{"id":1357,"date":"2020-06-27T14:36:47","date_gmt":"2020-06-27T13:36:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oestrem.com\/thingstwice\/?p=1357"},"modified":"2020-06-29T18:34:14","modified_gmt":"2020-06-29T17:34:14","slug":"murder-most-foul-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oestrem.com\/thingstwice\/2020\/06\/murder-most-foul-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Murder Most Foul (2020) \u2013 An American Litany"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Not since 2012 has Bob Dylan released a self-penned song. The past decade has been strange days indeed, with album upon album with Sinatra-covers, paired with gems from the vaults, bringing the Bootleg Series up to vol. 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, one late evening in March, this song materialized, out of the blue, announced on twitter, of all places: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is an unreleased song we recorded a while back that you might find interesting. Stay safe, stay observant and may God be with you\u201d. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The song was Murder Most Foul \u2013 <\/em>seventeen monotonous, monumental minutes of recitative about the killing of Kennedy, Dylan\u2019s longest song ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It turned out to be the tip of an iceberg: two more songs followed, False Prophet<\/em> and I Contain Multitudes<\/em>, and then, eventually, the full album, Rough And Rowdy Ways<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Murder Most Foul<\/em> is not the best song on the album by far, but it holds some of the keys to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First Impression: Perfected Nothingness<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On first hearing, it sounds like an endless rattling of more or less loosely coherent images and motifs connected to the murder of Kennedy, but also to the USA since the 60s, especially the musical side to the country\u2019s history \u2013 the Great American Songbook<\/em> that Dylan has loved and cultivated, which brought him the Nobel Prize in the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impression of a formless, quietly flowing flood of visual and textual images is being underpinned by the music. The melody \u2013 if that\u2019s indeed the right name for it \u2013 is a steadfast recitation on one single tone, alternating at times with new recitatives one note higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is as if the fight against musical development that Dylan has been pursuing over the past couple of decades has finally come to an end: finally, nothing happens!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verses Great and Small<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

And yet: The song seems formless and tedious, but at the same time it is strictly structured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top level is marked by the title of the song, which occurs as a textual refrain, in total four times during the seventeen minutes the song lasts. Each time it is followed by a brief instrumental interlude. The interlude is heard one extra time, without the refrain, so the song can be divided into four or five \u201cgreat verses\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each \u201cgreat verse\u201d consists of two to six \u201csmall verses\u201d, again of varying length, but following the same structure. The first \u201csmall verse\u201d goes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

         C                            F\nIt was a dark day in Dallas, November '63\n C                               F\nA day that will live on in infamy\nC                                  \nPresident Kennedy was a-ridin' high\nF        \nGood day to be livin' and a good day to die\n      C\nBeing led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb\n          F\nHe said, \"Wait a minute, boys, you know who I am?\"\nG                    \n \"Of course we do, we know who you are\"\n          Fmaj7\nThen they blew off his head while he was still in the car.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
First an alternation between C (I) and F (IV), repeated a varying number of times from verse to verse, while Dylan and the bass both recite monotonously on C. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, as a \u201cclimax\u201d of sorts, the chord shifts from F to G and Dylan\u2019s voice rises one tone to D. The F\u2013G turn can be repeated ad libitum, until the \u201csmall verse\u201d ends, with a return to F, and we\u2019re ready for the next round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
 Each \u201cgreat verse\u201d consists of 2\u20136 \u201csmall verses\u201d, the last of which ends with the refrain \u201cMurder most foul\u201d, some times \u2013 but not always \u2013 with a return to the keynote C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
 That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Music Analysis of Three Chords and Two Tones<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
It may seem trivial and exaggerated to start off with a musical analysis of a \u201csong\u201d that uses two tones and three chords in simple combinations that are repeated perpetually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that\u2019s what I intend to do, since the principles that are revealed through this analysis, are central not only to this song, but to the quest that Dylan has been on during the twenty-first century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. The chord structure in the \u201csmall verses\u201d is closely related to the twelve-bar blues structure. There, too, we start out with an alternation between I and IV and end with the V\u2013IV turn that we find in Murder Most Foul<\/em>. The pattern is handled more freely here than in most blues songs, but it is clearly recognizable all the same, especially to those familiar with Dylan\u2019s production: the blues goes as a red thread through his entire catalogue of songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2. The variability in length is also a known trick with Dylan, from his \u201ctalkin\u2019 blues\u201d songs of the sixties, where the V-step, leading up to the punchline, can be stretched for as long as one likes; as well as single lines with a varying number of syllables (not-so-subtly parodied by Tom Lehrer in his<\/a> Folk Song Army<\/a>:<\/em> \u201cThe tune don\u2019t have to be clever, \/ And it don’t matter if you put a coupla extra syllables into a line.\u201d) Murder Most Foul<\/em> is on a whole other level: there\u2019s a huge difference between adding an extra syllable here and there, and to embark on a quarter of an hour\u2019s formless recitation, without the signposts that a recognizable verse structure might give.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3. \u201cRefrain\u201d today means \u201cchorus\u201d: an extra verse with a fixed text that is sung between the regular verses. But in the ballad tradition that Dylan is also<\/em> part of, going back to the sophisticated courtly songs of the Middle Ages, the refrain was primarily a recurring textual<\/em> element towards the end of a larger unit of text, not necessarily with its own music or singled out as a separate verse, but structually part of the verse to which it stands. This is a musico-poetic form that Dylan has used just as consistently as the blues, e.g. in The Times They Are a-Changin\u2019.<\/em> The four refrains, \u201cit\u2019s a murder most foul\u201d, can thus stand as the structural pillars upon which the song rests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4. The extended refrain structure is a style of writing that Dylan has been working on at least since the turn of the millennium. Its first major appearance was in the song \u2019Cross the Green Mountain<\/a><\/em>, <\/em>written for the soundtrack to the movie Gods and Generals <\/em>(2003) about the American Civil War (once again a freestanding, grand, epic ballad, which is thematically tied to dramatic and violent episodes from American history). There, there is no refrain, just occasional verses with a slightly different chord sequence, interspersed between the regular verses. Nettie Moore<\/a><\/em> and Workingman\u2019s Blues #2<\/a> <\/em>off Modern Times <\/em>(2006) have a similar construction, with a sequence of verses followed by a refrain. In these cases, the number of verses is fixed. Mississippi<\/a><\/em> is related as well, with long verses consisting of shorter units that are repeated, and a contrasting section \u2013 this time not as a refrain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One more thing is worth mentioning about all these songs: the repeated sections, that work as \u201cregular\u201d verses, are not very exciting, harmonically speaking. Some of them have an ascending or descending bass line over more or less static chords, some have some kind of alternation between static chords \u2013 almost a standstill, which the \u201crefrain\u201d sometimes breaks, sometimes not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
 5. So we may ask: is this really a form<\/em>? Is it not simply a formula<\/em>, a loose frame for recitation? And, yes, that indeed seems to be the point: this song structure that Dylan has been working with, is in itself not very exciting \u2013 what makes it worth a closer look is what he does with it. It all has to do with phrasing.<\/em> It is not controversial to call Dylan the master of phrasing in general \u2013 in the sense of  shaping a melodic line to a text in a way that uses the sound elements<\/em> of speech to make the melody seem more immediate, like speech; this is what I\u2019ve elsewhere referred to as \u201cprose singing\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But on Murder Most Foul<\/em> he takes this to a new level \u2013 literally speaking. It is no longer a matter of aligning the syllables<\/em> of the text to the musical grid of emphases, but of aligning the lines<\/em> of text to the large-scale patterns of a chord sequence and a verse structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Compare for example some of the G\u2013F passages that end the \u201csmall verses\u201d. In the first verse, we find the normal situation: each new chord goes with a full line of text:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
G                                        \n \"Of course we do, we know who you are\"\nF \n Then they blew off his head while he was still in the car<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
In the second verse, the F part of the pattern is generally very short, only as a brief pause before the next line hurries in \u2013 this is the only part of the song that breaks the calm river-like flow:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
G                                                      F\nShoot him while he runs, boy, shoot him while you can\nG                                      F\nSee if you can shoot the invisible man\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Whereas in the third \u201cgreat verse\u201d, it\u2019s just as much the G part that is short:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
G                                 F\nI'm leaning to the left, I got my head in her lap\nG                                          F\nHold on, I've been led into some kind of a trap<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
And in the long \u201cPlay it\u201d final section, the phrase structure more or less collapses at times:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
G                           F                          \nPlay Art Pepper, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and all that\nG                           F                                 \njunk                        All that junk and \"All That Jazz\"<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Here, three lines of text are fitted to two G\u2013F sequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dylan Trick<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How much of this that is planned, I would not dare to guess, and perhaps that is precisely the point: the steady sequence of C\u2013F, C\u2013F, G\u2013F, etc. is not even a song structure, it is more like a sounding greenscreen that may or may not serve to emphasise something other than the tune itself, shape the narrative, let other aspects of the vocal delivery come to the fore than those normally associated with a melody; a systematized irregularity, if you like: the phrasing is not entirely loose, but definitely not fixed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where I do dare a guess is here: the musicians have not had a detailed score or chord chart in front of them; Dylan has probably not had a clear plan about where to change chords and verse lines before they pressed \u201crecord\u201d; and it may not even have been obvious where the verses, small or great, should end. There are places where other dividing lines than those that ended up on the track would seem more logical. I imagine Dylan sitting there with a stack of papers in front of him, with a long string of lines on them, with no given verse structure, other than those given by the refrain \u2013 and a group of musicians on their toes to guess where he\u2019s heading and when he\u2019s changing from chord to chord and from section to section (and it is obvious that at times they don\u2019t guess the same thing).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s Dylan playing his usual trick: “Let’s mix it all up and see what happens!”, as his musicians have commented since the 60s, and which still seems to be his way of working e.g. in the studio work for Tell Ol’ Bill<\/em> from 2015, where he says to the band “Maybe we should just change it all, totally. Change the melody, change everything about it. You know, put it in a minor key, I mean, everything!” And as usual, the result is quite rewarding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Narratives of a Dead Kennedy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Both the sheer length of the song and the seeming eventlessness makes it difficult to survey the song while listening to it. The refrains are of great help here: if we allow ourselves to assume that the four\/five refrains can indeed be used as markers in the long text mass, and that the texts between the refrains are somehow united, where does that lead us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first \u201cgreat verse\u201d<\/em><\/strong> sets down the historical framework<\/em><\/strong>. The storyteller holds the microphone. The events in Dallas on that fateful day in November 1963 are narrated, with references to conspiracies (\u201cYou got unpaid debts, we’ve come to collect \u2026 We’ve already got someone here to take your place\u201d), to the mysteries captured on the Zapruder film (\u201cThousands were watching, no one saw a thing\u201d). The verse is full of historical references, e.g. to the attack on Pearl Harbour (\u201cA day that will live on in infamy\u201d, cited from Roosevelt\u2019s \u201cInfamy\u201d Speech), but also subtle self-references: Kennedy\u2019s line \u201cWait a minute, boys, you know who I am?\u201d, will be recognized from Dylan\u2019s own song Hurricane,<\/em> dealing with yet another huge and traumatic issue in American history: racial injustice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
 The second \u201cgreat verse\u201d<\/em><\/strong> begins: \u201cHush little children\u201d, and this sets the tone for the entire verse: the quotation from a childrens\u2019 song continues with holding hands, sliding down the bannister, being ordered to go get your coat, and a series of admonitions<\/strong><\/em> that a child might hear, some of which sound like actual commands that could have been shouted in Kennedy\u2019s car but that might also double as general sayings (\u201ctry to make it to the triple underpass\u201d), others that sound like general sayings but may be much more concrete (\u201cWhen you\u2019re down on Deep Ellum, put your money in your shoe\u201d), some that are definitely general statements but get a wider significance in this particular context (\u201cDon’t ask what your country can do for you\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
 The narrator has put on a different hat: it is no longer the storyteller speaking, but the tutor, the \u201cwise old owl\u201d who observes the events cooly and communicates to us children what he sees, in short sentences, clich\u00e9s, commands. There is no condemnation or moral indignation, just observation and orders. \u201cBusiness is business, it\u2019s a murder most foul\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
 The third \u201cgreat verse\u201d is mindblowing<\/strong><\/em>, both metaphorically and literally. We are inside the head of the President while it is being blown to pieces \u2013 a unique insider perspective from a dying man, and we witness his surprised hallucinations while he observes his own death, partly as a very close observer (\u201cRidin\u2019 in the back seat next to my wife, \u2026 leaning to the left, I got my head in her lap\u201d), partly as a detatched soul, hovering over the scene, following the events depicted in the Zapruder film closely, before leaving it at 2:38 when the president\u2019s dead and Johnson is sworn in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The drug references that the verse is full of make complete sense as the blurred haze of a brain about to go out: it starts out with  two nods to The Who\u2019s rock opera Tommy<\/em>, dealing with drug-induced hallucinations (\u201cTommy, can you hear me\u201d, \u201cAcid Queen\u201d), then continues with brain damages, dizzy Miss Lizzy, and the famous \u201cmagic bullet\u201d that has \u201cgone to my head\u201d \u2013 this time very concretely. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Play for Us \u2013 Pray for Us<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Which leads into the the long final sequence of \u201cPlay it\u201d lines, formulated as calls to the radio DJ Wolfman Jack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A  lot of effort has tbeen put into deciphering the codes behind the selection and the brief characterizations that each song or cultural item is given in the song, and thereby (re)constructing Dylan\u2019s world view (and record collection).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this respect, Murder Most Foul <\/em>is a textbook example of the literary genre that Dylan himself has created: Bones to the Vultures \u2013 flinging around obscure references, secure in the knowledge that someone out there will dig it out some day. (And if you have found a deeply buried bone, it surely proves both that the idea behind it is deep, and that you are, too, since you\u2019ve found it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Murder Most Foul<\/em> is a smorgasbord for the Indiana Joneses of the literary world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I prefer to go in the opposite direction: to disregard completely every single reference and rather see them as a whole \u2013 as one huge \u201cgreat verse\u201d where a seemingly endless row of characters pass before our eyes and ears in a procession. One by one they step into the light before they recede into the multitude again, but the remaining impression is that of the procession itself, not of the individual participant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The closest parallell I can think of is the litany of saints<\/em>, the liturgical celebration where all the saints of the church progress, one by one, to let us pray for their intercession before God:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
V. Sancte St\u00e9phane.
R. Ora pro nobis.
V. Sancte Ign\u00e1ti.
R. Ora pro nobis. 
V. Sancte Polyc\u00e1rpe.
R. Ora pro nobis. 
V. Sancte Iust\u00edne. 
R. Ora pro nobis. 
V. Sancte Laur\u00e9nti. 
R. Ora pro nobis. 
V. Sancte Cypri\u00e1ne. 
R. Ora pro nobis. 
V. Sancte Bonit\u00e1ti. 
R. Ora pro nobis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
 And so on, indefinitely. \u201cPray for us!\u201d we sing in the litany. \u201cPlay for us!\u201d Dylan says \u2013 the effect is the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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