“Positively 4th Street” by Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan cut "Positively 4th Street" in New York on July 29, 1965, and Columbia put it out as a single that September as the follow-up to "Like a Rolling Stone". It fell in the gap between Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde and never landed on either, which only makes it stand out more.

It rolls along on an almost jaunty groove while Dylan sounds sour and amused at once, and the song is plainly aimed at someone. Who that someone was, and which 4th Street he meant, has been argued over for years, and the title itself never shows up in the words. It went to number one on Canada's RPM chart and reached 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and 8 in the UK, and Rolling Stone later ranked it 203 on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

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