
runs from Duluth, Minnesota, where Bob Dylan grew up in the 1940s and 1950s down to New Orleans, Louisiana. It was a major transit route out of the Deep South particularly for African Americans traveling north to Chicago, St Louis and Memphis, following the Mississippi River valley for most of its 1400 miles (2,253.1 km).
Meaning
The song has five stanzas. In each stanza, someone describes an unusual problem that is ultimately resolved on Highway 61. In Verse 1, GodGod
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
tells Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
to "kill me a son
Binding of Isaac
The Binding of Isaac Akedah or Akeidat Yitzchak in Hebrew and Dhabih in Arabic, is a story from the Hebrew Bible in which God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on Mount Moriah...
". God wants the killing done on Highway 61. This stanza references Genesis 22, in which God commands Abraham to kill one of his two sons, Isaac
Isaac
Isaac as described in the Hebrew Bible, was the only son Abraham had with his wife Sarah, and was the father of Jacob and Esau. Isaac was one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites...
. Abram, the original name of the biblical Abraham, is the name of Dylan's own father. Verse 2 describes a poor fellow, Georgia Sam, who is beyond the helping of the welfare department. He is told to go down Highway 61. Georgia Sam may be a reference to Piedmont blues
Piedmont blues
Piedmont blues refers primarily to a guitar style, the Piedmont fingerstyle, which is characterized by a fingerpicking approach in which a regular, alternating thumb bass string rhythmic pattern supports a syncopated melody using the treble strings generally picked with the fore-finger,...
musician Blind Willie McTell
Blind Willie McTell
Blind Willie McTell , was an influential Piedmont and ragtime blues singer and guitarist. He played with a fluid, syncopated fingerstyle guitar technique, common among many exponents of Piedmont blues, although, unlike his contemporaries, he used exclusively a twelve-string guitar...
, who occasionally went by Georgia Sam when recording.
In the third verse, a "Mack the Finger" has this problem of getting rid of particular absurd things: "I got forty red white and blue shoe strings / And a thousand telephones that don't ring". "Louie the King" solves the problem with Highway 61. Verse 4 is about the "fifth daughter" who on the "twelfth night" told the "first father" that her complexion is too pale. Agreeing, the father seeks to tell the "second mother", but she is with the "seventh son", on Highway 61.
The fifth and last verse is the story of a bored gambler, trying "to create the next world war". His promoter tells him to "put some bleachers out in the sun / And have it on Highway 61". There is an evident political undertone in this absurd tale.
There is a pause in each verse while Dylan waits for some event in the story to finish; in the third verse, for example, the pause occurs while Louie the King attempts to resolve the shoestring-and-telephones problem. Between each verse Dylan is heard blowing an imitation police whistle, known as a "Siren Whistle" http://www.acmewhistles.co.uk/sounds/small_siren_147.mp3, brought in by Sam Lay who was drummer on the Highway 61 sessions as noted by Tony Glover in the liner notes to Live 1966.
Cover versions
In 1969, Johnny WinterJohnny Winter
John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III is an American blues guitarist, singer, and producer. Best known for his late 1960s and 1970s high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances, Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters...
covered "Highway 61 Revisited" on his second Columbia
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
release, Second Winter
Second Winter
Second Winter is the third studio album by Texas blues guitarist Johnny Winter, released in 1969. The original plan was to edit the songs from the recording session into one album but it was later thought that all the recordings were good enough to be released. The album was released as a...
. Winter's rendition is regarded as "a career-defining track," and the song continues as a live standard of his. A 10-minute version of the song appears on his 1972 live album, Captured Alive!, and he also performed it live in 1992 for the The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration
The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration
The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration is a live double-album release in recognition of Bob Dylan's 30 years as a recording artist. Recorded on October 16, 1992 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, it captures most of the concert, which featured many artists performing classic Dylan songs,...
album, which saluted Dylan's three decades as a recording artist.
Ex-Dr Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson
Wilko Johnson
Wilko Johnson is an English guitarist and songwriter, particularly associated with the UK rhythm and blues band Dr. Feelgood in the 1970s.-Career:...
included "Highway 61 Revisited" in his concert sets in the late 1970s and released a live recording of the song on an EP given away with his 1978 album Solid Senders. The recording now forms part of the album's CD release. In 1987, Dr Feelgood also covered the song for their album Classic, a track Allmusic describes as "utterly inspired."
The song has also been recorded by P.J. Harvey on her 1993 album Rid of Me
Rid of Me
Rid of Me is the second studio album by British musician PJ Harvey. It was released by Island Records in May 1993, approximately one year after the release of her critically acclaimed debut album Dry...
. Paste
Paste (magazine)
Paste is a monthly music and entertainment digital magazine published in the United States by Wolfgang's Vault. Its tagline is "Signs of Life in Music, Film and Culture."-History:...
magazine selected this version as the 15th best cover of a Dylan song of all time, while also paying homage to "Johnny Winter's classic electric-blues version."
"Highway 61 Revisited" has even been covered by Billy Joel
Billy Joel
William Martin "Billy" Joel is an American musician and pianist, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to...
. The song highlights a selection of covers that appear on his 2005 box set My Lives
My Lives
My Lives is a box set compilation of demos, outtakes, B-sides, soundtrack cuts, live recordings and album cuts by American singer/songwriter Billy Joel. It was released on November 22, 2005...
.
Film performances
- William FriedkinWilliam FriedkinWilliam Friedkin is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973; for the former, he won the Academy Award for Best Director...
's 2003 film The Hunted opens with a reading of "Highway 61 Revisited"'s first verse by Johnny CashJohnny CashJohn R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
. - The song was featured briefly in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the LineWalk the LineWalk the Line is a 2005 American biographical drama film directed by James Mangold and based on the early life and career of country music artist Johnny Cash...
in 2005. - In 2007, Karen OKaren OKaren Lee Orzolek , better known by her stage name Karen O, is the vocalist for New York rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs.-Early life:...
contributed vocals to a version of the song for the I'm Not ThereI'm Not ThereI'm Not There is a 2007 biographical musical film directed by Todd Haynes, inspired by iconic American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Six actors depict different facets of Dylan's life and public persona: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw...
film soundtrack, backed by an all-star ensemble dubbed the Million Dollar Bashers. - The first verse of the song was also used in Bill MaherBill MaherWilliam "Bill" Maher, Jr. is an American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, author and actor. Before his current role as the host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher hosted a similar late-night talk show called Politically Incorrect originally on Comedy Central and...
's 2008 documentary ReligulousReligulousReligulous is a 2008 American comic documentary film written by and starring comedian Bill Maher and directed by Larry Charles. The title of the film is a portmanteau derived from the words "religion" and "ridiculous"; the documentary examines and mocks organized religion and religious...
.
External links
- "Highway 61 Revisited" lyrics from bobdylan.com
- [ Review by William Ruhlmann in Allmusic]