Ballad of Easy Rider

"Ballad of Easy Rider"
1969 Norwegian picture sleeve.
Single by The Byrds
from the album Ballad of Easy Rider
B-side	"Oil in My Lamp" "Wasn't Born to Follow"
Released	October 1, 1969
Format	7" single
Recorded	June 18, 1969, Columbia Studios, Hollywood, CA
Genre	Country rock
Length	2:01
Label	Columbia
Writer(s)	Roger McGuinn Bob Dylan (uncredited)
Producer(s)	Terry Melcher
The Byrds singles chronology
"Wasn't Born to Follow" (1969) "Ballad of Easy Rider" (1969) "Jesus Is Just Alright" (1969)

"Ballad of Easy Rider" is a song written by Roger McGuinn with input from Bob Dylan (although Dylan is not credited as a co-writer) for the 1969 film, Easy Rider. The song was initially released in August 1969 on the Easy Rider soundtrack album as a Roger McGuinn solo performance. It was later issued in an alternate version as a single by McGuinn's band The Byrds on October 1, 1969. The Byrds' single reached #65 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was issued in most international territories, although it was not released in the United Kingdom. Senior editor for Rolling Stone magazine David Fricke has described the song as perfectly capturing the social mood of late 1969 and highlighting "the weary blues and dashed expectations of a decade's worth of social insurrection."

The star and script writer of Easy Rider, Peter Fonda, had initially intended to use Bob Dylan's song "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" in the film but after failing to license the track, Fonda asked Roger McGuinn of The Byrds to record a cover version of the song instead. Fonda also wanted Dylan to write the film's theme song but Dylan declined, quickly scribbling the lines - "The river flows, it flows to the sea/Wherever that river goes, that's where I want to be/Flow, river, flow" - on to a napkin, before telling Fonda to "give this to McGuinn. He'll know what to do with it." The lyric fragment was dutifully passed on to McGuinn, who took the lines and expanded upon them with his own lyrical and musical contributions to produce the finished song.

When Dylan saw a private screening of Easy Rider and realised that he had been credited as co-writer of the film's theme song, he telephoned McGuinn and demanded that his name be removed from both the film's closing credits and all subsequent releases of the song. McGuinn has theorised in interviews that Dylan disowned the song because "he didn't like the movie that much. He didn't like the ending. He wanted to see the truck blow up in order to get poetic justice. He didn't seem to understand Peter Fonda's anti-hero concept." Others have speculated that Dylan's reason for insisting his co-writing credit be removed was the belief that his name was being exploited to boost the film's street credibility.