Bob Dylan was the subject of a great early documentary called Don't Look Back, which follows him around 1965 England on tour in verité black and white. I grew up with no Dylan exposure, so seeing this film for the first time at around 20, I remember being struck by how Minnesotan Bob Dylan actually was. The accent was more or less subdued, but his laconic, dark quips belied many sun-starved winters surrounded by ice shacks.

Anyway, my favorite scene in the whole movie is the party in his hotel room, where he plays "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." He's just met a supposed rival in the English folk singer Donovan, and they trade performances. Donovan delivers a perfectly well-adjusted, good-hearted folk ballad, smiling a smile of a man happy to be there. Dylan takes over and unleashes "Baby Blue." It's a sneering rendition where he emphasizes words almost sarcastically for understanding.

It's worth noting that "Baby Blue" was the last acoustic number Dylan performed at the Newport Folk Festival, where he infamously "went electric" and played with a rock band for the first time.

The folk music scene clearly exasperated him, the grins of the simply happy to be there, the vacant seriousness of those purists not happy to be anywhere.

And maybe that anti-folk quality is why I gravitate to this song. It has more of an aggressive rock progression in its chorus, a minor passage with a dark but catchy melody. I enjoy the lyrics, which are concrete but not governed by obvious sequential logic. And they are best sneered. Bob Dylan would win no television singing contests.

It's the song of someone who knows they're moving on, not happy to be there, which, it turns out, was the past.