February 17: Stuck Inside of Mobile

Bob Dylan recorded twenty takes of “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” in Nashville on this date in 1966. The song appeared on Blonde on Blonde (1966), his first double-album. He would return to create Nashville Skyline in 1969, and on this date in that year recorded “Nashville Skyline Rag” and “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You.” Nashville Skykline, with its pure country music style and his crooning vocal style, marked a weird and final break with Dylan’s image as “toastmaster of any generation,” as he later wrote. “[T]hat notion needed to be pulled up by its roots.” The album sold well, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard chart. To see the Grateful Dead playing “Stuck Inside of Mobile,” see below.

“[M]aking albums with Johnny Cash in Nashville was tantamount to abdication in many eyes.” --Clinton Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited.

“And here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice.” —Bob Dylan