But that was Bob Dylan AND I bet a few nervous eye-brows were raised at the time.
That reminds of one of my Les Cousins stories from 1967. One evening Davy Graham was running the show and he was on a tirade against the - realtively new - trend for writing long songs.
Davy said that if a songwriter couldn't get his message across in 3 minutes or so then thet should pack the whole thing in. Just then, Roy Harper walks in and Davy invites him to do a number or two.
   Roy started with a rather long song.