It was released as a single in 1966, and subsequently included as the B-side of the 1971 A-side reissue of "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)".

The song was not included on Simon & Garfunkel's acoustic debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., which was released on October 19, 1964.

[2][better source needed] Until 1981, the initial recording of "I Am a Rock" on The Paul Simon Song Book remained unavailable in North America.

[4] For this release Columbia included two bonus tracks, one of which was an alternate take of "I Am a Rock", during which one can plainly hear Simon stamping his foot for a beat.

While Simon was in Denmark during the summer of 1965, Tom Wilson, the producer of Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., responded to requests for "The Sound of Silence" from American radio stations and dubbed an electric guitar, bass, and drums onto the original track.

Simon immediately returned to the United States, and with Garfunkel in December 1965 began a series of hasty recording sessions to match the electric "mold" created by Wilson with many of the other songs that Simon had recorded on the Song Book, including "I Am a Rock," which was re-recorded during these sessions on 14 December 1965.

The B-side was a version of "Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall," which was later released on Simon & Garfunkel's even-more-successful (and critically acclaimed) album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.

The single mix of the song features a more prominent lead vocal track (and different phrasing in the opening lines) by Paul Simon, and less reverb, than the more common LP version.