Subterranean Homesick Blues - Bob Dylan

[appalachiablue]

~ Lyrics:

Johnny's in the basement, mixin' up the medicine
I'm on the pavement, thinkin' about the government
The man in a trench coat, badge out, laid off
Says he's got a bad cough, wants to get it paid off

Look out kid, it's somethin' you did
God knows when, but you're doin' it again
You better duck down the alleyway, looking for a new friend
The man in the coon-skin cap in a pig pen
Wants 11 dollar bills – you only got 10
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- Bob Dylan on the set in London for his video.

- 'Inside Bob Dylan’s Shoot for ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues,’ Rolling Stone, May 2, 2011,
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/inside-bob-dylans-shoot-for-subterranean-homesick-blues-249321/
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- "Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a song by Bob Dylan, recorded on Jan. 14, 1965. It was Dylan's first Top 40 hit in the U.S.. It also entered the Top 10 of the UK Singles Chart. One of Dylan's first electric recordings, "Subterranean Homesick Blues" is also notable for its innovative film clip, which first appeared in D. A. Pennebaker's documentary Dont Look Back. It is ranked 187th on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.
- References and allusions: "Subterranean Homesick Blues" is an amalgam of Jack Kerouac, the Woody Guthrie–Pete Seeger song "Taking It Easy" ('Mom was in the kitchen preparing to eat / Sis was in the pantry looking for some yeast') & the rock and roll poetry of Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business".

In 2004, Dylan said, "It's from Chuck Berry, a bit of 'Too Much Monkey Business' & some of the scat songs of the '40s."

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 & Ferlinghetti." Kerouac's The Subterraneans, a novel published in 1958 about the Beats, has been suggested as a possible inspiration for the song's title. The song's 1st line is a reference to codeine distillation & the politics of the time: "Johnny's in the basement mixing up the medicine / I'm on the pavement thinkin' about the government".

The song also depicts some of the growing conflicts between "straights" or "squares" & the emerging counterculture of the 1960s. The widespread use of recreational drugs & turmoil surrounding the Vietnam War were both starting to take hold of the nation, & Dylan's hyperkinetic lyrics were dense with up-to-the-minute allusions to important emerging elements in the 1960s youth culture. Rock journalist Andy Gill said, "an entire generation recognized the zeitgeist in the verbal whirlwind of 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'." 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 & sprayed with high-pressure fire hoses).

- Influence: "Subterranean Homesick Blues" has had a wide influence with references by artists & 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 US radical left group the Weathermen, a breakaway from the Students for a Democratic Society/SDS.) In a 2007 study of legal opinions & briefs that found Dylan was quoted by judges & lawyers more than any other songwriter, "you don't need a weatherman..." was distinguished as the line most often cited.

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 could compete with it...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subterranean_Homesick_Blues