Bob Dylan song from who knows?

[O. Austrud]

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/bob-dylan-n...nb7-Uw9TW8

And why NOW is is he coming out with this?  Song allegeddly written 17 years ago. Must be a reason.  The whole world is chaos. Dylan knows more than most of us.  Looks like he's on the good side.

[O. Austrud]

Bob Dylan – ‘Murder Most Foul’ lyrics:

Twas a dark day in Dallas, November ’63
A day that will live on in infamy
President Kennedy was a-ridin’ high
Good day to be livin’ and a good day to die
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.”
Then they blew off his head while he was still in the car
Shot down like a dog in broad daylight
Was a matter of timing and the timing was right
You got unpaid debts; we’ve come to collect
We’re gonna kill you with hatred; without any respect
We’ll mock you and shock you and we’ll put it in your face
We’ve already got someone here to take your place

The day they blew out the brains of the king
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
Wolfman, oh wolfman, oh wolfman howl
Rub-a-dub-dub, it’s a murder most foul

Hush, little children. You’ll understand
The Beatles are comin’; they’re gonna hold your hand
Slide down the banister, go get your coat
Ferry ‘cross the Mersey and go for the throat
There’s three bums comin’ all dressed in rags
Pick up the pieces and lower the flags
I’m going to Woodstock; it’s the Aquarian Age
Then I’ll go to Altamont and sit near the stage
Put your head out the window; let the good times roll
There’s a party going on behind the Grassy Knoll

Stack up the bricks, pour the cement
Don’t say Dallas don’t love you, Mr. President
Put your foot in the tank and step on the gas
Try to make it to the triple underpass
Blackface singer, whiteface clown
Better not show your faces after the sun goes down
Up in the red light district, they’ve got cop on the beat
Living in a nightmare on Elm Street

When you’re down in Deep Ellum, put your money in your shoe
Don’t ask what your country can do for you
Cash on the ballot, money to burn
Dealey Plaza, make left-hand turn
I’m going down to the crossroads; gonna flag a ride
The place where faith, hope, and charity died
Shoot him while he runs, boy. Shoot him while you can
See if you can shoot the invisible man
Goodbye, Charlie. Goodbye, Uncle Sam
Frankly, Miss Scarlett, I don’t give a damn

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

Tommy, can you hear me? I’m the Acid Queen
I’m riding in a long, black limousine
Riding in the backseat next to my wife
Heading straight on in to the afterlife
I’m leaning to the left; got my head in her lap
Hold on, I’ve been led into some kind of a trap
Where we ask no quarter, and no quarter do we give
We’re right down the street from the street where you live
They mutilated his body, and they took out his brain
What more could they do? They piled on the pain
But his soul’s not there where it was supposed to be at
For the last fifty years they’ve been searchin’ for that

Freedom, oh freedom. Freedom cover me
I hate to tell you, mister, but only dead men are free
Send me some lovin’; tell me no lies
Throw the gun in the gutter and walk on by
Wake up, little Susie; let’s go for a drive
Cross the Trinity River; let’s keep hope alive
Turn the radio on; don’t touch the dials
Parkland hospital, only six more miles

You got me dizzy, Miss Lizzy. You filled me with lead
That magic bullet of yours has gone to my head
I’m just a patsy like Patsy Cline
Never shot anyone from in front or behind
I’ve blood in my eye, got blood in my ear
I’m never gonna make it to the new frontier
Zapruder’s film I seen night before
Seen it 33 times, maybe more
It’s vile and deceitful. It’s cruel and it’s mean
Ugliest thing that you ever have seen
They killed him once and they killed him twice
Killed him like a human sacrifice

The day that they killed him, someone said to me, “Son
The age of the Antichrist has only begun.”
Air Force One coming in through the gate
Johnson sworn in at 2:38
Let me know when you decide to thrown in the towel
It is what it is, and it’s murder most foul

What’s new, pussycat? What’d I say?
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 Judgment Day

Wolfman Jack, 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
Play me that ‘Only the Good Die Young’
Take me to the place Tom Dooley was hung
Play St. James Infirmary and the Court of King James
If you want to remember, you better write down the names
Play Etta James, too. Play ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’
Play it for the man with the telepathic mind
Play John Lee Hooker. Play ‘Scratch My Back’.
Play it for that strip club owner named Jack
Guitar Slim going down slow
Play it for me and for Marilyn Monroe

Play ‘Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’
Play it for the First Lady, she ain’t feeling any good
Play Don Henley, play Glenn Frey
Take it to the limit and let it go by
Play it for Karl Wirsum, too
Looking far, far away at Down Gallow Avenue
Play tragedy, play “Twilight Time”
Take me back to Tulsa to the scene of the crime
Play another one and “Another One Bites the Dust”
Play “The Old Rugged Cross” and “In God We Trust”
Ride the pink horse down the long, lonesome road
Stand there and wait for his head to explode
Play “Mystery Train” for Mr. Mystery
The man who fell down dead like a rootless tree
Play it for the Reverend; play it for the Pastor
Play it for the dog that got no master
Play Oscar Peterson. Play Stan Getz
Play “Blue Sky”; play Dickey Betts
Play Art Pepper, Thelonious Monk
Charlie Parker and all that junk
All that junk and “All That Jazz”
Play something for the Birdman of Alcatraz
Play Buster Keaton, play Harold Lloyd
Play Bugsy Siegel, play Pretty Boy Floyd
Play the numbers, play the odds
Play “Cry Me A River” for the Lord of the gods
Play number 9, play number 6
Play it for Lindsey and Stevie Nicks
Play Nat King Cole, play “Nature Boy”
Play “Down In The Boondocks” for Terry Malloy
Play “It Happened One Night” and “One Night of Sin”
There’s 12 Million souls that are listening in
Play “Merchant of Venice”, play “Merchants of Death”
Play “Stella by Starlight” for Lady Macbeth

Don’t worry, Mr. President. Help’s on the way
Your brothers are coming; there’ll be hell to pay
Brothers? What brothers? What’s this about hell?
Tell them, “We’re waiting. Keep coming.” We’ll get them as well

Love Field is where his plane touched down
But it never did get back up off the ground
Was a hard act to follow, second to none
They killed him on the altar of the rising sun
Play “Misty” for me and “That Old Devil Moon”
Play “Anything Goes” and “Memphis in June”
Play “Lonely At the Top” and “Lonely Are the Brave”
Play it for Houdini spinning around his grave
Play Jelly Roll Morton, play “Lucille”
Play “Deep In a Dream”, and play “Driving Wheel”
Play “Moonlight Sonata” in F-sharp
And “A Key to the Highway” for the king on the harp
Play “Marching Through Georgia” and “Dumbarton’s Drums”
Play darkness and death will come when it comes
Play “Love Me Or Leave Me” by the great Bud Powell
Play “The Blood-stained Banner”, play “Murder Most Foul”

[Lauren Johnson]

---

The release of Bob Dylan's new song "Murder Most Foul" at this point in time - in the middle of an unprecedented pandemic gives reporters, media people and writers something different to discuss other than the virus, disease, death and the complete shutdown of most major social institutions.

While most of the commentary is not worth repeating, a few stand out so I will quote some of them.

For starters, the title originates from Shakespier’s Hamlet (I.v. 27-28) in which the Ghost comments: “Murder most foul as in the best it is/ But most foul, strange and unnatural.”

Though I also think that Dylan was probably also influenced by Stanley J. Mark‘s $1.95 pamphlet “Murder Most Foul” – subtitled – “The Conspiracy That Murdered President Kennedy – 975 Questions and Answers.” Stanley Mark was a Jewish academic who also ranted in pamphlets about Catholics.

The video of Dylan’s reciting of the lyrics with soft piano accompaniment has been heard by almost 2 million listeners in two days, and is the subject of numerous articles and media reports,  most of the commentary is not worth repeating, a few stand out so I will quote them.

Greg Parker: https://gregrparker.com/forums/topic/murder-most-foul-bob-dylan/

"Only a man who once lived by the dictum 'Don't Look Back' could look back with such somber clarity." 

- Alex Wilson

This song seems to have been written at the time of the 50th anniversary as it mentions the search for the soul of JFK had been going for 50 years. Seven years ago. That's a long time sitting on a song with this kind of impact.  Not many people can weave the paint from a black and white palette and not end up with a dull grey canvas.

And black and white it is. An old movie reel. With the fog rolling in, we see the Beatles rolling out of the Cavern, suddenly ducking as they rock down Elm St. And was that the Acid Queen they passed as she morphs into JFK falling into Jackie's lap?

Suddenly we are in a kaleidoscope of cultural references intersecting at odd angles... Dylan the  prize-fighter using the broken rhythm method so no one knows when the next blow is coming or where it is coming from.

In the end, it can be recognized as just the ordinary flow of history put in its proper poetic context.

And the takeout is unequivocal. A domestic plot and a patsy flicking the switch on the tracks with barely a blip in the continuum. After all, who has to time to recognize fleeting ghosts from parallel realities on a runaway mystery train?

Unsentimental, yet drawing tears. Unrelenting, yet you want it to go on.

Proof of the pen and the synapses between it and the ciphering Muse.  Dylan as Alan Turing. 

Ben Wecht:  Thanks for sharing, William Kelly! I finally took the time to give it a listen, and the first thing I have to say is that despite its melodic weakness, I find it hauntingly beautiful. The piano, the violin, the lyrics. Tear-inducing, to be honest. Beyond that, I find the abundance of cultural references reminiscent of The Wasteland, which speaks to the splintering of meaning and experience in modern times. Finally, it's good to see/hear a great mind report on this "murder most foul" accurately -- "*they* blew off his head," "*We're* gonna kill you," "*We'll* mock you," etc. etc. Bobby D ain't no fool for these coincidence theorists still spouting bullshit all these decades later! THANK YOU, Mr. Dylan! THANK YOU!

David Talbot: Bob Dylan, whose newly released bombshell of a song "Murder Most Foul" blows away the stone from JFK's tomb, is belatedly following a long line of artists and dignitaries who denounced the Kennedy assassination as a conspiracy and cover-up. In fact, back in 1966 an independent New York researcher named Charles Stanton took it upon himself to distribute a questionnaire about the Warren Report, the official inquiry that blamed the assassination on the conveniently dead "lone gunman" Lee Harvey Oswald (who went to his grave shouting he was a "patsy," as Dylan observes in his song). Among the prominent respondents to the Stanton questionnaire who rejected the Warren Report and asserted Kennedy was the victim of a plot were: poets Allen Ginsberg (pictured here with Dylan) and Kenneth Rexroth; writers Ray Bradbury, Paddy Chayevsky, Katherine Anne Porter and Terry Southern ("Dr. Strangelove"); British intellectuals Bertrand Russell, Arnold Toynbee and Hugh Trevor Roper; and the famed "Kon Tiki" explorer Thor Heyerdahl.

In addition, musician David Crosby famously introduced the Byrds' tribute to JFK, "He Was a Friend of Mine," onstage at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival by telling the crowd (to his bandmates' great unease): "President Kennedy wasn't killed by one man -- he was shot from several directions. The truth has been suppressed. You should know that. This is your country."

And comedians Dick Gregory (pictured here) and Mort Sahl mounted crusades against the Kennedy conspiracy, which led to blacklists and damage to their show business careers.

The scorn about the official story was also widely shared by world leaders like French President Charles de Gaulle (pictured below), who told an aide after returning from Kennedy's funeral that pinning the crime on the dead Oswald was "baloney!"

De Gaulle -- who himself was the target of multiple assassination attempts by far-right, militarist plotters -- enjoyed a more loyal security force than Kennedy did and was very informed about the dark labyrinth of intelligence agencies. The French president confided at length about Dallas to his aide, telling him:
"Security forces all over the world are the same when they do this kind of dirty work. As soon as they succeed in wiping out the false assassin, they declare that the justice system no longer need be concerned, that no further public action was needed now that the guilty perpetrator was dead. Better to kill an innocent man (Oswald) than to let a civil war break out. Better an injustice than disorder."

The savvy de Gaulle rightly predicted how the American establishment, including the mainstream media, would close ranks behind the official cover-up of the Kennedy assassination. "They don't want to know. They don't want to find out. They won't allow themselves to find out."

Some in Washington did immediately figure out JFK was killed by a conspiracy and astonishingly they privately communicated this explosive information to our Cold War "enemies" in the Kremlin -- namely the murdered president's brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and JFK's widow, Jacqueline Kennedy.

Despite all this truth-telling at high levels, the corporate media STILL has its head in the sand about Dallas.

PS One of the prominent respondents to the 1966 Stanton questionnaire who did strongly support the Warren Report was Allen Dulles, the CIA spymaster who had been fired by President Kennedy. Dulles was not only the main architect of the crime, but as a leading member of the Warren Commission, also the cover-up.

Read more about all of this in my books "The Devil's Chessboard" and "Brothers."

And David's latest: “Between Heaven and Hell.”

Will Ruha:  David, Please! Let us put this in its proper historical context. Two weeks after JFK was killed, Bob Dylan stated to the assembled NY crowd that was awarding him the Thomas Paine Award that he could identify with the President's killer. "I don't think it would go that far, but I got to stand up and say I saw things that he felt, in me.” For his statement of accordance with the president’s killer, he was roundly booed and hissed, and received notable denunciation, and finally had to issue a rambling, almost inchoate response, albeit, notably, a refusal to apologize. That's how much animosity Dylan had for John F. Kennedy. He never did apologize for that horrific, shocking, untimely, outrageous insult to our collective injury. Now, more than a half-century later, he seeks to capitalize on JFK's assassination with this song that is, in truth, like Dylan himself, pretentious, overblown, rather banal, poorly written with its spate of name-dropping cultural references that amounts to nothing more than inflated overrated ego. An example: “. . . I’m a patsy, like Patsy Cline . . .” Please! What absolute RUBBISH!

I'm from Northern Minnesota and know ALL about Bobby Zimmerman, an egregious poseur with his adenoidal drone of a voice, pretentious attitude, publicity ploys, acute arrogance, and at times, profane rants against those who dared criticize him......

In a 2012 interview, some 47 years after being booed for using an electric guitar, Bob “Dylan” went postal over a New York Times article published some six years earlier that pointed out that he had lifted, without attribution numerous lines of verse from Civil War poet Henry Timrod, in writing lyrics for his album “Modern Times.” Critics noted how his album “contains at least ten instances of lines or phrases culled from seven different Timrod poems, mostly poems about love, friendship, death, and poetry. .... This was too much for “Dylan” who had risen to fame on the widely-circulated (Newsweek Magazine article) rumor that he had never actually written “Blowin’ in the Wind,” but lifted it (for a price) from a New Jersey high school singer-songwriter..... [BK Notes: This was proven to be untrue]

Then, still stinging from rebuke given some 41 years before even this criticism, “Dylan” went ballistic: “These are the same people that tried to pin the name Judas on me. Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you've been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified..."

Robert “Dylan” Zimmerman., I suspect, was, like the Beatles, a product of, or promoted by, the Deep State as a means of socially engineering America’s Baby Boomer generation, most notably in the direct wake of JFK’s assassination. Quite notably, while Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, and Barry McGuire all vociferously protested the Vietnam War musically and in marches and public performances, Bob “Dylan” remained notably silent, even reclusive, never authoring so much as a line of anti-war protest. In fact, asked about this, he sneered and replied, “I don’t write protest songs.” He lied. Around 1961 or so, he wrote “Masters of War,” a criticism of what Ike had just termed, the “Military-Industrial Complex.” But that was it. When LBJ and his CIA-induced Gulf of Tonkin ruse plunged us into the Vietnam War, Dylan went silent.

I do consider him, for the most part, a decent songwriter, albeit nowhere worthy of the Nobel Prize for Literature conferred upon him, doubtless for his covert service to the Deep State. For example, have you ever read his execrable book, “Tarantula,” a claptrap pastiche of ignominious doggerel that, by his own later admission, he was embarrassed to lay claim to. But beyond being a notable songwriter, his modest talents pretty much end. And his vaunted ego and vile mouth are a real turn-off. So, no, I am not particularly pleased with Bob “Dylan.”

Bill Kelly: My response to Will Ruha is the following: After we are all dead and gone, Bob Dylan will be remembered in the same vein as Walt Whitman and Robert Frost – America’s most engaging poets that transend time, and no one will remember Will Ruha ever lived. Ruha reminds me somewhat of A. J. Weberman, a “Dylanologist” and former neighbor who went so far as to root through Dylan’s trash, a standard Counter-Intelligence procedure, and has written about Dylan for years.

Weberman with Mike Canfield also wrote “Coup d’etat In America,” the galley proofs that I read, that they sent to my friend John Judge, were inspirational as to how to approach the assassination – as a Coup. And Weberman has continued to pursue the JFK coup angle in academic papers he has posted on line that I think are very informative. 

More on Dylan and JFK on the Way. Stay Tuned.


Source: https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2020...A9-qovRWdE

[Jim DiEugenio]

Here is my seven page review/article on Bob Dylan's new epic poem which everyone should listen to.  Its really an epic:

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kenne...k6rFXeZRn0

[Bill Fite]

Here is my seven page review/article on Bob Dylan's new epic poem which everyone should listen to.  Its really an epic:

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kenne...k6rFXeZRn0

Thanks,  I would not have understood the reference:

'The ghost then refers to his killing as, “Murder Most Foul”. He tells his son that he was done away with by the new king: his brother Polonius.'

or do you think this wasn't intended?

[Milo Reech]

Here is my seven page review/article on Bob Dylan's new epic poem which everyone should listen to.  Its really an epic:

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kenne...k6rFXeZRn0

Nice essay, Jim, with one mistake. The new king who murdered his brother was Claudius, not Polonius who was "chief counsellor to the king." The latter dies in Act 3 when Hamlet runs him through. He had been hiding behind the arras in Queen Gertrude's bedroom. Claudius indeed dies in the final scene when his screwball scheme to poison Hamlet goes awry. Gertrude, Laertes & Hamlet also perish in this scene. Fortinbras succeeds to the throne because the royal line of Denmark was wiped out.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Thanks for that Milo, will correct.

[Milo Reech]

It all becomes a tragedy when, at the end, the stage is littered with the corpses of not just Claudius, but also Hamlet, his mother Gertrude, and the son of Polonius, Laertes. But beyond that, and cut from most film versions of the play, these deaths make possible the entry of an invading army from nearby Norway, led by the character Fortinbras.

Jim, this isn't correct. Fortinbras does not enter Elsinore as an invader. He is returning from a successful campaign against Poland, launched after obtaining safe passage through Denmark. This is described in IViv leading to Hamlet's last great soliloquy.

Denmark (in this play) had an elective monarchy. In the final scene Hamlet with his last breath throws his support to Fortinbras' candidacy, with Horatio as spokesman. Fortinbras indicates he will pursue his claim, not a word to the effect that he had conquered Denmark.

Branagh as director committed an absurd blunder when he converted Fortinbras into an invader, one reason why this movie was such a disappointment.

[Milo Reech]

The best way to evaluate this matter is to read the script. If this is indicative of an invasion of Denmark, someone please show me where it says so.

HAMLET

As thou'rt a man,
Give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I'll have't.
O good Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.
March afar off, and shot within
What warlike noise is this?

OSRIC

Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,
To the ambassadors of England gives
This warlike volley.

HAMLET

O, I die, Horatio;
The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit:
I cannot live to hear the news from England;
But I do prophesy the election lights
On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
Which have solicited. The rest is silence.
Dies

HORATIO

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
Why does the drum come hither?
March within
Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors, and others

PRINCE FORTINBRAS

Where is this sight?

HORATIO

What is it ye would see?
If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.

PRINCE FORTINBRAS

This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death,
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou so many princes at a shot
So bloodily hast struck?

First Ambassador

The sight is dismal;
And our affairs from England come too late:
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:
Where should we have our thanks?

HORATIO

Not from his mouth,
Had it the ability of life to thank you:
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arrived give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about: so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on the inventors' reads: all this can I
Truly deliver.

PRINCE FORTINBRAS

Let us haste to hear it,
And call the noblest to the audience.
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune:
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

HORATIO

Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more;
But let this same be presently perform'd,
Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mischance
On plots and errors, happen.

PRINCE FORTINBRAS

Let four captains
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have proved most royally: and, for his passage,
The soldiers' music and the rites of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies: such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
A dead march. Exeunt, bearing off the dead bodies; after which a peal of ordnance is shot off

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/hamlet.5.2.html

[Jim DiEugenio]

Thanks, I took out invading.

BTW, for a huge irony.

In the Christopher Plummer TV version of the play, Fortinbras is played by Donald Sutherland.