Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again

"Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" is a song by Bob Dylan that appears on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. The album version also appears on 1971's Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II. Another version of the song appears on the 1976 live album Hard Rain. An early studio take, done in a faster cut-time, was released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack; as the recording indicates, Dylan had difficulty fitting the words to the tempo, and evidently this led to its rearrangement, as heard on the official album, in a more "rock" oriented 4/4 time.^[1]

The song also inspired the name of the Memphis Group, a 1980s design movement, with its title.^[2][3]

Trivia

• The Grateful Dead covered the song in their live shows during the 1980s and 1990s.
• When Dylan & the Dead toured in 1987, they performed this song several times.
• It is also used in the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and is mentioned in the book by Hunter S. Thompson.
• According to the book Revolution in the Head, John Lennon wrote a spoof entitled "Stuck Inside of Lexicon with the Roget's Thesaurus Blues Again," pointing out that Dylan was using obscure lyrics too extensively. This line is found in the song "Satire #2" of Lennon's Anthology.
• The Dylan version as featured on Blonde On Blonde also features in the opening credits of I'm Not There as opposed to the Cat Power version which features on the soundtrack.
• The Sisters of Mercy song "Dominion (Mother Russia)" features the line "stuck inside of Memphis in a mobile home", as a play on words on this song's title.
• Cat Power covered this song for the soundtrack of the movie I'm Not There.

Notes