"Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again"

interestingly, this song also inspired the creation of one of the most challenging industrial design movements of the second part of the 20th century - Italian post-modern design/architecural movement Memphis led by Ettore Sottsass (some of the most famous designers of the late XXth century were part of the movement).

 

I first started listening to Dylan when I was 13, so it's been a lot of fun, over the years, to discover the sources of the references to folk and blues music in his songs. Like in the song, "Highway 61 Revisited," where the characters include "the roving gambler" (Everly Brothers), "the seventh son" (Willie Dixon) and "poor Howard" (Sam Hinton).

 

I love how he reverses some of the lines in this song, so that the lyrics don't make any sense unless you swap the position of certain words. The two obvious examples are "The post office has been stolen and the mailbox is locked" and "He just smoked my eyelids and punched my cigarette." I also use the phrase "Texas medicine" all the time now thanks to this song. Dylan added almost as much to the English language as Shakespeare, or at least he did for me.

 

Well, as I read in a Doonesbury cartoon ages ago ... that featured a sequence with Dylan .. "I was just trying to make it rhyme!"

Love the song - in my Dylan Top 5!

Dexter

 

IMO, Dylan's best song - with Positively 4th Street being a close second.

 

........ Not only are the lyrics pure genius, but it is also one of his best band tracks IMO. Great groove. Very tight.

 

He's stuck in Mobile: he's really a folk singer
With the Memphis blues: but now he's a rocker

after that, it's all about the money

 

He's in Mobile, the lyrics give the reasons he wishes he was elsewhere - Memphis say.