The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is 50 years old.

I thought for sure we'd had at least one thread about this particular album, but I couldn't find one. Depending on the source you check, it was either released on May 27th or 31st in 1963.

Happy birthday to my favorite Dylan album.

As someone who's not particularly a jazz lover, jazz being an album genre before pop or folk was, I think that makes this the oldest album I'd consider one of my all-time favorites. It's just weird to think about it being 50 years old.

surprised they didn't take advantage of the 50th anniversary to release some deluxe thing ... which I would totally buy, there are some fantastic outtakes from this record.
http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m246/midnitcafe/Front-12.jpg

one of the best album covers ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qet9zn_DVTA

you that build the death PLAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYNES

well the doctor interrupted me just about then; he said "hey, i've been having the same old dream. but mine's a little different, you see: i dreamt the only person left alive was me. i didn't see you around."

half the people can be part right all the time, and some of the people can be all right part of the time, but all the people can't be all right all the time. i think bob marley said that.

it was marilyn monroe

probably would have chosen "talkin bear mountain picnic massacre blues" over that song btw but then i also would have chosen it over blind willie mctell

This is one of the albums which revealed to me that song lyrics can be more than just about love or partying, they could address serious issues on the one hand and be hilarious on the other.

so, so weird to think that it's half a century old.

I think my copy is from some point in time between being valuable and not valuable at all. The album carries the old '60s Columbia solid-red label, which means it was pressed sometime between '65 and '71; the front cover lists "Talkin' John Birch Society Blues," "Let Me Die in My Footsteps," "Solid Road," and "Gamblin' Willie," but they're not listed on the back nor are they on the album; "Don't Think Twice" is listed on the front and appears on the album, but isn't listed on the back.

Definitely my favourite of the pre-electric LPs.

A few copies of the original pressing of the LP with the four deleted tracks have turned up over the years, despite Columbia's supposed destruction of all copies during the pre-release phase (all copies found were in the standard album sleeve with the revised track selection).

The original tracklist was:

a1 - Blowin' In The Wind
a2 - Rocks And Gravel
a3 - A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
a4 - Down The Highway
a5 - Bob Dylan's Blues
a6 - Let Me Die In My Footsteps

b1 - Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
b2 - Gamblin' Willie's Dead Man's Hand
b3 - Oxford Town
b4 - Corrina, Corrina
b5 - Talkin' John Birch Blues
b6 - Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance
b7 - I Shall Be Free

Note that radio startion promo copies of the original mono album had tracks 3 & 6, on side one, swapped around on the timing sheet: hxxp://i.imgur.com/yUaM8.jpg, but no promo copies had the original withdrawn tracks.

When the withdrawn album was pressed track 3 and 6 were reversed on the vinyl itself, so that A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall was the 3rd track and Let Me Die In My Footsteps was the 6th (on the labels illustrated Let Me Die In My Footsteps is the 3rd track and A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall is the 6th. One sure way of identifying the withdrawn album without playing it is that on Side 1, of the withdrawn disc, A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall is track 3 and by far the widest track on the side. On all newer releases it's at the end of Side 1.

The original pressing of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is considered the most valuable and rarest record in America, with one copy having sold for $35,000.

so your sleeve appears to be quite rare, or maybe a pirate version?

I don't know. I remember where and when I got it: early '80s, bought The Times They Are-a-Changin' along with it, also an old-Columbia pressing (and both virtually unplayed). I don't think it's a bootleg. It seems like something that might have been pressed soon after those songs were withdrawn--the sleeve may have some value, but it's got the same songs as all the later copies.

Yeah, it's either crazy rare or a bootleg, but does the vinyl inside seem fakey? You might have quite a piece there.

Wish it were so, but I don't think so. It's a Canadian pressing, and I think, according to the Goldmine guide on my shelf, it's the 1965 stereo version ("'360 Sound Stereo' in white on label"). The guide came out in 1999; the album's listed at $25 NM, so maybe it's worth twice that now. But that's all I've got.

have to maneuver myself to the point at which I can listen to any sixties Dylan

it doesn't seem weird to me that this album is fifty years old -- sometimes the sixties seem as distant as ancient greece, probably because they have been so heavily mythologized. it does seem weird to me that dylan was younger than i am when he recorded it. i want the jacket he is wearing on the cover image.

and this isn't even The Sixties® yet, really

Well, The Sixties were starting. Same week this came out, "From Me to You" was no. 1 in the UK. But I agree that 50 seems like a reasonable age for the record. It's foundational, knowingly perched between old and new worlds, making fun of everybody. Put 'em all in the same room with Ernest Borgnine.

R.I.P. Suze.

science sez 60s don't start until JFK is dead and beatles are on ed sullivan tho

and they end with altamont, right?

Sure, this is the seeds-of-change period here.

I think I've only heard the big hits on this record but really my favorite 60s Dylan is John Wesley Harding, the drawn-out-note young Dylan is hard for me to enjoy

How about the wisecracking, fast-talking young Dylan? You can still hear that on Bringing It All Back Home, but he kind of retired (or at least rewired) that persona from Highway 61 on. (fwiw, John Wesley Harding is sometimes my favorite 60s Dylan too.)

It's foundational, knowingly perched between old and new worlds, making fun of everybody. Put 'em all in the same room with Ernest Borgnine.

Excellent. Led me back to "I Shall Be Free"--wasn't sure if you were quoting verbatim. I'm so fixated on the big three electric albums, I probably would have overlooked that for my ballot when the time comes, but I'll make sure to include it now.

How about the wisecracking, fast-talking young Dylan?

never really my thing. I can enjoy it some, certainly he's always in possession of some heavy technical craft, but I generally find Dylan in cool mode pretty off-putting

I've burned out on the Big Three and listen to JWH and the Basement Tapes almost exclusively these days (and "Jokerman" this week).

This is one of the albums which revealed to me that song lyrics can be more than just about love or partying,

haha but 70 percent of this album is about love and partying!

Anyone remember the River Phoenix-Lili Taylor flick Dogfight? It boasts my favorite use of "Don't Think Twice It's All Right."

This thread is making me antsy for the Dylan ballot poll.

t I generally find Dylan in cool mode pretty off-putting

In the coat he borrowed from James Dean?

Dylan's coolness is interesting, it's the throughline from the Beats to the Beatles. JWH is a very cool record too for that matter, but its coolness is more abstract.

yeah I mean...he's always cool, no doubt, but the beat-cool he's flexing in the 60s a lot...I just don't feel it. But you are right, I think some strain of cool is always in his mind, and it does derive from the beat-heavy cool-and-self-conscious-about-it stance

I was feelin’ kinda lonesome and blue
I needed somebody to talk to
So I called up the operator of time
Just to hear a voice of some kind
“When you hear the beep it will be three o’clock”
She said that for over an hour
And I hung up

i think of young fast-talkin dylan as being more of a funny goof than a gunslinger, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1roDK4949kg

anyway i have only listened to corrina, corrina off this record in the past few years but seeing the tracklisting makes me want to go back to it, good job thread

also lol:

half the people can be part right all the time, and some of the people can be all right part of the time, but all the people can't be all right all the time. i think bob marley said that.

― the white queen and her caustic judgments (difficult listening hour), Friday, May 31, 2013 8:33 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hey clemenza, here's your record, it was indeed printed with the wrong track listing...

http://www.discogs.com/Bob-Dylan-The-Freewheelin-Bob-Dylan/release/3395406

Cool, mystery solved! No one is trying to sell one, though, so it's harder to put a value on it.

Wow, thanks. That's mine exactly, except for the matrix numbers: my A-side ends with 3RD (instead of 3AA), the B-side with 2A (instead of 2C). So I'm going to guess mine came out a few months later, before the cover was changed.

i think of 'cool' dylan as being the like a rolling stone/highway 61 guy. the bob of this era is kind of endearingly (or off-puttingly) earnest.

Anyone read Rotolo's book? I don't usually listen to this era, but I always find stories of him from this time interesting. Positively 4th Street is worth checking out if you haven't yet.

I think I've only heard the big hits on this record but really my favorite 60s Dylan is John Wesley Harding, the drawn-out-note young Dylan is hard for me to enjoy

― Oral Sex in Sharp’s Ridge Park (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, June 1, 2013 7:02 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he went through like 20 different "periods" b/t freewheelin and JWH

i think this might be his most influential album, actually, at least 2nd to JWH.

"don't think twice" was an instant classic.

not JWH, i mean H61R

he went through like 20 different "periods" b/t freewheelin and JWH

fascinating, he released 5 albums in that span, I'd be interested to hear about these ahem 20 different "periods"

it was an exaggeration

u mad bro?

I listened to this album so many times when I was in high school, and it was already old back then.

back in the late 80s it seemed like a 25 year old album was from the swamps of pre-history, whereas today a 25 year old album is Daydream Nation

that's called getting older, no?

time passes more quickly etc

I know. Any thread about blah blah is 50 years old is gonna bring out the "I Am Mad Old" in people, even if they aren't quite that old

feel like dylan was evolving so fast this decade that every album really does feel kind of like a 'period' to me.

Not just every album, sometimes every song. Bringing It All Back Home has him trying on about 5 different things, and still also keeping the base happy with Tambourine Man.

when he does 'masters of war' now, does he alter the 'you'll say that i'm young' lines any?