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THE SQUARES COLLECTION highlights the artistic career of Bob Dylan while simply questioning, with curious wonder, what he was thinking during those situations. If you are familiar with his early years you knew of his tendencies to make up stories about his past and provide elusive answers about anything he was asked. It was all part of his charm. What was it like being raised in Hibbing, MN? Did you know his bowling team won the championship? What did he think when he saw Buddy Holly? Scroll through all 33 images to enjoy a fun and informative celebration of the iconic, yet very human, Bob Dylan. What were his first thoughts when he got to New York? He’s 82 and back on the road playing concerts day after day. What was it like performing for 250,000 people before MLK’s “I had a dream” speech?The self-framed Premium Metal Prints look spectacular. What was he really thinking when going electric? The Premium Paper Prints are bold and vibrant. How did he feel about Soy Bomb? All of the images are available in various sizes. What was he thinking when he wrote A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall? After exploring all of THE SQUARES, be sure to check out THE LYRIC IMAGES. What did he think about The Beatles… The Pope? When you JOIN our Email list and we’ll keep you up to date when new images are added. What are you thinking? We’d love to hear your comments and suggestions for the next song to illustrate. And what about Wiggle Wiggle? Currently, I’m working on Murder Most Foul. WHAT WAS HE THINKING? Come back and visit often.
A DECK OF MEMORIES will be a great new addition to your Bob Dylan record collection. When you place one on your coffee table your guests won’t be able to put it down. It’s a perfect introduction for a new Dylan fan. Plus, it makes a terrific all-year-round gift, especially for any Bob Dylan enthusiast!
FEATURES: 48 – 6” x 9” CARDS – vividly printed on a glossy, heavyweight card stock, all held in a protective sleeve.
One side of each card displays a timeline spanning Bob Dylan's life and career, starting from his rockin’ teen years in Hibbing to his early folk years in Minneapolis and the clubs of Greenwich Village, New York. It covers his Newport Folk Festival "going electric" moment in 1965, his reclusive years in Woodstock, the time spent in “Big Pink,” and on Music Row in Nashville. From the '74 World Tour with The Band, The Rolling Thunder Review, The Gospel Years, The Traveling Wilburys, and The Never-Ending Tour through the 2021 Rough And Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour.
A DECK OF MEMORIES includes all 33 of the illustrations in THE SQUARES COLLECTION and selected LYRIC IMAGES.
You’ll discover a multitude of facts about Bob Dylan’s life, songs, albums, concerts, videos, movies, artworks, and numerous awards. It also includes a chronological list of his band members, tours, and special performances.
The first 100 decks include a Certificate of Authenticity signed and numbered by the artist.
JOIN our Email List today and let us know that you are interested in purchasing A Deck of Memories. You will be notified when it is available.
The WHAT WAS HE THINKING? LYRIC IMAGES are digitally created compositions illustrating a song's lyrics — literally — the way I heard them the first time, straight-forward without concern as to what Bob Dylan might have meant. It’s all about the visuals. Some reflect a single line or a single verse, while others include imagery for every verse of a song. I believe you'll enjoy listening to the corresponding song while reading its lyrics.
THE CONCERT FOR WOODY
& ALL THE GOOD PEOPLE
Woody Guthrie was Bob Dylan's folk hero. Imagine Bob performing for Woody and many of his other "early 60s" influences, his family, friends, lovers, managers, producers, promoters, fellow performers, and foes. I squeezed in as many as possible from Bob's early years in New York City. I've undoubtedly left some people out, and I'm sure a few got in that don't deserve to be there. Just like a song, eventually, you gotta stop writing it and start playing it — can't please ALL the people ALL the time.
"Song To Woody" was recorded in November 1961 and is one of two original compositions featured on his debut album Bob Dylan released March 19, 1962. The song conveys Dylan's appreciation of the American folk legend and also pays tribute to Woody Guthrie’s contemporaries Cisco Houston, Sonny Terry, Leadbelly (and all the good people who traveled with him).
A 36"W x 24"H Paper Print of this image is included FREE with the purchase of any other image while the supply lasts.
BOB DYLAN
CONTEMPLATING
Blowin’ In the wind
I first heard "Blowin' In The Wind" at a 1964 grade school assembly. A Dominican nun sang while strumming her guitar. Question after question after question that very few pre-teens could answer, let alone understand. Even so, that nun had a habit of getting every student and teacher to sing along. She was not The Singing Nun, but I'm sure we also heard "Dominique" that day.
"Blowin' in the Wind" has been described as an anthem of the civil rights movement. The lyrics pose a series of rhetorical questions touching on important social and political issues, including war, peace, freedom, equality, and justice. With each refrain, Dylan suggests that the answer is so obvious it is right in your face, as an invisible entity.
Dylan claims that he wrote "Blowin' In The Wind" in about 10 minutes during the afternoon of April 16th, 1962, at The Commons Coffeeshop. Perhaps Bob visualized the lyrics like my illustration while he had one more cup of coffee ‘fore he went that evening to Gerde's Folk City in Greenwich Village, New York, where he performed the song, for the first time. He introduced it, saying, "This here ain't no protest song or anything like that 'cause I don't write no protest songs."
What was HE thinking? — In June 1962, the song was published in Sing Out! magazine, accompanied by Dylan's comments: There ain't too much I can say about this song except that the answer is blowing in the wind. It ain't in no book or movie or TV show or discussion group. Man, it's in the wind — and it's blowing in the wind. Too many of these hip people are telling me where the answer is but oh I won't believe that. I still say it's in the wind and just like a restless piece of paper, it's got to come down some...But the only trouble is that no one picks up the answer when it comes down so not too many people get to see and know...and then it flies away. I still say that some of the biggest criminals are those that turn their heads away when they see wrong and know it's wrong. I'm only 21 years old and I know that there's been too many wars...You people over 21, you're older and smarter.
The original was recorded on July 9th, 1962, to be included on his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released in May 1963.
The song was first covered by the Chad Mitchell Trio, but Peter Paul and Mary's single sold 300,000 copies in the first week of release and made the song world-famous. When Peter Yarrow told Dylan he would make more than $5,000 (equivalent to $48,000 in 2022) from the publishing rights, Dylan was speechless.
It soon became the 1960s quintessential protest song.
Critic Andy Gill wrote, ...a song as vague as "Blowin' in the Wind" could be applied to just about any freedom issue. It will always remain the song with which Bob Dylan's name is most inextricably linked and safeguarded his reputation as a civil libertarian through any number of changes in style and attitude.
In 1994, "Blowin' In The Wind" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2004, it ranked #14 on the Rolling Stone magazine list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
According to bobdylan.com, Bob Dylan has performed "Blowin' In The Wind" 1585 times since April 16th, 1962.
So there you have it. And 60 years later, we're still looking for the answers.
JULY 26 1965
THE MORNING AFTER
GOING ELECTRIC
On Sunday night, July 25, 1965, 17,000 folkies came to see and hear the Voice of their Generation. But something was different this time. Bob appeared on stage in a black leather jacket carrying a sunburst, Fender Stratocaster electric guitar. Al Kooper was wearing Dylan's polka-dot shirt. The fans looked confused as his 5-piece backing band plugged in and roared to life.
His opening lyric was an electrifying, "I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more!" It was a musical betrayal to the folk purists – abandoning folk for rock'n'roll. Cries of "Sellout!" and "Get rid of that band!" filled the air. Dylan responded with "Like A Rolling Stone" and its chorus – "How does it feel?" One song later, he walked off stage, leaving the audience stunned. Then he came back out onto the stage alone and played solo acoustic versions of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" by himself.
It wasn't really all over, but everything was different now, for Bob Dylan, for folk music, for rock'n'roll, for the music business, and for us.
Imagine Bob Dylan waking up the next morning in his signature sunglasses and his green polka-dot shirt, then looking straight into the mirror to reflect upon what he had done the night before.
What was HE thinking? — Most would think that he felt victorious. Maybe he said, "Told-ya' so, grandma!" Or was it, "Joan, I mean Suze, I mean Dana, I mean Edie, I mean, Sara...sorry!...what's for breakfast?" Or maybe he was thinking – "Does Fender make an electric toothbrush."
After creating this image, I was reminded of the first verse of "I Shall Be Free No. 10". One commentator said, "I Shall Be Free No. 10" is basically a lark...with a few interesting lines to pick through and puzzle over." Could it be that Bob Dylan was revealing his politics, his social conscience, his sense of humor? Or maybe HE is just average, common too.
Tony Attwood (Bob-Dylan.org.uk) says, "…this shows what a muddle one can get into, trying to sort out Dylan's lyrics as if every line means something. It can be done, but I am not sure it is necessary. I think that Dylan is laughing at himself mostly, but also laughing at those of us who like to analyze his songs … Indeed it is the throwaway lines at the end of this song that have always influenced my view that many songs are made up of abstract images created from words. They are not pointing us to the word of God, nor at every turn commenting on political events (although both do happen at times), but are often just interesting images."
BOB DYLAN
REVISITS HIGHWAY 61
With Bob as our witness, a lot of things went down on Highway 61. I wanted to know more, who was there and why were they there.
The highway connecting Bob Dylan's birthplace of Duluth, Minnesota, to the Delta Blues area of Mississippi happens to be Highway 61. The junction of Highway 61 and Highway 49 is the infamous "crossroads" where bluesman Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil in exchange for talent and fame. Bob never claimed he had done the same.
What was HE thinking? — In his memoir Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan wrote: "Highway 61, the main thoroughfare of the country blues, begins about where I began. I always felt like I'd started on it, always had been on it, and could go anywhere, even down into the deep Delta country. It was the same road, full of the same contradictions, the same one-horse towns, the same spiritual ancestors ... It was my place in the universe, it always felt like it was in my blood."
Each of the song's stanzas describes an unusual problem resolved on Highway 61. It starts with God confronting Abraham (Abraham is the name of Dylan's father). And ends with a gambler trying to create the next world war.
The song is punctuated by the sound of a siren whistle blown by Dylan. Tony Glover's liner notes on Live 1966 say that drummer Sam Lay brought the whistle to the session. Al Kooper swears that he had brought in the whistle to police the sessions — if someone were doing drugs, he'd blow on the whistle. He also claims to have suggested that Dylan substitute it for his harmonica. Then again, just six months later, during the recording of "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35", it was Kooper who insisted that all the musicians were sober. More on that later.
The first sessions to record Bob Dylan's sixth studio album, Highway 61 Revisited, took place June 15th and 16th, 1965, resulting in the single "Like a Rolling Stone," produced by Tom Wilson. On July 25th, Dylan introduced the song the night he went electric at the Newport Folk Festival. Eight days later, on August 2nd, he and his band recorded the title track, "Highway 61 Revisited," with new producer Bob Johnston. The album was released on August 30, 1965.
According to bobdylan.com, "Highway 61 Revisited" has been performed 2000 times. The first was on August 31, 1969, at the Isle of Wight concert. The only songs he has played more times are "All Along The Watchtower" at 2268 performances and "Like A Rolling Stone" at 2075.
BOB DYLAN
& THE LEOPARD-SKIN
PILL-BOX HAT
Bob Dylan's "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" satirically ridicules a female fashionista who wears a hat, most famously worn by the former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. In contrast to the female wearing the hat, the singer suggests they should get together: "...Me with my belt wrapped around my head, And you just sittin' there..." These are the beautifully cinematic lyrics I had to illustrate.
What was HE thinking? — Replying to what the song was about during a 1969 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Dylan replied: "It's just about that. I think that's something I mighta taken out of a newspaper. Mighta seen a picture in a department store window. There's really no more to it than that ... Just a leopard-skin pill-box. That's all."
I may be wrong, but I don't believe the belt around his head ever became fashionable.
Critics have speculated that Andy Warhol's muse, socialite, actress, "It Girl," Edie Sedgwick, inspired the song. Bob met her in 1965 while living at the Chelsea Hotel. Her acquired crush on Dylan came crashing down in November when Bob married Sara Lownds. Eventually, she overdosed and died at 28 in 1971. Many also believe "Just Like A Woman" and "Like A Rolling Stone" were inspired by Sedgwick.
The first six takes of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" were attempted with The Hawks, at Columbia's New York City studios in late January 1966. Those recordings were deemed unsatisfactory. Only one song, "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)," had been successfully recorded during the five New York sessions for Blonde On Blonde.
At Producer Bob Johnston's suggestion, the Blonde On Blonde sessions were moved to Nashville, Tennessee. On February 14th, 1966, an A-Team of studio musicians successfully tracked "Fourth Time Around" and "Visions of Johanna" during the morning session. That evening, the nine "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" takes, again, fell short of Bob's satisfaction.
After two concert dates with The Hawks, Dylan returned to Columbia's Music Row Studio A on March 7th. Just after midnight on March 10th, "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" was recorded in one take, "Obviously 5 Believers" was quickly completed in four. Then, finally, the official album track of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" was recorded in one take with Dylan playing the lead guitar on the song's opening 12 bars and Robbie Robertson handling the solos.
According to bobdylan.com, Bob has performed "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" 535 times since 1966.
BOB DYLAN
LOOKS OUT From
DESOLATION ROW
"Desolation Row" is often ranked as one of Dylan's greatest compositions. It was recorded on August 4, 1965, and released as the closing track of Highway 61 Revisited, the sole acoustic exception on his rock album.
Noted for its length (11:21), Dylan weaves a multitude of characters from history, fiction, the Bible, and his own invention into a series of vignettes, perhaps suggesting the decline of society's order. Poet Philip Larkin described it as a "marathon," with an "enchanting tune and mysterious, half-baked words."
What was HE thinking? — When asked where Desolation Row was located during a press conference, Dylan replied: "Oh, that's someplace in Mexico; it's across the border. It's noted for its Coke factory". Al Kooper suggested it was a stretch of Eighth Avenue, Manhattan, "an area infested with whore houses, sleazy bars, and porno supermarkets." Author Mark Polizzotti suggests the inspiration for the song and its title may have come from Jack Kerouac's Desolation Angels and John Steinbeck's Cannery Row.
It was at an 8th-grade house party when my friend showed his genius by placing "Desolation Row" on the turntable for a memorable twelve-minute-long-slow-dance. With all that time engulfed in the lyrics, I was pretty sure it wasn't a place I wanted to visit.
My illustration will keep you busy for those twelve minutes searching for each character mentioned in the song. From Cinderella to Ophelia to Dr. Filth to T.S. Eliot, they are all there on Desolation Row. Waldo's not there, but Bob is.
Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song number 187 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
BOB DYLAN
HEADIN’ BACK
TO ALL THE JOINTS
"Tangled Up In Blue" was the opening track from Dylan's 15th studio album, Blood On The Tracks, released on January 20, 1975.
Rather than illustrating the song itself, I feel the two lines from the last verse — "But me, I'm still on the road Headin' for another joint" — are appropriate to accompany my collage of Bob Dylan's early years, where it all began, in New York City, in Greenwich Village, on West 4th Street, at Gerde's Folk City and many other joints.
The Daily Telegraph has described "Tangled Up In Blue" as "The most dazzling lyric ever written, an abstract narrative of relationships told in an amorphous blend of first and third person, rolling past, present and future together, spilling out in tripping cadences and audacious internal rhymes, ripe with sharply turned images and observations and filled with a painfully desperate longing.
What was HE thinking? — Dylan has stated that the song took "ten years to live and two years to write." In a 1985 interview, Dylan said that although many people thought that the album Blood On The Tracks was autobiographical, "It didn't pertain to me. It was just a concept of putting in images that defy time…yesterday, today and tomorrow. I wanted to make them all connect in a strange way".
Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song as number 68 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
BOB DYLAN
& THE BROWNSVILLE GIRL
From the 1986 album, Knocked Out Loaded, "Brownsville Girl" was recorded in May and released in July. Dylan has only performed a partial version of the song live once, at a concert on August 6, 1986, in Paso Robles, California.
The song is a reworked version of a December 1984 outtake from the Empire Burlesque sessions entitled "New Danville Girl". Bob co-wrote "Brownsville Girl" with playwright Sam Shepard. Dylan's hero Woody Guthrie recorded a song titled "Danville Girl" with lyrics echoed in "Brownsville Girl".
Throughout the 11-minute, 21-verse desert road trip, the singer interrupts his recollections of the Brownsville Girl to describe the plot of a Western movie starring Gregory Peck that he saw once (but believes he 'sat through it twice'). The verse I’ve illustrated is where the singer and his companion stop to visit Henry Porter but only encounter Ruby who wants to know how far they were going. They answer "…’til the wheels fall off and the water mocassin dies…”
If there ever was a Dylan song that should be a movie, this is it. In fact, it was announced (rumored?) in 2010 that director Scott Cooper was working with writer Jay Cocks, producer Irwin Winkler, and Brad Pitt. That was 13 years ago, and some are still holding their breath.
Although Knocked Out Loaded received poor reviews, some critics consider "Brownsville Girl" one of Dylan's best songs. Robert Christgau praised it as "one of the greatest and most ridiculous of Dylan's great ridiculous epics.
Nevertheless, in recent years with lines like "Oh, if there's an original thought out there, I could use it right now" and "I don't have any regrets, they can talk about me plenty when I'm gone." the album has gained a cult following among some Dylan fans who believe it is one of his least-understood works.
Still, the critical consensus remains negative, with Rolling Stone calling it a "career-killer" and "the absolute bottom of the Dylan barrel," respectively.
What was HE thinking? — I don't think Bob cares what the critics thought.
BOB DYLAN
KNOWS MR. JONES
As a 13-year-old in 1965, I thought "Ballad Of A Thin Man" was, lyrically, one of the weirdest songs I had ever heard. Geeks, midgets, and camels, Oh my!
At that time, I was not reading what music critics were writing. I was more concerned that my sheepshank knot was correctly tied. And for the longest time, I had no idea what was happening there.
So many interpretations. Pick one, and without a doubt, the next guy will choose another.
Critic Andy Gill called it "one of Dylan's most unrelenting inquisitions, a furious, sneering, dressing-down of a hapless bourgeois intruder into the hipster world of freaks and weirdos which Dylan now inhabited." He also refers to "a fascinating, albeit slightly tenuous, interpretation of the song as 'outing' a homosexual."
Mike Marqusee described the song as one of "the purest songs of protest ever," with Dylan looking at the media and its inability to comprehend him and his music.
Biographer Robert Shelton describes Mr. Jones as "a person who does not see, superficially educated and well-bred but not very smart about the things that count."
What was HE thinking? — In 1990 Dylan said: "There were a lot of Mr. Joneses at that time. (1965) Obviously, there must have been a tremendous amount of them for me to write that particular song."
With Bob on piano, Mike Bloomfield on lead guitar, Bobby Gregg on drums, Harvey Brooks on bass, and Al Kooper on spooky organ, the song was recorded for Highway 61 Revisited on August 2, 1965.
According to bobdylan.com, "Ballad Of A Thin Man" is Bob's sixth most performed song, having played it 1253 times.
BOB DYLAN
THINKIN’ ABOUT DRINKIN’
HEAVEN’S DOOR
"Knocking' On Heaven's Door" was written for the soundtrack of the 1973 film Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.
Rudy Wurlitzer, the film's screenwriter, told the story of how the song was written: "Bob wrote the film score in Mexico City, but before that, one night when we were returning to Durango from Mexico City — I forget why we were there – he said he wanted to write something for Slim Pickens' death scene, which was due to be shot the next day. He scrawled something on the airplane and showed it to me line by line, and when we got off the plane, there it was, "Knockin' On Heaven's Door."
Wurlitzer also helped Dylan get his role: "When Dylan heard that a Billy the Kid film was in the works, he came to see me wanting to know if there was any way he could be a part of it. He said he was Billy the Kid in a past life. After I wrote a part for him, we flew to Durango so that he could meet Sam Peckinpah (the director). We walked up to his house after dinner, where Sam was drinking alone in his bedroom and staring at himself in a full-length mirror. He turned to Dylan and said, "I'm a big Roger Miller fan myself. Not much use for your stuff."
After Dylan performed "Billy" for Peckinpah, he was offered the role of a character named Alias, a quiet stranger who liked to play with a knife. In November 1972, Bob moved his family to the filming location, Durango, Mexico.
The film's production was plagued with problems: too many stars, not enough money, too many reshoots, not enough time scheduled, not enough money, malfunctioning cameras, influenza, alcoholism, not enough time to edit, irritated directors, and financial backers. Most of the actors in the film, along with the production crew, passed through Hell's Door rather than Heaven's.
During the 1973 studio sessions, Dylan recorded a short chorus for a song called "Rock Me Mama" that was not included on the soundtrack. However, it did end up on a bootleg recording which Ketch Secor of the Nashville band Old Crow Medicine Show discovered some 25 years later. Secor took it upon himself to write a complete lyric and record the song as "Wagon Wheel" in 2003. Darius Rucker covered it in 2013. Both of which became Chart Hits, and played so often the song is banned in some establishments.
When first released the movie was a box-office failure. Critics and the Hollywood elite panned the movie but eventually became a cult classic after it was re-released on Laserdisc in 1988 and again in 2005 on DVD. Empire magazine ranked it 126 on their list of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. Dylan's soundtrack was nominated for a Best Original Score Grammy. Bob was not nominated for his part as Alias.
Two months after the film's premiere, "Knocking' On Heaven's Door" was released as a single and became a Top 10 hit in several countries. It became one of Dylan's most popular and most covered compositions. Over 500 artists have performed it over 5000 times. Bob has performed it some 460 times, according to bobdylan.com.
What was HE thinking? (With regards to the illustration), — Perhaps, with all the time spent in the hot, dry Mexican desert sitting around waiting for scenes to be reshot, MAYBE he was thinking 50 years into the future, having visions about shots of Heaven's Door Straight Bourbon Tennessee Whiskey and a Pleasureville, Kentucky distillery instead of guns and bullets.
Sounds like Heaven to me.
BOB DYLAN
& The RAINY DAY WOMEN
"Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" is the opening track of the 1966 album, Blonde On Blonde. The track was recorded at Nashville Studio A of Columbia Records in the early hours (12 a.m.) on March 10, 1966.
Dylan plays harmonica, Al Kooper plays tambourine. Nashville A-Team Session Musicians included: Charlie McCoy on trumpet; Wayne "Doc" Butler on trombone; Wayne Moss on bass; Kenny Buttrey on drums; Henry Strzelecki on organ, and Hargus" Pig" Robbins on piano. Much laughter and shouting in the background accompanies the song, with Dylan laughing several times during his vocal delivery. The song's title does not appear anywhere in the lyrics, and there has been much debate over the title's meaning and the chorus, "Everybody must get stoned." This has made the song controversial, labeled by some as a drug song.
The actual account of the recording session remains part of Bob Dylan folklore. My illustration commemorates that moment in music history.
Session logs indicate the song was rehearsed and then recorded in one take. Before the take, Robbie Robertson left the studio to buy cigarettes and missed the recording. Producer Bob Johnston asked Dylan for the song's title, and Dylan replied, "A Long-Haired Mule and a Porcupine Here". Johnston suggested that "it would sound great Salvation Army style," so Charlie McCoy called "Doc" Butler, who quickly showed up with his trombone. Moss recalled a studio employee was sent to an Irish bar to obtain Leprechaun cocktails. Robbins and Strzelecki claimed they "got pretty wiped out" from smoking a "huge amount" of marijuana. McCoy and Kooper denied it all, saying Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman, would not have permitted pot or drink in the studio.
Whether or not they were "stoned," these Nashville Cats created three phenomenal songs that night: "I Want You," "Obviously Five Believers," and "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat.
What was HE thinking? — When Dylan was first asked about the meaning of his new hit single. Dylan replied the song was about "cripples and orientals and the world in which they live ... It's a sort of Mexican thing, very protest ... and one of the protestiest of all things I've protested against in my protest years." He also said, "I never have and never will write a drug song."
In a 2012 interview in Rolling Stone, Mikal Gilmour asked Dylan if he worried about "misguided" interpretations of his songs, adding: "For example, some people still see "Rainy Day Women" as coded about getting high." Dylan responded: "It doesn't surprise me that some people would see it that way. But these are people that aren't familiar with the Book of Act. David Yaffe, writer for The Village Voice, felt that it was "the equation between toking up and a public stoning that made it Dylanesque."
According to bobdylan.com the first performance of "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" was at the Isle of Wight Festival on August 31, 1969. With 963 it comes in as his 11th most played song of over 700 in his playbook.
It's been more than 50 years, and the mystery continues.
BOB DYLAN
CONTEMPLATING
MURDER MOST FOUL
Bob Dylan arrived in New York just four days after John Kennedy took office and moved into The White House on January 20, 1961.
In May of 1963 Dylan released “I Shall Be Free” which contained the lyrics: …It’s President Kennedy callin’ me up. He said, “My friend, Bob, what do we need to make the country grow?” I said, “My friend, John, Brigitte Bardot, Anita Ekberg, Sophia Loren… The country will grow”.
Six months later, on November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated.
Three weeks later on December, 13th, 1963, upon accepting the Tom Paine Award Dylan delivered an inebriated speech in which he seemingly expressed sympathy for the accused gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald.
What was HE thinking? — Well, he has never performed “I Shall Be Free”. The fury from the worldwide press over his speech did not bring about an apology, but rather a soon-forgotten written explanation about the incident. Then, nearly 60 years later, on March 27, 2020, he released “Murder Most Foul”, the 10th and final track on his 39th studio album, Rough and Rowdy Ways. Lasting 16 minutes, and 56 seconds, it is the longest song he ever released. It was the first piece of original music Dylan had released in eight years. The song addresses the assassination of John F. Kennedy, politically and culturally. Generating an enormous amount of commentary, it became his first track to top any Billboard (US Rock Digital Song Sales) chart.
Dylan — “I’m not aware of ever wanting to write a song about J.F.K.” — “Murder Most Foul” is about a crime, not a politician… “I don’t think of ‘Murder Most Foul’ as a glorification of the past or some kind of send-off to a lost age. It speaks to me in the moment. It always did, especially when I was writing the lyrics out”.
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All images created by Dan Carpenter
Email: Artwords@currently.com
