Backwoods Blog .179

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN

Backwoods Blog;

in the woods and on the road…

Bob Dylan (1965) Getty Images

Recently, Linda and I have watched two movies that pair nicely as a double-header; “Beatles ’64” which recounts the Beatles first trip to America in February, 1964 directed by Martin Scorsese and “A Complete Unknown” covering Bob Dylan’s arrival in New York and his early years leading up to the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 when Dylan infamously plugged his guitar into an electric amp. Both movies include the assassination of John F. Kennedy as a significant historical event that contributed to each band’s own role as musicians and cultural influencers in those unsettling and changing times. We saw the Dylan movie last week at Temple Cinema, which is nominated for 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actor in a Leading Role. Timothee Chalamet stars as a young Dylan (convincingly), playing and singing over 40 classic Bob songs without over-dubbing. There’s an interesting shot of Dylan (Chalamet) jumping into a yellow taxi with dozens of fans screaming, looking into the cab windows and waving papers for Bob to autograph. It was a scene right out of “A Hard Days Night “ at the height of Beatlemania, but in this case, it was Bob. Walking out of the theater, the film seemed strikingly relevant to these current times that are a-changin’…With that in mind, I am re-posting an earlier Backwoods Blog entry from the summer of 2020 (during the early days of Covid) when Dylan had just released his first album of new music in eight years, which is a long time for Bob. The original post is Backwoods Blog #9

The day that they killed him, someone said to me, “Son

The age of the Antichrist has just only begun.”

I said the soul of a nation been torn away

And it’s beginning to go into a slow decay

And that it’s 36 hours past Judgement Day.

I’m going down to the crossroads, gonna flag a ride

The place where faith, hope, and charity died.

What is the truth, and where did it go?

Ask Oswald and Ruby, they oughta know.

“Shut your mouth,” said the wise old owl

Business is business, and it’s a murder most foul.

Bob Dylan

excerpt from “Murder Most Foul” (2020)

During the coronavirus pandemic Pulitzer Prize winning poet and songwriter Bob Dylan has been releasing new songs leading up to the debut of his latest album “Rough and Rowdy Ways” on June 19th (Columbia Records). The first song “Murder Most Foul” is a 17-minute ballad about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. In its first week the song hit #1 on the Billboard chart, and believe it or not, this is the first #1 hit for Dylan in his 60 year career. Clocking in at 17 minutes it’s not going to get a lot of airplay on the radio, but I don’t think Bob really cares. It reads more like a poem than a hit song; he’s speaking it more than singing it. It has a dirge-like quality with no real beat or melody (and no chorus), and while Bob’s voice is compellingly expressive he has less than a four note range in the song. Dylan’s worn-out, old bluesman’s vocal quality makes him the perfect spokesman to summarize the exhaustive past five decades since JFK’s assassination.

Dylan constructs the song in two ways; around the details of the crime and secondly by creating a playlist of songs from the last fifty years. He invokes the great Wolfman Jack as his DJ for the task:

Rub-a-dub-dub, it’s a murder most foul.

Wolfman Jack, he’s speaking in tongues

He’s going on and on at the top of his lungs.

Play me a song, Mr. Wolfman Jack

Play it for me in my long Cadillac.

Perhaps you remember when Bob Dylan was a DJ on “Theme Time Radio Hour,” a satellite radio show he hosted on Sirius XM (2006-2009). Bob channels his inner-DJ on “Murder Most Foul” making reference to over 70 songs and personalities. (No wonder the song is 17 minutes long.) The best of art draws from and combines currents events, politics, religion, music, poetry and personalities. “Murder Most Foul” is an expansive collage (and soundtrack) that provides a 50 year retrospective of where we’ve been as an American culture. What we need during challenging times such as these is inspiration. We need hope. We need a heart of charity. These are the things that Dylan saw dead on the road, but that can change. If enough people see their way forward more will follow. It’s hard to say what will happen next, but in that first step is the start…

It’s nice to know Bob is still around when we need him.

In the woods,

Dave

January 29, 2025