"Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a song by Bob Dylan, recorded on January 14, 1965, and released as a single by Columbia Records, catalogue number 43242, on March 8.[5] It is the first track on the album Bringing It All Back Home, released some two weeks later.[6] It was Dylan's first Top 40 hit in the United States, peaking at number 39 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also entered the Top 10 of the UK Singles Chart. The song has subsequently been reissued on numerous compilations, the first being the 1967 singles compilation Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits. One of Dylan's first electric recordings, "Subterranean Homesick Blues" is also notable for its innovative music video, which first appeared in D. A. Pennebaker's documentary Dont Look Back. An acoustic version of the song, recorded the day before the single, was released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" is ranked 187th on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.[7] In its contemporary review, Cash Box described it as a "rockin’-country folk blueser with a solid beat and catchy lyrics" and "wild" guitar and harmonica playing.[8]
References and allusions
In 2004, Dylan said of the song: "It's from Chuck Berry, a bit of 'Too Much Monkey Business' and some of the scat songs of the '40s."[9]
Dylan has also stated that when he attended the University of Minnesota in 1959, he fell under the influence of the Beat scene: "It was Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso and Ferlinghetti."[10] Kerouac's The Subterraneans, a novel published in 1958 about the Beats, has been suggested as a possible inspiration for the song's title.[11][12]
The song's first line is a reference to codeine distillation and the politics of the time: "Johnny's in the basement mixing up the medicine / I'm on the pavement thinkin' about the government".[6][13] The song also depicts some of the growing conflicts between "straights" or "squares" and the emerging counterculture of the 1960s. The widespread use of recreational drugs and turmoil surrounding the Vietnam War were both starting to take hold of the nation, and Dylan's hyperkinetic lyrics were dense with up-to-the-minute allusions to important emerging elements in the 1960s youth culture. According to rock journalist Andy Gill, "an entire generation recognized the zeitgeist in the verbal whirlwind of 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'."[13]
The song also refers to the struggles surrounding the American civil rights movement ("Better stay away from those / That carry 'round a fire hose"—during the civil rights movement, peaceful protestors were beaten and sprayed with high-pressure fire hoses). The song was Dylan's first Top 40 hit in the United States.[14]
Influence
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" has had a wide influence, resulting in iconic references by artists and non-artists alike. (Most infamously, its lyric "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" was the inspiration for the name of the American far-left organization known as the Weather Underground, which formed after breaking away from the Students for a Democratic Society.)[15] In a 2007 study of legal opinions and briefs that found Dylan was quoted by judges and lawyers more than any other songwriter, "you don't need a weatherman..." was distinguished as the line most often cited.[16][17][a]
John Lennon was reported to find the song so captivating that he did not know how he would be able to write a song that could compete with it.[18][19] The group Firehose took its name from a lyric from the song: "Better stay away from those that carry around a fire hose..."[20] A line in the song provided the Australian garage rock band Jet with the title of their debut album Get Born.[21] "Subterranean Homesick Blues" is referenced in the title of Radiohead's song "Subterranean Homesick Alien" from the 1997 album OK Computer.[22]
In December 2009, the rapper Juelz Santana released the single "Mixin' Up the Medicine", which features lyrics in the chorus, performed by alternative rapper Yelawolf, and maintains some of the song's original acoustics. Ed Volker of the New Orleans Radiators also has performed the song in his solo shows and with the Radiators, often paired with "Highway 61 Revisited".[citation needed]
In 1985, British actor Tom Watt, at the time enjoying a high profile playing the role of Lofty Holloway in EastEnders, released a version of the song that made number 67 in the UK singles chart.
Elvis Costello cited "Subterranean Homesick Blues" as inspiration for his 1978 song "Pump It Up" saying, "It's how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That's what I did."[27]
Echo & the Bunnymen's 1980 song "Villiers Terrace" includes the lyric "There's people rolling 'round on the carpet / Mixin' up the medicine."
Chumbawamba's 2004 single "The Wizard of Menlo Park" features the lyric "Old Thomas Edison, mixing up the medicine."
Robert Wyatt's song "Blues in Bob Minor" from his 1997 album Shleep includes the line, "Genuflecting, bowing deeply/It don't take a weathergirl to see/Where the wind is blowing/What the wind is bending."
The Gaslight Anthem's song "Angry Johnny and the Radio", from their 2007 album Sink or Swim, includes the lyrics "And I'm still here singin', thinking about the government" and "Are you hidin' in a basement, mixin' up the medicine?"
Beastie Boys' song "Funky Donkey" from their 2011 album Hot Sauce Committee Part Two contains the lyrics "I don't wear Crocs and I don't wear sandals / The pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handle."
Deaf Havana's album Old Souls contains the song "Subterranean Bullshit Blues", which references the title in homage to the songwriter James Veck-Gilodi's respect for Dylan.
Adam Green's song "Novotel" includes the lyric "Novotel / The phone's tapped anyway."
The alternative rock band fIREHOSE took their name from the following line in this song:
"Walk on your tiptoes, don't tie no bows.
Better stay away from those
that carry around a firehose".
In addition to its influence on music, the song was used in one of the first "modern" promotional film clips, the forerunner of what was later known as the music video. Rolling Stone ranked it seventh in the magazine's October 1993 list of "100 Top Music Videos".[29] The original clip was the opening segment of D. A. Pennebaker's film Dont Look Back, a documentary on Dylan's 1965 tour of England. In the film, Dylan, who came up with the idea, holds up cue cards with selected words and phrases from the lyrics. The cue cards were written by Donovan, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Neuwirth and Dylan himself.[13]
While staring at the camera, Dylan flips the cards as the song plays. There are intentional misspellings and puns throughout the clip: for instance, when the song's lyrics say "eleven dollar bills", the poster says "20 dollar bills". The clip was shot in an alley close to the Savoy Hotel in London. Ginsberg is constantly visible in the background, talking to Neuwirth. For use as a trailer, the following text was superimposed at the end of the clip, Dylan and Ginsberg are exiting the frame: "SURFACING HERE SOON | BOB DYLAN IN | DONT LOOK BACK By D. A. PENNEBAKER". The Savoy Hotel has retained much of its exterior as it was in 1965, and the alley used in the film has been identified as the Savoy Steps.[30]
In addition to the Savoy Hotel clip, two alternative promotional films were shot: one in a park (Embankment Gardens, adjacent to the Savoy Hotel) where Dylan, Neuwirth and Ginsberg are joined by Dylan's producer, Tom Wilson, and another shot on the roof of an unknown building. A montage of the clips can be seen in the documentary No Direction Home.
The film clip was used in September 2010 in a promotional video to launch Google Instant.[31] As they are typed, the lyrics of the song generate search engine results pages.
The 1992 Tim Robbins film Bob Roberts features Robbins in the title role as a right-wing folk singer who uses Dylan's cue-card concept for the song "Wall Street Rap".[32]
"Weird Al" Yankovic's music video for the 2003 song "Bob" parodies Dylan's music and writing style with a series of 38 palindromic sentences. The word "Bob" is itself a palindrome and Yankovic mimics Dylan's video by dressing as Dylan and dropping cue cards that have the song's lyrics on them.[33][34]
Several other musicians have imitated or paid homage to the video by using a similar cue-card format, most notably Australian band INXS in the video for their 1987 song "Mediate"[35] and the German band Wir sind Helden in their 2005 song "Nur ein Wort [de]" (Just one word).[36]
^According to the study, Dylan was cited in court documents 186 times; the next closest was the Beatles, cited 74 times (Los Angeles Times, May 9, 2011).
^Breihan, Tom (November 15, 2022). "The Byrds - "Mr. Tambourine Man". The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music. New York: Hachette Book Group. p. 74.
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