Virtual Flaneurism

I read an article about Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" a few years ago that suggested that the song's subject might in fact be Dylan himself. This is certainly not confirmed, though even if it isn't true, I find so much more to relate to if "reading" the song as self-referential. Not that I feel alone, but a personal lament about feeling alone is easier to understand than Dylan's anger at a specific person I do not know. And it's just plain less bitter.

The article further suggested that the song's lyrics could reflect Dylan's transition from folk to electric, where his chosen mode of musical maturation led to his being ostracized from the Village music crowd. I don't necessarily endorse this particular spin; Dylan quite succinctly summarized his frustration regarding his falling out with the Greenwich Village folk scene in "Positively Fourth Street", another song worth an aural gander. Imagining "Like a Rolling Stone" as self-reference undoubtedly gives the lyrics a significantly varied meaning, one that I personally prefer to what would otherwise be a cold attack on an anonymous subject.