Bob Dylan / 3:25
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Charlie McCoy: bass
Kenneth Buttrey: drums
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios, Nashville: November 6, 1967
Technical Team
Producer: Bob Johnston
Sound Engineer: Charlie Bragg
The hobo is a key figure in early twentieth-century American society. He appears as a vagabond or tramp, traveling by train throughout America and offering his services to farms to earn enough money to survive. An example is the hobo in the 1958 novel The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac.
Dylan’s hobo is lonesome, like most of the characters in the songs on his album John Wesley Harding. This feeling is a recurring theme in Dylan’s writing (as it is in Woody Guthrie’s) and appears in “Man on the Street” (1961) and “Only a Hobo” (1963). In the first verse, the hobo admits his faults, hoping to pay for them: “I have tried my hand at bribery / blackmail and deceit.” The second verse refers to Genesis: Abel is killed by his older brother Cain, who is forced then to wander the earth. In the final verse, the hobo—or, more explicitly, Dylan—offers moral advice: “Stay free from petty jealousies / Live by no man’s code / And hold your judgment for yourself.”
“I Am a Lonesome Hobo” is certainly the most blues-rock song on the album John Wesley Harding, even if Dylan performs it on acoustic guitar. McCoy’s bass, which skillfully supports Buttrey’s drums as well as Dylan’s excellent harmonica part (in C), gives the song a Texas blues color.
Bob perfectly masters his reverberated vocal part. His singing is well controlled, like that on his previous albums; the intonations are less free-flowing. On this album, Dylan plays only acoustic (most likely on his Martin 0-18). He has totally abandoned finger-picking, and plays only by strumming. “I Am a Lonesome Hobo” was recorded in five takes, the last being the final. Dylan has never performed this song onstage.