You know, when we look at the origin stories
of cultural icons, we generally expect to find
this like. clean, carefully drawn architectural
blueprint. Right, like we want this clear starting
line where genius just, you know, manifests exactly
as planned. Exactly. We want them to be completely
fully formed from day one. It's that mythological
narrative we always crave. We want to see the
master plan unfolding flawlessly from the very
first sketch. Just to prove that the icon was
always destined for grayness, right? But then,
uh... You actually look at the real first steps
of these legends, and suddenly that pristine
blueprint is, I mean, it's covered in coffee
stains. Oh, absolutely. Somebody lost the tape
measure, and the foundation is actively being
poured during a thunderstorm. That is a highly
accurate description of most creative breakthroughs.
Because the reality of a breakthrough is usually
just completely chaotic. And today, We are welcoming
you to a new deep dive. We're zooming in on one
specific focused source. Right. We're looking
at a Wikipedia article on the song, You're No
Good, by Jesse Fuller. Yeah. And we're extracting
the hidden historical gems inside it. because
our mission today isn't just looking at a piece
of music. No, not at all. We are examining this
bizarre timeline anomaly and a spectacularly
messy recording session that inadvertently launched
the career of one of the most famous musicians
in modern history. Bob Dylan. Yeah, Bob Dylan.
And it is... It's the absolute definition of
historical whiplash. It really is. Because the
very first track Dylan ever recorded for his
debut album, the literal starting line of a career
that changed global culture, wasn't even his
own song. Which is wild, and the irony goes so
much deeper. than it just being a cover song
because the original creator of that track didn't
even get to release his own version until over
a year after Dylan's album came out. Which is
just a fascinating sequence of events. Right,
so to understand the premise of Bob Dylan's massive
world -shifting career, we have to connect it
back to this literal starting point. And that
means we really have to start with the man who
actually wrote the song, Jesse Fuller. Right,
the original creator. Who is Jesse Fuller? Well...
Jesse Fuller is a monumental figure in his own
right, but he was operating in a totally different
universe than the one Dylan would eventually
inhabit. How so? So Fuller lived from 1896 to
1976. He was this older established blues and
folk musician who operated as a literal one man
band. Like actually playing everything himself.
Exactly. And he didn't just strap a harmonica
around his neck and call it a day. He actually
invented a unique instrument. to solve a very
specific musical problem he had. Oh, wait, the
Fuddela. Yes. He called it the Fuddela. OK, let's
unpack this Fuddela, because it sounds like something
out of a steampunk novel. It kind of is. I mean,
how exactly does someone build a foot -operated
bass instrument from scratch in the mid -20th
century? So he essentially built this large,
upright wooden box that housed six bass strings.
Like a piano crossed with an upright bass. Sort
of, yeah. And then he attached a pedal mechanism
to it. When he pressed the pedal with his foot,
it would trigger a padded piano hammer. Yeah,
and that hammer struck the corresponding bass
string, so this allowed him to physically play
a walking bass line with his foot. While playing
other stuff. Exactly. It left his hands completely
free to play the guitar, and his mouth was free
to sing, play the harmonica, or, you know, use
a kazoo. That requires immense physical coordination.
I mean, if you look at his 1963 album, San Francisco
Bay Blues, which the Wikipedia article notes
was supervised by Paul A. Rothschild Fuller,
is credited with doing so much at once. He was
a machine. He's credited with singing and simultaneously
playing the guitar, the harmonica, the kazoo,
the washboard, and this Fodella. all at the same
time. It was like the ultimate uncompromising
modern -day indie DIY artist, you know, just
building his own instruments and doing the work
of five people. It really makes total sense economically,
too. Oh, for sure. Why split the gig money five
ways when you could build a contraption to do
work of an entire rhythm section yourself? Precisely.
It was an economic necessity born of a touring
musician's lifestyle. And his most famous song,
San Francisco Day Blues, had already been recorded
by artists like Ramblin', Jack Elliott, and Donovan.
Right. But the song we are focusing on, You're
No Good, is structurally very close to that hit,
isn't it? Yeah. According to author Spencer Lee,
the structure is very similar. But the narrative
inside You're No Good is much darker. Oh, definitely.
Like the narrator is complaining about a woman
who, as the lyrics say, has got the ways of a
devil sleeping in a lion's den. That's such a
great line. So visceral. He talks about supporting
her when she was poor, and now she takes the
money he gave her and spends it on another man.
Right, complete betrayal. Yeah, it gets to the
point where the narrator says he just wants to
lay down and die. It's this gritty, heavy blue
story about carousing and heartbreak. What's
fascinating here is the thematic contradiction.
Contradiction how? Well, if you read the liner
notes written by Joe Boyd for that San Francisco
Bay Blues album, he points out that Fuller had
indeed experienced some troubled relationships
before meeting his wife. Okay, so there's some
real -life inspiration. True, but his actual
personality was completely at odds with the dangerous,
hard -drinking characters in his songs. Really?
So he's not this wild bluesman? Not at all. Boyd
explicitly notes that despite living a vagabond
lifestyle as a traveling musician, Jesse Fuller
was actually quite frugal. Frugal? Yeah, frugal
and relatively conservative. Women who drank
and caroused until the early hours never got
along well with Jesse at all. Oh, wow. So he's
basically cosplaying this hardened, reckless
bluesman while actually being like a highly responsible
accountant type behind the scenes. Essentially,
yes. He was a professional playing a role. He
was delivering a narrative that fit the expectations
of the blues tradition, but he wasn't living
that chaotic life himself. Okay, so if Fuller
was this frugal, responsible guy who actively
avoided the party scene, how did his deeply cynical
blues track end up in the hands of someone like
Dylan? Well, that's where the paths cross. Right,
this chaotic lightning -in -a -bottle teenager.
Wait, how is it possible that a cover version
beats the original songwriter's version to the
record store by over a year? It sounds impossible
by today's standards. Right. I mean, Dylan recorded
it in November 1961 and released it in March
1962. And Fuller's version didn't come out until
May 13th, 1963. On the prestige folklore label,
that timeline is just completely upside down.
It is. But to make sense of that anomaly, you
have to understand how information and specifically
music actually moved in the mid -century folk
scene. It wasn't exactly digital distribution.
Far from it. You might be picturing modern music
distribution where an artist finishes a song,
uploads it to a streaming service, and it's copyrighted
and distributed globally in an instant. Yeah,
but the folk scene of the late 50s and early
60s operated entirely outside of that corporate
infrastructure. Completely outside. It was an
oral tradition. Like an open source code network
but happening in smoky basements instead of on
the internet. That's a great way to look at it.
Songs spread through live coffeehouse performances.
Musicians would just watch each other play. They'd
memorize the chord progressions? Yeah, the chords,
the lyrics, and then they'd take those songs
to the next town. The sources indicate Dylan
actually learned You're No Good, personally,
from Jesse Fuller. After seeing him perform at
the Exodus Coffee Club in Denver in 1959. Exactly.
Though, um... The notes do mention a slight debate
that Dylan might have heard Ramblin' Jack Elliott
perform it instead, right? There's a footnote
about that, yes. Yeah. But the consensus heavily
leans toward Dylan absorbing it directly from
Fuller in Denver. Gotcha. So why the massive
delay in Fuller's release? It really comes down
to the stark difference in their career phases.
Because Fuller was already established. Right.
He was an older touring musician. His primary
income was playing live gigs. Releasing records
was just an occasional byproduct of his touring,
not the main engine. Oh, so prestige folklore
probably just recorded him when he rolled through
town. Exactly. And then they simply held onto
the tapes until it made financial sense for the
label to press them into vinyl. Whereas Bob Dylan
was this hungry, fast -moving sponge. He's just
soaking up everything he hears in these coffee
houses. And immediately sprinting into the studio
to put it on tape to establish his own name.
Sprinting is definitely the word. Which brings
us to the chaos of November 20th, 1961. Ah, yes.
Columbia Studio A. located at 799 7th Avenue
in New York City. This is the very first track
Dylan recorded at his initial session. First
debut album, yes. And we really have to contextualize
what Studio A actually was at that time. Because
it wasn't what people might think. Right, you
might be picturing a grungy, relaxed rehearsal
space with tapestries on the walls. But Columbia
Studio A was a pristine, union -regulated, white
lab coat environment in the heart of Midtown
Manhattan. It was incredibly formal. So imagine
dropping a scruffy, unpredictable 19 -year -old
folk singer into a sterilized corporate laboratory.
Here's where it gets really interesting, because
it's like a corporate manager trying to put a
spreadsheet together during a tornado. The Clash
of Cultures was immediate. The session was produced
by John H. Hammond, who was a legend. Absolute
legend at Columbia Records. He had discovered
artists like Billie Holiday, but he was used
to a certain standard of studio decorum and strict
technical methodologies. And according to Dylan
biographer Clinton Halen, who actually had access
to the unreleased session tapes, Hammond struggled
terribly with the young Dylan. Terribly. Halen
claims that from the very first take, Hammond
was, quote, All at sea. It took them eight takes
just to get this one short song down. Yeah, four
complete takes and four false starts, eventually
using take five. And the core issue. was Hammond
trying to apply traditional recording techniques
to an entirely untraditional artist. Right, because
in 1961, if a take wasn't perfect, a producer
couldn't just digitally fix a mistake in Pro
Tools. No, they had to use physical tape splicing.
Exactly. An engineer would take a razor blade,
physically cut the magnetic audio tape from take
one, cut the tape from take two, and literally
stitch the best halves together to create a flawless
master track. But Halen notes that physical splicing
was practically impossible with Dylan because
his sound varied so wildly from take to take.
He didn't play to a click track? No. His tempo
shifted, his vocal delivery changed, his guitar
strumming was erratic. It's like trying to tailor
a bespoke suit for someone who won't stop sprinting
around the room. That's exactly it. Hammond's
tools, like the careful microphone placement,
the tape splicing, they rely on a stationary,
predictable subject. And Dylan was a moving target.
He really was. You have these professional engineers,
George Neuer and Pete Doria, frantically trying
to fix the audio balance on the fly while Dylan
is just blasting away. Didn't Hammond have to
stop in mid -song at one point? Yeah. He had
to stop Dylan after a take and ask him to play
it again specifically because they were still
trying to fix the balance. And Dylan wasn't making
it any easier on the technical side either. Hammond
kept complaining over the intercom because Dylan
was popping his pee sounds on the microphone.
Oh, the pee sounds. Yeah, there's a line where
he sings the word planes and Dylan is just leaning
way too hard into the mic. I can just picture
Hammond, this distinguished industry veteran,
rubbing his temples in the control room while
the audio leaders peek into the red. It was a
frustrating environment for Dylan, too, though.
Oh, and sure. He actually originally wanted to
use a spoken word introduction to the song. About
what? About a cowboy in Connecticut. Wait, a
cowboy in Connecticut? That has absolutely nothing
to do with a devilish woman stealing your money
in a blues song. It really didn't make thematic
sense. At all. But it was part of that rambling
persona he was developing. However... He had
to abandon that entire cowboy monologue simply
because of all the interruptions from the control
room during the early takes. Wow. So the studio
tensions literally changed the structure of the
track. Now, I should mention, not everyone agrees
it was a total disaster. Right. The scholar Todd
Harvey pushes back on Halen's narrative of complete
studio chaos, doesn't he? He does. Harvey argues
that the session tapes actually corroborate Hammond's
own view. Which was? Hammond suggested that Dylan
just needed a minutes to adjust to the formal
recording process. So Harvey's perspective is
that it wasn't a catastrophic failure of communication,
it was just a raw live performer taking a few
takes to calibrate to the sterile environment
of Studio A. But wait, I really have to push
back on Harvey's theory there. I mean, if it
was just a simple adjustment period, Dylan wouldn't
have kept popping his PS, Hammond wouldn't have
been complaining over the intercom constantly,
and they still would have been able to splice
the tape eventually. That's a fair point. The
fact that the tape was fundamentally unspliceable
tells me this wasn't just a quick calibration.
This was a fundamental clash of recording philosophies.
Dylan's entire approach was about capturing a
raw moment, and Hammond's approach was about
constructing a polished product. That is a crucial
distinction, and whatever friction occurred in
that room, the result, which was take five, survived.
It did. But it is structurally and tonally very
different from Jesse Fuller's version. It's completely
transformed. I mean, Dylan speeds the whole thing
up. His version clocks in at a brisk one minute
and 40 seconds. It goes by in a flash. He takes
this steady rhythmic folk blues song and injects
it with like punk rock pacing. And he also alters
the lyrics. For instance, he drops a great line
from Fuller's original version. Which one? Fuller
sings that the woman could make a preacher lay
his Bible down. Oh, that's such a fantastic blues
lyric. It's a shame to lose it. It is, but Dylan
was filtering the song through his own frantic
energy. And despite eventually getting the track
on tape, the record label still managed to bungle
the commercial release. Oh, of course they did.
How? On some of the American pressings and the
British LP, the track was mistakenly labeled
as She's No Good instead of You're No Good. a
classic record label maneuver. Just print the
sleeves, we'll fix the typo on the second pressing.
Exactly. Although they did manage to get the
historical credit right on the back of the album.
The liner notes were written by the critic Robert
Shelton. Who was using a pseudonym, right? Yeah,
he used the pseudonym Stacey Williams. And Shelton
explicitly credited Dylan's learning of the song
from, quote, Jesse Fuller, the West Coast blues
singer. And Shelton's involvement highlights
just how polarized the critical reaction to this
1 minute and 40 second piece of tape would be.
Oh, the critical divide was massive. Because
when the album dropped, the music establishment
really didn't know what to do with it. Let's
look at the Old Guard first. You have William
Allen reviewing the album in the Pittsburgh Press
in June 1962. Right. And he is actively hostile
to what Dylan is doing. He actually puts the
word singing in quotation marks when talking
about Dylan. Just completely sneering at it.
Yeah. Because to William Allen and the established
critics of the time, singing meant Frank Sinatra.
It meant Bing Crosby. The crooners. Yeah. It
meant hitting notes with perfect practiced intonation.
Right. Allen specifically singles out You're
No Good as a song that didn't have a publisher
and, in his words, wasn't likely to have one.
That comment about the publisher is incredibly
revealing. Why is that? It shows a fundamental
misunderstanding of the tectonic shift happening
in music at that exact moment. Alan is evaluating
the song through the lens of Tin Pan Alley. For
those who might not know, what exactly does that
mean? So Tin Pan Alley was the traditional corporate
music publishing industry centered in New York.
Their business model relied on professional songwriters
creating sheet music. And publishers could sell
that sheet music to other artists to record cleanly
and politely. I see. Alan is listening to Dylan's
track and thinking, no one can print this erratic
performance onto sheet music and sell it. He's
evaluating it as a reproducible product, completely
missing that Dylan is selling raw, unvarnished
emotion and energy. He was completely missing
the forest for the trees. But on the flip side
you have Robert Shelton, the same guy who wrote
the liner notes under a fake name, praising the
track to the moon in his later biography of Dylan.
What did he say about it? Shelton calls it a
rollicking tumble of witty nonsense, and I love
how he describes the instrumental break. He points
out that Dylan basically built his own one -man
band in the studio. Which is a great spiritual
nod to Jesse Fuller's Fetilla. Exactly. Shelton
highlights the galloping mouth harp that talks
back and forth with the guitar. The critics who
got it really got it. Another author, John Nogoski,
was a bit more analytical. How did he rate it?
He rated the energetic performance a solid C+.
Fair enough. But Paul Williams, who was a prominent
rock critic, saw something much deeper beneath
the surface. He felt that You're No Good was
one of the only tracks on that debut album that
gave early hints of Dylan's underlying rock and
roll sensibilities. Williams makes such a great
observation here. He points out that for all
of Dylan's later reputation, this debut album
doesn't really portray him as a dangerous rock
star or a philanderer. No, it's mostly traditional
folk songs. Right. Williams argues that the only
truly sexy, dangerous line on the entire album
is right here in You're No Good. Which line is
that? It's when Dylan speeds up and sings, when
you get a crazy notion jumping all over me. which
perfectly leans into that rock and roll energy.
It pushes the boundaries of the polite folk revival
just a little bit, hinting at the electric controversies
Dylan would spark a few years later. So what
does this all mean? We have a 1 minute and 40
second song that some critics dismissed as unpublishable
garbage, while others saw it as the vanguard
of a new era. It's a true dividing line. And
honestly, the irony of William Allen dismissing
the song's viability aged terribly. Terribly.
Especially when you consider that as recently
as 2022, Jeff Hanna of the Nitty Gritty Dirt
Band, who's been a massive fan since that first
album dropped, specifically singled out this
track in an interview. Oh, really? Yeah, saying
Dylan quote, sings the heck out of that one.
It proves that raw energy outlasts polite precision.
If we connect this to the bigger picture, Todd
Harvey has a very grounded theory about why the
song was placed where it was. Why open your monumental
debut album with someone else's song? Right.
Harvey believed it wasn't necessarily because
it was a profound lyrical masterpiece. It was
chosen simply because it was upbeat, funny, and
possessed incredible forward momentum. It was
just a great opener to grab the listener by the
collar. It doesn't always have to be deep. Sometimes
you just want to kick the door down and start
the record with some heat. Exactly. But historically,
it serves as this beautiful accidental bridge.
On one side you have the old acoustic oral tradition
of the blues represented by the frugal, ingenious
one -man band Jesse Fuller. Yeah, and on the
other side you have the electric sped -up rock
and roll revolution that Bob Dylan was about
to ignite. This frantic track is the exact intersection
where those two eras collide. It really is the
perfect pivot point in music history. Which brings
us back to you listening to this right now. You
might be wondering why a deep dive into an obscure
cover song from 1962 matters for your life today.
It's a fair question. I think it's a powerful,
tangible reminder that monumental, culture -shifting
careers, the kind that change the trajectory
of the world, rarely start with a flawless, completely
original masterpiece. They usually start with
a mess. If you are out there trying to build
something, trying to lay down the blueprint for
your own career or project, remember what Dylan's
Day One looked like. It started with a fast,
slightly altered cover of a frugal guy's unreleased
song. It started with a studio session full of
false starts, popping P .S. on a microphone and
a distinguished producer rubbing his temples
in frustration because he couldn't slice your
tape with a razor blade. It started with an abandoned
rambling monologue about a cowboy in Connecticut.
Yes. Your first attempt does not have to be perfect,
pristine, or even entirely original to be historically
significant. You just have to get your energy
on tape. The messy reality of the creative process
is often what gives it life. But as we wrap up
this exploration, I want to leave you with one
final lingering mystery to mull over on your
own. What's that? We've established that You're
No Good was the very first song recorded for
Bob Dylan's debut album. It was an energetic
track that literally launched his recording career,
serving as that crucial stepping stone between
the old acoustic world and the new era of rock.
The ultimate day one foundation. Precisely. And
yet, despite its undeniable historical importance,
as the spark that started his catalog, as of
2022, Bob Dylan has never played the song live
in a public concert. Wait, really? Not a single
time. Not a single time. Wait, in over 60 years
of touring, he has never played the very first
song he recorded. Never. Which leaves us to ponder.
Why? Yeah, why? Why would an artist completely
abandon the very first stone they laid in the
foundation of their legendary career? Is it a
conscious rejection of the past? Maybe. Was the
song just a stepping stone he didn't feel the
need to revisit once the skyscraper was built?
Or does it just remind him too much of popping
peas in Columbia Studio A? That is absolutely
something to think about the next time you look
back at the messy starting line of your own journey.
Thank you for joining us on this deep dive. We'll
catch you next time.