Homeless Persons' Memorial Day Top 100 Songs
​Song #35

Bob Dylan
"Like A Rolling Stone"

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, author, and visual artist who has been a major figure in popular culture for more than fifty years. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" (1964) became anthems for the civil rights movement and anti-war movement. His lyrics during this period incorporated a wide range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defied pop-

music conventions and appealed to the burgeoning counterculture.

"Like a Rolling Stone" is a  song  Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhausted from a grueling tour of England. Dylan distilled this draft into four verses and a chorus. "Like a Rolling Stone" was recorded a few weeks later as part of the sessions for the forthcoming album Highway 61 Revisited.

​The song seems less a story about homelessness and perhaps more of a story of revenge where Dylan renders someone of substance that he may have once admired into a suffering of one of the lowest of human conditions, homelessness. In these terms Dylan gives us a descriptive sense of being homeless.

​How does it feel?
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
​

Many artists, especially trailblazers like Dylan, recall having experienced rough financial times and "paying dues" on the way to the top. It's not a difficult stretch to imagine how his experiences of financial instability early on may have influenced his music and in the case of "Like a Rolling Stone", it actually boils to the surface.

Dylan's son, Jakob Dylan, wrote a song titled "6th Avenue Heartache" that was recorded in 1996 with his band, The Wallflowers. The song was about a homeless man that lived near Jakob's apartment in New York City.

"Like a Rolling Stone" went as high as #2 on the U.S. charts and is the statistically most acclaimed song of all time. Rolling Stone magazine listed the song at No. 1 in their "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list. Bob Dylan has also received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, ten Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall"
You thought they were all kiddin' you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal

How does it feel?
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody's ever taught you how to live out on the street
And now you're gonna have to get used to it
You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And say do you want to make a deal?

How does it feel?
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
A complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain't no good
You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain't it hard when you discover that
He really wasn't where it's at
After he took from you everything he could steal

How does it feel?
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They're all drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made
Exchanging all precious gifts
But you'd better take your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse
When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

​