The summer marks the 50th anniversary of Bob Dylan's release of his landmark "Like a Rolling Stone," which some consider the greatest rock 'n' roll song of all time. The song came out in 1965 and remained on the U.S. charts for 12 weeks after its release.

David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker and a devoted Dylan follower, was just starting school when the song was released.

"'Like a Rolling Stone' I probably heard when I was in kindergarten," Remnick told The Frame.

Fifty years later, Remnick recalls how the song has followed him throughout his life.

"Even as young as I was, 'Like a Rolling Stone' — with that first shot of the drum, and the very length of the song — was just revelatory," Remnick says. "When I was a teenager I was in a band, or a series of bands — none of them any good — but we always played that song. It was thrilling just to sing those words — as badly as I sang them." 

"Like a Rolling Stone" delivers a whopping six minutes and 13 seconds of complex lyrics that many have found confusing as well as profound. For Remnick, the song's prestige moves past merely the lyrical content. 

"It's a song in many ways about romantic resentment," Remnick says. "That is not what spoke to me when I was seven years old, and it's not even necessary what speaks to me now — happily. [Bruce] Springsteen describes hearing that song for the first time, that bang of the snare drum that sets it off, then Al Kooper's organ, Mike Bloomfield's guitar, and the absolute exhilaration of Dylan's voice.

"It is the sound of it. It is not lyrics printed out on a page. It's not the band independent of those lyrics. It is the overall fury of that song. It's just incredibly thrilling — like a certain kind of weather."