My Back Pages (1964) – Bob Dylan

Posted on September 27, 2024 by observationblogger — 2 Comments

The song’s title evokes both the “back pages” of a book – its end – and the “pages” of life that lay behind a person as they proceed onward from start to finish. As Dylan turns the page on his past life and considers his end, is he moving through a book (and a lifetime) from left to right? Or wait, is he moving the pages themselves from right to left?

After being called the spokesman of a generation and becoming the poster boy for the folk movement in the early 60’s with albums like The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and The Times They Are A-Changin’ Dylan began to be disillusioned with the idealistic narrowness that surrounded him.
I have a quote which appears at the end of each of my posts:
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.” attributed to the late French composer and singer Michel Legrand.
Both politics and the idea of progress are less clear than they once seemed; innocence and experience intermingle. To me this song above any other by Dylan is his pledge to stay young, individualistic, relevant, (and be born) and not be led astray by his own egocentricity and by those in the establishment whom purport to have the ‘truth’. Its lyrics—in particular the refrain “Ah, but I was so much older then/I’m younger than that now“—could be interpreted as a rejection of Dylan’s earlier personal and political idealism. Dylan criticizes himself for having been certain that he knew everything and apologizes for his previous political preaching, noting that he has become his own enemy “in the instant that I preach‘.

“There aren’t any finger pointing songs [here] … Now a lot of people are doing finger pointing songs. You know, pointing to all the things that are wrong. Me, I don’t want to write for people anymore. You know, be a spokesman.”
– As Dylan stated to Nat Hentoff at the time that “My Back Pages” and the other songs on Another Side of Bob Dylan were written.

He takes a Socrates approach in his internal dialogue here of being the ‘eternal enquirer’ and incorporating systematic doubt and questioning to elicit a clearer expression of the truth. To that extent I believe My Back Pages is one of the most fundamental songs in Dylan’s artistic growth. In my own youth, as I began exploring Dylan’s music, this song stood out more than any other, having the greatest impact on my psyche and personal development.

My Back Pages is a song included on his 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan and one of (if perhaps) the last songs he wrote for the album being the last committed to tape for the album. He initially recorded it under the working title ‘Ancient Memories‘. The song was partly based on the traditional folk song Young But Growing which Dylan would later perform a few years later with the Band and released on the Basement Tapes Complete Volume 11. This Dylan rendition remains one of my favourite songs from all of the Basement Tapes.

Although Dylan wrote the song in 1964, he did not perform it live until 1988. I have included below the original studio release a beautiful live version containing a crude Spanish translation. ‘My Back Pages‘ has been covered by artists as diverse as the Byrds, the Ramones, the Nice, Steve Earle, Eric Johnson, and the Hollies. The Byrds’ version, was issued as a single in 1967 and proved to be the band’s last Top 40 hit in the U.S.

[Verse 1]
Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rolling high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ‘neath heated brow