Bob Dylan / 3:08
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Wayne Moss: guitar
Robbie Robertson: guitar (?)
Charlie McCoy: guitar (?)
Joe South: guitar (?)
Al Kooper: organ
Hargus Robbins: piano
Henry Strzelecki: bass
Kenneth Buttrey: drums
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios, Nashville: March 10, 1966
Technical Team
Producer: Bob Johnston
Dylan told Clinton Heylin, “It’s not just pretty words to a tune or putting tunes to words… [It’s] the words and the music [together]—I can hear the sound of what I want to say.”66 Dylan wrote several drafts of the text before creating the final version of this song, one of the most accessible of his repertoire. It is a paradox. The playful intro, driving beat, and catchy chorus make for a well-balanced song aimed at the hit parade, but behind this façade lies a complex song with a subtle blend of pop, a poetry rich in metaphors, and various unanswered questions. However, the song reached number 20 on the American Billboard chart. “I want you, I want you / I want you so bad / Honey, I want you” could not be clearer. At the same time, Dylan confuses the listener with some strange characters, such as “The guilty undertaker [who] sighs,” a “lonesome organ grinder [who] cries,” and “the drunken politician [who] leaps.” In love the narrator has a desire to return—“Well, I return to the Queen of Spades”—a reference to the Queen of Spades by Tchaikovsky?
Al Kooper met Bob Dylan on a regular basis in his hotel room and transcribed the music. Kooper: “I would sit and play the chords to a song he was working on, like a human cassette machine.”42 Back at the studio, he could teach the new songs to the musicians before Dylan arrived for the sessions, saving Bob the work. The recording of “I Want You” took place on March 10, 1966, between 3 and 7 a.m., during the final session for the album. Kooper, who loved this song, asked the songwriter every night to consider it for the next session. But each time Dylan demurred, “just to bug me,” according to Kooper. “He knew he was going to do it, but I kept pressing, because I had all these arrangement ideas, and I was afraid [the song] wouldn’t get cut, but he kept saying, ‘No,’ until finally, on the last night, I taught it to the band before he came in. When he came in, I said, ‘I took the liberty of teaching them “I Want You,”’ and he just smiled at me and said, ‘Well, yeah, we could do that.’ I said, ‘It’s all set, just come on in and plug into this.’ I had the basic arrangement in my head, but then Wayne Moss played that sixteenth-note guitar run, and I wasn’t ready for that! It was a wonderful addition to what I had in mind!”42 Indeed, this excellent guitarist surprised everyone by his skill. “I’d never heard anybody play that fast before,” Kooper later recalled. “[I] said, ‘Can you play that each time?’ and he said, ‘Sure.’ I said, ‘That would be great, Wayne.’ And I was just thinking to myself, ‘Boy, they can’t do this in New York.’ I couldn’t believe he played that.”67
For other guitarists, the identification is difficult. Bob played a great harmonica part (in F), and appears to be backed by a rhythmic electric guitar (Robertson or South?) and a nylon guitar, which is easily heard during the bridge (McCoy?). Kooper played a reverberant organ part as a wise counterpoint, and Robbins’s piano part is, as usual, very bright. Finally, Buttrey’s performance on drums with brushes is simply an exemplar of its kind, the real engine of the song. All the musicians are very comfortable in this rhythm, close to their roots. Ron Rosenbaum asked Dylan in 1978, “Was that wild mercury sound in ‘I Want You’?” “Yeah, it was in ‘I Want You,’” Dylan answered, “It was in a lot of that stuff.”20
“I Want You” was released as a single on June 10, 1966, with a live version of “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” on the B-side. It is the third single from the double album Blonde on Blonde. On June 16, the single peaked at number 6 on the US Billboard chart, and on July 21 number 16 on the UK chart. Bob Dylan performed “I Want You” for the first time onstage May 11, 1976, in San Antonio, Texas.