Already skilled at turning acoustic Dylan folk tunes into melodic, electric folk-rockers, the Byrds struck gold when they decided to take this somewhat nondescript Dylan tune from 1964 and electrify it for their fourth album. Leader Roger McGuinn cut out two of the more abstract verses and fashioned a chorus where there really wasn't one, utilizing David Crosby's harmony singing. McGuinn also does a classic 12-string Rickenbacker solo and Van Dyke Parks fills things out with a soft but essential organ part. As a single it stalled at #30 in 1967, but its reputation as a rock classic has grown through the years.
Dylan recorded his version in 1964 on his Another Side of Bob Dylan album. The song is famous for the lyrics, "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."
With lines like "My pathway led by confusion boats" and "I dreamed romantic facts of musketeers," this is a rather cryptic song, but it likely deals with Dylan's efforts to distance himself from politics. The Byrds never knew Dylan's intentions. "I don't try to interpret what Bob meant when he wrote the song," Roger McGuinn said in a Songfacts interview. "He doesn't do that, and to do that, you spoil it for people who have a different meaning of the song."
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