“Mixed-Up Confusion” is a song written and recorded by Bob Dylan, and released as his first single. The song was recorded with an electric band on November 14, 1962 during the sessions for The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, but was not used on that album, which, aside from “Corrina, Corrina”, was entirely acoustic. Instead the song, backed with “Corrina, Corrina” (a different take from the Freewheelin’ one), a traditional blues song, appeared as Dylan’s first single, released in the U.S. on December 14, 1962 as Columbia 4-42656. A different version of the song – a November 1, 1962 recording with much later overdubbing – was released on the compilation album Masterpieces in 1978, and on the original 1985 issue of the Biograph box set. (More from Wikipedia)
Any in-depth discussion of Bob Dylan inevitably comes to the supposedly controversial and dramatic “going electric”, where he was booed at some concerts and called “Judas” at another. The above single, “Mixed Up Confusion” – the very first 45 released by Dylan – muddies those waters considerably, and this is perhaps the reason that this ground-breaking recording is given short shrift in both Wikipedia and Allmusic. In fact, I found almost nothing about the song except YouTube videos, lyric sheets, download sites, and the other usual Internet folderol.
I did find this brief mention of the song on the Wikipedia article on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan: “Unlike the other material which Dylan recorded between 1961 and 1964, ‘Mixed Up Confusion’ attempted a rockabilly sound. Cameron Crowe described it as ‘a fascinating look at a folk artist with his mind wandering towards Elvis Presley and Sun Records.’”
Legend has it that Bob Dylan wrote “Mixed Up Confusion” on the way to the recording session, and the single was recorded on November 14, 1962 with an electric band: three guitars (including Dylan’s), bass, drums, and a lively piano. “Mixed Up Confusion” was omitted from both versions of his second, much more successful album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan; interestingly, the “B” side was “Corrina, Corrina”, the only song on the album that Bob Dylan didn’t write (another was co-written).
The “Mixed Up Confusion” single was released on December 14, 1962 – a full 5 months before the album was released – but was almost immediately pulled from the market. Though not electric in the same way as, say, “Like a Rolling Stone”, “Mixed Up Confusion” is rock and roll all the way. Had this song been given any exposure at all, the folk-rock movement could have been started years earlier.
I encountered “Mixed Up Confusion” on one of the first Bob Dylan bootleg albums that I bought (though it was not Great White Wonder). However, it was not officially re-released until the box set Biograph was released in 1985. A pristine copy of the “Mixed Up Confusion” 45 brought $1,225 at auction in 2008.
(June 2013/2)
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Items: Mixed-Up Confusion
