“It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)” by Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan wrote "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" in the summer of 1964, tried it out on stage that October and taped it in January 1965 with Tom Wilson producing, and it landed on Bringing It All Back Home that spring. It is a torrent of words and bile, Dylan railing at the hypocrisy, the commercialism, the consumer frenzy and the war fever he saw running American life, yet it keeps swerving inward too, into the dread and urgency of one man's own existence.

Dylan has counted it among the songs that mean the most to him, and he has kept it in his shows ever since: there are live takes on Before the Flood, Concert at Philharmonic Hall, the Rolling Thunder Revue set and Bob Dylan at Budokan, and he performs it in Dont Look Back. The Byrds, Roger McGuinn, Billy Preston and Terence Trent D'Arby have all taken it on.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.