{"id":924339,"date":"2026-07-10T00:32:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T00:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/924339\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T00:32:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T00:32:16","slug":"this-early-bob-dylan-hit-made-the-beatles-john-lennon-nervous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/924339\/","title":{"rendered":"This Early Bob Dylan Hit Made The Beatles\u2019 John Lennon Nervous"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1965, Bob Dylan released \u201cSubterranean Homesick Blues<\/a>\u201d, a song he wrote by himself. \u201cSubterranean Homesick Blues\u201d is on Dylan\u2019s fifth studio album, Bringing It All Back Home. Not as big a commercial success as some of Dylan\u2019s other songs, \u201cSubterranean Homesick Blues\u201d did become a Top 40 hit.<\/p>\n

A unique song because the title doesn\u2019t appear in the lyrics, \u201cSubterranean Homesick Blues\u201d says, \u201cLook out, kid \/ It\u2019s somethin\u2019 you did \/ God knows when \/ But you\u2019re doin\u2019 it again \/ You better duck down the alley way \/ Lookin\u2019 for a new friend \/ A man in a coon-skin cap \/ In a pig pen \/ Wants eleven dollar bills \/ You only got ten.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\tVideos by American Songwriter\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cSubterranean Homesick Blues\u201d came out only three years after Dylan\u2019s first single, \u201cMixed-Up Confusion\u201d. But he was already making a name for himself as a songwriter, both among his fans and other musicians. In fact, The Beatles\u2019 John Lennon says that it\u2019s \u201cSubterranean Homesick Blues\u201d that made Lennon question his own ability as a songwriter.<\/p>\n

What John Lennon Said About \u201cSubterranean Homesick Blues\u201d by Bob Dylan<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

In 1980, in one of Lennon\u2019s final interviews, he admitted that listening to \u201cSubterranean Homesick Blues\u201d made him worry that he would never be as good a songwriter as Dylan.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, there\u2019s nothing wrong with following examples,\u201d Lennon later said<\/a>, referring to this song. \u201cWe can have figureheads and people we admire, but we don\u2019t need leaders. \u2018Don\u2019t follow leaders, watch the parking meters.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Numerous songwriters have tried to emulate Dylan and his writing. But with \u201cSubterranean Homesick Blues\u201d, Dylan was actually getting inspiration from another artist: Chuck Berry.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s from Chuck Berry, a bit of \u2018Too Much Monkey Business\u2019 and some of the scat songs of the forties,\u201d Dylan tells the Los Angeles Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lennon might have drawn inspiration from Dylan. But for Dylan, one of his biggest inspirations was songwriter Woody Guthrie<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, Woody Guthrie was the be-all and end-all,\u201d Dylan explains. \u201cWoody\u2019s songs were about everything at the same time. They were about rich and poor, black and white, the highs and lows of life, the contradictions between what they were teaching in school and what was really happening. He was saying everything in his songs that I felt but didn\u2019t know how to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSubterranean Homesick Blues\u201d is Dylan\u2019s first Top 40 single. Later that year, Dylan scored his first No. 1 single with \u201cLike A Rolling Stone\u201d.<\/p>\n

Photo by Alisdair Macdonald\/Daily Mirror\/Mirrorpix via Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1965, Bob Dylan released \u201cSubterranean Homesick Blues\u201d, a song he wrote by himself. \u201cSubterranean Homesick Blues\u201d is…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":924340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[29],"tags":[24796,976,171,7657,975,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-924339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-bob-dylan","tag-classic-rock","tag-entertainment","tag-john-lennon","tag-music","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116892870049126543","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=924339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/924340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}