25 Quotes by Tim Riley

The glorious, unending laps players take around refrains in Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” release even more energy than they gather up; the more they hug the song’s corners to make sense of Dylan’s casual threats, the more his disdain hovers over them, tantalizingly out of reach. In such defining moments, a stylistic genie got released from its bottle, and many found new places for themselves just by chasing some of the same riffs atop their own beats.

The Beatles so thoroughly revised our ideas about “American” music, its style, roots, and tributaries, that it’s hard to imagine how they ever could have remained a British phenomenon.

Harrison brought along a copy of a new record he was obsessed with, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. On only his second album, Dylan turned in an all-original breakout with meteors like “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” Lennon and McCartney sponged it up as only two songwriters could while they hammered out sound-track songs for their movie, which would begin filming in March.

As usual, Ringo Starr uttered the best break-up quote: “This is all news to me.

Ono had already met Paul McCartney. During an early gambit to secure rock-star patronage, she knocked on his Cavendish Avenue front door and asked him if he’d contribute an original manuscript to celebrate Cage’s birthday. Ono’s strategy combined two purposes: to flatter McCartney with her artistic credentials and introduce herself to a wealthy rocker who might invest in her work. McCartney declined but did refer Ono to his partner, Lennon, as “the artist in the group.”26.

Cynthia pinpointed Lennon’s wayward behavior with his subliminal goals: “Ultimately, of course, it was John who broke up the Beatles, just as he had formed them in the first place. He had moved on in his life, not just from me but from Paul, the other person who was closest to him throughout the sixties.

Working Class Hero,” a ruthless Dylan parody that also works as a scathing smack-down of the luckless Scouser mystique, has the same bitter, stony-faced irony of “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” or “Happiness Is a Warm Gun.” It walks a frightening line, and too many people still hear it literally.