Maggie's Farm (The Speek)

Call to action? It's almost the opposite of a call to action! This song is Dylan telling the folk movement to back off and let him be himself. I haven't really thought about why Barack Obama would call it his favorite (wasn't aware he had said that), but I would speculate that he doesn't want to feel like he's expected to serve certain agendas because of who and what he is - which is what Dylan is protesting here. This song basically declares independence from folk music and from the mindset of music actively pushing for some sort of political cause.

It’s easy to see why Maggie’s Farm is Barack Obama’s favorite Dylan song: it’s an inspirational, motivational call to action. This performance from the 1965 Newport Folk Festival is perhaps more celebrated than the song itself: it marked the very moment that Dylan moved from Acoustic to Electric music, and the controversy that surrounding this performance still resonates today. At 9:15PM on Sunday, July 25, 1965, Dylan, clothed in a black leather jacket and pointed motorcycle boots, playing a Fender Stratocaster guitar and accompanied by a pick-up band of musicians, performed an electric version of “Maggie’s Farm.” Dylan had already played his traditional and familiar acoustic songs in a workshop on Saturday, but he wanted to introduce the Newport audience to his new sound, introduced in his latest album release, BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME, which featured a driving rock and roll beat and an electric-guitar backing, also used in his recently released single “Like a Rolling Stone,” Dylan wanted to capture this new sound live. He wanted to introduce this new aesthetic to the Newport folk audience. On Saturday, he put together a pick-up band, mainly consisting of musicians from The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, who were also performing at Newport. This group gathered together that night in the living room of a Newport mansion, practicing 3 songs they planned to play during a special added nighttime performance. They finished rehearsing as the sun came up. When they took the stage on Sunday evening, they barely had time to do a proper sound check. Against a dramatically lit giant stage Dylan sang the opening lines of “Maggie’s Farm,” a declaration of independence against conformity. The audience of 15,000 was shocked. As the amplified speakers blasted out the new sound, music producer Paul Rothchild commanding the mixing board, turned the sound up to maximum level. At the end of the first song, “Maggie’s Farm,” there was a mix of cheers and boos. Filmmaker Murray Lerner (FESTIVAL and THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR: Bob Dylan Live At Newport Folk Festival, 1963-1965) was there to record it all on film - capturing one of the most significant historic moments in music history. “Maggie’s Farm” ushered in a new musical style from acoustic folk to electric rock. It also set in motion a long standing controversy that is still unresolved today. The fact that Dylan was booed is there for all to hear. What is unclear is the reason for this reaction. Some attributed the response to a reaction from the traditional folk audience who felt Dylan had abandoned his political voice for an electronic sound, corrupting the acoustic folk sound with the crass commercialism of electric rock Others attribute the boos to the faulty sound system. Production manager Joe Boyd claimed "that first note of 'Maggie's Farm' was the loudest thing anybody had ever heard." Pete Seeger was so enraged by the sound that he threatened to cut the power cables to the instruments. Dylan said that “they didn’t like what I was going to play and they twisted the sound on me before I began.” Some said that the boos were from audience members who were upset that Dylan played only 3 songs before he left the stage, outraged that they had been short changed by the brevity of the set. In fact, Dylan was coaxed to return, without his band, and, with a borrowed acoustic guitar, to play a version of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” that ironically added a new meaning to the already growing controversy surrounding Dylan’s new sound. While the reasons for the audience reaction is still a hotly debated topic, there is no debate about the significance of the event and the importance of the performance - one of the few defining moments in music history captured on film and prized as a treasured pop history landmark. President Barack Obama has “at least 30 tracks of Bob Dylan on hisiPod". “Maggie’s Farm” is one of his favorites, identifying with Dylan’s message of trying to be himself, "but everybody wants (him) to be just like them." BOB DYLAN, “MAGGIE’S FARM” PERFORMED: JULY 25, 1965 NEWPORT FOLK FESTIVAL WRITTEN BY : BOB DYLAN FILMED BY MURRAY LERNER BAND: MIKE BLOOMFIELD: ELECTRIC GUITAR AL KOOPER: ORGAN BARRY GOLDBERG: PIANO JEROME ARNOLD: BASS SAM LAY : DRUMS “Maggie’s Farm” footage is authorized for distribution by Bob Dylan.