The American Spectator

Latte Nation

Unlike a Rolling Stone

By William Tucker on 12.10.04 @ 12:07AM

(Page 2 of 2)

How does it feel?
To be on your own
With no direction home
Just like a rolling stone?

In last week's New York Times, Shaun Considine, coordinator of new releases at Columbia in 1965, breathlessly recounted how he rescued "Like a Rolling Stone" from the slush pile and introduced it at a popular East Side disco. "By August it was in the [Billboard] Top Ten, rising to Number 2," he says. Wow. The Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" (#179) was the #1 record (and Saturday Night Fever the #1 album) for almost an entire year and defined the Disco era. (As John Updike wrote, they were "three white men who managed to sound exactly like black women.") But then Disco was distinctly apolitical. As one critic sneered, it was "the sound of black upward mobility."

Dylan's pop success remains largely a media phenomenon. His albums do not sell particularly well, rising quickly the first few weeks as cult followers run to the stores, then fading away. Like Laura Nyro and Carole King, he is an artist whose material has been best performed by others.

So how does "Like A Rolling Stone" emerge as the Greatest Hit of All Time? Because it is a landmark to Sixties-bred radicals who like to think of American history as "Things That Happened To Us." "Like a Rolling Stone" still marks that first joyous 1965 uniting of protest songs and electric guitars. It was a political event, not a musical moment.

The greatest rock 'n' roll song of all time? For generating great music, Dylan couldn't even tune Elvis's guitar.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
NATO