Day 10: Murder Most Foul Part 1.

By now everyone knows that Dylan released the near 17 minute song, Murder Most Foul, on Friday, March 27. The song weaves impressions of the JFK assassination with requests to the late Wolfman Jack, to play a wide range of music from classical, jazz, folk, country, rock and pop.

Let's take the Don's Basement tour of this song...this may take awhile but I'm staying home a lot these days.

It begins with a bowed bass (I think) scratching across the strings. In happier times, namely last month, Peggy and I were at MOMA on a day off from our grandchild sitting week in February. Peggy spotted a woman organizing a tour.  About  20 strangers gathered in a group lead by a woman...dancer, writer, teacher and lecturer who probably lived in Brooklyn and a stand up bass player whose name we can't remember but is well known in Manhattan jazz circles to view and experience Vir Heroicus Sublimis by Barnett Newman.

1951. Oil on canvas, 7' 11 3/8" x 17' 9 1/4". Much bigger in person

Unidentified leader and bass player

The tour lasted an hour of walking through the museum to the the painting. Experiencing the painting through movement, meditation, staring, breathing, interacting, and not interacting. The leader did not want us to look at our phones but I managed to get this photo.

Note the year of the painting. 1951. One of the most significant years in history. 

My birth. 

#1 Song on my birthday because I couldn't find baby pictures

In the song, Dylan sings, "It was a dark day in Dallas, November '63." Notice how he sings "November 63." It is so Dylan. It made me think of a story about "We Are the World." Dylan was having trouble just singing one part of the song. That was not his thing. 

Here is the Rolling Stone account.

“Stevie,” Dylan asked. “Can you play it one time?” 

Dylan then moved over to the piano, where Wonder coached the voice of a generation through his performance. Initially, Wonder was doing a better impression of Dylan than the man himself, but eventually Dylan’s mumbling vocals blossomed into his distinctive adenoidal wheeze. “‘We are the children,’ that’s nice,” Jones reassured Dylan as he positioned him closer to the microphone. 

“Is that sort of it? Sort of like that?” an uncertain Dylan asked after another take.

 After yet another run-through, he told Jones, “I don’t think that’s any good at all. You could erase that.” But when Jones gave him a hug and told him it was perfect, Dylan’s face lit up with a big smile. “If you say so.”

That's all for today. This song is a gift to my blog that will keep on giving.