I almost never want to.

 

It was the fall of my senior year in college. Thesis done, degree requirements satisfied --- talk about your dish of cream! But there was a war on, and if you want to talk about “a nation divided,” consider how that was playing out in a year when 11, 153 body bags would come home, 467 in October alone. That month, like everyone else I knew, I went to Washington to protest; I watched peaceful people beaten and arrested, with not a mention of it in most newspapers. The culture was just as split. In greater America, “To Sir with Love” was the #1 song that month; in New York, “Hair” opened off-Broadway.

 

Bob Dylan? That month, he was in Nashville, recording a new album.

 

The first session, on October 17, lasted three hours; out of it came master takes of "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine," "Drifter's Escape" and "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest." On November 6, Dylan knocked off “All Along the Watchtower," "John Wesley Harding,” "As I Went Out One Morning,” "I Pity the Poor Immigrant" and "I Am a Lonesome Hobo." Late the next month, Dylan quickly finished the album.

 

Twelve hours in the studio for 40 minutes of music --- there’s no comparison in all of American music.

 

And that’s just the start of What’s Exceptional about “John Wesley Harding.”

 

On December 27, 1967 --- a month after he finished recording, in the dead week between Christmas and New Year --- Columbia released the album. Promotion? None. A single? Not. Still, Dylan fans found it and snapped it up. And then it went away, until Jimi Hendrix plucked one song from it. “Two riders were approaching. The wind began to howl.” And did it ever:

 

 

I can understand why “John Wesley Harding” is not in your Dylan collection. It came after three of the greatest albums ever recorded: “Bringing It All Back Home,” “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Blonde on Blonde.” Then there was Dylan’s motorcycle accident. And a long silence. And then this --- not quite a country album, though there were tendencies. With lyrics that teased and challenged: stripped-down story songs, vaguely Biblical in theme.

 

And not one word about Vietnam, drugs, hippies or the chasm between old and young.

 

I listened obsessively to “John Wesley Harding” that winter, and as the man says in one song, “I bowed my head and cried.” First, for the artistic achievement; Dylan had, yet again, turned his back on his past and made something completely unexpected and contrarian. But even more for what I thought Dylan was saying. He’d taken a giant step back from everything contemporary and looked deeply into what mattered. What he found was scary, exhilarating, desperately important --- and absolutely relevant to what was happening. [To buy the CD from Amazon, at the ridiculous price of $7.99, click here [3]. For the MP3 download, click here [5].]

 

Forty-five years later, I’m again listening obsessively to “John Wesley Harding.” I am a slow thinker, so it took me a while to figure out why --- of all the music I could be playing, this is the most relevant I know. The reason is right at the start of the first song: “John Wesley Harding was a friend to the poor…” The whole album is shot through with references to losers: hoboes, immigrants, drifters. In short, everyone excluded from the national conversation right now. And then, even though you and I are still lucky enough to matter, the line we can all understand: “Dear landlord, please don’t put a price on my soul.”

 

If I make this sound heavy as German philosophy, I do my cause no favors here. The fact is, this is a fantastic listening experience, especially if you’re listening through earphones [6]. The band ---Charles McCoy (bass), Kenny Buttrey (drums) and Pete Drake (steel guitar) was amazed at Dylan’s speed and self-assurance. Kenny Buttrey: “We went in and knocked ’em out like demos.” True, but these were the best studio players in Nashville. And the producer was the legendary Bob Johnston.

 

And we are, after all, talking about our Shakespeare.

 

Just listen….