'Deposit an Egg, Madam' - 60s Dylan in other words Quiz

Answer: Subterranean Homesick Blues

'Johnny's in the basement, mixing up the medicine
I'm on the pavement thinkin' 'bout the government'

From the album 'Bringing it all Back Home', the first of a series of three which ushered in 'electric folk', and regarded by many as among the most influential in the history of rock (not to mention folk). The other albums in that sequence were 'Highway 61 Revisited' and 'Blonde on Blonde'. The alternative choices are all songs associated with the Appalachians, a region famous for its labyrinthine cave networks and popular with speleology enthusiasts.

It was Dylan's first top 40 hit and also the subject of a promotional clip influential in the development of music video, featured in D. A. Pennebaker's well-regarded 1967 documentary 'Don't Look Back', an account of Dylan's first British tour. The song is widely covered and referenced on a multitude of albums. Most cited line: 'You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.'

Answer: Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands

'With your mercury mouth in the missionary times
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes'
etc. etc. etc.

I'm proud to say I was the first in my small rural high school to own a copy of 'Blonde on Blonde'. An unexpected bonus was it gave me brownie points with the hip chicks (such as they were by my standards) who lined up to borrow it - not the sexually precocious tearaways who earned pocket money as go-go dancers at the local disco though, perhaps not such a bad thing, in hindsight.

At 11'22" and a whole side of the double LP, it was the longest 'pop' song anyone had heard at that time. When I first played it with my friends, no one spoke - the silence continued about another 30 seconds after the song ended. We'd never heard anything so epically cool.

The Nashville session personnel later backed the 'Nashville Skyline' album, but on this recording Al Kooper's distinctive Hammond organ dominated. Who was the sad-eyed lady in question? Critics point to cryptic references to his then wife Sara Lownds, but to my mind they don't come much sadder-eyed than Bob's close friend, iconic Mexican-American folk soprano Joan Baez, who later covered it herself.

'Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waitin' for a train, feeling nearly faded as my jeans', is the opening of Kris Kristofferson's 'Me and Bobby McGee', a major posthumous hit for Janis Joplin. 'The Memphis Blues Again' is also from 'Blonde on Blonde'.

Answer: All Along the Watchtower

From the 'John Wesley Harding' album, this is one of the artist's most famous songs, and he's estimated to have performed it live literally thousands of times. The 1968 Jimi Hendrix cover is arguably even more famous, introducing the techniques of wah-wah pedal and heavily amplified glissando (using a ballpoint pen as a slide) to wider audiences. Trivia: The Rolling Stones' Brian Jones plays 'vibraslap' (a novelty percussion instrument) on the introduction, probably one of his last contributions to a hit record.

Countless remixes and overdubs over about four months were required for the Hendrix version. The two original versions are quite different, but in more recent years Bob has taken to performing it more in the Hendrix style. In an album cover note Dylan says: 'Strange how when I sing it, it always feels like a tribute to him in some kind of way'. Notable cover artists included Neil Young, U2, Bryan Ferry, Dave Matthews Band, Steve Hackett Band, Pearl Jam and the Grateful Dead, not to mention various movie soundbites.

What's it about? Join the club. One eminent critic, Dave Van Ronk, pointed out that by then Dylan could 'get away with anything.' Even double negatives apparently - 'There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief'. This from a Nobel Laureate of literature?

Answer: Like a Rolling Stone

'How does it FEEEL?' If you didn't get this, the 60s is not your decade. It proved to be Dylan's biggest hit single (Number Two Cashbox, pipped by the Beatles' 'Help') and the hint refers to the world's most famous (and oldest active?) major rock and roll band. They sure took their time to get around to it, though. The other selections are all 60s Rolling Stones songs. At the time of writing, they have a new number-one album in the UK, their first to top the charts for 20 years.

The song itself was very radical and influential for its time. The length (6'15"), sheer verbosity, derisive tone, and enigmatic central anti-heroine character were revolutionary for a high-charting radio pop song. Reams have been written about her identity, but she is most likely to be an amalgam of various New York scenemakers that Dylan knew or knew of. Reams have also been written about the impact of the song itself, so I'll say no more except to draw attention to the guitarist and organist who helped define that 60s Dylan sound and are prominent on this recording, respectively Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper.

Answer: Ballad of a Thin Man

'You raise up your head and you ask, "Is this where it is?"
And somebody points to you and says, "It's his"
And you say, "What's mine?" and somebody else says, "Where what is?"
And you say, "Oh my God, am I here all alone?"
But something is happening and you don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?'

By the time Dylan toured England in 1965 he had moved on from his more political 'protest' days as a leading musical inspiration of the civil rights movement, into his 'folk-rock phase', a personal journey involving the fusion of traditional folk genres and original 'poetry' with electrified, blues-based arrangements.

The reported heavy use of amphetamines and heroin no doubt contributed to his notorious impatience with the tenacious, browbeating and decidedly unhip, conservative British press, who wanted to dissect his politics and world views for meaty front page copy. Bob was tired of all that. Occasionally, earnest but naive questions were met with long, icy stares.

The scenario is captured in D A Pennebaker's above-mentioned 'warts and all' tour documentary 'Don't Look Back', and re-interpreted very loosely in Todd Haynes's 2007 semi-biographical pastiche 'I'm Not There', featuring Bruce Greenwood as Jones and famously, Cate Blanchett as the Dylan-based character 'Jude Quinn'.

Answer: Positively Fourth Street

'You got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend ... '

I heard Joni Mitchell quote this line to demonstrate his effect on her own songwriting, which became more personal and incisive after hearing him. Contempt was cool. Pretty love lyrics seemed passé. John Lennon also took note, his eyes opened by Dylan's famous remark to him 'Your songs aren't about anything'.

What's the significance of the title? Your guess is as good as mine. Once again Bloomfield and Kooper orchestrate the background to the scathing diatribe: 'How I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. You'd know what a drag it is to see you.'

'Last Exit to Brooklyn' is a 1989 German-American film about the seamier side of that New York borough, based on a 1964 novel by Hubert Selby Jr. It was also a line in a minor hit for Gene Pitney, 'Last Chance to Turn Around' (1965). 'First We Take Manhattan' is an enigmatic 1986 song by the late, enigmatic Leonard Cohen, notably recorded by Jennifer Warnes with Stevie Ray Vaughan and Vinnie Collaiuto. '59th Street Bridge Song', aka 'Feelin' Groovy', was an upbeat 1967 light-hearted hit for Simon and Garfunkel (Billboard Singles number 16).

Answer: All I Really Want to Do

Dylan having fun, in his own wordy way. His version is much more playful in tone than torchy Cher or the dirge-like Byrds (the 'Beards', as Elvis once earnestly called them). It's a similar message to the Beatles' 'Baby You Can Drive My Car', or Dylan's own 'I Want You'. Other examples of his humor can be found in 'Rainy Day Women', 'Bob's 115th Dream', or his earlier 'talking blues' monologues. Bob seems to be telling us 'Lighten up, people!' All right 'Mr Desolation Row', but I wish you'd warn us.

Cher's version (her solo debut) outperformed the Byrds in the US, reaching Billboard Hot 100 number 15, but the Byrds gained number four on the UK Singles chart. Go figure.

Answer: I Threw it All Away

'Once I had mountains in the palm of my hand
Rivers that ran through every day
I must have been mad, I never knew what I had
Until I threw it all away.'

My personal favorite from the 'Nashville Skyline' set. The only thing it needed was a better singer, but covers are far and few. Cher included it on her 1969 album '3614 Jackson Highway' and George Harrison recorded it for the 'Let it Be' sessions. It wasn't until 1995 that Elvis Costello polished it up again, and it came up like a new penny.

The song is notable for the writer's self-abasement, almost unheard of from Dylan until that time. Obviously he hadn't taken the Searchers' 1964 hit 'Don't Throw Your Love Away' to heart, but love songs were never his forte.

'Desolation Row' was another sombre, ten-minute-plus marathon of vague literary references and doom-laden symbolism closing out a side of 'Highway 61 Revisited'. 'Leopard-skin Pillbox Hat' was a more up-tempo, tongue-in-cheek poke at 'chic'-ness (if that's a word).

Answer: Maggie's Farm

Another light-hearted romp from the former prophet of doom, ostensibly about an itinerant rural worker who got more than he bargained for, though it may have vague political overtones, complaining about right-wing rednecks with the National Guard thrown in for good measure. Not one of his classics, for me.

Answer: Highway 61 Revisited

'God said to Abraham "Kill me your son!"
Abe said "Man, you must be puttin' me on!"
God said "No". Abe said "What?"
God said "You can do what you want, Abe, but
The next time you see me coming, you better run."
Abe said "Where do you want all this killin' done?"
God said "Down on Highway 61" '

The song opens with this light-hearted irreverence which nobody really seemed to take as straight blasphemy, though some fundamentalists may have. The not-quite-offensive humor reminds me of Bill Cosby's spoof on the story of Noah's ark (Lord, what's a cubit?') or the best of Irish comedian Dave Allen (God told Eve not to touch that tree, no reason ... She's a woman!).

The hint is of course from Paul Simon's masterpiece 'Graceland', describing the drive down Route 61, which runs all the way from Minnesota (Bob's birthplace) to New Orleans, through the Deep South that was part of his musical inspiration. 'Memphis Blues Again' is a 'Blonde on Blonde' track. 'Down in the Delta' is an instrumental piece by brilliant Canadian singer-songwriter-guitarist Bruce Cockburn.

Answer: You Ain't Goin' Nowhere

Oo-ee ride me high, tomorrow is the day my bride's gonna come
Oh, woh, are we gonna fly down in the easy chair'

Released with the 'Basement Tapes' but written much earlier, this laid-back song depicts the songwriter's hiatus from performance while convalescing from a motorcycle accident with members of The Band in the legendary 'Big Pink' house, not far from Woodstock in upstate New York. They recorded many songs in the basement there. Widespread bootlegging induced Columbia Records to put out a commercially sanctioned version in 1975. The Byrds recorded a substantially revised and countrified version on their 1968 album 'Sweetheart of the Rodeo'.

In the famed movie scene, Mafia capo and bar manager Sonny LoSpecchio (Palmieri) calmly asks a group of rowdy, beer-spraying bikers to leave his establishment after giving the hapless barman a free 'shower', because 'Dat wasn't very nice'. They contemptuously refuse and he walks away, appearing to back down, but he goes to the doors and locks them all in. The local heavies appear from out back and a bloody, painful lesson is learnt by the bikers, viz. not to mess with the Bronx street-crew.

If he 'ain't going nowhere', he must be going somewhere, right? Ah forget it!

Answer: A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

'I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
And the executioner's face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it'

A sample, from 'Freewheelin'', this epic atomic-age adaptation of the Childe ballad 'Lord Randall' is widely regarded as among Dylan's most poignant lyrical efforts, almost every line brimming with portent and hidden meaning. It was beloved of senior high school English literary-appreciation teachers back in the day, though there were probably few teens that could come to grips with it. It was one of Bob's classic overt social commentaries, very much a product of a generation that grew up in the shadow of 'the bomb', when people realized mankind was quite capable of destroying itself within their own lifetime, and most living things with it. It was actually written at about the time of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, but does not specifically reference nuclear holocaust.

No immediate relief was in sight either, with 'Bringing it all Back Home', where the relentless nihilism of 'It's All Right Ma, I'm Only Bleeding' and 'Gates of Eden' were lying in wait. After that, he started to get personal. There've been numerous covers. A standout for me is by Roxy Music's Bryan Ferry on his acclaimed 1973 solo retro collection 'These Foolish Things'.

Answer: Visions of Johanna

'See the primitive wallflower freeze
While the jellyfish women all sneeze
And the one with the moustache says "Jeez,
I can't find my knees."
Jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
And these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel.'

These are some of my favorite lines from one of his most evocative songs, from the 'Blonde on Blonde' album. It also contains the celebrated line 'The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face'. What does it all mean? I picture snooty, bejewelled, overweight matrons at a gallery event, but I may have missed some of the symbolism (if any).

Johanna Spyri (1827-1901) was of course responsible for the beloved Swiss children's classic 'Heidi'. The lame Klum pun is taken from Dylan's bizarre 'The Mighty Quinn', aka 'Quinn the Eskimo' and refers to Heidi the German-born former supermodel, actress, TV personality and official 'Barbie' ambassador. 'Quinn' was an (inexplicable) 1967 number-one hit in the UK for Manfred Mann. 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' was a 1965 John Le Carré suspense drama starring Richard Burton and (his sometime 'pre-Liz' lover), the exquisite Claire Bloom.

Answer: Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

With a derivative folk melody and finger-picked accompaniment, this early Dylan lyric, one of his best-known tunes, was unusually mellow for him, and unlike many parting songs of the day, left out the melodrama and demonstrative anguish usually associated with such a theme. It's been covered by numerous artists over the years, but was especially successful for Peter Paul and Mary.

'Message Understood' was a 1968 UK pop hit for Sandie Shaw. 'Most Likely' was a rollicking upbeat tune with a catchy rock hook, a personal favorite from 'Blonde on Blonde'. 'Fourth Time Around' is a lyrically complex track from the same album in 3/4 time, sometimes compared to the Beatles 'Norwegian Wood'. John Lennon is quoted as saying he thought it was about him, but then, John Norwege-ing would!

Answer: Just Like a Woman

Another 'Blonde on Blonde' track which charted quite well in 1966 (number 33 US Billboard Hot 100; cover by Manfred Mann top 10 UK Singles chart). Debates have occurred over the song's alleged misogyny. What do I think? Sorry, I'm lost amid the 'fog, amphetamines and pearls', but the idea of a woman who plays the 'little girl card' strikes a chord with me.

This much I know: If you think either 'Mrs Doubtfire' or 'Tootsie' is 'just like a woman' you're in serious need of 'gender recognition therapy' if there is such a thing in these days of flexible gender identity. In spite of the fine performances by Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman respectively, the premise that their friends could not see through the impersonations always jarred with me, likewise 'Victor/Victoria' - Julie Andrews convincing as a man? Nope, sorry. Kudos to all concerned for accepting the challenge, all the same.

'Suffragette City' was a signature 70s song of David Bowie and his 'Spiders from Mars' featuring some edgy Mark Ronson guitar. 'Kind of a Drag' was a 60s ballad by the Buckinghams, and wasn't about that kind of 'drag' at all.