Hip Hop Fan Reacts To Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan
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Believe it or not, this was a Top 40 hit in 1965 .. yup .. you could turn on the radio, hear a Frank Sinatra tune and then this revolutionary sound would play next.
#theMaster
There was another decent band that you could occasionally hear on the Radio.
They aren’t very well known now, but back at that time-they had one or two songs that were pretty good.
The Beatles.
@@CipherSerpico Yeah, pretty good. You could say Dylan and the Beatles were pretty good. Nothin' like 'em. before or after. Nothing. Ever. OK. maybe Mozart.
@@jjhpor Ya, I know that Moe guy.
Polish fella, right?
Moe Zart?
Well said. Rap is like Dylan, not the other way around.
The reference advising to "stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose" is about the use of fire hoses to control protests/riots (see Watts Protests in the 60s, etc.).
And his line about weathermen was actually picked up by the Weather Underground, the 60s radical group, as their name!
Bob Dylan wasn't "trying" to rap. Rap didn't exist in 1965. Bob Dylan was doing Bob Dylan. RAP SOUNDS LIKE DYLAN!! Not he other way around.
I was just about to say something just like that.👍
Talking Blues predates Dylan by decades 💀
Ya but Dylan is a time traveler and in 1960 he went to 1992 and heard rap and went back to 1960 and copied it.
@@ED-cn7sn well, that's one interesting take on it. 🤔
Yes. I hate the way these retrospective channels apply their own present to pretend the past was influenced by musicians that followed. Instead of understanding how each new generation is influenced by the past.
NOBODY was writing songs like this in 1965. He was so ahead of his time. Still is.
Frank Zappa.
um, Chuck Berry
@markbushnell4019 You expressed that well mate, you are an excellent wordsmith. And I couldn't agree more with what you have said!
And he was 24 when he wrote this !! It’s so wise and world-weary.
Absolutely!
This isn't his only song that presages rap, he had several that were of a style known as "talking blues", which was also a style often used by Woody Guthrie, who was arguably Dylan's primary musical influence.
Charlie Patton was a blues singer who was rapping in the late "twenties.
@@georgereynolds2276 Christopher Bouchillon released the song "Talking Blues" in 1927
rap is hillbilly and hillbilly's can spit and talk at the same time
The music video for this track is iconic - and has been ripped off so many times. In the background of the video you also see Allen Ginsberg, an American beat poet best known for Howl. Dylan was definitely ahead of his time. I love the comic nature of this song.
Isn't Ginsburg talking to Lawrence Ferlinghetti in this video?
@@027mongo he's talking to bob neuwirth
@@hydraulicfacechannel2147 Ah, thanks for that, you're right. For some reason I'd thought it was Ferlinghetti for years...
It’s filmed in an alley, next to savoy hotel in London.
I knew that once rap music fans heard this tune they’d recognize Dylan’s genius & range. Folk, protest, rock, country, rap, he does it all. Happy to see you get to this tune. Great reaction.✌️❤️🎶
This isn’t Dylan “trying out rap.” He wrote this in 1965. But I’m really happy you’re introducing this to your audience. Love it.
He knows when it was written he is just comparing it to rap because it is nearly an early form of rap before it had that name
@@Camothor10 Nope: he grew up on "Rap" and that's the only "music" he knows, as if "Rap" were something new or "revolutionary".
TALKING BLUES is what it was called during the 1920s-50s, and Dylan got it from Woodie Guthrie.
For 30 years I used Dylan and Bob Marley to help teach poetry. The kids into rap always got it.
Bob Dylan was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for literature. You have almost but not quite heard a teeny, tiny bit of Dylan's output. Keep it up.
Him getting the Nobel Prize rattled some cages , lol , of course , some day there should be a Dylan award ,but then again Bob doesn't do it much for an award ,IMO....
Talkin blues....the godfather of rap. 13 years before the first real rap song. Also, in the late 60s a radical splinter group of the SDS, took the name Weathermen from this song
The 60s protest/anti-war group called “The Weathermen” took their name from the line in this song, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
The “ Talking Blues “ was a style way before current Rap. Dylan is a lyrical genius .
I'm an old guy; I was listing to everything Dylan in the '60s and after. I would memorize dozens of his songs and perform them for my friends. When Rap and Hip-Hop came around I wondered if anyone was drawing the connection with some of the verses of Bob Dylan. It's also interesting to see that much of his poetry is just as relevant as it was when he composed it.
As much as I can't fault you listening to Dylan during his hey day, he also has a lot of later day masterpieces that are just as impressive even if they're not as well known: Ain't Talkin', The Man in the Long Black Coat, Most of the Time, Mississippi, Not Dark Yet, Highlands, Every Grain of Sand, Tempest, and even several songs from his last album (his best in years): I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You, Black Rider, Key West, and Murder Most Foul.
What an amazing song to do. Analyzing Dylan is like finding an electron. Not in any one place until you analyze, and then it is your own perspective that most affects the measurement.
I agree. Dylan is above most of us mortals. It's kind of like a first grader analyzing a university graduate. ✌️😊
Check out "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream", from the same album. It's one of my favorites of his lesser-talked-about works. It doesn't have quite the same flow as Subterranean, but I think it's one of his funniest songs. It's the best surreal scramble of Columbus, Moby-Dick, and American history you'll ever hear!
Also I dig the Samurai Chambloo ED beat at the end of the vid! Now I have to go listen to the whole song...
I second Tombstone Blues to do next. During his pure "folk" era Dylan wrote a lot of songs that tackled specific political issues directly, and after he went electric and his lyrics got more metaphorical he was accused of selling out. But the political angle never left - this, It's Alright Ma, Tombstone, Stuck Inside of Mobile and so many more are stuffed with social commentary. The freeing up of his writing style just meant he could tackle *everything* at once - violence, religion, the police, government authorities, race, imperialism, corruption, hypocrisy, you name it.
Tombstone Blues is in some ways his best song.
This has always felt to me like he was dispensing wisdom to young people while jumping rope. Iconic song. Cool reaction.
:)) awesome comparison!
Good way to put that song, in particular! Never thought of it that way but it makes sense.
Yeah. It has that rhythm to it.
The Inkwell was a folk club in Boston that Bob used to hang around.
Didn't know that. You could also take this lyric to be Dylan talking about someone trying to write a book, song, script, etc. Especially when he sings, "Hard to tell, if anything is gonna sell"
@@anthonykane201 or maybe if a song is going to sell.
Could be, not this one, he had a radio hit with it! The way I interpret it, it could be directed toward anyone, and he was especially directing it towards young people, "Look Out Kid"
You're chillin on it like we did 50-60 years ago. Makes it classic.
You should listen to Maggie's Farm too, it's from that same album
If you listen to the band, it's hilarious how they don't know when the chord changes will come, so they're simply following Dylan's lead and hoping for the best!
Yeah! And sometimes the bass player plays the wrong note because Dylan adds two more lines.
You should have done the video of the song; as IT is iconic, parodies of it showing up in commercials, TV shows, movies, and other forms of media.
Was waiting and hoping for you to do this one ‘cause I was certain that you would like it! Brilliant track way ahead of time and as usual a great reaction! I’m crossing all my fingers that you will do ‘Desolation row’ next as it is fantastic and I’m convinced you’ll appreciate that one too! Greetings from Sweden.
Gawd, I hate it when people say something is “ahead of its time”. Having been a young adult at this time, I assure you it was very much OF its time. It just SEEMS modern now because of all the imitation.
@@helenespaulding7562 Relax
Desolation Row perhaps the greatest s9ng ever....
Desolation Row and one of my favorites Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowland
@@MagicianCamille I know, I know. It’s just that several people, on this reaction alone, said “ahead of its time”. Not to mention it happening on other reactions as well. This was just one time too many. Didn’t mean to pick on this guy in particular.
I’ll do some deep breathing. 😉😏
I'm so used to hearing this with the visual of Dylan's video, it was weird not to see it while listening.
“Tombstone blues” is Dylan’s third “proto-rap” masterpiece of 1965, check it out....and ive been waiting for u to do this song, thanks, i needed a good thing to happen, my day has been crap.
His video of the song “ Subterranean Homesick Blues” is the first music video ever, followed years later by MTV, in which he was the first artist on MTV music. Hats off the genius of Bobby Dylan! Thank you for your insightful commentary of the song. No wonder why George Harrison said to Johnston ( Nashville studio producer) : You’ll hear Bob Dylan in the next 500 years. Please Check out “ I Want You”, “ Hurricane “, “ The death of Hattie Carroll”, “ Winterlude”, “ Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”, “ Forever Young”, “ Just Like A Woman”, “ Blowing In The Wind” if you did not cover them in your channel. God Bless
The first on MTV were " Video Killed the Radio Star"? What are you talking about Dylan being the first?
I'm so glad you found this and enjoyed it! It really is hip hop what sixty years before it's time? You gotta see the official video and maybe do another take on this.
You would def get a kick outta the 'music video' that goes along with this song. 👍
Ps: Suggested the vid before you said it..😎
Great reaction Syed. I have been waiting for you to stumble upon this gem. I believe the song you were trying to remember in reference to the wind blows is "Blowing in the Wind". Keep up the good work. ✌️😊
It's dope that you see the similarity to hip-hop, I always tell people this was the first rap song. I grew up listening to Hip-hop and first heard Bob Dylan in high school. I immediately fell in love with his music because of his lyricism. He was my gateway from Hip-hop to all the other fantastic music out there and is my all time favorite musician.
No, the fire hose was a reference to the fact that back then, the police, especially in the South, would use fire hoses at full force to break up demonstrations. We used to see it on TV regularly….mainly black young people being knocked over by the force of the water.
Another fantastic video sir thanks 😊 I love your analysis 😀 syed respect 🙏 this songs 🎵 story still rings true today
Walk This Way by Aerosmith 1975 was rap before rap. But the first rap record was a 1949 record called Gospel Boogie by LeRoy Abernathy. It's total rap and they sing this song in churches a lot more these days since people think it's rap. But it was 1949!! Just search the song and there you are, the first rap record. The Pilgrim Travelers covered Gospel Boogie with Lou Rawls but it was original to LeRoy Abernathy who wrote it in 1947.
Fire hoses were used on civil rights marchers in the 1960s
I adore your perspective on Dylan!! I think you would really enjoy his cadence in the song "Tombstone Blues" and would love to see you analyze it. Loving this channel, keep up the good work!
My two sons love rap I always point them to this track, both love Dylan too just goes to show brainwashing works ha. The first song I put on for them both in car ride home from hospital?
Forever Young.
Hey man. I think your interpretations are awesome. Don't take any crap from anyone. You are articulate, insightful, and truly appreciative of the great music you are discovering. I enjoy your perspective. Good stuff!
Great reaction again..
This might have been 1st music video!!
Who's Maggie in this song you may ask? Try Maggie's Farm by Bob Dylan.
Fascinating take on this song. It’s nice to see the song analyzed like this and an appreciation for the lyrical structure.
I always believed that the line “weather man” was a reference to the Weather Underground but perhaps not. And the fire hoses as a reference to thebold police actions to quell protestors by using wayer hoses and water cannons.
Anyway, count me in as a new subscriber i like your style
You got that backwards. The group took the name from the lyric.
"Dylan was a big hip-hop fan-ever since rapper Kurtis Blow turned him on to artists like N.W.A and Public Enemy. 'These guys were definitely not bullshitting, Dylan wrote in "Chronicles." 'They were beating drums, tearing it up, hurling horses over cliffs.' "It's All Good" is his most gangsta moment: He adopts a Howlin' Wolf growl to flip the hip-hop catchphrase, kissing off a collapsing world where it isn't all good at all" (Rolling Stone "Bob Dylan: The Complete Album Guide" p. 67).
I chuckle at this 'cause I did this at a Karaoke club and a person asked me, ”Was Bob Dylan 'rapping' on this song?"...I told him that nah, it's his 'folk flow'! Great vid, sir!
The video is worth finding .
I am glad you appreciate Dylan’s sense of humor. So many people don’t realize how funny he is.
To folkies of the day this is an amped up exponent of the "talkin blues" category. Another talkin blues of dylans is his song " if dogs run free" which is more beatnicky from his "New Morning" album.
"those that carry around a fire hose" - reference to the Police/Military who used fire hoses against people protesting/fighting for their civil rights in the '60s.
This song was done in 1965 - way earlier than hip hop or rap No one was doing anything like this at the time
Rhyming over a beat goes back to the beginnings in Africa
Bob added modern instruments, he didn’t invent it
@@Ck-zk3we Where is your proof for such a statement?
The answer my friend is blowing in the wind...
Love how excited you got about this one. I had to stand up and pace around because I got into with you. And I first heard this 30yrars ago. I think this is on Highway 51. If so, I'm telling you every song on that album is a classic.
"If you see me coming, you better RUN....."
Pure genius.
No, it's from "Bringing It All Back Home" and other album is "Highway 61 Revisited." Not putting you down, just saving you embarassment down the line.
Bob Dylan inspires a great deal of artistry and shocked his mostly folk/protest fans when he 'went electric.' You're absolutely correct about Dylan's music being an influential part of the roots of many Hip Hop artists.
Bob Dylan- Winner of the Nobel prize in Literature!
Big fan of your channel, my friend! Maybe now check out 'Pump It Up' by Elvis Costello, who has said that SHB was a direct influence...then listen to 'Born Slippy' by Underworld to see it all come full circle in a 90s dance style...the Chuck Berry song is "Too Much Monkey Business' if you want to see how all this started...great reaction as always to Bobby D!
Check out Dylan's book "The Philosophy of Modern Song". He evaluates (Theme Time Radio Hour style) scores of songs. And he is simultaneously fawning and brutal in his assessment of EC and Pump It Up. It's fantastic.
The song you may have been trying to remember in the second verse is "Blowin' In the Wind" ("The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind. . .") Also, some have contended that the far-left militant group, The Weather Underground, got their name from this line.
The Weather Underground was a far left militant group in the 1960s that Dylan may have been referring to when when he says you don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.
The Weather Underground got their name from Dylan's line in the song.
I have to admit I'm surprised that you know that was Alan Ginsberg in the background of the video. That video was actually the opening of "Don't Look Back" which is considered one of the best music movies ever. Worth a look.
At this time Dylan linked up with Ginsberg and Andy Warhol. The subsequent album "Highay 61 Revisited" is all about the bohemian/beat culture and the mainstream's inability to understand it.
@@machoward6443 Dylan hated Warhol. He was a bit homophobic and his crew were pot smokers and very macho and Warhol‘s crowd were hustlers, drag queens and speed freaks. The two groups were not compatible. The one time Dylan went to the Factory to do one of Warhol‘a “screen tests”, he was difficult (par for the course for him) and borderline abusive. On the way out, he helped himself to one of Warhol‘s life-size Elvis portraits (which he later traded for a couch). Warhol was incensed, but they were all afraid of Dylan and his roadie who was with him. The whole story is in the “Factory People” documentary. The episode with Edie Sedgwick was just the icing on the cake.
Bob Dylan's 115th Dream is worth a listen.
Check out the song..Bob Dylan's 115th dream... probably his funniest song.
Bob Dylan was one cool cat. Remains a key element in Rock -Folk history spawned by the Vietnam War (police state) era. . . Protect the Constitution 📜🎸 Rock on, for Posterity . . .
There is the long rambling semi rap of Brown'sville Girl mainly seemingly about a Gregory Peck western . Bob being batty but brilliant
Great you're getting into Bob's lyrics and delivery. In a similar style is 'Tombstone Blues' which sounds like a rap delivery with a fast paced blues backing. It contains several excellent short vignettes all with tremendous lyrical description. .....the sun's not yellow, it's chicken...🤣
A little history.
College students opposed to the Vietnam war called themselves The Weathermen after the line in this song: don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows. Eventually, more extreme members broke off to form The Weather Underground.
John Lennon was one of the most influential people around that time. Groups like The Weather Underground were pressuring him to take more radical stances. Lennon refused. He wrote Revolution to reject extremism. The words are pretty self explanatory. Especially at the end when he repeats 'alright'. Listen to how each 'alright' changes slightly in tone. By the last 'alright', he is basically saying 'leave me the fuck alone, enough is enough'.
So hard to have a favourite Dylan track because there’s so much quality and so much variety, but this is right up there. Like you say, the subject matter, the rhythm is all so modern - put his vocals over a different beat and it’s hip hop.
Fun connection for you too - Radiohead have a track on OK Computer called Subterranean Homesick Alien which references this.
Desolation Row....
So many great ones.
The song is called “Blowin in the Wind.” 😁
Love your reviews of some key Dylan songs. I've known this song since it came out, but it is always cool to hear new takes, like yours. It makes me appreciate the songs in new ways.
But, I do take a little issue with some of the lyrics you reference:
verse 2: don't tie no bows --> don't try NoDoz™ (a popular over-the-counter stimulant at the time)
verse 3: hang bail --> ring bell
ride rail --> write Braille
Keep up the good work ! Looking forward to watching more from your channel.
Rap is direct x factual x confrontational .
Dylan was evocative, he liked the flow x sound to birth emotion . Direct meaning rarely matters , it's the thoughts x emotions the listener interprets he's after.
In this case as I always think, he's railing against the system..
Yes! The "back home" of the album title is contemporary society.
Not in the rap style but for awesome lyrics try A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall by Dylan
I agree. A brilliant song.
I love your show The Dylan stuff the most. Thank you
This is one of the rare songs you should actually watch the video - Dylan made a promotional film for this back in the day
Positively 4th Street, I Want You, Just Like A Women, Masters Of War .. among many by Dylan. Dylan changed his style a lot, that's why I recommended these tracks.. there's too many tracks to type that are great.
Love Dylan can not listen to rap or hip hop.. as they seem very juvenile in comparison to Dylan.
There was a 1960's very Radical group, the Weathermen, that took their inspiration for their name from the line in this song
"A domestic radical protest group called the Weather Underground or originally called the Weatherman or the Weathermen, a name taken from a line in a Bob Dylan song, the Weather Underground was a small offshoot of Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS, a group created in the turbulent ‘60s to promote social change.
When SDS collapsed in 1969, the Weather Underground stepped forward, inspired by communist ideologies and embracing violence and crime as a way to protest the Vietnam War, racism, and promote other radical aims. “Our intention is to disrupt the empire ... to incapacitate it, to put pressure on the cracks,” claimed the group’s 1974 manifesto, Prairie Fire.
By the next year, the group had claimed credit for 25 bombings-including at the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, the California Attorney General’s office, and a New York City police station plus many others..."
*Who Killed Davey Moore* has a rap delivery - it's early Dylan about the death of a boxer and division of responsibility.
You will find that Bob had at least 10 different voices thru the decades.
You won't recognize him at times :)
Many of us are living vicariously thru you listening to our fav music for the first time.
The fire hose reference is actually about fire hoses. In the 60s in was the usual tactic of the authorities to get the fire department to use water to disperse crowds.
I always heard this as Dylan singing about things people said to him, or other young people, rather than him giving advice to others.
Listen to Dylan's Hurricane. I love listen to your analysis, and I always learn something I didn't know about songs I knew everything about!
There had been nothing like this song before it came out. It was astounding. And it made a stunning introduction to his groundbreaking album "Bringing it All Back Home" in 1965. The interesting thing was, when Dylan moved away from writing "topical" songs or "protest" songs about specific incidents and issues...as he had done in his 2nd and 3rd albums...and it had made him the darling of the New Left at the time...he actually began writing songs which were either very personal....or which, in effect, protested just about *everything* that was happening in society. Rather than focusing on one specific issue, songs like "It's Alright, Ma", "Gates of Eden", and "Desolation Row" (to name just three of them) were taking aim at almost every aspect of the dominant culture at the time. They were, in fact, far more revolutionary in their nature than the more overt "protest" material that had preceded them....and at the same time, they were far more personal. He had the gift of writing in a way that could hit many different targets and on many levels, all at the same time. Joan Baez said later that he was "so good with words, and at keeping things vague" in her own brilliant song "Diamonds and Rust", which is about her and Bob Dylan back then. You should review that song some time. "Diamonds and Rust" Joan Baez.
Oh this was my favorite when my Dad got me a Dylan CD in high school - maybe second only to Blowin in the Wind ❤️
Possibly the “first” ever music video accompanied this song. Same album was It’s Alright Ma. Seriously revolutionary, groundbreaking stuff in music history.
Chuck Berry did a song called "Too Much Monkey Business" although I first heard it on the album "Five Live Yardbirds". Eric Clapton was in the group. Their name was a tribute Charlie Parker.
Check out Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream ~ off the same album. Hilarious too.
some other great dylan songs that show how versatile he and his voice are would be Idiot Wind (maybe the funniest and most savage chorus of his) or Girl from the North Country (a duet with Johnny Cash)
And the most beautiful love song ever written "Lay Lady Lay" to me anyway
Hopefully I'm not double posting. I've loved this song for many years. "Twenty years of schoolin' and they put you on the day shift" Damn straight.
You noticed Allen Ginsberg in the video.Thus the ties between the Beat Generation and the flower power '60's generation becomes apparent. The Beats paved the way for the hippies and the hippies paved the way for... well.
If you want to hear some vocal acrobatics check the Monkees "Goin' Down."
It would be great to hear your comments on 'Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" or the "Highway 61 Revisited" track. Also by the way in 1986 Dylan was invited to add an intro to a Kurtis Blow track, "Street Rock" which is quite cool.
Watch Dylan's video with the song that features Beat poet Allen Ginsburg in the background...
Note that he spells “success” as “suckcess”
5:25 Hes referencing Police tactics on crowd control in the South in the '60s. They often turn firehoses on civil rights protesters. 🌈✨
These way before rap! What a genious! A huge influence and friend of the beatles.
I "knew" this song long before I ever heard it as my dad always used to quote "don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" and "pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handle."
"....carry 'round a fire hose" could refer to fire hoses used to break up demonstrations as was common in the 1960s.
You should react to Dylan's entire "Blood on the Tracks" album.
You may not realize that the Weathermen, later the Weather Underground, took their name from this song. "Don't need a weatherman..... The pump don't work cause the vandals tool the handle..." That was a template for resistance to the war machine. There was a saying in the late 60s---You do need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
Love your channel, enjoy your comments, thanks a lot! My suggestions are " Highway 61 revisited" and "Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again". And because you cannot limit yourself to just Dylan [ is that even true?] I suggest "Tomorrow never knows"
by the Beatles for something completely different!
I'm on the pavement, thinking about a Dylan rap. It sounds so hilarious, I never get enough of it.
Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of hearts by Dylan please!
You have to think of lyricist like this as making paintings. Its not about the actual words but the feeling they along with the music convey, or paint.
The Chuck Berry song that inspired this is Too Much Monkey Business. In 1978 Elvis Costello wrote and recorded Pump It Up which was inspired by Subterranean Homesick Blues. All very similar. All great songs.
You should check out Bob Dylan's 115th Dream. I'd love to hear your analysis of it .
The way the wind blows refers to you don't have to be a genious to know what is happening". Many lines that I can't recall the name for it.
Love your Dylan videos! Check out Maggie's Farm from the Newport Folk Festival (it also appears on Bringing it All Back Home, but the live version is FIRE).