Didn't You?

I'm currently reading Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads by Greil Marcus. A whole book just about one song? Sure! Like Dave Marsh's Louie Louie, which also dealt with one song, it's a great read.

One enjoyable part of the book are when different people talk about when they first heard the song. Tonight I read a segment where a girl in the UK first heard the song while at university (or as we call it here in the States, "college.") Being raised on punk, she was unfamiliar with Dylan's music. She was in a working-class pub and "Like a Rolling Stone" came on the jukebox. The whole bar stopped their conversations and begun gleefully singing along with all six minutes of it. Needless to say, she was amazed.

A couple of "Like a Rolling Stone" memories:

1) The trailer for In the Name of the Father from 1993. The trailer starts out with the song, and we soon see Daniel Day-Lewis and a friend enjoying a pint. Day-Lewis loudly sings the didn't you? that appears at the beginning of the first verse. (Oh and Day-Lewis acted circles around Tom Hanks in Philadelphia but got jobbed out of an Oscar. I'll save that rant for another time.)

2) Similarly, and a few years earlier ... Thanksgiving weekend, circa 1987. My cousin Dale and I arrive at a Dinkytown bar with our cousin Shannon and Dale's girlfriend. The girls grab a table and Dale and I go to the bar to get drinks. The song starts playing on the sound system just as we buy the drinks. When it comes to those two words, Dale and I grin at each other and loudly sing didn't you?