I am a massive Bob Dylan fan.
I always have been.
I always will be.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s a non-negotiable.
Anyway, there’s been a lot of talk concerning his song released in late March called “Murder Most Foul”.
It’s about the Kennedy Assassination.
But yet, for some reason, it is the perfect song for the times that we are in right now.
I can’t put my finger on it.
It’s like stepping, fully clothed, into the deep end of a swimming pool and sinking to the bottom.
It’s embarrassing how many times I’ve listened to this song already.
I can’t get enough of it.
All 16 minutes and 55 seconds of it.
Listening to Dylan’s albums from the ‘60s, like “The Freewheelin’ Dylan” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’” is like time traveling to me.
Traveling back through time to a beautiful Autumn day in New York City in October, 1963.
I know you can’t really,
but in my head,
when I listen to Dylan’s early work,
(or Robert Johnson, or Hank Williams, for that matter),
I swear I can hear the cigarette burning in the ashtray, on a little table by the microphone, next to his coffee cup and harmonicas.
I swear I can hear cars driving by on 7th Avenue and 52nd Street in NYC.
The thing that I am fascinated with when I listening to a “live” recording (or performance), is that you get to time travel.
A picture is a fraction of a second in time.
Life was happening on either side of the “Click”
I love that too!
But a song allows you to travel through time for a full three minutes!
That, to me, is MIND BLOWING.
When you listen to the song, “The Times They Are A-Changin’” you get to travel back to and live in that year (1963),
In that month (October),
in that day (Tuesday, the 24th)
in that city (NYC),
in that studio (Columbia),
for 3 minutes and 15 seconds!
There’s a whole world going on outside the studio walls on that unseasonably warm late October day in 1963!
The Beatles hadn’t even set foot in North America yet.
Kennedy was still alive.
In fact, less than a month after Dylan recorded “The Times They Are A-Changin’”, JFK was gunned down in Dallas, Texas.
The times indeed changed right then and there in downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963.
There’s an “X” in the middle Elm Street about a half block down from the Texas School Book Depository marking exactly President Kennedy’s car was when he was shot.
You can’t get any more “right then and there” than that.
Apparently, along with my interest in “time traveling”,
I also have a bit of a horrified fascination with the Kennedy Assassination.
I don’t know why, but I just do.
I’m quite sure I’m not the only one.
Anyway, in March of 1999, we were booked to play at SXSW down in Austin, Texas.
Hotels are always tough to come by in Austin, so the night before our show at Liberty Lunch, we stopped in Dallas, Texas to take in the music scene in Deep Ellum.
The next morning, before heading to Austin, we went to Dealey Plaza and the “Grassy Knoll”.
Up on the 6th floor of the School Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald had “set up shop”, is a museum called, oddly enough, “The Sixth Floor Museum”.
If yer remotely fascinated with the Kennedy Assassination, it’s beyond pretty cool.
Anyway, as we were walking into the museum, parked at the front door was a black 1961 Lincoln Continental Convertible.
It was not the actual car but it was the same make and model that Kennedy was driving in on that fateful day.
Regardless, I was starstruck.
There was a sign by the car that read, “Kennedy Parade Route Tour – $20!!!”
What to do?
I could do one or the other, but not both.
It was like Sophie’s Choice.
The “Kennedy Parade Route” or the “Sixth Floor Museum”…
Tough call.
I was really looking forward to standing in the window that Oswald (apparently) stood in.
The “Snipers Nest”.
But then again, sitting in the backseat of a ’61 Lincoln Continental and driving the Kennedy parade route through Dallas would also be pretty cool.
Unnerving, but pretty cool.
Winding slowly through the streets of Dallas.
Love Field to Dealy Plaza.
Take a right on Houston Street.
See the School Book Depository in the distance.
Then a left on Elm Street.
Wave.
“You can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you, Mr. President.”
What was that?
“Oh my God! They’re gonna kill us all!!!”
Man.
Heavy.
There are places where massive, earth-shaking events took place.
Extreme moments in time (again with the time travel!).
The spot where Elvis stood when he recorded “That’s All Right” in Memphis Tennessee on July 5th, 1954.
The spot where John Lennon was gunned down on December 8th, 1980.
The northeast corner window on the 6th floor at the Texas School Book Depository in downtown Dallas would most certainly qualify as one of those places.
Before we made our way up to the 6th floor, I went outside for a cigarette.
I stood there, looking at that car… trying to time travel.
Just then a guy in a black suit came out of the gift shop and said,
“Y’all wanna take the “Kennedy Parade Route” tour?”
“Oh man, I’d love to, but…”
“Alright. Yes sir. Twenty bucks a head and I’ll take you out to Love Field where AirForce One touched down on November 22nd 19 and 63 and then we’ll do the whole entire Kennedy Parade Route and on out to Parkland Memorial Hospital. We’ll have you back here at the museum in about an hour. How’s that sound?”
“Sounds pretty good to me… But we’ve already bought our tickets for the museum tour… maybe after…”
We went up and did the tour.
Stood in the window.
Squinted my right eye.
Tried to time travel.
About an hour later we were back in the gift shop mulling around.
I wanted to get a picture of the Kennedy car, so I bought a disposable camera and went outside.
The car was gone.
Shit.
I went and wandered around Dealy Plaza.
There were about 30 people milling around,
Everyone was doing the same thing…
Pointing up to the 6th-floor window and back down to the “X” on the road.
There were “Conspiracy Theorists” out front of the School Book Depository saying that Oswald was indeed just a patsy and that one of the gunmen was actually across the street in the Dal-Tex Building.
“Here’s a picture of Oswald standing on the corner, watching Kennedy go by… He wasn’t even IN the window.”
“No kidding!”
“Yeah, the gunman was down on the fourth floor of the Dal-Tex building. Way better angle, if you ask me.”
“You don’t say…”
I looked at the “X” on the road and to the fourth-floor window of the Dal-Tex building.
“Hmmm… Maybe…” I thought to myself.
Food for thought, for sure.
I looked at the “X” again.
The entire world changed right there on Elm Street.
“X” marks the spot.
In Dylan’s new song about the Kennedy Assassination, he says “…the soul of the nation has been torn away and it’s beginning to go into a slow decay…”
Wow.
No kidding.
Man.
I wandered around some more.
I stood where Abraham Zapruder stood.
I kept looking up at the 6th-floor window and then back down to the “X” on the road.
Then I looked in the direction of the triple overpass.
Then the Grassy Knoll.
Everyone said they heard shots coming from behind the fence on the grassy knoll.
Back and to the left.
Back.
And to the left.
“It’s a triangulation of fire. It’s gonna be a turkey shoot!”
I wandered up to the top of the Grassy Knoll and stood behind the fence.
I found the spot where the gunman was supposed to have stood.
I looked around.
School Book Depository to my left.
The triple overpass to my right.
I looked across Dealy plaza…
In the distance, I saw,
turning right onto Houston Street,
a 1961 Lincoln Continental.
I couldn’t believe it.
I watched him make his way along Houston and then slow down and make that famous left onto Elm Street.
I reached for my camera.
I squinted my right eye.
Click.
Mike Plume
June 25th, 2020