How Dylan finally came back all the way as brainless ‘bug’ brought world to its knees

Dylan sings “you can always come back, but you can’t comeback all the way…”

Well he has comeback all the way – right to the top of the Billboard charts with Murder Most Foul.

The 17 minute single has hit the world like a postcard from Dystopia.

Listen to Murder Most Foul and watch Bob Mori’s amazing visual interpretation here – https://leighgbankspreservationsociety.blog/603-2/

Yes, Dylan has sold tens of millions of albums, written more than 500 songs which have been recorded by in excess of 2,000 artists – he’s even won  Nobel Prize for Literature. Yet chart-topping success as far as singles go has eluded him.

He has been left behind by song and dance men and women like Michael Jackson whose biggest solo hit on the Billboard chart was his 1982 hit, ‘Billie Jean’.

And  Madonna currently holds the record for the most number-one songs in the 43-year history of the chart.

Dylan’s first album was released in March 1962 to mixed reviews. His singing confounded many critics. By comparison, Dylan’s second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, in May 1963, sounded a clarion call to youth.

When The Beatles crashed into America in 1964 with “I Want to Hold Your Hand” at No. 1, Dylan was still a folk singer who hadn’t had a mainstream hit. That changed the following year, with “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” with a backing band.

Shortly afterward (June ’65), The Byrds’ cover of Dylan’s Mr. Tambourine Man hit No. 1 in America. At that point Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone nearly topped the charts but the Beatles’ Help! kept him at No. 2.

Positively 4th Street went to No. 7 and Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 almost topped the charts.

This time, the only thing standing between Dylan’s Rainy Day Women and No. 1 was The Mamas and The Papas’ Monday, Monday. But Dylan had the second No. 2 of his career, Lay Lady Lay in 1969, peaking at No. 7 in September.

But that’s not to say he has never been at number one, he has – with his albums!

He released multiple albums that topped the Billboard 200 chart. His first success came in 1974 with Planet Waves, then the classic Blood on the Tracks,. In 1976, Dylan made it three years in a row at No. 1 with Desire.

Though he continued releasing successful albums in the following decades Dylan didn’t have another No. 1 until 2006’s Modern Times. Three years later, he did again with Together Through Life.

So, why did Murder Most Foul take him to the top when songs including Like a Rolling Stone, Lay Lady Lay and Subterranean Homesick Blues couldn’t?

Well, first it hit the world like a grand tome of history mapping how America metamorphosed into political darkness, beginning with organized violence — then it chops through the jungles of Vietnam, screws the exploitation of inner cities, the contamination of skies and rivers, eulogises Gerry and the Pacemakers and Wolfman Jack amongst so many others, and hangs the whole 17 minutes of mournful creativity on JFK’s bloody journey to hospital and ultimately oblivion.

And Murder Most Foul according to Dylan,  takes the stance that JFK’s dispatch was an execution by the still invisible men.

But more than anything, it is simply a timely trip into dystopia as the world begins falling to its knees from a simple, dead and brainless bug.

Listen to Murder Most Foul and watch Bob Mori’s amazing visual interpretation here –

https://leighgbankspreservationsociety.blog/603-2/

TAGS: Dylan, JFK, dystopia, murder, foul, Billboard, Kennedy, charts, No 1