Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

Album: Highway 61 Revisited (1965)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • The song contains multiple literary references. Here are a few:

    Rue Morgue Avenue hearkens to Edgar Allen Poe.

    Tom Thumb was a character from English folklore who would, in 1621, star in the first fairy tale ever published in English.

    Housing Project Hill comes from the Jack Kerouac novel Desolation Angels. Dylan would later say that he came to find the lifestyle espoused in Kerouac's books to be pointless, but his first impression was very different. "I read On the Road in maybe 1959," Dylan has stated. "It changed my life like it changed everyone else's."
  • Among the archives in the Bob Dylan collection housed in Tulsa, Oklahoma is an early lyric sheet to this song, which reveals that at one point it was titled "Just Like Juarez."

Comments: 1

  • Armin from Dallas/fort WorthThis is just another reason why Highway 61 is Dylan's greatest album. Sorry, but Blonde on Blonde doesn't even get close. The Poe reference by Dylan is awesome; my two favorite authors tied together. Word is that Rue Morgue is a fictitious locale chosen by Poe for the very Parisian sound of the name.
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Janis Ian

Janis IanSongwriter Interviews

One of the first successful female singer-songwriters, Janis had her first hit in 1967 at age 15.

Lace the Music: How LSD Changed Popular Music

Lace the Music: How LSD Changed Popular MusicSong Writing

Starting in Virginia City, Nevada and rippling out to the Haight-Ashbury, LSD reshaped popular music.

Jimmy Jam

Jimmy JamSongwriter Interviews

The powerhouse producer behind Janet Jackson's hits talks about his Boyz II Men ballads and regrouping The Time.

Dar Williams

Dar WilliamsSongwriter Interviews

A popular contemporary folk singer, Williams still remembers the sticky note that changed her life in college.

Commercials

CommercialsFact or Fiction

Was "Ring Of Fire" really used to sell hemorrhoid cream?

Reverend Horton Heat

Reverend Horton HeatSongwriter Interviews

The Reverend rants on psychobilly and the egghead academics he bashes in one of his more popular songs.