[1][nb 1] In a major transition from his earlier sound, it was Dylan's first album to incorporate electric instrumentation, which caused controversy and divided many in the contemporary folk scene.
Dylan spent much of the summer of 1964 in Woodstock, a small town in upstate New York where his manager, Albert Grossman, had a place.
Baez recalls that "most of the month or so we were there, Bob stood at the typewriter in the corner of his room, drinking red wine and smoking and tapping away relentlessly for hours.
Dylan would remain on good terms with the Beatles, and as biographer Clinton Heylin writes, "the evening established a personal dimension to the very real rivalry that would endure for the remainder of a momentous decade."
The first unsuccessful test involved overdubbing a "Fats Domino early rock & roll thing" over Dylan's earlier, acoustic recording of "House of the Rising Sun", according to Wilson.
[14] It was quickly discarded, though Wilson would more famously use the same technique of overdubbing an electric backing track to an existing acoustic recording with Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence".
Dylan was very aware of the resulting album, So Many Roads; according to his friend, Danny Kalb, "Bob was really excited about what John Hammond was doing with electric blues.
I talked to him in the Figaro in 1964 and he was telling me about John and his going to Chicago and playing with a band and so on …"[15] However, when Dylan and Wilson began work on the next album, they temporarily refrained from their own electric experimentation.
The first session, held on January 13, 1965, in Columbia's Studio A in New York, was recorded solo, with Dylan playing piano or acoustic guitar.
[16] Take one of "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" would be used for the album, but three would eventually be released: "I'll Keep It With Mine" on 1985's Biograph, and "Farewell Angelina" and an acoustic version of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" on 1991's The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.
Guitarists Al Gorgoni, Kenny Rankin, and Bruce Langhorne were recruited, as were pianist Paul Griffin, bassists Joseph Macho Jr. and William E. Lee, and drummer Bobby Gregg.
Few takes were required of each song, and after three and a half hours of recording (lasting from 2:30 pm to 6:00 pm), master takes of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit", "Subterranean Homesick Blues", "Outlaw Blues", "She Belongs to Me", and "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" were all recorded and selected for the final album.
From there, Dylan successfully recorded master takes of "On the Road Again", "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)", "Gates of Eden", "Mr. Tambourine Man", and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", all of which were set aside for the album.
[17] On his following albums, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, he would further develop the genre, influencing American folk acts such as Buffalo Springfield and Simon and Garfunkel as well as British Invasion bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to innovate, producing more introspective lyrics and allowing the latter two groups to expand out of the confines of their pop rock roots.
"Snagged by a sour, pinched guitar riff, the song has an acerbic tinge … and Dylan sings the title rejoinders in mock self-pity," writes music critic Tim Riley.
"She Belongs to Me" extols the bohemian virtues of an artistic lover whose creativity must be constantly fed ("Bow down to her on Sunday / Salute her when her birthday comes.
"Maggie's Farm" contains themes of social, economic and political criticism, with lines such as "Well I try my best to be just like I am/But everybody wants you to be just like them" and "Well, I wake up in the morning, fold my hands and pray for rain/I got a head full of ideas that are drivin' me insane".
Its main musical hook is a series of three descending chords, while its lyrics articulate Dylan's feelings for his lover, and have been interpreted as describing how she brings a needed zen-like calm to his chaotic world.
The song uses surreal imagery, which some authors and critics have suggested recalls Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" and the biblical Book of Daniel.
The song can be best read as a highly sardonic, non-linear (historically) dreamscape parallel cataloguing of the discovery, creation and merits (or lack thereof) of the United States.
[21] There are also artifacts scattered around the room, including LPs by the Impressions (Keep On Pushing), Robert Johnson (King of the Delta Blues Singers), Ravi Shankar (India's Master Musician), Lotte Lenya (Sings Berlin Theatre Songs by Kurt Weill) and Eric Von Schmidt (The Folk Blues of Eric Von Schmidt).
Dylan had "met" Schmidt "one day in the green pastures of Harvard University"[22] and would later mimic his album cover pose (tipping his hat) for his own Nashville Skyline four years later.
[23] A further record, Françoise Hardy's EP J'suis D'accord, was on the floor near Dylan's feet but can only be seen in other shots from the same photo session, as well as a copy of the Wilhelm/Baynes version of I Ching.
[24] Dylan sits forward holding his cat (named Rolling Stone)[24] and has an opened magazine featuring an advertisement on Jean Harlow's Life Story by the columnist Louella Parsons resting on his crossed leg.
On the back cover (also by Kramer), the woman massaging Dylan's scalp is the filmmaker and performance artist Barbara Rubin.
By this time, Dylan had grown far more popular and acclaimed than Baez, and his music had radically evolved from their former shared folk style in a totally unique direction.
Fairport Convention recorded a tongue-in-cheek, acoustic French-language version, "Si Tu Dois Partir", for their celebrated third album, Unhalfbricking.
Widely considered a strong composition from this period (Clinton Heylin called it "one of his finest songs"), a complete acoustic version, with Dylan playing piano and harmonica, was released on 1985's Biograph.
In the film Dont Look Back, a documentary of Dylan's 1965 tour of the UK, Baez is shown in one scene singing a fragment of the then apparently still unfinished song "Love Is Just A Four Letter Word" in a hotel room late at night.