Influence
Listed by Rolling Stone magazine as the 332nd "Greatest Song of All Time", "Subterranean Homesick Blues" has had a wide influence, resulting in iconic references by artists and non-artists alike. Most famously, its lyric "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" was the inspiration for the name of the American radical left group the Weathermen, a breakaway from the Students for a Democratic Society. In a 2007 study of legal opinions and briefs that found Bob Dylan was quoted by judges and lawyer more than any other songwriter, "you don't need a weatherman..." was distinguished as the line most often cited.
John Lennon was reported to find the song so captivating that he didn't know how he'd be able to write a song that could compete with it. The group Firehose (former Minutemen members) took its name from another of the song's enigmatic warnings: "Better stay away from those that carry around a fire hose..." In addition, the opening of the last verse, "Ah get born, keep warm", provided the Australian garage rock band Jet with the title of their debut album Get Born.
In the same way that Dylan paid homage to Jack Kerouac's novel, The Subterraneans, "Subterranean Homesick Blues" has been referenced in the titles of various songs, for example, Radiohead's "Subterranean Homesick Alien" from 1997's OK Computer, the ska punk band Mustard Plug's "Suburban Homesick Blues" from 1997's Evildoers Beware,"300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues" by The White Stripes and the Memphis indie band The Grifters' "Subterranean Death Ride Blues", the B-side of a 1996 single. In Candice Bergan's 1980s sitcom Murphy Brown, a flashback sequence shows Murphy (Bergan) and her future head writer Joe Regalbuto meeting for the first time in a bar. In order to prove to one another their genuine "Left Wing/Protest Culture" credentials from the mid-1960s, they join in a "challenge duet" pounding on the table for affectation, of the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" first verse, "Johnnie's in the basement/mixin up the medicine... all the way to "Maggie says they must bust/orders from the D.A." Following this "challenge," they form a reassured friendship, by habit even glancing over their shoulders to spot "The Man" spying on their subversive singing. It was also the basis for the title of the second episode of Law & Order's premiere season, "Subterranean Homeboy Blues".
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Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Under the influence of fear, which always leads men to take a pessimistic view of things, they magnified their enemies’ resources, and minimized their own.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)
“Exhaust them, wrestle with them, let them not go until their blessing be won, and, after a short season, the dismay will be overpast, the excess of influence withdrawn, and they will be no longer an alarming meteor, but one more brighter star shining serenely in your heaven, and blending its light with all your day.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)