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Speaker 1: Blood on the Tracks is the production of I Heart

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Speaker 1: Radio and Double Elvis. Bob Dylan was a musical genius

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Speaker 1: and one of the greatest songwriters of all time. He

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Speaker 1: didn't follow leaders. He chased that thin, wild mercury sound.

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Speaker 1: He never looked back. Even as the times changed, and

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Speaker 1: as the times changed, Bob Dylan changed. He tried on

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Speaker 1: and discarded identities like they were mass. He transformed. He

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Speaker 1: transfigured in somewhere along the way, the Bob Dylan that

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Speaker 1: you thought you knew died. This is his story. This

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Speaker 1: is Dr Ed Sailor once again. It's now day two

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Speaker 1: U nineteen sixty six. The patient Robert Zimmerman a K

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Speaker 1: eight Bob Dylan remains here at my home in Middletown,

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Speaker 1: New York. He is showing some signs of improvement physically,

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Speaker 1: although he remains unsure of the details of his motorcycle accident.

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Speaker 1: He can't seem to play specifics or even explain the

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Speaker 1: cause of his injuries. He is still someone erratic and

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Speaker 1: is complaining of pain all over his body. Despite his complaints,

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Speaker 1: something unable to detect major problems. I have given him

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Speaker 1: morphine to calm him down and numb his pain. There

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Speaker 1: is just one thing that needs to be addressed, though

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Speaker 1: possibly without psychiatric evaluation. He keeps talking about about destiny.

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Speaker 1: I've been thinking a lot about that. Destiny is a

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Speaker 1: feeling you have about yourself. You know something about yourself

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Speaker 1: that nobody else does. I always believed that had a

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Speaker 1: great sense of destiny. I always felt that was headed

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Speaker 1: for bright lights. I talked to you before about inventing yourself.

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Speaker 1: The universe helped me realize that. It also helped me

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Speaker 1: believe in myself, and believing in myself gave me a

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Speaker 1: lesson to invent more. Which I did. Things happened to

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Speaker 1: me in my life that signal of the path I

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Speaker 1: should take. I feel like I made a deal with

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Speaker 1: someone who's been guiding me. But the universe has helped

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Speaker 1: me transform and make myself again again. I've lived multiple

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Speaker 1: lives in my ears, done so many things, and left

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Speaker 1: so much blood on the tracks. Chapter two, Bob Dylan

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Speaker 1: is a Hell's ANGELA those doors, I can still see

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Speaker 1: them now. The paint was peeling off of them. White

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Speaker 1: gave way to a faded blue. As I put my

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Speaker 1: hand to the door, I could hear screaming from the

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Speaker 1: other side. I had no idea what I would find

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Speaker 1: behind it. I pushed it open and prayed for what

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Speaker 1: I might see on the other side. After the motorcycle crash,

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Speaker 1: I took it easy, like I told you. I settled

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Speaker 1: into family life, and while writing songs wasn't my top

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Speaker 1: priority in the beginning, I knew it wouldn't be long

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Speaker 1: before I was back to it writing recording. I also

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Speaker 1: tried to finish that film we'd shot for ABC on

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Speaker 1: the UK tour. I thought we should shoot some additional

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Speaker 1: scenes to finish it off. So Rick Danko and Richard

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Speaker 1: Manuel from The Hawks as they were known, then joined

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Speaker 1: me in Woodstock. The Hawks were my touring band. They

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Speaker 1: became the And of course, and went on to be

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Speaker 1: quite successful in their own right. It was February and

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Speaker 1: it was freezing. Streams were iced over and the roofs

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Speaker 1: of the houses and Woodstock had a smattering of snow.

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Speaker 1: It felt like a magical place. The rest of the Hawks,

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Speaker 1: including Robbie robertson leave on Helm Garth Hudson, drifted up

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Speaker 1: from New York City, joining us in our frozen wonderland.

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Speaker 1: I guess that's no real surprise. They were a road

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Speaker 1: band without a road to go on, it made sense

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Speaker 1: for us all to get together. Plus, after what we

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Speaker 1: went through on that tour of England, we all felt

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Speaker 1: some sort of bond. I guess I hadn't intended to

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Speaker 1: record an album in Woodstock, the double album that appeared

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Speaker 1: almost a decade later, the basement tapes that kind of

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Speaker 1: just happened. Destiny is a feeling. We started recording for

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Speaker 1: Fun at my house high Low, Hi. We set up

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Speaker 1: some tape recorders in the red Room, which wasn't actually

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Speaker 1: read but had been at one time, and the name

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Speaker 1: just stuck. Soon I realized that the one thing I

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Speaker 1: had gained since the crash, a sense of separation between

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Speaker 1: my music and my life. I guess that's what they

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Speaker 1: call work life balanced these days. Well, that was being

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Speaker 1: marginalized by this record. I didn't want to be working

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Speaker 1: where my home was, so we moved to a house

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Speaker 1: that Garth, Richard and Rick had rented. It was a

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Speaker 1: newly built house with pink siding, a soft, faded pink

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Speaker 1: that blended well with its surroundings. Because of that, we

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Speaker 1: started calling it Big Pink. I don't know if everything

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Speaker 1: in Woodstock was named after the color it was or

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Speaker 1: had once been, but that was certainly my experience. It

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Speaker 1: became a recording environment like no other. No pressure, no

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Speaker 1: watching the clock, no having to go home at a

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Speaker 1: certain time, inventing yourself. It was purely music based. We

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Speaker 1: were there for the songs to play together. I didn't

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Speaker 1: even think the world would ever hear the stuff we

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Speaker 1: were recording, let alone it becoming this supposedly legendary thing

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Speaker 1: to invent. Once at Big Pink, we settled into a routine.

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Speaker 1: I realized routine was what I craved at that point.

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Speaker 1: You see, so every day I'd show up at noon,

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Speaker 1: usually with my poodle, his name was Hamlet. I'd put

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Speaker 1: on a pot of coffee, make sure to clatter around

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Speaker 1: extra loud. If the band were still in bed, then

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Speaker 1: I'd sit at the typewriter and wait for them to

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Speaker 1: join me. You know, that's how they started calling themselves

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Speaker 1: the band, you know, Capital T, Capital B, right, because

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Speaker 1: everybody just referred to them as the band. They didn't

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Speaker 1: begin performing under that name until the next year. If

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Speaker 1: you didn't believe me when I said these songs were

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Speaker 1: never intended to be released in the form we recorded them,

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Speaker 1: then take Clothesline Saga as an example, we cut that

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Speaker 1: as a joke. Back then, Clothesline Saga was a song

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Speaker 1: called Answer to Ode, the ode in question being Ode

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Speaker 1: to Billy Joe, a Bobby Gentry song man. That song

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Speaker 1: that was everywhere, and I mean everywhere. You turned on

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Speaker 1: the radio and you were never more than five minutes

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Speaker 1: away from it. It was inescapable. The whole country was

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Speaker 1: talking about it. I've been thinking a lot about that.

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Speaker 1: The story of the thing is the suicide of a

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Speaker 1: kid named Billy Joe McAllister is told by a young

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Speaker 1: woman who has had something to do with the boy's death.

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Speaker 1: She's somehow involved or something has happened, but you never

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Speaker 1: find out what. That's the secret. The secret of the

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Speaker 1: song is. It's secret. This thing became huge. It was

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Speaker 1: like who shot Jr? Decades before people were asked sing

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Speaker 1: that based on some TV show, you know something about

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Speaker 1: yourself that nobody else does. I mean, hell, Bobby Gentry

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Speaker 1: even appeared in Life magazine. That's how big it was.

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Speaker 1: Closed Line Saga wasn't really meant to be an answer

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Speaker 1: to it, more of a joke, a kind of a parody.

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Speaker 1: I guess point being that's what those sessions were about. Fun,

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Speaker 1: cutting loose well to begin with, At least in those sessions,

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Speaker 1: we've blurred the lines between the old music of America

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Speaker 1: and our new compositions. I felt like we were continuing

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Speaker 1: in old tradition, which was ironic given the public opinion

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Speaker 1: of me at the time, calling me judas because I

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Speaker 1: plugged in a new fangled electric guitar. Geez, Louise, I

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Speaker 1: talked to you before about inventing yourself. I also personally

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Speaker 1: found common ground with the stories in these old songs,

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Speaker 1: with the people who wrote them, who were in them,

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Speaker 1: people like Doc Boggs, a hardened coal miner and banjo player.

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Speaker 1: He was like an Appalachian Robert Johnson. He made music

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Speaker 1: about death, always about death. He was an outlaw, and

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Speaker 1: I felt like I could relate to that. These songs

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Speaker 1: were healing from me sense of destiny. One afternoon, with

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Speaker 1: the basement windows open and the breeze passing through, we

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Speaker 1: cut the song I Shall Be Released. While the majority

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Speaker 1: of the recording with the Hawks had been fun and

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Speaker 1: care free, when we cut that song, I knew, I

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Speaker 1: knew there was something more. This wasn't just about having fun,

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Speaker 1: This was my return. I felt like crying When we

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Speaker 1: were cutting that, I thought I'd cry and never stopped.

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Speaker 1: It was beautiful. Actually that's not true. You want to

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Speaker 1: know what was really going on as those sessions progressed money,

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Speaker 1: that's what. Yeah, In the early days, it was for fun,

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Speaker 1: like a gang in a clubhouse, and that didn't stop.

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Speaker 1: But we needed to cut demos to sell to other artists. Well, Albert,

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Speaker 1: my manager, needed demos for other artists. I had always

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Speaker 1: had a successful career of writing songs that were covered

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Speaker 1: by other artists, and that needed to continue. I wasn't

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Speaker 1: going on tour anytime soon. I still had bills to pay.

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Speaker 1: You know. I made a deal with someone. It was

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Speaker 1: successful too. Some of those big pink songs did well.

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Speaker 1: Manford Man had a top ten hit with Quinn the

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Speaker 1: Eskimo the Mighty Quinn. The Birds charted with You Ain't

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Speaker 1: Going Nowhere, and Peter Paul and Mary had a hit

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Speaker 1: with Too Much and Nothing. Sooner or later you come

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Speaker 1: to realize that this business, the business, I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: really all about money. You can't escape it. The world

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Speaker 1: is powered by money. You either jump aboard that train

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Speaker 1: or you get crushed by it. And I had to

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Speaker 1: choose a man dressed all in white, led me down

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Speaker 1: a corridor. There were these doors everywhere. There must have

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Speaker 1: been fifty, no sixty, all in a straight line. They

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Speaker 1: all had a thick, square glass viewing window. Each one

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Speaker 1: smudged and discolored, brown and yellow crept up their sides. Finally,

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Speaker 1: the man said to me, said this is the one

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Speaker 1: you're looking for, and my heart leapt. I told you

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Speaker 1: about how Bob Dylan died, how he died on that

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Speaker 1: motorbike that day in Woodstock, But he was also born too,

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Speaker 1: Ninette Man. That was a year for me. People talk

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Speaker 1: about important years in my career, they all mattered one

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Speaker 1: way or another. But sixty one, that was a year

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Speaker 1: I've lived multiple lives lives. It was the year I

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Speaker 1: met the King Woody Guthrie. It was the year I

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Speaker 1: started playing New York. The year I settled on the

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Speaker 1: spelling of my last name, d y l A N.

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Speaker 1: Robert Zimmerman had been my birth name, but I had

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Speaker 1: been changing it around for a while until that point. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was the year I became that man, that artist,

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Speaker 1: that persona he was born to invent. Two things happened

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Speaker 1: that year, two that are forever linked. One led to

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Speaker 1: the other, and that other led straight back to the first.

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Speaker 1: It was the year I realized that fate and destiny

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Speaker 1: play a role in life, and you must make deals

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Speaker 1: with those fates and destinies. Universe has helped me transform.

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Speaker 1: It all started in California. There was this Hell's Angels guy.

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Speaker 1: He was about my age at the time, young or

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Speaker 1: something like that. He was the president of the San

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Speaker 1: Bernardino chapter of the Motorcycle Club. He was cruising down

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Speaker 1: the highway, going fast and getting faster. The whole chapter

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Speaker 1: was riding home from the Base Lake Run, an annual

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Speaker 1: angel event immortalized in that Hunter S. Thompson book. His

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Speaker 1: bike pipes were gunning, but there was a problem, a

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Speaker 1: problem that, like all lingering problems, started out small and

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Speaker 1: ended in catastrophe. Three weeks later, and on the other

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Speaker 1: side of the country, I'm in the wings of Gertie's

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Speaker 1: Folk City in New York. Girty's was a legendary venue

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Speaker 1: on the folk scene. Everyone played it and it was

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Speaker 1: the place you went to see the best of the best.

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Speaker 1: It was also the place artists were made. Destiny is

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Speaker 1: a feeling of that night. I wore a shirt tie

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Speaker 1: and a waistcoat, and I topped it off with a

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Speaker 1: motorcycle hat. I was nervous. I stood there in the wings.

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Speaker 1: My hands were sweating, my toes twitching. I was due

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Speaker 1: to go on any second. You know. There's nothing like

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Speaker 1: that feeling of standing by a stage just before you

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Speaker 1: go on. It's like a bardo, the Buddhists would say,

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Speaker 1: an intense, timeless place, especially on that night because it

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Speaker 1: was my first time there. The universe has helped me transform.

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Speaker 1: Girty's was hot and busy. It felt like I could

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Speaker 1: be born or killed on that stage. It was like

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Speaker 1: life and death for that scene. Back in California, that

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Speaker 1: San Bernardino angel realized what was wrong. The muffler on

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Speaker 1: his bike could come off. It had just been wired

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Speaker 1: on until he could get around to welding it, but

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Speaker 1: now it was on the road a few hundred yards back.

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Speaker 1: He pulls a U turn to go back and get it,

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Speaker 1: but he doesn't see another angel flying along the wrong

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Speaker 1: side of the road as he turns the head of

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Speaker 1: bright lights. Of course, then he sees him straight away,

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Speaker 1: but he knows it's too late. In New York, they

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Speaker 1: announced my name, my stomach doest Somersaults I try and

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Speaker 1: look nonchalant as I walk onto the stage. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: I failed. The stage of Girty's wasn't really a stage

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Speaker 1: at all. It was more like a raised platform too microphones,

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Speaker 1: one which looked like it was from a CBS radio

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Speaker 1: station that flat news mike they had in the thirties,

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Speaker 1: was pointed at my guitar. The other was one that

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Speaker 1: would have looked at home in front of Frank Sinatra.

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Speaker 1: That was from my voice. It instantly felt right in

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Speaker 1: front of me. For the briefest moment, I felt like Frank.

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Speaker 1: I can't explain it. I just felt like I had

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Speaker 1: played this place a thousand times, like the stars are aligning,

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Speaker 1: like I gained something from somewhere else. I talked to

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Speaker 1: you before about inventing yourself. I welcomed the crowd and

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Speaker 1: with my hands on my gifts and acoustics, saying Rangers

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Speaker 1: Command by Woody Guthrie back in California. After that, you turn.

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Speaker 1: The Angel tried to avoid the other bike by throwing

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Speaker 1: his ride left, but it was not enough. The road

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Speaker 1: was too narrow and both bikes collided, smashing into one another.

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Speaker 1: Metal crunches against metal, last slit skin. Rubbert burns against pavement,

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Speaker 1: there's black marks all across the road. That horrible, blunt

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Speaker 1: sound of the impact reverberating round and now it's accompanied

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Speaker 1: by the smell of gasoline rising up from the wreckage.

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Speaker 1: In New York, feedback screeched from my microphone at Gertie's,

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Speaker 1: I apologized before singing a song arranged by everyone's favorite

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Speaker 1: band introducer Alan Lomax, Dink's song you Know That. It

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Speaker 1: was that song which came halfway through my set when

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Speaker 1: it was confirmed to me that I knew I had

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Speaker 1: done it. I'd won them over. The night was mine.

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Speaker 1: That also helped me believe in myself. The day after

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Speaker 1: the show, I appeared in the New York Times for

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Speaker 1: the first time. It was a glowing review announcing my

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Speaker 1: arrival in New York. The day after the Times piece

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Speaker 1: came out, I was standing in the Columbia Records producer

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Speaker 1: John Hammond, who had met a couple of weeks earlier.

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Speaker 1: He's offering me a recording contract. Six months later, I

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Speaker 1: released my debut album, Destiny Is a Feeling You Have

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Speaker 1: about Yourself. It was a happy ending in New York,

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Speaker 1: but back in California, California wasn't so good. The President

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Speaker 1: of the San Bernardino Chapter didn't make it home that day.

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Speaker 1: In fact, he died instantly on the road, the muffler

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Speaker 1: from his bike a few hundred yards back in his wake.

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Speaker 1: It was September three. But that's not the end of

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Speaker 1: the story. This is why I'm telling you all this.

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Speaker 1: I've lived multiple lives in the President of the San

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Speaker 1: Bernardino Chapter. His name, this is the thing. His name

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Speaker 1: was Robert Zimmerman. Don't you think that's strange? Everything happened

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Speaker 1: so quickly for me in New York. It all snapped

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Speaker 1: into action after Bobby Zimmerman died on that highway transfiguration

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Speaker 1: three weeks before the Gurdie Show. He stopped being Robert Zimmerman.

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Speaker 1: And in a different way, I stopped being Robert Zimmerman.

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Speaker 1: I was born. You know something about yourself that nobody

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Speaker 1: else does. I told you about the motorcycle crash that

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Speaker 1: killed the Bob Dylan. You knew, well there was another

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Speaker 1: crash that gave birth to him too. I didn't even

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Speaker 1: know this myself. No, it's not why I wrote a

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Speaker 1: song called Highway sixty one Revisited, or why I chose

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Speaker 1: that as the title from my sixth album, Highway sixty

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Speaker 1: one is a road that runs from Duluth, where I

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Speaker 1: grew up, to New Orleans. But I will agree that

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Speaker 1: it is strange that what happened on a highway and

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Speaker 1: sixty one had such an impact on me. Maybe that's

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Speaker 1: the universe talking back and leaving behind some clues. Regardless,

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00:19:59,560 --> 00:20:03,080
Speaker 1: I always felt different for years, decades even, and then

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00:20:03,119 --> 00:20:07,160
Speaker 1: I found out why there was something different in my soul,

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Speaker 1: in my destiny around that time. Transfiguration is a change

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Speaker 1: in form or spirit. I didn't know it then, but

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Speaker 1: that's what I was going through. I'd had a new power,

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Speaker 1: a new addition to myself, brought from somewhere else. The

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Speaker 1: universe helped me realize that a casual connectedness you heard

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00:20:31,800 --> 00:20:34,720
Speaker 1: of that it's the idea that two things with no

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Speaker 1: cause and effect between them are on some level responsible

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Speaker 1: for each other's manifestation. It's what allowed me to crawl

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Speaker 1: out from under the chaos and fly above it. That's

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Speaker 1: how I can still do what I do. But the

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Speaker 1: problem with it is it never stops. Whether you like

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00:20:53,160 --> 00:21:04,280
Speaker 1: it or not, it never stops. We'll be right back

300
00:21:04,520 --> 00:21:14,919
Speaker 1: after this. We were were the room was small and

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00:21:15,160 --> 00:21:19,520
Speaker 1: yet imposing. It's white walls of brick were thick, felt

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Speaker 1: like they'd been imported right from Victorian London. In the

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00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:27,440
Speaker 1: corner was a single wire framed bed with itchy white

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Speaker 1: sheets and a gray blanket on top of it. I

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00:21:30,800 --> 00:21:34,399
Speaker 1: pulled it back, stenciled onto it and yellow typeface print

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00:21:34,400 --> 00:21:43,800
Speaker 1: with the words gray Stone Park Psychiatric Hospital. After that

307
00:21:43,920 --> 00:21:47,640
Speaker 1: motorcycle crashing Woodstock, I didn't play live for almost two years.

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Speaker 1: It would take something big and important to get me

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00:21:50,920 --> 00:21:53,560
Speaker 1: back on stage after what happened on that previous tour

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Speaker 1: of the UK, that Judas tour. I've lived multiple lives

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Speaker 1: in my If you'd have asked me back then when

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00:22:01,960 --> 00:22:04,359
Speaker 1: I would be on the stage again, I would have

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Speaker 1: told you it would be a very, very long time.

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Speaker 1: But things change. Destiny isn't always yours to choose. When

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Speaker 1: I did play live again, I wished it was years

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00:22:16,240 --> 00:22:19,840
Speaker 1: down the line, but for different reasons, done so many things.

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Speaker 1: It was January at Carnegie Hall, and it was on

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Speaker 1: one of the saddest nights of my life. I met

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Speaker 1: Woody Guthrie in one I told you that big year.

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Speaker 1: His music ruled my world for a long time. I

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Speaker 1: always believed you could listen to his songs and learn

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Speaker 1: to live. I mean literally. I'd only been in New

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Speaker 1: York for five days when I tracked him down. I

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Speaker 1: knew being in the same city as him meant I

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Speaker 1: had to see him as soon as possible. But it

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Speaker 1: wasn't how I imagined it. When I met him. He

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Speaker 1: was not functioning at I still remember the first journey

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Speaker 1: to see him. I got the bus from the Port

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Speaker 1: Authority terminal, made the hour and a half ride, and

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Speaker 1: walked the final half mile up a big hill. The

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Speaker 1: building he was living and loomed into view as I

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Speaker 1: walked down that hill. There was a hospital, at least

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00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:26,360
Speaker 1: that's what they called it, but it was really an asylum,

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Speaker 1: one thousand acres of distress set in the New Jersey countryside.

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00:23:31,400 --> 00:23:33,520
Speaker 1: It was a place that had no spiritual hope of

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Speaker 1: any kind. It was somehow oversized, built out of granite,

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00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:44,440
Speaker 1: full of anxiety. It wasn't the kind of place anyone

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00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:47,600
Speaker 1: should be let alone the true voice of the American spirit.

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Speaker 1: Like all institutions of its kind, who was underfunded and understaffed,

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00:23:54,200 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 1: it looked like the kind of place that could be

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00:23:55,800 --> 00:23:58,440
Speaker 1: taken out of service at any minute, but due to

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00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:01,680
Speaker 1: the sheer desperation of the city, suation carried on existing

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00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:06,439
Speaker 1: wood He had been suffering from Huntington's disease, although at

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Speaker 1: the time they thought it might have been some kind

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00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:11,760
Speaker 1: of schizophrenia. You know something about yourself that nobody else does.

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Speaker 1: My first visit is still so vivid. I remember pushing

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Speaker 1: open the heavy wooden doors of the front entrance, seeing

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Speaker 1: a once grand double staircase, then the quiet of walking

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00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:28,920
Speaker 1: down the corridor with the Orderly. The whole place had

350
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:32,720
Speaker 1: a threatening silence, but it was punctuated by loud noises

351
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:39,080
Speaker 1: every so often shout here, of banging there. The whole

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Speaker 1: building was arresting to your senses, bright lights. The Orderly

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Speaker 1: showed me to Woody's room and I waited there for him.

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00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:50,480
Speaker 1: When he arrived, they had to bring him in on

355
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Speaker 1: a wheelchair. He could barely move. I was told his

356
00:24:54,359 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 1: speech weather good days and bad, and I was shattered

357
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:02,280
Speaker 1: to learn the possibility of him performing was long behind him.

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00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:06,480
Speaker 1: We spoke as much as we could. Eventually, on subsequent visits,

359
00:25:06,520 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 1: I played for him, usually his own songs. He liked

360
00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:14,560
Speaker 1: it would often ask for specific songs. I felt it

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Speaker 1: was my duty to play for him a privilege. Even

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00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 1: patients would come in and out as I played. There

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00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:26,800
Speaker 1: was a guy who was constantly falling to his knees.

364
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 1: He had fallen and get back up again and repeat.

365
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:34,480
Speaker 1: There was another who thought he was being chased by spiders.

366
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:38,040
Speaker 1: He'd run around his circles. Someone else imagined he was

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00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:44,840
Speaker 1: the president who walked around and Uncle Sam had would

368
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:49,680
Speaker 1: he just sat there in the middle of them. As

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00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:51,720
Speaker 1: I was leaving at the end of that first visit,

370
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:54,680
Speaker 1: he beckoned me towards him. He had a little card

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00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:56,880
Speaker 1: that he weakly handed over to me, and it read,

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Speaker 1: I ain't dead yet. I've kept it ever since. I

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Speaker 1: would try to visit him as much as possible. From

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Speaker 1: that day on, I was always on the bus then

375
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Speaker 1: walking up that hill. That building put a rattlesnake into

376
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Speaker 1: my stomach each time it came into view. I've been

377
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 1: thinking a lot about that. During one trip, when he

378
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:22,120
Speaker 1: was having a good day wood he told me about

379
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Speaker 1: a box of poems and songs that hadn't been put

380
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 1: to melodies yet. They were stored in a basement in

381
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Speaker 1: his house on Coney Island. He told me they were mine.

382
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 1: If I wanted them. I just had to go and

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00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 1: see his wife, Margie. A few days later, in the

384
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:40,440
Speaker 1: freezing cold New York winter, I was on the subway

385
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:42,960
Speaker 1: from West Fourth Street, riding it all the way to

386
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:46,680
Speaker 1: the last stop. His Coney Island house was across the field,

387
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 1: so I began my journey. A few steps in in

388
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:54,399
Speaker 1: the field had turned to a swamp. I sank to

389
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:57,399
Speaker 1: knee level, but I kept going anyway. I was a

390
00:26:57,520 --> 00:27:02,199
Speaker 1: servant to Woody. When I got to the other end,

391
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:05,720
Speaker 1: my pants and shoes were drenched. They actually started to freeze.

392
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 1: My toes were numb too, and my legs were going

393
00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 1: the same way. I desperately knocked at the door, but

394
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 1: to my surprise, I didn't find Margie. Instead, there was

395
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:18,159
Speaker 1: a much younger woman who turned out to be the babysitter.

396
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: She explained Margie was out and that she didn't know

397
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:24,960
Speaker 1: anything about any poems or songs. I've been thinking a

398
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:29,440
Speaker 1: lot about that. I ended up back on the subway platform,

399
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:33,320
Speaker 1: even more drenched than before, which was almost physically impossible.

400
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:37,400
Speaker 1: I never did get my hands on those songs or poems,

401
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 1: but this guy named Billy Bragg did. Forty years later,

402
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 1: He and that band Wilco put melodies to them and

403
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 1: brought them to life. As for Woody, Woody wouldn't have

404
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 1: an easy road to travel. I carried on visiting him,

405
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:59,200
Speaker 1: but he got worse and worse. Huntington's does terrible things

406
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:08,240
Speaker 1: to a person, uncharacteristic aggression, emotional volatility, social disinhibition. It's

407
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 1: like watching a man morph into something else in front

408
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 1: of your eyes, but not in a good way. He

409
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:19,720
Speaker 1: lost his speech, then he was bedbound. On my last visit,

410
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 1: I still saw the Woody I had listened to for

411
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:26,320
Speaker 1: years in his eyes, but everything else was different. He

412
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:30,320
Speaker 1: died aged fifty five and nineteen sixty seven. There's a

413
00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:32,879
Speaker 1: legend about him being asked about his religion on his

414
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 1: deathbed and he replied, all of them in the orderly

415
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 1: or whoever said, there's no box for that on this form,

416
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:45,480
Speaker 1: so wood he said, then say none of them. Now,

417
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 1: I told you he lost his speech, so I don't

418
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 1: think that's what really happened, but as sure as a

419
00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 1: fitting story for Woody. In ninety eight, I didn't want

420
00:28:56,040 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 1: to play a show at all, any show, but this

421
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: was for Woody, for his legacy, for everything he gave me,

422
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 1: for everything, he gave folk music for everything. He gave America,

423
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:13,440
Speaker 1: for all religions and for no religions, again and again.

424
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 1: It was an honor to play that memorial concert for

425
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: him at Carnegie Hall. I opened up with his song

426
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:22,320
Speaker 1: I Ain't Got no Home, and by the time I

427
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: was finishing up on my second, another woody original, Dear

428
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:30,280
Speaker 1: Mrs Roosevelt, I thought I would start crying and never stopped.

429
00:29:31,160 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 1: And this time that's the truth. In early night, Garth

430
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:09,720
Speaker 1: Hudson rubbed his full beard as he stood outside the

431
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 1: house he'd come to call Big Pink, took one last

432
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 1: look at it for picking up a large pine box.

433
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:22,320
Speaker 1: The box's exterior was beautifully varnished. Garth ran his hands

434
00:30:22,360 --> 00:30:25,200
Speaker 1: down its smooth sides. It had taken him a while

435
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:27,960
Speaker 1: to make it, but he didn't mind. One of the

436
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 1: perfect transport for his precious cargo. After struggling to handle

437
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 1: both the box and his car's door, he put the

438
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:38,880
Speaker 1: box onto the back seat of his station wagon, carefully

439
00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 1: making sure it wouldn't slide around. During the fifteen minute

440
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:46,960
Speaker 1: drive to Bearsville and home of Albert Grossman. Garth drive

441
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:50,560
Speaker 1: reminded him of the beauty of woodsuck it's a cold day,

442
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 1: but the sun was bright yellow. It lit the small

443
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 1: roads lined with trees in a never ending stretch of

444
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:02,840
Speaker 1: telephone poles. Upon his rival at the Grossman's, Albert's wife, Sally,

445
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:06,120
Speaker 1: opened the door. She hadn't been expecting anyone to visit

446
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 1: that day, least of all the keyboard player for the band.

447
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:13,440
Speaker 1: She explained to Garth that Albert was out. Garth didn't

448
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:18,280
Speaker 1: feel much like waiting around in the large, messy kitchen.

449
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: Garth carefully removed the lid of the pine box, revealing

450
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 1: real to real tapes, each one wrapped in cardboard notated

451
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:31,160
Speaker 1: with Garth's precise, fluid handwriting. In that box was the

452
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:33,719
Speaker 1: entirety of what would come to be known as the

453
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 1: Basement Tapes, every single song the band and Bob Dylan

454
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:42,480
Speaker 1: had recorded together in those fabled Woodstock months. But it

455
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 1: was more than that. They weren't just songs, and there

456
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: were moments in their conversations, jokes, memories. It was the

457
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:53,760
Speaker 1: sound of an icon coming back as a thing that

458
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:57,040
Speaker 1: had given him micn status in the first place. It

459
00:31:57,160 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 1: was also the sound of a legendary band finding their

460
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:03,560
Speaker 1: and growing into what they would become. At points on

461
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:06,479
Speaker 1: those tapes, you could hear the Hawks becoming the band,

462
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 1: the one that would announce itself to the world with

463
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:14,720
Speaker 1: their legendary nine debut album Music from Big Pink. It

464
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:17,080
Speaker 1: was the sound of an old America blended with the

465
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:21,080
Speaker 1: sound of the counterculture. It was an important musical artifact,

466
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 1: and this time would show a cultural one too. Garth,

467
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 1: with an uncharacteristically serious face, looked directly into Sally Grossman's

468
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 1: eyes and told her to guard the tapes with her life.

469
00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 1: She must not let them leave the house with anyone

470
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 1: except maybe Bob Dylan, and briefly loaning them to the

471
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:49,040
Speaker 1: Grossman's Garth Hudson held onto the tapes for decades until finally,

472
00:32:49,080 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 1: in two thousand three, he sold them to Jan House

473
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:58,240
Speaker 1: to Canadian music archivist and producer Housed began the huge

474
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:01,920
Speaker 1: task of digitizing the fragile home recordings that had barely

475
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 1: seen the light of day since Lindon B. Johnson was

476
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 1: in the White House. Most of the tapes held up,

477
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 1: but to the producer's dismay, one of them was recorded

478
00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 1: over by the band's bass guitarist, Rick Danko. Rick had

479
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:19,240
Speaker 1: left the tape running while at home trying out some

480
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 1: piano ideas. After his experiment on the keys, he didn't

481
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 1: shut the recorder off, so most of the remaining tape

482
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: featured Rick and his girlfriend watching television. No one knows

483
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:34,640
Speaker 1: what was originally on that tape. It was in that

484
00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 1: moment lost Forever House finished his cleanup, and the songs

485
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:43,160
Speaker 1: were released by Bob Dylan in two thousand and fourteen

486
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:48,080
Speaker 1: as the Basement Tapes Complete. The set was nominated for

487
00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 1: the Best Historical Album at the Grammys and finally gave

488
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:53,720
Speaker 1: the world the full story of the recording that took

489
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 1: place a Big Pink In the same year, Rolling Stone

490
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 1: magazine drove Garth Hudson around Woodstock. He was back there

491
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:05,600
Speaker 1: for the first time since nineteen as part of the

492
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:09,120
Speaker 1: promotion for the new box set. On his way to

493
00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:12,720
Speaker 1: the Big Pinkhouse, he passed places he'd never seen before,

494
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:15,400
Speaker 1: like a chain drug store that sticks out of the

495
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 1: geography like an unwelcome sore thumb. He also saw some

496
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:22,720
Speaker 1: sights he had seen before, like the motel now boarded

497
00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 1: up where the band stayed before Big Tank back in

498
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: the very early days. He also saw Dylan's old home

499
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:33,839
Speaker 1: Hi Lo Ha, which elicited a smile on Garth's face when,

500
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 1: for a brief moment he spied the red room through

501
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 1: the trees. His smile disappeared. At the next site and

502
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:46,880
Speaker 1: the car passed a cemetery, Garth spoke up Rick and

503
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 1: leave On are buried there. When they got to Big Pink,

504
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:54,320
Speaker 1: Garth instantly remarked at how much smaller it now looked.

505
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:58,400
Speaker 1: He spent the next few hours looking around the place.

506
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:01,920
Speaker 1: He ran his hands over the window frames pine original

507
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:05,280
Speaker 1: apparently it reminded him of that box he made years ago,

508
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:08,200
Speaker 1: and he also played on an organ that the current

509
00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 1: owners had installed for the many music tourists who came

510
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 1: to stay at the joint. Later, Garth made his way

511
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 1: down to the basement, which is occasionally rented out as

512
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:21,000
Speaker 1: a studio, and with a smile on his face, he

513
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 1: remarked to everyone present about the basement's limitations for music recording.

514
00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:29,319
Speaker 1: There's a happy return, though. When it came time to leave,

515
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:32,960
Speaker 1: Garth took one last look at the place. He knelt

516
00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 1: down and scooped a small handful of gravel into his

517
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:40,160
Speaker 1: hand and then stuffed it into his jacket pocket. Big

518
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:43,160
Speaker 1: Pink became a sanctuary for Bob Dylan in the band,

519
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:46,640
Speaker 1: a place where the woodstock breeze danced in through the

520
00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:51,200
Speaker 1: windows and brought something special with it. Winemakers called it

521
00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:56,760
Speaker 1: tear War, a tranquil mix of domesticity and creativity, two

522
00:35:56,840 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 1: things that usually don't go hand in hand. But they

523
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 1: weren't able to remain in their safe haven forever. Eventually

524
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:07,240
Speaker 1: they all had to venture back out into the real world.

525
00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:11,239
Speaker 1: Out there, in the real world, life wasn't always a

526
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 1: woodstock breeze. In fact, it could be quite the opposite.

527
00:36:16,480 --> 00:36:20,160
Speaker 1: The calm always came before the storm, and what lay

528
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:23,960
Speaker 1: ahead was going to put a lot of blood on

529
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:41,640
Speaker 1: the tracks. Blood on the Tracks produced by Double Elvis

530
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:45,320
Speaker 1: in partnership with I Heart Radio. It's hosted an executive

531
00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 1: produced by me Jake Brennan, also executive produced by Brady Sadly.

532
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:53,360
Speaker 1: Zeth Lundie is lead editor and producer. This episode was

533
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:56,960
Speaker 1: written by Ben Burrow, Story and copy editing by Pat Healey,

534
00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:01,120
Speaker 1: Mixing and sound designed by Colin Fleming. Additional music and

535
00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 1: score elements by Ryan Spreaker. This episode feature Chris Anzeloni

536
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:08,799
Speaker 1: is Bob Dylan. Sources for this episode are available at

537
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:11,120
Speaker 1: Double Elvis dot Com and the Blood of the Tracks

538
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:15,240
Speaker 1: series page. Follow Double Elvis on Instagram at double Elvis

539
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 1: and on Twitch at s Grace Sland Talks. Need You

540
00:37:18,239 --> 00:37:21,000
Speaker 1: Talk to Me per Usual on Instagram and Twitter at

541
00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:39,120
Speaker 1: Disgrace Land, Pond rock and Roll, or Dad