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 as
Speaker 1: a dr ed sailor. It is day nine, August six,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, here in Middletown, New York, and this
Speaker 1: is another report on patient Robert Zimmerman, a k a.
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan. Bob is approving physically and mentally. He is
Speaker 1: getting stronger, but there are still some issues to sort out.
Speaker 1: He seems fragile and in my inn, you'll need to
Speaker 1: recuperate here for a little while longer. His men's are
Speaker 1: being reduced, but he's still reliant on them. This brush
Speaker 1: with death, as he calls in the motorcycle crash has
Speaker 1: brought on a lot of reflection and he has become
Speaker 1: very aware of his um mortality. He seems to see
Speaker 1: the world as a much older man now, a much
Speaker 1: wiser man. Perhaps he's talking like he's aged fifty years
Speaker 1: in a few days. You get to a certain age
Speaker 1: and you have to consider mortality. I don't worry about
Speaker 1: my mortality in a personal way. I worry about the
Speaker 1: world's mortality. I think about the death of the human race,
Speaker 1: the long, strange journey of the naked ape. Not to
Speaker 1: be light on it, but every life is so transient.
Speaker 1: Every human being, no matter how strong or mighty, is
Speaker 1: frail when it comes to death. I've died many times
Speaker 1: as many times as I've lived, but I'm under no illusions.
Speaker 1: One day it will be the end for real. Sometimes
Speaker 1: the path that you're walking gets too narrow to walk.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you've just been on the job too long. Life
Speaker 1: reduces us all. It turns us all to dust, all
Speaker 1: to memories, all too blood. On the tracks. Chapter nine
Speaker 1: is Bob Dylan real hm h. I feel the wind
Speaker 1: blackly at first, then it picks up. I breathe in deeply.
Speaker 1: The air is damp and cold. There's a bitter taste
Speaker 1: to it all. I turned to look at the heavens,
Speaker 1: and all my eyes can see is blackness stretching out
Speaker 1: from here to eternity. The nineties, Man, that decade was
Speaker 1: a washout at times. I still performed a lot of
Speaker 1: dates each year, but the creative births of becoming a
Speaker 1: Wilberry and reconnecting with inspiration on O Mercy We're a
Speaker 1: distant memory to me. Now that person wasn't me anymore.
Speaker 1: I was lost again, a little boy scratching around, a
Speaker 1: little boy lost a certain age. I started to make
Speaker 1: albums in my garage, which, while liberating, was a far
Speaker 1: cry from other records I've made. I didn't know where
Speaker 1: I would go next, what life I was going to live.
Speaker 1: That became a major concern of mine. That was quickly
Speaker 1: replaced with an even greater concern something I'd never expected.
Speaker 1: You have to consider mortality. In December of I came
Speaker 1: off another leg of touring and started to think about
Speaker 1: my next record. It was going on seven years without
Speaker 1: an album of original songs, at least original songs that
Speaker 1: were new, what with Greatest Hits albums, those two Folk
Speaker 1: Standards albums, and that unplugged thing for MTV that was
Speaker 1: a trend at the time. Hell I'd practically made that
Speaker 1: whole unplugged thing into a trend thirty years before, and
Speaker 1: despite my draft of creativity, I could feel in some
Speaker 1: of those shows towards the end of that tour that
Speaker 1: the needle was beginning to move, no matter how strong
Speaker 1: or mighty, or it was a bleak winter, I went
Speaker 1: to my farm in Minnesota. I still remember arriving as
Speaker 1: the snow was starting to fall. Man, I didn't know
Speaker 1: what was waiting for me there. I kept a journal
Speaker 1: from that time. I'd like to read from it to you.
Speaker 1: Day one, temperature check, thirty three point five degrees. I
Speaker 1: arrived here in darkness, darkness everywhere, the sort of darkness
Speaker 1: that engulfs everything. When I awoke this morning, there was snow.
Speaker 1: It was crisp and white, like a movie, covering the
Speaker 1: entire landscape. I planned to stay here as long as possible.
Speaker 1: Day two, temperature check thirty three point nine degrees. The
Speaker 1: snow has fallen for the last two days solidly. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure I'll be leaving anytime soon. Maybe it's affecting me.
Speaker 1: I awoke in the middle of the night, coughing and
Speaker 1: short of breath. It was a long tour I have
Speaker 1: to remember that. Day three temperature check, thirty two points
Speaker 1: six degrees. I'm snowed in, completely stranded. The outside world
Speaker 1: is completely removed from me. My brother David, who usually
Speaker 1: lives here, is a way, so it's me alone mortality.
Speaker 1: I've started to write too, what else is there to do?
Speaker 1: It's come on pretty strong these last couple of days.
Speaker 1: I find myself writing on anything, torn cigarette packets, old
Speaker 1: cereal boxes, in the margin of a newspaper. I'm scribbling
Speaker 1: down ideas the moment they come to me. At least
Speaker 1: the snow is helping me concentrate physically, though I feel worse.
Speaker 1: What's the matter with me? I can't say. Sometimes you've
Speaker 1: just been on the job too long. Shortness of breath, tiredness.
Speaker 1: They're all here, They're my only bedfellows at the moment.
Speaker 1: Day four temperature check, thirty two point two degrees. The
Speaker 1: snowfall improved a little yesterday, but it's gotten worse today.
Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of time resting, but the writing
Speaker 1: it's gaining traction. There's some real songs here. I'm going
Speaker 1: to ask Daniel Lanois to produce them. They need to
Speaker 1: be handled properly. Day five, temperature check thirty one degrees.
Speaker 1: I called the doctor tonight. My shortness of breath has
Speaker 1: been replaced by chest pains, stabbing hot irons in the
Speaker 1: center of my torso every life is so transient. The
Speaker 1: doc said it's fine and I need to rest up.
Speaker 1: But that's all I've been doing. Another two songs finished today.
Speaker 1: One was about another place, a sparse place like this,
Speaker 1: a place full of mountains, locks, you know those Scottish places,
Speaker 1: and fulfillment. I'm getting cabin fever here. Day six, temperature
Speaker 1: check thirty degrees. I called the doctor again. The chest
Speaker 1: pains are worse, so is the snowfall. The long, strange
Speaker 1: journey of the naked ape. I feel a little bit
Speaker 1: like a prisoner here. Day seven, temperature check thirty degrees.
Speaker 1: I'm writing this by the fire. I celebrated completing another
Speaker 1: few songs with a drop of whiskey tonight, but it
Speaker 1: made me feel the worst I've felt since I got here.
Speaker 1: I don't know what's happening to me, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel right. You get to a certain age. I'll call
Speaker 1: the doctor again tomorrow, but I didn't call them after
Speaker 1: writing those journal entries I got up from the large armchair,
Speaker 1: which had been my base camp during that cold snap,
Speaker 1: and I felt the room fall away around me. I
Speaker 1: remember the thud of my whiskey glass against the rug,
Speaker 1: the dull bass drum like hit that sounded out. My
Speaker 1: chest felt like there was a lasso around it, my mortality.
Speaker 1: I tried to breathe, but it was like they were
Speaker 1: tacks in my lungs. I gulped in what air I
Speaker 1: could as I hit the deck. I sat there, not
Speaker 1: quite lying down, but not sitting. It was like I
Speaker 1: was in a strange, terrible slump, the sort of awkward
Speaker 1: position your body takes when you've lost control when it
Speaker 1: comes to death. I thought this was it. It was
Speaker 1: the end I'd seen lives in many times before, but
Speaker 1: this time it was different. I couldn't see another one
Speaker 1: on the horizon. The path that you're walking gets too
Speaker 1: narrow to walk. I fumbled around for something to winch
Speaker 1: myself up with. I looked at the arm of the
Speaker 1: chair and grabbed it. My limbs like steel girders. I
Speaker 1: tightened my grip on the chair like a mountain climber.
Speaker 1: I could hear my breathing now too. It was heavy
Speaker 1: and labored, unproductive, like the oxygen was leaking out somewhere,
Speaker 1: like it wasn't getting into my blood. I'm under no illusions.
Speaker 1: I felt faint and stars crossed my eyes, but I
Speaker 1: knew I had to get up, Just get up. My
Speaker 1: hand shook on the arm of the chair. I pushed
Speaker 1: down hard on it, forcing some pressure. Slowly I started
Speaker 1: to rise. My feet shook as they took the weight
Speaker 1: of my body, but eventually I was standing. I grabbed
Speaker 1: the phone on the side table and dialed my doctor's number.
Speaker 1: My hand quivered as I dialed. Something was terribly wrong.
Speaker 1: Time was running out to make it right. One thing
Speaker 1: was becoming clear to me. I was going to have
Speaker 1: to stare death in the face. I didn't know it then,
Speaker 1: but it would happen because of the strangest thing. The
Speaker 1: gray cloud hangs low like a canopy of dread. The
Speaker 1: rain falls, and the wind starts to blow. It feels
Speaker 1: like an apocalypse. I eventually got off the farm. The
Speaker 1: snow eased, and so did my symptoms. I saw the doctor.
Speaker 1: Of course, he put my symptoms down to stress, and
Speaker 1: so I carried on. But I could tell something wasn't right.
Speaker 1: In May of that year, I turned fifty six. Man,
Speaker 1: you have to consider mortality. I felt at least seventy
Speaker 1: like something was slowing me down, but I didn't know what.
Speaker 1: If the doctor said I was fine, then I was fine. Right.
Speaker 1: We had a party for my birthday at home in California.
Speaker 1: Everyone came, a million dollar bash. Really, it was just
Speaker 1: an excuse to get the family together. There were quite
Speaker 1: a few of us by this point. My daughter Maria
Speaker 1: and her family came. I could tell what she was
Speaker 1: thinking the moment she arrived. She smiled and kissed me
Speaker 1: on the cheek, but as she looked into my eyes,
Speaker 1: she seemed worried. Concern was written all over her face.
Speaker 1: Times when she asked how I was, I shrugged and
Speaker 1: said busy, But she didn't buy it. She's too clever
Speaker 1: for that. As we walked up the stairs to the
Speaker 1: main part of the house, I felt it again, that
Speaker 1: shortness of breath and feeling of tacks in my lungs.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the path that you're walking walk. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to worry Maria, so I kept walking. I concentrated on
Speaker 1: the steps to take my mind off the pane one two, three,
Speaker 1: four steps, But I didn't count the fifth stars appeared
Speaker 1: across my eyes again. I grabbed the handrail to stop
Speaker 1: from falling. Maria spun around and I smiled. She still
Speaker 1: wasn't buying it, but she didn't say anything. One day,
Speaker 1: it will be the end of Later, in a packed
Speaker 1: living room, with the Pacific Ocean mysterious and dark right
Speaker 1: outside the window, and the sun just nestled above it,
Speaker 1: we're saying happy birthday, mainly for the kids, not for me.
Speaker 1: A huge cake emerged from the kitchen. I got to
Speaker 1: my feet, feigning annoyance. It's a little act I like
Speaker 1: to do for everyone. But as I did, I felt
Speaker 1: something pass over me, a cold, anxious feeling. My heart
Speaker 1: rattled around my chest as the singing got louder, get
Speaker 1: to a certain age. Happy birthday to you, they sang,
Speaker 1: as my heart thudded in my ears, louder and louder.
Speaker 1: Boom boom, Happy birthday to you, boom boom. The cake
Speaker 1: was brought closer and has the flickering candles blurred in
Speaker 1: my failing eyesight. All I could do was force another smile.
Speaker 1: A second later, I coughed and felt my lungs rattle.
Speaker 1: I gasped, sucking in air, but it only gave me
Speaker 1: momentary relief. I felt like my lungs were leaking again,
Speaker 1: like they couldn't hold onto anything, like like the bottom
Speaker 1: had fallen out. I'm under no illusions as this was happening.
Speaker 1: I could feel something else in my slight, feverish state.
Speaker 1: I could feel someone staring at me, their eyes burning me.
Speaker 1: Of course, everyone in the room was looking at me,
Speaker 1: but only one person was staring at me. I thought,
Speaker 1: for one awful moment it was Jesus himself. I felt
Speaker 1: like I was back in that Tucson hotel room. Is
Speaker 1: this it? I thought? Is this the end? You have
Speaker 1: to consider mortality? I scanned the room full of familiar faces,
Speaker 1: and that's when I saw Maria standing there, eyes fixed
Speaker 1: on me. She looked different from everyone else way. I
Speaker 1: quickly realized why she wasn't singing. Everyone else was dutifully
Speaker 1: going through happy Birthday, but Maria, she was silent, mouth shut,
Speaker 1: staring at me in disappointment and concern. The song finished
Speaker 1: and there was silence. Come on, Bob, someone shouted as
Speaker 1: the cake was presented to me. Still feeling woozy, I
Speaker 1: took in a deep breath. My lungs crackling as I did,
Speaker 1: I mean they audibly crackled. It became the only sound
Speaker 1: in the room. When it comes to death, I blew
Speaker 1: with all my might. About a quarter of the candles
Speaker 1: went out. I blew again. A few more extinguished. The
Speaker 1: room felt awkward. One of my grandkids was sent forward
Speaker 1: to finish blowing out the candles, and then there was
Speaker 1: this weak clap as they all went out. I looked
Speaker 1: up and saw Maria still staring right at me. Later,
Speaker 1: I just grabbed a beer from the fridge, and when
Speaker 1: I turned around, she was there looking concerned. Again. You're
Speaker 1: not well, she said. That's how she opened it. No pleasantries,
Speaker 1: The long strange journey of the Naked Ape, the doctor said,
Speaker 1: I replied, but she cut me off. I've called another
Speaker 1: doctor and I want you to see him. She replied.
Speaker 1: What was I supposed to say that? I felt, Okay,
Speaker 1: that was a lie. I'm under no illusions, please, she said.
Speaker 1: In that moment, she saved my life. Next thing I knew,
Speaker 1: I was in the hospital, Maria's doctor took one look
Speaker 1: at me and convinced me to go for tests. He
Speaker 1: asked about my lifestyle and said he was worried about
Speaker 1: my heart. I should have been more worried too. There
Speaker 1: were nights where I couldn't breathe properly, days where my
Speaker 1: heart ran like a tommy gun. I thought I was
Speaker 1: on my way to see Elvis real soon one day
Speaker 1: it will be the end of the end of the end.
Speaker 1: I remember being in the hospital. There was a needle
Speaker 1: in my arm and a pad on my heart, you know,
Speaker 1: the usual. I gazed up at the solid white ceiling tiles,
Speaker 1: thinking about nothing, just nothing at all. Just then the
Speaker 1: door to my room opened and in came the doctor, Mr. Dillon.
Speaker 1: He said, you haven't had a heart attack. I sighed, relieved.
Speaker 1: The doctor's face tensed up as he continued. But it
Speaker 1: is still very serious, he said. He told me the
Speaker 1: problem was that there was an inflammation of the sack
Speaker 1: around the heart, preventing the heart from expanding and filling
Speaker 1: correctly a certain age. He showed me a little drawing
Speaker 1: on his legal patent. I knew straight away that he
Speaker 1: was right. It felt exactly how he was describing it.
Speaker 1: The whole thing had put my lungs in the can too.
Speaker 1: The doctor told me it was down to a fungal infection.
Speaker 1: What's it called. It's some pistol plasma capsulate him. That
Speaker 1: was it. I memorized the name. It's a fungus that
Speaker 1: grows in the soil. Tablets would fix it, but I
Speaker 1: wasn't out of the woods yet. There would be work
Speaker 1: to do in a mystery to solve as well. Life
Speaker 1: produces us all. Any idea how you would have come
Speaker 1: into contact with something like this, the doctor asked. I
Speaker 1: couldn't think of anything, so I went back to staring
Speaker 1: at the ceiling tiles. As I lay there, I suddenly
Speaker 1: remembered something, something I hadn't thought about in a very
Speaker 1: long time. Sometimes you've just been on the job too long.
Speaker 1: I remembered another bed I'd laid in. This was in
Speaker 1: another life, when I was another version of myself. There
Speaker 1: was another time where I saw mortality creep across my horizon.
Speaker 1: It was that doctor ed Taylor's house all those years ago,
Speaker 1: right after that motorcycle crash. I suddenly recalled lying in
Speaker 1: a bed at his house in Middletown, somewhere near Woodstock,
Speaker 1: and dreaming about my life, dreaming about what had happened
Speaker 1: and what was to come. And that got me thinking
Speaker 1: at me remembering again the reason I was, if you'll
Speaker 1: excuse a little bit of self quoting, knocking on Heaven's
Speaker 1: door once again, there was another damn motorcycle. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back after this word word word. There's fog everywhere now.
Speaker 1: I can feel in my nose, in my hair, and
Speaker 1: my eyes. I can't really see anything. A cough and
Speaker 1: cough again. I have no idea where I am. I've
Speaker 1: been in this for too long. I feel like I'll
Speaker 1: never make it home. I feel like I'm trapped here now.
Speaker 1: I start to wonder if this is even real life anymore?
Speaker 1: Did I die? Am I in some sort of purgatory? Motorcycles?
Speaker 1: Fucking motorcycles. I love them. They have always been a
Speaker 1: symbol of freedom or escape for me, but they have
Speaker 1: always been my potential downfall too. There was a motorcycle
Speaker 1: involved in the death of that biker Robert Zimmerman, when
Speaker 1: he died in front of his Hell's Angels buddies. There
Speaker 1: was a motorcycle involved when Bob Dylan you used to know,
Speaker 1: died on that Woodstock road. And there was one when
Speaker 1: I was reborn. At this point of my life, a
Speaker 1: long strange journey, you see, I've been in the wilderness.
Speaker 1: Like I said, ever since I had stopped preaching about Jesus,
Speaker 1: there had been ups and downs. My time is Lucky
Speaker 1: Wilberry and a couple of good records aside, there were
Speaker 1: a lot of downs. But something happened from onwards. I
Speaker 1: became someone new again. Is so transient Waiting for me
Speaker 1: in this new life would be Grammys number one singles
Speaker 1: and a Nobel Prize. Even if I did wait about
Speaker 1: a half a year to pick up that thing. I
Speaker 1: just had to shed this former existence that had been
Speaker 1: dragging me down for too long. Now. I told you before,
Speaker 1: but I'll tell you again. You cannot force these things.
Speaker 1: You have to wait for when the universe is ready
Speaker 1: to gift you a new life, even if it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like a gift. At the time, we were playing
Speaker 1: a show in Indiana before the gig. We had some
Speaker 1: downtime in the day, so I took my motorcycle out
Speaker 1: for a ride. You know, I never stopped riding after
Speaker 1: that would stock crash Man, That crash may have made
Speaker 1: me more of a rider. If anything. I was riding
Speaker 1: through a swampy area. It was deserted, strange kind of mythical.
Speaker 1: I rode and rode, just me and my bike. After
Speaker 1: a while, I noticed the sky was changing. What had
Speaker 1: been a cloudy day was turning into a storm. The
Speaker 1: black clouds were appearing quickly. Now the wind was picking
Speaker 1: up two. I don't worry about my mortality. I started
Speaker 1: to feel the resistance against me and the bike, and
Speaker 1: then I felt the first drops of rain on my face.
Speaker 1: I goosed the throttle, going faster, and the bike roared
Speaker 1: as the wind rushed around its shell. Faster and faster
Speaker 1: I went as I felt the resistance grow. Then, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I thought of that Hell's angel, poor
Speaker 1: Bobby zimmermans All. I could see the wreckage of his bike,
Speaker 1: the blood on the pavement, the gasoline spilling out. I
Speaker 1: slammed on the brakes. I was panting at the side
Speaker 1: of the road. I don't know. Some people might call
Speaker 1: it a panic attack. I'm not sure about that, but
Speaker 1: either way, I stood at the side of the road
Speaker 1: as the wind and rain came down. I watched the
Speaker 1: force of it battered branches and send birds off their course.
Speaker 1: One day it will be the end of the wind.
Speaker 1: Howled like an angry beast, and then the rain fell
Speaker 1: harder and harder. Everything around me was damp and sludgy.
Speaker 1: With one huge rush of wind, my bike fell to
Speaker 1: its side as the air rushed around me. I didn't
Speaker 1: go and pick it up. Instead, I looked for safety.
Speaker 1: I ran to a small covering where some trees stood
Speaker 1: close together. I crouched down as the rain pummeled the
Speaker 1: swampy landscape, moss and water whipping my face and knocking
Speaker 1: me off balance. I lay there in the dirt, my
Speaker 1: hands over my head soaked right through. I shut my
Speaker 1: eyes tightly and listened to the rain hit the leaves
Speaker 1: of the trees. It felt like a vengeful god wreaking
Speaker 1: revenge on a sinful landscape, every human being, no matter
Speaker 1: how strong or mighty. I laid there as still as possible, waiting,
Speaker 1: just waiting. Slowly, but surely it passed. When the rain
Speaker 1: began to slow, I sat up and watched the storm
Speaker 1: move over the landscape. I began to marvel at it.
Speaker 1: I worry about the world's mortality. When it was gone,
Speaker 1: I was left with a sense of calm. The silence
Speaker 1: returned to the area, but with it came a dense
Speaker 1: fog I've never seen a fog like it. It was
Speaker 1: thick and humid, like a wire wool. It was scratchy
Speaker 1: in my throat and rough on my eyes. I started
Speaker 1: to ride back to the hotel, but I couldn't see
Speaker 1: where the hell I was going to a certain age,
Speaker 1: I had no idea what was in front of me
Speaker 1: or behind. Tried to get my bearings as I rode.
Speaker 1: I sucked the air into my lungs, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: like normal air. It was weighted, like my body couldn't
Speaker 1: use it. I kept coughing, coughing, coughing, like there was
Speaker 1: a rattlesnake in my throat thrashing around. You have to
Speaker 1: consider mortality, man. I must have coughed all the way
Speaker 1: back to the hotel. By the time I finally got there,
Speaker 1: I crashed through the lobby, still coughing, sprinting past Larry Campbell,
Speaker 1: my guitar player. He asked me if I was okay.
Speaker 1: I couldn't even answer him. I just held my hand up.
Speaker 1: I ran to my villa in the hotel grounds, falling
Speaker 1: through the front doors. I grabbed the water bottle from
Speaker 1: the ice bucket and down to the whole thing. I
Speaker 1: slumped down with my back against the front door, gasping.
Speaker 1: What the hell was that? I shouted out loud. Pistol
Speaker 1: plasma capsulate him, man, that's what it was. The doctor
Speaker 1: told me. I caught it from the droplets in the fog.
Speaker 1: It's common in the South. Apparently most people get it
Speaker 1: and get over it with drugs, but left unchecked it
Speaker 1: can you guessed it be life threatening. It can make
Speaker 1: you think you're having a heart attack. Thankfully, we caught
Speaker 1: it just in time. Even though I've lived all these lives,
Speaker 1: it felt like, for the first time in my life,
Speaker 1: I've escaped death, which in itself led me to a
Speaker 1: renewed sense of life. For once, I didn't feel like
Speaker 1: I transfigured. I felt like I was getting a second
Speaker 1: chance out of life, and I took it. My album
Speaker 1: Time out of Mind came out shortly after all this
Speaker 1: and was the perfect start to my second chance. It
Speaker 1: would become one of my most revered records. Critics would
Speaker 1: call it a rebirth, and it would lead to a
Speaker 1: run of albums and tours that would define this part
Speaker 1: of my career. Not like I care what they think,
Speaker 1: but I do admit that I pay attention sometimes regardless
Speaker 1: my entire working life changed for the better. This new
Speaker 1: era would challenge the very best of my work. How
Speaker 1: did I celebrate a new lease of life? Well, it's
Speaker 1: only fair. I paid my respects to God's representative on earth,
Speaker 1: So that's exactly what I did. The man sits in
Speaker 1: the chamber alone. The cold, imposing stones of the Vatican
Speaker 1: wall stares back at him in silence. The bell sounds
Speaker 1: in the distance. The man quickly rises to his feet, and,
Speaker 1: despite his age, blows out the candles in the room.
Speaker 1: He exits through a large wooden door with speedy purpose.
Speaker 1: In years to come, Joseph Allowicious Ratzinger will be known
Speaker 1: as Pope Benedict, But right now, in August, he is
Speaker 1: a Cardinal, Cardinal Ratzinger. To be precise, these are two
Speaker 1: names on the Cardinal's mind that day. One is Pope
Speaker 1: John Paul the second then the other is Bob Dylan.
Speaker 1: The Cardinal walks impatiently down the vast halls of the
Speaker 1: Apostolic Palace before he has met by the Pope's private secretary.
Speaker 1: The Holy Father is ready for you now, says the
Speaker 1: officiant voice. The cardinal enters the large sitting room. It's
Speaker 1: ornate furniture taking up space, and priceless works of art
Speaker 1: framing the walls. Sitting there in the middle of it
Speaker 1: all in complete silence, is Pope John Paul the Second.
Speaker 1: After initial greetings and pleasantries, including Italy's finest espresso, the
Speaker 1: Pope gets to the meeting's main agenda, next month's guest.
Speaker 1: This the Cardinal not keen on hosting him. I beg you,
Speaker 1: my grace, the Cardinal replies, is this the right direction?
Speaker 1: The Pope stands up from his comfy armchair and walks
Speaker 1: to a vast window. They call him a prophet, you know,
Speaker 1: he responds, in all seriousness. The Cardinal looks confused. They do.
Speaker 1: The Pope continues to stare out the window while speaking
Speaker 1: to the Cardinal. Sometimes we have to let other people
Speaker 1: do are talking for us in a way that we cannot.
Speaker 1: The Cardinal disagrees. He responds with all due respect, that
Speaker 1: his holiness could not be serious. It all sounds like
Speaker 1: cheap vivality. Silence hangs in the air, and the Pope
Speaker 1: continues to stare out the window. The Cardinal, hoping to
Speaker 1: make his point of view crystal clear, decides to let
Speaker 1: the silence continue, But as the silence grows louder and louder.
Speaker 1: The cardinal can't take it. He fears the islands might
Speaker 1: shatter the chamber if it goes on any longer. Holy Father,
Speaker 1: he begins, surely you can't expect Bob Dylan to share
Speaker 1: a stage the place hosts of saints and profits. Pope
Speaker 1: John Paul turns around with his chest and heads silhouetted
Speaker 1: black against the vast windows, redeeming light opens his mouth
Speaker 1: to speak, yes, Yes, I do. Two months later, people
Speaker 1: stand outside the Vatican. The crowd faces two stages, one
Speaker 1: featuring Bob Dylan standing in front of a microphone, and
Speaker 1: the other on which Pope John Paul. The second sits
Speaker 1: surrounded by cardinals and bodyguards. Bob Dylan is about to
Speaker 1: release Time out of Mind, his best album in over
Speaker 1: a decade. Early sales projection suggests it will be a
Speaker 1: best seller for even longer. Some of his peers, like
Speaker 1: Elvis Costello, say it's his best album ever. But right now,
Speaker 1: a new album is the last thing on Dylan's mind.
Speaker 1: He stands on the stage waiting for his queue. When
Speaker 1: it comes, Dylan doesn't start straight away. He waits for
Speaker 1: a few seconds before starting on his own, a rendition
Speaker 1: of knocking on Heaven's store. During the song, he gazes
Speaker 1: out at the three thousand people in front of him,
Speaker 1: all the while feeling the undeniable presence of the Pope
Speaker 1: to his side. Dylan sings the words he has sung hundreds,
Speaker 1: maybe thousands of times before. He thinks about his own life,
Speaker 1: about his relationship with the Almighty, his lessons from God.
Speaker 1: He wonders what that different form of him, the preacher
Speaker 1: man he once was, would think of him now, just
Speaker 1: feet away from God's representative on earth. He thinks about
Speaker 1: the hotel room in Tucson, the one where he felt
Speaker 1: the presence of something holier than holy, the cross he
Speaker 1: wore on that stage, that fever. He hardly remembers that
Speaker 1: preacher man. Now, with his recent hospital visit, a new
Speaker 1: album ready to go, he can feel a new day dawning,
Speaker 1: a new horizon uning in the new morning. And then
Speaker 1: the gig is over all three songs. It goes by
Speaker 1: even faster than he expected. As he had been instructed
Speaker 1: to do. Dylan walks to the other stage, jumping up
Speaker 1: the little steps to where his holiness sat. As he does,
Speaker 1: he slips just to split second on a step, terror
Speaker 1: takes hold of his body. He's about to fall in
Speaker 1: front of three thousand people, in front of the Pope,
Speaker 1: in front of the Lord himself, but he manages to
Speaker 1: think quickly and act quickly, regains his footing and finds
Speaker 1: his way to the top. The crowd roars. Dylan greets
Speaker 1: the Pope by removing his big stetson. Thank you, he
Speaker 1: says to his Holiness. The Pope replies for his own thanks.
Speaker 1: The Pope blesses Dylan, and with it his new lease
Speaker 1: on life begins. The next day, the Cardinal reads he
Speaker 1: excited reaction to Dylan's performance in the newspaper, just a
Speaker 1: few lines, and then he tosses it onto the breakfast table.
Speaker 1: Something else catches his eyes. He does a copy of
Speaker 1: Newsweek magazine on the cover as a man in a
Speaker 1: stetson hat, and the Cardinal reads the large writing at
Speaker 1: the top of the picture Dylan's first Newsweek front cover
Speaker 1: for twenty three years, and then he reads the headline
Speaker 1: at the bottom, Dylan lives, and the Cardinal cox his
Speaker 1: head to the side. The man in the photo looks
Speaker 1: different than the man he saw performed just the night before,
Speaker 1: not older, or younger in age, just different. The man
Speaker 1: on the magazine cover looks renewed, decluttered, like he has
Speaker 1: experienced something painful and emerged out the other side, like
Speaker 1: he's left something behind. But Cardinal can't quite find the
Speaker 1: right phrase for it at first, and then it comes
Speaker 1: to him the man had gone through a transformation. He
Speaker 1: may not even be the same man who performed alongside
Speaker 1: the Pope. Suddenly it becomes clear to the Cardinal, but
Speaker 1: the man on the cover of Newsweek has relinquished something
Speaker 1: that had been doing him harm, and in doing so
Speaker 1: left in his wake. Blood on the Tracks. Blood on
Speaker 1: the Tracks produced by Double Elvis in partnership with I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. It's hosted an executive produced by me Jake Brennan,
Speaker 1: also executive produced by Brady Sadly. Zeth Lundie is lead
Speaker 1: editor and producer. This episode was written by Ben Burrow,
Speaker 1: Story and copy editing by Pat Healey, Mixing and sound
Speaker 1: designed by Colin Fleming. Additional music and score elements by
Speaker 1: Ryan Spreaker. This episode featured Chris Anzeloni is Bob Dylan.
Speaker 1: Sources for this episode are available at Double Elvis dot
Speaker 1: com on the Blood on the Tracks series page. Follow
Speaker 1: Double Elvis on Instagram at double Elvis and on Twitch
Speaker 1: at s grace and Talks. And you can talk to
Speaker 1: me per Usual on Instagram and Twitter at disgrace Land, Pond,
Speaker 1: rock Away type rages, r dand