"Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" (sometimes referred to erroneously as "Everybody Must Get Stoned")[1] is a song written and recorded by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.

[2] Johnston hired experienced session musicians, including Charlie McCoy, Wayne Moss, Kenneth Buttrey and Joe South, to play with Dylan.

[7] In the account by Dylan biographer Howard Sounes, the chaotic musical atmosphere of the track was attained by the musicians playing in unorthodox ways and on unfamiliar instruments.

[10] Sean Wilentz, who listened to the complete studio tapes to research his book on Dylan, wrote that the chatter before the take is "if not seriously whacked, certainly jacked up and high-spirited."

"[9] Sounes quoted Moss recalling that in order to record "Rainy Day Women", Dylan insisted the backing musicians must be intoxicated.

In Sounes's account, Moss, Hargus "Pig" Robbins, and Henry Strzelecki claimed they also smoked a "huge amount" of marijuana and "got pretty wiped out".

According to Wilentz, both McCoy and Kooper insisted that all the musicians were sober and that Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman, would not have permitted pot or drink in the studio.

Spector said "they were surprised to hear a song that free, that explicit", referring to its chorus of "getting stoned" as an invitation to indulge in alcohol or narcotics.

[15] Musicologist Wilfrid Mellers described the song as "musically corny: a parody of a New Orleans marching or Yankee Revivalist band".

At a press conference in Stockholm on April 28, 1966, Dylan was asked about the meaning of his new hit single, "Rainy Day Women".

He mentions that Time magazine, on July 1, 1966, wrote: "In the shifting multi-level jargon of teenagers, 'to get stoned' does not mean to get drunk but to get high on drugs ... a 'rainy-day woman', as any junkie [sic] knows, is a marijuana cigarette.

"[12][19] Dylan responded to the controversy by announcing, during his May 27, 1966, performance at the Royal Albert Hall, London, "I never have and never will write a drug song.

Heylin further suggested that the song's title is a Biblical reference, taken from the Book of Proverbs, "which contains a huge number of edicts for which one could genuinely get stoned".

"Dylan was 'being stoned' by audiences around the world for moving to Rock from Folk," wrote Muir, who also suggested the seemingly nonsensical verses of "Rainy Day Women" can be heard as echoes of social and political conflicts in the U.S. For Muir, "They'll stone ya when you're tryin’ to keep your seat" evokes the refusal of black people to move to the back of the bus during the civil rights struggle.

[22] Koozin interprets the song as aimed at the media and "every other authoritative force in society that oppresses and clouds the individual's mind with untruths".

[24] According to Heylin, Dylan "finally explained" the song when speaking to New York radio host Bob Fass in 1986: "'Everybody must get stoned' is like when you go against the tide ... you might in different times find yourself in an unfortunate situation and so to do what you believe in sometimes ... some people they just take offence to that.

"[25] In a 2012 interview in Rolling Stone, Mikal Gilmore asked Dylan if he worried about "misguided" interpretations of his songs, adding: "For example, some people still see 'Rainy Day Women' as coded about getting high."

"[26] An edited version of "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35", lasting 2 minutes and 26 seconds, was released as a single on March 22, 1966, with "Pledging My Time" as the B-side.

[38] Reviewing the album version, Ralph Gleason of the San Francisco Examiner welcomed the song as "comic, satirical ... with its Ma Rainey traditional blues feeling, its wild lyrics.

[49] A day before the Indio show, in Las Vegas, it became the first song he performed in concert after the announcement that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The album including the song, Moldy Goldies: Colonel Jubilation B. Johnston and His Mystic Knights Band and Street Singers, was released in 1966 by Columbia records.