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 Taylor. This is day number six, now
Speaker 1: August third, in nine here at my home in Middletown,
Speaker 1: New York. Progress remains about the same with the patient,
Speaker 1: Robert Zimmerman, a k a. Bob Dylan. He seems to
Speaker 1: have lost some of the delusion from before, which is
Speaker 1: a positive sign. But I'm disappointed to say this delusion
Speaker 1: has been replaced by signs of depression. Bob, in his
Speaker 1: waking hours, of which there are a few, seems to
Speaker 1: be very very low. So there's this story. A man
Speaker 1: lost his wife, the love of his life. She died young. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the man is distraughty. He can't continue life is meaningless
Speaker 1: until one night he meets the devil at the crossroads.
Speaker 1: The devil strikes a bargain. In return for the man's soul,
Speaker 1: devil will bring his wife back to life for one
Speaker 1: day and one day only. The man agrees without hesitation,
Speaker 1: But before the devil performs his work, he asks, is
Speaker 1: there anything you would change about her? Do you think
Speaker 1: you could fix her nose? The man asks, I never
Speaker 1: liked her nose. M So the devil makes the change.
Speaker 1: The man then thinks, what about her eyes? Can we
Speaker 1: make them blue? So the devil changes her eyes. The
Speaker 1: man continues. The bags under his wife's eyes are removed,
Speaker 1: her skin is cleared, her temper curved, her trauma gone.
Speaker 1: When the man's wife is eventually brought back to his horror,
Speaker 1: she is a completely different person. In fact, she's a
Speaker 1: total stranger. Grief stricken at his foolish actions, the man
Speaker 1: kills himself. The devil had claimed another soul. See when
Speaker 1: you change so much, sometimes you forget who you've been,
Speaker 1: a complete unknown as it were. Then you're left with
Speaker 1: something different. And all that changing and becoming something different,
Speaker 1: it's bound to le blood on the tracks. M Chapter
Speaker 1: six Bob Dylan is pretending to be Bob Dylan. I'm
Speaker 1: getting into my car. I don't know why I'm compelled
Speaker 1: to drive, but I am. I throw the station wagon
Speaker 1: it's gear and fly out of the driveway. I know
Speaker 1: where I'm going, and it's already breaking my heart. By
Speaker 1: the time I got to the early nineties, I had
Speaker 1: learned a thing or two about loss and who the
Speaker 1: hell was Bob Dylan anyway? Vagabond, rock roll icon, counterculture
Speaker 1: hero legend. None of those spoke to me. The born
Speaker 1: again phase of my life had created a distance between
Speaker 1: me and some of my old friends and even family
Speaker 1: members that had been preceded by my divorce from Sarah
Speaker 1: to battle involving my kids, man, that was rough. Then
Speaker 1: I was in court with my former manager, Albert Grossman.
Speaker 1: We had had a dispute over publishing rights to songs.
Speaker 1: It always ends up like that in the music business,
Speaker 1: and I was no different courtrooms, contracts and lawyers. That's
Speaker 1: what I was doing when I wasn't on the road
Speaker 1: or in the studio. But losing a wife and a
Speaker 1: manager wasn't the end of the loss. From there, I
Speaker 1: lost a confidante, my studio and possibly my mind. You
Speaker 1: forget who you've been. I got this little studio in
Speaker 1: Santa Monica, Rundown. It was called it summed Me Up perfectly.
Speaker 1: At that point we caught albums like Street Legal and
Speaker 1: Shot of Love there. In fact, that's it on the
Speaker 1: Street Legal cover photograph. I liked that studio, but it
Speaker 1: became tainted. It started out as a comfortable place, full
Speaker 1: of creativity and life, but it fell apart so quickly.
Speaker 1: It ended up becoming a place that I looked back
Speaker 1: on now and remember only fear and death. We were
Speaker 1: recording at Rundown when a woman called Carmel Hubble decided
Speaker 1: to leave her home in Michigan and come to the studio.
Speaker 1: That's when it all started to go wrong. We were
Speaker 1: going through the song to Ramona when I heard a commotion.
Speaker 1: Rundown wasn't a big studio, and all we could hear
Speaker 1: was shouting from outside the main room. I motioned for
Speaker 1: the band to stop. I shouted, what's going on. The
Speaker 1: filmmaker Howard Ulk, who was with us at the time
Speaker 1: working on a project, told me that this woman, Carmel
Speaker 1: was at the main entrance claiming to be my girlfriend.
Speaker 1: She was demanding to come into the session. He awkwardly
Speaker 1: asked me if we were together. So there's this story.
Speaker 1: What do you think, Howard? Was my response, To be
Speaker 1: fair to him, she could have been with me. There
Speaker 1: were a lot of women on the scene at that time.
Speaker 1: Obviously the man is distraught. Without any warning, the doors
Speaker 1: to the main room flew open, revealing a short woman
Speaker 1: with bright blonde hair. She was like a human firecracker,
Speaker 1: jolting and exploding and screams at random moments. The security
Speaker 1: guard was trying to subdue her as diplomatically as possible.
Speaker 1: Everyone stared. She squirmed in his arms, kicking and shouting Bob.
Speaker 1: She kept yelling Bobby, my sweetheart. Everyone looked at me.
Speaker 1: I don't know who this is, I shouted in response,
Speaker 1: And I didn't. Man, I'd never laid eyes on this
Speaker 1: woman before. That's the truth. She's a total stranger. But
Speaker 1: I couldn't shake the sense that some people in that
Speaker 1: room didn't believe me. Howard and the security guard had
Speaker 1: to forcibly remove her from the place. God, she was
Speaker 1: screaming and screaming about us being lovers. I told everyone
Speaker 1: to take some time after that. Later, when I got home,
Speaker 1: there was a note on the gate to my compound,
Speaker 1: again talking about a sweetheart. A couple of days later,
Speaker 1: another one appeared saying Mrs X equals Mrs Manson Manson.
Speaker 1: I won't lie. I was scared. I mean, look at
Speaker 1: John Lennon. He had only recently died at the hands
Speaker 1: of a crazy person. I didn't want to be the
Speaker 1: next one. The devil strikes a bargain. A few days later,
Speaker 1: Carmel hold one of my backing singers and threatened her life.
Speaker 1: That was enough for me. My lawyers and the police
Speaker 1: put a stop to it all. I had an awful
Speaker 1: feeling that the whole incident would end in tragedy. My
Speaker 1: hunches were not quite correct. It turned out that Carmel
Speaker 1: Hubbell was not dangerous, but Rundown would witness of death
Speaker 1: that year. I wasn't that far off the mark. It
Speaker 1: started on tour. That tour was full of good shows,
Speaker 1: but the ticket sales were lousy. People have been spooked
Speaker 1: by the religious songs I've been playing during the previous shows.
Speaker 1: I mean, give me a break. Is there anything you
Speaker 1: would change about her? Howard al was on that tour too.
Speaker 1: Like I said, Howard was a filmmaker, but he was
Speaker 1: also a close friend of mine. He'd worked on all
Speaker 1: my major films up to that point, like Don't Look Back,
Speaker 1: Eat the Document, even Ronaldo and Clara. It was re
Speaker 1: assuring to have Howard with me. I needed close friends
Speaker 1: at that point, people that knew the real me. I
Speaker 1: needed them there because I'd started to forget when you
Speaker 1: changed so much. Howard was filming bits on this tour.
Speaker 1: I wanted to make a Ronaldo and Clara kind of film,
Speaker 1: something that played with truth and reality, but on a
Speaker 1: smaller scale than that film. Howard turned fifty one on
Speaker 1: that tour, so he's saying happy birthday to him on
Speaker 1: stage in Pennsylvania. He beamed from the wings, looking like
Speaker 1: a little boy. On Christmas morning. That was the last
Speaker 1: time I saw him happy. We took a break from
Speaker 1: the shows before the new year, and Howard was not
Speaker 1: in a good way. His second marriage was over and
Speaker 1: he had nowhere to stay A man lost his wife.
Speaker 1: His wife now he had been living on my Malibu state,
Speaker 1: but he wanted to be on his own, away from
Speaker 1: everyone else. To tell you the truth, I think he
Speaker 1: didn't want to face the holiday with everyone playing happy families. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the man is destroyed. I suggested he could stay at Rundown.
Speaker 1: We made him a little studio apartment. He had a bed,
Speaker 1: a makeshift one on the floor, a kitchen, a bathroom.
Speaker 1: He had breathing space, at least I hoped he did.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing him just before Christmas. Are you sure
Speaker 1: you don't want to come to the house for the holidays,
Speaker 1: I asked him. He shook his head. I'm fine here.
Speaker 1: I have everything I need, he said. I figured he
Speaker 1: had plenty of work to get on with, so I
Speaker 1: left him to it. The devil strikes a bargain. I
Speaker 1: remember looking at the little bed on the floor and
Speaker 1: thinking this shouldn't be where a fifty one year old
Speaker 1: slept on Christmas. That was my last memory of Howard.
Speaker 1: He had been using junk for years. That Christmas, he
Speaker 1: put a needle in his arm for the last time.
Speaker 1: The coroner said it was an accidental overdose, but Howard
Speaker 1: knew what he was doing. He can continue. He knew
Speaker 1: the dose, he knew how much would be too much.
Speaker 1: I didn't tour again for years after that. I also
Speaker 1: left Rundown forever. Soon after Howard's death was the encore
Speaker 1: to a bitter period in my life. Even the moments
Speaker 1: that should have been happy were a mess during that time.
Speaker 1: Something I would find out in front of the whole world.
Speaker 1: Soon enough, I pulled into l a X. I have
Speaker 1: a cap on some no one would recognize me. I
Speaker 1: jogged from the car to the terminal. I stagger in
Speaker 1: and find the large departures board. I look, but I
Speaker 1: can't see it. I'm scanning quickly now, but I still
Speaker 1: can't see it. Then I do, in big yellow letters.
Speaker 1: I read it aloud, Duluth. Things should have been so
Speaker 1: much better than the way they were at this time
Speaker 1: of my life. I felt disinterested. I lacked confidence. I
Speaker 1: was hard on myself, too hard on myself. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what I wanted to be or where I was going.
Speaker 1: Life is meaningless. There were two moments in the nineties
Speaker 1: that should have been crowning glories, but both got away
Speaker 1: from me. They were both on a stage, they both
Speaker 1: featured legends introducing me, and they both fell apart. One
Speaker 1: happened in Philadelphia, one in New York. One was at
Speaker 1: the John F. Kennedy Stadium, the other was at the Hilton.
Speaker 1: One was live Aid, the other was my induction to
Speaker 1: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. God, it was
Speaker 1: so hot that day. I had been drinking with Keith
Speaker 1: Richards and Ronnie Wood, which I wouldn't recommend before a performance,
Speaker 1: especially when you're performing with them. That's right. The Stones
Speaker 1: were my backing band that day, and they were drunk
Speaker 1: in New York. I wasn't drunk, but I had been
Speaker 1: popping pills. One got me up, the other brought me down.
Speaker 1: The trick was finding a balance, which I would fail
Speaker 1: to do that night. It was chaos inside the JFK Stadium.
Speaker 1: Nothing had been planned. Guitars were everywhere, the lighting was
Speaker 1: all over the place. No one knew what was happening
Speaker 1: until the very last second. Not the right atmosphere for
Speaker 1: a show. The Hall of Fame night was the Obviously,
Speaker 1: it was fiercely planned. All of that night. All of
Speaker 1: the chaos was inside my head. In Philly, Jack Nicholson
Speaker 1: introduced me in the band onto the stage. He said,
Speaker 1: some artists work speaks for its generation. It's my deep
Speaker 1: personal pleasure to present to you one of America's great
Speaker 1: voices of freedom, the transcendent Bob Dylan. Transcendent. I liked
Speaker 1: that description. The rest of the show. I didn't like
Speaker 1: it so much. It certainly wasn't a transcendent performance. Springsteen
Speaker 1: had the same job in New York. His words should
Speaker 1: have touched me. He said, the way that Elvis freed
Speaker 1: your body, Bob freed your mind. Man, that was an honor,
Speaker 1: But at the time, it felt like he was talking
Speaker 1: about someone else, someone I didn't know, someone who died
Speaker 1: a long time ago. As I walked on to the
Speaker 1: stage to accept that award, I felt like a fraud.
Speaker 1: I didn't even recognize the person he was describing. As
Speaker 1: we walked onto the stage in Philly, the noise was immense,
Speaker 1: only matched by the wall of heat coming at us.
Speaker 1: I picked up my guitar and straight away the feedback
Speaker 1: coursed around the stadium. It was deafening, a sign of
Speaker 1: things to come. I was nervous thinking of all those
Speaker 1: people watching. The expectation was overwhelming. It was the same
Speaker 1: in New York. God, I was so nervous. I mean,
Speaker 1: just look at the crowd that was watching me. Alan Lomax,
Speaker 1: Little Richard, Muhammad Ali. By the way, Muhammad Ali winst
Speaker 1: seven KOs five losses. I wondered what they all thought
Speaker 1: of the version of Bob Dylan that stood before them
Speaker 1: that day. I wondered if they still believed in him.
Speaker 1: In Philly, there were so many big artists on that bill,
Speaker 1: Neil Young, the Beach Boys, led Zeppelin, some big contemporary
Speaker 1: artists as well, but Donna and Duran Durant, to name
Speaker 1: a few. I was the headliner, though all eyes on me.
Speaker 1: It was a worldwide event. It was a moment I
Speaker 1: had to say something important in that ballroom in New York.
Speaker 1: I had to give an acceptance speech. I took a
Speaker 1: moment to look at the crowd before starting. I mean,
Speaker 1: what could I say? I felt like asking the room
Speaker 1: who the hell I was? To them? Who the hell
Speaker 1: I was to anyone? In the face of camera flashes,
Speaker 1: I cleared my throat and started by saying, thanks Bruce.
Speaker 1: We started the live aid set with the song Hollis Brown.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be blowing in the Wind with
Speaker 1: a recently reformed Peter Paul and Mary, but I had
Speaker 1: changed my mind that day. Mary Travers was furious. That
Speaker 1: was the sort of headspace I was in, anxious, uncertain,
Speaker 1: lacking confidence. The same feelings had been circling before I
Speaker 1: had taken the stage at the Hall of Fame. I'd
Speaker 1: mentioned how it was such an honor to be inducted,
Speaker 1: considering I couldn't read or write music. The comedian Tony
Speaker 1: Randall made some joke about finding me a teacher, and
Speaker 1: and it sounds stupid to say, but it devastated me.
Speaker 1: One joke, that's all it took. I couldn't shake it.
Speaker 1: I felt like I would be laughed at when I
Speaker 1: took the stage. That's all I was thinking about when
Speaker 1: giving my speech. The set it Live A had settled down.
Speaker 1: In fact, halfway through Hollis Brown, Keith Richards tried to
Speaker 1: kiss the Sky with an acoustic guitar, which I admired.
Speaker 1: If anyone could kiss the sky with an acoustic Keith
Speaker 1: can At the end of the song, Keith delivered a
Speaker 1: huge shrugged the audience. Good on him for admitting that
Speaker 1: we didn't really know what the hell we were doing
Speaker 1: up there. I jumped back on the mic to say something.
Speaker 1: I was trying to make a point, but it kind
Speaker 1: of got lost. I wanted to make sure everyone in
Speaker 1: need was being thought about that day. I wanted to
Speaker 1: highlight some of the problems I'd witnessed in my life,
Speaker 1: problems from my people. I said, I just like to say,
Speaker 1: I hope that some of the money that's raised for
Speaker 1: the people in Africa, maybe they could just take a
Speaker 1: little bit of it, maybe one or two million maybe
Speaker 1: and use it, say, to pay the mortgages some of
Speaker 1: the farmers, farmers here over the banks. It sounded like
Speaker 1: I was trying to take the focus off the point
Speaker 1: of us all being there. But that wasn't my intention.
Speaker 1: Crowd cheered, but I knew it might not have played well.
Speaker 1: I guess it seemed unwise. American farmers may have been
Speaker 1: suffering hard times, but people in Africa were starving to death.
Speaker 1: I get it. It wasn't the time. But you know,
Speaker 1: despite people giving me a hard time, some good came
Speaker 1: out of it. Farm Made happened sometime later, raising money
Speaker 1: for those farmers. So I guess I won't take back
Speaker 1: what I said in New York. My nerves had managed
Speaker 1: to survive much of my acceptance speech. In fact, I'd
Speaker 1: even cracked some jokes and people had laughed. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't go wrong in that situation, can you. You're
Speaker 1: the hero of the night. But I felt so far
Speaker 1: removed from it. All of this, like I was at
Speaker 1: my own funeral, the Hall of Fame. Man I had
Speaker 1: earned something, but it also meant I'd failed at the
Speaker 1: one thing I'd been doing all this time. Changing. This
Speaker 1: felt like an ending, not a new beginning. I had
Speaker 1: stopped evolving, stopped inventing, stopped transfiguring. Was that it would
Speaker 1: I no longer change. It was just the end of
Speaker 1: the road. I ended my speech that night by saying, peace, love,
Speaker 1: and harmony are greatly important, indeed, but so it's forgiveness,
Speaker 1: and we've got to have that too, forgiveness. I didn't
Speaker 1: really know who I was talking about when I said that.
Speaker 1: I didn't know who I was trying to get forgiveness
Speaker 1: from that night. Some years later, I realized it was
Speaker 1: for myself. We'll be right back after this word word word.
Speaker 1: The car comes to an intersection and we wait. The
Speaker 1: driver lets the traffic go. We seem to wait there
Speaker 1: for what feels like an eternity. My palms are drenched
Speaker 1: in sweat. My breathing is shallow and very audible. Another
Speaker 1: car goes by, and another and another beyond them. Is
Speaker 1: the thing I've been staring at this whole time. Seventh Avenue,
Speaker 1: Hipping Minnesota, my childhood home. I've always liked punk rock.
Speaker 1: My kids were young in the eighties, but they were
Speaker 1: still in the punk I used to slip into shows
Speaker 1: when I could. I'd leave my house in Malibu and
Speaker 1: go watch bands like X Once I went to Santa
Speaker 1: Monica to see the Clash. I like the ethos of it,
Speaker 1: the freedom of it. I wanted to perform in a
Speaker 1: band like that, just show up to a bar un
Speaker 1: announced and play a show without anyone knowing who the
Speaker 1: hell I was. Sometimes you forget who you've been in
Speaker 1: another life. I might have made a punk album, but
Speaker 1: I've never really liked to go with the sound of
Speaker 1: the times, especially when they're changing so fast, you have
Speaker 1: to make your own way. I've always stuck to that.
Speaker 1: I made a reggae sounding record called Infidels with Mark
Speaker 1: Knopfler from Dire Streets. I had worked on The Slow
Speaker 1: Train LP with him, and by the time we came
Speaker 1: to work on Infidels, he was a big star. Sly
Speaker 1: and Robbie you know them. They played rhythm on that record. Man,
Speaker 1: they could play. They made that album. Critics thought it
Speaker 1: was my return to secular music. Rubbish. There was plenty
Speaker 1: of the same type of stuff in there that had
Speaker 1: been on those so called Born Again albums. The difference
Speaker 1: was this LP. This one did well for me in
Speaker 1: a business sense, so much so that I had to
Speaker 1: make a pop video for it. MTV had become a
Speaker 1: thing artists had to pander too at that time, and
Speaker 1: I was no different. Then you left with something different.
Speaker 1: Now I hate videos. That's not an art form to me.
Speaker 1: People call it an art form, but I disagree. I
Speaker 1: needed a band for the video, which I had, but
Speaker 1: we were missing a drum. I'm not talking about Sly
Speaker 1: and Robbie and the guys that played on the record.
Speaker 1: This was for the video, okay, So like all good
Speaker 1: rock stars in need, I turned to my tour manager's
Speaker 1: secretary's boyfriend. Obviously he was a drummer. We put him
Speaker 1: in the video. Charlie Quintana. That was his name. I
Speaker 1: liked him a lot. We got to chatting during the
Speaker 1: video shoot. He's a good spirit, I admired. His attitude
Speaker 1: was very punk. Turns out his band was pretty good too.
Speaker 1: They called themselves the Plugs with a Z. On the end,
Speaker 1: there was a guy called Tony Marsco on bass. After
Speaker 1: the video shoot. I wanted to hang with these guys,
Speaker 1: so we set up a jam at my house. A
Speaker 1: few months later, when I was due to play the
Speaker 1: David Letterman Show, I thought, what the hell? I asked
Speaker 1: him if they wanted to come. So there's this story.
Speaker 1: They had everything I liked about punk rock. They were
Speaker 1: raw rock us even they played like they were in
Speaker 1: the middle of a bar fight. It was so exciting.
Speaker 1: The guitarist was this guy JJ Holiday. He wasn't actually
Speaker 1: in the plugs, but J J. Holiday. What a name.
Speaker 1: The Letterman Show was pretty young at that time, only
Speaker 1: what a couple of years old. This was eighty four.
Speaker 1: I think Letterman he was punk too. You don't have
Speaker 1: to wear safety pins and spike your hair to be punk.
Speaker 1: Letterman showed that it was anarchy on his show and
Speaker 1: all that changing and becoming something different. I wanted to
Speaker 1: be part of that, to prove that I could still change,
Speaker 1: still evolved into something new. We got to New York
Speaker 1: on taping day and checked into a fancy Park Avenue hotel.
Speaker 1: As we did, the guys told me the last time
Speaker 1: they played in New York, their managers slept in their
Speaker 1: van with a gun because they thought their drum kit
Speaker 1: would be stolen. Now they had their own hotel suite.
Speaker 1: I was seeing it all through the band's eyes. It
Speaker 1: was like I was seeing this whole life for the
Speaker 1: first time again. It brought me such joy. We rehearsed
Speaker 1: fifty songs for the Letterman Show. I didn't tell the
Speaker 1: guys which ones I wanted to play. I like to
Speaker 1: keep the bands on their toes. It gives the performance
Speaker 1: an energy, especially for a band like that. Among those
Speaker 1: fifty we'd rehearsed were some Infidel's tunes and a Sunny
Speaker 1: Boy Williamson cover. That night on the show, Liberacci was
Speaker 1: appearing with us. He was cooking an egg cast role.
Speaker 1: I'm not even joking, man, I told you that show
Speaker 1: was punk. As we waited to perform on the stage
Speaker 1: at Studio six, we faced a packed house. I took
Speaker 1: a look over at j J, who seemed to be
Speaker 1: both completely in awe of the whole thing but completely
Speaker 1: ready for it too. I could already feel the energy
Speaker 1: of the performance, and we hadn't even played a note yet.
Speaker 1: The house lights dimmed and the audience broke into applause.
Speaker 1: I turned to the band and shouted let's do this
Speaker 1: Sunny Boys song to start. They nodded, except for JJ,
Speaker 1: who didn't even flinch. Without hesitation, Letterman gave us the
Speaker 1: old intro, and the place went crazy. I forgot what
Speaker 1: a crowd like that sounded like. I was used to
Speaker 1: the stereophonic din of the stadium or arena, but here
Speaker 1: in this theater, the crowd all whipped up this band
Speaker 1: hungry for blood. It felt exhilarating. We tore that place apart.
Speaker 1: I hadn't played like that in years. No, I hadn't
Speaker 1: played like that ever, I still haven't. The audience couldn't
Speaker 1: get enough. We were only supposed to play a couple
Speaker 1: of tunes, but Letterman asked for another. Sure, I said,
Speaker 1: so we launched into another. The man agrees without hesitation.
Speaker 1: As we played the last song, Joker Man, we were flying.
Speaker 1: It was the best song of the night. I knew
Speaker 1: the harmonica solo would be the jewel in the crown,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't wait to play it. It would be
Speaker 1: even better than the harmonica solo I just played in
Speaker 1: the previous song, Licensed to Kill. So when the moment came,
Speaker 1: I picked the harp up from the top of the
Speaker 1: martial lamp in blue. Uh, it was awful. It was
Speaker 1: the wrong harp, It was in the wrong key. It
Speaker 1: was the harp I had used for license to kill.
Speaker 1: The two notes I got out over the mic sounded
Speaker 1: like oh and never was there a true or musical
Speaker 1: equivalent of language. I shot eyes to the side of
Speaker 1: the stage, furious eyes, looking at the people scattering about,
Speaker 1: only just realizing what had happened. There we are on
Speaker 1: network TV time, treading water. What was I supposed to do?
Speaker 1: I thought the whole thing, which up until this point
Speaker 1: had been incredible, was about to come crashing down. Can't continue?
Speaker 1: I felt like this was just typical of my time
Speaker 1: of late. Nothing seemed to be working. Even the things
Speaker 1: that started out good fell apart. I cursed the universe.
Speaker 1: This was like Rundown, like Howard, like Live Aid like.
Speaker 1: But then then the band they just got on with it.
Speaker 1: I just said to them, keep on playing, so they did. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I've seen season pros thrown by stuff like that, but
Speaker 1: this little punk band was holding it together on national TV.
Speaker 1: In fact, they weren't holding it together. They were lighting
Speaker 1: it up without hesitation. The sound was incredible, slick, punky,
Speaker 1: I left it to him. They deserved the spotlight. After
Speaker 1: what felt like ours, the right harp was finally placed
Speaker 1: in my hands. We finished the song and the crowd
Speaker 1: lost their minds. That incident with the harp represented what
Speaker 1: the show was, rough around the edges and chaotic, but
Speaker 1: a fucking classic. Man. I felt like I was in
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones that night, and there wasn't even a
Speaker 1: rolling stone to deliver a big shrug afterwards, it gave
Speaker 1: me a brief moment of rebirth. Letterman asked me if
Speaker 1: we could come play every Tuesday night. I laughed, but honestly,
Speaker 1: if he'd have been serious, I would have done it. Afterwards,
Speaker 1: a guy called Ed, who had been running back line
Speaker 1: duties on the show that night, apologized to me for
Speaker 1: the harmonica mess up. It turns out I told him
Speaker 1: the wrong key anyway, so I guess it was yours
Speaker 1: truly who was to blame. Grief stricken at his foolish action.
Speaker 1: The band partied that night, and Liberaci came along for
Speaker 1: the ride. I got his egg casserole recipe too. At
Speaker 1: the end of the night, I told j J and
Speaker 1: the boys I'd give them a call and talk about
Speaker 1: a tour. I never did. In fact, I didn't see
Speaker 1: them again. Why that night, that moment, it was too pure.
Speaker 1: I didn't want it to be tainted to fall apart.
Speaker 1: I did, however, take one person from that night on
Speaker 1: tour with me, though. Can you guess who ed harmonica guy?
Speaker 1: He came on a European tour with me, and he
Speaker 1: never put out the wrong harmonica again. Minnesota, Palmero ran
Speaker 1: down a quiet street near his home. He clutched a
Speaker 1: hockey stick and his teen aged hands and imagined he
Speaker 1: was in the Stanley Cup as his legs worked over.
Speaker 1: In time, he'd gone back home for lunch after another
Speaker 1: morning at Hipping High School. He flicked in imaginary puck.
Speaker 1: He shoots, he scores, and then stopped dead in his tracks.
Speaker 1: A car was parked in front of his house, and
Speaker 1: there were never any cars parked in front of his house.
Speaker 1: Two men sat inside the vehicle, one in the front,
Speaker 1: the other in the back. Pat studied the car as
Speaker 1: he walked by, skeptically and couldn't quite believe what he thought.
Speaker 1: He saw. MA, that looks like Bob Dylan in that car.
Speaker 1: Pat announced to his mother Angel inside their house. Angel
Speaker 1: never met Bob Dylan, but she knew his mother, Betty Zimmerman.
Speaker 1: Angel bought the house she was standing in from Betty
Speaker 1: after her husband, Abe, Bob Dylan's father died from a
Speaker 1: heart attack. In Pat watched his mother walk outside and
Speaker 1: approached the park car. She wrapped on the window. The
Speaker 1: man who emerged wore dark sunglasses, a baggy shirt, and
Speaker 1: scruffy pants. He removed his large shades, revealing tired eyes
Speaker 1: that had the remnants of eyeliner on them. Can I
Speaker 1: help you in some way? Angel asked. Though she didn't
Speaker 1: know Bob Dylan, she knew she was talking to Bob Dylan.
Speaker 1: Dylan looked down at the ground. He offered a bashful response,
Speaker 1: I was just going to Duluth, where my father's buried,
Speaker 1: and I just thought i'd come and see the house.
Speaker 1: Angel looked back at the house and caught Pat's eyes
Speaker 1: as he watched through the window. Of course, she told
Speaker 1: Dylan my pleasure. Dylan felt the swelling of emotion as
Speaker 1: he made his way up the short path to the
Speaker 1: front door of the angular house. Angel let him in,
Speaker 1: and Dylan stepped inside for the first time in nearly
Speaker 1: two decades. He was greeted by a silent, intentative pat
Speaker 1: who could barely form any cohesive words. Feel free to
Speaker 1: have a look around was the only thing Angel could
Speaker 1: think to say. Dylan looked lost. He turned to Angel
Speaker 1: and asked if she could give him the tour. He
Speaker 1: walked through the rooms with the two current residents, remembering
Speaker 1: things that had happened to three, even four lifetimes ago.
Speaker 1: He remembered whole moments he'd forgotten, home cooked meals from
Speaker 1: his mother, playing Little Richard's songs on the piano, the
Speaker 1: side of sheets drying outside the kitchen window. When he
Speaker 1: asked Angel if they could go to the basement, she
Speaker 1: was taken aback, You want the full tour, she laughed.
Speaker 1: Dylan mustered a small smile, but couldn't hide his true emotions.
Speaker 1: Once downstairs, he told the story of how his father
Speaker 1: spent an entire winter putting up the pine paneling in
Speaker 1: the basement. He was still there. Dylan ran his hands
Speaker 1: over it as he spoke. He felt like he was
Speaker 1: touching his father again. The subterranean room was a time capsule.
Speaker 1: I've got something for you if you'd like to see it,
Speaker 1: Angel said. From the back of the cupboard, she pulled
Speaker 1: out some plates Betty had left behind. Dylon held the
Speaker 1: plates in his hands, studying the design. He remembered them
Speaker 1: so clearly from his youth, but now in his hands
Speaker 1: at this moment, they seemed so different. The design was faded.
Speaker 1: The previous red and brown coloring that had been so
Speaker 1: bold and colorful now looked muted. We only used them
Speaker 1: to put left doors up for the birds now, Angel explained.
Speaker 1: Dylan smiled, still clutching the plate. He was taken up
Speaker 1: to his old room. He climbed the stairs of the house,
Speaker 1: his body instinctively knowing the route that he made a
Speaker 1: million times, and Pad opened the door, but Dylan didn't
Speaker 1: go in. He stood in the doorway and took the
Speaker 1: whole room in from a distance so small it seemed
Speaker 1: to have shrunk over time. Then Dylan stepped inside the room.
Speaker 1: His heart pounded, History and memory circled around him. He
Speaker 1: felt as though he stepped into a past life, like
Speaker 1: he was regressing, and everything he had become, everything he was,
Speaker 1: had been stripped away. In that room. He was bare.
Speaker 1: His accolades, his status, his money were all gone, and
Speaker 1: they were meaningless in this room. But so were all
Speaker 1: of his problems, his weariness, his mistakes, and they were
Speaker 1: all gone here. He was Bobby Zimmerman, not Bob Dylan.
Speaker 1: He turned to look at Pat, who sat quietly on
Speaker 1: the bed, just in the way Dylan had done all
Speaker 1: those years ago. He felt like he was dancing in time,
Speaker 1: like he could zip back and forward, up and down
Speaker 1: his life's timeline at any given moment. And then, after
Speaker 1: just a few seconds of that intoxicating feeling, it was gone.
Speaker 1: He was Bob Dylan again. He thanked both Pat and
Speaker 1: Angel as he walked out the front door. Don't forget
Speaker 1: your souvenir, Pat said, picking up one of Betty's plates
Speaker 1: that Dylan had tried to leave behind. As he walked
Speaker 1: back down that old path to the car, he looked
Speaker 1: at the plate with the faded design in his hands.
Speaker 1: He looked tired and dated. The red and brown and
Speaker 1: merged into one another. The closer we looked more just
Speaker 1: like Blood on the Tracks. Blood on the Tracks is
Speaker 1: produced by Double Elvis in partnership with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: It's hosted an executive produced by me Jake Brennan, also
Speaker 1: executive produced by Brady Sather. Zeth Lundi is lead editor
Speaker 1: and producer. This episode was written by Ben Burrow, Story
Speaker 1: and copy editing by Pat Healey. Mixing and sound designed
Speaker 1: by Colin Fleming. Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spreaker.
Speaker 1: This episode featured Chris Anzeloni is Bob Dylan. Sources for
Speaker 1: this episode are available at Double Elvis dot com on
Speaker 1: the Blood on the Tracks series page, follow Double Elvis
Speaker 1: on Insta, Graham at Double Office, and on Twitch at
Speaker 1: scrace Slant Talks, and you can talk to me per
Speaker 1: Usual on Instagram and Twitter at Disgraceland, Pond Rock and Roll,
Speaker 1: Dike Crazy or Dad