Speaker 1: Blood on the Tracks is the production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Double Elvis. Bob Dylan was a musical genius
Speaker 1: and one of the greatest songwriters of all time. He
Speaker 1: didn't follow leaders. He chased that thin, wild mercury sound.
Speaker 1: He never looked back. Even as the times changed, and
Speaker 1: as the times changed, Bob Dylan changed. He tried on
Speaker 1: and discarded identities like they were mass. He transformed. He
Speaker 1: transfigured in somewhere along the way, the Bob Dylan that
Speaker 1: you thought you knew died. This is his story. This
Speaker 1: is Dr Ed Sailor. It's August four, day number seven,
Speaker 1: with the patient Robert Zimmerman, a k a. Bob Dylan
Speaker 1: here at my home in Middletown, New York. Bob is
Speaker 1: still depressed. This accident seems to have taken its toll
Speaker 1: on him mentally more than physically. This time out from
Speaker 1: what was a hectic lifestyle appears to have brought on
Speaker 1: some kind of reflection for him. I often catch him
Speaker 1: looking dazed. When I asked what he's thinking about, he
Speaker 1: just says the lives I've lived. When he's sleeping, I
Speaker 1: often hear him shouting or babbling about his future. Right now.
Speaker 1: I say he is showing signs of a delusional disorder,
Speaker 1: and to be honest, I'm worried about his recovery. I
Speaker 1: was having a difficult time in my life. By the
Speaker 1: end of the nineteen eighties. I did some things I
Speaker 1: wasn't proud of, personally and professionally, although I must say
Speaker 1: it wasn't all that bad a decade. It might have
Speaker 1: been my most interesting if you look closely. Not that
Speaker 1: the public can never get past the sixties, but the
Speaker 1: end of the eighties, though, I was a mess. I
Speaker 1: changed so many times that I just assumed it would
Speaker 1: keep happening. I didn't realize you can't force yourself to change,
Speaker 1: it has to happen naturally. That made me feel lost.
Speaker 1: I've always found when you're down, you think you can't
Speaker 1: get any lower, You're wrong. You can always go lower.
Speaker 1: There's always a bottom after the bottom, a new level down,
Speaker 1: new desperation, renewed despair, renewed anger, fresh trouble, fresh disappointment,
Speaker 1: and of course fresh blood. On the tracks. Chapter seven,
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan is a dead man. M It was nighttime
Speaker 1: in the big city. The street I was on was dark,
Speaker 1: it was cold. I saw the Grand House I've been
Speaker 1: looking for. I took a deep breath of the cold,
Speaker 1: black air and walked up to the front door. In
Speaker 1: the second half of the the words stopped coming suddenly,
Speaker 1: they just weren't there anymore. The well had run dry.
Speaker 1: I had lost interest in my career, to tell you
Speaker 1: the truth, I had reached a dead end of creativity.
Speaker 1: And not to sound like an egomaniac, but what was
Speaker 1: there left for me to do? That made me feel
Speaker 1: lost for a while. I wanted to have a big
Speaker 1: selling single, take it to number one. I've never had one,
Speaker 1: but that charity single We Are the World, which I
Speaker 1: was involved with, that did go to number one. I
Speaker 1: was thrilled, even if it didn't look like it in
Speaker 1: the video. And yeah, I know there's some sort of
Speaker 1: viral video with me or whatever kind of half asking
Speaker 1: it at the end of the song. But there were
Speaker 1: a lot of greats there who really deserved to be heard.
Speaker 1: Great Charles, what a voice point of sisters. But a
Speaker 1: number one was the last thing left on my list.
Speaker 1: I've done it all, seen it all, and lived so
Speaker 1: many different existences. At the end, I thought I'd reached
Speaker 1: some sort of nirvana, a zen like calm perhaps, But
Speaker 1: actually I got to the top of the mountain and
Speaker 1: found that the view was the same as it was
Speaker 1: at the bottom. You can always go lower, I said
Speaker 1: in an interview at the time. If the records I'm
Speaker 1: making only sell a certain amount anyway, then why should
Speaker 1: I take so long putting them together. That's how it felt,
Speaker 1: the pointless, worthless static. I started sleeping in what I'd
Speaker 1: worn that day. I used to change my identity, but
Speaker 1: now I couldn't even be bothered to change my clothes.
Speaker 1: I also took up a new hobby. I liked wandering
Speaker 1: the streets on my own. I always did it late
Speaker 1: at night, always two places I didn't know. I enjoyed
Speaker 1: exploring deprived city districts the most, especially parts of town
Speaker 1: where no one recognized me. I started near my house,
Speaker 1: but then I went further afield. I'd get cabs two
Speaker 1: places and walk and walk and walk. It was peaceful.
Speaker 1: It was the only way I could get away from
Speaker 1: whatever was dragging me down that day. Depression, loss, disappointment,
Speaker 1: lack of creativity, All that just disappeared in the darkness
Speaker 1: of those areas. I was anonymous, nothing to no one.
Speaker 1: I was having a difficult time. People get into the
Speaker 1: music industry for fame and money, right, but actually what
Speaker 1: you find is really all they want is the money.
Speaker 1: It might not seem like that to begin with, but
Speaker 1: it always ends up that way. Fame is well, here's
Speaker 1: a good idea of what fame is like. Imagine walking
Speaker 1: into a room, any room, and every room you go
Speaker 1: into from now on. The moment you walk into that room,
Speaker 1: it's over. Everyone in that room changes like that. You
Speaker 1: can actually see it happen. Life becomes phony when you're
Speaker 1: famous trouble. After years of that, I wanted to be
Speaker 1: part of something else, something that wasn't me, something that
Speaker 1: wasn't Bob fucking Dylan. I first saw The Grateful Dead
Speaker 1: in and I had been close with their leader, Jerry
Speaker 1: Garcia ever since. I liked them as a band and
Speaker 1: as people too, so it made sense to tour together.
Speaker 1: That happened in when they were riding pretty high on
Speaker 1: that touch of Gray song. And just like with the
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame, Live Aid and a lot of other
Speaker 1: things I had participated in at the time, it went
Speaker 1: to ship. I did some things I wasn't proud of.
Speaker 1: Rehearsals had gone well. I picked out this killer pink guitar.
Speaker 1: I really felt part of the band, a proper member.
Speaker 1: We must have gone through a hundred songs, man, I
Speaker 1: was having the time of my life for a minute.
Speaker 1: The first gig was in Massachusetts, a big place, a stadium.
Speaker 1: We were in good spirits, but the band seemed a
Speaker 1: little thrown off by my set list. I felt we
Speaker 1: should mix it up. Like I said before, I like
Speaker 1: to keep bands on their toes. It might have been
Speaker 1: my most interesting. I couldn't wait to get out there
Speaker 1: to play my songs with the Dead. We walked out
Speaker 1: onto the stage. This is it, I thought, this is
Speaker 1: what I've been missing. Our first song was the Times
Speaker 1: They Are Changing. We started and I don't know what
Speaker 1: went wrong, but it all sounded wrong. Everything sounded like
Speaker 1: it was in the wrong key. Fresh disappointment. It must
Speaker 1: be the song. I thought. Man of Peace was the next,
Speaker 1: and it sounded the same. It was as if we'd
Speaker 1: never practiced. I'll be your baby tonight, John Brown, I
Speaker 1: want you all wrong, wrong, wrong, renewed despair. What the
Speaker 1: hell was happening? It sounded so bad. We limped off
Speaker 1: the stage that night, with me wondering what I had
Speaker 1: just been part of the next gig back at that
Speaker 1: damn JFK Stadium where I had graced the live aid
Speaker 1: stage a few years earlier. It was the same. In fact,
Speaker 1: that night was even worse. I started to forget the
Speaker 1: lyrics to my own songs. Not only were like finding
Speaker 1: it difficult to write new material, but I was forgetting
Speaker 1: the stuff I had already written. Great bottom after the bottom.
Speaker 1: I put all these problems down to back pain. I've
Speaker 1: been suffering a lot of it since that motorcycle crashed
Speaker 1: two decades prior. But but honestly, thinking about it now,
Speaker 1: it might have had something to do with my drinking
Speaker 1: at the time too. The tour went on like that.
Speaker 1: A couple of years later, I showed up at a
Speaker 1: Dead show in Inglewood, California. After the first half of
Speaker 1: the show, I was desperate to get up there and
Speaker 1: play with them, so I went backstage and asked, of course, Bob,
Speaker 1: we'd love that. Jerry said right away, and so the
Speaker 1: second half of the show was all of us on
Speaker 1: stage again. The sound of the Dead was immense. It
Speaker 1: was so tight but had a free spirit. I was
Speaker 1: thrilled to be standing there on stage with them, but
Speaker 1: I suddenly realized I got a bit carried away when
Speaker 1: you're down and you think you can't get any lower.
Speaker 1: I didn't really know any of their lyrics. The mic
Speaker 1: in front of me became a viper. I was scared
Speaker 1: to approach it. I started off strong, but ended up
Speaker 1: mumbling into it, mumbling in front of ten thousand people
Speaker 1: basically that we are the world video clip, but a
Speaker 1: hundred times worse. It was my fault. I had demanded
Speaker 1: to play dead songs, none of my own stuff. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be Bob Dylan. That night I couldn't
Speaker 1: bear it. I changed so many times. Bob Ware from
Speaker 1: the band shot me a hateful look when I repeated
Speaker 1: my mumbled performance on the next song. In fact, the
Speaker 1: whole band did. I looked down at my feet and
Speaker 1: realized how drunk I was. My shoes looked blurry as
Speaker 1: I weakly strum the guitar. After that song, the band
Speaker 1: demanded I sing my own songs and I had to
Speaker 1: get off the stage. We played a couple of mine
Speaker 1: and it was great, well, I thought so. Anyway. The
Speaker 1: next day I called the it's office and asked if
Speaker 1: they would have me in the band full time, I
Speaker 1: was serious, man, They took a vote, a fucking vote.
Speaker 1: Even worse than that, The answer was no. I was crushed.
Speaker 1: I drank an entire bottle of whiskey that night. Still,
Speaker 1: remember you can always go lower. Right, Another band and
Speaker 1: another tour would see my situation get even worse. It
Speaker 1: would be a real heartbreaker. The house is still and
Speaker 1: so quiet. In one room, I could see beautiful wrongs
Speaker 1: all laid out over a wooden floor. I'm clutching a
Speaker 1: load of papers tied to my chest. Suddenly I feel
Speaker 1: like someone is behind me. You're an alcoholic, That's what
Speaker 1: she said to me. It's not true. Of course, she
Speaker 1: is one of the women I'm currently seeing. By the way,
Speaker 1: I put her in a house in Beverly Hills Worth
Speaker 1: five thousand and All she has to say is I
Speaker 1: drink too much. No gratitude, none whatsoever. I am giving
Speaker 1: up women. Write that down. There's always a bottom after
Speaker 1: the bottom. Although having said that, Elizabeth Taylor, now there's
Speaker 1: a woman. She came on to me once in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. You heard about that. It was at a
Speaker 1: tribute concert to Martin Luther King Jr. God, she was
Speaker 1: something I was in a flannel shirt and she still
Speaker 1: came onto me. It wasn't all that bad, you hear that. Look,
Speaker 1: drinking has always been something I've done, but it's not
Speaker 1: something that slows me down. Okay, I'm not drinking morning,
Speaker 1: noon and morning. No morning, noon and night. A new
Speaker 1: level down. That tour with the Dead was it didn't work.
Speaker 1: I told you that, right, but you know, to hell
Speaker 1: with it. We did it and it's sold. So what's
Speaker 1: the problem. People bitch and moan that it wasn't this
Speaker 1: or it wasn't that. Forget him so anyway, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: the tour right, So, the Grateful Dead tour happened around
Speaker 1: the time. I was also going on tour with another band,
Speaker 1: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I got married around that
Speaker 1: time too. I probably should have mentioned that I've always
Speaker 1: been good at keeping my personal life a secret. People
Speaker 1: didn't see that one coming. Cheers to me. I guess. Look,
Speaker 1: sure I was married, but I had girlfriends too, not
Speaker 1: a big deal. Everyone involved knew the situation, new desperation.
Speaker 1: What was I saying? Oh yeah, those Heartbreaker shows, they
Speaker 1: were great. We had a ball on that tour. I
Speaker 1: loved it. My new wife was singing backing vocals with me.
Speaker 1: Her mom was part of that too. On tour with
Speaker 1: my mother in law. They said never do it, but
Speaker 1: it worked out just fine. Wasn't all that bad. In fact,
Speaker 1: it was my favorite bit of the tour. Those women
Speaker 1: we had on backing vocals, there was something else. Their
Speaker 1: harmonies were incredible. I used to get them to come
Speaker 1: to my hotel room in the dead of night and
Speaker 1: practice with me. Their sound was unreal man, and I
Speaker 1: love those women almost as much as Bourbon Fresh Trouble.
Speaker 1: We played Tel Aviv on that Heartbreakers tour. That was
Speaker 1: my first time in Israel. I found it fascinating the crowd,
Speaker 1: though they were less excited about my show. They moaned
Speaker 1: about about guess what the usual? They wanted the greatest
Speaker 1: hit set. Well, I don't do that. I do what
Speaker 1: I want. You don't want to just get up there
Speaker 1: and start guessing what the people want. You can't let
Speaker 1: the audience start controlling the show. Write that down. That
Speaker 1: was a great tour, a great, great tour. I'm stunned
Speaker 1: we can even remember it well. I can remember it fine. Thanks.
Speaker 1: You seem to have forgotten a pretty awful moment in it.
Speaker 1: Remember it's not ringing any bells. It's not ringing any bells.
Speaker 1: If you have something to say it whining and fucking
Speaker 1: say it. Gary Schaffer, Oh, here we go. You're all
Speaker 1: high and mighty. Yeah, maybe just lay off the booze
Speaker 1: for a second and we can give me a break.
Speaker 1: Are you going to tell them the story? Or should I?
Speaker 1: I haven't got time to discuss hearsay, hurt feelings or okay?
Speaker 1: So Gary was our road manager. A road manager sorts
Speaker 1: out hotel arrangements, media obligations, support staff, equipment, all that stuff. God,
Speaker 1: this is all terribly fascinating. Gary was more than a
Speaker 1: road manager, though. He was a really good guy. And
Speaker 1: I we okay, okay, enough, I'll tell them Gary was
Speaker 1: our road guy. And at one point on that tour
Speaker 1: he had to leave. He had to head back to
Speaker 1: California for some private business. Britta Lee, a woman on
Speaker 1: tour with us, was Gary's girl and a musician too.
Speaker 1: Gary loved her, worshiped her. But while he was gone,
Speaker 1: we got close. We had an affair. We had an affair.
Speaker 1: Gary had been devoted to us, And let's not lay
Speaker 1: it on too thick. Okay, these things happen sometimes they've
Speaker 1: just happened. We betrayed someone close to us. Look, she
Speaker 1: was part of it too. It's not all down to me,
Speaker 1: you know. But you're here and she's not. I still
Speaker 1: remember the faces of everyone when he left the tour
Speaker 1: after he found out. Man, that was awful. Oh please,
Speaker 1: you're loving us? I felt shamed, disgrace what and I
Speaker 1: didn't feel those two You remember his statement when leaving
Speaker 1: the tour, I suppose you have a copy of it.
Speaker 1: Do you bring it with you wherever you go? Huh?
Speaker 1: This is what he said when he left. It was
Speaker 1: a privilege to be there for the years I was
Speaker 1: there as an artist. I respect the guy as an artist.
Speaker 1: He respects us, not a person. I honestly don't blame him.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this word, word word. There's
Speaker 1: a man in the corner of the room. He's dressed
Speaker 1: all in black. He smiles and asks if I'm ready.
Speaker 1: I say yes. I can feel the excitement pulsing through
Speaker 1: my blood. At this point in my life, my musical
Speaker 1: path was no longer clear. It was overgrown, full of vines,
Speaker 1: and I knew it. There was a missing person within
Speaker 1: me that I needed to find. I fantasized about leaving
Speaker 1: the music business. That tour with Tom Petty. I was
Speaker 1: convinced that was my last, one, last payday to see
Speaker 1: me through to retirement. What would I do next? Go
Speaker 1: to church, sail the seas, live in another country Italy, Scotland, Greece.
Speaker 1: I had no idea. You can't force yourself to change.
Speaker 1: I even called up a business expert I knew. I
Speaker 1: told him I wanted to sell everything I owned to
Speaker 1: invest in something new. He came round to my house
Speaker 1: with a brochure for all these different businesses. I was interested,
Speaker 1: no doubt. It felt like an escape route, a new horizon.
Speaker 1: Why not turn into a business man? That felt easy, enticing, revolutionary,
Speaker 1: even for me anyway, most interesting, A more conventional life
Speaker 1: called me, and again I deserved it. The albums I
Speaker 1: had been making for the past few years weren't really
Speaker 1: doing it for me, and in fact, I felt like
Speaker 1: they were doing it for less and less people. If
Speaker 1: it doesn't interest you when you're making the music, it
Speaker 1: probably ain't gonna interest other people when they're listening. I
Speaker 1: made the album Knocked Out Loaded. Tom Co wrote a
Speaker 1: song on that, But the real gem was Brownsville Girl.
Speaker 1: The critics love that one, and I can see why.
Speaker 1: I wrote it with the playwright Sam Shepard. We were
Speaker 1: at a creative dead end in the studio, which was
Speaker 1: pretty common for the time. Sam said we should tell stories,
Speaker 1: so we both exchanged a couple of good ones. One
Speaker 1: of mine was about going to see a film what's
Speaker 1: it called The Gunfighter? That's it. It stars Gregory Peck.
Speaker 1: Sam jumped up and said, that's it. Let's write a
Speaker 1: song about that, so we wrote this epic. A beam
Speaker 1: of light shot into my mind. When we did that,
Speaker 1: I felt like I was off again, off to the
Speaker 1: races with my writing. But while in that moment there
Speaker 1: was joy and excitement, it made the aftermath even worse.
Speaker 1: After that brief second of inspiration, I was straight back
Speaker 1: into the waste land, straight back to torched grass and
Speaker 1: dry wells. It was a false dawn. I still couldn't
Speaker 1: write There's always a bottom after the bottom. The rest
Speaker 1: of the album sort of passed me by, and so
Speaker 1: did the next one, renewed despair. After that record, I
Speaker 1: injured my hand. I thought I might never play guitar again.
Speaker 1: I remember looking at it one day, the plaster cast
Speaker 1: up to my elbow, and I remember thinking what if
Speaker 1: I never played the guitar again. Honestly, I didn't feel
Speaker 1: that bad about it. I had no connection to inspiration
Speaker 1: of any kind. Even my own songs were strangersment. The
Speaker 1: injury forced me home. I spent time with my new wife.
Speaker 1: I did nothing. Mornings were spent in bed. Afternoons were
Speaker 1: spent falling asleep my armchair the nighttime, that's when I
Speaker 1: was awake, and even then I would just sit around.
Speaker 1: One night, when everyone was asleep, I was at the
Speaker 1: kitchen table staring at the hillside. I could see nothing
Speaker 1: but a bed of shiny lights twinkling in the distance.
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but I picked up a pen
Speaker 1: with my good hand and wrote. And I wrote and
Speaker 1: wrote and wrote it that bad. Nothing had changed, Nothing
Speaker 1: was different except I couldn't stop writing. I finished with
Speaker 1: twenty verses, which became the song Political World. It emerged
Speaker 1: like a fire hydrant, bursting open, completely out of the blue.
Speaker 1: It was like someone had struck a gong and brought
Speaker 1: me to my senses. When I finished writing, I looked
Speaker 1: down at the scratchy page. Moonlight was cast across it.
Speaker 1: I knew then I could use these words. It felt
Speaker 1: like the start of something. The next week, I was
Speaker 1: in New York. I had been to see a play
Speaker 1: and had some drinks. On the way back to the car,
Speaker 1: I passed a homeless man being ordered to move by
Speaker 1: some cops. His head was in his hands. The whole
Speaker 1: thing was desperate. Everyone in that situation looked hopeless, despair.
Speaker 1: That night, at home, in my little art studio, I
Speaker 1: wrote the song what Good Am I? It came to
Speaker 1: me all at once, delivered from up above, inspired by
Speaker 1: that homeless man. The next morning, I was at the
Speaker 1: breakfast table again. We had the radio on and I
Speaker 1: heard the sad news that Peter Maravich, the basketball player,
Speaker 1: had died. He collapsed on the court and never got up.
Speaker 1: Almost instantly, I wrote the entire song Dignity for Peter.
Speaker 1: They kept coming and coming, one, two, three. They continued
Speaker 1: like that for a while. I kept writing them on
Speaker 1: these sheets of paper, then stashing them in a drawer
Speaker 1: in my house. I couldn't understand where they were coming from.
Speaker 1: You can't force yourself to change. I had some people
Speaker 1: over for dinner one night, friends from far and wide came.
Speaker 1: One of them was Bonno, the front man for you too.
Speaker 1: I like Bono. He's kind of a philosopher but tough.
Speaker 1: He could have been a New York City cop in
Speaker 1: another life. After the dinner, everyone else had gone to bed,
Speaker 1: and it was just the two of us polishing off
Speaker 1: of creative guinness. Yeah, an irishman brought a creative guinness
Speaker 1: to my house. The stereotype is true. Man. We watched
Speaker 1: a freighter make it slow way across the ocean from
Speaker 1: my giant window, and we spoke about everything from the
Speaker 1: history of America to religion and then inevitably music. I
Speaker 1: changed so many times. Bonno asked if I had written
Speaker 1: any new songs. I tensed up immediately, thinking of the
Speaker 1: drawer with all my sheets of paper in it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, in kind of a dead end wayn I
Speaker 1: see them, he asked, I could feel the sheets of
Speaker 1: paper now. It was like Edgar all imposed Hell Tale Heart.
Speaker 1: They were beating like a subway train in that drawer,
Speaker 1: giving me away the dumb the dune, the dune. I
Speaker 1: hadn't shown anyone those words. I had not said anything
Speaker 1: about this new inspiration, nothing at all. I didn't know
Speaker 1: if I was ready. I didn't know if I could
Speaker 1: face it all again. That made me feel lost. But Bono,
Speaker 1: he's persuasive. He looked them over as he drained the
Speaker 1: final drops of guinness. You should record these, he said.
Speaker 1: He told me he had just the guy to help.
Speaker 1: It has to happen naturally. Before I knew it, I
Speaker 1: was standing in the great city of New Orleans shaking
Speaker 1: hands with Daniel Lanois. Daniel had produced some pretty successful
Speaker 1: records for Bono, and he said we would be a
Speaker 1: good match. Fate seemed to have taken me into a
Speaker 1: gulf stream. Just when I thought it was the end,
Speaker 1: Once again, I found myself on the verge of a
Speaker 1: new existence. It's interesting if you look closely, the first
Speaker 1: thing you notice about New Orleans is the burial grounds.
Speaker 1: The cemeteries. I saw so many when I first got there.
Speaker 1: I remember passing one, and I felt like I was
Speaker 1: leaving behind whatever existence I'd been living over the past
Speaker 1: few years. It felt cleansing. I strolled to this huge
Speaker 1: house just off of Audubon Park, one that Daniel had
Speaker 1: rented for the recording sessions. I felt nervous. I did
Speaker 1: some things I wasn't proud of. I felt like if
Speaker 1: I didn't do these words justice. It might really be
Speaker 1: the end for me. And while that prospect of the
Speaker 1: end had seemed intriguing and even comforting after that Tom
Speaker 1: Petty's tour, this time I wasn't ready to say goodbye.
Speaker 1: My heart began to beat faster as I walked up
Speaker 1: the drive. I pushed open the front door, took a
Speaker 1: look around and saw Daniel standing there, dressed in all black.
Speaker 1: He was noir through and through. Man, are you ready,
Speaker 1: he asked, I've never been so ready fresh troubles. We
Speaker 1: emerged that next month with one of the best albums
Speaker 1: of my career. Oh Mercy was a true rebirth. Maybe,
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, maybe I'm not done yet. I
Speaker 1: called up that business expert, the one that came to
Speaker 1: my house with the investment opportunities. I rang him the
Speaker 1: day after we finished the record. I'm gonna put everything
Speaker 1: on hold. I told him. Something new has come up.
Speaker 1: The lights the Odeon Marble Arch Cinema shine brightly against
Speaker 1: the gray London sky. All sorts of famous faces make
Speaker 1: appearances on the red carpet, heading towards the cinema's glass doors.
Speaker 1: Standing at the top of the red carpet is Gerald Abrams,
Speaker 1: executive producer at Phoenix Entertainment Group. He nervously pulls back
Speaker 1: the sleeve of his Saville Row suit jacket to reveal
Speaker 1: his gold rolex. It is eight fifteen PM, getting close
Speaker 1: to the point of no return. Hyde Park wounds in
Speaker 1: the distance. The huge banner hanging to Abram's side reads
Speaker 1: in glossy red letters, Hearts of Fire Premiere, London, October.
Speaker 1: Abrams scans the faces of the people walking towards him
Speaker 1: for what feels like the millionth time that night. Damn,
Speaker 1: he mutters, before checking his watch again and it is
Speaker 1: still eight fift He catches the eye of producer Jennifer
Speaker 1: Award looking hopefully at him, but her smile disappears when
Speaker 1: Abrams shakes his head. Let's who spend the next half
Speaker 1: hour waiting for the film premier's most notable absence. It's
Speaker 1: not the pictures director Richard Markwin, who sadly passed away
Speaker 1: from a stroke going a month before. It is, in fact,
Speaker 1: the film's top build actor, who, despite being paid a
Speaker 1: reported one million dollars, is nowhere to be seen. He's
Speaker 1: got fifteen minutes. Abram smiles across the carpet. Howard, who
Speaker 1: forces a smile. Just then, Abrams spots a man with
Speaker 1: curly hair, wearing a leather jacket and gloves, with the
Speaker 1: fingers cut off in sporting and earring in his right ear.
Speaker 1: It must be thanks to himself. It must be The
Speaker 1: bodies on the red carpet finally shift to reveal a
Speaker 1: man's face. Abram's exhales and hope goes with his breath.
Speaker 1: It's not the man he's looking for. He checks his
Speaker 1: watch again. Barely five minutes away from the theater, Bob
Speaker 1: Dylan sits in his usual A Little Sweet in the
Speaker 1: Mayfair Hotel, surrounded by magazines and cassette tapes that sit
Speaker 1: upon an unmade bed. Plates of food cover the counter.
Speaker 1: A loud knock at the door. Dylan stands up, slowly,
Speaker 1: walks to the large entrance hall and opens the heavy
Speaker 1: ornate white door with a loud click. Ah, Mr Goldsmith,
Speaker 1: The announces go on in the legendary concert promoter Harvey
Speaker 1: Goldsmith stomps into the room, moving like he's a bee's
Speaker 1: nest on two legs. Is everything okay, he asked Dylan.
Speaker 1: I don't usually get something to your suite. Dylan had
Speaker 1: seen Goldsmith leaving his show the night before. He felt
Speaker 1: a little embarrassed to even mention it. Goldsmith inhale slowly
Speaker 1: and sits on a large armchair. I saw you get
Speaker 1: up and I saw you leave. Dylan says, did he
Speaker 1: like it? I didn't know, comes Goldsmith's sharp reply, In fact,
Speaker 1: I hated him. The rain starts to fall on the
Speaker 1: sweets window pane. Dylan cracks a smile. You know, my
Speaker 1: eyes set. It's really bad. I mean it's awful, but
Speaker 1: among ten thousand people in the Wembley Arena, you were
Speaker 1: the one I saw sneaking out halfway through. Goldsmith doesn't smile.
Speaker 1: In fact, he's annoyed. He proceeds to explain to Dylan
Speaker 1: that the UK was his biggest audience outside the States,
Speaker 1: which many had to deliver high quality shows there. What
Speaker 1: he played the night before was just crap, more silent,
Speaker 1: more rain, that familiar London in the autumn pitter patter
Speaker 1: sound on the window. Goldsmith waits for Dylan's reply, hoping
Speaker 1: for a reaction. It didn't matter if it was anger, regret, disappointment.
Speaker 1: He just wanted a reaction. Dylan gives him a reaction
Speaker 1: all right, and laughs loudly. It's okay, Harvey, He shouts,
Speaker 1: it's okay. Don't worry about the shows. I'm going to
Speaker 1: the bar. You want to drink. Goldsmith pulls out his
Speaker 1: invitation to the film premiere of Hearts of Fire, Dylan's
Speaker 1: face front and center on it, flanked by the singer
Speaker 1: Fiona an actor Rupert. Ever, Dylan's name is in large typeface.
Speaker 1: Now it's Goldsmith's turned to laugh. He smiles, holding up
Speaker 1: the invitation. Aren't you coming that? Dylan says, oh no,
Speaker 1: I'm going to the bar. Forty five minutes later, Dylan
Speaker 1: polishes off his third gin and tonic of the evening.
Speaker 1: The muted lights in the Mayfair Hotel Bar make the
Speaker 1: rain drops on its window twinkle. Inside the odeon marble arch,
Speaker 1: Gerald Abrams said, slumped in his cinema chair, he knew
Speaker 1: what he was watching was garbage. He knew it was
Speaker 1: going to bomb, and maybe that's why Bob Dylan didn't show.
Speaker 1: He looks up at the face on the huge seventy
Speaker 1: ft screen. Dylan looks slender, tanned and healthy, a genuine
Speaker 1: film star. But the face that looks into the glass
Speaker 1: and the Mayfair Hotel bar is bloated. And red with
Speaker 1: darkened eyes. It's exhausted from an endless life on the road,
Speaker 1: and bare stresses that it's inhabitant doesn't care to show outside.
Speaker 1: It starts to rain again. This time it's a hard rain.
Speaker 1: It hammers down large drops splatter violently against the bars window.
Speaker 1: Dylon continues to drink, and the splatter of the rain
Speaker 1: gets harder and harder, louder and louder, and Dylan thinks
Speaker 1: to himself, you know that sort of sounds like Blood
Speaker 1: on the Tracks. Blood on the Tracks produced by Double
Speaker 1: Elvis in partnership with I Heart Radio. It's hosted and
Speaker 1: executive produced by me Jake Brennan, also executive produced by
Speaker 1: Brady sath Zeth Lundi is lead editor and producer. This
Speaker 1: episode was written by Ben Burrow, Story and copy editing
Speaker 1: by Pat Healy. Mixing and sound designed by Colin Fleming.
Speaker 1: Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spraaker. This episode
Speaker 1: featured Chris Anzeloni is Bob Dylan. Sources for this episode
Speaker 1: are available at double Elvis dot com on the Blood
Speaker 1: in the Tracks series page. Follow Double Elvis on Instagram
Speaker 1: at double Elvis and on Twitch at s Grace Slanta talks,
Speaker 1: and you can talk to me per usual on Instagram
Speaker 1: and Twitter at Disgrace Land Pond, Rock and Roll h
Speaker 1: R Dad