Bob Dylan Highway 61 Analysis

gained more resonance when the Cuban Missile Crisis developed a few weeks after Dylan began performing it These popular songs ("Blowin' in the Wind", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall") marked a new direction in songwriting, blending a stream-of-consciousness, imagist-lyrical attack with traditional folk form, something Bob Dylan was renowned for. These labelled ‘protest songs’ became anthems for the American civil-right anti-war movements. His songs, and lyrics, have incorporated various political, social, and philosophical influences and appealed to the generation’s counterculture of the time.

"We just played it, just wore it out. The content of the song lyrics and just the attitude—it was incredibly original and wonderful." (George Harrison, 1993)
Dylan used a full band of rock musicians on every track of the album (except for he closing ballad “Desolation Row”) something he hadn’t done until then.
What makes this album so very innovative, is the way Dylan combined a driving blues-based style of music with a subtle touch of poetry in his lyrics, something as we know, Dylan was widely acclaimed for. The album’s critical appeal is mainly down to Bob’s skillful use of imagery in his lyrics created through metaphors, stories etc. Dylan uses the way of painting images to successfully communicate a story to the