Tombstone Blues

Bob Dylan recorded "Like a Rolling Stone" in mid-June 1965, with Tom Wilson as producer. Wilson had produced Dylan's albums The Times They Are a-Changin' (1964), Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), and Bringing It All Back Home (1965); the last of these had been Dylan's first album with electric instruments.{{sfn|Polizzotti|2006|p=46}}{{sfn|Williams|2004|pp=283–284}} Following clashes between Dylan and Wilson in 1965, Bob Johnston replaced Wilson as Dylan's producer.{{sfn|Polizzotti|2006|pp=47, 78}} After recording "Like a Rolling Stone", Dylan wrote a number of songs, including "Tombstone Blues", at his newly-purchased house in Byrdcliffe.{{sfn|Polizzotti|2006|p=75}}

File:Zagone Dylan Press Conf.jpg. At this press conference in December 1965, Bob Dylan (pictured left) denied playing folk-rock and said "I like to think of it more in terms of vision music – it's mathematical music."{{cite magazine |last=Gleason |first=Ralph J. |author-link=Ralph J. Gleason |title=Bob Dylan Gives Press Conference in San Francisco |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/bob-dylan-gives-press-conference-in-san-francisco-246805/ |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=December 14, 1967 |access-date=September 14, 2023}}]]

Twelve takes were recorded on July 29, 1965, at Columbia Studio A, 799 Seventh Avenue, New York.{{sfn|Heylin|2009|p=246}} Dylan sang and played guitar and harmonica, accompanied by Mike Bloomfield on guitar, Paul Griffin on piano, Al Kooper on organ, Joe Macho, Jr. on bass, and Bobby Gregg on drums. The last of these takes, lasting five minutes and 58 seconds, was included as the second track (following the opener "Like a Rolling Stone") on Dylan's sixth studio album, Highway 61 Revisited, which was released on August 30, 1965.{{sfn|Margotin|Guesdon|2022|p=190}}{{sfn|Williams|2004|p=284}} It was later included on his compilation albums Biograph (1985), The Original Mono Recordings, and The Best of the Original Mono Recordings (2010). Alternate takes were included on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack (2005) and The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966 (2015). Backing vocals by The Chambers Brothers were recorded on August 3, and a version including them was eventually released on the Bloomfield retrospective From His Head to His Heart to His Hands (2014).{{sfn|Margotin|Guesdon|2022|p=190}}

In the sleeve notes to Biograph, Dylan commented how he had felt that he had "broken through with this song, that nothing like it had been done before".{{sfn|Polizzotti|2006|p=75}} He added that he had been inspired by overheard bar-room conversations between police officers about the death of criminals.{{cite AV media |last=Crowe |first=Cameron |author-link=Cameron Crowe |others=Bob Dylan |title=Biograph |type=Side 3 sleeve notes |publisher=Columbia Records |year=1985 |id=C5X 38830 }}

The critic Andy Gill describes the structure of the song as "paired four-line stanzas to the rhyme-scheme a/a/a/b, c/c/c/b".{{sfn|Gill|2011|p=118}} The album take has six choruses, five of which have identical words while the other differs slightly. In the first take, all of the choruses are unique, with the characters "Mama" and "Daddy" in different combinations of situations.{{Cite AV media notes |title=The Bootleg Series, Vol. 12: Bob Dylan 1965–1966, The Best of the Cutting Edge |title-link=The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966 |first=Bill |last=Flanagan |author-link=Bill Flanagan |others=Bob Dylan |year=2015 |pages=12–13 |type=booklet |publisher=Columbia / Legacy |id=88875124422 }} The Dylan biographer Robert Shelton details the basic chords in the verse as "C, C7, F, and back to C", with a middle eight in which "F and C chords alternate".{{sfn|Shelton|1987|p=279}}

"Tombstone Blues" has been described as folk rock, a term Dylan detested.{{sfn|Polizzotti|2006|p=69}} Gill characterizes the music as a "fast blues shuffle",{{sfn|Gill|2011|p=117}} while Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic considers it to be garage rock.{{cite web |first=Stephen Thomas |last=Erlewine |author-link=Stephen Thomas Erlewine |title=Highway 61 Revisited Review |url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/highway-61-revisited-mw0000189730 |website=AllMusic |access-date=September 13, 2023 |archive-date=November 22, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201122082434/https://www.allmusic.com/album/highway-61-revisited-mw0000189730 |url-status=live }} The Dylan scholar Michael Gray regards Chuck Berry as an important influence on Dylan,{{sfn|Gray|2000|pp=95–97}} and argues that "Dylan could never have written 'Tombstone Blues' without Chuck Berry".{{sfn|Gray|2000|p=97}} Gill also detects the influence of Berry on the song, as well as the Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger song "Taking It Easy", which has a repetitive chorus about a mother in the kitchen that is emulated by Dylan's song.{{sfn|Gill|2011|p=118}}

The authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon assert that the title of the song refers to Tombstone, Arizona,{{sfn|Margotin|Guesdon|2022|page=190}} but literature scholar Richard Brown is more equivocal, suggesting that the title could represent "a rather doomy or morbid joke, an existential melancholy produced by an awareness of the inescapable condition of human mortality".{{sfn|Brown|2003|p=207}} The song contains several direct and indirect allusions to historical and characters and events.{{sfn|Gill|2011|p=118}} Paul Revere's horse, Belle Starr, Jack the Ripper, Galileo, Cecil B. DeMille, Ma Rainey, and Beethoven are all mentioned in the lyrics.{{sfn|Corcoran|2003|p=163}}{{sfn|Trager|2004|p=629}}

Dylan's biographer Robert Shelton writes that the song references the Vietnam War throughout, especially the title and the third and fourth verses.{{sfn|Shelton|1987|p=279}} This interpretation is shared by other critics.{{sfn|Gamble|2004|p=24}} In an early version, the song refers to a "blacksmith with freckles"; as the song develops in later takes, this becomes "John the blacksmith" and eventually "John the Baptist".{{Cite AV media notes |title=The Bootleg Series, Vol. 12: Bob Dylan 1965–1966, The Best of the Cutting Edge |title-link=The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966 |first=Bill |last=Flanagan |author-link=Bill Flanagan |others=Bob Dylan |year=2015 |page=25 |type=booklet |publisher=Columbia / Legacy |id=88875124422 }} The third verse includes:

{{poemquote|John the Baptist after torturing a thief

Looks up at his hero the Commander-in-Chief

Saying, "Tell me great hero, but please make it brief

Is there a hole for me to get sick in?"{{cite web |url=https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/tombstone-blues/ |title=Tombstone Blues |website=Bob Dylan's official website |access-date=September 8, 2023 |archive-date=June 28, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230628090904/http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/tombstone-blues/ |url-status=live }}{{sfn|Gamble|2004|p=23}}}}

The fourth verse includes:

{{poemquote|The king of the Philistines his soldiers to save

Put jawbones on their tombstones and flatters their graves

Puts the pied piper in prison and fattens the slaves

Then sends them out to the jungle.{{sfn|Boucher|2004|pp=164–165}}}}

Shelton sees President Lyndon Baines Johnson as the subject of the phrase "King of the Philistines".{{sfn|Shelton|1987|p=279}} The political scholar Andrew Gamble remarked that this verse is "often been taken to be a direct reference to the escalating war in Vietnam".{{sfn|Gamble|2004|p=24}}

David Boucher, an international relations scholar, describes the song as "not a narrative but instead a series of metaphors whose inspiration happens to be the Vietnam war".{{sfn|Boucher|2004|p=164}} Political science scholar Jeff Taylor and historian Chad Israelson suggest that although "Tombstone Blues" is not overtly political, its theme is the mockery of authority.{{sfn|Taylor|Israelson|2015|p=111}} For the critic Mike Marqusee, the repetitive and routine lives of the narrator's parentsIn the initial chorus, "Daddy is in the alley looking for food"; in later versions Daddy is "looking for the fuse". (This was presumably to get a word to rhyme with "shoes" and "bues"). in the choruses contrast with the "cruel antics of the rich and powerful" laid out in the verses.{{sfn|Marqusee|2005|pp=177–178}}

The scholar of English Neil Corcoran reasons that as John the Baptist's commander-in-chief is Jesus Christ, the song is blasphemous;{{sfn|Corcoran|2003|p=164}} the same description was applied by Record Mirror reviewer Norman Jopling in his 1965 review.{{cite magazine |last=Jopling |first=Norman |title=Dylan's New LP in Depth |magazine=Record Mirror |date=September 23, 1965 |page=8}}

Shelton finds the song funny, commenting on the outlandish juxtapositions, and praises both the lyrics and the musical performances, particularly the guitar playing.{{sfn|Shelton|1987|p=279}} John Nogowski also extols the humor, and gives the album version an A rating, suggesting that it could only have been written by Dylan.{{sfn|Nogowski|2022|p=54}} In 2012, Jim Beviglia included the song at 36th place in his ranking of Dylan's "finest" songs,{{sfn|Beviglia|2012|p=120}} commending the memorable phrases from the lyrics and the song's "glorious anarchy".{{sfn|Beviglia|2012|p=121}} Another critic to highlight Bloomfield's contribution on guitar was Joe Levy of Rolling Stone.{{cite magazine |last1=Levy |first1=Joe |title=How Bob Dylan Made Rock History on 'Highway 61 Revisited' |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/how-bob-dylan-made-rock-history-on-highway-61-revisited-249576/ |magazine=Rolling Stone |access-date=June 23, 2020}} Bill Janovitz of AllMusic, despite remarking that the musicians seem to be out of time with each other, gave a positive assessment, and argued that with songs like "Tombstone Blues", Dylan opened up new possibilities for other artists.{{cite web |first=Bill |last=Janovitz |author-link=Bill Janovitz |title=Tombstone Blues |url=https://www.allmusic.com/song/tombstone-blues-mt0007842309 |website=AllMusic |access-date=September 14, 2023 |archive-date=July 31, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220731145742/https://www.allmusic.com/song/tombstone-blues-mt0007842309 |url-status=live }}

Stephen King, who has spoken of his admiration for Dylan's work, quotes from "Tombstone Blues" at the end of his first published novel Carrie.{{cite web |last=Starkey |first=Arun |title=How Bob Dylan inspired Stephen King's 'Carrie' |url=https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/how-bob-dylan-inspired-stephen-kings-carrie/ |work=Far Out |date=May 21, 2021 |access-date=September 12, 2023 |archive-date=August 10, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220810230211/https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/how-bob-dylan-inspired-stephen-kings-carrie/ |url-status=live }}

Dylan's official website lists a total of 169 live performances of "Tombstone Blues", the most recent being in October 2006; after 1965 he did not perform the song live again until 1984. Although the website lists the first performance as being at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium on August 28, 1965,{{cite web |url=https://www.bobdylan.com/setlists/?id_song=26155 |title=Setlists that contain Tombstone Blues |website=Bob Dylan's official website |access-date=September 8, 2023 |archive-date=June 8, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230608092824/http://www.bobdylan.com/setlists/?id_song=26155 |url-status=live }} he actually debuted the song, in an acoustic version, at a Newport Folk Festival song workshop on July 24.{{sfn|Heylin|2009|p=235}}{{sfn|Heylin|2011|p=207}}{{cite web |last=Björner |first=Olof |author-link=Olof Björner |title=Still On The Road: 1965 Concerts, Interviews & Recording Sessions |url=https://www.bjorner.com/DSN00785%20(65).htm |website=About Bob |access-date=September 8, 2023 |archive-date=August 22, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220822153419/https://www.bjorner.com/DSN00785%20%2865%29.htm |url-status=live }} The Forest Hills performance was heckled by a section of the crowd who resented his new musical direction.{{cite news |last=Shelton |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Shelton (critic) |title=Folk Singer Offers Works in 'New Mood' at Forest Hills |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/04/reviews/dylan-unruly.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=August 30, 1965 |access-date=September 14, 2023 |archive-date=April 19, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220419233516/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/04/reviews/dylan-unruly.html |url-status=live }} Performances later that year, at Carnegie Hall and the Mosque Theater, were more enthusiastically received by audiences, with the song being cheered as it started at the latter venue.{{sfn|Heylin|2016|loc=1104}} A recording of the song from the Newcastle show of the Bob Dylan/Santana European Tour 1984, which featured Carlos Santana on guitar was included on Dylan's Real Live (1984).{{sfn|Williamson|2021|pp=247–248}} In Rolling Stone, Kurt Loder criticized the "formless arrangement" of the performance.{{cite magazine |last=Loder |first=Kurt |title=Real Live |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/real-live-206018/ |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=February 14, 1985 |access-date=September 13, 2023}}

In 1994, Dylan recorded the song for his MTV Unplugged episode,{{sfn|Nogowski|2022|p=189}} and it was included on his MTV Unplugged album and video release of the show in 1995.{{cite web |title=MTV Unplugged [Video] |url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/mtv-unplugged-video--mw0002535871 |website=AllMusic |access-date=September 8, 2023 |archive-date=September 5, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230905005844/https://www.allmusic.com/album/mtv-unplugged-video--mw0002535871 |url-status=live }} The 2021 concert film Shadow Kingdom: The Early Songs of Bob Dylan includes a slower (and abridged) version of the song, which also appears on the related album Shadow Kingdom (2023). Rolling Stone reviewer Michaelangelo Matos wrote that the "mordant, mortality-steeped feeling doesn't bring the music down a bit".{{cite magazine |first=Michaelangelo |last=Matos |title=Bob Dylan Makes His Classic Songs Seem Stunningly Brand-New on 'Shadow Kingdom' |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/bob-dylan-shadow-kingdom-1234745678/ |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=June 1, 2023 |access-date=September 12, 2023}}

Musical credits adapted from the details for take 1 on The Bootleg Series, Vol. 12: Bob Dylan 1965–1966, The Best of the Cutting Edge, and from Olof Björner's website.{{Cite AV media notes |title=The Bootleg Series, Vol. 12: Bob Dylan 1965–1966, The Best of the Cutting Edge |title-link=The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966 |others=Bob Dylan |year=2015 |page=56 |type=booklet |publisher=Columbia / Legacy |id=88875124422 }} Technical credits adapted from the Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track book.{{sfn|Margotin|Guesdon|2022|pages=190–191}}

Musicians

• Bob Dylan{{spaced en dash}}vocals, guitar, harmonica
• Mike Bloomfield{{spaced en dash}}guitar
• Paul Griffin{{spaced en dash}}piano
• Al Kooper{{spaced en dash}}organ
• Joe Macho, Jr.{{spaced en dash}}bass
• Bobby Gregg{{spaced en dash}}drums

Technical personnel

• Bob Johnston{{spaced en dash}}producer
• Frank Laico{{spaced en dash}}sound engineering
• Pete Dauria{{spaced en dash}}sound engineering
• Ted Brosnan{{spaced en dash}}sound engineering

{{Reflist}}

Books

• {{cite book |last=Beviglia|first=Jim |title=Counting Down Bob Dylan: His 100 Finest Songs |year=2012 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=978-0-8108-8824-1}}
• {{cite book |editor-last1=Boucher |editor-first1=David |editor-last2=Browning |editor-first2=Gary |first=David |last=Boucher |chapter=Images and Distorted Facts: Politics, Poetry and Protest in the Songs of Bob Dylan |pages=134–169 |title=The Political Art of Bob Dylan |year=2004 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-0-230-52254-1}}
• {{cite book |editor-last=Corcoran |editor-first=Neil |last=Brown |first=Richard|chapter=Highway 61 and Other American States of Mind |pages=193–220 |title=Do You, Mr Jones? Bob Dylan with the Poets and Professors |year=2003 |publisher=Pimlico |isbn=9780712668248 }}
• {{cite book |editor-last=Corcoran |editor-first=Neil |last=Corcoran |first=Neil |chapter=Death's Honesty |pages=143–174 |title=Do You, Mr Jones? Bob Dylan with the Poets and Professors |year=2003 |publisher=Pimlico |isbn=9780712668248 }}
• {{cite book |editor-last1=Boucher |editor-first1=David |editor-last2=Browning |editor-first2=Gary |first=Andrew |last=Gamble |chapter=The Drifter's Escape |pages=12–34 |title=The Political Art of Bob Dylan |year=2004 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-0-230-52254-1}}
• {{cite book |last1=Gill |first1=Andy |date=2011 |title=Bob Dylan: the Stories Behind the Songs 1962-1969|publisher=Carlton |isbn=978-1-84732-759-8}}
• {{cite book|first=Michael|last=Gray |author-link=Michael Gray (author) |title=Song & Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|year=2000|isbn=978-0-8264-5150-7}}
• {{cite book|first=Clinton|last=Heylin |author-link=Clinton Heylin |title=Revolution In The Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan, Volume One: 1957–73 |publisher=Constable & Robinson |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-84901-051-1}}
• {{cite book |last=Heylin |first=Clinton |author-link=Clinton Heylin |title=Behind the Shades: The 20th Anniversary Edition |publisher=Faber and Faber |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-571-27240-2}}
• {{cite book|first=Clinton|last=Heylin|title=Judas!: From Forest Hills to the Free Trade Hall: A Historical View of Dylan's Big Boo |edition=Kindle |isbn= 978-1-901927-68-9 |publisher=Route Publishing |year=2016}}
• {{cite book |last1=Margotin |first1=Philippe |last2=Guesdon |first2=Jean-Michel |date=2022 |title=Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track |publisher=Black Dog & Leventhal |edition=Expanded |isbn=978-0-7624-7573-5}}
• {{cite book |last=Marqusee |first=Mike |author-link=Mike Marqusee |title=Wicked Messenger: Bob Dylan and the 1960s |year=2005 |publisher=Seven Stories Press |isbn=978-1-58322-686-5}}
• {{cite book |last=Nogowski |first=John |title=Bob Dylan: A Descriptive, Critical Discography and Filmography, 1961-2022|edition=3rd |publisher=McFarland & Company |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-4766-4362-5}}
• {{cite book|first=Mark|last=Polizzotti|title=Highway 61 Revisited|publisher=Continuum |year=2006|isbn=0-8264-1775-2}}
• {{cite book |last=Shelton |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Shelton (critic) |title=No Direction Home: the Life and Music of Bob Dylan |publisher=New English Library |year=1987 |isbn=978-0-450-04843-2}}
• {{cite book |last1=Taylor |first1=Jeff |first2=Chad |last2=Israelson |title=The Political World of Bob Dylan: Freedom and Justice, Power and Sin |year=2015 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-137-48234-1 |doi=10.1057/9781137477477 |url=https://digitalcollections.dordt.edu/faculty_work/499 }}
• {{cite book |last=Trager |first=Oliver |title=Keys to the Rain: the Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia |year=2004 |publisher=Billboard Books | isbn=978-0-8230-7974-2}}
• {{cite book |last=Williams |first= Paul |author-link=Paul Williams (Crawdaddy) |year=2004 |title=Bob Dylan, Performing Artist: The Early Years, 1960–1973 |publisher=Omnibus Press |orig-date=1990 |isbn=978-1-84449-095-0}}
• {{cite book |last=Williamson |first=Nigel |author-link=Nigel Williamson |title=Bob Dylan |series=Dead Straight Guides |publisher=Red Planet |edition=5th |isbn=978-1-912733-41-5 |year=2021 }}

• [https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/tombstone-blues/ Lyrics] at Bob Dylan's official website
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_JSfks7kXM Chambers Brothers version] at YouTube

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