Bob Dylan / 7:31
Musician
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios / Studio A, New York: January 15, 1965
Technical Team
Producer: Tom Wilson
Sound Engineers: Roy Halee and Pete Dauria
With “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” written in the summer of 1964, Bob Dylan came back to the protest songs of his early career. Accompanied only by his folk-blues guitar, the singer and poet severely criticizes the hypocrisy and commercialism of a society led by a “junk elite.” On the literary side, there is a connection to Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl,” a liberating cry, in which the writer of the Beat generation denounced the obscenity of modern civilization. “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” is Dylan’s indictment of false prophets and manipulators. The lyrics follow, with a few nuanced differences, the apocalyptic description of “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” released on the album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. The opening line of the first verse (“Darkness at the break of noon / Shadows even the silver spoon”) refers to Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler’s book on the great Stalinist purges of the 1930s, which expresses disillusionment with communism.
“It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” is a decidedly pessimistic song. Even though freedom of thought seems well established in the West, it is still subject to some restrictions. Paraphrasing Ecclesiastes (“Teachers teach that knowledge waits / Can lead to hundred-dollar plates”), Dylan denounces precisely those who have established rules for the purpose of personal gain: “As human gods aim for their mark / Make everything from toy guns that spark / To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark”; “Preachers preach of evil fates / Teachers teach that knowledge waits / Can lead to hundred-dollar plates / Goodness hides behind its gates”; “Advertising signs they con / You into thinking you’re the one / That can do what’s never been done / That can win what’s never been won”; and “Old lady judges watch people in pairs / Limited in sex, they dare / To push fake morals, insult and stare.” This song is one of Dylan’s favorites. He performed it more than seven hundred times in concert. He also told Jon Pareles of the New York Times on September 28, 1997, “Stuff like, ‘It’s Alright, Ma,’ just the alliteration in that blows me away. And I can also look back and know where I was tricky and where I was really saying something that just happened to have a spark of poetry to it.”45
After “Gates of Eden,” Dylan comes back with a great guitar part in “It’s Alright, Ma” in open tuning in D. The riffs are certainly similar to those used by the Everly Brothers in “Wake Up Little Susie” (1957) and infused with a Delta blues color, giving an authentic feel to the song. The sound is impeccable, and Bob commits virtually no technical fault except the confused chords in the first four lines of the last stanza (at about 6:48). Fortunately, he catches himself at the last second and concludes the song skillfully. Bob demonstrates his impressive abilities in the studio, because it takes strong nerves to perform a seven-minute-long song, the longest one on the album, in front of a microphone. Initially there was no insert, but there is a change in the sound just after the intro at 0:12, which could indicate an insert at that location. Harmony, melody, the moral tone and slightly reverberating voice: all demand close listening. Bob provided two short harmonica parts, the shortest to date, but they are absolutely essential. “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” is a masterpiece, and the interpretation is close to perfection. After one false start, just one take was needed.
Bob Dylan has often performed “It’s Alright, Ma” since the fall of 1964. There are several live versions: a concert at New York’s Philharmonic Hall on October 31, 1964 (on The Bootleg Series Volume 6, 2004), a concert in Los Angeles on February 14, 1974 (on Before the Flood, 1974), At Budokan (1978), and the ceremony celebrating Dylan’s thirty years as a songwriter (Bob Dylan: The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration, 1993).