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Like A Rolling Stone

3.58 of 5 stars 3.58 · rating details · 461 ratings · 40 reviews

On June 16, 1965, after more than 20 takes over two days, Bob Dylan and his band finally finished recording "Like a Rolling Stone," a six and a half minute song that became, and would remain, one of the most influential compositions of modern pop music. In this erudite and extremely engaging analysis of Dylan's hit, Greil Marcus describes the epic recording session and als...more

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Feb 02, 2008 Rick rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Pomposity reigns and if there are a set of Rock Criticism rules akin to the literary rules that James Fenimore Cooper violated so blithely to Mark Twain's delight, Marcus violates them all. Instead of research, he remembers. Instead of logic and measured insights, he flushes clichés, random associations, second person generalizations, and just plain old fashioned bullshit. “Dylan singing like William and Versey Smith chanting their version of the Titantic on the street in Chicago in 1927 and eve...more

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May 21, 2012 Rob McMinn rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is a mixture of fascinating snippets of information and drivel. I've long considered Greil Marcus something of a buffoon (anyone who hates Dylan's Self Portrait and refuses to admit he was wrong about it is an idiot), but that's just a difference of opinion. So when he writes about the music here, analysing the lyrics and the musicianship, it's mainly just drivel. I don't think it's pretentious to write about rock music in intellectual terms, but I do object when it's incoherent.

On the...more

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Aug 10, 2009 Mateo rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One stroll through the music section of any bookstore immediately brings to mind one question: Why are there so many freaking books on Bob Dylan? Why are there entire bookshelves devoted to this man and so few about other poets? Why are people not penning books about John Greenleaf Whittier?

(One answer: because Bob Dylan, in addition to having written some of the most astonishing songs in pop history, is the most astute and relentless self-mythologizer since his friend and mentor Johnny Cash; by...more One stroll through the music section of any bookstore immediately brings to mind one question: Why are there so many freaking books on Bob Dylan? Why are there entire bookshelves devoted to this man and so few about other poets? Why are people not penning books about John Greenleaf Whittier?

(One answer: because Bob Dylan, in addition to having written some of the most astonishing songs in pop history, is the most astute and relentless self-mythologizer since his friend and mentor Johnny Cash; by many accounts, Dylan is apparently something of a prick who has made "never apologize, never explain" an accessory as necessary to his legend as sunglasses and motorcycle boots.)

Like many suburban teenagers, I spent years as a Dylan fanatic--listening to the same dozen or so albums (including bootlegs) over and over and over again, hundreds of times, thousands of times. I don't regret that too much, because that was great music, and, besides, Dylan was my doorway to Baudelaire and Ginsberg and Howling Wolf and Hank Williams. I was almost equally devoted to Greil Marcus's Mystery Train, a grand work of imagination and perception that was every bit as much of a doorway into poetry, history, and music. Over the years I've read a few other Marcus books, and while they've always had their flaws, they were always interesting, always worthwhile.

Except for this one. This is the Greil Marcus book you were always afraid he might write.

With Marcus, there was always the danger that his flights of allusion and imagination might lead him right off into the deep end of the pool, and that he'd wind up wandering around the back yard of rock and roll spewing long ribbons of verbiage about The Platters and the last Sex Pistols concert and Doris Day and Chester Alan Arthur and Elvis's penis. And it finally happened, because this is a book that, frankly, needs a tin-foil hat. It isn't criticism, it's a combination of hero-worship and gushing logorrhea that occasionally veers over the edge of incoherence. Marcus always had a tendency to fill his prose with helium, but his earlier books always had a thesis to serve as a tether (fun vs. puritanism in Mystery Train; influence of the Symbolistes on punk in Lipstick Traces, the links to old-time music in Invisible Republic, etc.), whereas this book seems to be Tiger Beat for the intellectual class; one can't help think that if Marcus had just spent 10 minutes in Bob Dylan's crotch, he could have saved the life of many a pulp tree.

One of the main problems with this book is that if you don't already think that "Like a Rolling Stone" is the greatest song ever, you're not going to be convinced that it is. Rather, you're going to feel like there's a Monty Python fan in the room, nudging you in the arm and saying, "Oooh, oooh, this part is good, this part is good! Listen to this!" I mean, I've probably listened to "Like a Rolling Stone" hundreds of times, and I don't think it's even the best song, or one of the top four songs, on its own album, and nothing in this book made me think otherwise. Look, there's someone out there who feels the same way about Prince or Foghat or Squirrel Nut Zippers, and he could write a similar book, and the only difference would be that a book about a more recent song wouldn't feel like it was another gasp by Boomers telling each other how great the music was back then, man. You know, honestly, I would have preferred a book on Fountains of Wayne.

Oh, and as a final comment: I was at Dylan's new-Christian 1980 Warfield concert that Marcus considers a triumphant, transcendent artistic experience. It wasn't, though. It was shitty, is what it was. So much so that it made me realize that Bob Dylan was just a very talented guy who'd written, years before, some damn fantastic songs, and it was time to move on to X and Black Flag and Elvis Costello and the Talking Heads and....
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Apr 12, 2009 Ted Burke rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Greil Marcus has made his name as rock critic by insisting that the tide of History is directly mirrored by the pop music of the period. This can make for exhilarating reading, because Marcus is, if nothing else, an elegant stylist given to lyric evocation, but it is the same elegance that disguises the fact that he comes across a middling Hegelian; the author, amid the declarations about Dylan, The Stones, The Band and their importance to the spontaneous mass revolts of the Sixties, never solid...more Greil Marcus has made his name as rock critic by insisting that the tide of History is directly mirrored by the pop music of the period. This can make for exhilarating reading, because Marcus is, if nothing else, an elegant stylist given to lyric evocation, but it is the same elegance that disguises the fact that he comes across a middling Hegelian; the author, amid the declarations about Dylan, The Stones, The Band and their importance to the spontaneous mass revolts of the Sixties, never solidifies his points. He has argued , with occasional lucidity, that the intuitive arrived at metaphors of the artist/poet/musician diagnose the ills of the culture better than any bus full of sociologists or philosophers, and has intimated further that history is a progression toward a greater day.

But what has been aggravating with Marcus since he left the employ of Rolling Stone and began writing full length books and essays for cultural journals is that he chokes when there's a point to be made--he defers, he sidesteps, he distracts, he rather gracelessly changes the subject. Again, this can be enthralling, especially in a book like his massive Lipstick Traces The Secret History of the 20th Century" where he assumes some of Guy DeBord's assertions in Society of the Spectacle and situates rock and roll musicians in a counter-tradition of groups that spontaneously develop in resistance to a society's centralized ossification and mounts an attack, through art, on the perceptual filters that blind the masses to their latent genius.

He never quite comes to the part where he satisfyingly resolves all the mounting, swelling, grandly played generalizations that link Elvis, The Sex Pistols and Cabaret Voltaire as sources of insight geared to undermine an oppressive regime, but the reader has fun along the way. Marcus wants to be a combination of Marcuse and Harold Bloom, and he rarely accomplishes anything the singular criticism either of them produced in their respective disciplines, political philosophy and literary criticism, but he does hit the mark often enough to make him a thinker worth coming back to.

One would wonder about the value of coming back to this man's store front, though, if his book Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads. Marcus is one who has written so much about Dylan, or has absorbed so much material about him, that he can produce a reed-thin on one song and pretends that it is much, much more than what it really is. The problem is a lack of thesis, a conceit Marcus at least pretend to have with his prior volumes; depending entirely on third-hand anecdotes, half-recollected memories and a flurry of details gleaned from any one of the several hundred books about Dylan published in the last 30 years, this amounts to little more than what you'd have if you transcribed a recording of the singer's more intense fans speaking wildly, broadly, intensely amongst themselves, by passing coherence for Sturm and Drang. For the rest of us with a saner appreciation of Dylan's importance , Like A Rolling Stone is messily assembled jumble of notes, press clips and over-told stories; Marcus , obvious enough, attempts an impressionist take on the song, but the smell of rehash doesn't recede, ever.
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Mar 11, 2009 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book in a couple of hours. I never tire of Marcus, or reading about Dylan, so it was a treat. It's easy to forget these days just what a departure "Like a Rolling Stone" was for its time. Even as a Dylan fan, I don't really feel the need to play the song that much, but this outstanding analysis of every single aspect of the song urged me to listen with new ears. Marcus is a great rock writer in that he urges the reader to listen with his same level of enthusiasm and engagement. His w...more

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Dec 26, 2012 Corey Preston rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Repetitive, over the top, meandering, thin, pompous--but despite all that, it just grew on me. I was more engaged in the end, the opposite of, say, Michael Gray's massive beaten dead horses...

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Jan 04, 2013 Bastian Greshake rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

I love the song and hoped to learn some more about its backstory. Unfortunately the author just goes on and on on how great the song is. And not even in a very convincing or interesting way (if the choir isn't convinced by your preaching you most certainly are doing it wrong...). If you want to learn more about Like a Rolling Stone go the Wikipedia which contains like 99% of all the facts given in the book. If you want to learn why the song is awesome: Just wait, some preachy fan will probably t...more

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Mar 13, 2008 C.E. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Greil Marcus returns to one of his favorite subjects, Bob Dylan.

This time he takes on "Like a Rolling Stone," which he apparently considers as Dylan's masterstroke and probably the greatest song in Rock and Roll history.

Those unitiated to Marcus' work are warned against expecting a straightforward narrative. This is NOT a book for those with a casual interest. Instead, Marcus, in keeping with his usual method, writes for PhD's who live in record stores, delivering a rambling metaphysical analysi...more

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Sep 15, 2007 Jake rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Dylan or Pet Shop Boys fans

Shelves: music

Marcus does something unique in 'Like a Rolling Stone'. He sets out to write the history of a song and its importance to a culture. For the most part it is a successful endevour.

The factual history alone is fascinating. Using the studio tapes he does a terrific job in evoking the scene at the studio that resulting in the one-of-a-kind recording.

He is less successful in discussing the cultural ramifications of the song. Mostly he comes off the rails when he compares it to other songs in terms o...more

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Oct 26, 2012 Ronn rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's not that Greil Marcus isnt a fine writer; he certainly is. And it's not like I dont care for the subject matter. But it has occurred to me that most of what I've read by Mr Marcus has been either magazine articles, or books that were collections of article length pieces. So either Mr Marcus should perhaps stick to writing article length pieces, or I should stick to reading Mr Marcus' article length pieces. But his style of writing for a single-subject book was a little too much for me. I do...more

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Mar 24, 2013 Derek Ambrose rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 52-in-2013

Read this one Sunday afternoon. The book is, as Marcus defines the song itself, a flash in the pan of fortunate chaos. If you're expecting a bar by bar analysis or an exhaustive review of each take look elsewhere. Instead Marcus talks about the genesis, development, release and death of the song. Along the way he relates stories from early Dylan up to Time Out of Mind (calling Highlands the only song close in ideal to LaRS). If you liked Marcus's previous books you will love this.

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Jan 28, 2011 Josh rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: music

In truth, I would be pretty fascinated by nearly anything written about Bob Dylan-- but the extent to which this rambling book is really ABOUT Bob Dylan is questionable. Look, I know Greil Marcus is one of the most renowned music critics of all time, but I just find his meandering style to be insufferable sometimes, and I feel like this book is less an exploration of the various cultural connections to "Like a Rolling Stone" than a sort of personal flight of intellectual fancy. There are plenty...more

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May 12, 2011 Sarah Surratt rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's kind of hard for me to believe I read this book. I sort of wanted to see what the Greil Marcus thing was about and I do believe this song is utterly magic. However, it was a whole book about a song. I think I understand the Dylan's amazing songwriting ability would have been better served by better studio work like what existed in this session. I'm not sure it couldn't have been an article.

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Mar 18, 2009 Tom rated it 5 of 5 stars

thrillingly detailed examination and celebration of a pivotal song - pivotal for Dylan, for the counterculture, for songwriters, for radio, and for fans.

not all of Greil Marcus' books are as readable as this - Dead Elvis is big on the sociological meta-textualities - but this is spot on, clear, well-thought out, and certainly made me go back to the music he talks about

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Nov 07, 2007 Wendy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: essay

One of the few subjects less interesting to me than the history of rock and roll would be the history of one particular rock and roll song. The fact that I found this book engrossing is testament to Marcus’ skill. Being the pop culture illiterate that I am, I’d never before read even an essay by him before picking up this book. Boy, does this guy how knows how to turn a sentence, even one with a clause in the middle of it that contains its own sentence, or two:

"Singing in a voice as clear as wa...more

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Jun 16, 2011 matt rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: america-f-k-yeah, musicalities, literary-crit

I list this under biography because it's the biography of a song. Marcus does what he does best here- his usual style is to start from a moment or a text (a novel or a song or a film, etc) and to then weave outward, building contexts and insights, paradoxes and symbols and so forth until the first instance of interpretation is now encompassing so much more than what was begun.

If this sounds like something which interests you, if you like the idea of art (using the word inclusively here) critici...more

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Jan 10, 2013 Dominick rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: music, non-fiction

This study of the importance of Dylan's signature tune has potential, somewhat realized when Marcus talks about the song in a music-history and contemporary context, but alas, he also goes off on long tangents (a venial sin) and engages in extended hyperbolic rhapsodies (not mortal, perhaps, but irritating).

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Jan 02, 2011 Nick H rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A 200 page book about Greil's feelings on one song. There are a lot of other characters (songs) that come up as pieces of the puzzle that is "Like a Rolling Stone." I think I got the most out of the Epilogue, which was a play-by-play of the sessions that led up to the released version. Very interesting, but not mandatory reading for Dylan fans.

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Oct 13, 2012 Andrew Price rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved it. Lent it to my one of my best friends who also loves dylan and this song and he hated it. It's fair to say its probably more about Greil Marcus and his musings than Bob or the song. That said these are amazingly astute and captivating musings.

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Nov 28, 2008 Ned rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A book that, while moving in and out of a spellbinding momentum, efficiently defines the Bob Dylan song as one of the greatest breakthrough recordings of rock and roll history.

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Aug 16, 2009 Jacque Bona rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bob-dylan

This book was fantastic. I felt the energy of the making of that song. I read it right through. A definite read for Dylan fans. Oh, to have been a fly on the studio wall!

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Jun 27, 2011 Charity rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dylan-centric, only-true-currency-is-being-uncool

An interesting look at one song through different moments of Dylan's career. The grandest part is the Epilogue, which has the recording sessions documented, it is just so cool to read this.

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Mar 07, 2010 Cari rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, cultural-studies, essays, music, the-sixties

Making up for what it lacks in clear narrative with an unabashed fanboy mentality, Like a Rolling Stone... is one of those books that you can pick up and put down at will. None of the segments are very long, and there's no overwhelming need to keep reading. It's light and spends a lot of time rambling and flailing with Dylan adoration, but there are some gems among the essays. Though the ability to put it down and walk away probably leads to a large portion of the readership never returning, thi...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Kirk Bower rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Just rambles on and on. My expectation may have been too high, but I did not care for this book.

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May 14, 2010 Charles Ellenbogen rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

225 pages of liner note hyperbole. Not even recommended for the most devoted Dylan fan.

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Jun 22, 2009 Cody Walker rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

http://kenyonreview.org/blog/?p=3968

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Aug 12, 2011 Adam rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Detailed factual biography

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Mar 20, 2012 York rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Me compré la edición en español de este gran libro. Está hermoso, la traducción de Like a Rolling Stone apesta, pero el texto y el cuidado en el diseño de la edición vale cada centavo.

19 de Marzo de 2012: Tras la noticia (que ahorita sigue siendo rumor) de que Dylan regresa a México para principios de mayo, me puse ass on fire y con la calentura me volví a aventar éste libro, en dos noches. Greil Marcus es probablemente el mejor cronista roquero ever.

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Aug 14, 2010 Brad rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: music, criticism

A great piece of rock criticism, parsing a single recording session and placing it in its contexts and evaluating the impact of a single song.

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Jul 28, 2008 Duncan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An entire book about one song. If any song deserves it, "Like A Rolling Stone" is the one.
I liked how Frank Zappa said that when he heard the song, he was sure that the country would be turned upside-down by it. Although the song has been a tremendous popular and critical success by any measure (Rolling Stone magazine's #1 song of all time), the real, revolutionary shakeup that Zappa foresaw actually never, quite, happened.

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About Greil Marcus

Greil Marcus is the author of Mystery Train (1975), Lipstick Traces (1989), The Shape of Things to Come (2006), When that Rough God Goes Riding and Bob Dylan by Greil Marcus (both 2010), and other books. With Werner Sollors he is the editor of A New Literary History of America (2009). In recent years he has taught at Berkeley, Princeton, Minnesota, NYU, and the New School in New York. He lives in...more

More about Greil Marcus...

Books by Greil Marcus

Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century

Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll

The Old, Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes

In the Fascist Bathroom: Punk in Pop Music, 1977-1992

The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice

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