Bringing It All Back Home fused beat poetry with rock into folk rock

Evidence

The song would graze the Top 40, peaking at #39, but Bringing It All Back Home, the LP it kicked off, would reach #6 on Billboard’s weekly chart. A remarkable fusion of Buddy Holly and Arthur Rimbaud, Bringing It All Back Home not only invented what would be known as folk rock, it out-stoned the Stones, beat the Beatles to put the beat in Beat poetry and, with songs like “Maggie’s Farm” and “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” took protest into the realm of pataphysics. Anticipating the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper by over two years, it also boasted the first LP cover that demanded to be decoded. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 658