The first time I heard "Like A Rolling Stone", it sent chills up and down my spine. I thought: "Bob has really done it this time!" As if "Tambourine Man" and "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" weren't enough, he took it all about 10 levels higher. I got addicted to the record and played it over and over and over.
I was fortunate enough to have attended the Newport Folk Festival in the summer of 1965, the same summer that "Like A Rolling Stone" had been released. This festival was one of the first youth festivals par excellence: before grass and hash and acid. Everyone was high on being young, beautiful, alive and free, sleeping on beaches, just hanging out.
It was clear early on what Dylan was going to do on Sunday night. For several days, you could hear him warming up with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band who, obviously, played electric guitars. Blues was a legitimate part of folk music, and the electric guitar was a legitimate instrument for playing the Blues, and Newport was a folk festival, so it was not really that big a leap for Bob to be playing an electric guitar at a folk festival with the Paul Butterfield Blues band as backup.
As I remember it, a hugh and cry rose up when Bob came out on stage dressed up like Elvis, all in leather and black Wellington boots. Peter, from Peter, Paul and Mary, then came out on stage and asked everyone to quiet down and give Bob's music a chance. The crowd quieted down, and then Bob and the band let loose, and, of course, the music was great! Myself and many others ran down the aisles to the front of the stage, excited, happy, dancing, frolicking. It was a wonderful experience. I had the great high feeling of dancing "beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free".
With his poetry and music, Bob raised us all up and took us to another level where none of us had ever been before, and, in my opinion, he continued to do that up to, and including "Love and Theft". Although there are those rock critics who have continued to maintain for many years now that "Like A Rolling Stone" is Bob's best and Rock Music's best, I don't really agree. I think that Bob Dylan has consistently written, and continues to write amazing songs. I also think that Bruce Springstein writes amazing songs, also Neil Young, that Laura Nyro wrote amazing songs, Van Morrison, Joni Michel etc.
I think it's very demeaning and childish to reduce the creativity of seminal artists like these to comparisons and "best of" lists. It's not possible to accurately quantify greatness and originality. The amount of money that an artist makes is not an accurate measure of the quality of their work. Compared to other musicians, like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, Bob's albums have never sold that well.
What I remember best about the 60s was the unique creativity of so many young artists. There was an outpouring, a Renaissance of creativity. Bob played a seminal part in this. You could call him the King if you want, but there were many others who were doing their thing at the same time. Richard Farina, very gifted, did "folk rock" before Bob, before anyone.
Unfortunately, media critics like Griel Marcus and college professors have developed this phony "history of rock". These folks have their columns, magazines, books and courses to sell. They just make it all up.
Griel Marcus's views about "Like A Rolling Stone" is really a writing exercise and has no more weight than anyone else's opinions about the song. In the end, it's all opinion. Just ask Bob.