Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Subterranean Homesick Blues (1965)
I'm no Dylan scholar. There's a million of 'em out there, if that's what you're looking for. I've never really drilled down on his entire catalog, but I know the big songs and have picked up a few albums here and there, including Blonde on Blonde and Bringing It All Back Home from his early years. There's just SO MUCH to listen to, it's intimidating.
I've always appreciated the guy for the obvious reasons: incredible lyrics, ridiculously great songs and that inscrutable charisma.
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" was the first single off Bringing It All Back Home, released in March 1965. It's one of his first electric songs and was revolutionary in a number of ways: Dylan's speak-singing influenced countless future artists, his lyrics were brilliant and wide-ranging, and the music video (featured in D.A. Pennebaker's documentary Don't Look Back) is downright groundbreaking.
"Johnny's in the basement/Mixing up the medicine/I'm on the pavement/Thinking about the government/The man in the trench coat/Badge out, laid off/Says he's got a bad cough/Wants it to get paid off/Look out, kid/It's somethin' you did/God knows when/But you're doin' it again/You better duck down the alley way/Lookin' for a new friend/The man in the coonskin cap/By the big pen/Wants eleven dollars/You only got ten."
In a 2004 interview, Dylan said the song was "from Chuck Berry, a bit of 'Too Much Monkey Business' and some of the scat songs of the '40s."
"Maggie comes fleet foot/Face full of black soot/Talkin' that the heat put/Plants in the bed but/The phone's tapped anyway/Maggie says that many say/They must bust in early May/Orders from the D.A./Look out, kid/Don't matter what you did/Walk on your tiptoes/Don't try 'No-Doz'/Better stay away from those/That carry around a fire hose/Keep a clean nose/Watch the plain clothes/You don't need a weatherman/To know which way the wind blows."
The song was Dylan's first top 40 hit in the U.S., getting to #39 on the Billboard Hot 100 and made the top 10 of the U.K. Singles Chart. Reportedly, John Lennon liked the song so much he wasn't sure he'd be able to write anything that could match it.
The album hit #6 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart. Dylan had started experimenting with electric instrumentation, which was controversial with his existing audience who felt he should stick to acoustic folk. Thankfully, he didn't listen to those jamokes. Headlining at the Newport Folk Festival that year, Dylan played an electric set and was booed off the stage after three songs.
The subsequent 59 years have been filled with highs and lows (but mostly highs) for Dylan, including playing with the Band as his backing group, a brief Christian period, rapping with Kurtis Blow (see below), touring with the Grateful Dead, joining the Traveling Wilburys, acting in movies from time to time, hosting a radio show, appearing in commercials and touring constantly. Now 83, he's still going strong.
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" has been covered by numerous artists, including Gregory Isaacs, Harry Nilsson, Alanis Morissette and the Red Hot Chili Peppers (see below). INXS did a takeoff of Dylan's video for the song with their video for "Mediate," and the lyrical style of the song was a clear influence on R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)."
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