You Only Had To Feel Them

In the early spring of 1965, I was listening one night to Jerry White’s folk show on WJRZ when he said, “We have a new single from Bob Dylan.”

In the early spring of 1965, I was listening one night to Jerry White’s folk show on WJRZ when he said, “We have a new single from Bob Dylan.”  White sounded kind of hesitant, the tone of his voice implied that we were about to hear something very different.  That single was “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” I didn’t know what to think.  I liked it and hated it all at once.  I didn’t know whether he was selling out as Sing Out! and other folk magazines were soon to proclaim.  Naturally I bought it as soon as it hit the local record store, and ended up playing it as well as the flip-side, “She Belongs To Me” endlessly.   

About a month later, I was at an anti-Vietnam demonstration in Newark, New Jersey and snuck off the picket line into a record store across the street.  There it was: Bringing It All Back Home in all its red-white-and-blue glory.  I just stood there in the store holding it and staring at it for a good while.  That night, it didn’t leave the turntable.  I must’ve played “Mr…