The Birth of the Music Video with Bob Dylan and D.A. Pennebaker's "Subterranean Homesick Blues"

On May 8, 1965, a moment of quiet revolution occurred in an alley behind the Savoy Hotel in London. There, Bob Dylan, already an icon of the 1960s counterculture, teamed up with documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker to create what is now widely recognized as one of the first music videos: the short film accompanying Dylan’s rapid-fire single, "Subterranean Homesick Blues." Though deceptively simple, the short became an enduring cultural artifact and helped pave the way for the modern music video format.

The concept was minimalist yet ingenious. Dylan stands still in a nondescript urban alley, flipping through a series of cue cards bearing key words and phrases from the song's lyrics. As the track plays in the background, Dylan casually drops each card to the ground, often slightly out of sync with the lyrics, adding to the clip’s lo-fi, avant-garde charm. Behind him, fellow artists Allen Ginsberg and Bob Neuwirth loiter in the background, adding to the sense of spontaneous creativity that defined Dylan’s mid-60s persona.

Shot by Pennebaker, known for his vérité-style documentaries, the video was originally part of the larger film ‘Don't Look Back’, which chronicled Dylan's 1965 tour of the UK. Rather than create a polished promotional piece, Pennebaker and Dylan crafted something raw and experimental—an anti-video, in many ways, that mocked the very idea of “packaged” music. Yet its stripped-down aesthetic and clever use of visual cues prefigured the rise of MTV by nearly two decades.

“Subterranean Homesick Blues” itself was a revolutionary track. Influenced by Beat poetry, Chuck Berry, and protest folk, it blended social commentary with surreal wordplay in a way that captured the turbulent energy of the 1960s. The lyrics referenced everything from civil rights and drugs to governmental surveillance, reflecting the anxious, rebellious spirit of the times.

The video’s lasting influence is undeniable. Artists from INXS to "Weird Al" Yankovic have paid homage to the cue card concept, and it’s still frequently parodied and referenced today. For Dylan, it was another boundary-pushing moment in a career full of them. For Pennebaker, it was a pioneering example of the music documentary as art form.

More than just a curiosity or a promotional tool, the May 8 filming of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" marked a crossroads in visual culture. It was where rock music met cinema, poetry met pop, and rebellion met innovation—resulting in a work that, like Dylan himself, refused to be neatly categorized.