It's no secret I'm a Bob Dylan fan. I've seen him live over thirty times, own nearly everything he's ever released and often email messages to my road buddy in Dylan lyrics. Yeah, some might even call it an obsession.

In 1965 he was already labelled as the "spokesman of a generation" by the media, the leader of the Folk revival. And then in typical Dylan fashion, he did the unthinkable. On Saturday, July 24, 1965 at the Newport Festival he plugged in an electric guitar and the world of Music changed forever. In my opinion, the revolution began four days earlier when he released the iconic "Like a Rolling Stone."

"Like a Rolling Stone" shattered all preconceived notions of what a pop song could and should be: in terms of length (clocking in just over six minutes when most songs were three or less), sound (it definitely isn't Folk)  and subject matter. In 1966 Dylan described it as:

It was ten pages long. It wasn't called anything, just a rhythm thing on paper all about my steady hatred directed at some point that was honest. In the end it wasn't hatred, it was telling someone something they didn't know, telling them they were lucky. Revenge, that's a better word. I had never thought of it as a song, until one day I was at the piano, and on the paper it was singing, "How does it feel?" in a slow motion pace, in the utmost of slow motion."

 

Now nearly fifty years later Dylan breaks new ground with a television-esque interactive video for the song. A video that couldn't have been made even just a few years ago. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did the first one hundred times or so I've 'played' with it. Your experience begins when you press play.

Comment below with your thoughts.

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