Song by Song: "Subterranean Homesick Blues" Quiz

Answer: the medicine

The Seeger-Guthrie song, titled "Take it Easy," begins:

"Mom was in the kitchen preparing to eat
Sis was in the pantry looking for some yeast.
Pa was in the cellar mixing up the hops.
And brother's at the window, watching for the cops."

Dylan's song begins:

"Johnny's in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I'm on the pavement
Thinking about the government."

According to David Hajdu in his book "POSITIVELY 4TH STREET: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariņa, and Richard Fariņa," Dylan's song "came out of" this song by Guthrie and Seeger, "which had a similar structure and lyrics."

Andy Gill, in his book "Classic Bob Dylan 1962-1969," has suggested this line about "mixing up the medicine" is a reference to the making of LSD, a popular recreational drug that was criminalized in 1966.

Answer: a trench coat

"The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he's got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off.
Look out kid
It's somethin' you did
God knows when
But you're doing it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin' for a new friend."

Rolling Stone magazine asks, "Is Bob Dylan Hip Hop's Grandfather?" in a March 2014 article and quotes Dylan as saying, "I love rhyming for rhyming sake. I think that's an incredible art form."

"Subterranean Homesick Blues" was rated number 13 on Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Bob Dylan Songs of All Time" (published in the 2015 Special Edition). The magazine called it a "proto-rap barrage of one-liners."

Answer: a coonskin cap

"A man in the coonskin cap, in the pig pen
Wants eleven dollar bills, you only got ten."

Rolling Stone magazine named "Subterranean Homesick Blues" the 32nd greatest song of all time in its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time." The song was recorded at Columbia Recording Studio A in New York City and was produced by Tom Wilson.

Answer: true

Released as a single on March 8, 1965, the song peaked at number 39 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The single contained "She Belongs to Me" on the B-Side. According to the Official Bob Dylan website, Dylan performed "Subterranean Homesick Blues" live 120 times from June 7, 1988 to September 1, 2002.

Answer: Bringing It All Back Home

The song appeared on Bob Dylan's fifth studio album, the electrified "Bringing It All Back Home," which is known by the title of its lead song ("Subterranean Homesick Blues") in some European countries. The album was the first of Dylan's to enter the top ten in the U.S., peaking at number six on Billboard's Pop Albums chart. "Another Side of Bob Dylan" was released a year earlier in 1964. "Sticky Fingers" is a Rolling Stones album while "Tupelo Honey" is a Van Morrison album.

Answer: The Civil Rights Movement

During the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, firemen turned their hoses on protesters in Birmingham and elsewhere and sprayed them with high pressure water to force them to disperse. Protesters were sometimes beaten with firehoses as well.

Tony Attwood writes, "The fire hoses were used to break up demonstrations then, as much later - although if you get too close to the lyrics the fire hose bit could be taken to suggest that one should NOT get involved in civil rights protests - which given the context of so much of Dylan's early writing, would seem odd."

The American alternative rock band fIREHOSE took its name from Bob Dylan holding up the cue card that said "firehose" when doing a short video for "Subterranean Homesick Blues."

Answer: The Weathermen

The Weathermen (who later called themselves The Weather Underground), broke off from the Students for a Democratic Society. The Weathermen / Weather Underground claimed responsibility for the January 29, 1975 bombing of the State Department as well as for planting a bomb in Oakland, California. According to a January 30, 1975 article in the New York Times ("Weathermen Got Name from Song"), the group took its name from the following line in Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues":

"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

Answer: braille

"Try hard, get barred
Get back, write braille
Get jailed, jump bail
Join the army, if you fail."

Versions of this song have appeared on "Biograph," "Dylan" (2007 release), "Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits," and "The Bootleg Series Volume 12."

An acoustic version was recorded on January 13, 1965 before the single version, but it was not released at that time. It was later included in the box set of "Bootleg Volumes 1-3," which contained rare and unreleased Bob Dylan recordings from 1961 - 1989. The collection was released on March 26, 1991 in the U.S.

Answer: dayshift

The Beastie Boys quoted this line on their 2011 song "Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win":

"You work hard to climb the list
Twenty years of schooling and they put you on the day shift."

Dylan's song is cynical about the promises society makes to school children in contrast to the realities of the world:

"Learn to dance, get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don't steal, don't lift
Twenty years of schoolin'
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid."

Answer: Chuck Berry

In the same article ("Rock's Enigmatic Poet Opens a Long-Private Door"), Dylan was quoted as saying the song was also inspired by the scat songs of the 1940s.

"Too Much Monkey Business" was Chuck Berry's fifth single and was included on his LP "After School Session."

Answer: scandals

"Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don't wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
[...] The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handles."

The Beastie Boys allude to some of these lines in their song "Funky Donkey":

"I don't wear Crocs and I don't wear sandals
The pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handle."

The song appeared in 2011 on their album "Hot Sauce Committee Part Two."

Answer: Don't try No Doz

While "don't tie no bows" was the original version according to Rolling Stone magazine, it was perhaps misheard often enough that Dylan adopted "Don't try No Doz" as the lyric. This "No Doz" version appears in the collection "Lyrics, 1962-1985" and also on the Official Bob Dylan website. No Doz is the name brand of a caffeine pill.

The singer goes on to advise:

"Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows."

English television actor Tom Watt, who played Lofty Holloway in "EastEnders," released a version of this song in 1985. His version peaked at number 67 on the U.K. Singles Chart. He was accompanied by members the band New Order.

Answer: Jet

The album, released on September 14, 2003, is titled "Get Born." According to a September 14, 2017 article in The Current ("Today in Music History: Jet released 'Get Born'"), "The album is an homage to a lyric from the Bob Dylan song 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' and includes Jet's most popular song, 'Are You Gonna Be My Girl.'" The release of "Get Born," the band's first full-length album, was preceded by a four-track EP titled "Get Sweet" in 2003.

Answer: the theaters

"Look out kid
You're gonna get hit
But losers, cheaters
Six-time users
Hang around the theaters
Girl by the whirlpool
Lookin' for a new fool."

Dylan was recorded shifting through cue cards while "Subterranean Homesick Blues" played for the opening scene of "Don't Look Back," a documentary film on Dylan's 1965 tour of England. This promotional film clip is considered by many music critics to be the precursor of the music video genre. It was ranked number seven in Rolling Stone magazine's 1993 list of the "100 Top Music Videos." Folksinger Donovan wrote some of the cue cards.

Answer: parking meters

In a 1980 interview with Playboy magazine, John Lennon commented on these lines. "Listen," he said, "there's nothing wrong with following examples. We can have figure heads and people we admire, but we don't need leaders. 'Don't follow leaders, watch the parking meters.'"

Answer: gum

"Don't wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don't want to be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handles."

In addition to touching on Civil Rights, this song alludes to the growing recreational drug culture as well as conflicts between members of the counterculture ("don't wear sandals" "don't want to be a bum") and other more straight-laced people.

"Subterranean Blues" was released as a single between the release of "The Times They Are a Changin'" (from Dylan's previous album) and "Maggie's Farm" (also from "Bringing It All Back Home").

Answer: ink well

"Oh, get sick, get well
Hang around a ink well
Hang bail, hard to tell
If anything is goin' to sell
Try hard, get barred."

Dylan uses an irregular rhyme scheme in this song. Sometimes he rhymes three lines in a row, and at other times, he rhymes four lines in a row, as here, with well, well, tell, and sell. Occasionally, he throws in a line ending that doesn't rhyme with the surrounding lines, such as "coat" thrown in with "cough" "off" and "off." At one point, he rhymes six lines in sequence, as with "toes," "bows," "those," "hose," "nose," and "clothes."

In a September 2012 article, Rolling Stone magazine called this song "a wild stream-of-consciousness rock song that sounded unlike anything else Dylan had released. The folk purists howled but everybody else ate it up."

Answer: Radiohead

"OK Computer" was Radiohead's third studio album and entered the U.S. Billboard 200 at number 21 and peaked at number one on the UK Albums Chart. Other bands have also referenced this song in their own song titles, including The Grifters in "Subterranean Death Ride Blues."

Answer: Red Hot Chili Peppers

"The Uplift Mofo Party Plan" was Red Hot Chili Peppers' third studio album.

"Subterranean Homesick Blues" has also been covered by Tim O'Brien on his 1996 bluegrass album of Dylan covers, by Harry Nilsson on his 1974 album "Pussy Cats," and by Chronic Future on their 2004 EP "Lines in My Face."

Answer: Jack Kerouac

The Kerouac novella, published in 1958, is a semi-fictional account of Kerouac's Greenwich Village romance with an African-American woman named Alene Lee.

Mike Voss, in his blog analysis of this song, writes, "A formidable portion of Dylan's lyrics were self-admittedly influenced by the 'beat poet' movement of the 1950s."

Allen Ginsberg, another beat poet, was a friend of Dylan's, and he wrote some of the cue cards Dylan holds up in the documentary film "Don't Look Back" while this song plays.