
"Like A Rolling Stone" – Interactive Video - jmduke
http://video.bobdylan.com/desktop.html?
======
xargs
I was beyond skeptical when I saw this link earlier, but this is outstanding.

The commenters on RollingStone and other sites, seem to have wanted some
magical rose-colored nostalgia trip to 1965, but the whole point of
contemporary Dylan is that you can't have 1965 back (and even if you could,
you don't want to).

The lyrics to this song are like the anthem of Holden Caufield... a wry,
disillusioned, antisocial, anticonsumption, post-war love song. Anyone who
ever thought otherwise, is a turd who only loved this song because it was Top
40 and reminiscent of some lost High School dance, despite the fact that the
song itself is completely anti-pop.

There are so many little easter egg mashups you can find as you click through:
the CNBC styled wall-street guy ("threw the bums a dime, in your prime, didn't
you?"), the QVC home-shopping girl's deadpan delivery ("take your diamond
ring, you'd better pawn it babe"), reality TV girls desperate for attention
("how does it feel / how does it feel/ to be without a home/ like a complete
unknown").

I think this is really the only video this song could ever have :)

and Danny Brown shows up

~~~
DonGateley
"The lyrics to this song are like the anthem of Holden Caufield... a wry,
disillusioned, antisocial, anticonsumption, post-war love song. Anyone who
ever thought otherwise, is a turd who only loved this song because it was Top
40 and reminiscent of some lost High School dance, despite the fact that the
song itself is completely anti-pop."

I sorta hate to break it to you but we knew all that back then. I don't think
any other point of view was even considered.

~~~
xargs
You're preaching to the choir on that one, but maybe we should tell the
commenters on RollingStone.com, HuffPo, etc? They seem confused (I like to
read their stupid in an MST3K styled riff off; you can be TomServo, dibs on
Crooow though).

"It's just a bunch of commercials. Bah" / "This is totally lame and does no
justice to a great song" / "I grew up in the 60's and this is not the Dylan I
know" / "I found the word VAGINAS in the video" / "This is a vapid mess. It's
sacrilegious to give such lyrics this treatment!"

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evan_
It looks like there are many 1-second long .flv (Flash Video) files for each
channel.

This is second 37 on channel 3:
[http://content.interlude.fm/video/dylanLive/rc2/ch3/c3s37.fl...](http://content.interlude.fm/video/dylanLive/rc2/ch3/c3s37.flv)

Here's second 125 on channel 6:
[http://content.interlude.fm/video/dylanLive/rc2/ch6/c6s125.f...](http://content.interlude.fm/video/dylanLive/rc2/ch6/c6s125.flv)

and so forth.

You can run this in your terminal to download all of the files for a given
channel:

    
    
      curl -O http://content.interlude.fm/video/dylanLive/rc2/ch6/c6s[0-284].flv
    

FFMPEG should be able to join FLV files but I haven't tried it yet.

Interestingly enough it seems to pre-cache the channel immediately above and
below the channel you're on, so if you're on channel 11 it will download the
next couple seconds of channel 10 and 12, so you can switch channels without
having to re-fill your buffer.

~~~
evan_
The instructions under "concat demuxer" on this page work for the video but no
so much for the audio:

[http://ffmpeg.org/trac/ffmpeg/wiki/How%20to%20concatenate%20...](http://ffmpeg.org/trac/ffmpeg/wiki/How%20to%20concatenate%20%28join,%20merge%29%20media%20files)

------
aidos
What a lovely experience. Took me a moment to get into it and then I smiled
the whole way through. I just love the different feelings you get from the
different channels.

------
josscrowcroft
Absolutely beautiful - I love the history channel in particular

~~~
mckee1
Yeah this was the first channel I really stopped on and it was hilarious when
I realised the bearded chap was mouthing along.

------
madoniles
Easy instructions on How to Hack and Download Bob Dylan’s ‘Like a Rolling
Stone’ Interactive Video: [http://www.cyberculturegallery.com/how-to-hack-bob-
dylans-in...](http://www.cyberculturegallery.com/how-to-hack-bob-dylans-
interactive-music-video/)

------
vvoyer
You can't help but smile and ⇧⇩

------
mbubb
This made my day - thought of this clip from the Pennebaker film:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY4HtQ-
XJQE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY4HtQ-XJQE)

------
dysoco
This looks awesome, and I love Dylan and this song... too bad my internet is
way too slow to keep me from enjoying this, it buffers every 5 seconds and it
kills the effect.

------
braum
Is there a blog that explains how this works? I'm assuming they either have a
ton of video that is instantly available and use the closest match or some
magical CG...

~~~
jere
Seriously?? It's just a few fake TV show clips they recorded specifically for
this video. And for me, the channel buttons do nothing but bring up a
description of the current "channel."

[edit: the channels do change after a delay]

Aside: I'm sure I've heard it all throughout my life, but it was only a few
days ago that I looked up the lyrics and backstory behind this song. For a
song written just shy of 50 years ago, it blows my mind how good it is.

[http://rock.rapgenius.com/Bob-dylan-like-a-rolling-stone-
lyr...](http://rock.rapgenius.com/Bob-dylan-like-a-rolling-stone-lyrics)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_a_Rolling_Stone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_a_Rolling_Stone)

~~~
ambler0
How long did you stick with it? It cycles through the same few channels at the
very beginning and starts you on the same channel (food channel?) each time,
but after that I think you're in control.

EDIT: OK, so I messed with this some more. It does appear to change channels
on its own from time to time, so it doesn't seem possible to see whether they
recorded the entire song for each channel. Also, it didn't start me on the
food channel this time. Nevertheless, it's not the same each time you do it. I
suspect that each channel only contains portions of the song and there are
enforced channel changes as a result

~~~
claybinion
I think once you change the channel once, it let's your stay on a certain
channel for the entire song. I was able to watch a single channel for the
majority of the song. And the first channel that is chosen for you seems to be
random, it's been different the 3 times I watched it.

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joelle
I enjoyed that a lot - well done!

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dakrisht
This is just wonderful. On so many levels.

Steve Jobs is smiling down from wherever he might be. As we all are.

And wow, comments on HN that all agree with each other. No bashing. No hate.
What a wonderful thing.

Beautiful

~~~
ForHackernews
Steve Jobs? Wut?

~~~
navs
It's well known that Steve Jobs was a huge Dylan fan. As well as the Beatles.
I don't know if he'd be smiling though. This is flash based after all.

~~~
dakrisht
_This is flash after all_

That was great. Insanely great.

------
benihana
This is fantastic. I like the VH1 channel.

Just watched it a second time. This is legitimately beautiful.

------
nailer
The Rolling Stones (which names themselves after this song) also have an
innovative video for their cover:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziRR5h3b4YU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziRR5h3b4YU)

It's 183,000 photographs, morphed into each other.

~~~
vjoel
Citation needed. The Rolling Stones started in '62\. Dylan's "Like a Rolling
Stone" is from '65.

Wikipedia attribute the band's name to the Muddy Waters song, "Rollin' Stone".

~~~
nailer
I didn't say Dylan's version of the song was original, just that the Rolling
Stones are named after it.

>> The Rolling Stones (which named themselves after this song)

> Citation needed.

Sure. Here are two, from the wikipedia article you just read:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rolling_Stones#CITEREFNelso...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rolling_Stones#CITEREFNelson2010)

\- Jagger, Mick; Richards, Keith; Watts, Charlie; Wood, Ronnie (2003).
According to the Rolling Stones. San Francisco, California: Chronicle Books.
ISBN 9780811840606. p42

\- Nelson, Murray N. (2010). The Rolling Stones: A Musical Biography. Santa
Barbara, California: Greenwood. ISBN 9780313380341. p3.

~~~
eapeyton
Like A Rolling Stone is most definitely an original Bob Dylan song. Dylan may
have been inspired by Muddy Waters at best.

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sneak
Running flash is a terrible security risk.

I won't do it even for Dylan.

Bummer. Someone should've told his dev team that the times, they are
a-changin'...

~~~
phogster
How do you watch youtube videos without flash?

~~~
jonknee
Thanks to mobile devices, most are available with HTML5 video.

