"Positively 4th Street" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, first recorded in New York City on July 29, 1965. It was released as a single by Columbia Records on September 7, 1965, reaching on Canada's RPM chart, on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and on the UK Singles Chart. Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song as in their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. The song was released between Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, as the follow-up to Dylan's hit single "Like a Rolling Stone", but was not included on either album. The song's title does not appear anywhere in the lyrics and there has been much debate over the years as to the significance or which individual the song concerns. An unreleased promo spot of the song can be found on the No Direction Home DVD special features. Recording sessions and release The master take of "Positively 4th Street" was recorded on July 29, 1965, during the mid-June to early August recording sessions that produced all of the material that appeared on Dylan's 1965 album, Highway 61 Revisited. The song was the last to be attempted that day, with Dylan and a variety of session musicians having already successfully recorded master takes of "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" and "Tombstone Blues". The studio band on "Positively 4th Street" featured Bobby Gregg (drums), Russ Savakus (bass), Frank Owens (piano), Al Kooper (organ) and Mike Bloomfield (guitar), with the song initially being logged on the studio's official recording session documentation under the working title of "Black Dally Rue". Although the song was recorded during the Highway 61 Revisited sessions, and shares much stylistically with the tracks on that album, it was saved for a single-only release, eventually charting in the top ten on both sides of the Atlantic. 17,000 early copies of the "Positively 4th Street" single were mis-pressed, with an outtake version of "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" (a song that Dylan later released as his next single) appearing on the A-side in place of "Positively 4th Street". Critic Dave Marsh praised the song as "an icy hipster bitch session" with "Dylan cutting loose his barbed-wire tongue at somebody luckless enough to have crossed the path of his desires." The song was later included on the U.S. version of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, as well