“Gates of Eden” is a song by Bob Dylan that appears on his fifth studio album Bringing It All Back Home, released on March 22, 1965 by Columbia Records. It was also released as a single as the B-side of “Like a Rolling Stone”. Dylan plays the song solo, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and harmonica. It is one of his more surreal songs. In a 2005 Mojo magazine poll of its writers and various well-known musicians, “Gates of Eden” was ranked 69th among Dylan’s 100 greatest songs. (More from Wikipedia)
I was born a couple of years later than Greg Shaw, so I turned 14 in 1965. By then, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were old news; and while I was still paying attention, what was really grabbing me at the time were American artists and bands. First and foremost was “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan; that song – plus the flip side “Gates of Eden” that was nearly as long and every bit as good – captivated me in a way that I just couldn’t keep quiet about. Other great folk-rock sounds of that period included the release of the cover of Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” by the Byrds and the revamped “The Sounds of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel. Bob Dylan himself preferred the Byrds’ cover to his own recording of “Mr. Tambourine Man”; but in my usual contrarian way, I preferred Dylan’s original – it was a lot longer for one thing.
These songs were followed closely by the glorious sounds of garage rock and psychedelic rock that were then in their infancy. Songs like “Pushin’ Too Hard” by the Seeds, “We Ain’t Got Nothin’ Yet” by Blues Magoos, and “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” by the Electric Prunes really made an impression on me. It wasn’t until I picked up the Nuggets collection and then the numerous Pebbles albums that I plumbed the depths of this scene, but it was by no means brand new to me either.
