Highway 61 Revisited resonates because of its enduring emotional appeal. Few songwriters before Bob Dylan or since have combined so effectively the intensely personal with the spectacularly universal. In "Like a Rolling Stone," his gleeful excoriation of Miss Lonely (Edie Sedgwick? Joan Baez? a composite "type"?) fuses with the evocation of a hip new zeitgeist to produce a veritable anthem. In "Ballad of a Thin Man," the younger generation's confusion is thrown back in the Establishment's face, even as Dylan vents his disgust with the critics who labored to catalogue him. And in "Desolation Row," he reaches the zenith of his own brand of surrealist paranoia, that here attains the atmospheric intensity of a full-fledged nightmare. Between its many flourishes of gallows humor, this is one of the most immaculately frightful songs ever recorded, with its relentless imagery of communal executions, its parade of fallen giants and triumphant local losers, its epic length and even the mournful sweetness of Bloomfield's flamenco-inspired fills.

In this book, Mark Polizzotti examines just what makes the songs on Highway 61 Revisited so affecting, how they work together as a suite, and how lyrics, melody, and arrangements combine to create an unusually potent mix. He blends musical and literary analysis of the songs themselves, biography (where appropriate) and recording information (where helpful). And he focuses on Dylan's mythic presence in the mid-60s, when he emerged from his proletarian incarnation to become the American Rimbaud. The comparison has been made by others, including Dylan, and it illuminates much about his mid-sixties career, for in many respects Highway 61 is rock 'n' roll's answer to A Season in Hell.

REVIEWS

“A few pages into Mark Polizzotti's Highway 61 Revisited, I was amazed by how much he knew. A few pages after that, I was amazed by how much I didn't. The whole book is a marvel of research and insight, doled out in equal measure. Something was indeed happening in the grooves of this seminal Bob Dylan album-and after reading this compact yet loaded analysis, you will know what it is, Mr. Jones.” ―David Bianculli

“As one of the greatest albums in the history of recorded music, a turning point that forever grafted the depth and integrity of folk music into the flourishing tree of rock and roll, Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited has long deserved the kind of focused treatment that Mark Polizzotti gives it with his examination for the always excellent 33 1/3 series....The sheer volume of annotated quotes and behind the scenes revelations that Polizzoti has dug up is mind numbing, but the material flows together well, and the studious nature of the examination is never less than enlightening. It's an essential read for anyone who wants to engage the mythology behind the man and the album.” ―Matt Fink, Under the Radar

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark Polizzotti is an author, translator, and publisher living in New York. His books include Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton, Highway 61 Revisited, Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto, and Why Surrealism Matters. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, Apollo, ARTnews, The Nation, Parnassus, Bookforum, and elsewhere. His translations of works by Gustave Flaubert, Arthur Rimbaud, Scholastique Mukasonga, Patrick Modiano, Marguerite Duras, André Breton, Eric Vuillard, among others, have won the English PEN Award and been shortlisted for the National Book Award, the International Booker Prize, the NBCC/Gregg Barrios Prize, and the French-American Foundation Translation Prize. He is a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature.