History Music / Highway61Revisited

** Also provides one for an album by an entirely different artist: Music/SteelyDan's ''Can't Buy a Thrill'', taken from a line in "It Takes a Lot To Laugh, It Takes a Train To Cry:.

* TheTeamWannabe: Al Kooper's organ riff on "Like a Rolling Stone" is one of the most recognisable in music history. Despite the fact that he didn't know how to play the organ and wasn't supposed to be on the record at all, but basically walked into the studio, sat down at the organ and started fooling about because nobody explicitly told him ''not'' to. Dylan liked it and [[ThrowItIn kept it]].

[[caption-width-right:350: ''"Something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you, Mister Jones?"'']]

# "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train To Cry" (4:09)

-->You used to laugh about
-->Everybody that was hanging out,
-->Now you don't talk so loud,
-->Now you don't seem so proud
-->About having to be scrounging your next meal.

-->Well, you walk into the room like a camel, and then you frown.
-->You put your eyes in your pocket and your nose on the ground.
-->There ought to be a law against you comin' around.
-->You should be made to wear earphones.
-->'Cause something is happening and you don't know what it is,
-->Do you, Mr. Jones?

--> ''And you know something is happening''
--> ''But you don't know what it is''
--> ''Do you, Mister Jones?''

--> ''I started out on burgundy \\

--> ''You used to be so amused at Napoleon in rags and the language that he used''
** Paul Revere, Belle Starr, Jezebel, UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper, John the Baptist, the Philistine King, UsefulNotes/GalileoGalilei, Delilah, Creator/CecilBDeMille, Music/MaRainey, Music/LudwigVanBeethoven, and Gypsy Davy (a song by Music/WoodyGuthrie) in "Tombstone Blues".
--> ''The city fathers they're trying to endorse the reincarnation of Paul Revere's horse''
--> ''(...) The ghost of Belle Starr, she hands down her wits''
--> ''To Jezebel the nun she violently knits a bald wig for UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper (...)''
--> ''(...) Well, John the Baptist after torturing a thief''
--> ''Looks up at his hero the Commander-in-Chief (...)''
--> ''(...) The king of the Philistines his soldiers to save''
--> ''But jawbones on their tombstones and flatters their graves''
--> ''(...) Gypsy Davey with a blowtorch he bums out their camps''
--> ''(...) The geometry of innocence flesh on the bone''
--> ''Causes Galileo's math book to get thrown''
--> ''At Delilah who sit worthlessly alone''
--> ''But the tears on her cheeks are from laughter''
--> ''(...) Then send out for some pillars and Creator/CecilBDeMille''
--> ''When Ma Rainey and Beethoven once unwrapped their bed roll''

--> ''She walks like Bo Diddley and she don't need no crutch''

--> ''You've been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books''
--> ''You're very well read; it's well known''

* LongTitle: "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry"

* RefrainFromAssuming: "Ballad of a Thin Man" is not called "Do You, Mr. Jones?"

* FaceOnTheCover: Dylan, posing for the camera.

** Music/TheRollingStones covered "Like a Rolling Stone", as was to be expected one day, on their live album ''Stripped'' from 1995.

Many fans and rock historians consider it to be one of his masterpieces. ''Magazine/RollingStone''[='=]s list of the [[Music/RollingStone500GreatestAlbumsOfAllTime 500 Greatest Albums of All Time]] ranks it at number four. ''Magazine/TimeMagazine'' included the album in its list of [[TimeAllTime100Albums 100 timeless and essential recordings]].

[[AC: Side One]]

[[AC: Side Two]]

Many fans and rock historians consider it to be one of his masterpieces. ''Magazine/RollingStone''s list of the [[Music/RollingStone500GreatestAlbumsOfAllTime 500 Greatest Albums of All Time]] ranks it at number four. ''Magazine/TimeMagazine'' included the album in its list of [[TimeAllTime100Albums 100 timeless and essential recordings]].

''Highway 61 Revisited'' is the sixth studio album by Music/BobDylan, released in 1965. It is best known for the hits and fan favourites "Like a Rolling Stone", "Ballad of a Thin Man", "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Desolation Row".

** "Desolation Row," the place and the song, is inhabited with a variety of public domain characters that seem to symbolize separate aspects of humanity. The characters include Literature/{{Cinderella}}, Creator/BetteDavis, [[Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet Romeo]], [[Theatre/{{Hamlet}} Ophelia]], CainAndAbel, Literature/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame, UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein, [[JustLikeRobinHood Robin Hood]], Literature/ThePhantomOfTheOpera, [[TheCasanova Giacomo Casanova]], the UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic, Creator/EzraPound, and Creator/TSEliot.

** In Music/TheBeatles' song "Yer Blues" on ''Music/TheWhiteAlbum'' (1968), Music/JohnLennon sings "I feel so suicidal/just like Dylan's "Mr. Jones", which is a reference to the title character in "Ballad of a Thin Man".

* CircusOfFear: "Ballad of a Thin Man", if we would take the lyrics literally, takes places at a creepy carnival circus.

** A stanza of "Highway 61 Revisited" is narrated in ''Film/TheHunted'' from 2003 by Music/JohnnyCash at the beginning and at the end of the movie.

* PublicExecution: The first line of "Desolation Row" establishes that public hangings are so essential to the Row that they sell postcards of them.

* PrincessInRags: "Like a Rolling Stone"

* SuperSpeed: The famous siren whistle sound that kicks of the song "Highway 61 Revisited" and reappears at various moments throughout the song.

* LyricalDissonance: "Like a Rolling Stone".

* MoralityBallad: "Like a Rolling Stone"

** Literature/{{Cinderella}}, Creator/BetteDavis, [[Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet Romeo]], [[Theatre/{{Hamlet}} Ophelia]], CainAndAbel, Literature/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame, UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein, [[JustLikeRobinHood Robin Hood]], Literature/ThePhantomOfTheOpera, [[TheCasanova Giacomo Casanova]], the UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic, Creator/EzraPound, and Creator/TSEliot in "Desolation Row".
--> ''Cinderella, she seems so easy''
--> ''"It takes one to know one", she smiles''
--> ''And puts her hands in her back pockets''
--> ''Creator/BetteDavis style''
--> ''And in comes Romeo, he's moaning''
--> ''(...) The fortune telling lady has even taken all her things inside''
--> ''All except for Cain and Abel and the hunchback of Notre Dame''
--> ''(...) And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing''
--> ''(...) Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window''
--> ''For her I feel so afraid''
--> ''On her twenty-second birthday she already is an old maid''
--> ''To her, death is quite romantic''
--> ''She wears an iron vest''
--> ''Her profession is her religion''
--> ''Her sin is her lifelessness''
--> ''And though her eyes are fixed upon''
--> ''Noah's great rainbow''
--> ''She spends her time peeking into Desolation Row''
--> ''Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood with his memories in a trunk''
--> ''Passed this way an hour ago, with his friend, a jealous monk''
--> ''(...) The Phantom of the Opera''
--> ''In a perfect image of a priest''
--> ''They're spoon-feeding Casanova''
--> ''To get him to feel more assured''
--> ''Then they'll kill him with self-confidence''
--> ''After poisoning him with words''
--> ''And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls''
--> ''"Get outa here if you don't know''
--> ''Casanova is just being punished for going to Desolation Row''
--> ''(...) Praise be to heroes of Neptune''
--> ''The Titanic sails at dawn''
--> ''(...) And Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in the captain's tower''