Rainy Day Women #12 & 35…..

We recently did our version of this Bob Dylan classic from the mid-’60’s…..  It’s fun to play and we added our own twist to it……  What really interests me most, though, is the title…..  There’s no mention of women, rainy or not, in the song or any numbers…..  By all rights the title of the song should be, “Everybody Must Get Stoned” – this line is at the end of every verse, all 5 of them….  S-o-o-o, why did Robert Zimmerman (Bob Dylan) name it what he did?…..  I think you have to look at the radio industry during that period – a song with any hint of drugs in the title would have been immediately banned from air play by the censors and the program executives…..  They probably wouldn’t even have listened to the song – the title would be explicit enough to get it banned…..  I’m not sure this is the reason that Dylan named it as he did, and right now I’m too busy to do the research to see why he named it as he did….  I just thought I’d mention it…..  Maybe someone in the community might want to pursue it further…..  Remember – “Everybody Must Get Stoned”, but, if you do, do it in moderation (Ha!)…..

6 Responses to “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35…..”

  1. I’m only not commenting on this because I don’t like Dylan.

  2. Yeah, I have to agree with your non-comment, HS, Dylan was never one of my favorite artists, but, Rainy Day Women caught my attention because I’m into Blues….. He basically used the walking blues turn around (the tie-in part between the verses that takes you back so you can start the next verse – it’s a walking down progression – ala – Jimmy Reed, etc.)….. The whole song is this walking progression repeated over and over again in a standard three chord Blues….. Pretty sneaky, but, it works…. Our version is much more guitar based and I think, just maybe, even you would be impressed….. I’ve played it for a couple of friends, they also don’t care for Bob-o, who liked our version really well….

  3. How can one not like Dylan? Just because the last time we saw him he did an entire 2.5 hour show in 1.25. But I digress. To answer the post

    With the line, “Everybody Must Get Stoned,” this song is often associated with smoking marijuana, although Dylan insists it isn’t, stating, “I have never and never will write a ‘drug song.'” It is more likely about trials of relationships with women, and Dylan has hinted that it could have a Biblical meaning. Answering a question about people interpreting this song to be about getting high, Dylan told Rolling Stone in 2012: “These are people that aren’t familiar with the Book of Acts.”

    The Book of Acts is from the Gospel of Luke, and contains an account of a stoning: “Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God… And when they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him, and the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul.”

    In this story, Stephen received his sentence after giving a speech to authorities who were going to kill him no matter what he said. This relates to how Dylan felt about his critics, who were going to figuratively “stone” him no matter what he did.

    And here’s the official story of the title.

    The “official” explanation of how this song got its name: A woman and her daughter came into the recording studio out of the rain. Dylan guessed their ages correctly as 12 and 35.

  4. Mr J., I agree with you that the song was probably not about drugs…. If you listen to the words, “Stoned” is used in the biblical sense, but, any radio station executive, DJ, or programer would immediately interpret it as Stoned = Drugs….. I had heard that the name came from takes 12 and 35 of the song….. I’m sure there are all kinds of stories out there about it….. And, it’s not that I don’t like Dylan, although I was really disappointed in his performance the last time I saw him (which I have on tape as evidence), there are some of his songs that are classics, but, to sit down and listen to a complete album of Dylan is a hard thing for me to do….. To me, there’s lots of filler in between the classics….. Thank God for Greatest Hits albums (Ha!)……

  5. I forgot we recorded at the Civic Center that night. For those who weren’t there. Dylan comes out and does a Mediocre show, the sound was substandard to say the least, and he did most of his hits (That he wrote and others recorded) but he must have been on some good “Speed” he sang and played like he couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Let me put it this way, From the time we parked and went in to when we got back to the car the motor had not even cooled off.

  6. I think that about sums it up, Mr. J…… I’m going to dig out those tapes and give them a listen….. It has been quite a while since I’ve listened to them…. I think it was the day after the concert (mid ’90’s I think) and I almost chunked them in the trash then….. Maybe they’ll sound better now that they’ve aged a while – Yeah, Sure…..

Leave a Reply

*
To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture. Click on the picture to hear an audio file of the word.
Anti-spam image