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Dylan mentions FERRIE and BANISTER in his lyrics!!!


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http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/03/how-bob-dylans-new-jfk-song-helps-explain-2020

 

Can we learn something about our predicament from looking back at the Kennedy assassination? Is that where things really started to go wrong? Maybe. Maybe that’s why Dylan has finally decided to wrestle in public with the legacy of the decade he helped define.

 

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This is amazing.

 

The song has 1.7 million views in like less than 48 hours!

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22 hours ago, Vince Palamara said:

Deciphering Dylan [selected EXCERPTS]:

"Slide down the [GUY] banister, go get your coat

[DAVID] Ferry 'cross the Mersey and go for the throat

 

There's three bums comin' all dressed in rags [THE THREE TRAMPS]

 

There's a party going on behind the Grassy Knoll [CONSPIRACY/SHOOTERS PLURAL]

 

Put your foot in the tank and then step on the gas

Try to make it to the triple underpass [GREER AND THE SLOWING OF THE LIMO]

 

Being led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb

He said, "Wait a minute, boys, you know who I am?"

"Of course we do, we know who you are!" [SECRET SERVICE...BETRAYAL?]

 

What is the truth, and where did it go?

Ask Oswald and Ruby, they oughta know

 

We've already got someone here to take your place [LBJ]

 

Thousands were watching, no one saw a thing

It happened so quickly, so quick, by surprise

Right there in front of everyone's eyes

Greatest magic trick ever under the sun

Perfectly executed, skillfully done

 

Hold on, I've been led into some kind of a trap

 

They mutilated his body and they took out his brain

What more could they do? They piled on the pain [LIFTON BODY ALTERATION THEORY]

 

Throw the gun in the gutter and walk on by [STORM DRAIN THEORY]

 

That magic bullet of yours has gone to my head [SINGLE BULLET THEORY]

 

I'm just a patsy ["I'M JUST A PATSY"-LHO] like Patsy Cline

 

Never shot anyone from in front or behind ["I DIDN'T SHOOT ANYONE, NO SIR"]

 

Zapruder's film I seen night before

 

They killed him once [ASSASSINATION] and they killed him twice [CHARACTER ASSASSINATION]

 

Play it for that strip club owner named Jack [RUBY]

 

Don't worry, Mr. President, help's on the way

Your brothers are comin', there'll be hell to pay [AG RFK, TEDDY]

Hush, little children, you'll understand

The Beatles are coming, there gonna hold your hand...

Perhaps an allusion to the song "Hush Little Baby" that begins 

Hush, little baby, don't say a word,

Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird.

Operation Mockingbird?

 

 

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6 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Just for a little more pop music history of the period,  if you were listening to nighttime AM across most of the nation you picked up Chicago's WLS and DJ's Art Laboe,  Art Roberts and Dick Biondi....but none as famous as the Wolfman and none with their own song, by the Guess Who no less. 

 

I've got this on a cassette tape.  Hadn't listened to it in years.  Thanks.

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Don't forget, Wolfman was in American Graffiti (1973), playing a version of his legendary big-watt-DJ character.  The role made him a media star in the 1970s: the Guess Who song, a syndicated oldies radio show, hosting Midnight Special on TV.  His hirsute big-daddy image was probably the template for Hulk Hogan in the 1980s, and for (shudder) Dog the Bounty Hunter in our own ugly times.

A certain familial resemblance also between Wolfman and Russell "The Weird Beard" Knight, Dallas' outsider DJ and object of Jack Ruby's interest in the Oswald media pool.  I'm surprised Weird Beard doesn't rate a mention in the Dylan song.

Wolfman's hour cometh, below.  His greatest fame was behind him, but his successes lay ahead:

 

Edited by David Andrews
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I walked to the Belaire Theater in Hurst Texas on Christmas day with friends after the family dinners to see this.  Seeing Opie in this role along with the rest of the movie had a profound effect on me.  As did seeing Gimme Shelter a few weeks later.  Sort of a Penny Lane to This is Rock and Roll metamorphosis.  FM radio woke me up.  Album cuts, no commercials.

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IMO, I think Dylan is referring to the Wolfman from the Lucas film.

That film, like his song, is really an elegy for America before the JFK assassination.  If you recall, the tag line in the ads was "Where were you in '62?"

The powerful ending tracks the male characters after that year, and if I recall, two of them died in Vietnam.   As one critic said, the film pictured American youth hurtling headlong into disaster.  Its a world that was brought to a crashing end.  Lucas captured it really well.  And Wolfman spinning his vinyl records, with his dual personality, was a part of that.

All of this was later amplified by Stone's film and Newman's book.  And this is what I think Dylan is saying.  He is echoing a previous film elegy.

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The blacklisted screenwriter-director Abraham Lincoln Polonsky once remaked to me of AMERICAN GRAFFITI, "How could anybody be nostalgic for 1962?"

And the expatriate American director Richard Lester said to me about his film A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (released July 1964), "The Beatles

picture is dated, if you like, by its naive optimism. But that is precisely because one FELT naively optimistic at that time, despite

the fact that it happened a year [after] the Kennedy assassination, not long after the Bay of Pigs. In hindsight, I suppose there was

nothing to be optimistic about. But people WERE."
 

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It's a mistake to assume Dylan was anti-pop. Dylan started out as a wanna-be rock n roller, discovered folk and Woody Guthrie, made a name for himself as the next Woody, and then tried to make his way back to his pop/rock n roll roots. The signal of the "Mexican Radio" station broadcasting Wolfman Jack's radio show reached most of the country. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Dylan grew up listening to Wolfman Jack on the radio, and considered him a hero.

Now, that said, Dylan is the king of double-meanings. As a result, it wouldn't surprise me at all if he mentioned Wolfman Jack in part to conjure up the image of Jack Ruby as The Wolfman. The Wolfman, after all,  occasionally lost all self-control, and became homicidal, much as Belli claimed for Ruby.

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20 hours ago, George Govus said:

The favorite Dylan show I saw was July 10, '87, in JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. Backed by my personal favorite band, the Grateful Dead. Garcia even broke out his pedal steel guitar for "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight."  Now I wonder if Dylan had a hand in them playing that venue in particular.

The Dead returned to JFK stadium in 1989. It was noticeably in poor shape. For an encore they played "Knocking On Heaven's Door." That was the last performance, the stadium was condemned just days later.

Saw that tour at Anaheim stadium.... was also at the Dec ‘87, 3 show return at Oakland Coliseum ....

Also saw Bob with Tom Petty and band as backup at the Greek in Berkeley....  I sure miss Jerry...

Jerry’s Visions of Johanna was always a fav...

keep on truckin’ George

DJ

 

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Dylan is performing at the Greek theater in Berkeley this June. I’ve got tix. Haven’t seen him since his first rock and roll tour (I was disappointed like so many others). My hunch is the upcoming concert will not happen though. 

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27 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Haven’t seen him since his first rock and roll tour (I was disappointed like so many others).

If you listen to the live recordings of the 1966 tour, it sounds like genius now.  Like Pat says, he always wanted to be a rock & roller, but he did it with his characteristic brains and wit, wit that (unlike some of his earlier, jokey "talking blues" songs) got deeper and darker and was already steeped in musical ethnography.

This is a great re-introduction to the period, featuring a hypnotic acoustic set that is perfect bedtime listening:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bootleg_Series_Vol._4:_Bob_Dylan_Live_1966,_The_"Royal_Albert_Hall"_Concert

Where did you see him in 1966?  Hollywood Bowl?

Edited by David Andrews
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David - in was in NY, I think New Paltz. Do you have a list of cities on that tour?

checking this, must have been White Plains NY.

 

Edited by Paul Brancato
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