Bob Dylan's newly-released nearly 17-minute track, “Murder Most Foul” has debuted at Number One on Billboard's Rock Digital Song Sales chart. According to Billboard, “The song hit 10,000 downloads in its first week and was streamed 1.8 million times in the U.S., which landed it at Number Five on Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs chart. The track also has 2.7 million views on YouTube since debuting on March 26th.”
Now, although most of the press around the new chart placing seems to imply that Dylan's song is a “hit single” — it needs to be noted, that this is not the Billboard Hot 100, which is the primary measure of a popular songs standing on the radio, streaming, and sales. Back in the day, Dylan was a force on Top 40 radio — with 1965's “Like A Rolling Stone” peaking at Number Two and the following year's “Rainy Day Women #12 And 35” also just missing the top spot.
Bob Dylan explained that there are definitely fundamentals to songwriting that everyone needs to abide by: “Well there are certain rules and regulations to it. I mean, you just don't sit down and write a song, y'know what I mean? There's a certain amount of learning you have to, y'know, go through to get to that point and not only living experience, but, I mean, you have to also play an instrument and carry some kind of tune, I guess.”
