Today in Music (1963): Bob Dylan The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan released

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan Bob Dylan

Released: May 27, 1963 Peak: 22 US, 12 UK, -- CN, -- AU Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, -- UK, 3.5 world (includes US + UK), 11.42 EAS Genre: folk rock

Tracks: Click on a song title for more details. Blowin’ in the Wind [2:49] G1, ND, OM, BF, RT, MP, AB, BG, B1, ES, DE, SE, BN, VB, 40, MM Girl from the North Country [3:23] WD, RL Masters of War [4:38] BU, WD, ND, MP, BG, RL, DE Down the Highway [3:32] Bob Dylan’s Blues [2:28] WD A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall [6:53] WD, PH, ND, 60, G2, RT, MP, B2, DE, 40 Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right [3:40] WD, PH, ND, G2, BF, MP, AB, B1, ES, DE, VB, 40 Bob Dylan’s Dream [5:02] BU, WD Oxford Town [1:50] WD Talking World War III Blues [6:27] BU, PH Corrina, Corrina [2:44] Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance [2:00] BU I Shall Be Free [4:47] WD Total Running Time: 50:04

Rating: 4.699 out of 5.00 (average of 27 ratings) Quotable “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan launched Dylan almost overnight from notable new songwriter to voice of his generation.” – Chris Smith, 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

Just Another Folk Singer? Robert Allen Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan, was signed to Columbia Records and released his self-titled debut album in 1962. While it “announced a talented new busker on the folk-revival scene, it was not monstrously different from other folk albums, largely interpreting traditional material (albeit with Dylan’s distinctive nasal singing and a stronger blues influence than his contemporaries) with only a hint of Dylan’s songwriting ability.” CS It “didn’t sell, critics couldn’t stand his voice and he was regarded…as [producer John] Hammond’s folly” HL because “few executives could see much commercial potential in this raspy-voiced troubadour.” TB The Unparalleled Songwriter However, the follow-up, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, “was a landmark album.” CS It “launched Dylan almost overnight from notable new songwriter to voice of his generation.” CS Musically, the album “remained firmly in the same style as the debut – one man and his finger-pickin’ guitar – but the youth of America had never heard anything resembling the lyrics of tracks like > A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” TB The album was “composed almost entirely of originals (unusual in the pop-music world and almost unheard of in the tradition-minded folk scene).” CS He was “impressing pop-music fans with his sophisticated songwriting and hijacking the folk scene with his social and existential insight.” CS He was “a singer-songwriter of near-perfect skill, gifted with a poet’s eye for detail, narrative, and humor.” RD It “firmly established Dylan as an unparalleled songwriter, one of considerable skill, imagination, and vision. At the time, folk had been quite popular on college campuses and bohemian circles, making headway onto the pop charts in diluted form, and while there certainly were a number of gifted songwriters, nobody had transcended the scene as Dylan did with this record.” AMG Introducing Social Protest to the Pop World Dylan showed “an artist’s self-penned tunes could be as significant (if not more so) as the prepackaged pop coming out of the Brill Building or the endlessly reworked traditional material in the folk canon.” CS “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan introduced protest lyrics into the consciousness of the pop audience. Blues and folk artists had always used songs to comment on the injustices of politics, war and society but, for mainstream record buyers, Dylan’s angry invective was a revelation.” TB “At the time, the social protests received the most attention, and deservedly so.” AMG They “weren’t just specific in their targets; they were gracefully executed and even melodic.” AMG “This is rich, imaginative music, capturing the sound and spirit of America as much as that of Louis Armstrong, Hank Williams, or Elvis Presley. Dylan, in many ways, recorded music that equaled this, but he never topped it.” AMG The album produced “five songs that have become standards of one sort or another – Girl from the North Country…A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, Masters of War, ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right, and Blowin’ in the Wind.” HL The Songs Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

Blowin’ in the Wind Bob Dylan

Writer(s): Bob Dylan Recorded: 7/9/1962 Released: 8/13/1963 (single), The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), No Direction Home (The Bootleg Series Vol. 7) (archives: 1959-66, released 2005), Greatest Hits (compilation: 1963-66, released 1967), Best of the Original Mono Recordings (compilation: 1962-67, released 2010), Before the Flood (live, 1974), The Rolling Thunder Revue (The Bootleg Series, Vol 5) (live, recorded 1975, released 2002), Masterpieces (box: 1962-76, released 1978), At Budokan (live, 1978), Biograph (box set: 1961-81, released 1985), The Best of, Volume 1 (compilation: 1963-89, released 1997), The Essential (compilation: 1962-99, released 2000), Mixing Up the Medicine (compilation: 1963-2000, released 2024), Dylan: Deluxe Edition (box set: 1962-2006, released 2007), Dylan: Standard Edition (compilation: 1963-2006, released 2007), Beyond Here Lies Nothin’: The Collection (compilation: 1963-2009, released 2011), The Very Best of (compilation: 1963-2012, released 2013), His Ultimate Top 40 Collection (compilation: 1963-2012, released 2019) Peak: 1 CL, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 0.20 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 55.50 video, 294.09 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: Rolling Stone said not only said “Blowin’ in the Wind” was “Dylan’s first important composition” RS500 but “the most famous protest song ever written.” RS500 In his Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings, Steve Sullivan calls it “the defining song of folk music’s alliance with the civil rights movement.” SS “While the perspective of passing decades has not been uniformly kind to other social protest songs of its era, the stature of ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ has not diminished one iota. The questions it poses are eternal and the eloquence with which it presents them remains powerful.” SS “It’s a plea for people to open their eyes and ears to injustice in the world.” SS In Martin Scorsese’s Dylan documentary No Direction Home, Mavis Staples said she was astonished upon first hearing the song that a young white man could write something that so successfully captured the frustration of black people. WK Sam Cooke was inspired by the song to write “A Change Is Gonna Come,” another song strongly associated with the civil rights movement. WK The melody is adapted from the slavery-era, African-American spiritual “No More Auction Block.” WK In The Folk Songs of North America, Alan Lomax exerts that “the song was sung by former slaves who fled to Nova Scotia after Britain abolished slavery in 1833.” WK The “language is rooted as much in Woody Guthrie’s earthy vernacular as in biblical rhetoric. But in a decisive break with the current-events conventions of topical folk songs, Dylan framed the crises around him in a series of fierce, poetic questions that addressed what he believed was man’s greatest inhumanity to man: indifference. ‘Some of the biggest criminals are those that turn their heads away when they see wrong,’ he declared in the Freewheelin’ liner notes.” RS500 The song “introduced most of America to the man whose song-poetry would change the shape of popular music.” SS Critic Andy Gill said, “It remains the song with which Dylan’s name is most inextricably linked.” WK However, it was the folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary who first popularized the song. Before Dylan had even released the song, he performed it in Greenwich Village with Peter, Paul & Mary in the audience. They loved it and arranged to record it. SS They were “an act that could put folk music into the pop charts.” TC They helped Dylan gain recognition as a songwriter and effectively “put protest music into every home in the western world.” TC A rumor circulated in 1963 that “Blowin’ in the Wind” was actually written by Lorre Wyatt, a high school student from Milburn, New Jersey. Dylan recorded the song on July 9, 1962, but didn’t publish it until three weeks later. SJ Because this is highly unusual, it is suggested that Dylan learned the song from Wyatt, recorded it, and then took credit for it after finding out Wyatt hadn’t published it. Supposedly Dylan bought it for $1000. Wyatt himself, however, denies writing the song. SJ In addition, the song appears to have actually been publiedh by Dylan in May 1962 in Broadside, a magazine founded by Pete Seeger about topical songs. WK It has also been recorded by Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Sam Cooke, Bobby Darin, Marianne Faithfull, the Four Seasons, the Hooters, Etta James, Ziggy Marley, the Chad Mitchell Trio, Elvis Presley, the Supremes, U2, Stevie Wonder, and Neil Young.

Girl from the North Country Bob Dylan

Writer(s): Bob Dylan Recorded: 4/24/1963 Released: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), The Witmark Demos (The Bootleg Series Vol. 9) (archives: 1962-64, released 2010), Real Live (live, 1984) Peak: 21 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 33.47 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: On The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, the gifted songwriter showed he not only could write protest songs but “gorgeous love songs” AMG such as “the sublime Girl from the North Country.” RD

Masters of War Bob Dylan

Writer(s): Bob Dylan Recorded: 4/24/1963 Released: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), In Concert: Brandeis University (live, recorded 1963, released 2011), The Witmark Demos (The Bootleg Series Vol. 9) (archives: 1962-64, released 2010), No Direction Home (The Bootleg Series Vol. 7) (archives: 1959-66, released 2005), Masterpieces (box: 1962-76, released 1978), Biograph (box set: 1961-81, released 1985), Real Live (live, 1984), Dylan: Deluxe Edition (box set: 1962-2006, released 2007) Peak: 9 CL, 4 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 30.94 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: Dylan “ignited the protest movement with his diatribe against war profiteers in Masters of War.” CS The song “was based on an arrangement of the English riddle song ‘Nottamun Town.’” CS

Down the Highway Bob Dylan

Writer(s): Bob Dylan Recorded: 7/9/1962 Released: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 7.34 streaming About the Song: A

Bob Dylan’s Blues Bob Dylan

Writer(s): Bob Dylan Recorded: 7/9/1962 Released: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), The Witmark Demos (The Bootleg Series Vol. 9) (archives: 1962-64, released 2010) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 7.25 streaming About the Song: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan showcased an artist who could deliver protest songs and “cheerfully absurdist humor (Bob Dylan’s Blues, Bob Dylan’s Dream) with equal skill.” AMG

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall Bob Dylan

Writer(s): Bob Dylan Recorded: 12/6/1962 Released: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), The Witmark Demos (The Bootleg Series Vol. 9) (archives: 1962-64, released 2010), Concert at Philharmonic Hall (The Bootleg Series Vol. 6) (live, recorded 1964, released 2004), No Direction Home (The Bootleg Series Vol. 7) (archives: 1959-66, released 2005), Playlist: The Very Best of the ‘60s (compilation: 1963-69, released 2008), Greatest Hits Vol. II (compilation: 1963-71, released 1971), The Rolling Thunder Revue (The Bootleg Series, Vol 5) (live, recorded 1975, released 2002), Masterpieces (box: 1962-76, released 1978), The Best of, Volume 2 (compilation: 1963-2000, released 2000), Dylan: Deluxe Edition (box set: 1962-2006, released 2007), His Ultimate Top 40 Collection (compilation: 1963-2012, released 2019) Peak: 11 CL, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 18.90 video, 51.13 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: With “vaguely apocalyptic predictions in A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” CS Dylan addressed “a very real fear laid out in very chilling terms.” DT The “Cuban missile crisis…brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.” SS News started circulated in August 1962 of the Soviet build-up of missiles in Cuba. President Kennedy declared them a threat to the United States and on October 22 he demanded they be dismantled. Six days later, Soviet Premier Khrushchev ageed, but “Armageddon had loomed…and Dylan used the experience as a point of departure for his surrealistic, searing masterpiece.” SS Dylan’s self-titled 1962 debut album had flopped, but his follow-up, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, featured “five songs that have become standards of one sort or another,” HL one of which was “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” The song started life as a poem in September. That same month, Dylan started performing it at clubs in Greenwich Village with a lyrical cadence similar to “Lord Randal,” a traditional ballad traced back to 1629. SS The song may also owe a debt to “It’s Hard on We Po’ Farmers,” a 1936 field recording done by John Lomax of Lemuel Jones. Dylan may have learned the song from Waddy Watchtel, a New York folk revivalist who recorded the song in 1963 as “Ain’t It Hard.” SS “The dreamlike visions” SS described in the song have been compared stylistically to that of Arthur Rimbaud, a 19th century French poet. SS The song is framed as a series of questions from a mother to her son, his responses, and the chorus. The pattern repeats over five verses running nearly seven minutes. “Amazingly for such a long, lyrically complex song, he recorded it in a single take.” SS Dylan recorded it at the final session produced by John Hammond, the legendary talent scout who signed Dylan. SS It was first published in the magazine Sing Out! before the album was released. SS

Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right Bob Dylan

Writer(s): Bob Dylan Recorded: 11/14/1962 Released: 8/13/1963 (B side of “Blowin’ in the Wind”), The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), The Witmark Demos (The Bootleg Series Vol. 9) (archives: 1962-64, released 2010), Concert at Philharmonic Hall (The Bootleg Series Vol. 6) (live, recorded 1964, released 2004), No Direction Home (The Bootleg Series Vol. 7) (archives: 1959-66, released 2005), Greatest Hits Vol. II (compilation: 1963-71, released 1971), Before the Flood (live, 1974), Masterpieces (box: 1962-76, released 1978), At Budokan (live, 1978), The Best of, Volume 1 (compilation: 1963-89, released 1997), The Essential (compilation: 1962-99, released 2000), Dylan: Deluxe Edition (box set: 1962-2006, released 2007), The Very Best of (compilation: 1963-2012, released 2013), His Ultimate Top 40 Collection (compilation: 1963-2012, released 2019) Peak: 5 CL, 6 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 207.96 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: Dylan’s second album “revealed a songwriter who could turn out whimsy” AMG such as with Don't Think Twice, It’s All Right). It is “an achingly beautiful lament for love gone wrong.” TB

Bob Dylan’s Dream Bob Dylan

Writer(s): Bob Dylan Recorded: 4/24/1963 Released: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), In Concert: Brandeis University (live, recorded 1963, released 2011), The Witmark Demos (The Bootleg Series Vol. 9) (archives: 1962-64, released 2010) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 8.39 streaming About the Song: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan showcased an artist who could deliver protest songs and “cheerfully absurdist humor (Bob Dylan’s Blues, Bob Dylan’s Dream) with equal skill.” AMG

Oxford Town Bob Dylan

Writer(s): Bob Dylan Recorded: 12/6/1962 Released: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), The Witmark Demos (The Bootleg Series Vol. 9) (archives: 1962-64, released 2010) Peak: 32 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 11.33 streaming About the Song: A

Talking World War III Blues Bob Dylan

Writer(s): Bob Dylan Recorded: 4/24/1963 Released: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), In Concert: Brandeis University (live, recorded 1963, released 2011), Concert at Philharmonic Hall (The Bootleg Series Vol. 6) (live, recorded 1964, released 2004) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 6.28 streaming About the Song: A

Corrina, Corrina Bob Dylan

Writer(s): traditional Recorded: 10/26/1962 Released: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 10.47 streaming About the Song: “There are a couple (very good) covers, with Corrina, Corrina and Honey Just Allow Me One More Chance, but they pale with the originals here.” AMG

Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance Bob Dylan

Writer(s): Bob Dylan, Henry Thomas Recorded: 7/9/1962 Released: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), In Concert: Brandeis University (live, recorded 1963, released 2011) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 5.18 streaming About the Song: “There are a couple (very good) covers, with Corrina, Corrina and Honey Just Allow Me One More Chance, but they pale with the originals here.” AMG

I Shall Be Free Bob Dylan

Writer(s): Bob Dylan Recorded: 12/6/1962 Released: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), The Witmark Demos (The Bootleg Series Vol. 9) (archives: 1962-64, released 2010) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 7.38 streaming About the Song: While credited to Dylan, this song is really “a rewrite of Leadbelly’s ‘We Shall Be Free.’” CS

Resources/References: AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Pages 810-11. RD Robert Dimery (2006). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Quintet Publishing Limited: New York, NY. Page 60. HL Michael Heatley and Spencer Leigh (1998). Behind the Song: The Stories of 100 Great Pop & Rock Classics. Blandford Books: London, UK. Pages 122-23. RS500 Rolling Stone (9/15/2021). “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” SJ Bob Shannon and John Javna (1986). Behind the Hits: Inside Stories of Classic Pop and Rock and Roll. Warner Brothers, Inc.: New York, NY. Pages 246-7. CS Chris Smith (2009). 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music. Oxford University Press. Pages 25-7. SS Steve Sullivan (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings (Volumes I & II). Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland. Pages 97, 396-7. DT Dave Thompson (2011). 1000 Songs That Rock Your World. Krause Publications: Iola, WI. Pages 74 and 171. TB Thunder Bay (2005). Albums: The Stories Behind 50 Years of Great Recordings. Thunder Bay Press; San Diego, CA. Page 48. WK Wikipedia page for “Blowin’ in the Wind” Related DMDB Pages: Last updated 9/16/2026.