Ballad of a Thin Man

Ballad of a Thin Man" is a song written by Bob Dylan, originally released in 1965 on Highway 61 Revisited, with live versions released on Before the Flood (1974), Bob Dylan at Budokan (1979), Real Live (1984), Hard to Handle (video, 1986), The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert (1998) and on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack (2005). "Ballad of a Thin Man" has been extensively performed live throughout Dylan's career, up to this day.

A dark and menacing sounding song, "Ballad of a Thin Man" addresses a certain "Mr. Jones", telling him that he simply doesn't know what's "happening." The song's lyrics have Mr. Jones facing a wild, nonsensical, and hallucinatory, circus-like or carnival-like world and the character is portrayed as a clueless poser who cannot deal with it all. [1]

The "identity" of Mr. Jones has long been in dispute. When asked about it in an interview in 1965, Dylan responded:

"He's a pinboy. He also wears suspenders. He's a real person. You know him, but not by that name... I saw him come into the room one night and he looked like a camel. He proceeded to put his eyes in his pocket. I asked this guy who he was and he said, "That's Mr. Jones." Then I asked this cat, "Doesn't he do anything but put his eyes in his pocket?" And he told me, "He puts his nose on the ground." It's all there, it's a true story."[2]

In a mid-1980s interview with Q magazine, Dylan appeared to identify Mr. Jones as Max Jones, a former Melody Maker critic, supporting the theory that "Mr. Jones" was simply one of the many music critics who didn't "get" Dylan's songs, especially the more surreal ones he wrote in the mid-1960s.[citation needed]

Songs by other artists that allude to "Ballad of a Thin Man" include Yer Blues from The Beatles' White Album (I feel so suicidal, just like Dylan's Mr. Jones...)[3] and Mr. Jones from Counting Crows' album August and Everything After (I want to be Bob Dylan/Mr. Jones wishes he was someone just a little more funky...).