▶ Bob Dylan

Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

Bob Dylan (1965) → Linda Ronstadt (1998)

1965 — Dylan's electric revolution and the birth of folk rock
Original
Bob Dylan — 1965

Rock and roll

Featured on Dylan's monumental 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited, painting an impressionistic tale of exhaustion, sickness, and decay in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juárez through repetitive tack-piano chords.

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Linda
Linda Ronstadt — 1998

Rock and roll

Recorded on her 1998 rock return We Ran, produced by Glyn Johns. Stretching nearly eight minutes, Linda turned the song into a brooding, heavy-grooved blues-rock epic driven by raw guitar solos and her mature, earthy contralto.

An astonishing late-career reinterpretation that supercharges Dylan's sardonic folk-rock road piece into an expansive, hard-hitting roots-rock testament.

From original to Linda

What to listen for

An astonishing late-career reinterpretation that supercharges Dylan's sardonic folk-rock road piece into an expansive, hard-hitting roots-rock testament.

  • From Detached Folk-Rock to Epic Roots-Rock Odyssey

    Transformed the spare, looping keyboard accompaniment into a massive, seven-minute-plus blues-rock powerhouse propelled by heavy drumming and searing guitar leads.

  • Grit, Gravitas, and Emotional Weathering

    Replaced Dylan's surreal, sneering detachment with Ronstadt's lived-in contralto resonance and impassioned vocal power.

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