Is Dylan's "Murder Most Foul" an answer to Lennon's song "God" from 1970?

(Credit: bobdylan.com) (Credit: Jonathan Cape/MacMIllan)

“Well, it may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” - Bob Dylan, “Gotta Serve Somebody,” 1979

“You’ve got to serve yourself” - John Lennon, “Serve Yourself,” in response.

Official Video

On the evening of March 26, 2020, I made the mistake of going to bed at 11 p.m. At about 3:30 a.m., I woke up, and against everyone's best advice about sleep hygiene, I checked my phone for messages. 

It was “blowin’ up,” as they say in today’s vernacular. 

Late Show With Stephen Colbert

Unexpectedly, Bob Dylan had posted a recording of his first original composition since 2012’s Tempest album. The song was called “Murder Most Foul,” with a portrait of President John F. Kennedy as the only image on the official You Tube video. This snappy little toe-tapper is currently number one - his first #1 single ever!  - on one of those new cockamamie Billboard charts based on streams, views, and downloads. There is currently no physical product, and during this pandemic, nowhere to buy it anyway. But, hey - a win is a win! There’s already been a comedy bit on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert about Dylan singing other “Lengthy Songs About U.S. Presidents To Help Pass The Time During The Quarantine,” and a robotic cover by a member of the Milk Carton Kids. 

Kenneth Pattengale - "Murder Most Foul"

During the three and a half hours I was asleep after the song dropped, the lyrics for the entire 17 minute epic were transcribed by fans and shared on social media (and officially posted on Dylan’s official site a few days ago), along with facts about the November 22, 1963, assassination, and the dozens of cultural references. All detected, dissected, and selected. Articles were already being published, and playlists of relevant songs were being compiled. 

I listened to it once, then went back to bed. Over breakfast, I listened to it again twice, then two more times the following day. My initial thoughts were that the seemingly meandering, stream-of-conscious lyrics were reminiscent of Dylan’s mid-1960s writings in his book Tarantula, and various concurrent album liner notes. Just add some lowercase letters and ample ampersands and - Voila! It also seemed like Dylan was ambushing history, attacking it from all sides. Again, appropriate for the subject at hand.  

So after that, I gave it a rest. I didn’t know what to make of it. I read a couple of articles from fellow Dylanologists I admire, but tried not to learn too much about the song as I came up with my own interpretation. Just based on the headlines, it appeared a lot of people were weighing in with some pretty wild ideas, which would be appropriate for a song meditating on an historical event sinking under the weight of a thousand conspiracy theories:  “When did he write it?” “When was it recorded?” “Who’s the drummer?” Who knows? Will we ever know for sure? 

Billy Joel - "We Didn't Start the Fire"

The most common reactions were that “Murder Most Foul” was Dylan’s version of either Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (“JFK/Blown away/What else do I have to say” - also Dylan, Woodstock, etc.) or Don McLean’s “American Pie.” Dylan is a fan of Joel’s, and offered him “Make You Feel My Love” before anybody else in 1997, and references (probably) Joel’s song “Only the Good Die Young” in “Murder Most Foul.” Dylan, however, recently expressed his displeasure with being referred to as “The Jester” in McLean’s epic, although, ironically, Dylan collaborators Rob Stoner (then Bob Rothstein) and Paul Griffin played on the track.  

Don McLean - "American Pie" Live BBC

While others were microwaving their thoughts, I was letting mine simmer on my mind’s back-burner. It was a strange song, to be sure. Lots of images were disturbing, certainly a conscious decision by Dylan, but the question was, “Why?” They were awkward, grotesque, sociopathic, darkly comic in a way, a continuation of the Shakespeare inspired violence of Tempest. What was the point? Surely not just shock value. 

A few days ago, I revisited this epic with an open mind, and a new thought emerged. The former “Judas” might have now become …. Satan? 

Jerry Lee Lewis - "The Cannikin Clink (Let a Soldier Drink)"-

from "Catch My Soul"

First of all, there are clues hidden in plain sight. Picture Dylan as the devil saying this on stage, in a play, much like Jerry Lee Lewis’s Iago in a musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello titled Catch My Soul, which Dylan referenced on his Theme Time Radio Hour program: 

Rolling Stones - "Sympathy For The Devil" - Altamont, 1969, from the motion picture,

GIMME SHELTER (Warning: Disturbing images)

Then I’ll go over to Altamont and sit near the stage … (a reference to Mick Jagger during his Satanic phase and the murder of Meredith Hunter by a member of the Hell’s Angels at the Rolling Stones’ disastrous free concert at the Altamont Speedway on December 6, 1969. In 1968’s “Sympathy For The Devil,” Jagger sang, “I shouted out ‘Who killed the Kennedys?' ” ) 

And 

The day that they killed him, someone said to me, “Son,

The age of the anti-Christ has just only begun.”

Not to mention the cold-blooded cavalier attitude towards the assassination itself, which makes the most sense in this context:

A good day to be living and a good day to die.

‘Twas a matter of timing and the timing was right

Greatest magic trick ever under the sun / Perfectly executed, skillfully done 

They mutilated his body and took out his brain.

That magic bullet of yours has gone to my head

 … Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood / Play it for the First Lady, she ain’t feeling that good

You get the idea.

John Lennon - "God" - (Studio Outtake)

As the saga continues, Dylan, heading for a climax in the song, lists references to various cultural touchstones, from music, movies, and literature to current events in general. It brought to mind the list of things in which Lennon no longer believed, included in his 1970 song, “God.”  The two most relevant lines: 

I don’t believe in Kennedy 

and 

I don’t believe in Zimmerman (originally Dylan).

However, in “Murder Most Foul,” Dylan, as Satan, is listing things of which he approves, including criminals, politicians, sex, drugs, and a playlist of the Devil’s music, including “Old Devil Moon.”

Then it all began to make sense, at least to me. 

"Roll On John," Live

2012’s Tempest ended with a tribute to Lennon, titled “Roll On John.” The new “Murder Most Foul” sounds like a continuation of where he left off eight years ago. 

Additionally, there are references to Lennon in “Murder Most Foul”:

Definite: The Beatles are coming they’re gonna hold your hand 

And

Probable: You got me Dizzy Miss Lizzy, you filled me with lead. 

Lennon was, of course, also the victim of an assassin's bullets.

This line is reminiscent of “A Day in the Life” from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band:

Then they blew off his head when he was still in the car.  

Then another one that is probably a bit of a stretch, but since I’m going down this rabbit hole anyway:

The Beatles - "Revolution 9" (Backwards)

Play number nine, play number six

Lennon thought nine was his lucky number, and since six is nine upside down, sort of, if you play Lennon’s “Revolution 9” from the Beatles’ White Album from 1968 backwards, the phrase “Number Nine” sounds like “Turn Me On, Dead Man.” 

OK, maybe that’s going too far. 

Or is it? 

In any case, the friendly competitive relationship between Dylan and the Beatles began in early 1964, when the Fabs discovered, and endlessly listened to, Dylan’s second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, while they were in Paris, France, for a concert run, just weeks before their U.S. debut on The Ed Sullivan Show in February. Dylan heard Beatles hits on the radio during a road trip not long afterwards, mistakenly thinking the lyrics to “I Want To Hold Your Hand” included the line, “I get high,” and he would soon reintroduce the Beatles to pot. The Beatles’ music was a primary motivation for Dylan to “go electric,” while Dylan’s words inspired the Beatles, especially Lennon, to incorporate more poetic, and surreal, lyrics into their pop songs. 

The Beatles - "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" - from the Motion Picture - HELP!

The connections between Dylan and the Beatles are too many to delve into here  (I’ve already written about them in my book), but Lennon would soon don a cap similar to the one Dylan wore on his debut album, write more introspective songs like “I’m a Loser” and “Help!,” and “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” which was basically Dylan with flutes instead of harmonica. Lennon also referenced Dylan multiple times in his own songs, including “Yer Blues,” “Dig It,” “Scared,” “Serve Yourself,” and, of course, “God.” 

Coulson, Dean, McGuinness, Flint cover Dylan's "I Wanna Be Your Lover"

Dylan has already written a couple of  Beatles “answer songs”: The relatively obscure “I Wanna Be Your Lover” was a sort-of rewrite of the Beatles’ “I Wanna Be Your Man” (written by Lennon and Paul McCartney for both Ringo Starr and the Rolling Stones), and then there’s Dylan’s take on Lennon’s “Norwegian Wood,” “4th Time Around,” possibly titled after the number of exchanges of musical ideas between the Fabs and Dylan. 

4th Time Around (Take 5) [RARE 1966]

So maybe the idea of Dylan’s “Murder Most Foul” as an answer song to Lennon’s “God” isn’t so far fetched. Much like the Warren Report, or its antithesis, Stanley J. Marks’ 1967 book Murder Most Foul! The conspiracy that murdered President Kennedy: 975 questions and answers, there are holes in this theory. 

Published by A Bureau of Internal Affairs Publication in 1967

But, after all, it’s not a thesis to be approved by a panel of experts. It’s just a theory.

[Lyrics to "Murder Most Foul" by Bob Dylan: © 2020 by Special Rider Music]