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Like A Rolling Stone
(Bob Dylan)

Brixton Academy, London, UK, July 19, 1995

Mick Jagger - lead vocals, harmonica
Keith Richards - electric guitar, backing vocals
Charlie Watts - drums
Ron Wood - electric guitar
Darryl Jones - bass, backing vocals
Chuck Leavell - keyboards, backing vocals
Bernard Fowler - backing vocals
Lisa Fisher - backing vocals

Yeah, once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
Yeah, people'd call, say: Beware doll, you're bound to fall
They thought they were just kiddin' you
You used to laugh about everybody that was hangin' out, now you don't walk so proud
Now you don't talk so loud about having to be scrounging for your next meal
How does it feel, how does it feel, to be on your own
With no direction home, a complete unknown, just like a rolling stone?

Yeah, you've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
Nobody taught you how to live on the street
But now you're gonna have to get used to it
You said you'd never compromise with the mystery tramp, and now you realize
That he's not selling any alibis, and you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And he said: Do you want to make a deal?
How does it feel, how does it feel, to be on your own
With no direction home, like a complete unknown, just like a rolling stone?

How does it feel, how does it feel, to be on your own
With no direction home, a complete unknown, just like a rolling stone?
Yeah, the Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
Drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made
Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things
But you'd better lift your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused at Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Now, go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse, when you got nothing
You got nothing to lose, you're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal
How does it feel, how does it feel, to be on your own
With no direction home, like a complete unknown, just like a rolling stone?

Produced by Don Was & The Glimmer Twins

First released on:
The Rolling Stones - “Like A Rolling Stone” CD single
(Virgin Records VSCDT 1562) UK, October 30, 1995

Is Darryl singing on this?

It's the Stones doing what they were doing 30 years earlier: taking a great song, giving it
a brand new interpretation and play a blistering version of it on stage.
Mick's haunting harmonica playing is really lifting the song to a supreme level. I don't think
Bob Dylan ever played his harmonica with such energy.

Just as long as the guitar plays, let it steal your heart away

A pointless, unimaginative cover.

Drew

yeah, Bob's and Jimi's versions are much better.

Boring song.

Bob at that point startin doin 'Not Fade Away' at his concerts, and that's not even a Jagger-Richard song....Bob is funny....

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See, there once was this famous Bob Dylan song called "Like A Rolling Stone" and the band is called "The Rolling Stones."

Wow, wouldn't it be something if they played that song??


You get it?



It seems like song selection was being done by marketing "experts" who poll brain-dead stadium crowds.

Not a terrible version. But the comment above about the harmonica. I love Mick's harp playing and his playing is fine on it, but I just think he is using the wrong key. It sounds flat and I think he should have stuck with playing straight harp like Dylan, a C harp instead of F. Technically, the song is fine, but a bit by the numbers.

I think I sighed when I heard this, knowing that they heard the playback and thought that was an okay cover for the Stones to release. The magic was gone.

Quote
whitem8
Not a terrible version. But the comment above about the harmonica. I love Mick's harp playing and his playing is fine on it, but I just think he is using the wrong key. It sounds flat and I think he should have stuck with playing straight harp like Dylan, a C harp instead of F. Technically, the song is fine, but a bit by the numbers.

Normally Jagger's harp playing sends chills up my spine. Here it just leaves me bored to tears. "By the numbers" is certainly the right term to use here.

Drew

It's an okay cover of a great song - but the Stones don't do much to make it their own. As somebody said above - unimaginative. I like Mick's harp playing though.

Now this is how to cover Like A Rolling Stone!

I wonder if part of the problem here is that the Stones and Dylan are such completely different types of artists?

I mean, it would be like Picasso trying to copy a Rembrandt painting.

Drew

Quote
drewmaster
A pointless, unimaginative cover.

Drew

you're being too kind

I'll go out on a limb here and say I actually like it.


It blows away the original.

just kidding...it can't touch the original.

I do like it though!

Quote
drewmaster

Quote
whitem8
Not a terrible version. But the comment above about the harmonica. I love Mick's harp playing and his playing is fine on it, but I just think he is using the wrong key. It sounds flat and I think he should have stuck with playing straight harp like Dylan, a C harp instead of F. Technically, the song is fine, but a bit by the numbers.

Normally Jagger's harp playing sends chills up my spine. Here it just leaves me bored to tears. "By the numbers" is certainly the right term to use here.

Drew

Even to an untrained musical ear, the harmonica does not seem to mesh well with this song very well, to me it almost sounds awful, Mick is known as a pretty good player, but Dylan's harmonica playing fits the song much better. Not loving' this Stones cover.

I like it...yes, Jagger plays cross harp instead of straight harp, but that's what he does. He gives the song a blusier edge. I thought it was quite interesting for them to try this at the time. Better than Bob's version of Brown Sugar.

Its mostly because Jagger used the wrong key, he should have played straight harp instead of cross harp. It sounds much better.

Jaggers using of Keys sounds right to my ears...he's trying to play the blues...Dylan has always choosen the song key for his mouth-harp...another technic and harder to play blues that way....

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i always enjoy this one - i find it really exhilarating and can't help singing along
whereupon i am amazed to find i know all the words (yes, every time! i am easily amazed, which is a blessing)
plus which the Stones did it for Bill, which makes it alllllll fall into place - and Mick's cross harp sounds fine to me.

so there :E

Quote
drewmaster
I wonder if part of the problem here is that the Stones and Dylan are such completely different types of artists?

I mean, it would be like Picasso trying to copy a Rembrandt painting.

Drew

A good analogy. Those two - Dylan and The Stones - are my biggest musical heroes, and I think it is a mission impossible to try to make them incommonsurable. The Stones simply don't have needed capacity to perform "Like A Rolling Stone" convincingly - it doesn't suit at all to their repertuare. As stupid as it would be for Dylan to sing "Satisfaction" convincingly. (Okay, his version of "Brown Sugar" is funny though...) So releasing the song at all, let along as as a profilic single with a video, was ill-fated idea in the first place. To me it looked at the time like a serious sign that the Stones have lost their artistic touch. After totally through the motions, half-caked VOODOO LOUNGE, of The Rolling Stones play The Rolling Stones, withouth one song worth to remember, releasing a cover of the biggest rock and roll song of all time sounded a bit too cheap move.

But of the actual result - I think the most telling feature is that there was some time ago here a thread of the best Dylan cover - and no one mentioned this one - in a Rolling Stones web site! Jagger tries to save what is there to save; he has a nice spark in his vocals, and his harp solo is probably the only (sort of) inventive part in the whole thing (but no matter what he does, he is bound to lose this one, right?), but all over it is so boring and unimaginative and through the motions that let us pretend that it never happened, shall we? Yeah, a funny live obscurity but that's it (like with Dylan's "Brown Sugar", something for bootleggers).

Well, if The Stones need to cover Dylan, there are dozens of more suitable ones - if they so desperatively want to stick to trade mark names, I've always thought a version of "Rainy Day Women" would sound nice. And yeah, I rather listen to "Watching The River Flow" than "Like A Rolling Stone".

- Doxa



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2012-06-19 10:26 by Doxa.

Never liked the sound of this or any of the Stripped album. There was something really flat and soulless about it.

Now to think of this, probably "Like A Rolling Stone" had quite a crucial role why I actually lost my interst to new Rolling Stones music during the 90's - to the effect that I didn't even purchase BRIDGES TO BAYLON the day (a year actually) it was realesed, and couldn't recognize that there is probably their best stuff since UNDERCOVER there.

Now it all make sense: I really was disappointed with VOODOO LOUNGE. I took as an insult towards their old listeners: the band plays half-heartidly safe and easy through the motions and laughs all the way to bank. Then the corny and extremily cheap "Like A Rolling Stone"... I liked STRIPPED very much, and especially the television version of it (featuring the best "Vegas" era live footage in retrospect) but it was all nostalgia - them going to studio and playing "acoustic" versions of their old songs; then playing in a club some of their 'obscure' songs from the past. It was actually open nostalgia, and once one plays with that card, the game is over for new tricks. (Funny though: then it was all about their artistic choices - what they do - not their actually condition or ability what they can do; the latter problem didn't occur until LICKS tour or even A BIGGER BANG I think - by the time 'everyone' had accepted the ('vegas') nature of the band by then.)

I think for quite many - for very many actually - that was alright: The Stones finally in terms with their past, and just present celebrative presentations of the history, but for me that somehow marked the end - artistically speaking it is over now. I remember 'forgiving' "Like A Rolling Stone", and I truely liked STRIPPED but it didn't artistically speaking mean anything - it was just a nostalgic cake for old fans. But what goes for their upcoming releases I would vote with my feet. Thereby I 'lost' BRIDGES TO BABYLON for years.

Sorry, this went so autobiographical, but it is funny reflect those times when I lost my interest to The Rolling Stones as a 'real' artist, even though I enjoyed entering the concerts (at the same time).

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-06-19 11:01 by Doxa.

Jokerman
[www.mojvideo.com]

and




















Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2012-06-19 11:28 by HighwireC.

FFS:





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Some of Keith's finest latter day open G-playing in there, imo.

I thought it was a good cover, but even more an exceptionally well-performed live song.

I think the song is so well written and sung by Dylan that it's pointless to make any covers. Stones cover is a Vegas cover meaning its not bad but its also pointless its safe out of context and a number you cant f-ck up. They use the song as a corporate signature.

Micks harmonica is not a problem, he does a blues which is fine, however the safe production makes it sound almost like Dave Stewart and thats not a good sign.

Btw Brian doesnt have to feel like a complete unknown anymore.

Quote
Redhotcarpet
I think the song is so well written and sung by Dylan that it's pointless to make any covers. Stones cover is a Vegas cover meaning its not bad but its also pointless its safe out of context and a number you cant f-ck up. They use the song as a corporate signature.

Micks harmonica is not a problem, he does a blues which is fine, however the safe production makes it sound almost like Dave Stewart and thats not a good sign.

Btw Brian doesnt have to feel like a complete unknown anymore.

Yeah, finally one person that got that fact!

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Quote
Redhotcarpet
I think the song is so well written and sung by Dylan that it's pointless to make any covers. Stones cover is a Vegas cover meaning its not bad but its also pointless its safe out of context and a number you cant f-ck up. They use the song as a corporate signature.

Micks harmonica is not a problem, he does a blues which is fine, however the safe production makes it sound almost like Dave Stewart and thats not a good sign.

Btw Brian doesnt have to feel like a complete unknown anymore.

Vegas cover??

It's a well-played song with very, very nice guitars, and the band is cooking. Wisely included on the excellent album, Stripped - IMHO.

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DandelionPowderman
It's a well-played song with very, very nice guitars, and the band is cooking. Wisely included on the excellent album, Stripped - IMHO.

IMHO too.

BTW, only Brian himself thought this song was about him. When asked, Bob said that Ballad of a
thin man was more about Brian than this one.

Just as long as the guitar plays, let it steal your heart away