the only writer who can get 'tax deductable charity organsiations' into a song line

Dylan's writing is so deep, you've figured out two meanings, and he's got three more no one else has figured out yet.

You’re one of the few people I’ve ever actually gotten genuine insight on not just this song but any and these are only your initial reactions! Good shit dude.

It's 1965 and a reporter from a mainstream news magazine strides into a backstage room and encounters Dylan and his entourage. Now, it's Dylan who is doing the reporting

Dude, you've got to keep digging into Dylan. His well is so deep it has no bottom. Check out "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" next. It's probably my favorite.

When the song came out it was received as a critique of not only of a journalist but of square people who didn't understand what was happening in the counter culture. Later many critics picked up on the homosexual anxiety theme. Camille Paglia in her Sexual Personae from 1990 takes it as a given that is what the song is about. The song also fits in with the carnival/circus theme that runs through the album. And this song was on an album and Dylan gave thought about the order of the songs on his albums. Highway 61 Revisited starts with Like a Rolling Stone, where a young woman leaves her comfortable bourgeoisie world and has to deal with the "real" world of the streets. In many ways she represents a whole generation of young middle class kids at that time. After the first track, each song brings you into all the weird scenes that you experience and then leaves you exhausted and depleted on Desolation Row. So to fully appreciate this song, you need to see how it fits on the album. When this came out, we didn't listen to songs, we listened to albums.

Syed, Dylan's HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED is one of the most important LPs ever recorded. "Ballad Of A Thin Man" is just one of the masterpieces that happen to be on the album. The album's closing track, "Desolation Row", is probably it's most remarkable track. Lyrically it's an astonishing piece of music. You will love it. And once again, your reaction is intelligent, insightful, and mostly right on the money. I really enjoy seeing your appreciation for the great man.

so long story short, my gf and I found out we had missed Dylan in Colorado some years back, so on a lark she says "we should go to NYC to see him", I'm all "sure, ok cool" didn't think much of it, so by and by we made plans, tickets, yada, see Dylan at the Beacon theater in NY, I do dig his music though not an avid fan. First song of the encore the band starts playing this, crowd goes nuts, people rush the stage, Bob is totally cool with it (his only rule, NO freaking phones, man! Be cool and enjoy the moments) I'm sitting there enthralled, song is hitting me like a box of bricks from a 10 story building, "holy smokes, I know this song, I know the lyrics, what is this song though?" About 2/3rds in, snap my fingers..."Ballad of a Thin Man" then it hit me, I'm watching a legend live, dude has preceded the Beatles, Stones, Beach Boys, Hendrix, yada, and he is still very much alive...this is actually Bob Dylan, he and the band nailed it, incredible once in a lifetime performance and one of the best concerts I've ever seen.

Dylan was at the cutting edge of the counterculture, hanging with poet Allen Ginsburg and other people pushing the envelope. I always interpreted this song as a ruthless attack on people from the establishment, older generation, reporters and such who were witnessing the new scene unfold and were troubled and confused. Dylan telling them not to even try to get it because they can't. You know something is happening, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones? And, sorry, Mr. Jones, you can't and won't.

this song has always given me film noir vibes, and i watch the scenes play out in my mind like a film noir

Dylan has made me insane you go deep when you're into Dylan, love his writing. Greatest creator of songs that we will ever have, people will still be talking about his music in a thousand years time

You've heard some of Dylan's best and had such great takeaways from each song you've covered. If I could pick the next one it'd be "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"

If you watch the documentary “Don’t Look Back”, you will see the exchange between Dylan and a reporter from Time magazine, which is almost certainly the inspiration for this song.

Re: the chuckle, Dylan was infamous for his one take recording style, his catalog is full of moments like that.

John Lennon references this song ("Feel so suicidal, just like Dylan's Mr Jones") on 'Yer Blues' on the White Album three years later.

This song is fantastic. You can definitely hear I believe to my soul in it as well. So the thing with this song is that it's about the misadventures and the life and times of a hapless reporter: Mr. Jones. The whole song really savages the media in a way that only Bob Dylan can. You mentioned the ominous sounds and the organ. That is Al Kooper. He and another guy from this project, Mike Bloomfield, worked together on a lot of fantastic music together. Very bluesy, but not cliche. Keep exploring! I love your analysis and your insights!

I always thought this was Dylan sneering at the freaks and weirdos that Dylan, by '65, was encountering more and more. I thought perhaps one of those 'weirdos' might be Andy Warhol. Warhol famously surrounded himself with a unique group of people. Dylan detested Warhol for his cavalier, and at times cruel treatment of people who were part of Warhols scene. And he saw many of Warhol's hangers on as pretentious. Also, that is Bob playing the piano. Brilliant, dark and wonderful song.

This track, by the way, is the inspiration for the Counting Crows track "Mr. Jones"

loving these dylan videos. i must be a rare breed. Dylan's my favourite artist but i am just terrible at getting lyrics. i just really dig the sound and the vibe i guess. i used to fail miserably in english literature class. i never understood what any poems were about. so hearing you dissect the lyrics really helps me appreciate it on a new level for me.

I wouldn't trust anyone who says they have Dylan figured out. But I think you've done a great job here. For what it's worth. Dylan once introduced this song in concert by saying "I wrote this for a reporter who was working for the Village Voice in 1963..."

I always thought this song was about the burgeoning counter culture clash with the establishment (Mr Jones.) I think your interpretation is good. But this is a surreal psychedelic take on things. Maybe try “Desolation Row”

you exploring Dylan is so wonderful. thank you!

Fantastic reaction. What a wonderful analytical mind you have. But I knew that already, Mister Syed.

I recommend the movie I'm Not There, where each of Dylan's phases are portraited by different actors.

I always thought This song was about a straight laced man in the United States in the early sixties, who is just discovering the new counter culture and experimenting with drugs and sex

As an old rocker of the 60's I still believe this is a story about a day in the life of Bob Dylan presented verbally about his thoughts. Mister Jones is his tag for himself. How he sees himself in a mirror, people he meets, his agent, people on the street and how he feels about the recording industry not caring about his music but money. BTW the swirling sound is a Hammond B3 using a Leslie speaker that swirls in circles and you can control the speed. Love your work!

Multiple levels, sometimes at the same time, sometimes sequentially, everything's shifting so as soon as you think you've got a handle on the meaning Dylan blows it all up. At least 3 layers jump out at me. 1) conservative music press asking him dumb questions always trying to put his music into an established box, so what's happening is a new kind of music/art that the reporters can't grasp; 2) the older generation of "squares" in society who can't figure out what the kids were doing at the time; and 3) on a more transcendental level the somebody's familiar constructs of self and world being dismantled and finding out they're cosmically all alone, thus a lot of the kind of psychedelic assault of images and word games leaving Mr. Jones utterly bewildered and adrift. All his intellect completely useless in comprehending what's happening in the present moment.

In the live version he says 'you should be made at all times to carry a telephone' rather than 'wear earphones'...decades before cell phone popularity.. Ps: the live version during '66 tour of England with Bob at piano is historical awesomeness.

One of the problems of dipping into Dylan's music on a random basis is that you miss the context of a song needed to understand it. This is taken from the album "Highway 61 Revisited". In my view the best album Dylan ever produced - which makes it one of the best albums anyone ever produced. It also completed a major turning point in Dylan's world view. Two things happening in Dylan's life here - (1) he'd become involved with the bohemian, beatnik society of the likes of Andy Warhol and Alan Ginsberg - weird , crime, drugs and poverty soaked, and (2) his move away from the certainties and judgementalism of his folk days. All songs on the album are in some way connected to this society, it's counterculture ethos and the inability of mainstream people to understand it. From the abandonned poor little rich girl of "Like a Rolling Stone" to the surreal, genius depiction of "Desolation Row" (an absolute must for you to review, it will blow your mind 😉) Sample first line "They're selling postcards of the hanging" All songs on this album are, in some way, related to this culture. In this song - Mr Jones is that class of person - well educated, affluent, possibly a univerity researcher come to study this society (hence his pencil in his hand). What he sees is weird and unfathomable ("just what you might say when you get home"). But the truth is that, in this company, he is the one that is weird (hence the "you're a cow" etc). In truth he can't get beyond his preconceived ideas and will never understand the reality. But, as I said, Dylan is also completing the lyrical move from the judgementalism of his "protest songs" to writing only about experiences he has personally had. In "My Back Pages" he said (from his last all acoustic album) "fearing not I'd become my enemy in the instant that I preach" Dylan had come to realise that the line between righteous indignation and hypocrisy was one the righteously indignant could never see. From this point on Dylan only ever sings about exoeriences he himslef has had. And, in the last lines of "Desolation Row", which completes the album, he advises that to others - "Right now I can't read too good, don't send me no more letters no. Not unless you mail them from Desolation Row." ie don't talk to me about things yiu haven't experienced. Went down like a lead balloon with his folk fans - not helped by plugging his guitar into an amplifier 😀 I remember seeing a video of a show when Dylan was being booed by the crowd. He struck up this song and he spat out at the audience the line "You know something's happening here but you don't what it is, do you Mr jones?". How right he was - but eventually most of them learned!

Reporter to Dylan: “Who is Mr. Jones?” Dylan: “Everyone has their Mr. Jones”

I have been watching your channel for while now. Especially loving your reactions to the wonderful Bob Dylan. You are really starting to understand the brilliance of the great wordsmith. As a 65 year old it is so beautiful to see the younger generation falling in love with his music. Loving you channel

Been working Bob out for fifty years.definitely a genius👍🙏✌️

Great reaction. Would love to hear you react to Bob Dylans 115th Dream. Has some cool lyrics for you to look into

I always here the isolated human theme to so many of his poem songs. We are all here completely alone or naked with distractions infiltrating our psyce

I love the organ/keys on this album. Check out a song “New Pony”, “You Gotta Serve Somebody “ , “Percy’s Song”, “Call Letter Blues” ,he’s a chameleon, every album is different. Check them all out!

He paid the visit to hwy 61 and he came out with all these words and verses from a different dimension.

That's a pretty astute reading of the song, I'd say. It's like trying to describe a nightmare after you've woken up. Keep going with Dylan - amazingly deep source, and influenced so many others. So many other tracks to try: "Visions of Johanna" is a masterpiece, the epic "Desolation Row", or for something a little lighter but still thought-provoking, try "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" or the playful "I Want You".

The Hammond B3 Organ played through the rotating Leslie speakers - In 1965 it was a new sound & Dylan used it on many of his albums in those days. . "accidently" played by Al Kooper . .If you wanted a successful 'cover band' in the clubs in the 60's & '70's you needed a Hammond B3 & a Fender Rhodes piano. . .

If you want to do another Dylan track sometime, I think you'd really enjoy "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands"

I have to agree with those who mentioned sexual anxiety. When viewed from the point of view of someone who hasn't accepted his sexuality, the metaphors become clear. In the Dylan based film 'I'm not there' there is a fairly explicit scene set to this song, which uses this interpretation...

One of Dylans most sophisticated songs musically and the songwriting and lyrics are so clever, biting and ambigious enough that you can interpret it the way you want. Dylan plays piano on this track a cool little story Al Kooper who played the organ on the song has recalled that at the end of the session, when the musicians listened to the playback of the song, drummer Bobby Gregg said, "That is a nasty song, Bob." Kooper adds, "Dylan was the King of the Nasty Song at that time.

There is a clip somewhere of a reporter in either a hotel room or back stage at a venue with BD and others hanging about. The reporter - I think from Newsweek- is asking inane questions and Bob just eviscerates him. I believe the song springs from that encounter- Maybe it’s from the documentary “Don’t look back” by DA Pennebaker. Great footage. I’ve just watched several of your Dylan takes in a row. Since I watch on the TV I don’t comment much but I had to go find the phone to let you know about the film. I’m really enjoying your delight in Dylan- I’ve been loving him for 60 years. He never fails. If he never wrote anything but It’s alright Ma (I’m only bleeding) he’d still be the greatest songwriter ever! Lol

I have been listening to this song so often when i was young. And now, 50 years laters i still remember the lyrics.😊

Live version is fantastic... lots of fresh fottage. Dylan has a great smile and laugh.💕

That was a good take re: the sexual double meaning. I've known this song a long time but never thought of it. Now I wonder how I missed it.

Syed, I am so glad I found your channel. You are so awesome in your analysis of Dylan's lyrics. Love it❤

I really like how you analyze the lyrics. You are a very smart man

Dylan’s response to a reporter who asked Dylan about Mr. Jones at the 1965 San Francisco Press Conference. Dylan said: “He’s a pinboy. He also wears suspenders.”

i love the way you break things down, and get to the heart of a song. Dylan has so much to offer, there is so much there

This song reflects the time of the 60s. The people Dylan is challenging are both the reporters, who often misunderstood him who where part of the establishment that did not understand the youth counter culture or what “was happening” with the young people say the hippies of that time. They were challenging the norm, and motives of the “straight” folks and calling them the “freaks.” They were for peace & love and drugs, rockn roll and freedom and so much more. Dylan often used carnival images in his songs to illlustrate what he was talking about.

Al Kooper on that crazy haunted house organ! 👻 And the late, great Mike Bloomfield on guitar! 🎸💥

You’re really sharp dude.

John Lennon references this song in his song "Yer Blues" from The White Album - "The eagle picks my eye;; The worm he licks my bones; I feel so suicidal, just like Dylan's Mr. Jones". The Beatles were big Dylan fans.

Your Dylan videos are excellent. I grew up with these songs. It's refreshing to see someone discover them and analyse them without preconceptions. Thanks. Dylan's vocal performance is perfect on this track. His phrasing.

Dylan had several peaks really. IMHO - his late 90s early noughts were amongst his very best. Always kinda felt that it's like a dream like scenario where narrator/Mr Jones is suicidal/already dead and he's also the reporter/detective who's both the body & looking/being provoked into (by his own subconscious) into his own suicide/death. This song has been referenced in several other famous songs (Beatles' Yer Blues & Counting Crows Mr Jones)

Bruh, you're good at this. It would be nice to see you try Leonard Cohen: Steer Your Way, Everybody Knows, Happens to the Heart, A Street, The Night of Santiago, Democracy, Closing Time, etc. Also Kris Kristofferson: Pilgrim Chapter 33, or Sunday Morning Coming Down (Austin sessions). There is really only one other reactor right now that tackles complex tunes. Im eager to see more of your work

I’ve read some people say that this song tells the story of a reporter attending a rock festival for the first time, and all of the verses seem to match with this take in my opinion.

If you have lived in those times, there were two kinds of people, one the "old school", the established ones, "the elders", and then another group started to emerge, free freaks. And they couldn't understand each other. The new wave takes over, and the elders don't understand what's going on, the new ones want to bury them, those tones on piano are dead bells. But everybody can feel like this (John Lennon wrote in his 'Yer Blues' "I feel so suicidal, Just like Dylan's Mr Jones"), if he is living in a culture which he doesn't understand. So, this *feeling* has more than one situation.

Always look forward to your Dylan videos. Analysis spot on and interesting, catching details and making all these connections on your first listen is very impressive. I'd like to see your take on Desolation Row from the same album!

Painting surreal landscapes in song. Baffling fans for 60 years now. Magical!

The song is about notorious "acid" parties in vogue at the time in England and Europe at the time, both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones also released songs about this subject, with She Said, She Said....by the Beatles. And Something happened to me yesterday......by the Rolling Stones.

Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts. You’ve got to hear it!!

I didn't expect to, but enjoyed this x

You are spot ,I've listened and listened and I agree with you totally When you strip the lyrics back it makes total sense, I think, he fucks with your head, living legend and a genius,

The song is about a particular reporter, according to dylan, but it could be about any of them, or any straight who attempted to understand the scene at the time. Dylan came out of the beat movement of the 50s and had more in common with them than with the later hippies. The beat movement savaged all social norms, encouraging people to live without limits and with intense passion. The most famous beats were of course Kerouac, William Burroughs, the poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso, Dylan's friend Allan Ginsberg, and a host of others, writing experimental drama and performing their poetry to a jazz band. To an outsider like Mr Jones they would have been totally unintelligible. Also, like Dylan, they would have delighted in screwing with his mind! When asked who Mr Jones was, Dylan replied "He's a real person. You know him, but not by that name... I saw him come into the room one night and he looked like a camel. He proceeded to put his eyes in his pocket. I asked this guy who he was and he said, 'That's Mr. Jones.' Then I asked this cat, 'Doesn't he do anything but put his eyes in his pocket?' And he told me, 'He puts his nose on the ground.' It's all there, it's a true story." Which serves the reporter right for asking another dumb question.

This song is where John Lennon got the line "Just like Dylans Mr. Jones" in YER BLUES.

I read somewhere that the “thin man” is actually Dylan. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

That organ is a Hammond Organ, heard in many of early rock songs and a favorite of many bands. In this song, it is played by Al Kooper, who really didn’t know how to play it, but he pulled it off beautifully nonetheless.

Great reaction! You should check out the live version of this song. One of my favourite Dylan performances..

Love your observations!! 👍🏽👍🏻🕊️🎸🎵🎶

My superficial read on this one has always been that Mr. Jones is simply a proxy for the establishment at the time, who could not "get" the emerging counterculture. The "kids" with their new notions of equality and civil rights, their fashion, their music and emerging drug culture were in on the "joke" while their clueless parents were left wondering what was going on. Could never parse it beyond that.

this was great ❤

I like your analysis...... I like every one's different interpretations about the same situations Bob Dylan is singing about in the ballad of a thin man

what an amazing reaction to the genius that Dylan is

Give “Tweeter and the Monkey Man” a listen if you get a chance. Dylan as a member of the greatest supergroup of all time.

I think you did a great job of analyzing ... awesome dude

Do Murder Most Foul, Dylan longest song, it's from his last album and has one of the best lyrics of his career.

When you look at Dylans writing, he scrutinizes, scratches out, and rewrites words to get them exactly the way he wants. But when he records it seems to be the opposite. Dylan was known for making the next chord change early or late which leaves band members guessing and unable to take their eyes off of him for a second. So he wasnt worried about timing or, obviously mistakes. Muddy Waters did this too. Maybe he didnt like doing more than a few takes , or thought that excessive takes lost their fire and sponteneity.

You need to check out “Bob Dylan’s 115th dream”. It’s one of the craziest lyrical tales I’ve heard.

There are ao many Dylan tracks you should look into. I would recommend "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" from Blood on the Tracks. A short story disguised as a song.

A geek was originally a kind of circus performer who bit the heads off of live chickens as the culmination of his act, so the literal context there is that Mr. Jones is being called a freak by someone who bites off chickens' heads in public for money.

At 11:37 you're talking about "Youre a cow! give me some milk or else go home!" I thought Dylan is using the metaphor of a cow producing milk on command to Dylan producing amazing art on demand. He was fully aware of the massive commodification of his art that was happening and I bet that he felt like someone's prized cattle, and this was his way of mocking that idea that such people like Mister Jones are always demanding he produce one product over and over. The cow and milk metaphor also reminded me of Milk Cow Blues which is a blues song from the 30s referring to the singer's wife (she's the "milk cow") and Robert Johnson did a version of that tune. Dylan was heavily influenced by all these old folk, country, and blues guys, and his lyrics consciously make use of these references which would've been familiar to his peer musicians, and folk and blues fans in the 60s, but maybe they fly over the head of a square type like Mister Jones. I always assumed that Bob Dylan himself was all of the various people he was describing in the verses, the circus freak, the sword swallower, the one eyed midget, etc. the ultimate performance artist who can take on many different forms. It leads you to question "who really is Bob Dylan?" Which was, after all, always just the figment of Robert Zimmerman's amazingly active imagination.

For me this song is about Dylan's vision on where music is heading with him leading it ergo from acoustic to electric - the metaphors he uses are brilliant

Great reaction again.. That's how Bob does it... Everybody can form their own opinion... ',Artist'

You should take a look at the KZfaq video of his performance of this song during the last leg of his 1965-1966 world tour: very energetic, possibly drugged-up, performance with different musicians, the swirling organ, also, being prominent (played by Garth Hudson of the band "The Band.")

Robert Allen Zimmerman - Bob Dylan - Master Story Teller Genius with words. I suggest you add to your journey with these...."Desolation Row"... "Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest"....... "Who Killed Davy Moore"

I love this song! ❤️

I always thought it was him slamming on the journos for writing the opposite to the implied article. They'd throw a few bones (Scooby snacks) to try ease his anxieties and then go and diss him. Journos hated having to interview him, Van Morrison and John Lyndon because all three saw it as an intrusion of their privacy.

It has been said, in some long ago circles, that Mr. Jones was also known as Brian. Dylan paid for Brian's casket when it was needed.

My take was always a drug/sex party (acid was becoming a thing at this time) attended by a square who thinks he’s hip (to use the terminology of the day) but the reality is he doesn’t really get what’s going down and is mocked by others without realising. There’s probably more layers to it though that are over my head!

I remember when he came to Sheffield, I think it was 65, and a local reporter asked him why he wore his hair so long. He looked thoughtful, then said well the way I see it, the more hair you have growing on the outside of your head, the less you have growing on the inside ~ Hurricane, from the late 70s, is a more direct track. That song helped to get an innocent black man on a murder sentence out of jail.

Like any good poetry it's beautiful. Written by the artist to express what was going on in his life at that time I guess. Are we still asking today, 'Who is that Man'?

“Bars. Genius.” Yessir.🖖🏼

Subscribed, we're living in the States, and my wife reckons ur from Leeds.

I always read it as an attack on people who felt they owned him. To me it is a Daliesque word painting rejecting the title of 'The Voice of a Generation." Whatever the meaning is incidental. It's what the song means to you. I've been hooked since 1970. It is fantastic to watch you discover the greatest ever song writer/poet of my generation. You may have already covered 'Idiot Wind' but if you haven't, do yourself a big favour. It's majestic; full of anger and pain.

In the early 1960’s pop songs were not exactly noted for the boy-meets-girl sophistication of their lyrics. Then along comes Dylan with songs like “Blowing in the wind”, “The times they are a’changin”, and, well, the contents of his first 2 self-penned albums - thought provoking songs but still readily understandable. Then we see another side of Bob Dylan where his imagery gets obtuse and then he goes electric as well. The music press are interested of course and I think your first-impression take on what this song is about is spot on. It’s just about Dylan facing a room full of journalists, who have to come up with incisive articles for their editors. But they don’t know what’s happening and they expect Dylan to lay himself naked and explain. Dylan get asked increasingly dumb questions so he deliberately gives dumb and/or dubious replies. He’s facing journalists who have even studied literature at universities (they’ve been with the professors). As in many Dylan songs his last verse puts everything in context. If you want to know what his songs are about, take your eyes out of your pocket and listen to the lyrics (put earphones on).

i always thought it was the average person seeking the american dream who is just not seeing the bigger picture, and this is the first time "Mr. Jones" realizes how much more there is

This song enetered my world sixty one years ago. It has always been brilliatly amgiguous to me. It is certaily full of sexual inuendo. In an intereview years ago, Dylan was asked wht some lyric meant and his response was "itmeans it rhymes." Great review.I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Feels like a bad LSD trip or an average man encountering the new times in the early 60s... Great song and I love your reactions

You're not losing your mind. And I've been lisening to the song for 50 years and never thought about that "pencil" in the first line!