Each month, we offer you a chance to read mindfully, using literature to think about your perceptions and reactions to the world in which we live and work. Through these short texts and accompanying questions, we hope to give you a small taste of Books@Work. Please grab a friend or colleague to read, share and discuss – and send us your thoughts.

In 2016, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan became the first musician to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, sparking a debate about the nature of “literary” writing. Can we equate song lyrics with poetry? Should we distinguish between songwriters and novelists? Does Dylan deserve the same literary prestige as Toni Morrison and Pablo Neruda?

Written in 1965, Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” is widely considered to be one of the greatest songs of all time. At his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 1988, Bruce Springsteen reflected on listening to the song at the age of fifteen: “I heard a guy who had the guts to take on the whole world,” he said. “That snare shot sounded like somebody had kicked open the door to your mind.”

As you read the lyrics to “Like a Rolling Stone,” consider these questions:

• Have you ever felt invincible? What made you feel that way?
• How does failure change us?
• What does it mean to be a rolling stone? Is it positive? Negative? Or both?

Like a Rolling Stone

By Bob Dylan

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall”
You thought they were all kiddin’ you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin’ out
Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You’ve gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you’re gonna have to get used to it
You said you’d never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He’s not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain’t no good
You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it hard when you discover that
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he took from you everything he could steal

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They’re drinkin’, thinkin’ that they got it made
Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things
But you’d better lift your diamond ring, you’d better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can’t refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Image: Caspar David Friedrich, The wanderer above the sea of fog, 1818, Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany, [Public Domain] via WikiArt.org

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