How To Play Like A Rolling Stone
By Bob Dylan!

Welcome to this lesson on how to play Like A Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan on the acoustic. There is also a free tab in the lower right hand menu.

Like A Rolling Stone was written by Dylan and recorded in 1965 after he returned from England. But it was a struggle to come up with the right tempo and sound for the song.

When a rookie session player by the name of Al Kooper, who was invited but not suppossed to play on the recording, began messing around with the song in a rock format, the lights came on and Dylan found the rhythm he was missing.

The song was over 6 minutes and the record company was not big on releasing the song in that format. But copies were leaked to one influential DJ at the time who was playing a gig for media folks. The song was played all nite.

The next day a national programming director wanted copies from Columbia records for its radio stations, so the song was released as a single. Radio stations gradually began playing the full version song after public pressure and it peaked at #2 in the US and of course became a huge international hit.

Dylan said in 1966 that he was ready to quit the music business because he did not like where his career was headed and how he felt about his music in general. But Like A Rolling Stone gave him direction, and changed everything.



The chords for this song are C, Dm, Em, F, Fmaj7 and G. You'll notice in the chorus I use a little hammer-on on the F chord.

                  Demo Only - Not Full Tutorial

Free Tab Available


-- $3.25 --

Full Tutorial - .wmv format - 10 min 06 sec

---

The pattern here is a simply steady up and dn shuffle pattern with a few downstrokes blended in. This is one of those songs where you can feel the the pattern that best fits. It could be played with a constant up and down shuffle. Id suggest start with that and then just feel it out where you want to put in some downstrokes.

When I switch back and forth from the C to the F at the end of the song Im actually playing an Fmaj7.

And dont forget to grab the free tabs in the left hand menu.

I hope you found this How To Play Like A Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan useful and informative. Feel free to tweet about it (bottom of the page), like it on Facebook from the "Like" button above ... either is most welcomed.

Rtn to Bob Dylan Songs fm How To Play Like A Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan
Rtn to Learn Classic Rock Songs