Chimes of Freedom (song)
song written and composed by Bob Dylan, originally recorded by Bob Dylan and released in 1964
"Chimes of Freedom" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and featured on his Tom Wilson-produced 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan. The song depicts the thoughts and feelings of the singer and his companion as they shelter from a lightning storm under a doorway after sunset. The singer expresses his solidarity with the downtrodden and oppressed, believing that the thunder is tolling in sympathy for them.
Initially, critics described the song as showing the influence of the symbolist poetry of Arthur Rimbaud, but more recent biographers of Dylan have linked the origins of the song to verses the songwriter had written as a response to the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. Some commentators and Dylan biographers have assessed the song as one of Dylan's most significant compositions, and critic Paul Williams has described it as Dylan's Sermon on the Mount.
The song has been covered many times by different artists, including the Byrds, Jefferson Starship, Youssou N'Dour, Bruce Springsteen, and U2.
Bob Dylan's version
"Chimes of Freedom" was written shortly after the release of Dylan's The Times They Are a-Changin' album in early 1964 during a road trip that he took across America with musician Paul Clayton, journalist Pete Karman, and road manager Victor Maymudes. It was written at about the same time as "Mr. Tambourine Man", which author Clinton Heylin has judged to be similarly influenced by the symbolism of Arthur Rimbaud. There are conflicting accounts about when during the trip this song was written.
“Chimes of Freedom (song)” enters the record as song written and composed by Bob Dylan, originally recorded by Bob Dylan and released in 1964. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Chimes, Freedom and song can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2711175. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1964 and 1963.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chimes of Freedom (song)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.