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The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released May 27, 1963, was folk musician Bob Dylan's second LP. This release established him as a songwriter of premier importance. Where his debut, Bob Dylan, had featured only two Dylan originals, Freewheelin' contained only two covers, the traditional tune "Corrina, Corrina," and "Honey Just Allow Me One More Chance." The album cover featured a photograph of Dylan with his then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo. (Dylan is the person on the left in the tan jacket.)

Dylan was one of few popular artists at the time to record his own compositions, and his songwriting sparked America's imagination for the first time on this record. "Blowin' In The Wind," arguably Dylan's most famous song (which had been introduced to the world by folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary on their own album, In the Wind earlier that year), leads off the album. The song is essentially nine questions about freedom, war, life and death, the answers to which are "Blowin' In The Wind."

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan reached #22 in the US (eventually going platinum), while it was a belated #1 hit in the UK in 1965. In 2002, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.

The recording sessions

Critics and the general public barely took notice of Dylan's debut album, which sold roughly five thousand copies after the first year. For an album recorded by an unknown artist in a less-than-popular genre, it would've have been a major surprise, much less unusually poor. However, with John Hammond's support and reputation, expectations were higher, and as Dylan's debut disappeared from the industry charts, it was clear that Hammond's reputation was now tied to Dylan's. Prestige Records had expressed an interest in Dylan, seeing the most potential in Dylan's growing songwriting skills, but Hammond was determined to support Dylan, hoping his second album would be a success.

With Hammond producing, Dylan began work on his second album at Columbia's Studio A in New York on April 24th, 1962. (The working title at the time was Bob Dylan's Blues, and as late as July, it would remain the working title.) Dylan performed renditions of two traditional folk songs, "Going To New Orleans" and "Corrina, Corrina," as well as a cover of the Hank Williams classic "(I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle." However, much of the session was dedicated to Dylan's own compositions, and four of them were recorded: "Sally Gal," "The Death of Emmett Till," "Rambling, Gambling Willie," and "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues." Dylan's performances of "John Birch" and "Rambling, Gambling Willie" were deemed satisfactory, and master takes of both songs were selected and set aside for the final album.

Dylan returned to Studio A the following day, recording the master take for "Let Me Die in My Footsteps," which was set aside for the final album. Dylan also recorded renditions of several more originals ("Rocks and Gravel," "Talking Hava Negiliah Blues," "Talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues," and two more takes of "Sally Gal"), and he also recorded several covers, including the traditional "Wichita (Going to Louisiana)," Big Joe Williams's "Baby Please Don't Go," and Robert Johnson's "Milk Cow's Calf's Blues." None of these would receive serious consideration, but "Talking Hava Negiliah Blues" and "Talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues" would eventually be released in 1991 on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991.

Dylan would not resume work on his second album until July 9th, when he resumed sessions at Studio A. By this time, Dylan's personal and professional life was undergoing some serious developments. A manager by the name of Albert Grossman was pushing himself into Dylan's business affairs; Grossman was involved in music publishing and, like Prestige, he had taken interest in Dylan's songwriting. By securing Dylan to a contract, Grossman would be able to profit from his songwriting in a number of lucrative ways. Meanwhile Dylan's girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, was studying art in Europe, having left for Italy on June 8th of that year.

During the July 9th session, Dylan recorded several new compositions. The most notable was "Blowin' in the Wind," a song he had already performed live but had yet to record in the studio. Dylan also recorded "Bob Dylan's Blues," "Down the Highway," and "Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance" at the July 9th session, and master takes for these four songs were selected and set aside the final album.

Dylan also recorded "Baby, I'm In The Mood For You" at the July 9th session. An original composition, it was not a serious contender for the album, but it would eventually be released in 1985 on the boxed-set retrospective Biograph. Two more outtakes, an original blues number called "Quit Your Low Down Ways" and a Hally Wood composition called "Worried Blues," would also see release in 1991 on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991.

After settling his business affairs, Dylan returned to Minnesota at the beginning of August. He stayed in Minneapolis, where he met up again with old friends, including Tony Glover, who recorded another informal 'session' with Dylan. On this home recording, Dylan talks about Suze Rotolo, and how she's expected to return on September 1st. He then performs an embryonic version of a new song, "Tomorrow Is A Long Time." Shortly before September 1st, Dylan would hear from Suze Rotolo, who tells him that she's postponing her stay in Italy indefinitely, putting a further strain on their relationship.

Dylan returned to New York in the fall and performed a number of live shows where he debuted some new compositions including "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." Both songs appeared in an October engagement at the Gaslight Cafe, which was recorded and later bootlegged; one of Dylan's most celebrated live recordings, a large portion of the Gaslight performances would be released on Live at The Gaslight 1962.

Dylan eventually resumed work on his second album at Columbia's Studio A on October 26th, where he recorded three songs. Several takes of Dylan's "Mixed-Up Confusion" and Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right Mama" were deemed unusable, but a master take of "Corrina, Corrina" was selected for the final album. An 'alternate take' of "Corrina, Corrina" from the same session would also be selected for a single issued later in the year.

On November 1st, Dylan held another session at Studio A where he performed three songs. Once again, "Mixed-Up Confusion" and "That's All Right Mama" were recorded, and once again, the results were deemed unusable. However, the third song, "Rocks And Gravel," was deemed satisfactory, and a master take was selected for the final album.

On November 14th, Dylan held another session at Studio A, spending most of the session recording "Mixed-Up Confusion." Dylan performed the song with several studio musicians hired by producer John Hammond; George Barnes (guitar), Bruce Langhorne (guitar), Dick Wellstood (piano), Gene Ramey (bass), and Herb Lovelle (drums). The song was never used for the final album, but a master take was selected and issued as a single later in the year. (The same single featured the 'alternate take' of "Corrina, Corrina" as the B-side.)

After completion of "Mixed-Up Confusion," most of the musicians were dismissed, but guitarist Langhorne stayed behind and accompanied Dylan on a recording of "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right." The performance was the only take recorded, and it's ultimately used for the final album. Langhorne stayed for the remainder of the session, accompanying Dylan on three more originals ("Ballad of Hollis Brown," "Kingsport Town," and "Whatcha Gonna Do"), but these performances were ultimately rejected; "Kingsport Town" was later released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991.

Dylan held another session at Studio A three weeks later on December 6th. Five songs, all original compositions, were recorded, three of which were eventually included on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan: "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," "Oxford Town," and "I Shall Be Free." All three master takes were recorded on the first take, with "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and "Oxford Town" recorded in a single take. Dylan also made another attempt at "Whatcha Gonna Do" and recorded a new song, "Hero Blues," but both songs were ultimately rejected and left unreleased.

Twelve days later, Dylan left for his first trip to England, believing work on his second album to be finished. While staying in London, Dylan immersed himself in the folk scene, making his first contact with Troubadour organizer Anthea Joseph and folksingers Martin Carthy and Bob Davenport. "I ran into some people in England who really knew those songs," Dylan recalled in 1984. "Martin Carthy, another guy named Davenport. Martin Carthy's incredible. I learned a lot of stuff from Martin." Carthy introduced Dylan to a number of traditional English variants of songs that Dylan knew only through their Appalachian derivatives. Carthy would become a significant influence on Dylan, and his arrangement of the English folk songs "Scarborough Fair" and "Lady Franklin's Lament" would soon provide Dylan with the basic melody to "Girl from the North Country" and "Bob Dylan's Dream," respectively.

After finishing his obligations in England (including a brief appearance in a BBC drama, Madhouse on Castle Street), Dylan traveled to Italy looking for his girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, apparently unaware that she had already returned to America (reportedly the same time Dylan left for England). While in Italy, Dylan finished "Girl from the North Country" as well as an early draft of another song, "Boots of Spanish Leather." Dylan then returned to England where Carthy was treated to a preview of "Girl from the North Country."

When Dylan returned to New York in mid-January, he recorded his new composition, "Masters of War" for Broadside magazine. In the meantime, he reconciled himself with Suze Rotolo, whom he convinced into moving back in with him in his 4th Street apartment.

By this time, Dylan's experiences since completing The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan apparently "led him to reconsider the songs he had already selected" for the album, according to biographer Clinton Heylin. "There remains a common belief that was forced by Columbia to pull 'Talkin' John Birch Society Blues' from the album after he walked out on The Ed Sullivan Show on May 12, 1963, when the head of program practices - i.e., the censor - considered the song potentially libelous." However, the 'revised' version of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan was released on May 27, 1963; this would have given Columbia Records two weeks to recut the album, reprint the record sleeves, and press and package enough copies of the new version to fill orders.

Clive Davis, then the general attorney for Columbia Records, claimed in his autobiography that "the problem began with Ed Sullivan," and Dylan did meet with Columbia's attorneys, who asked him to replace "John Birch," but that meeting took place several weeks before Dylan's scheduled Sullivan appearance. Meanwhile, Dylan had actually told an old friend that "there's too many old-fashioned songs , stuff I tried to write like Woody . I'm goin' through changes. Need some more finger-pointin' songs in it, 'cause that's where my head's at right now." Rather than substitute "John Birch" and only "John Birch" with one of the eighteen outtakes left over from the 1962 sessions, Dylan decided to replace four songs ("John Birch," "Let Me Die in My Footsteps," "Ramblin' Gamblin' Willie," "Rocks and Gravel") with songs he had written in England. With the exception of "John Birch," Dylan felt he had outgrown these older compositions.

Dylan held another session at Studio A on April 24th, but John Hammond was not there to produce it; by then, his association with Dylan had virtually ended. According to Clinton Heylin, "the animosity generated between John Hammond and Dylan's manager Albert Grossman never abated, and Dylan and Hammond were estranged for some years after Hammond was ousted." As a result, Columbia paired Dylan with a new producer, a young, African-American named Tom Wilson. At the time, Wilson was more experienced with jazz recording, and he was initially reluctant to work with Dylan.

"I was introduced to Dylan by David Kapralik at a time when I was not properly working for Columbia," recalled Wilson. "I didn't even particularly like folk music. I'd been recording Sun Ra and Coltrane...I thought folk music was for the dumb guys. played like the dumb guys, but then these words came out. I was flabbergasted."

At the April 24th session, Dylan cut five of his newest compositions: "Girl from the North Country," "Masters of War," "Talking World War III Blues," "Bob Dylan's Dream," and "Walls of Red Wing." "Walls of Red Wing" was ultimately rejected (it was later released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991), but the other four were included in the revised album sequence.

The songs

In an interview taken in 2000, Van Morrison recalled The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan: "I think I heard it in a record shop in Smith Street. And I just thought it was incredible that this guy's not singing about 'moon in June' and he's getting away with it. That's what I thought at the time. The subject matter wasn't pop songs, ya know, and I thought this kind of opens the whole thing up...Dylan put it into the mainstream that this could be done."

"Blowin' in the Wind" is arguably Dylan's most famous composition, certainly the one composition that made him a household name. The song's melody is based on "No More Auction Block (Many Thousands Gone)," a traditional American folk song, dating as far back as 1867. Described by Clinton Heylin as "an anonymous slave's cry for emancipation," Dylan had performed "No More Auction Block" in concert, and a celebrated performance from the Gaslight Cafe was even issued on The Bootleg Series.

"Blowin' in the Wind" made a strong impression on the civil rights movement of the 1960's, but its impact had little to do with its musical roots, even though its lineage made its influence all the more appropriate. Most listeners were taken by its lyrics, which were Dylan's own words. African-American artists like Sam Cooke, Stevie Wonder, and The Staple Singers heard the songs as a clear expression of the civil rights movement ("How many roads must a man walk down / Before you call him a man?"), and artists like Cooke and Mavis Staples were surprised to hear that in "Blowin' in the Wind" because the song was written by a Caucasian man. Many artists, including Wonder and The Staple Singers, not only recorded their own cover versions of "Blowin' in the Wind" but were also inspired to explore similar ground in their own compositions. The most famous example if perhaps "A Change Is Gonna Come," written and recorded by Sam Cooke. One of Cooke's final recordings, "A Change Is Gonna Come" became a widely-known civil rights anthem and is now one of the most celebrated recordings in popular music.

"Blowin' in the Wind" quickly became a commercial hit as well as a media sensation, but Dylan was reluctant to embrace all the attention. Even in the earliest stages of his career, Dylan resisted categorization, and he was concerned that the song's subject matter might limit his image to that of a 'protest singer.' Even before the song was published, Dylan performed it as Gerde's Folk City, prefacing it with a disclaimer, saying, "This here ain't a protest song or anything like that, 'cause I don't write protest songs...I'm just writing it as something to be said, for somebody, by somebody." It's unclear whether Dylan ever considered "Blowin' in the Wind" a major work; he was sometimes reluctant to perform it in concert, and according to John Hammond, he briefly considered dropping it from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. In 1966, Dylan claimed, "I was never satisfied with 'Blowin' in the Wind.' I wrote that in ten minutes."

NPR's Tim Riley describes "Girl from the North Country" as "an absence-makes-the-heart-grow-confused song, but it's suffused with a rueful itch, as though Dylan is singing about someone he may never see again." Years later, Dylan would return to this song on Nashville Skyline, recording it in a duet with country music legend Johnny Cash.

A scathing, anti-war protest song, "Masters of War" is based on Jean Ritchie's arrangement of "Nottamun Town," an English riddle song. Written in late 1962 while Dylan was in England, a number of eyewitnesses (including Martin Carthy and Anthea Joseph) recall Dylan including the song in his club sets at the time. Ritchie would later assert her claim on the song's arrangement in a case that was ultimately settled out of court.

Dylan was only 21-years-old when he wrote one of his most complex and evocative compositions, "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," often referred to as "Hard Rain." According to Dylan's friend, John Cohen, "in September 1962 Bob had shown me the words to 'Hard Rain.' The text to 'Hard Rain' was a big change from rock & roll music or blues or country songs, which I kind of connected him with. I said, 'Bob, if you are going to do that kind of thing you should look at Rimbaud and Verlaine.'" Dylan would eventually put the words to a verse pattern and melody taken from the Child ballad "Lord Randall."

Dylan reportedly premiered "Hard Rain" at the Gaslight Cafe, where Village performer Peter Blankfield was in attendance. "He put out these pieces of loose-leaf paper ripped out of a spiral notebook. And he starts singing ...He finished singing it, and no one could say anything. The length of it, the episodic sense of it. Every line kept building and bursting." Dylan performed "Hard Rain" days later at Carnegie Hall as part of a concert organized by Pete Seeger. Seeger was so impressed by "Hard Rain," he covered it himself in his own set.

Many critics interpreted the lyric 'hard rain' as a reference to nuclear fallout, but Dylan adamantly resisted the political connotations of his apocalyptic imagery. In a radio interview given in 1963, Dylan said, "it's not fallout rain...I mean some sort of end that's just got to happen." In 1965, Dylan gave an elaborate explanation for the song's motivation, saying, "I wrote it at the time of the Cuban crisis. I was in Bleecker Street in New York. We just hung around at night - people sat around wondering if it was the end, and so did I. Would one o'clock the next day ever come?...It was a song of desperation. What could we do? Could we control men on the verge of wiping us out? The words came fast, very fast. It was a song of terror. Line after line after line, trying to capture the feeling of nothingness."

Heylin described "Hard Rain" as "certainly a summation of whole strands of poetry and song, in a way that 'Blowin' in the Wind' was not. It also suggested that such a talent was never going to be contained by something as self-referential and exclusive as the folk revival."

Dylan once introduced "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" as "a statement that maybe you can say to make yourself feel better...as if you were talking to yourself." Written around the same time Suze Rotolo postponed her stay in Italy indefinitely, "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" is actually based on a melody taught to Dylan by folksinger Paul Clayton. For the master recording released on the finished album, Dylan was accompanied by guitarist Bruce Langhorne, who played all of the complex, lead parts. Riley described the song as "the last word in a long, embittered argument, a paper-thin consolation sung with spite."

"Bob Dylan's Dream" was heavily influenced by the traditional "Lady Franklin's Lament." The melody was taken from a modern arrangement, but lyrically "Bob Dylan's Dream" owes much to the song as well. In "Lady Franklin's Lament," the title character dreams of finding her husband, Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin, alive and well. (Sir Franklin had vanished on an Arctic expedition in 1845; a stone cairn on King William Island detailing his demise was found in another expedition in 1859.) As Riley describes it, "'Bob Dylan's Dream' rings ominously prophetic of what will become of sixties ideals - with its flush of unrealized idealism...it looks back before its time and draws a lot of tension from the awareness that youth's immediacy can't last."

"Oxford Town" Dylan's sardonic view of the unfolding events at the University of Mississippi. U.S. Air Force veteran James Meredith was the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi, located a mile from Oxford, Mississippi and 75 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. When Meredith first tried to attend classes at the school, a number of Mississippians pledged to keep the university segregated, including Mississippi's own governor. Ultimately, the University of Mississippi had to be integrated with the help of U.S. federal troops.

"Talkin' World War III Blues" was apparently a spontaneous composition created in the studio during Dylan's final session for The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. As Riley writes, the song is a comedic story where "Dylan tells his vision of postapocalypse America to a shrink, and the plot is rife with...serendipity and bureaucratic obsolescence."

Dylan was familiar with Big Joe Turner's rendition of the traditional "Corrina, Corrina," and he recorded a slower, stripped-down version of Turner's arrangement for The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

"Honey Just Allow Me One More Chance" is reportedly based on "Honey, Won't You Allow Me One More Chance," a song dating back to the 1890's that was popularized by Henry Thomas in his 1928 recording. "However, Thomas's original provided no more than a song title and a notion," writes Heylin, "which Dylan turned into a personal plea to an absent lover to allow him 'one more chance to get along with you.' It is a vocal tour de force and...showed a Dylan prepared to make light of his own blues by using the form itself."

"I Shall Be Free" is essentially a rewrite of Leadbelly's "We Shall Be Free," which was performed by Leadbelly, Sonny Terry, Cisco Houston, and Woody Guthrie during their travels together during World War II. As Riley describes it, Dylan drops the refrain ("We shall be free when the good Lord sets you free...") and rewrites "We Shall Be Free" as "a catalogue of contemporary ills with tabloid flair."

Outtakes

Sheet music for "Talkin' John Birch Society Blues" first appeared in the debut issue of Broadside magazine in late February of 1962. Conceived by Pete Seeger and Agnes 'Sid' Cunningham, Broadside was a magazine dedicated to publishing contemporary folk songs. Dylan was introduced to Cunningham through Seeger, and during his first meeting with Cunningham, Dylan played her the song. A wry but humorous satire that also worked as a scathing portrayal of right-wing paranoia, it would be the first of many contributions to Broadside magazine.

"The best of Dylan's early protest songs," according to Clinton Heylin, "'Let Me Die in My Footsteps' placed a topical preoccupation - the threat of nuclear war - inside a universal theme - 'learning to live, 'stead of learning to die.'"

"I was going through some town...and they were making this bomb shelter right outside of town, one of these sort of Coliseum-type things and there were construction workers and everything," Dylan recalled to Nat Hentoff in 1963. "I was there for about an hour, just looking at them build, and I just wrote the song in my head back then, but I carried it with me for two years until I finally wrote it down. As I watched them building, it struck me sort of funny that they would concentrate so much on digging a hole underground when there were so many other things they should do in life. If nothing else, they could look at the sky, and walk around and live a little bit, instead of doing this immoral thing." "Let Me Die in My Footsteps" was also selected for the original sequence of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, but was eventually replaced with "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall".

It's unclear whether "Mixed Up Confusion" was ever a serious contender for The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, but it was issued by Columbia as a single-only release during the Christmas shopping season. Dylan had been an avid fan of rock & roll ever since his childhood, and "Mixed Up Confusion" was his first record to recall the early rockabilly recordings of his youth. It was also his first Columbia release to group him with a studio band.

Though it wasn't recorded for the album, "Tomorrow Is A Long Time" was written and demoed in between album sessions. If it wasn't inspired by personal events unfolding at the time, it's arguably a reflection of them as it's sung from the point-of-view of a narrator who refuses to lie down in his bed 'once again' until his 'own true love' is back and waiting. Widely considered one of Dylan's finest love songs, Dylan eventually released "Tomorrow Is A Long Time" in 1971 on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II, which included a live performance taken from his Town Hall concert on April 12, 1963. (Heylin describes the Town Hall performance as "an achingly lovely rendition of his most tender song.") Earlier in 1971, Rod Stewart would release his own cover of "Tomorrow Is A Long Time" on Every Picture Tells a Story, one of the most celebrated albums in rock history.

Aftermath

Before revising The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Dylan performed a major show at New York's Town Hall. "Though he failed to sell out all nine hundred seats, even a three-quarters-full Town Hall was a remarkable achievement given that his groundbreaking second album had yet to be released, his first album had bombed, and less than eighteen months earlier he could hardly find fifty people to turn up at Carnegie Recital Hall to hear him perform," writes Clinton Heylin. Dylan performed no songs from his debut and only two songs that would appear on his upcoming album, but he showcased a number of songs he would never officially release (at least, not until The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991). Columbia recorded the entire performance, and a substantial portion was eventually bootlegged or officially released. The celebrated performance attracted reviews from Billboard, The New York Times, and Variety, giving Dylan an even greater profile.

That April, Dylan also returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts, "to renew acquaintances and to finally make his Boston concert debut, two nights at the Cafe Yana, having been hyped as 'the latest folk giant' by the Boston Broadside," writes Heylin. "Afterward, he stayed over to make an impromptu appearance at a Club 47 'hoot,' where he also had the opportunity to check out the Queen of Folk, Joan Baez." Dylan had already met Baez when he was playing at Gerde's Folk City in New York in 1961, but their meeting was brief and very casual. By this time, Baez had familiarized herself with Dylan's growing songwriting talents, thanks to an acetate of Dylan's songs given to her by her manager, Manny Greenhill. After the Club 47 performance, Dylan met with Baez, and the two were reacquainted.

Dylan was also scheduled to make his first national television appearance on May 12th, courtesy of The Ed Sullivan Show, the legendary talk show broadcast on CBS television. Though Columbia made it clear to Dylan that "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" was to be omitted from the album, he still attempted to perform the song on The Ed Sullivan Show. However, during the afternoon rehearsal, Dylan was informed that the song was too inflammatory and unacceptable. When asked to perform something else, Dylan calmly and cooly replied, "No, this is what I want to do. If I can't play my song, I 'd rather not appear on the show." Dylan ultimately left the studio. The New York Times, The Village Voice, and many others ran stories on the incident, and the controversy surrounding this act of censorship helped create Dylan's image as a counterculture hero.

Dylan continued to promote his upcoming album with a number of radio appearances and concert performances. Three weeks after Dylan seeing her in Massachusetts, Dylan performed with Joan Baez at the Monterey Folk Festival, where she joined him in a rendition of Dylan's "With God on Our Side" (which would not be recorded until his next album). The performance was seen as a ringing endorsement from Baez, but it also catalyzed a romantic relationship.

Later, in July, Dylan appeared at the second Newport Folk Festival. By then, Peter, Paul and Mary had a hit with their own rendition of "Blowin' in the Wind," and that weekend, it had reached #2 on Billboard's pop charts. Baez was also at Newport, and she performed with Dylan twice, once on his set, once on hers. Their appearances together further enhanced Dylan's popularity, but it also damaged his relationship with Suze Rotolo. By now she suspected Dylan of having an affair with Baez, and she became furious by the way Baez introduced her own rendition of "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right"; Baez called it a "Bob Dylan song... the only thing he's protesting in this, is a love affair that lasted too long." Suze ultimately moved out of Dylan's apartment and into her sister, Carla's.

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan had been available since late May, but despite the controversy surrounding Dylan's cancelled Sullivan appeearance, the album itself did not attract many reviews from the mainstream press. It sold modestly upon its release, but with Dylan's appearance at Newport, Baez's endorsement, and popular covers of his own songs from both Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary, sales began to rise as word of mouth spread. Dylan's friend Bob Fass recalls that after Newport, Dylan told him that "suddenly I just can't walk around without a disguise. I used to walk around and go wherever I wanted. But now it's gotten very weird. People follow me into the men's room just so they can say that they saw me pee."

By September, the album finally entered Billboard's album charts. Over the next couple of months, his further involvement in the civil rights movement would cement his status as a cultural icon.

Track listing

All songs by Bob Dylan, except where noted.

1. "Blowin' in the Wind" - 2:48
2. "Girl From The North Country" - 3:22
3. "Masters Of War" - 4:34
4. "Down The Highway" - 3:27
5. "Bob Dylan's Blues" - 2:23
6. "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" - 6:55
7. "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" - 3:40
8. "Bob Dylan's Dream" - 5:03
9. "Oxford Town" - 1:50
10. "Talking World War III Blues" - 6:28
11. "Corrina, Corrina" (Traditional) - 2:44
12. "Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance" (Dylan/Thomas) - 2:01
13. "I Shall Be Free" - 4:49

• 1963 albums
• Bob Dylan albums
• Columbia Records albums
• United States National Recording Registry
• Second albums