I believe I did Dylan a disservice in saying that he was 22 when he wrote 'Blowing'. Actually he was about a month short of his 21st birthday when he wrote the song - in a cafe across the street from the Gaslight in April 1962. PPM had a big hit with it before Dylan's own recording of it appeared on the Freewheelin album, released on 27 May 1963, when Dylan was aged 22 years and 3 days.

The song was an instant sensation and has pretty much remained so ever since. Mavis Staples said, 'how could HE [a young white guy] write that, how many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man, that was what my father had to suffer'. Empathy, dear, empathy.