The Freewheelin’ Edition Part 1

Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia

Slate Podcasts

Music, Music History, Music Commentary

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

At the movies, A Complete Unknown depicts Bob Dylan as a 1960s “it” boy—played by a 2020s “it” boy, Timothée Chalamet. But the film ends in 1965. What happened in the six decades after that? Dylan not only kept recording. He actually started topping the charts—in the 1970s, the era of Led Zeppelin, not Pete Seeger. And several of his chart-topping albums came decades later, in the 21st century. Bob’s voice got rougher, but loyal audiences kept buying his music. Several of these platinum Dylan LPs are among the most acclaimed in rock history—from Blood on the Tracks to Time Out of Mind. And Dylan stayed an object of fascination through all his changes—as a road warrior, a born-again Christian, a Traveling Wilbury, a JFK conspiracy theorist. Join Chris Molanphy as he walks through Bob Dylan’s career decade by decade, from his ’60s folkie years to his 21st-century revival. With the biopic reviving interest in rock’s poet laureate, there’s never been a better time to get tangled up in Bob. Podcast production by Kevin Bendis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:30.0	Hey there, hip parade listeners. What you're about to hear is part one of this episode. Part
0:36.5	two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month. Would you like to hear is part one of this episode. Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the
0:39.4	month. Would you like to hear this episode all at once the day it drops? Sign up for Slate Plus.
0:46.1	It supports not only this show, but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcasts.
0:52.0	Just go to slate.com slash hitparade plus.
0:55.9	You'll get to hear every hit parade episode in full the day it arrives.
1:01.0	Plus, hit parade The Bridge, our bonus episodes, with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics, and pop chart trivia.
1:14.1	Once again, to join, that's slate.com slash hip parade plus. Thanks. And now please enjoy part one of this hit parade episode. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of popchart history in your prime, then you're Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate magazine about the hits from coast to coast.
1:51.7	I'm Chris Malanfi, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why Is This Song Number One series on today's show.
1:59.9	It's awards season again, and among the movies cleaning
2:04.3	up at both the box office and the prize-giving shows is the Bob Dylan biopic pick, a complete
2:11.7	unknown. And of course, the movie's title comes from this song, Dylan's legendary 1965 electric folk rock single, Like a Rolling Stone.
2:24.3	How does it feel to be without home?
2:37.0	Like a complete unknown Like a Rolling Stone
2:42.0	Not only is like a Rolling Stone
2:47.0	acclaimed by generations of music critics, it also remains Dylan's biggest
2:54.4	hit on the American singles charts as an artist, the person singing the record, not just
	...

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