# Subterranean Homesick Blues
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a song by [Bob Dylan](https://www.edgepedia.org/bob-dylan), recorded on January 14, 1965 and released that March as the leadoff track and first single of the album *Bringing It All Back Home*. One of Dylan's first electric recordings, it became his first record to reach the US Top 40, and the cue-card film Dylan made for it with director [D. A. Pennebaker](https://www.edgepedia.org/d-a-pennebaker) is widely recognized as one of the first music videos.
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Artist / writer | Bob Dylan |
| Recorded | January 14, 1965, Columbia Records' Studio A, 799 Seventh Avenue, New York City; cut in a single take[1](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/13/bob-dylan-subterranean-homesick-blues-50th-anniversary) |
| Released | March 1965, as a single and leadoff track of *Bringing It All Back Home*[2](https://www.allmusic.com/song/subterranean-homesick-blues-mt0001943469) |
| Length | 2 minutes 22 seconds[1](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/13/bob-dylan-subterranean-homesick-blues-50th-anniversary) |
| Chart peak | No. 9 in Britain; Dylan's first single to reach the US Top 40[1](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/13/bob-dylan-subterranean-homesick-blues-50th-anniversary) • [3](https://www.bobdylan.com/news/bob-dylans-first-60-years-as-a-columbia-recording-artist-celebrated/) |
| Musical source | Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business" and 1940s scat songs, per Dylan himself[1](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/13/bob-dylan-subterranean-homesick-blues-50th-anniversary) |
| Video | Cue-card sequence filmed by D. A. Pennebaker behind the Savoy Hotel, London, June 1965; opens the documentary *Don't Look Back*[4](https://chrisgregory.org/articles/subterranean-homesick-blues-dig-yourself/) |
## Recording
Dylan cut the song for his fifth Columbia album on the second of three January 1965 recording days, with his new producer [Tom Wilson](https://www.edgepedia.org/tom-wilson-music-producer) assembling the band. John Hammond Jr. and Bruce Langhorne played electric guitars, jazz musician Bill Lee (father of film-maker [Spike Lee](https://www.edgepedia.org/spike-lee)) played bass, session man Bobby Gregg played drums, and Dylan himself contributed acoustic guitar and harmonica; the song was completed in a single take[1](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/13/bob-dylan-subterranean-homesick-blues-50th-anniversary). The session log shows the song announced as "Subterranean Homesick Blues No 10, take one", a title suffix suggesting Dylan first thought of it as another of the talking-blues numbers that had supplied comic relief on his earlier albums[1](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/13/bob-dylan-subterranean-homesick-blues-50th-anniversary).
The song was the first product of Dylan's return to the rock and roll he had played in his high-school bands. He had tested electric backing once before, on the single "Mixed Up Confusion" recorded in the fall of 1962, but that record made little impression at the time[2](https://www.allmusic.com/song/subterranean-homesick-blues-mt0001943469).
## Music and lyrics
The basic structure is borrowed from [Chuck Berry](https://www.edgepedia.org/chuck-berry)'s "Too Much Monkey Business", a tongue-in-cheek catalog of the narrator's woes built from short, offhand phrases that accumulate their effect[4](https://chrisgregory.org/articles/subterranean-homesick-blues-dig-yourself/). Dylan reworked Berry's complaints about mundane jobs, obligations to conform, and debt into a rapid-fire run of warnings about police surveillance, officialdom, and hustlers[5](https://research.gold.ac.uk/29869/1/Negus%20Dylan.pdf). Where most blues songs are eight or 12 bars, "Subterranean Homesick Blues" uses 18 bars to accommodate the density of language in the verses[6](https://americansongwriter.com/the-story-and-meaning-behind-subterranean-homesick-blues-by-bob-dylan/).
Dylan named his own sources plainly: "It's from Chuck Berry, a bit of Too Much Monkey Business and some of the scat songs of the 40s," he told Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times in 2004[1](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/13/bob-dylan-subterranean-homesick-blues-50th-anniversary). Keith Negus, professor of musicology at [Goldsmiths, University of London](https://www.edgepedia.org/goldsmiths-university-of-london), describes the vocal line as combining two common patterns of blues-inspired, rhythmically driven lyric, a chant on one pitch with occasional drops to a minor third below[5](https://research.gold.ac.uk/29869/1/Negus%20Dylan.pdf).
__Lyrically__, the song is not a protest song in the manner of Dylan's earlier work, but it clearly expresses social discontent, with lines such as "Twenty years of schoolin'/And they put you on the day shift"[2](https://www.allmusic.com/song/subterranean-homesick-blues-mt0001943469). Its best-known couplet mixes defiance with practical advice, telling the listener "Don't follow leaders" and "Watch the parkin' meters"[7](https://www.loudersound.com/features/bringing-it-all-back-home-at-60). Another line, "You don't need a weatherman/To know which way the wind blows", gave its name to the Weatherman faction of the American student movement, whose members were later among the country's most wanted fugitives[1](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/13/bob-dylan-subterranean-homesick-blues-50th-anniversary).
The song's breathless, near-spoken delivery over an electric band has led to repeated claims that it anticipated rap; Dylan's own site notes it has been cited as a precursor to rap, and Negus records the claim that it "can lay claim to be the world's first prototype rap song"[3](https://www.bobdylan.com/news/bob-dylans-first-60-years-as-a-columbia-recording-artist-celebrated/) • [8](https://research.gold.ac.uk/4682/1/Bob%20Dylan%20Musician%201%20%26%205%20Keith%20Negus.pdf).
## The video
During Dylan's British tour in June 1965, documentary film-maker D. A. Pennebaker shot the song's promotional clip on the last day of filming *Don't Look Back*. The setting was a grimy cul-de-sac behind the [Savoy Hotel](https://www.edgepedia.org/savoy-hotel) in London, which was undergoing building work[4](https://chrisgregory.org/articles/subterranean-homesick-blues-dig-yourself/) • [9](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/culture/article/2025/02/01/splintered-visions-of-bob-dylan-on-screen_6737671_30.html). Dylan stands in the right side of the frame holding a stack of white cards, mostly single words taken from the lyrics, which he displays and throws to the ground in sequence while keeping a deadpan expression; [Allen Ginsberg](https://www.edgepedia.org/allen-ginsberg) is visible in the corner talking to [Bob Neuwirth](https://www.edgepedia.org/bob-neuwirth)[4](https://chrisgregory.org/articles/subterranean-homesick-blues-dig-yourself/). Some words on the cards were misspelled and others do not even appear in the song[10](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2019-08-04/d-a-pennebaker-bob-dylan-dont-look-back-appreciation?curator=MusicREDEF).
The clip is widely treated as the invention of the promotional music video, made roughly 15 years before MTV launched[10](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2019-08-04/d-a-pennebaker-bob-dylan-dont-look-back-appreciation?curator=MusicREDEF). When MTV and VH1 began, Pennebaker's video aired alongside much larger productions, and the sequence has since inspired many imitators in film, advertising, and protest imagery[11](https://www.history.com/articles/bob-dylan-changed-music) • [4](https://chrisgregory.org/articles/subterranean-homesick-blues-dig-yourself/).
## Chart performance and reception
Released in March 1965, the single reached No. 9 in the British chart and just entered the US Top 40, Dylan's first single to reach the American charts[1](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/13/bob-dylan-subterranean-homesick-blues-50th-anniversary) • [2](https://www.allmusic.com/song/subterranean-homesick-blues-mt0001943469). The album *Bringing It All Back Home*, released that April, reached No. 1 in the UK and [No. 6](https://www.edgepedia.org/no-6) on the US Billboard 200[12](https://www.musicradar.com/artists/i-didnt-know-what-was-going-to-happen-but-they-certainly-booed-ill-tell-you-that-you-could-hear-it-all-over-the-place-how-bob-dylan-created-one-of-his-greatest-songs-while-controversy-erupted-around-him).
The critic William Ruhlmann of AllMusic writes that on release the song sounded like nothing listeners had heard before and transformed both Dylan's career and popular music[2](https://www.allmusic.com/song/subterranean-homesick-blues-mt0001943469). Its structured rhyming pattern endured in later songs; Negus points to [Elvis Costello](https://www.edgepedia.org/elvis-costello)'s "Pump It Up" and R.E.M.'s "[It's the End of the World as We Know It](https://www.edgepedia.org/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-i-feel-fine)" as descendants[5](https://research.gold.ac.uk/29869/1/Negus%20Dylan.pdf).
## Later versions and legacy
The song has appeared on numerous greatest-hits compilations since its release on *Bringing It All Back Home*[4](https://chrisgregory.org/articles/subterranean-homesick-blues-dig-yourself/). [Harry Nilsson](https://www.edgepedia.org/harry-nilsson) recorded a cover with [John Lennon](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-lennon) for the 1974 album *Pussy Cats*; the Cult Following review notes that Lennon had been staggered by the original on its release and spent much of his career trying to reach its charged writing style[13](https://cultfollowing.co.uk/harry-nilsson-subterranean-homesick-blues-review/). An alternate acoustic version appears on the *Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3* box set[14](https://www.legacyrecordings.com/releases/the-bootleg-series-volumes-1-3-rare-and-unreleased-1961-1991-3-cd-box-set-carton-ct-10/).
In 2022, to mark Dylan's 60th anniversary as a Columbia recording artist, a new music film, "Subterranean Homesick Blues 2022", was released as a kinetic collage of visuals by a range of artists, alongside an augmented-reality filter and newly designed lyric cards[3](https://www.bobdylan.com/news/bob-dylans-first-60-years-as-a-columbia-recording-artist-celebrated/). The song also features in the 2024 Dylan biopic *A Complete Unknown*, in which [Timothée Chalamet](https://www.edgepedia.org/timothee-chalamet) performs it[15](https://apnews.com/article/ca72c70d271f6d364651f3b29d3eca64).
## References
1. [Richard Williams (2015). Bob Dylan and the Subterranean Homesick Blues revolution. The Guardian.](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/13/bob-dylan-subterranean-homesick-blues-50th-anniversary)
2. [William Ruhlmann. Subterranean Homesick Blues review. AllMusic.](https://www.allmusic.com/song/subterranean-homesick-blues-mt0001943469)
3. [Bob Dylan's First 60 Years as a Columbia Recording Artist Celebrated. bobdylan.com.](https://www.bobdylan.com/news/bob-dylans-first-60-years-as-a-columbia-recording-artist-celebrated/)
4. [Chris Gregory. Subterranean Homesick Blues: Dig Yourself.](https://chrisgregory.org/articles/subterranean-homesick-blues-dig-yourself/)
5. [Keith Negus. Bob Dylan chapters, Goldsmiths, University of London.](https://research.gold.ac.uk/29869/1/Negus%20Dylan.pdf)
6. [The Story and Meaning Behind "Subterranean Homesick Blues". American Songwriter.](https://americansongwriter.com/the-story-and-meaning-behind-subterranean-homesick-blues-by-bob-dylan/)
7. [Bringing It All Back Home at 60. Louder Sound.](https://www.loudersound.com/features/bringing-it-all-back-home-at-60)
8. [Keith Negus. Bob Dylan: Musician. Goldsmiths research.](https://research.gold.ac.uk/4682/1/Bob%20Dylan%20Musician%201%20%26%205%20Keith%20Negus.pdf)
9. [Splintered visions of Bob Dylan on screen. Le Monde.](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/culture/article/2025/02/01/splintered-visions-of-bob-dylan-on-screen_6737671_30.html)
10. [D.A. Pennebaker and Bob Dylan invented the modern rock star. Los Angeles Times.](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2019-08-04/d-a-pennebaker-bob-dylan-dont-look-back-appreciation?curator=MusicREDEF)
11. [5 Ways Bob Dylan Influenced Popular Music. HISTORY.](https://www.history.com/articles/bob-dylan-changed-music)
12. [How Bob Dylan created one of his greatest songs. MusicRadar.](https://www.musicradar.com/artists/i-didnt-know-what-was-going-to-happen-but-they-certainly-booed-ill-tell-you-that-you-could-hear-it-all-over-the-place-how-bob-dylan-created-one-of-his-greatest-songs-while-controversy-erupted-around-him)
13. [Harry Nilsson – Subterranean Homesick Blues Review. Cult Following.](https://cultfollowing.co.uk/harry-nilsson-subterranean-homesick-blues-review/)
14. [The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3. Legacy Recordings.](https://www.legacyrecordings.com/releases/the-bootleg-series-volumes-1-3-rare-and-unreleased-1961-1991-3-cd-box-set-carton-ct-10/)
15. [Movie Review: Bob Dylan biopic 'A Complete Unknown'. AP News.](https://apnews.com/article/ca72c70d271f6d364651f3b29d3eca64)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Musical works and recordings › Compositions and songs › Pop, rock, and metal songs*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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