How Bob Dylan Borrowed From Hank Williams To Create His First Big Hit

In 1965, Bob Dylan released “Like A Rolling Stone”. Written by Dylan, “Like A Rolling Stone” appears on his sixth studio album, Highway 61 Revisited. 

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By the time Dylan released “Like A Rolling Stone”, he had already released several singles. But it’s “Like A Rolling Stone” that became his first big hit, and one of his signature songs. “Like A Rolling Stone” says, “How does it feel / How does it feel / To be without a home / Like a complete unknown  Like a rolling stone?“

Known for writing songs by himself, Dylan did get inspiration from another song, namely “Lost Highway” by Hank Williams” when writing “Like A Rolling Stone”. Williams’ “Lost Highway”, out in 1949,  begins with, “I’m a rollin’ stone, all alone and lost / For a life of sin, I have paid the cost  When I pass by, all the people say  Just another guy on the lost highway.” 

At the time, many people erroneously believed “Like A Rolling Stone” was a nod to The Rolling Stones, whose first single came out in 1963.

What Bob Dylan Says About “Like A Rolling Stone”

Dylan did not have much success until “Like A Rolling Stone”. It’s a bit ironic that his first big hit is with this song, since he had no idea he was writing a song at all when “Like A Rolling Stone” began.

 “It was ten pages long,” Dylan recounts. “It wasn’t called anything, just a rhythm thing on paper, all about my steady hatred directed at some point that was honest. In the end, it wasn’t hatred. It was telling someone something they didn’t know, telling them they were lucky. Revenge, that’s a better word. I had never thought of it as a song until one day I was at the piano, and on the paper, it was singing, ‘How does it feel?’ in a slow-motion pace, in the utmost of slow motion.”

Still, Dylan acknowledges that it’s this song that changed everything for him.

“Last spring, I guess I was going to quit singing. I was very drained, and the way things were going,” he said in 1966. “It was a very draggy situation … But ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ changed it all. I mean, it was something that I myself could dig. It’s very tiring having other people tell you how much they dig you if you yourself don’t dig you.”

The succcess of “Like A Rolling Stone” is especially surprising, since the song is about six minutes long.

Photo by Val Wilmer/Redferns