An interesting Highway 61 fun fact is that its nine selections happen to be in chronological order (or near enough). Opener "Like a Rolling Stone" was recorded on June 19, 1965, the next two cuts, "Tombstone Blues" and "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry", were from July 29 while "From a Buick 6" came a day later. On August 2, he had an especially productive day, cutting the extraordinary quartet of "Ballad of a Thin Man", "Queen Jane Approximately", the title track, and "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues". Two days later, he set down the brilliant "Desolation Row". Bloody hell. Whether by intention or dumb luck, this became the running order.
While the August 2 session is simply unbeatable, there's plenty to be said for what Dylan accomplished on July 29 as well. In addition to a pair of typically excellent Highway 61 cuts, he also finished off an exceptional track that didn't even make it on to his latest LP. Rather than leaving it to collect dust until archived for a future money-grab boxset and/or gifting it to a folk-rock act in dire need of a hit, Dylan ended up issuing "Positively 4th Street" as a stand-alone single in the autumn of 1965. Now, as one of the individuals who is credited with establishing the rock album as a serious work, the idea that Dylan of all people would release something with just the singles charts in mind seems ludicrous. That said, while 1965 was a pivotal year for the rock album, The Beatles closed out the year with the twin release of their seminal sixth long player Rubber Soul and the double A side "We Can Work It Out" / "Day Tripper", their fifth stand-alone single to date. The apogee of seventies' stadium rock and colossal LPs like Led Zeppelin IV and Dark Side of the Moon was still a few years off so it was still viable to be in both the albums and singles markets — even for Dylan. (While "Positively 4th Street" would appear on the best-selling compilation Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits the following year, its relatively unsuccessful follow-up, "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?", wouldn't be released on a widely available collection until 1985's Biograph)
Why was "Positively 4th Street" spurned from inclusion on Highway 61? Well, as opposed to the common explanation that it simply didn't fit, it may have fitted in a little too well. Dylan's spitefulness was seldom a turn off for the majority of his fans but it was something he could have been in danger of overdoing at times. With his latest album opening with "Like a Rolling Stone", there was already more than enough bitterness to be accounted for. "Ballad of a Thin Man" also made the cut and there had to be room for some of Dylan's anguish and humour. The word 'room' also brings to mind that Highway 61's fifty-one minute running time was already on the long side so the inclusion of four minute track would have been almost unthinkable. (Blonde on Blonde would do its part in throwing any semblance of brevity in rock out the window the following year)
Being a Bob Dylan song, there's a great deal of speculation surrounding just who "Positively 4th Street" might be about. Plenty of Dylanologists have made plausible cases for various individuals (or, in some cases, of it being an amalgamation of more than one) but I wonder if it was meant at least in part to be his own reply to his most recent hit. "You've got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend," Dylan begins. "When I was down you just stood there grinnin'": the woman who had been the object of his scorn in "Like a Rolling Stone" could now be standing up to the those who had been enjoying the sight of her wallowing in poverty and misery. Of course, the remainder of the song deals with other issues that have little-to-nothing to do with so this notion ought to either be taken with a heavy pinch of salt or ignored entirely.
1965 had been a remarkable year for Dylan. While prolific even for him, it also resulted in his breakthrough as a serious chart act while at the same time the likes of The Byrds and Sonny and Cher were earning him a great deal of income via their covers. On the downside, Dylan had been infamously met with resistance when he plugged in at the Newport Folk Festival. And even though fourth album Another Side of Bob Dylan had been out for over a year, there were many in the folk music circuit who couldn't or wouldn't forgive his transition from protest songs to more personal material. Songs like "All I Really Want to Do", "Chimes of Freedom" and "My Back Pages" had already addressed this change of course and he even tried to give his fans a gentle pat on the back on "It Ain't Me Babe" but to no avail. By the the second half of '65, he'd had enough of them. "Positively 4th Street" feels like he's dressing down every fair weather fan, every fickle critic, every colleague that no long wanted to have anything to do with him, everyone who had once held him up as the saviour that he never claimed to be only to have dragged his name through the mud.when he supposedly let them all down. The irony is, in distancing himself from protest music, he ended up with one of his most potent protest songs of his entire career — his former supports just never imagined that they'd be the topic of said protest. ("Lay Lady Lay" aside, perhaps Dylan had a point when he told Rolling Stone "I think all my stuff is protest material in some kind of way")
Finally, it's worth mentioning that this is the only time Bob Dylan will be appearing in this space — at least as a solo artist. While a single, solitary number one may seem far too low for such a major artist, his Bobness never had a chart topper in either the US or the UK so just the fact that he's here at all is a welcome addition. (Having him here just about makes up for all the many great singles that failed to reach the top spot in Canada this year) "Like a Rolling Stone" would have been a sure fire 10 but this one is more than adequate in its place. (I would've also preferred the zany and hilarious "Highway 61 Revisited" which would've made a smashing single in its own right but who's to say how it would've done chartwise) Dylan was on such a roll during this time that even something as relatively ordinary as this was still miles ahead of the pack.
Score: 9
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