SOURCE: Johnson, Thomas S. “Desolation Row Revisited: Bob Dylan's Rock Poetry.” Southwest Review 62, no. 2 (Spring 1977): 135-47.

In the following essay, Johnson analyzes several of Dylan's mid-career songs in an attempt to understand his motivations for moving away from the folk-protest idiom and into rock music.

What was Bob Dylan doing when he moved into rock music in mid-career? His first albums were in a folk-protest idiom. His later albums tended to return to a folk-country idiom close to his first albums. But the latter were markedly different because of three central albums that intervened: Bringing It All Back Home; Highway 61 Revisited; and Blonde on Blonde. Perhaps now, knowing where his music went, we can begin to look back and try to understand what were the underlying motives for that excursion. There are certain songs on these three albums that stand out from the rest as highly individualistic even...