Like a Rolling Stone

Dylan drafted it in 1965 after returning exhausted from a UK tour, working from a long typed piece of prose and shaping it into four verses and a chorus in Woodstock. In a 1966 interview he said that after writing it he no longer wanted to write novels or plays.

It was recorded on 15 and 16 June 1965 at Columbia Studio A, with Tom Wilson producing. The first session, in waltz time with Dylan on piano, was unusable. On 16 June the band played in 4/4, Al Kooper improvised the organ part, and take four became the master. The full session was released in 2015 as Bootleg Series Vol. 12.

The single came out on 20 July 1965 with Gates of Eden on the B-side. It reached number two on the US Hot 100, number one on Cash Box, four in the UK and three in Canada, spending 12 weeks on the chart. The Beatles' Help! held the top spot. Rolling Stone ranked it first on its 500 greatest songs list in 2004 and 2010, and fourth in 2021.

Live

Dylan first played it live at Newport on 25 July 1965. It was the closer at Manchester in 1966, where a listener shouted "Judas". He played it at the Isle of Wight in 1969, on the 1974 tour with the Band, and on the Rolling Thunder shows of 1975 and 1976. He sang it with Mick Jagger at his 1988 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction and with the Rolling Stones in Brazil in 1998. It has been logged about 2,000 times in concert.