The title of the set, “The Cutting Edge,” a hackneyed expression about being at the forefront of a movement, is used ironically by Dylan in his 2004 memoir
Chronicles: Volume One when writing about the music scene of the late 1950s and early 1960s. He proleptically describes the era by alluding to
the Rock Era that had not yet arrived: :''[John Hammond] saw me as someone in the long line of a tradition, the tradition of blues, jazz and folk and not as some newfangled wunderkind on
the cutting edge. Not that there was any cutting edge. Things were pretty sleepy on the Americana music scene in the late '50s and early '60s. Popular radio was sort of at a standstill and filled with empty pleasantries. It was years before The Beatles, The Who or The Rolling Stones would breathe new life and excitement into it.'' He also uses it later in chapter 5, "River of Ice" when describing "
Pirate Jenny": :
I took the song apart and unzipped it -- it was the form, the free verse association, the structure and disregard for the known certainty of melodic patterns to make it seriously matter, give it its cutting edge. ==Singles reproductions==